Our Week: Halloween, Worms, Butterflies, and Cinderella

I still haven't felt 100% this week so we've been slacking on a few things. Unfortunately, it's mostly the fun stuff that I end up leaving out.

The kids had trouble concentrating on Monday since it was Halloween and they couldn't stop asking how much longer until they could go trick or treating. Colin thought it was horrible that I'd even make them do school on a holiday.

 

Three Rs

Since the kids can do some of this on their own and they're done in the morning before I'm too worn out, we've kept up with them pretty well.

Molly started adding 4 digit numbers using base 10 cards.

Caleigh has been working on finding the area of figures that aren't rectangles.

Colin is continuing to do well on his own with RightStart Geometry and to do Life of Fred once or twice a week.

History

We talked about the spread of slavery, tobacco, and Queen Nzinga of Angola. We discussed the difference between indentured servants and slaves.

Science

I had planned to do a fun week to celebrate finishing the insect portion of Zoology 1. The girls painted wooden butterflies, but we didn't get to any of the other crafts. Our butterflies did come out this week, which was exciting for the kids.

 

I also made a quickly thrown together butterfly lunch. As we were coming downstairs for lunch, I asked Molly what she wanted and she requested a butterfly shaped PB&J sandwich.

 

 

Colin had his Biology class this week. They learned about cells and made their own out of jello and candy.

A worm composting class was going on at the nature center at the same time so the girls did that. They measured gummy worms, counted their segments, tasted them, compared them to real worms, felt the real worms, made a worm from clay and painted it, learning about composting, and went out searching for worms.

 

 

Everything Else



Last weekend I took the girls to see Phantom of the Lollipop while Colin was at one of his many hockey games. It was a really good show and we all enjoyed it. It was the girls's first time going to the symphony. The ghostbusters were in it and the girls got a picture with them and the car after the show.

 

Colin had his regular Monday and Wednesday hockey practices.

We had a playdate at a new park with friends.

We saw The Commedia Cinderella at the Children's Theater Friday. It was really funny and all the kids liked it.

 

Our Week: Sick Mom, Butterflies, and Rhode Island

I'm glad we didn't have a whole lot of extra planned this week because I felt awful. I started getting a terrible cold over the weekend. It just continued to get worse all week. Today I've finally started feeling a little better. We didn't do everything exactly as we normally would have, but we managed to get in most of our work each day. With a sore throat and coughing, I wasn't able to read aloud as much as usual and it made me realize that I normally read aloud a whole lot.

Science



We did the final insect chapter in Zoology 1. It was about butterflies, skippers, and moths. We studied butterflies last year so we didn't do as much as we would have otherwise. You can see that here. We did read some extra books.

 

We also got caterpillars a couple weeks ago. This week the kids have been impatiently waiting for them to emerge from their chrysalises. I think it should happen in just a few more days.

 

History

We read two chapters of A History of US. They were about colonies and Peter Stuyvesant and New Netherland.

State Study

This week our state was Rhode Island. We actually lived in RI for 2 months four years ago, but the girls couldn't remember much about it. We read some books, did map work, did the coloring page that included the state flag, and made Johnny cakes.

Colin had two hockey practices. He also played in games with kids older than him because they were short a goalie. Unfortunately, my sickness made me miss it, but Chad said he did really well.
We met some friends at the park this week. We hadn't seen some of them in a while so it was really great. I didn't really feel well enough to go, but the kids and I really needed to get out. Until today, the weather has been nice and they've been playing outside a lot.


We have a busy weekend planned. I'm taking the girls to the symphony to see Phantom of the Lollipops while Chad takes Colin to the first of his many hockey games of the weekend. Then we'll all head back to the ice rink tomorrow evening for two more games. He has one game on Sunday.

Our Week: Pilgrims and Lots of Insects

Besides two nights of hockey, we didn't have any outside activities this week. It was nice to stay home and have more time for our schoolwork and free afternoons.

We did go to a birthday party last Saturday. It was a dress up party and this is what the girls dug out of the dress up box.

Three Rs

Colin is doing really well with RightStart Geometry. He's doing pretty much all of it on his own. I'm even giving him extra work some days because he's getting through it so quickly.
Caleigh is still working on multiplication and is finding the area of rectangles.
Molly is moving on to larger numbers.

Colin and Caleigh are both doing well with spelling. Caleigh has gotten 100% on every test so far. Colin has only missed one word.

Molly started First Language Lessons. She acts like she loves it, but I think it's because she knows it was both Colin and Caleigh's least favorite subject.

Science

We covered a lot of insects this week: praying mantises, dragonflies, crickets, katydids, grasshoppers, aphids, and cicadas. We spent one day on praying mantises and one day on dragonflies, reading extra books, doing lapbook pieces, and making a dragonfly craft. We also read a couple books on crickets.

Praying mantis & dragonfly notebook pages (I've tired everything, but for some reason I can not get this pic to flip)

We did an experiment to see how shorter wings make higher sounds.

Our caterpillars arrived because our next insect is the butterfly.

Caterpillars the day after they arrived

State Study

Vermont was our state this week. We read a few books and will finish it next week. We had pancakes for dinner with maple syrup.

I tried to make them into butterflies since that's the state insect

History

We started learning about pilgrims this week. We read lots of books, which I'll post soon. We spent time talking about the reasons they left England, the Mayflower, the journey, the first winter in the New World, the Wampanoag people, and Squanto. The kids used Draw Write Now to draw pictures of Squanto and the Mayflower. They made pilgrim puppets. We also made pilgrim hats for snack. We'll be continuing with this next week.




Since it's actually already Sunday, I'll include our weekend here. Colin's house team hockey games started.

Colin waiting for his team's turn to play

The girls had a fun evening last night playing with two of their friends I was babysitting.

Today we had a Thanksgiving dinner in celebration of our study of the pilgrims.



Truman's Aunt Farm & Ant Unit Study

Most of our focus was on the study of ants since we did this to go along with the Zoology 1 section on ants.
We did spend time talking about homonyms, homographs, aunts, and repetition though.

Books we read

We made an anthill cake. The anthill is crushed graham crackers with chocolate sprinkles. There are also chocolate sprinkles inside the cake.

 

 

Egg Carton Ants

Molly and her gold ant

Caleigh with the giggles

Colin and his moustached ant

 

Notebook pages (printables from Homeschool Share and Aussie Pumpkin Patch)

 

We do have an ant farm I planned to use. When I mailed away for the ants, it came back undeliverable though. I gathered some ants from our yard, but they quickly escaped. I think they were small enough to get through the air holes. I know the kids would love to see ants tunneling so I'm going to try to find some bigger ants.

Our Week: New Hampshire, Bees, and Tennis

This week seemed to fly by.

We all had a great time at the Disney on Ice show Wednesday night. We saw the one called Dare to Dream. It had the stories of the Princess and the Frog, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. Rapunzel is Molly's favorite right now and she keeps watching Tangled over and over so she loved that part.

Colin had his second biology class. I'm glad we decided to do the class. I'm not sure how much new information he'll get from it, but I think it's good for him to be assigned work he needs to have done for the next class. I'm trying to make him responsible for it. While he was in class, the girls and I had a nice time walking on some trails with friends even though we ended up going much farther than planned and were afraid we weren't going to make it back before the class was over.

Colin had hockey practice, and he and Molly had tennis lessons.

Science



We finished up our study of ants and moved on to bees. We studied bees last year so we didn't go too indepth. We just read the section in our science book and a few other books.



We also read about termites.
We released our ladybugs this week too.

History

We read about warlords of Japan. All the hard to pronounce names made it hard for the girls to keep up with who was who. Colin got it all correct on the quiz though so I guess he got it.

State Study

We finished learning about New Hampshire. The kids did the pages for their binders, made New Hampshire easy apple pie, and we read books about the state.

Our Week: Ants, Library Cards, and the Lake

This hasn't been the best week as far as getting work done. I haven't felt well and haven't had much motivation so the kids haven't been motivated either. Caleigh has also been complaining a lot that writing hurts her hand. I guess it's the way she's holding the pencil, but I can't get her to try other ways.

When I looked back to write this post, I was surprised to find we actually did more than I would have thought.


For science we finished chapter 12 in Zoology 1 by reading about flies, mosquitoes, and true bugs.

We started on chapter 11, learning about ants.



Doing an experiment to determine which area of our yard has more bugs.



We've continued observing our ladybugs and saw them change from pupae to adults.

To go along with studying ants, we did the Five in a Row book, Truman's Aunt Farm. We still need one more day to finish it. So far we've learned about homonyms, read lots of ant books, made an anthill cake, and done some lapbook pieces.

Anthill cake with ants (chocolate sprinkles) inside

In history we read about Samuel Champlain and the settlement of what is now Quebec. We also read about Henry Hudson's search for the Northwest Passage.

We started learning about New Hampshire, but weren't able to finish. We did learn that they had the first free library. To go along with that, the girls got their own library cards for the first time. Molly was so excited about it.

We spent Friday afternoon at a beach area of the lake with some friends. The kids got soaked and filthy as you can see below.



Molly insisted Colin needed this shirt and said he should wear it everyday.



Our Week: Jamestown, Ladybugs, and Water Park

It was a really good week! The rain cancelled some of our plans so it turned out to not be as busy as I had expected.

We went to an apple orchard Sunday.
On Monday, we met some friends at Great Wolf Lodge and had a great time at the water park.
Colin had hockey practice Monday and Wednesday evenings.
He started a biology class this week also.

The girls were exploring the nature center when I looked out and saw Colin gathering something during his class so I had to snap his picture.

Yesterday we saw the movie, Dolphin Tale. We all really enjoyed it.

Science



We learned about beetles this week. We concentrated on fireflies and ladybugs. I ordered ladybug larvae from Insect Lore. We've been observing them all week. We were able to see them molt and now most of them are in the pupa stage.

We also made some ladybug treats with apples, strawberries, grapes, pretzels, mini chocolate chips, and M&Ms.

Left: Caleigh's
Right: mine
Caleigh said mine were wrong because they don't have 3 body parts so she made hers the correct way.

Left: Molly's (she said the head is hiding)
Right: Colin's

All the rain we've had the last three days has interfered with our experiments. Hopefully it will dry up soon and we can do them.

Colin's biology class is using Real Science 4 Kids. This week they talked about taxonomy, the kingdoms, and classification.

History

We read about King James VI of Scotland and how he also became king of England. We also learned that he sent people to North America to search for gold. They started the Jamestown settlement.
We learned that Guy Fawkes was involved in a plot to assassinate King James, but he was caught. Caramel apples are one of the treats they have during the Guy Fawkes Day celebration so we made some.

Pocahontas was mentioned briefly in our history book. We read some other books about her and did the Pocahontas lapbook from Homeschool Share. We finished our week by watching the Disney movie, Pocahontas.

Notebook pages from Homeschool Share

Our Week: Netherlands, Metamorphosis, and Rembrandt



This was our third week of school. We are almost back to a full schedule. Things are still going well. Having Colin do more of his work independently is making a huge difference in my day. I'm able to start immediately with the girls instead of them having to wait while I work with him. I hope we are able to continue that as he gets further into his curriculum.

 

The Three Rs

Colin did three lessons in RightStart Geometry and two chapters in Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents. I decided to have him repeat some lists from Spell to Write and Read. He finished it last year, but I want to make sure he has the phonograms and rules down. He started with list T this week. He's also doing some dictation, summarizing, and reviewing capital cursive letters.

Caleigh's math is still mostly dealing with multiplication. She started back with grammar and is continuing with learning capital cursive letters. She did two spelling lists this week and the "My Wise Grammar Book" pages that went with them.

Molly started back with The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I can see that her speed in reading has improved over the last few months. I'm still introducing new phonograms to her and she's learning them really well. Her math is still in the reviewing part so it's been very basic.



Science

This week we read about insects' life cycles, finding a mate, the different types of metamorphosis, and the defenses insects use to protect themselves. We went for a walk on a trail in our neighborhood where the kids hunted for eggs. They actually found quite a few on the underside of leaves.

Molly being an egg detective

Caleigh looking at some eggs

We were supposed to do a can trap experiment, but we're having some cool weather so I thought we might have a better chance of getting more insects if we wait until next week when it's supposed to warm back up.

While we were at the park on Friday, Molly found a cricket. She would hold a leaf to its mouth and it would chew the leaf. She said it definitely had a chewing mouth, which she learned about last week. She also told me all the reasons she knew it was an insect.

Our ladybug larvae arrived this week so the kids have been watching them and we'll be studying them more next week.

History

We learned about the Dutch revolt and Mary, Queen of Scots. We did a unit study about the Dutch. 

Unit Study



We did a unit study to learn more about the Dutch. We used the Hana in the Time of Tulips study and lapbook from Homeschool Share. They learned about dikes, tulips, windmills, the Netherlands, and Rembrandt. They also made windmills.

Windmills

Art and Music



To go along with our unit study, our artist was Rembrandt. We read books about him, looked at many of his paintings and did an activity from Discovering Great Artists about drawing faces with different expressions.

Molly making faces at herself in the mirror to draw

They also used watercolor crayons to draw a picture with tulips.

In music, we read about string instruments in The Story of the Orchestra.

Everything Else

We visited the Carolina Raptor Center. Colin had two hockey practices. He and Molly had tennis lessons. They played with friends at the park after tennis. We went to our homeschool group's park day on Friday.

Our Week: Insects and Getting up to Speed

We completed week 2 and things are still going well. We added some more in this week and are moving away from review and into new stuff.
I haven't gotten my workboxes organized the way I want, but just separating Colin's work into them seems to be making a difference. He's doing work more independently and without as much complaint.

An exciting thing this week was the arrival of the rest of our school material from Rainbow Resource.

 

The Three Rs

Math

Colin has been working on Basic College Mathematics for review. He did two chapters in Life of Fred. His RightStart Geometry arrived this week so he did one lesson in that.

Molly's book is still doing reviewing. She mostly worked with part-whole circles.

Caleigh started on new lessons this week. She worked a lot on multiplication.

Molly working with tally sticks

Caleigh working on her multiplication table

Spell to Write and Read

I've been introducing Molly to 2-3 new phonograms each day and having her review the others.

Caleigh started on spelling lists and is doing "My Wise Grammar Book" to go along with each list.

I've had Colin saying the phonograms, but haven't decided if I want him him to repeat more lists or what so he hasn't been doing anything else.

Writing

Molly is continuing with Handwriting Without Tears.

Caleigh and Colin finished reviewing cursive lowercase letters. I'm introducing cursive uppercase letters to Caleigh now and having Colin review them at the same time.

Colin also worked on the final chapter of Writing Tales that he didn't get to last year.

Science



We jumped to Chapter 9 in Zoology 1. We'll go back to the other chapters (about birds) in the spring. We learned how to identify if something is an insect, what cold-blooded means, and all about the different parts of insects. We did an experiment to show how an insect won't be able to move around very much if it's in cold temperatures. We also did an experiment to show how insects can close their spiracles in water.

The girls were sure I was torturing this ant by holding it under water and I had to keep reassuring them that it was fine.

Here is the ant crawling away after we completed the experiment.

The girls had found this and were very excited when we read about molting and they realized it was an exoskeleton just like we were reading about.

History

We added history in this week. We did the first chapter in SOTW 3. We learned a bit about what the world is like in 1600. We read about the Spanish coming to South America to take gold. I'm having Colin take the tests that go along with it this year.

We also started reading the series, A History of US. I'm using this chart to plan how the SOTW chapters correspond with A History of US.

State Study

I've wanted to do a state study for a while, but have never been able to find time. I'm really going to try to get started on it this year. We may not do it every week, but just getting started will be an improvement. This week's state was Maine. We actually read a few books about Maine and discussed it before we went there last month. This week, we read the rest of our books, filled out our maps and forms, colored the state symbols, and made some lobster shaped cookies. I still need to upload some pictures, but I'll have a post soon about my plans for the state studies and more about our study of Maine.

P.E.

Tennis lessons

Roller skating

Playdate at park

2 hour hockey practice (Colin)

Lots of outside time while we're having such wonderul weather