Weeks of February 20 - March 2

It's amazing how easy it is to fall behind in posting!  We've been busy with our usual school work though this last week was a bit more relaxed due to runny noses and headaches and general malaise.

All three kids are making good progress in math, slogging away each day with their lesson.  John in particular has really gotten into the habit of daily lessons which I hadn't been forcing too much before.  He is making real progress with adding doubles and ones.  Gabe is subtracting 9s and 2s and reading and recording the temperature to the nearest 2 degrees.  Lily's math has focused on fractions: reducing, multiplying and dividing.

Our study of the Solar System is going strong.  Lily and Gabe both began a 30 day project of charting the moon's phases.  We've been playing the Solar System games - with great success. Reading more about Mars and Uranus and exploring the iPad apps. 

We've been watching a lot of the Brain Pop videos (default mode when no one really feels like up for school) and doing the quizzes.  Videos have included Uranus, Angles (very timely as Lily was introduced to supplementary and complementary angles this week), Renewable Energy, Nutrition, Leap Year, Architecture, Teeth and Main Idea.

Lily has been settling into her writing lessons with really diligent daily work.  She is also really enjoying reading the Greek Myths.  Gabe and John are both progressing with their reading and Gabe is doing good spelling work.  John is now writing both his first and last name.

We finished reading, journaling and studying the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt and began studying Ancient Greece.  We've listened to the chapters in Story of the World about Greece and watched Drive Thru History: Greece.  We will return to the Story of the World chapters in the coming weeks but have began work in the History Portfolios.

We went swimming last week. Lily and John also went tobogganing in addition to our usual PE activities.

In addition, John learned how to play checkers this week.  It has been wonderful watching him learn strategy and play games with Gabe.  We also played rounds of Yathzee and Backgammon.

A Typical Day

I love reading what  other homeschooler's days look like and thought it might finally be time for me to share what a fairly typical day looks like for us.  So here's today: Friday, February 10th, 2012.

7:30 John climbs into bed with me for a quick snuggle.

7:45 Up and having coffee.  Gabe and John are reading Asterix.

8:10 Lily is up.  She heads to the couch with a book and a hot chocolate.  Usually I'd make her get moving a little earlier but I know she went to bed with a sore throat and needs a little more time this morning.

8:15 Make a coffee cake for breakfast ( this is a treat I've been craving for awhile).  Shower, get dressed while the cake is baking.

8:45 Take all 3 and go do our paper route while the coffee cake is cooling.

9:30 Home again.  Breakfast.

9:40  Start our official school day.  John starts with French on the computer (Rosetta Stone).  Gabe starts with Language Lessons, we're learning about commas today.  Lily starts with Writing with Skill.  They then rotate with Gabe doing typing lessons on the computer, John doing his math and Lily stills finishing writing.   When Lily is finished writing I teach her math lesson (a short one today: polygons) while Gabe reads and John does a dot to dot on the iPad.  Then it's onto Gabe's math (subtracting) and reading with John.  After everyone has finished their math we sit together and read our history lesson from Story of the World on the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.  Gabe and Lily fill in pictures, vocabularly words and short narrations of their history while I warm up lunch.
(I used to teach all the math at once, then move on to grammar, spelling, ect.  I finally got smart a few weeks ago and started teaching Lily's math while the boy's do handwriting or something else that doesn't require help.  Then I switch and do the boy's math together.)

12:15 Lunch - leftover homemade Mac and Cheese with slices of orange pepper. Lily, John and I play a game of Uno while finishing our lunch.

1:00 Quiet reading time for all.

1:45 Boys convince me to read two chapters of the BFG.

2:00 Time to fold and put away laundry. (Washed and dried during the morning)

2:30 Back downstairs to finish up our history and any other loose ends. Lily hops in the shower as she didn't have time in the morning. And then puts her laundry away before joining us. Lily proofreads her history summary, then does some decorating in her history journal before moving on to update her history timeline. Gabe and John both want to work on learning to type (I think they must just want to play on the computer since we've been going all week with no computer/TV time) so I set each of them up.

4:10 Lily has a quick doctor appointment.

5:00-6:30 Gabe has Judo. We decided to try the older student's class today.  Gabe has been really frustrated by the younger boys.  Success!  The focus of the older boy's is much better so Gabe didn't experience the frustration he's felt in the younger class.  It was a hard workout and Gabe finished feeling exhausted and hungry.

6:45 Home to dinner.

7:30 Gabe and John into bed.

8:15 Lily settled into bed with her book.  I stayed and read a chapter of Wrinkle in Time.  This is a great way for me to introduce books that Lily doesn't normally like or are too hard.  She had tried reading Wrinkle in Time to herself and didn't like it but is enjoying having it read to her.

Weeks of January 15 & 22

Gabe studied lines of symmetry in math as well as addition, subraction, measuring using inches and his daily pattern and weather chart. He is now charting the weather to the nearest 10 degrees. John listens to Gabe's math lesson and participates in any activity and then does his own worksheet from the grade 1 book.
Lily covered division withe decimals, circumference, dividing by a fraction, missing number problems with fractions and decimals.

We learned about the the Rise of Assyria in history, with readings from Story of the World, Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, and You Wouldn't Want to be an Assyrian Soldier. We completed maps, summaries and began work of an Assyrian chariot.

Science continued with our study of the Solar System with indepth reading about the Sun from Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography, and Earth and Sky. Lily completed some diagrams of the distance from the Sun to the Earth, day length and how fast light travels. Gabe made a diagram of the path of light from the Sun to the Earth. We also read a story about a Eskimo boy called Nutik, the Wolf Pup by Jean Craighead George, which tied in very nicely as it depicted the seasons in the Artic.  The iPad apps Solar System and Star Walk have really captured the kid's imaginations and helped them to grasp the immensity of space.

We've gone ice skating a couple times in the past week and Lily and Gabe continue with Judo and Highland. 

Lily has been working on piano duets with one of my piano students and has found new motivation for practicing.

New motivation has also been found in French.  At Thanksgiving they learned that their cousin is in a French Immersion school and they were impressed by how much she'd learned in a couple months (she's the same age as John).  John has even shown an interest and started on the Rosetta Stone.

A few weeks ago we were driving through Canal Flats and John started asking lots of questions about the logs.  So we had a great conversation about logging and wood and the things that are made from logs.

Orbitting Fun

Week of January 9

We wrapped up our Earth Science unit this week with some reading about and exploration of fossils.  We  are finishing up a couple weeks early as the kids are getting bored with studying rocks, earth and the like and are very excited about the Solar System.  They have been exploring the Space apps on our iPad and are looking forward to learning more about the stars and planets.

Gabe learned more about verbs this week using linking verbs in sentences and identifying and memorinzing them.  John chanted right along with Gabe as we recited linking/helping verbs.  Lily also completed two grammar lessons this week with indepth study of prefect, simple, and progressive verbs in past, present and future tenses.  She only has two more lessons and then we wait for the rest of curriculum to be released!

Spelling words, phongrams, reading and handwriting were also practiced by all this week.

As was math with steady progress being made.

Lily has been practicing her piano lots.  Gabe returned to Judo this week, much to his delight.  We made it out ice skating at Baker Park.  It was the boys first time on the ice and John wasn't too sure but Lily helped Gabe and he did quite well for a first attempt.

We're also been watching Good Eats as a family which is a fun, education cooking show that we're been learning lots from!

Week of January 3

Science:  Completed our Rock and Fossils kit, continued reading about rocks and particularly how they are affected by the elements.

Math:  All three worked steadily through their lessons this week.  John is retaining some addition facts and likes to get involved in Gabe's lessons doing simpler measuring, tangrams and is learning to skip count.

History: We studied the Phoenecians this week

Language:  Lily is continuing to read voraciously, finishing Good Wives this week and beginning Tom Sawyer.  She also started reading D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths and we will be doing the study guide that goes along with.  Gabe is making good progress with his reading and read Firebird aloud this week.  Both he and John are continuing to work on phonograms both reading and writing.  John especially like to practice using pocketphonics on the Ipad.

Fine Arts:  Gabe and Lily both practiced Christmas music on the piano over the holidays.  Lily returned to regular piano and Highland dance lessons this week.

Christmas Break

 Christmas break was filled with lots and lots of fun activities many of which were very educational - just don't tell the kids that!  The week before Christmas was full of baking, wrapping, letter writing (Lily and Gabe wrote Christmas cards for their paper route), and crafting.  Lily made Christmas presents for all of the family including scarves for Joanna and I, frames from Grandpa and Grandpa and baking for everyone.  Gabe got in the crafting spirit too drawing/painting pictures for Grandpa Rene.

 On Christmas Eve the church school put on a Nativity play that they wrote and staged themselves.  Lily played a shepherd (above) and a wise man while Gabe played an innkeeper and was in charge of the lights.  (Shining a flashlight on the star from the choir loft)  Lily also had a solo.  I was really proud of all the kids, putting together not only their own costumes and set but writing the lines and choosing the hymns.

 

  

 Christmas break is a great time to work on projects and Gabe and I embarked on a big one.  We are building a model of a Roman fort.  The kids got three models for Christmas: a Roman fort, Trojan horse and the Ampitheater.  I had no idea they would be so time consuming.  But the great thing about doing them during a break is we don't feel pressured to hurry, no need to clear the table for other subjects and we're learning history without feeling like this is school work!  Gabe and John also worked on lots of origami this week, looking up video tutorials and then making jumping frogs, kits, a shark, claws and boats.  John impressed me by making a frog all by himself.

Lily has been spending her time reading; she's read at least four books in the last two weeks including finishing Little Women (which we'd been reading together as a Read Aloud) and beginning Good Wives.  She has also been spending time in the kitchen and made an authentic Caesar salad including croutons and crepes.  She's also been involved in the origami making which has taken over the kitchen table!

And finally, Lily's biggest project this week was Gabe's Christmas present!  A K'nex roller coaster!  It took her plus a couple adults two days to put together.  This was incredibly complex to put together and requires attentiveness to keep running.