Week 7

Chugging right along! 

Not many pictures this week, but we were busy with school every day. 


1) The tot continues to be a challenge, but she spent a fair amount of time with this LEGO Duplo train set (as long as Kinder didn't see her playing with it...).  She would build the blocks up, using every single one, then open the cab hatch and put Mickey in.  Mickey is from a another toy entirely, but I'm sure he enjoyed his multiple train rides.  3rd grader had a friend over all day, as the public schools were closed Monday, and she showed her competitive side by rushing to do her work and get done first. 

I love when my kids match my couch pillows...

2) Science block in the morning, lunch, kinder kid practiced piano using www.hoffmanacademy.com in the afternoon and we rested a bit together down in the playroom, as Mom woke up with a sprained ankle somehow.  Tot made messes.   

3) Math and language arts in the AM as usual, and then our Field Trip was something we'd never tried before - canvas painting at Busy Bees pottery shop.  Two other families decided to join us after we posted it in our homeschool group and we had a lot of fun!  It was an instructor-guided program, lasting about 1 hour, all supplies included.  I didn't know if Kinder kid would want to participate, but he did, and other than tiring out while painting the background and needing some help, he did great.  We now are the proud owners of 4 kid-made canvas paintings of Warhol's Daisy, or perhaps their own interpretations of it.  Big kids did history/geography in the afternoon; they are still studying Africa. 

Getting started

Using multiple hair dryers was loud, plus he did better at concentrating overall with his noise-canceling headphones to cut out distractions. The girls' daisies are coming along in the background!

Not too shabby!

4) Thursday we went to the community center (Mom's ankle was all the way better!).  We'd called ahead and reserved the tot a spot in kid-watch, but this was one of the first times the kids were coming along to participate.  The older 4 ran on the track for about a half mile, than the 9th and 6th grader got equipment and played pickleball, and the kinder and 3rd grader got basketballs and headed for an open gym.  We only had an hour before we had to be somewhere else, and we had so much fun everyone was disappointed to leave.  Thursday afternoon after our appt was the girls' Minecraft courses, Spanish, 9th grader's electives like C++.

5) Friday was normal, only one picture, 3rd grader doing her language arts on the floor at Theraplay while kinder kid had one of his weekly OT sessions.   

Week 6

So, it's true, I was off by a week!  Our start-of-the-year post actually captured our first week pretty well, and my posts for Weeks 1 through 4 are mislabeled, and they will stay that way as I'm not about to change them now. 


Here's Week 6 of our Happy Homeschool!


1) It's Fire Safety time!  The elementary kids spent Monday morning reading books about fire safety, completing their fire safety booklet, and drawing their escape plans.  But mostly, they practiced crawling blindly down stairs and out doors, and unlocking, opening, and crawling out windows.  The tot played outdoors with waterbeads, tiny diggers and LEGO boats. 

2) Tuesday is Science day for the elementary kids!  We block science into one day per week so we can really dig deep and focus on topics.  The first few weeks of school were spent studying Plants in depth, and the kids got to choose their next science topic by browsing the Science section of the children's library.  They picked Gems, Rocks, and Minerals.  We had so much fun with this!  We've amassed a giant collection of rocks and gemstones over the years from various gem-mining places and hauled them out for magnifying-glass inspection along with a half-dozen good library books and our dear homeschool friend, YouTube.  Tuesday is also kinder kid's OT social group at the library (this means we can generally get our books back on time now since we go weekly!).  Usually the tot plays with the toys and the 3rd grader reads, but this week we brought a new multiplication fact game that she and I played at the table while kinder kid was in OT. 

Multiplication Fact game

Storytime during OT was about Firefighters with a visit from a firetruck

Inspecting rocks

Imitating the creation of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks using dark chocolate chips and gummy starburst candies.  Edible fun!

Tuesday night we took a walk to a local open park to run around after dinner, and then realized that the cool sound we heard was the marching band practicing on the field across the street!  We walked over to check them out and see our own favorite Band Nerd.

3)  Wednesday the 9th and 6th grader have history and geography together, and it often involves smaller children climbing all over the place and the books and me.  They are currently mapping Africa, learning about the various cultures, climates, and variety of people within the continent as well as researching current events.  Wednesday afternoon is also our regular Field Trip Day, which we are doing a heck of a lot better on this year than in previous years.  There are so many free or low-cost places nearby to see and experience that it would be a shame to be homeschooling and not head out and explore!  We visited the Peter Wentz Farmstead and attended a program built for younger children to experience an hour of life on the farm in 1770.  The elementary kids carried firewood, hauled water, fed the chickens and "made" their bed out of straw.  We also had an unplanned field trip to Urgent Care when kinder kid accidentally tried to use the hot muffler of the just-used push-behind leaf blower to climb into the bike trailer.  Later that night, after he was medicated and wrapped up with raw honey, we attended our town's big Fire Prevention night with the younger 3 kids while the older 2 attended the school's Powderpuff football game as part of Homecoming week.  They love being homeschooled, but connected to the school with these community and student events. 
     

Crowd control during big kid history

Peter Wentz Farmstead field trip

2nd degree burn.  The poor guy hopped and yelped and screamed for a good hour.

Fire Trucks!

4)  Thursday was back to normal, math, language arts.  We are reading Stuart Little together as our read-aloud.  Kinder kid is breezing through BOB books and loving the fact that he can read some real words.  3rd grader is working on reading comprehension, grammar, and phonics from various sources.  Kinder kid had his TheraPlay appointment, which is normally on Fridays.  We have no pictures, it was just that kind of regular day.   They relaxed with PBS in the afternoon for a bit to counter our busy-ness from the previous day.  

5)  Friday we were still talking about rocks and gems, and Friday is normally our day for Art, then Health and Physiology, so we found a way to combine our science unit with Art, and discussed verbally some health issues while we worked.  Bam!  Love when it works out so smoothly.  We took shoebox tops and made dioramas (anyone else used to LOVE those things in school??) to represent some of the ways on the Earth that the 3 types of rocks could be made.  We then sorted some of our smaller rocks into the 3 types and glued them to where they might be found.  They hot-glued balled-up paper to make volcanoes (igneous), painted them brown, then cut out construction paper to be a river (sedimentary) and they didn't really have an easy way to show hot magma beneath the Earth to form the metamorphic rocks, but they glued them nearby to the volcano in the assumption that a pocket of magma could be there.  I'd say Art was highly successful this week!  

Nursing that wrapped hand while painting

In progress

Finished projects

Week 4

We have completed our 24th day of school!  Which, I'm pretty sure means I'm labeling our weeks wrong, which is exactly what I get for trying to back blog the first few!!  So here goes for Week 4 (or possibly 5!)


1)  Monday started off with some garden-trimming.  Our gardens, especially our cherry tomatoes were waaay out of control!  Elementary kids picked and sorted, and used the power wheels truck to deliver cucumbers and bowls of tomatoes to the patio table.   It was 90 degrees, so we did half a day of school and spent the rest of the day on the inflatable water slide.  As homeschoolers should!

2) Tuesday was nice out as well, so we made some sidewalk paint using cornstarch and water and food coloring.  Tuesday is our block Science day for elementary kids, so after the sidewalk paint we checked our plants growing in the window, and went to the library to gather books for our next Science topic (they picked gems and minerals!)

3) Wednesday we started out with math and language arts at the island.  Kinder kid and the tot went to Tunes for Tots at the park.  Upon return home, Kinder kid read his BOB books and then followed up building the words in the BOB books app on the iPad.  We pushed through and did most of our Thursday schedule as well, as we are doing our weekly field trip on Thursday this week instead of Wednesday.

Yes, she wears underwear on her head.

4) Thursday we went to an Adventure Farm!  They claim to have "Homeschool Days" but really they just discount your admission by a few bucks, and then tell you that you'll learn a lot doing the stuff on the farm. Hmmmmph.  

Holding baby chicks

Wagon train. For the 20th time. 

The A-maze-ing Maize Maze was pretty good... it's the biggest one in our state! 

Elementary kids did the Easy challenge and big kids did the Intermediate.  This maze is huge!  They have lots of stuff to do inside, and even a cafe and picnic tables halfway through.

3rd grader switched her future career from Librarian to Animal Caregiver after this trip.

5) Friday was a regular day.  I spent a bit of time trying to find new things for tot to keep herself busy with for small periods of time.  Climbing my leg and stuck to my hip aren't really my preferred activities while trying to run a household, homeschool 4 kids and help our business as needed.  

Play-Doh. Always good, especially when eaten.  We swallowed however much was in our mouth real quick when we saw Mom coming.

Finishing his pumpkin life cycle book from earlier in the week.  He colors SO HARD that he wears out super fast and has to break up the task.

Chapter Math test!

We did stickers on paper plates. 

Clothespins.

Stickers on chalkboard. 

Still on this.  Almost done!

3rd grader works on building her biomes for science within her Minecraft course.

6th grader figures out her new phone... (cue scary music....)

And that's our week!