Weekly Wrap Up–Indiana

I swear it seems like the weekly wrap ups are coming a lot closer together!!  Maybe it’s just me and my world is spinning at some break neck speed, but somehow I don’t believe that.  Anyone else feeling the time crunch?

Now back to wrapping up!

We had a really good week.  On Monday, Olivia had a 6 month post-op meeting with the ENT.  She has been having some hearing issues again, so we’re keeping a diary of complaints and going back in another 6 weeks for yet another hearing test.

Wednesday we had an ice and snow storm combo.  Lots of cool play time outside (no pun intended).  However that also meant that piano and Awana were both cancelled for the week.  So an added bonus was an extra evening at home..go me!

We covered all the general things as usual.   I added vocabulary work to Olivia’s daily work schedule.  She’s really having fun looking up words in the dictionary, go figure.  

Science was fun this week as we studied about birds and worked on some art work to go along with it.  Be sure to check out the photos and read all about it here.

As my headline states, we covered Indiana this week.  I did not realize that there was a large Amish population in Indiana (duh).   Nor did I know that the Amish had broken off from the Mennonites way back when.  The girls were very interested in learning more about the Amish culture and beliefs.  I’m certain a field trip will be in our near future (although due to our location, it will most likely be to Pennsylvania Amish country and not Indiana). 

Books we used:

Indiana; by Marlene Targ Brill
Amish Home; by Raymond Bial
Amish Life – Living Plainly and Serving God; by Darryl D. Jones
Down Buttermilk Lane; by Barbara Mitchell and John Sandford
Raising Yoder’s Barn; by Jane Yolen
George Rogers Clark – American General; by Michael Burgan

Both girls are currently working on stories to submit to a writing contest hosted by our local public TV station.  Lindsey’s must be a minimum of 50 words, but not more than 200.  Olivia’s word count minimum is 100, and maximum of 350.   Each entry requires at least 5 original color illustrations.  We’re working on rough drafts this week and hopefully will complete the final papers next week.

Be sure to swing by the Weekly Wrap Up and see how everyone else did this week.

Science Meets Art

Our science focus for this week has been birds.  We’ve learned a lot about anatomy, including having been grossed out by crops and gizzards.    Something totally new to me was that birds have hollow bones to help them be lighter for flight.

We also spent time learning about how God gave birds the ability to build homes out of whatever was available to them.  My friend Vicki has found several abandoned nests in her barn and graciously saved them for us.   The one little nest has 4 little abandoned eggs in it.  This gave us an opportunity to discuss how important mothers care is to their babies, no matter what species.

The photo below shows a comparison of the different types of nests.  The nest on the top (and on the right below) is made mostly of straw, hay and even some corn stalks.  The nest on the bottom (and on the left) is mostly made of horse hair, leaves, feathers and finer pieces of hay.

The task was to pick one nest and draw a picture of it, with as much detail as possible.

Lindsey’s drawing didn’t have a great deal of detail.  Olivia on the other hand put lots of effort into her picture  If you notice on the upper right corner, there is a daddy bird flying in with a worm to feed to the mommy bird while she sits on the eggs.

Then by the time we were finished, Olivia came up with this little clay nest, with tiny little clay eggs.  The feathers were from her collection (and I have to figure out where that collection is and check it).

Kids Flag Page Kit

I’m always entering giveaways on blogs, hoping to win, but not really expecting it.  The odds have to work in my favor eventually and I won the Kids Flag Page Kit giveaway over at Homeschool Creations.

The Kids Flag Page Kit is an awesome tool that helps you to understand your child’s makeup.  In addition it gives you tools (input) as to how to best address parenting styles for each individual child.

Olivia loved working through the game with me and fell exactly where I’d expected her to be.  Peace (thus the name Olivia) was her “home country”; with Perfect being her “adopted country”.   Disclaimer, perfect as in perfectionistic tendencies, not as in she’s the perfect child.

Lindsey was the one that surprised me.  Truthfully, I’m still not convinced she did it right.  I was totally expecting her “home country” to be Control, but instead she landed on Peace as well.  Her “adopted country” was Fun…and that party I agree with.  However, once I read a thorough description of the Peace/Fun child, I did see that it does suit her quite well.  Although, I still say she’s a miniature control freak.

If you are struggling to understand your child, or just need a little extra nudge in your parenting style, I really do recommend this product. 

Weekly Wrap Up–Louisiana

This has been one of those “gaaa!” we’re overbooked weeks!  Monday was our only day home.  Tuesday was dentist appointments in the morning (no cavities, yippee!), and Olivia’s piano recital in the evening.  Wednesday was the typical piano lessons and Awana.  Thursday was our monthly Activity Day in the afternoon and 4-H in the evening.  Friday was back to back ballet as per usual.

So, this week we did math, reading, writing and geography only.   Because really, one can’t homeschool when one isn’t home all week.  Well, one can, but why stress myself out like that?  So on with what we did get accomplished.

Geography:  Louisiana was a fun state to study.  We did our usual things like map, flag, state facts and coin.   But then we got over into music and the girls fell in love!   Our focus person was Louis Armstrong, so we watched a DVD that was of  Louie’s 70th birthday celebration at the Newport Jazz Festival.   Besides Armstrong, the girls were introduced to Dizzy Gillespie and Mahalia Jackson, just to name a few.   It was like a musical great awakening in Olivia especially.

Books we used:

Louisiana; by Rita C. La Doux
Louisiana, Land of Liberty; by Jason Glaser
Louisiana; by Allison Lassieur
Louis Armstrong, Jazz Musician; by Patrick and Fredrick McKissack
American Diaries, Amelina Carrett; by Kathleen Duey

Tapes and  DVD’s we used:

Le Hoogie Boogie, Louisiana French Music for Children; by Michael Doucet
Louis Armstrong, Good Evening Everybody; Ambassador Entertainment

Math:  Olivia was introduced briefly to division, at least the concept.  Not sure this will be as quick to catch on as multiplication.  Lindsey’s new skill this week was telling time to the half hour, and it went smoothly.

Writing & Reading:  Nothing major to report, just covered the basics and keep plugging along.

So despite the business it was still a good and productive week.  Be sure to visit the Weekly Wrap Up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Oh the Places You Will Go–Activity Day

 

Since January is one of those months where you really don’t get to do a lot outside (at least not in Virginia), I thought we’d do some major traveling in this months Dr. Seuss class.  I went to our local library and picked up some really fun books, complete with puppets!

After reading our theme book, I gave each child a printout of a United States Map.  We worked on finding and coloring Virginia on the map.  Then I gave everyone a chance to point out any other states they have visited or lived in, and we all colored those together.   To stay on theme, I introduced the book “Town Mouse, Country Mouse” and the cute little mouse puppet. 

After reading the book, we thought of ways that the city is different from the country.   We wrapped up this portion of the class by assembling our US Floor Puzzle.

Then we moved on to a copy of the World Map.  We named all the continents, and read the book “”Wombat Stew” and played with our fun Koala puppet.   Then we “whaled” around the oceans with the book “Baby Beluga” and a fun whale puppet.

Then we moved on to the solar system.  We colored our lovely solar system replica, and worked on the names of the planets (and yes we did Pluto).  Unfortunately, there were no astronaut puppets to go along with this part of the lesson.

Finally, each child colored their own “book cover” (I scanned and printed a black and white copy of the actual book).   When completed, we stapled everything together for a fun book of the places we can go.

A Star is Born

Ok, maybe that is a BIT of an exaggeration.  Olivia had her first piano recital tonight and she did such a great job.  She picked four pieces to play “Away in a Manger”, “Silent Night”, “Twinkle Twinkle” and “Dancing with Frankenstein”.  (Love the Frankenstein tune!)

The crowd wasn’t overly big, maybe 100 people in all.  But they were all CLOSE and VISIBLE.  So to see Olivia perform so confidently was such an amazing blessing for Thomas and I!  The fact that she had an opportunity to play on a Grand Piano instead of her electric keyboard was a total blessing to her!

Now, lest you think I’m some crazy Mom standing in the middle of the recital, the picture below was taken during her practice prior to the recital.   But I love the look of concentration on her face!

Just another proud Mommy moment I wanted to share!

Life Skills–Child Care

Hands on learning is learning at its best!   We homeschoolers can turn anything into a lesson of some sort.  Babysitting is about as hands on as it gets!

We are not babysitting Eliana every week anymore.  However, recently we were the “backup plan” and had an opportunity to work on a few things we had not covered yet.

Lesson number 1:   you don’t have to have a bunch of “stuff” for a baby, necessarily.  So when you don’t have what you need, you improvise…a tisket, a tasket…the baby fits nicely in a laundry basket!

Next on the agenda was unassisted diaper changing.  Olivia did very well.  (Gotta love those chunky little thighs.)

Both girls love the entertaining the baby.  Although, Olivia and Eliana seem to have a closer bond than Lindsey and Ellie.

Happy babies are a good thing!

Weekly Wrap Up – Ohio

There are a lot of famous Ohioans to cover, so we did some quick overviews of each of the following people:

Chief Tecumseh, Annie Oakley, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William H. Taft, and Warren G. Harding.   I used the Crayola Coloring site to print out sheets on each president.  I also use the Crayola site for a printout for each state as well.  Check it out!

Books we used:

Profiles of the Presidents, Ulysses S. Grant; by Robin S. Doak
Profiles of the Presidents, Rutherford B. Hayes; by Robin S. Doak
Profiles of the Presidents, James A. Garfield; by Robin S. Doak
Profiles of the Presidents, Benjamin Harrison; by Robin S. Doak
Profiles of the Presidents, William McKinley; by Robins S. Doak
Profiles of the Presidents, William H. Taft; by Robin S. Doak
Profiles of the Presidents, Warren G. Harding; by Robin S. Doak
Chief Tecumseh; by Anne M. Todd
Little Sure Shot, The Story of Annie Oakley; by Stephanie Spinner
Bull’s Eye, A Photo-biography of Annie Oakley; by Sue Macy

What I loved most about Ohio, was the state mottos “With God, all things are possible.”   Looking at the amounts of presidents, inventors and industries in that 43,000 square mile area, it would appear that God has blessed them, for honoring Him!

Language Arts:   We worked through several more lessons in First Language Lessons.  We also worked on the poem “Mr. Nobody” and identified some of the areas in our home that “Mr. Nobody” is given credit for…ahem.

Science:  Fish was the main topic this week.  We identified various characteristics of fish and pointed out a few with odd traits.   We used an empty water bottle and a tub of water to replicate the way the amount of air in the air bladder allows the fish to stay afloat at different levels in the water.

Latin:  Finished up a few animal names this week.  Next week will be a review week, as I’m quite certain we didn’t fully “get” it.

Ballet/Tap:  Both girls are doing well and loving their dance lessons.   Olivia will be gearing up for the performance awards shortly.

Awana:  We’re almost finished the book for the year in each girls class.  I’m thinking we’ll slow down…a LOT now.  I don’t want to buy the review book and not get through it, so we’ll take our time now.

Olivia’s independent work was as follows:

Math:  I’m SO happy that Olivia is not struggling with the concept of multiplication!   It had me worried, but she’s understanding it and memorizing the facts well.

Reading/Writing:   Olivia is continuing to work her way through All Kinds of Animals.  She’s really enjoyed reading this one, and has learned quite a few little facts about various creatures.  I’m liking that she’s wanting to read and that she’s writing her review answers in complete sentences.

Piano:  Olivia and the piano instructor picked our four pieces for her upcoming recital.  She’s worked hard all week and I think she’ll do fabulously.

Lindsey’s independent work was as follows:

Math:  New topics this week included counting by five’s, the nickel and recognizing/spelling the names of numbers through seven.

Reading:   We’re working on special sounds such as sh, tr, br and pl.  Lindsey is doing great with each, but gets a bit sloppy with noticing long and short vowels when she’s reading.  So we’ll practice more in that area.

Writing:   Lindsey’s cursive writing is wonderful.  She’s very neat.  This week we practiced sentences and writing some of the words with special sounds.

We only have 63 days of school left!

To see how everyone else did, visit the Weekly Wrap Up.

Good Vocabulary Strikes Again!

Lindsey is a talker. She started speaking in complete sentences before 12 months of age and quite honestly has never shut up.  (Yes I said shut up.)   In those 4 years of talking, she’s developed quite an interesting vocabulary.  For example:

Today I walked into Olivia’s room and found Lindsey collecting an assortment of items, to be…stolen, for lack of a better term.  The logical question from me was “what are you doing?”….”collecting stuff for my babies” she replied.  “You’re TAKING things from Olivia’s toy box for YOUR babies?”

Crickets chirping.

“Can you repeat the question, please?”  she asks softly.

“You’re STEALING toys from Olivia’s room for your babies?” (rewording sometimes helps in these instances.)

“Bartering Mom, we’re bartering.”  (Nice try!)

“Bartering usually means both people have something to offer the other one.  And BOTH people have to know it’s happening, or else it’s not bartering.”   I explained.

Crickets chirping…

“Ohhhhhh…….Olivia….can I PLEASE have this stuff???”

You’ve got to admit, she’s quick thinking in these situations.

Weekly Wrap Up–Tennessee

I don’t know about anyone else, but I was really glad to get back to our normal routine.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the holidays a great deal; but I’m a schedule kind of gal.

Our classroom is housed in our family room, which is in our finished basement.  The basement has heat, but for whatever reason it stays COLD down here!  So, I moved some of our necessities up to the sun porch so we can work by the cozy fire!

First lets look at the subjects we cover together.

History/geography:   This week we studied Tennessee.  (In case you haven’t noticed, we’re only doing 1 week per state now.  This is in hopes to get through the entire 50 states in 3 years as originally planned.)

Davy Crockett was our choice for famous person.  Although, we also touched briefly on Elvis (Lindsey LOVES Elvis).  We completed our state map, flag, coin and fact sheet early in the week.  Later in the week we did our biography work on Davy Crockett, completed our 2 page coloring layout and a collage as well.

Books we used:

Davy Crockett, Hero of the Wild Frontier; by Elizabeth R. Moseley
Davy Crockett, A Life on the Frontier; by Stephen Krensky
When Uncle Took the Fiddle; by Libba Moore Gray
Tennessee Facts and Symbols; by Kathy Feeney

Science:  We’re moving into animals and Olivia is thrilled.  We spent our time this week learning about the classifications (fish, bird, reptile and mammal) and characteristics that go along with each classification.

Latin:  Going right along with our animal theme (too bad I didn’t plan it that way), we learned the words for dog, cat, fish and horse and worked on declensions.

First Language Lessons:  We reviewed our memorized poems, worked on titles of respect and the corresponding abbreviations and address abbreviations.

Ballet/Tap:   Both girls were THRILLED to be back in the dance studio this week.   It’s so good to see them both enjoying something so much!

Olivia’s independent studies were as follows:

Reading and Writing:  All About Animals from Abeka.   Each day I assigned a portion of the book to read.  In addition, she had to copy the discussion questions onto notebook paper and then write her answers in complete sentences.  (Still got the animal theme going, but at least I DID plan this part.)

Spelling:  After taking a two month break we jumped back in on Lesson 17.   We reviewed words from the word bank and then completed all of lesson 17.

Math:  New concepts for the week were multiplication, borrowing from the 1000’s column and Roman numerals to 40.   I was really worried about the multiplication, but thankfully Olivia breezed right through the concept.  Now we’re on to memorizing the times tables.

Awana:  We reinforced the books of both the Old and New Testament for recitation, and finished a new verse.   Olivia received her 2nd green jewel this week. I figure we’ll be finished the book by March or so.

Piano:  Piano lessons are going great!  The winter recital is coming up January 18, and Olivia has 4 pieces to play.  She’s very excited about performing, which for her is amazing in itself!

Lindsey’s independent work:

Reading:  Introduced the special sounds of “y” as a vowel and “ay” together.  The concept seemed to stick so we’re moving on!

Math:  We’re working through our 6 addition family.  Lindsey is doing much better with her number recognition as well!

Writing:  Capital J and S were tackled this week.   The cursive really is helping her with her letter recognition as well (no b/d confusion).

Awana:  Received Red Jewel 2 this week and completed the requirement for Green Jewel 2.  Now we’re working on memorizing the New Testament books for her next jewel.

Friday afternoon we had our end of the week tea.  Overall, this was a GREAT week.  I feel like we all got a lot accomplished, no melt downs and no huge memory loss over the 2 week break!

Visit the Weekly Wrap Up to see how everyone else’s week progressed.

2010 Wrap Up

I never got around to doing an after Christmas post…then New Year’s snuck up, and birthday’s started.   I’m so looking forward to getting back to the routine of school and extra-curricular activities tomorrow!

We did have a wonderful Christmas!  There was a light snow falling on Christmas morning, very Norman Rockwell-ish!  Then my side of the family came for dinner in the early afternoon.  Here are two of my favorite photos of the day…the “big kids” coloring and playing games together.

Light snow started falling again on Christmas evening and carried over into the mid morning on December 26.  After we dug out and got loaded up, we headed to the in-laws house for Christmas with them.  This is my absolute favorite photo!   Last December 26 my father-in-law was in the hospital, and quite honestly not expected to live.  As you can see, God answered our prayers and we had a wonderful year together!

December 30 we had a surprise birthday party for Olivia’s baseball coach.  He’s become an adopted member of the family and as you can tell, he likes it!

New Year’s Eve we invited both sides of the family over for food, fellowship and games.   It was relaxed and fun….but everyone was gone by 9 and we were in bed by 10!

Today, January 2, we celebrated my husband’s birthday.   He’s a bit scroogey today and didn’t want any photos taken.

Anyway, that pretty much catches us up to date.  A few weeks of  routine should get us all caught up on our rest!