First Week of School 2014...

Last week kicked of our first official week back in school.  At least for Preston.  We started My Father's World Creation to the Greeks, aka "4th Grade."  Callen will start doing more preschool type stuff once we get back from vacation in a few weeks.  All in all, the week went pretty smoothly, and Preston seemed to enjoy it.  As did I. 

We were blessed with unseasonably cool weather.  Like, we went outside, in the middle of the day, in July... and didn't die.  It was cuh-razy, but awesome!  We also learned about celebrating the Sabbath and what that entails, and tried our hand at having a special Sabbath dinner together on Friday night.  Because of our crazy busy schedule, it ended up being Hot 'n' Ready pizzas and crazy bread, but... the idea got across just fine.  It was a neat experience.  I hope we are able to do more of these feast celebrations as the year progresses!

Here are a bunch of pictures of the week...

All ready to go the night before!

Preston is a 4th Grader!

Keeping Callen busy!

Art, a lesson in frustration!

Chalking outside in the middle of the day, in July!

A google.

Worn out.

A puppet show at the library on Friday.

Sabbath dinner on Friday evening.

Flowers from my front garden bed for our center piece.

Homeschool Recap, Year 2013-2014

So, we are officially done with school for this 'year.'  Preston finished 3rd Grade and Callen did a few preschooler type stuff, but mostly he just played and tagged along with brother's stuff.  This school year did not go at all as I wanted it to, but we tried to make the best of it.  And all in all, we accomplished what we needed to. 

It was off to a rocky start because I didn't start us when I normally would have since our house was on the market.  We hoped it would be a quick sale, so I kept hoping we would be able to start when we were moved and settled.  But it wasn't, and we didn't.  And then, since we got a later start than I wanted, I felt like the rest of the year was rushed.  I didn't HAVE to do it this way, but I did.  Because I wanted to get back on track with the next 'school year.'  Anyway, we survived, and truthfully, that's what matters, right?  Lol.

Starting with Callen... I intended to do Before Five In A Row with him for the whole year.  But, we really only ever got through about three books (Yellow Ball, My Blue Boat and Jessie Bear What Will You Wear?), and he just wasn't ready to sit and have his own projects.  His 'school' became coloring and sticker books and watching PBS Kids most of the time.  He did learn about the continents a bit since he was around while I was teaching Preston, and he really enjoyed working on the big felt world map, moving the animals around and such.  He recognizes all of his letters and numbers, he knows what most of the letters sound like, can spell his name or recognize it when it's written on something, he has a great vocabulary and uses big words in sentences correctly.  And he finally learned how to pronounce his c's and g's, that was a major breakthrough right after his 4th birthday in March!

Coloring a continent!

On to Preston... we used My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures and we (I say we because I was learning geography right along with him!) learned about a lot of countries in the world.  While I don't expect him to have them all memorized and tons of details about each one, he got pretty good with the Geography Game, so I call that a win!  He got good grades in math was we went over multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, and more.  He learned how to form letters in cursive and they look great (while often his print is horrendous!).  We read a bunch of missionary stories and learned that so many other places and people in this world need prayer!  We also learned about animals from different countries and ecosystems in various part of the world, too. 

All done with 3rd Grade!

 Even though we're done with school, in June we are doing a lapbook as we read through the easy version of Treasure Island.  And we will start up our new school year in July!  We will be doing My Father's World Creation to Greeks, and I will once again try out Before Five In a Row with Callen.  Looking forward to getting back on our year-round schedule so we can take plenty of breaks during the year and not get burnt out!

Homeschool Recap, Weeks 5 and 6...

These past two weeks we have focused on Mexico and Central America for our geography studies.  We learned about climate and physical features of the land, a little about the people, and have started reading about Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, who started his work in Guatemala.  We started playing a fun Geography Game, and I have already started seeing an improvement in knowing where certain countries are located. Preston continued work on his multiplication tables.  I didn't really do anything structured with Callen other then coloring, and having him tag-along with the rest of our studies.  He knows how to spell his name, still working on the hard 'c' sound when he says it, though.  Also, he is doing great at memorizing scriptures he learns at Sunday School. So proud!

We were able to surprise the boys with a visit from Grandma Jill last weekend... they had no idea she was coming until they saw her come out of the airport.  They were thrilled.  She was with us from Friday evening to Tuesday morning, so that was pretty awesome.  Otherwise, the rest of this past week has been all about packing and attending to things to get our house sold and buy the Midlo house.  We are supposed to close on Monday!!!

Sunday night planning session.

Love Preston's detailed coloring on this one!

String art. I did the puppy w/Callen, Preston did the star.

Seeing how turtles stay cool and warm in shade and sun.

Geography vocabulary illustrations.

Preston reading a favorite book to cousin Trey.

Grandma Jill's surprise visit!

Enjoying their time with her!

Playing Geography Game!

Letter writing assignment.

We will most likely be taking the next several weeks off for the move, so we won't be moving on to Canada just yet!

Homeschool Recap, Weeks 3 and 4...

Week 3 and 4 are all about the United States of America, so it made a great review from last year's studies.  We talked about forests, trees, the states, and a variety of other topics all centered in the USA.  I didn't take many photo of school-related activities, at least not terribly exciting ones... we were on the go quite a bit and rushed through a lot of school.  I'll share what I have from the past few weeks, though...

Playing a massive game of memory w/all the cards at once!

We walked with Team Elise for JDRF, they met Bugs.

Around the World Sticker Book fun.

Illustrating a "butte."

A little abstract art.

Starting to pack up the house!

Getting some reading done.

Spelling Team Work.

No colors can touch each other. We win!

And then the Legos got packed away for a while!

Homeschool Recap, Weeks 1 and 2...

Alright, in previous years I have managed to post a detailed, weekly recap.  Well, I have a feeling that's not gonna happen this year.  So, maybe, just maybe I can shoot for every two weeks, and go easy on the details as well.  Plus, our themes are about two weeks long, so it kinda makes sense anyway.  We have finished our first two weeks of school for the year.  Woo hoo!  It went smoothly.  Just a few whines, grumbles (from Preston) and shenanigans (from Callen). 

Callen (Preschool):  Callen is doing a laid-back version of Before Five in a Row and tagging along with us through some parts of MFW ECC.  Our first book to row has been Molly Bang's Yellow Ball.  The first time I read it to Callen, I wasn't sure he'd be interested in reading it more than once, but I was wrong.  He asks for it by name and gets excited when it's time to read it again.  There are only a handful of words in the book, and he seems determined to memorize them.  He points to the word "What's this say?"  So far we have played catch, throw and roll the ball, used punch balls, done a few of the lapbook type activities I found online emphasizing 'y' and yellow, above/below/high/low, and Callen stamped some yellow balls in the big, blue sea using a bottle cap and toilet paper roll printing.  He also colored a bunch of worksheets of the continents since that's what we're going over with Preston.

Callen's handprint

Coloring Yellow Balls

Playing Topple with me.

Preston (3rd Grade): Preston officially started My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures.  We are learning about maps and continents these first two weeks.  Plus, some of the main religious groups in the world.  We had a worm niche to observe how they churn up the ground for a week, ewww!  He is doing great at getting the concept of multiplication down using Math Mammoth.  His Spelling Power work is going well, we started on the last few groups in Level B. 

Observing a section of our backyard habitat.

Learning about animals, like frogs.  Eww!

Worm niche.  Eww, again!

Lots of reading time!

Working on a detailed map.

Map from our house to church.

One of the fun things about homeschooling is getting to school wherever we want.  We had a house showing from 10-11am on Thursday, plus a homeschool group lunch/playtime at 1130, so we needed to be out of the house for a while.  We were going to go to the library to do school, but I forgot they didn't open till 1pm.  We ended up Starbucks and got our schoolwork done there!

Taking school on the road.

Preston concentrating on spelling, Callen enjoying a treat.

All in all, I have to say that the first two weeks went well!  As well as I could hope with the distractions of a 3-yr-old and having to be in and out of our house because of the showings and other activities.

Preston got a bug/spider bite this week that got infected, just like mine.  Took him to the doctor and had her drain it and get him on antibiotics.  Poor guy, it's right on the back of his leg so when he sits, it rubs and hurts.  Dunno what's getting us, but it ain't nice!  Hoping his heals a lot faster and easier than mine since we caught it earlier.  Mine is still in the process of healing.  Blech. 

Also, we have a contract on our house again, so we will be launching into hunting mode this weekend, gotta find US a house now, pronto!  But first, Preston and Callen are going to spend the night with my folks and Michael and I are having a date night.  We're going to see Five Iron Frenzy, House of Heroes and Mike Herrera in concert.  What?!  I know, right?  So excited for tonight!

First Day of School 2013

Today was the official kick off for our 2013-2014 school year!  Last night we took a few photos because the boys were still in their "nice" clothes from church.

Preston, 3rd Grade, 7 years old

Callen, Preschool, 3 years old

Teacher with her students.  Haha.

Yep, they are a hand full.

As far as today, it went quite smoothly!  I woke up, grabbed a quick shower and breakfast so that I would be ahead of them.  I had their school stuff ready and waiting:

Mobile school since our house is still 'staged.'

Preston was the first to wake up, so he ate his dry cereal as we got started (taking advantage of Callen not being a distraction, lol).  We started off with his beginning of the year questionnaire we have done for the last several years.  

Use your best handwriting!

It asks things like favorite food, favorite tv show, what do you want to be when you grow up, etc.  It's funny looking back at these over the years to see how answers have changed... or not changed.  Then we quickly jumped into the various tasks ahead of us and got A LOT accomplished in that hour that Callen slept in (he never does that, it was awesome!).  We used a bunch of the My Father's World ECC books so that Preston would be familiar with them from here on out.  Callen woke up and demanded breakfast and then did some coloring while we finished up the work.  I didn't start with his stuff today, just wanted to ease into a routine this week.  

We needed to run some errands (bank, post office, take movies back to the video store) so I gave the boys their Travel Notebooks.  

Looks like fun, Mom!

These are for when we are running around, they can write or draw about what they see on the way.  It worked for a while as we out and about, then Callen threw his notebook and pencil at Preston and that was the end of that.  Sigh.  I should know better.  Anyway, after our errand we came home and had lunch and then the boys were getting rowdy, so I sent them in the backyard to play in the sprinkler.

Sprinkler fun in the backyard.

After that, they played inside a while, then we had quiet time.  It was SUPPOSED to be nap time, but SOMEONE (ahem, Callen) wouldn't nap for anything.  Ok, it was PROBABLY because he slept in so much this morning.  Oops.  Oh well.  While he played, not so quietly, in his room, Preston took his Chapter 1 Math Mammoth test over the lessons we just finished up.  He got an 88%... mostly because he just didn't read the directions or pay attention to the signs (both of which I reminded him of before he started, lol).  The boys played, built forts and things with the couch cushions, then played outside some more in the front and the back after dinner because they were just crazy bundles of energy.  They were TV-free till 8pm, and Callen only even asked ONCE if he could watch TV and didn't put up a fuss when I said no... but I had a training call to do, so I let them watch some cartoons for a while.  Let's hope they got all that energy out and fall asleep easily tonight and that tomorrow's school is just as smooth!