Remedy Drive is definitely one of my favorite bands. Their last album was all about hope, and every single song reached out and grabbed me. I've seen them perform live several times and had the privileged of speaking to David Zach, the lead singer, at concerts and in radio interviews on a number of occasions. He has a precious heart, a humble spirit and way with words. I am excited that they are FINALLY coming out with a new album...Resuscitate, on September 18th. Check them out!
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Homeschool Recap, September 7th (Week 8)
In my life this week...
In our Homeschool this week...
So, I'm posting this on Monday because this weekend was crazy busy. I was out at a three-day carnival event with my Usborne team. Friday, as we were setting up, it was 105 degrees!!! We were under a tent in the shade, but my gosh... it was stinking hot! Then a wild cold front came through over night and the next day was beautiful and about 80 degrees. Whew, thank you, Jesus! But, that was a whirlwind weekend, for sure. Thank you to my mom and husband, who took the kids all weekend because I was barely home! This week we are off school, so time to catch up on... EVERYTHING!
Places We're Going & People We're Seeing...
Last Tuesday, we had our homeschool group meeting. Got to hang out with the moms while the kids played, yay! The boys spent most of Friday with Grandma and Grandpa, so they were happy campers. And Michael did fun things with them on Saturday and Sunday, like they got to see Finding Nemo in 3D and visit with Mema! And on Sunday, we went to the early service at church so that I could get to my booth later that morning. I actually got to sit through an entire church service for the first time in MONTHS! It was much needed, let me tell you!
Places We're Going & People We're Seeing...
Last Tuesday, we had our homeschool group meeting. Got to hang out with the moms while the kids played, yay! The boys spent most of Friday with Grandma and Grandpa, so they were happy campers. And Michael did fun things with them on Saturday and Sunday, like they got to see Finding Nemo in 3D and visit with Mema! And on Sunday, we went to the early service at church so that I could get to my booth later that morning. I actually got to sit through an entire church service for the first time in MONTHS! It was much needed, let me tell you!
In our Homeschool this week...
Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "D" for ducks and birds. Of course, we read a ton of duck and bird books! Lol. Callen kept asking "read duck! read duck!" so I think he is enjoying our little system of school so far. We read Dimity Duck, Chibi: A True Story from Japan, Birds, Albert, Duck at the Door, Duck Soup, Fix-It Duck, Hit the Ball Duck and Find the Duck.
Bible: We used Mama Jenn's printable up on our Morning Board to help us memorize Matthew 7:24 this week. We are learning about Jesus as our rock. This completely confused Preston at first... what does a rock have to do with Jesus? But, after reminding him about several hymns and songs he already knows, including "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock," he got it. He really likes that song, lol We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that described Jesus as our rock and shelter. Preston wrote the memory verse as copy work and we added to our Names of Jesus branch on the wall.
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| Coloring upper and lower case D's |
Bible: We used Mama Jenn's printable up on our Morning Board to help us memorize Matthew 7:24 this week. We are learning about Jesus as our rock. This completely confused Preston at first... what does a rock have to do with Jesus? But, after reminding him about several hymns and songs he already knows, including "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock," he got it. He really likes that song, lol We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that described Jesus as our rock and shelter. Preston wrote the memory verse as copy work and we added to our Names of Jesus branch on the wall.
Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure. Preston aced both spelling tests he had this week. Continued with lessons 10-12 in Primary Language Lessons.
History: We started off the week reading a short chapter book about Roger Williams called Finding Providence. Then we moved on to talk, read and learn about Benjamin Franklin from various sources. We read from our Story of America book that came with our MFW set, but we also read several different biographies of his life. Franklin was quite a man... there's so much to learn about all that he did and said during his lifetime! Preston added his picture to our timeline, created a mini version of his Poor Richards Almanac and drew a picture of the kite and lightning experiment on his notebooking page. The books we used this week were: The Power of Industry, The Life of Benjamin Franklin: An American Original, Benjamin Franklin: His Wit and Wisdom from A-Z, The Amazing Life of Benjamin Franklin and How Benjamin Franklin Stole the Lightning.
Math: Preston continued working on addition facts this week, including fact families with 15, 16, 17 and 18. We did then a mixed review and a chapter review since it was a very long chapter that spanned several weeks. He'll have a chapter test next Monday when we start up again.
Science: This week's focus was on the composition of the earth. We read from First Encyclopedia of Science about the layers that make up our world, Preston drew a diagram and summarized the ideas we discussed in his Science Notebook.
Music/Art: We continued the My Very First Art Book, with how different paint brushes create different affects and lines. He painted a watercolor picture using several different brush shapes and sizes. Then, we used My Very First Art Coloring Book and he created a watercolor effect using markers and then just running a wet paint brush over it to smear it. We listened to our Story of Tchaikovsky CD, telling us about his life interspersed with examples of his music. We also read Tchaikovsky Discovers America, a wonderful story that uses details from his person diary to create a fictional story from the view point of a little girl who meets the man. The kids loved it!
Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa, which. We reviewed words having to do with "El Zoologico" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish. And we continued reviewing our third lesson of La Clase Divertida!. I had a Spanish teacher at our book this past week, looking for books in Spanish that actually commended me on my pronunciation of some of our Spanish titles, lol. Yay!
We are using Adventures in My Father's World. See our curriculum here.
[This post contains affiliate links for Usborne Books & More and Amazon.com. By clicking on those links and purchasing items, you are helping me continue to be a SAHM so that I can focus on homeschooling my children! Thank you!]
History: We started off the week reading a short chapter book about Roger Williams called Finding Providence. Then we moved on to talk, read and learn about Benjamin Franklin from various sources. We read from our Story of America book that came with our MFW set, but we also read several different biographies of his life. Franklin was quite a man... there's so much to learn about all that he did and said during his lifetime! Preston added his picture to our timeline, created a mini version of his Poor Richards Almanac and drew a picture of the kite and lightning experiment on his notebooking page. The books we used this week were: The Power of Industry, The Life of Benjamin Franklin: An American Original, Benjamin Franklin: His Wit and Wisdom from A-Z, The Amazing Life of Benjamin Franklin and How Benjamin Franklin Stole the Lightning.
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| Working on his Ben Franklin notebook page. |
Science: This week's focus was on the composition of the earth. We read from First Encyclopedia of Science about the layers that make up our world, Preston drew a diagram and summarized the ideas we discussed in his Science Notebook.
Music/Art: We continued the My Very First Art Book, with how different paint brushes create different affects and lines. He painted a watercolor picture using several different brush shapes and sizes. Then, we used My Very First Art Coloring Book and he created a watercolor effect using markers and then just running a wet paint brush over it to smear it. We listened to our Story of Tchaikovsky CD, telling us about his life interspersed with examples of his music. We also read Tchaikovsky Discovers America, a wonderful story that uses details from his person diary to create a fictional story from the view point of a little girl who meets the man. The kids loved it!
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| Smeared marker = watercolor effect. |
Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa, which. We reviewed words having to do with "El Zoologico" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish. And we continued reviewing our third lesson of La Clase Divertida!. I had a Spanish teacher at our book this past week, looking for books in Spanish that actually commended me on my pronunciation of some of our Spanish titles, lol. Yay!
We are using Adventures in My Father's World. See our curriculum here.
[This post contains affiliate links for Usborne Books & More and Amazon.com. By clicking on those links and purchasing items, you are helping me continue to be a SAHM so that I can focus on homeschooling my children! Thank you!]
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Homeschool Recap, August 31st (Week 7)...
In my life this week...
In our Homeschool this week...
Another week in the books... man, this is flying by. Saw all my friends posting their pictures and tears regarding their kids going back to school. And mine were already in the 7th week! Hehe. Our year is already well under way, so crazy! We have another break coming up soon. So far really digging this 4 weeks on-1 week off schedule! I like knowing I have a week break to look forward to soon, and I'm sure Preston does too! Oh, and Preston got a haircut this week. Thanks, JC Penney, for offering FREE cuts for kids, that was nice of you! Haha.
Places We're Going & People We're Seeing...
Last weekend, we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards to get some of the pressed pennies there for Preston. He got his 15 stickers on this behavior chart, and that was his prize. We had fun, but were rushed to get back home for a meeting... so I hope to go back down there again when it cools off a bit and see more of the sights! The boys spent Friday with their grandma because I worked a preschool bookfair in Dallas. They had fun watching the electric company chop down the trees in my mom's backyard because they were growing up into the power lines. Broke my mom's heart, of course. Her backyard was so beautiful and well shaded, and they just butchered everything back there, stomped on her plants and crushed their storage shed. Geez.
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| Stylin' there, PJ! |
Places We're Going & People We're Seeing...
Last weekend, we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards to get some of the pressed pennies there for Preston. He got his 15 stickers on this behavior chart, and that was his prize. We had fun, but were rushed to get back home for a meeting... so I hope to go back down there again when it cools off a bit and see more of the sights! The boys spent Friday with their grandma because I worked a preschool bookfair in Dallas. They had fun watching the electric company chop down the trees in my mom's backyard because they were growing up into the power lines. Broke my mom's heart, of course. Her backyard was so beautiful and well shaded, and they just butchered everything back there, stomped on her plants and crushed their storage shed. Geez.
In our Homeschool this week...
Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "C" and a focus on cats and pets. We made a cute, little toilet paper roll kitten from Spell Outloud's HS Printables. Callen has a really hard time pronouncing the hard "c" sound... including his own name! So, this week was a challenge, and most of his "c" words come out sound like "t" words. But, he's getting better. Michael got him to say his name correctly yesterday, even if it was just the once! He'll get it. We read a bunch of cat and pet books: Moses The Kitten, Cats, Cats, Cats Are Like That, The Best Cat in the World (this one is really sad, I don't recommend it for littles!), and "Mine Will," said John.
Bible: Continued working on Jesus as "The Bread of Life." We used Mama Jenn's printable up on our Morning Board to help us memorize John 6:35. We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that described Jesus as bread, food or drink for the spirit. Preston finished writing the memory verse as copy work. We talked about communion, made a Bread of Life napkin holder and incorporated science by making bread (sort of)! Preston read the book Bread and Jam For Frances aloud to Callen one morning.
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| Pointing out different pets as I call them out. |
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| Preston's Canoe and Callen's Cat. |
Bible: Continued working on Jesus as "The Bread of Life." We used Mama Jenn's printable up on our Morning Board to help us memorize John 6:35. We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that described Jesus as bread, food or drink for the spirit. Preston finished writing the memory verse as copy work. We talked about communion, made a Bread of Life napkin holder and incorporated science by making bread (sort of)! Preston read the book Bread and Jam For Frances aloud to Callen one morning.
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| Napkin Holder |
Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure. This time Preston got caught up on spelling the word "egg" incorrectly as "eeg." Maybe I need to have him write them instead. Hmm. Continued with lessons 7-9 in Primary Language Lessons. I wondered how Preston would like this particular type of book, and so far he LOVES it... keeps asking to move on and do more. I think the reason he likes it is mostly because it's so easy at this point, lol. All we are doing is answering some open-ended questions, reading a poem or taking dictation. He doesn't even fuss about the few lines of dictation, which is HUGE! Preston also spent some time IM'ing with his dad which was great for helping to improve his typing! And Dad kept giving him math problems to solve and trivia to look up online, lol.
History: This week's history topic continuing with pioneers in the Michigan area! We finished reading The Courage of Sarah Noble and I had Preston give me a very short recap of the story for his notebook. We also read from our MFW book American Pioneers and Patriots, and since it was a story about "portage" or a canoe trip, we made a construction paper canoe. From the library we borrowed Colonial Crafts, which featured a lot of different jobs that people had to do back then. The boys enjoyed this book and found it quite interesting to learn about these jobs that are done in factories and whatnot now and how they did them back then!
Math: Preston continued working on addition facts this week, including fact families with 11, 12, 13 and 14. Next week we'll do 15-18 and finally finish this chapter with some review.
Science: Science went along with our scripture verse this week, having to do with bread. We made playdough and bread. Or, rather, we attempted to. I have never had luck making either one, to be honest, and this time was no different. The playdough never seemed to stop being sticky no matter how much flour I added. And the bread came out too dense... don't think I let the yeast rise long enough. Sigh. Oh well. Preston got the point. I hope. We used the book Science in the Kitchen for these "experiments." We ended up just playing with real Play-doh for a while, instead.
Music/Art: We continued the My Very First Art Book, and worked with water colors to create Cool Blues and markers in yellow, orange and red to make Warm Tones. We also continued listening and learning about the song "America" and how it was originally "God Save the Queen."
Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa, which were a different take on the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We reviewed words having to do with "El Parque" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish. And we started our third lesson of La Clase Divertida!. We learned about the Mayans, and Preston worked on a bark painting of a monkey. We also learned more of the alphabet song and the reviewed the days of the week (something we'd already learned).
We are using Adventures in My Father's World. See our curriculum here.
[This post contains affiliate links for Usborne Books & More and Amazon.com. By clicking on those links and purchasing items, you are helping me continue to be a SAHM so that I can focus on homeschooling my children! Thank you!]
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| Typing on IM with Dad. |
History: This week's history topic continuing with pioneers in the Michigan area! We finished reading The Courage of Sarah Noble and I had Preston give me a very short recap of the story for his notebook. We also read from our MFW book American Pioneers and Patriots, and since it was a story about "portage" or a canoe trip, we made a construction paper canoe. From the library we borrowed Colonial Crafts, which featured a lot of different jobs that people had to do back then. The boys enjoyed this book and found it quite interesting to learn about these jobs that are done in factories and whatnot now and how they did them back then!
Math: Preston continued working on addition facts this week, including fact families with 11, 12, 13 and 14. Next week we'll do 15-18 and finally finish this chapter with some review.
 |
| Math Mammoth work. |
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| Play-Doh fun! |
Music/Art: We continued the My Very First Art Book, and worked with water colors to create Cool Blues and markers in yellow, orange and red to make Warm Tones. We also continued listening and learning about the song "America" and how it was originally "God Save the Queen."
 |
| Painting with Cool Blues |
Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa, which were a different take on the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We reviewed words having to do with "El Parque" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish. And we started our third lesson of La Clase Divertida!. We learned about the Mayans, and Preston worked on a bark painting of a monkey. We also learned more of the alphabet song and the reviewed the days of the week (something we'd already learned).
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| Reviewing los vocales with coloring sheet. |
[This post contains affiliate links for Usborne Books & More and Amazon.com. By clicking on those links and purchasing items, you are helping me continue to be a SAHM so that I can focus on homeschooling my children! Thank you!]
August 2012 Tweets to Remember...
Aug 1st - I love hearing Callen say, "when I grow up i'm gonna be..." lately he's been saying "a daddy."
Aug 3rd - Stopping to change a diaper on the side of the road in nowheresville, arkansas... Bad idea! Car filled w/mosquitos! Grr.
Aug 8th - Its been a long time since I've seen Entertaining Angels performed live. Thank you, Phil Joel & Peter Furler!
Aug 13th - Already having Olympic withdrawls. C'mon Winter Games (and Winter, for that matter!).
Aug 17th - Callen is still jumpy about bugs/crawly things since the scorpion thing, so when he picked up a book & there was a real gecko in it, yikes!
Aug 22nd - No one tell my boys it's only August... http://instagr.am/p/OpDV8_IvN4/
Aug 23rd - Blueberry pie! We picked those blueberries ourselves in Michigan. Yuuuummm! http://instagr.am/p/OsWZ4XovNJ/
Aug 24th - If I could turn the light on & snap a pic of my boys sleeping on each other in my bed right now, it would be too cute to handle.
Aug 24th - Oh my gosh. First the cute sleep cuddling, & all morning they've been getting along and playing together nicely. I want to bottle this!
Aug 24th - He looks like he's ready to give you a zoo tour. Except for the covering his eyes thing... http://instagr.am/p/Otz8UYovIT/
Aug 24th - Callen is BEING the tower instead of building a tower. http://instagr.am/p/OusID6ovBf/
Aug 29th - Callen says, "Is it morning? I LOVE morning! Yay, MORNINNNNG! Can I have a snack?"
Aug 30th - Feeling accomplished to have done all my errands before noon. Now, snack & game of Uno before more school & lunch.#homeschoolersday
Aug 31st - I've never heard anyone say their favorite color is gray. Until today.
Aug 3rd - Stopping to change a diaper on the side of the road in nowheresville, arkansas... Bad idea! Car filled w/mosquitos! Grr.
Aug 8th - Its been a long time since I've seen Entertaining Angels performed live. Thank you, Phil Joel & Peter Furler!
Aug 13th - Already having Olympic withdrawls. C'mon Winter Games (and Winter, for that matter!).
Aug 17th - Callen is still jumpy about bugs/crawly things since the scorpion thing, so when he picked up a book & there was a real gecko in it, yikes!
Aug 22nd - No one tell my boys it's only August... http://instagr.am/p/OpDV8_IvN4/
Aug 23rd - Blueberry pie! We picked those blueberries ourselves in Michigan. Yuuuummm! http://instagr.am/p/OsWZ4XovNJ/
Aug 24th - If I could turn the light on & snap a pic of my boys sleeping on each other in my bed right now, it would be too cute to handle.
Aug 24th - Oh my gosh. First the cute sleep cuddling, & all morning they've been getting along and playing together nicely. I want to bottle this!
Aug 24th - He looks like he's ready to give you a zoo tour. Except for the covering his eyes thing... http://instagr.am/p/Otz8UYovIT/
Aug 24th - Callen is BEING the tower instead of building a tower. http://instagr.am/p/OusID6ovBf/
Aug 29th - Callen says, "Is it morning? I LOVE morning! Yay, MORNINNNNG! Can I have a snack?"
Aug 30th - Feeling accomplished to have done all my errands before noon. Now, snack & game of Uno before more school & lunch.
Aug 31st - I've never heard anyone say their favorite color is gray. Until today.
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