Homeschool Recap, March 1st (Week 26)...

In my life this week...

This week was a bit wacky, because I had Usborne events on 4 out of the 7 days.  The boys got to spend time with friends and Grandma and Grandpa this week, so they enjoyed that a lot.  We squeezed school in as best we could.

In our Homeschool this week...
Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "U" for Umbrella/Weather!  We read a few books having to do with weather, like Bear In the Sunshine, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Unbrella.

Bible:   This week's name of Jesus was Servant. Preston's memory verse is Matthew 20:28 and we looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that talked about Jesus being a servant or that our job is to serve others.

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure. Continued with lesson 61-63 in Primary Language Lessons. We continued our read-aloud, On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

History: This week Preston learned about the Santa Fe, California and Oregon trails, as well as the state of California joining the U.S.  We read Roughing it on the Oregon Trail and The Josefina Story Quilt.

Math: Preston continued Part B of Math Mammoth, Second Grade.  Continued Chapter 8, and worked on subtracting three-digit numbers and regrouping. 

Science:  This week's lesson was about solids, liquids and gases in Science with Air, and we talked about different states of matter.  We also talked about "fizz" using Science in the Kitchen, and did this fun little soda and raisin experiment.



Music/Art: Our patriotic song this week was "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean."  We also continued our World's Greatest Artists, Vol 1 unit study, with our fifth artist: Henri Matisse. This week, we read from Usborne Children's Book of Art and Famous Artists.  Preston colored a picture like the Sadness of the King in My Very First Art Coloring Book with Stickers.

Recreation of a Matisse masterpiece.

We listened to a track from Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty and watched the Disney version (even though MFW suggests we don't since it's not really a good representation of the composer's work.  Oh well).  We also listened to Best Loved Stories in Song & Dance, read by Jim Weiss.

Spanish: Continued with the next episode of Salsa. We reviewed words having to do with "Colores y Formas" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish and went through some review using the Spanish Words & Phrases Flashcards.

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!]

Homeschool Recap, November 30th (Week 17)...

In my life this week...

Ok, so really, I'm posting this on Monday evening... the week and weekend totally got away!  I had a two-day Usborne booth in Keller, so yeah... pure chaos at my house pretty much.  Michael did a fantastic job of taking care of the boys while I was away... they got haircuts, even!  And Preston lost a tooth!  Anyway, I thought I better make sure I get a recap posted, even though it features absolutely NO pictures.  Booooo!

In our Homeschool this week...
Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "L" for Leaf!  We read a lot of fun Fall books: Lucky Leaf, Leaves, Fletcher & The Falling Leaves, Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf and Why Do Leaves Change Color?

Bible:   This week's focus continued with Jesus as "Immanuel."  We continued learning O Come, O Come Emmanuel, the Christmas song.  Preston's memory verse is Matthew 1:23 and we looked up a couple of other verses in The Discoverer's Bible that talked God being with us. 

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure.  Continued with lesson 34-36 in Primary Language Lessons. We continued our read-aloud, Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Both boys really enjoy this and ask for it (even Callen asks for it by name, heh).

History: 
This weeks main focus was life during the time of the Wilderness Road and Daniel Boone.  We read a few stories from our books about moving from New England further into Tennessee and Kentucky.  And our state study continued with Kentucky.  We read through Kentucky Facts & Symbols and the storybooks A Regular Rolling Noah and Counting On the Woods.

Math: Preston started his Part B of Math Mammoth, Second Grade.  Working on hundreds and skip counting by different numbers, using addition and subtraction.

Science:  This week's them was weather.  We read two pages of First Encyclopedia of Science on different kinds of weather.  And we talked about wind with our Science with Air book.

Music/Art: Continued learning "America, The Beautiful."  We also started on a World's Greatest Artists, Vol 1 unit study, and our first artist is Leonardo Da Vinci. We read a couple of biography books on him (Leonardo Da Vinci and Da Vinci), and looked at a bunch of his art online.  Next week we'll be trying to recreate some of his art!

Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa. Started up La Clase Divertida, Lesson 7 about el cuerpo.  We reviewed words having to do with "El Cuerpo" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish. 


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!]

Homeschool Recap, November 9th (Week 16)...

In my life this week...

I am posting this recap only, y'know, 4 days late, but who's counting, right?  Hmm.  We had a great school week last week, but a crazy busy weekend.  I had three Usborne booths/events, just one after the other.  That certainly kept us hopping!  Feel like I totally abandoned my family for the whole weekend, but I really did have fun.  And the work I put in helped to further my business and get my recruit to hit her first important sales goal, which in the end, helps me too!  Thankfully, this week we are taking things easy and doing only Thanksgiving studies, and next week we'll be completely off of school to focus on Thanksgiving.  Woo hoo!

Oh, and on Tuesday, we closely watched the results of the election.  I helped Preston keep track of poll results on a map.  We wrote in how many electoral votes each state got and colored in the state as the polls were called.  At first it was great fun for him, but eventually, he was bored and I finished it up for him.  Ha!

Charting the results as the come in.

Finished project.

In our Homeschool this week...
Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "K" for Keys!  It was supposed to include other household items, but we didn't really go into that too much.  We did read a couple of abc/counting books from the library: Little Birds ABC and Anno's Counting House.

Bible:   This week's focus was on Jesus as "Immanuel."  So, of course, we started learning the Christmas song.  I only know the first verse, so we both get to learn as we go!  Preston's memory verse is Matthew 1:23 and we looked up a couple of other verses in The Discoverer's Bible that talked God being with us.  We'll continue on this subject after Thanksgiving.

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure.  Continued with lesson 31-33 in Primary Language Lessons. We continued our read-aloud, Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Both boys really enjoy this and ask for it (even Callen asks for it by name, heh).

History: 
Rhode Island - Books: Rhode Islands Facts & Symbols and Some of the Adventures of Rhode Island Red (tall tales about a boy the size of an egg and raised by chickens, lol).
Vermont - Books: Vermont Facts & Symbols and The Canada Geese Quilt.  I checked out the book and audio cassette from the library, but, of course, the cassette did not work at all. Sad face.  So, I sat and read the whole book to the boys.. and it's kinda sad, but they sat and listened (while I choked back tears and my voice broke, geez).
Only two states this week, then we studied about Daniel Boone.  We read from our Story of the U.S. and Pioneers book (from MFW), along with a booked called Bewildered for Three Days.  Preston read nearly the entire book outloud to me while I worked one afternoon, he did a great job.  We also did a lapbook on Daniel Boone from here.  It's loaded with info on his life, adventures and legends.  I had a lot of fun doing this with Preston, who seemed to enjoy it as well.  After Daddy got home, he showed it to him and they talked about how our family line is connected to Daniel Boone.

Finished lapbook and Daddy talking about our family tree.

Math: Preston finished up Chapter 5 in our Math Mammoth book, which also finished up the first workbook (there are two).  This last part was over fractions, which he has no problem with besides determining which is bigger when they're really close.  He did a Mixed Review of everything we've covered so far, a chapter review (geometric shapes and fractions) and then the test, making an 83%.

Science:  We went back to our Science with Air book, and talked about how can change the size of something (causing a bottle to expand or collapse on itself when heated or cooled) and how warm air rises.  Did some fun little simple experiments to emphasize those points.

Music/Art: Continued learning "America, The Beautiful" this week, and finished up listening to the CD of "The Nutcracker."  We also watched an online BBC version of the ballet... Callen and I fell asleep, Preston was quite bored.  Haha!  Oh well.  We tried!  We also read The Nutcracker Doll, which is a cute little story about a girl participating in the ballet.

Ninja superhero ballerinas.

Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa. We reviewed words having to do with "La Fiesta" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish.  And we didn't do anything from La Clase Divertidas.


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!]

Homeschool Recap, October 12th (Week 12)...

In my life this week...

Allergies. Still.  Snot. Itchy. Yuck. Miserable.  That pretty much sums me up for the past... geez, how many weeks?  All of them, seems like.  Other than that, it was a pretty busy, go-go-go week for us.  Lots to do and prepare for.  Michael is going to be helping me with a booth event tomorrow morning, Country Day on the Hill in Cedar Hill.  Should be interesting working with him at this... we've never done that before.  Kinda already looking forward to next week so we can take it easy a bit, haha.

Places We're Going...

Monday, Cubscouts had their Raingutter Regatta.  Michael and Preston worked hard on his boat for several days, and on an errand before the meeting, Preston sat on it in the car.  Sigh.  I ran home, superglued the bottom back on as best I could.  Preston didn't win, but I think he had fun anyway.  Lol.

Waiting for his turn.

Blow! Blow!

On Tuesday, we had our monthly homeschool meeting.  And on Wednesday some of us got together and went to the Green Meadows Petting Farm and Pumpkin Patch in Lynn Creek Park.  We had a blast.  The boys LOVED the playground down there and didn't even wanna go to the farm part, lol.  But we had fun there too.  Got to pet, chase and learn about all kinds of animals.  And I milked a cow!  I mean, y'know, they got to milk a cow.  Haha.  I learned that a mama pig's gestational period is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days, she gives birth around 3am and each of her piglets weigh right around 3-pounds.  CRAZY, huh?

Wednesday was also AWANA... I didn't have a helper this week, so had to wrangle SIX 2-3 yr olds on my own.  It actually went better than usual, which is quite funny.

In our Homeschool this week...

Loved this sign out at the farm.

Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "H" for Hammer, and other tools.  We checked out several tool books from the library, including Little Bunny's Cool Tool Set, Tools, The Toolbox, and Workshop.

Bible:   We started talking about Birds in science this week, and our Bible lessons go along with that.  Took a small break from the Names of Jesus.  We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that talked about birds... specifically eages and doves.

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure.  Preston aced both spelling tests he had this week, again.  Continued with lessons 23-25 in Primary Language Lessons. 

History:  We started our state lessons this week.  It is a very light run-through of the states, one per day... so obviously not too intense and Preston isn't expected to remember everything and recite it.  I do hope some of it sticks.  I will share a quote from him for each state that he will tell me on Friday, or as I'm doing this recap, telling what he specifically learned, remembers or thought was interesting (and may or may not be correct, lol)...
Delaware - "It is known as the First State." Books: Delaware.
Pennsylvania - "It's state bird is some type of chicken." This is actually incorrect, Delaware's is a chicken, PA's is a ruffed grouse.  Books: Pennsylvania, William Penn: Founder of Pennsylvania and Raising Yoder's Barn (an Amish story).
New Jersey - He couldn't think of anything except "NJ is the abbreviation!" Then later came back, after reading about it again and said, "The first baseball game was played there!" Books: New Jersey.
Georgia - "Georgia is known for the three p's: Pecans, peanuts and peaches.  And pines, that's four." Books: Georgia and Mountain Wedding (a funny book about a family coming together in early Georgia).
Preston has a notebook page for each state, on the back is a bunch of information and interesting facts about the state, and on the front is a picture of the state, it's motto, state bird and flower, plus the year it came into the U.S.A.  He colors the page, writes the state capital and the state abbreviation.  He also colors in each state on a map of the U.S. as well (I make him hunt down where the state is located).

Math: Preston finished up Chapter 4 of his Math Mammoth workbook this week, did a mixed review, chapter review and took his chapter test: Got 15 out of 18 correct, 83%.

Science:  This week's focus was on birds, like I said above.  We read from Birds, Nests & Eggs, listened to CD of bird calls from Sing, Nightingale, Sing and made our own binoculars.

Not sure Callen quite gets it.

Music/Art: We didn't do much of music or art this week, other than when the boys made birthday cards for my mom and aunt.  Preston cut out shapes and glued them on to form different designs or objects.

Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa. We reviewed words having to do with "La Playa" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish.  And we continued with Lesson 5 of La Clase Divertida!. Honestly, we didn't do much with Spanish this week other than watch the videos and go through the book.

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!]

Homeschool Recap, October 5th (Week 11)

In my life this week...

Allergies are still killing me, but you know what?  Tomorrow's high is supposed to be 54.  FIFTY-FOUR DEGREES, y'all!!!  I don't even care if I can't breathe.  Lol.  This was a busy week... had a couple of fun outings, got a lot accomplished, yay!  Looking forward to a relaxing weekend with NOTHING to do, hooray!!

Places We're Going...

We went to the Fort Worth Zoo for Homeschool Day on Thursday!  My mom and I took the boys to the zoo for a fun field trip.  The weather was humid and steamy, but not blazing hot... we stayed for about 4 hours and saw everything... and, of course, collected all the pressed pennies we could for Preston's collection. 

And this afternoon we ran over to Central Park here in Grand Prairie to see them release a bunch of Monarch Butterflies.  That was pretty cool!  A lot of them weren't interested in leaving their box, and then when they did... they stuck close to the flowers there in the garden and the kids!  The kids loved that, of course!

They liked this one... it seemed to like them too!

In our Homeschool this week...

Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "G" for Goat, and the other farm animals.  And so when we were at the zoo, we had to make sure to see a goat!  We read several farm-based books that we already own (didn't make it to the library for this week) like Usborne Look & Say Farm, The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales, Bright Baby Farm, I Udderly Love You, Dooby Dooby Moo and Barnyard Hullabaloo.

G for GOAT!

Bible:  We used Mama Jenn's printable up on our Morning Board to help us continue to memorize John 7:37, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink," and talked about how God gives Living Water. We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that talked about Jesus giving water to the thirsty, or being the living water to our souls.  We also talked about the weather and how the rain isn't always a "bad thing."

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure.  Preston aced both spelling tests he had this week, again.  Continued with lessons 19-21 in Primary Language Lessons. 

History:  We continued talking about the Revolutionary War, George Washington and the first presidency this week.  We finished Sarah Whitcher's Story. And read Discover George Washington, Let it Begin Here: Lexington & Concord and What Does the President Look Like?, which is a really neat book talking about all the different ways people got to see how the president looked like, all the way back to portraits of Washington and up to digital photos of Obama.  Really cool book!  And we did a George Washington lapbook with all kinds of information (lapbook pieces and ideas from here).

All About George...

Math: Preston continued along in Chapter 4 of his Math Mammoth workbook, adding over 10 and three-digit numbers.  He especially enjoys answering word problems, he says.

Science:  This week's focus was still on interesting things about water, using Science With Water.  We didn't do any of the experiments listed in the book... just didn't find the time or have the necessary things on hand.  We read through it and understood the concepts, but nothing hands-on with it this week.

Music/Art: We skipped our art lessons this week... had to thin out our lessons for the day at the zoo.  We moved onto the song Yankee Doodle Dandy on our Celebrate America CD.  We started listening to some of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker from the CD.

Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa. We reviewed words having to do with "La Granja" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish.  And we moved on to Lesson 5 of La Clase Divertida!.

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!]

Homeschool Recap, September 28th (Week 10)...

In my life this week...

So, the allergies have set in.  I LOVE Fall, and so I am willing to overlook the ridiculous amount of sneezing, itchy and watery eyes and sniffles.  But Thursday was CRAZY BAD.  I don't think I ever went half an hour between sneezes the WHOLE day long.  Yeesh!  C'mon, Fall weather and I'll completely ignore my symptoms and just enjoy it, I promise!

Books I'm reading...
I read and reviewed Unconditional: The Novel, and I also read the eVersion of Around the World in 80 Dates: Confessions of a Christian Serial Dater.  Yeah, I dunno why that jumped out at me...it just looked cute and I wanted something light and amusing, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  It was pretty entertaining!

Things I'm cooking...
I made a delicious crockpot recipe from Chef in Training yesterday, Bacon-Wrapped Apple Chicken!  Michael and I loved it, the boys hated it.  I was so surprised... it's got chicken, apples, brown sugar, bacon, and BBQ sauce... what's not to like about ANY of those things?  But both kids basically refused to eat it, so Michael and I had hearty helpings of it.  Their loss.  Lol.

In our Homeschool this week...

Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "F" for Foot, and the other body parts.  We spent some time tracing Callen's whole body and his feet.  We played with MamaJenn's Education Cubes Body Parts theme, wiggling our toes and showing off our knees.  And we read lots of books on feet and the body: Feet, Centipede's 100 Shoes, Barefoot: Poems for Naked Feet, Dancing In My Bones and My Body, Your Body.

Full-size tracing of Callen!

Bible:  We used Mama Jenn's printable up on our Morning Board to help us memorize John 7:37, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink," and talked about how God gives Living Water. We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that talked about Jesus giving water to the thirsty, or being the living water to our souls.  Preston copied the verse for his notebook, and we put the drop of water picture up on our poster.

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure.  Preston aced both spelling tests he had this week, again.  Continued with lessons 16-18 in Primary Language Lessons. 

History:  We continued talking about the Revolutionary War, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson this week.  We read The Fourth of July Story, part of Red, White & Blue: The Story of the American Flag, added several pieces to our timeline and notebook, including the Declaration of Independence.  We continued Sarah Whitcher's Story.  We read a couple of other books as well: Discover Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, a Picture Book Biography, The 18-Penny Goose and Sam The Minuteman.

Math: Preston continued along in Chapter 4 of his Math Mammoth workbook, adding over 10 and three-digit numbers.  He especially enjoys answering word problems, he says.

Science:  This week's focus was on disappearing water, using Science With Water.  We did a few experiments to see how water evaporated or didn't evaporate if it was enclosed in a plastic bag.  We have some colored sugar water set out, and are waiting to see what happens as it evaporates.  We also put some marker on coffee filter paper and put it in a dish of water, and watched as the colors moved up the paper.

Pretty experiment!

Music/Art: We continued the My Very First Art Book, using random items to make paint prints.  Things like bottle caps, cardboard, legos, etc.  Preston's artwork was very nice.  We also continued learning the three verses of Yankee Doodle.  And I had Preston read The Nutcracker Ballet aloud while we drove around doing errands one day.

Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa, which included the story of The Little Red Hen and more We reviewed words having to do with "El Campo" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish.  And we continued on to Lesson 4 of La Clase Divertida!.

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!]

Homeschool Recap, August 31st (Week 7)...

In my life 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.

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.

Pointing out different pets as I call them out.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).  

Reviewing los vocales with coloring sheet.

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!]

Homeschool Recap, August 24th (Week 6)...

In my life this week...

Didn't do much out of the ordinary this week.  Working on my business a bit, because I got three brand new recruits this month.  Very excited about that!  The boys and I were lazy, just hung out inside otherwise.  Michael had some training for his teaching job, he starts classes on Monday.  Very excited that he is getting to do that again... there was a bit there where we thought he wasn't going to have a class this semester.  Praise God he does!

Things I'm working on...
I had to institute a new behavior chart to try to bribe... er, give the boys an incentive for behaving.  They've been on the wild side lately... talking back, out right defying us, etc.  So, I created a sticker chart... stickers for good behavior and x's for naughty behavior.  If they get 15+ stickers for the whole week, they'll get some sort of prize.  Nothing fancy, but something to show that it pays off to behave.  We are using this chart in conjunction with the Doorposts' Blessing and If-Then charts.  We've had those up for a while but have failed to really stick to them.  Hopefully this will do some good.  It's Friday afternoon, and the boys have 11 and 12 stickers (it only goes through Saturday)... so, we'll see!

Posted on the pantry door for ALL to see!

In our Homeschool this week...

Tot School: We continued the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "B."  Callen was slightly less excited about his notebook this week, even though the theme was Balls.  I mean, come on... he is obsessed with all kinds of balls.  Wow, the novely wears off so fast!  We didn't really spend a lot of time on his pages this week, but we went through them... he did the tracing, coloring, scribbling, lacing, puzzling and all.  We even did a Baseball Lapbook (and I'm trying to wrack my brain to remember where I got that from, printed it out a long time ago and I usually try to save the links... but I guess I didn't this one, oops!).  And, of course, we played with Balls and read lots of books about Balls like Beach Ball, Hit the Ball Duck, Preston's Goal, The Ball Bounced and Froggy Plays T-Ball.

Big Brother helped a lot with the lapbook.

[Quick Callen story: Last Wednesday at church, we were making fish to go along with the story of Jonah.  There were little foam stickers and googly eyes to decorate your paper plate fish.  At one point, Callen came to me and said "Eye in my nose!"  I tried not to freak out, but calmly look in his little nose.  I asked him three times "Did you put one of those eyes up your nose?"  Twice he said yes, and the last time he said no.  I couldn't see anything up there, so I dismissed it and made a mental note to check closer later.  Mental note instantly forgotten after a room full of 2-5 year olds!  Fast forward to this Wednesday, and Callen lets out a great big sneeze.  He comes running to me with something in his hand says "Eye from my nose!"  Oh my gosh, y'all... there was a little, red foam dot (about 1/4" around) in his hand, covered in boogers!  That thing HAD been up his nose for a WEEK!  Thankfully it didn't bother him too much or cause any major damage, and it easily came out with that big sneeze.  It was part of a sticker so it had a sticky side and I guess it was just stuck up there all that time.  I felt so bad because I had totally forgotten about him telling me about it in the first place and didn't make it a point to look later.  GEEZ!  That was my first (and hopefully ONLY?!) experience with a kid sticking something up his nose... I know it could have been a lot worse, I've heard the stories!  So, praise God it wasn't a big deal.]

Bible: Introduced 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.  Added the Bread of Life picture to our Names Poster.  Preston wrote the first line of the memory verse as copy work.

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure.  Reviewing the words we went over the first 5 weeks.  On today's test, Preston missed "sick" and "road."  Not sure if it was because he wasn't fully paying attention, or really got confused spelling it.  I don't make him write the words out for the tests, just spelling them aloud to me, so sometimes he gets lost in this thoughts (y'know, since there's usually a screaming 2 year old around, lol).  Continued with lessons 4-6 in Primary Language Lessons.

History:  This week's history topic was New Netherland/New York and the Dutch colonists.  Our hands on activity was to make butter!  The boys enjoyed shaking the cream for about 2 seconds, but we managed to make really good butter.  FYI, a little salt goes a long way... yes, I over salted it.  It tastes good on toast, though!  Our main read-aloud from MFW this week was The Courage of Sarah Noble.  So far I have been reading most of the read-alouds, but this time Preston read a few of the short chapters from this book as we traveled to and from errands this week.  We also read from our MFW book American Pioneers and Patriots, and from the library, The New Americans: Colonial Times 1620-1689.

Shaking the cream into butter!

Shake, shake, shake!

We made butter!

Math: Preston continued working on addition facts this week, including adding with 6, reviewing 6, 7 and 8, then moving on  "what's the difference?" and "how many more?"

Math and lapbook work.

Science:  Science went along with our scripture verse this week, having to do with bread.  We did two yeast experiments.  Mixing water, yeast and sugar in a bottle and putting a flat balloon on the top... watched it expand because of the carbon dioxide.  Then tried the same thing with salt, no expansion.

Music/Art: We continued the My Very First Art Book, using a painting by Franz Marc to discuss "wild colors."  We colored animals in crazy colors. And in the My Very First Art Coloring Book, we used another Franz Marc painting and colored outside of the lines so that the colors all ran together.

Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa. We reviewed words having to do with "La Juegateria" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish.  And we continued our second lesson of La Clase Divertida!. I attempted the tostones again, and though they were much better this time, the boys still didn't care too much for them.  Oh well, I tried.

Callen's reaction... see, not a fan.

Mostly ate the powdered sugar off the top.

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!]

Homeschool Recap, August 17th (Week 5)...

In my life this week...

Last week we took a trip to Michigan to visit Michael's parents.  It was a great vacation, with only a few minor bumps (basically just 19 hours of driving each way and some grumpy kiddos).  I will post a blog on it soon, hopefully.  I have lots of pix to share and certainly want to record our trip for memory's sake here. This week was basically just recovery mode and trying to get back into the swing of "normal life."  We had a Homeschool Group meeting on Tuesday, plus I had Children's Ministry Training that evening.  We had lunch with my mom on Wednesday, then Children's Church that evening.  Michael had band practice at church (he's running sound on Sunday) and is working this evening.  I'll have AWANA training most of the day tomorrow, plus a friend's baby shower and then Michael works tomorrow evening too.  So... back in full swing, for sure!

In our Homeschool this week...

Tot School: We started the 1plus1plus1equals1.net "Tot School" printables this week with letter "A."  Callen was pretty excited to have his own notebook with things to do.  He loved saying, "I do school.  Where's my notebook?"  We worked on recognizing the letter, which he was already pretty good at, as well as went over apples and other kinds of fruits.  I use a notebook, the print outs in sheet protectors and Crayola Dry-Erase Crayons.  He colored, drew lines and circled various things as we went through it.  Some times I went through the pages with him, and other times I just handed him the notebook and let him do what he wanted.  He also put together a three-piece puzzle of an apple, worked on putting things in order and laced a laminated picture of an apple... he actually really enjoyed that for a while!  We also read lots of apple and fruit books this week, like A Cow's Alfalfa-Bet, The Bowl of Fruit, A Book of Fruit, Apple Picking Time, Apple Farmer Annie, Under the Apple Tree and Growing Colors.

Coloring the little apples red, then connecting them.

Identifying different fruits.

Three-piece apple/Aa puzzle.

Lacing the apple.

Bible: We continued with Jesus as the "Light of the World."  We used Mama Jenn's printable up on our Morning Board to help us continue memorizing John 8:12, which Preston seems to have down now.  We looked up verses in The Discoverer's Bible that described Jesus as light.  We made a sunshine craft to help remind us that God is the best source of light. (The lesson plans said to do a craft that includes crayon shavings, an iron, etc., but... yeah, we didn't do that, did this instead.)

You are my sunshine!

My only sunshine!

Reading/Writing: We continued Spelling by Sound & Structure.  The words got a little more difficult this week, but not much.  Preston is still breezing through it.  He only stumbled on the word "black" once on the very first day. And we started our first lessons in Primary Language Lessons.  So far, so good with that. I'm really curious as to how Preston is going to like/dislike it as we go.  So, we'll see!

History:  This week's history topic was The Pilgrims.  Our hands on activity was to create an oiled window, using a sheet of paper and cooking oil.  Preston was really impressed that it became see-through and water-proof with the oil!  We read a lot from our MFW books and library books, or books I already had.  Our main read-aloud from MFW was Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims, which was we started and finished this week.  We also read If You Sailed on the Mayflower, Who's that Stepping on Plymouth Rock?, Samuel Eaton's Day, You Wouldn't Want to Sail on the Mayflower, and The Pilgrims of Plimoth.

Math: Preston worked on addition facts this week, including adding the next whole 10, adding over 10, then adding 9, 8 and 7.

Science:  We continued talking about space a bit, specifically the Big Dipper (read The Big Dipper), constellations and another close star called Betelgeuse. To show how much bigger Betelgeuse is than our own sun, we did a measuring experiment outside.  Basically, it's A LOT bigger.

It's from here to way over there!

Music/Art: We continued the My Very First Art Book, and did a dot finger painting. And in the My Very First Art Coloring Book, Preston and Callen colored a skyline of London with dots (or they were supposed to... basically just ended up in scribbles).

Preston's is a Sunrise on the Beach, he said.

Spanish: Continued with the next two episodes of Salsa. We reviewed words having to do with "La Calle" in our First Thousand Words in Spanish.  And we moved into our second lesson of La Clase Divertida!. We had a couple of hands on activities this time, including creating a color wheel and making Tostones.  The plantain was not really ripe enough so it didn't come out that great, boys weren't too crazy about 'em.  Going to try again next week after the second plantain has had some more time to ripen.

They were excited, and then not impressed.

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!]