Weekly Wrap-Up Week 18

I feel pretty good when I look back at what we HAVE gotten done this year. Using Sonlight means we have read lots of really good books. Not that you can't read good books if you don't use Sonlight, but I know WE would not have gotten all this done without a plan.

The books Sweetheart has read so far...

Little Bit had this time line in Kindergarten when we used Five in a Row the second part of the year. It goes from 1900-2009.

It came with printable circles for the books we read that year. So I printed off little pictures of the books she has read this year and we added them. (to the year they were published)

 Reading big numbers (dates), before and after....lots of good learning with this little activity! Plus, we put pictures of our family on the timeline so she could get a feel for how old a book is

Ping (which we read in Kindergarten and this year), was written the year before Grandpa was born!  (And before Kit Kittredge--American Girl stories help us place them in time too.)

But the Children's Encyclopedia was written when Little Bit was one!

Anyway, it feels good to know we have gotten some things done this year!

 

Little Bit finished reading her first "real" book this week--a CHAPTER book no less! Now she's reading Green Eggs and Ham.

Sweetheart's assignment sheet said she was to do a report on Andrew Jackson this week. Mama hadn't even read that little blurb, and honestly Mama didn't care if she did that report or not. But she read it and was excited. So at the library, she went and found a book on Andrew Jackson, brought it home and read it, and wrote up a report.

Maybe it wasn't perfect book report form, but she took the initiative to do it and I was very proud. And she did learn!

We had "backwards day" twice this week. This is when we start at the back of our schedule and work our way up. That way, the things we never get to, get done! Like Science. We even did an experiment!

But enough about school. 

Of course I worked in the girls' rooms this week. One way to make your tiny little 8 year old seem bigger instantly? Hang 0-3 month clothes in her closet next to her dresses!

And we found out that three 5 gallon water bottles a month is NOT enough for our family. We ran out this week and we don't have a water deliver until next week! ACK!

Sad and empty.

I'm not really sure four bottles will be enough either as this month we were also drinking the free cases of water bottles we got for signing up. But I think we'll try a month with 4 bottles and see how it goes. We've created water snobs. When the water ran out, the girls were all, "We have to drink SINK water????" Oh puleeze. Three weeks you've been drinking the good stuff!

And of course, a day of too many errands requires some fun. We had lunch at James Coney Island one day. Cute hats. Gross food. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Weekly Wrap Up--Week 17

It's FRIDAY!!!

I am very excited because this afternoon I am going to surprise the girls with a trip to the movies. We almost NEVER go to the movies so it is a big deal for them. It seriously has probably been 2 years since we've been--can't remember exactly. We're going to go see just about the only children's movie showing at our local theater today and that is Beauty and the Beast 3-D. It was 30 degrees outside when I woke up this morning so the movies sound like a good thing to do for fun, huh?

We've had a good week, overall. I still struggle with having the energy to cook in the evenings so we have eaten out more than I would have liked this week but I DID manage to cook 5 or 6 meals at home since last Friday. It isn't just the energy because if it was you could tell me to use my crock pot. No, it's that what I set out to make earlier in the day gags me by 5:00. That's the other problem. Somehow restaurant food never gags me. Hmm.

We started the week out with a flood. It was a nice day to stay home but the rain was a distraction on the school work. But a nice one.

Our street. That's our Christmas tree awaiting heavy trash day. Somehow it didn't float away.

Our backyard was pretty full too. 

On the school front, this week Little Bit and I have been reading Dr. Doolittle. I had never read this book. She's enjoying it and really enjoys getting all the animals out every day to act out the story while I read.

Polynesia, Gub-Gub, Chee-Chee, Jip, Dab-Dab, and Too-Too. 

I've been working and thinking hard about her math and how to get her going on it. This week we played "Your Pile, My Pile" a lot with flash cards. That's a game where you flash the card at her and if she gets it right, she gets to hold it and if she gets it wrong, I get to hold it. Then whoever has the most cards at the end, wins. Of course she won every time because she was not about to let me win. It worked. She finally started getting fast on these easy facts. I thought the day would never come.

But after 2 days of that she was over it. Sigh. I'm still trying to figure this girl out and what works for her. So next I printed off several things for her to do on different math topics so she isn't doing the same thing any day. Variety is the spice of her life when it comes to math, I guess.

I continue to struggle with not getting every subject done every day. I'm just going to have to muddle through the rest of this year and hope that 4-day-a-week curriculum choice helps us out next year on this matter. I don't really mind that we don't do every thing every day....just that we seem to go several days without hitting a subject. That's not good. Maybe I'll spend some time this weekend working on that. It's bothering me.

Well, we've got lots to do before enjoying our movie day. Holding "a fun day" over their head is good for a lot of housecleaning mileage and schoolwork you know!

One last thing:

22 weeks. Please enjoy my towel. And yes, Kathy---the ironing board was up!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Weekly Wrap-Up Week 16

This was our first week back to school from the holidays and we eased back into things around here. Just getting up on time, getting dressed and ready, and doing any school work was a victory!

S was off Monday so...no school. Fall finally came to Texas so we raked leaves over the long weekend.

But sadly, 3/4 of the leaves on our tree have not fallen yet. So, we will be doing this again several more times.

Tuesday was the day we started school, but first we had an important appointment which you have already heard about.

And THEN we started school. This week, each day we did:

1. Sonlight (reading, history, Bible)
2. Writing
3. a math practice sheet
4. science

So we have some things to add back in to the mix next week. But it was a good start.

And hey, learning can be found everywhere, right? This is Sweetheart melting some cheese for supper last night as I peppered her with questions about turning solids into liquids.

So, what change of matter is happening right now Sweetheart? Huh? The cheese was a SOLID and now it's a ....?

Mom. Really. I'm just ready to eat OK?

Fine.

Speaking of supper and Sweetheart, she's really loving the cooking lately and I'm loving that! What do you do when your 12 year old begs to fix supper all by herself?

Well, you let her! And you get candlelight dinners!

Wednesday was my birthday and S sent me flowers!

We had already celebrated, but we went out to dinner before church. Not cooking on my birthday=happy me!

And yesterday something VERY AMAZING finally happened at our house!!

Yes! The laundry fairy came!!!!

Weekly Wrap Up--Week 13

Hey! Remember when we used to do weekly wrap ups around here? Me too! Feeling like you missed something in weeks oh...6-12? Well, basically mom napped and the girls played and somehow we got a little school done each day. You didn't miss much!

But last week we were on the ball!

So..I don't have any actual pictures of school taking place, but it did. Trust me. It took a long time each day, or so it seemed since we aren't used to actually doing every subject. Saturday morning we had some school to do because I had taken last Monday off and at 5am Saturday morning I had an epiphany!

An epiphany, I tell you!

See, I've been waking up for 2-3 hours for no good reason every night. THIS particular time, I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and started typing notes so I wouldn't forget all my awesome ideas.

(And I never did get to organizing the kitchen.) (Later, OK?)

First of all, I realized some things about our homeschool room.

1. It's crowded.
2. I won't fit in there much longer.
3. We only use the table for about an hour a day.
4. We stack crap on it the rest of the time.
5. It's hard to vacuum after the birds with the big table in there.

So....out went the table. (Just stored it in the garage--it's a good table!)

And now we have sort of a library. Neat. Clean. Simple.

Uh...did I ever mention that a few months ago we moved the homeschool room back to the little room at the front of the house and the girls have their own rooms now? Hmm. Guess all that happened on my break. So I have no pictures of how crowded it was in there with the bird cage and table and TV cabinet and BOY HAVE I BEEN A SLACK BLOGGER!!!

By the way, we moved the girls to their own rooms shortly after this post and right when I found out I was pregnant.

So....now we have a room to store all our homeschool stuff in (plus the girls have bookshelves in their rooms for school books) and we work at the dining room table, the couch, the living room floor, and at their desks. I like it. I don't feel tied down to sitting in the same chair all day and we are still getting things done. AND our dining room is not junked up.

AHHH. So much better. (I really cannot believe I didn't tell you about the rearranging! Or take any pictures! Man!)

OK, so this is not really a wrap up---more of a catch up.  Here are some pics from last week:

Kids 12 and up are asked to help serve at our homeschool group's Thanksgiving feast. 

Sweetheart was SO proud to be old enough to help with the "teens." 

After lunch, Little Bit colored with some sweet  friends. 

And got to be the 5th little turkey during the Thanksgiving stories for the younger kids.

Weekly Wrap-Up--Week 6

Huh. What happened to week 5? Oh well.

This week I followed our morning through pictures one day. Just thought I'd share.

Sweetheart kicked off the morning at 8:50am finishing her writing from the previous week. Labor Day really threw us off. 

Little Bit and I kick off the day with a reading lesson. Sweetheart is in her room working during this time. 

9:30am--Sweetheart reading in living room. 

9:40am Little Bit making a craft to go with My Father's Dragon. 

10:00am Sweetheart re-reading Bible because she couldn't tell me what she read about. :)

On to map work...

10:50am Play break for the 2nd grader. Who then picked up all the clothes behind her!

Sweetheart getting snacks for me and her before read-aloud time. 

11:30am Spelling lesson with Little Bit

11:45am Writing

12:00pm Zoology together. 

Then we broke for lunch and I didn't take any more pictures. That wasn't our whole school day but it was the morning. We are busy this year!

Other than normal school this week, we ran way too many errands, started way too late several days, made way too much of a mess in the house, and whined way too much about school.

I say it is time for a week off!!! (next week YAY!)

We also had dinner with some sweet friends, went to gym day with our homeschool group (Where the children again spent a large portion of their time beating one another with swim noodles. It's good to have a hobby.) and bought a new pencil sharpener.

I did not fully realize this before, but not having a quality pencil sharpener can take a homeschool down FAST! We searched and scrambled all week for pencils with leads. If someone broke their pencil lead it was a disaster of epic proportions, and when Little Bit found some spare pencils with SHARPENED LEADS there was great rejoicing.

Mercy.

The most important thing about week 6 is that it is almost over and it's time for our break!!!

Oh and that I found a solution about where to put the stupid All About Spelling board. Anyone else struggle with that? The kids hated sitting in the floor and I hated sitting or leaning over them. I'll show my solution later. It won't work for everyone!

Weekly Wrap Up--Week 4

Man, I'm not sure there is anything to wrap up this week! We did school. We got behind. We caught up the next day. We're still plugging along, but it certainly wasn't the most exciting school week in recent memory.

However, we DID have some fun! Finally some homeschool group events are kicking in. We have missed our friends! We had our first "gym day" this week and a whole lot of families showed up. Gym day is pretty much every week and the moms just chat and work out the world's problems while the children play. We had a lot of new families and apparently, our children all had some aggression to work through because they ran around beating each other with swim noodles for about 30 minutes. It was awesome. I took blurry pictures from far away. You're welcome.

Little Bit, Sweetheart's friend who is also named Sweetheart, my Sweetheart, and their friend K. 

And also this week a friend invited us to another home school group's fun day. This homeschool group is just a little farther than ours but I really liked all the moms (and knew a few of them) so I'm thinking about doing some things with them this year as well. (Yes, I DO know how blessed I am to have so many homeschool groups around me! On the other hand, you might have clean air.) Anyway, we sat and melted in the shade while the kids played in some local fountains. Good and fun. I took blurry pictures from far away. You're welcome.

My kids are there somewhere.  It was all homeschoolers anyway because kids are back in school!!

And last night, S and I rearranged the living room. We moved stuff 15 different ways and most of it ended up right back where it started. Sigh. With our "new" furniture there is just a very limited amount of ways it can be moved. All we were doing is trying to find a way to be able to sit and watch a movie on the computer without having to look to the side. And also we have too much furniture and I may do something about that next week. And it may involve shrinking the toy room.

But that doesn't really have anything to do with school other than that today is school movie day and we will try out the new arrangement. We're watching this. 

Now we're off to finish up everything we didn't finish so far this week and watch our movie for lunch. Oh, and clean the house so we can enjoy the long weekend!! Hope you all have a great weekend too!

Weekly Wrap Up--Week 3

Remember, my Weekly Wrap Ups focus on the "other" stuff--not the book work. Because honestly, who wants to look at a post full of pictures like this?

I'm so glad dolls are still allowed in the 6th grade!

But just remember--homeschooling has a lot of that in it!

We finished reading "The Boxcar Children" this week. We also finished the diorama. Oh Little Bit LOVED this project. She has played and played with it--each day acting out what I read to her in that day's chapter. Wanna see?

The whole scene around the boxcar.

Violet laying out the tablecloth and Henry at the swimming pool.

Jessie and Watch. See the little stump back there?

Benny reading his "book."

Yeah, so the waterfall just kind of STARTS. It's weird. But it gave us a little place to put the milk in the refrigerator. 

Inside: The 4 pine needle beds, the shelf with dishes, and the broom. 

Behind the boxcar, Little Bit made the dump. 

Time for a swim!

Oh I love that book.

The only thing I am disappointed about so far is that we have not had those "cuddling on the couch" moments that Sonlight promises. Ha! Not their fault. We are just already at the table so I read to them at the table. This is one reason I was originally looking for a big comfy chair to put in the homeschool room---so we could snuggle up and read. Instead we moved the TV cabinet in there and that has been awesome. I just need to be sure to get up from the table and walk into the living room to read to them! I guess part of me is afraid if we leave the homeschool room, we will get distracted and not get back to work. We'll see...

In science we did an experiment that was a total flop. Didn't prove a thing to us. I haven't really gone back to find out where we went wrong.

Little Bit adding blue food coloring to hot water.

Sweetheart is going to add a cup of cold water and yellow food coloring with a hole in the bottom. 

Put it inside. 

And they mix. But which water was heavier?? Hmm.

So we did the experiment the other way--hot water into cold water and guess what? The water turned green again. Hmm. This did not prove to me which one was heavier.

Thursday brought rain for the first time in forever. Not much...but rain nonetheless. And we found ourselves with temperatures in the 80s at about 9 in the morning instead of 100! Can't pass up that opportunity!

Once they got that out of their system, we started school late. Totally worth it!

Sweetheart got a locker for her birthday. My sister had heard Sweetheart lament about how she wanted a locker. (Several years ago she said, "Am I EVER going to go to real school again?" After some talking it turned out she wanted a locker. I told her most elementary school kids don't get lockers anyway.) So this year, my sister, who teaches middle school, wanted her niece to have the full middle-school experience. She has spent all week trying to learn how to work that combination lock! Ha! Just like the real thing! She's so proud of it.

And Little Bit found the box it came in to be quite handy. She just loves "little worlds."

And this mama is glad it's Friday and there is NO birthday weekend looming for us! I am behind on laundry in a way that I have not seen in some time, my kitchen was a total wreck this week, Little Bit's tics have been back because we missed her supplement a few times over the weekend...basically that fun little weekend threw me off my game bad!!

Therefore I need a weekend.

The End.