Friday, January 26, 2018

Finishing up History, Symmetry, Father-Daughter Dance, and Life



Is this not the cutest?!?!

It was the Me and My Guy Annual Dance.  I volunteered to do portraits, so I was able to go and watch them.  Lydia and Caty were from Descendents.  Joe was Captain Hook.


Caty had Spanish class.  A local homeschool mom is teaching a class in Beginner's spanish and Caty is loving it.  She knows her numbers and colors really well.  But learning to write them also.


Matching the words up with the numbers.


This is the look of our kitchen table all the time.  Some days it drives me over the edge.  Other days, I'm ok and too exhausted to even care...lol.  It's scary though, this is more than one kids work mixed up here!!


We had a "sick" day.  We had made plans on Tuesday to letter write with a small group from our church.  But I was afraid we might expose someone, so I decided to stay home.  I hadn't really planned school that day.  So we had a Disney nature day and also watched lots of history videos and tripled up on History lessons so we can be done early with the book.

During the Disney movies she colored...and then she kept coloring!


We had a surprise visitor again.....our mouse hunting hawk!


For art this week, we worked on symmetry.  The girls mainly on facial symmetry.  This is a second project to go with Rembrandt.









Joey and Brayden worked on a symmetrical Mario picture.



Lydia is working on writing a book and illustrating it.  She worked on the cover page and has several of the pages started.  This is definitely a work in progress.


History this week we finished up Volume 1 of Notgrass From Adam to Us.  We are not going to start Volume 2 until next fall.  Instead I got a deal on an Ohio History program that all 4 will take together for the remainder of this "school year".  This week we learned more about Ghengis Khan, the Gobi Desert, the Aztecs and Incans, talked about the Crusades and Beowulf, and finished up the book with Marco Polo.  We'll probably cover the ancient wonders of the world this spring also.



Wednesday, Brayden had cooking night for his social skills activity.  He helped to make the brownies.  He really does love this program.  We have a Kitchenaid mixer that I received as a present a few years ago from my parents.  The kids love it and it's used regularly.  Since we have that, I do not use a hand mixer anymore.  This was the first time he used a hand mixer.  It actually freaked him out a bit.  But he got the hang of it quickly.


I spent Thursday miserable.  I was suddenly reminded of why I cannot ignore ingredient lists, since I had a massive reaction to an ingredient in a new sausage I bought.  I was miserable.  So didn't get anything much done on Thursday after lunch.  We did get to watch an episode of Drive Thru History Bible Adventures together as a family.  We are getting the opportunity to review this online resource, and so far I am loving it!!

Caty had Spanish on Friday.  She has a cough from her bronchitis.  This poor girl has weak lungs.  She can get a runny nose and it sounds like she is dying.  I'm so frustrated and feel so bad for her.


 Brayden (Breakfast 4H Project book) made pancakes for lunch on Thursday.



He got the pattern down quickly.  I think I may assign him this job at least once a month.


With all the bugs going around....I am upped all the supplements the kids take for their immune systems.  Caty is already weakened enough....ugh.  


We had such nice weather on Friday, that Joe and I went for a walk.  It started out great.  But ended badly.  I have to come to a new acceptance of my limitations, at least for the time being.  


 On Saturday, I spent the morning baking cookies that will last for a few weeks.  I froze a bunch for breakfast.


I also refilled the freezer with sunbutter and jelly sandwiches.  These are great for the kids for a quick snack.  They just grab and go.  Heat for about 30 seconds if they are eating immediately, or I just throw one in Joey's lunchbox for work with his crackers/chips.



Saturday the girls had their first 4H event of the 2018 year.  It was the Midnight Madness camp event.  This was Caty's first year.  I was very nervous, since she had a cough from her bronchitis.  But we didn't get any phone calls from Lydia or the counselors.  This was a photo that they posted on the Facebook page.


Joe and I took advantage of more nice weather and we washed and vacuumed out the van.  It was just totally messy inside.  The subzero temps had been keeping me from cleaning it out to deeply.  But now it looks decent inside.  The mats could use a good spray down, but that will have to wait a bit.


While watching Bible Drive Thru History together....  Brayden loves these dogs!


The boys finished their biography reports for Living History Day.  Lydia almost finished her reading for Helen Keller, but hasn't started an official report yet.  Next week the boys will start their posters.  Caty's books came in for her historical figure, so she'll start next week too.

This was one of those weeks where we got a lot finished.  I have to keep reminding myself of that.  We didn't finish all that I wanted to accomplish.  I really wanted Lydia to finish more of her book.  But that will come in February.  I wanted to declutter and clean a few more things.  Have the kids pick out their science fair projects.  So I guess all those things roll over into next week.

Hope everyone had a wonderful week and are staying healthy!!  See you all next week!

Linking up with the Homeschool Review Crew






Friday, January 19, 2018

Taking A Day, Building with Dad, Martin Luther King Jr. Day,



Due to illness and ice issues, we had to skip our foreign language day.  Since there was so much other activities I had planned for that day (the girls were supposed to have a sleepover), I hadn't planned any other work.  So we literally had a day with nothing on it.  I told the girls they couldn't sit on their laptops all day.  So we had a Disney Nature video day.  The boys watched Born in China with us.  We watched Disney Oceans to finish up our Oceans unit study.  We also watched some other fun videos including Leap and some history videos.  We were able to finish up the 3 History lessons, that helped us get a little ahead on our history lessons.



Caty heard about the Building Clinic at Home Depot and begged to go.  So Joe took the girls over since their cheer competition had been cancelled.  They build desk calendars.  In true spirit of other Home Depot projects, they are both still sitting unfinished in my living room.  I am constantly reminding them to FINISH THEM NOW!!  But they will be cool when they are finished.







I'm not ready to start our meteorology science unit yet, so this week for science we'll be watching a lot of videos, including this series I found on Amazon Prime called Animal Encyclopedia.



For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we spent the week having small discussions about the various parts of the Civil Rights Movement. We compared what steps the groups were taking then, what happened in the 70s and also how people are protesting today.  We also loosely used all of the resources from Channel 1 Student news.  This is a great resource that Joe discovered a few months ago that was available on our Firestick.  The kids really like using it.



They also watch Our Friend Martin...



And this Reading Rainbow reading of Martin Luther King Jrs. Kids biography



In History, the girls and I actually covered Charlamagne and the Franks and also The Vikings/Celts.  We are almost at the end of From Adam to Us Volume 1.

We watched More Pipo's Animated History from Amazon



and also this great Nova Special on Vikings.



We are spending two weeks on Rembrandt for Art Class.  Illness prevented us from meeting for full Science Club.  This week for Rembrandt I decided to work on etching.  I actually went through and put beeswax on copper plates that we had from another art project.  The kids then used sharpened popsicle sticks to etch their design into the plate.  We added ink to make it look like a plate they would have used during Rembrandt's time.










These are videos that they watched:







Since Rembrandt was famous for his portraits, next week we'll be working on facial symmetry.


The kids had bball practice this week (we missed way too much already.)


Brayden and Lydia are working on taking shots from various areas on the court.





Caty working really hard on her Spanish colors and numbers.  She been doing this daily.  This week I added in family words to start practicing also.  But I haven't gotten the puzzles ready yet.



Brayden's job is filling bird feeders.  We got about 3 inches of snow on Monday.  He made sure they got plenty of food.



Brayden is loving on Finn while watching our MLK Day videos.  Can't tell the dog does like him!



Lydia has started writing a story that she is going to turn into a book.  It's in the early rough draft stages right now.  She will start adding more next week.  This will be an ongoing project for the next month.  I found empty story books for her to draw her illustrations and story into.  Spoiler alert...pink, sparkly and chickens... 😂😂😂

The boys are working on their biographies for our upcoming Living History Event next month.  Brayden is learning about George Lucas and Joey is reading about Milton Bradley.  Lydia started her reading also.  She will be learning about Helen Keller.  Caty took a little longer to decide and now we are waiting on her books from the library yet.  Hopefully this week.  She wants to learn about Lucille Ball.  They kids look forward to this event every year! 

This is our week in a nutshell....Linking up with other Moms at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and HomeschoolReviewCrew.com


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