Our weekly triumphs and accomplishments

It was a long weekend....so I didn't get a chance to get our Week in Review done.  Now it's time to post what we're doing this week...lol.

Last Monday, Joey and Dad went to a Star Wars Library program.  He had fun!

 They made light saber pens and built with LEGOS.

They made R2-D2 out of Twinkies.

They made cool Yoda puppets and Naboo Rocks.

Joey also is learning how to knit using a loom.  He is working on a hat for a friend of ours new baby.

While they were at the Star Wars program, the girls and I made fizzy bath salts for our American Girl Luau Party.

My kitchen floor was covered...since the girls were helping me so much!

They really did fizz!  My flash made the picture too light.  That is sea shell shaped.

 Lydia and I made a baby Mediterranean Monk Seal out of an old pair of socks.

 And this is the sand for our sand blocks drying.  These were for building our Ancient Egypt project.

 Joey built his out of the styrofoam project bricks.  It was a rough morning.  I didn't plan on two pyramids that day, but he was having such a rough day I had him work at a different table.

 We also talked about how they made mummies.

For Health, they worked on taking pictures of ingredients and then showed what they could make.  Such as fresh dough, cheese and tomato sauce could make pizza.  Or bread and cheese can make grilled cheese.  They enjoyed this, and then we watched a kids documentary called 'What's on your Plate?'.  We should have broke that up, but we finished it during dinner.

 In Art, we talked about how artists use nature around them to create.  It was icky outside that day, so I put together a nature box instead of going on a nature walk.  They could use these items to either inspire them to draw a nature scene, or just draw the items themselves.

 Joey went for inspiration

 And Lydia choose to draw the items.  Although we did not have a sea shell in the box...but hey apparently she is inspired by the beach.

 Lydia and I have started a new Reading/Phonics program in addition to Reading Eggs.com.  There are activities at the end of each small 'book' that we read.  This week we read the hat, and added had, got, up and down to our reading wall.

Here we are making our hat.

 And here is trying to seem like she is in the wind.  Here streamers are going...but her hat didn't fly away like Pam's did in the story.

 This is a picture of our blood experiment last week.  We have been watching it all week.  Now it looks like our blood.  The red from the candies finally made it look more red.  Which is how we see our blood.

Joey, Brayden and I build a wooden trebuchet while watching Pumpkin Chunkin 2011....it was fun to do a relaxing project while eating a snack.  And I only almost glued the project to my hand a couple times.  We were using instant drying airplane glue.  It worked really...really well!!

 We had a little bit of snow on Wednesday morning, so the kids went out and played.  Built some very tiny snowmen.

And this made my week....we won a wreath from Wreaths of Maine!!!  It is so beautiful on our porch and smells sooooo good out there!!

In Science, we did review work on bones and joints.  Brayden is struggling with his lapbook.  He is having a hard time reading and finding answers.  This is part of his comprehension difficulties.  So we will be approaching this differently in the upcoming week to help with frustration.  Joey also worked on his So I wanna be a Chef book.  He is struggling a bit too, due to comprehension issues.  So also approaching the project differently this next week.

We tried to make gluten/dairy/egg free brownies this week.  But we only ended up with Brownie soup...which was tasty though:)  We'll have some cooking projects this next week to do though.

Hope everyone had a great week and has a wonderful upcoming week.

Homeschool Mother's Journal - Week 27

In my life this week....


Too much drama!!  Just alot of trying to keep up with cleaning and the kids.  Caty had an appointment with the Pediatric Urologist...finally.  We wait an hour to see a nurse practitioner.  WHAT!!!  And then of course, no answers...just more questions.  We will chart her toilet habits and need to take her in for an ultrasound of her bladder.  That ought to be fun to hold her down for about 10-20 minutes.  Hopefully though we will be able to get some answers for her recurrent bladder infections.


In our homeschool this week....


Lots of little projects and learning.  We actually had a successful week of getting alot done!!!  We are trying to get back into our history program.  We'll be doing history/geography every week.  Lessons from each one day a week.  So states one day and then another day will be Story of the World.  If we need an extra day for some reason, no big deal...we can add it in.


Lydia started a new reading program to go along with Reading Eggs.  She is doing awesome with that, so we bought the Harcourt Trophies Grade 1 series.  This is the first book we are working through, along with the workbook.  We will be using the all 4 books as long as she is enjoying it.

She is liking it alot, and can almost read the first story without help.  She is still only at about 15 site words memorized, but doing well...when she chooses to.


Brayden is working on a Cars 2 trivia lapbook that I created for him.  We are really needing to limit his video game time.  We started limiting him.   He is not wanting to leave the house again.  Full screams with kicking and screaming happen each time.  We tried to get him to go to his cousins house for an hour, and he about took Joe and I both out.  Good thing we have a specialist appointment tomorrow for him


Ever since we let Caty go back to preschool to go to Speech therapy, I have been having difficulty with Caty working with me like she was.  We finally have broken some ground and she is willing to play with me more and do some activities.  I was getting nervous since this is her last year of preschool in an school outside of our home.  She will be fully homeschooled next year.


Joey is working his way through the week.  He is having trouble with getting info down on paper.  If I verbally ask him the questions, he can give me the answer.  If he has to write the answer....forget it!!  I can tell he is having a medication issue.  Can barely sit still right now.  Ever since we had to pull him off the meds that were causing episodes, it seems as if his morning meds have not been working properly.  Looks like the specialist will be getting lots of questions and earning his money tomorrow...lol!


Places we're going and people we're seeing....


We stayed home most of the week!!!  Whooohooo!!!  Lydia did have an American Club luau today in honor of Kanani.  She had so much fun.  Caty had a specialist appointment yesterday and both boys have one tomorrow afternoon.  I just have to say, it was so nice not needing to run all over the area.


What's not working for us....


All the kids starting school at the same time.  I am seriously running between all 4 kids answering questions and to work one-on-one.  I am killing myself.  So I have decided to try and stagger the kids school times.  I'll pack the workboxes and mark the things that need to be done with me, because sometimes Joey wants to work on his assignments gradually.  If they can work independently, go for it.  My starting plan is to do an hour of school with Lydia and then each of the boys.  The afternoon will be reserved for group projects.  This will allow me to focus more on each kid....hopefully.  Like everything else in life, it will be an ongoing experiment to see what works best.


Questions I have....


I need some advice on a good way to get vitamins into our 9 year old.  He is having a horrible obsession with certain foods and then doesn't even eat that much.  He is losing weight.  I thought about Ensure and using it in making him some foods like homemade pancakes, ice cream and smoothies.  But those are full of all kinds of processed chemicals that are not healthy.  Any suggestions???  He is currently obsessed with eating frozen waffles and mini-pancakes.  For dinner he finally ate half a cheeseburger that I had made.  Just about fell over when I saw him actually eat.  But he was very precise in how much he ate.  His only protein is coming from the milk that he drinks.


Things I'm working on...


Just trying to keep up right now.  I am optimistic that I will be able to clean (or de-clutter) some this weekend.  But not sure with a busy weekend planned.  So we will wait and see.  I may change the background on or blog this weekend.


I'm cooking....


I have been trying gluten-free brownies this week.  Not going well so far.  It's a work in progress.  We got to chocolate pudding today.  Maybe tomorrow.  I was so tired when I came home from the luau that I just didn't have the energy to attempt another batch.


Photo to share.....


Monday morning I opened my email to find that I won a wreath from Wreaths of Maine.  I was sooo excited.  It arrived today.  FAST Shipping!!!!  This product is beautiful and smells wonderful! Thank you Amanda Bennett unit studies for sponsoring this giveaway!!!

Linking up with other Homeschool Mommies...check out the Homeschool Chick!

Pyramid Building---Our style

This week in history....yeah not been keeping up with history as well as we should have....we talked about mummies and pyramids.  Another week and we'll be done with Ancient Egypt.

We built mummies using gauze, while I read the Ms. Frizzle book on Ancient Egypt.  (I highly recommend this book!)  This activity is found in Ancient Egypt History Pockets.

Our finished mummies.  Each body was placed in several colorful coffins.  So our project represents two separate boxes and then the actual body.

We used cut up gauze.  My flash bleached it.

Story of the World gave us the idea for making sand blocks.  And while looking for something in our supply closet, I just happened to find several small bags of colored sand.  So these are our sand bricks starting to dry.

 Our blocks were not perfect, but the girls enjoyed them.  Caty, Lydia and I worked with them.

 While Joey and I worked with the project bricks.

 One finished pyramid.

 Two finished pyramids.

While we worked on this project, we watched

Which you can stream on Netflix right now.  I was always taught that slaves built the pyramids.  Well that is wrong!  The workers were actually paid....with beer and bread.  This movie also show the inside of pyramids with robotic cameras.  It was a very interesting show!!!

Next week we will be learning about the homes and daily life in Ancient Egypt.

Happy Brownie Day!!!

Yummy!!!!  It's going to be a good day!

Our visit to Cyprus

This month's World Traveler's Club Country is Cyprus.  Such a small, island country.  But it has a really colorful history.  It has been under rule by Greece, Turkey and even Britain.  

Did you know that there are no train rails in Cyprus???  It is the birthplace of Aphrodite.

The boys just studied basic facts about Cyprus.  They learned where the country is located, and what the flag looks like.

We also had our Cypriot meal, which Joey actually enjoyed.  This time, well as I always do, I adjusted the recipe.  This time only because of the meat.  I honestly bought ground lamb to use, but when I opened it all I could smell was a rotted egg smell.  Grossed me out totally....I am assuming the meat was bad.  So we substituted ground beef.  It is called Tavva .

Lydia did a project on the Mediterranean Monk Seal.  Very little is actually known about this mammal that is on the endangered list.  In fact, there are only a few hundred to be thought of alive.  I had to come up with a project for her....she always wants a project...lol.


So we made a baby Med. Monk Seal out of old black socks.


We stuffed it full of stuffing and then hot glued the tail flat to look like the baby seals.

 I cut flippers from from fabric scraps, and we hot glued them on.

And then we gave the little cuties eyes, whiskers and noses.

 She made a lapbook, and she did most of the handwriting!!!!  Lots of whining, but she did it!

 We also watched a special program on Mediterranean Monk Seals that we found on a Animal Site.  I cannot find the link now.  It had some actual footage of the monk seals on a rare beach in Greece that the seals have started hiding at.  They are skittish animals, so it was cool to see the babies and mom together.

 Next month we will be visiting North/South Korea.

It's Chunkin' time......Have you Heard of Pitsco??

Joey loves to do projects.  We are always looking for educational building sets.  He enjoys models very much.  He could put together models daily, but the coolest part about the models from Pitsco...they really work.


We had the opportunity to review the Medieval Machines Pack from Pitsco.   We were all excited about this package coming.  Who wouldn't love to put together a catapult or trebuchet????  This set sells on the Pitsco site for only $21.95.  It includes a kit for a wooden catapult, a wooden trebuchet, and a book entitled Siege Machines. This book is full of historical facts, experiments, and many various resources to turn these projects into  multi-curriculum and multi-age fun!


Dad and Joey built the catapult together first.  We highly recommend using plastic wrap or cardboard underneath your projects while assembling.  We used a quick dry model airplane glue (because of impatience) and even the wood glue that we used started to drip.  

The instructions were easy to follow.

And assembly was quick and almost without issue.  There was a few times where they assembled some pieces the wrong way.  They were able to quickly fix it and had a working catapult.

Then it was mom's turn to assemble the trebuchet.  I have to say, the instructions were simple for me to follow.  But this was a full hands-on project for us to be with Joey.  I do not see anyway he could have assembled this project completely on his own.   There was some cutting of the paper clips with this project, so we did need wire cutters and a small box knife for cutting a couple notches.....as well as the glue.

 Joey did help.

 And Brayden even helped a bit to.

 Of course our finished project was totally cool....

And Brayden was nervous at how far our clay would go....got this great shot of him flinching as the arm swung.  He enjoyed trying to find a balance of weights versus the clay ball.  And for him to show that much interest in a science project shows just how fun these kits are!

These are such wonderful projects to put together.  It was great together time and will be something they will remember doing with us.  It was not only great family time, but educational also.


The project book that accompanies this pack is full of suggested activities to turn the fun into learning with lots of hands-on activity for both Math and Science.  The quality seems good.  The kids put both items to the test, and they are both still holding out well.


I definitely recommend these products to other parents.  They are great for homeschooling families for science/math projects.  I am looking forward purchasing more of their kits for upcoming science projects.  And they are priced right for that!!  They would also make a great gift to older students who love to build models.   


Product information:
Sold by:  Pitsco Education
Cost:  $21.95


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*****I received Medieval Project Pack from Pitsco free of charge for the sole purpose of this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The views I have expressed are my own and are real experiences with my family. I am disclosing this is accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html>:"Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."