Our week in Pictures - Week 37

This is what our week looked like.  It always seems like a lot, but it's definitely manageable.  I was so happy that we did finish everything on our list!!  Ok..not everything.  Joey will continue his Jacob and Esau study for another week, and since Caty was a bit under the weather this week she only did one art project instead of two.  Since she painted a snow storm with a toothbrush, she didn't do her "artist" re-creation this week.

Joey

Math - Comparing & rounding thousands

Grammar - Essentials in Writing - Simple Sentences

Science - The Plant World

Ohio History - Early Europeans in Ohio

Spelling

Bible - Jacob and Esau

Scholastic News - Learning about Rosa Parks

Adventure Club - George Washington

Handwriting - Handwriting without Tears cursive

Brayden

Math - Review topics from this month

Grammar - Essentials in Writing

Science - Start lesson on Bees

Scholastic News - Learning about Rosa Parks

Spelling

Bible - Lot

Social Studies - Harriet Tubman

Adventure Club - Finish George Washington Book

Reading Comp - Reading Bad Kitty and Reading Comp book

Lydia

Math - Starting Touch Math Grade 2 (watch for the upcoming review)

Science - Finish learning about Caniforms & Experiment from Hooked on Science

Spelling - AAS#1 & 2 (We are going very slowly with this.)

Reading - McGuffey reader

Phonics - A Beka Letters and Sounds

History - SOTW Book 1 CH 1 Earliest People

Bible Study - Creation of Man

Geography - Canyon and Cape

Art - Mark Rothko

Handwriting - I downloaded a new cursive writing app

Caty

Letter/Phonics - Hooked On Phonics PK (she will be starting this new this week)

Handwriting - Handwriting without Tears Wet/Dry app

Math - Practice Counting to 25, counting by 2s and writing numbers

Gym - playing catch with a very soft ball

Science - Shadows

Geography - What are maps?  Draw a large map of our house

Art - Dot Painting

Games - Frog Hop, Dora Uno and Puzzles

Speech therapy - Concentrating on the F and S sounds (playing with Go Fish speech cards)

Stories - Winter stories

Joey and Brayden started their section in Ohio History about Fur Trade in Ohio.  We also talked about the French and Indian War, and why this was a definite turning point in the colonists beginning to fight for their independence.   We watched most of Last of the Mohicans to go along with this study.

The boys got a little behind on their Scholastic Newsletter.  It seems a bit overwhelming for them.  I asked them to do question and answer sheets to go with these (that I created).  They do not like comprehension questions.  I may not do that again for a few weeks.  The boys also officially started a new grammar program (watch for the upcoming review), and they seem to like it so far.  Brayden finished his George Washington book, and Joey is almost done with his reading.

Lydia started Touch Math Grade 2 (watch for the upcoming review)..She has willingly spent hours, actually begging to do the software side of the program.  So watch for our upcoming review next month.  She also continued doing All About Spelling Level 1.  She did two lessons this week, and did a great job.  I actually didn't think we would make it through 1 & 2, but I want to take it slowly, but she really is picking up on hearing the different sounds in a word.  Problem is she doesn't remember this when she gets to a word she does not remember.  She just freaks out and asks for help.  Yep...reading is coming very slowly, but she has made great improvement!

Caty (watch for Caty School posts on Tuesdays), did pretty good this week.  I kept lessons short (roughly 15 minutes max) to help with her learning.  She is loving the Hooked on Phonics alphabet song!!  Hoping this is the program that "speaks" to her and says..."Please yes...continue reading with me...lol"  After all we have been through with Lydia, really hoping for an easier route with Caty!

We had so many little projects ..... Lydia learned a little this week about the European Pine Marten that lives in Belgium.  I learned that they are cute, yet nasty little critters that force people to wrap their cars at night sometimes in chicken wire to keep them from chewing on important car parts like brake lines!

Lydia actually begged to keep playing on her math software.

Joey had a game.

 Lydia and I were going through magazines for her Smash book/Scrapbook.  Yeah...we had a huge mess!

For History we learned about the Nomads.  She did Cave Art, which also happened to be our theme for Art Class this week..lol.

We also read The First Dog by Jan Brett.  Lydia has started Story of the World V. 1 again.  

 For our Artist Study, she learned about Mark Rothko.

Working on her math.

 Joey and I attempted to make a pumpkin custard the way GeorgeWashington loved.....Yeah, mommy was stupid and forgot to check on the pumpkin.  It was yummy, but burnt :(

Caty started her Hooked on Phonics program.  A lot of review for this time, but she really likes the DVD and songs.

Brayden working on his bees unit.

 Lydia being silly...she's reading her McGuffey Reader with a magnifying glass.

She attempted a Word Ladder worksheet.  She thought it was cool, but we are going to wait a couple more months before we do more.

 Lydia loves Mo Willems....this is a newer one at our library.  And of course we loved it....

 And then we made some homemade chocolate pudding to go with our reading.  Reading about all that pudding made us hungry!!

We had a cool week, I'll spend this afternoon making adjustments for next week.  So the boys don't feel overwhelmed.  That and planning our Fire House unit for Miss Caty next week.

Hope everyone had a wonderful week...Linking up with other Homeschool families at:

Homeschool Mothers Journal - Week 37

In my life this week....

It has been a busy one, but yet we accomplished our schoolwork.  Our house has suffered greatly...laundry is not folded, and there are little piles of unfinished projects laying all over the place. The living room floor needs vacuumed....yet again.  Yeah, we made snowflakes yesterday :)  

Poor Caty has a cold, but actually is fairing pretty well through it.  She's congested and has a cough.  I have been trying to get her to keep taking the raw honey and cinnamon mixture, but she is fighting the taste.  Who knows....but I think it's helping her not get it as severe as others.  Lydia has been doing fairly well not getting anything besides a few sniffles.   So far we have been fairly fortunate this cold/flu season.  Last year we were hit hard, so I am very grateful for the kids being healthier this year.

In our homeschool this week.....

We finished all our work!!  Lydia is doing great in AAS#1 so far.  We are going slow, and she is recognizing sounds in words very well.  Problem is that she can hear it and spell things with letters (3 letter words), but when it comes to reading......she forgets to sound out the words.  Sounds she knows well, just are not clicking.  We just keep working at it.  She has made great strides in the past two months!  She is doing well with her Geography study.  Each week we are learning two new geography terms.  We are making a Geography wall with all of our new terms.

Caty started Hooked on Phonics preschool and is really enjoying it!  She did pretty well in school this week.  I have been crafty in her lessons and keep them short to match her attention span.

Joey is doing great with his A Beka Science.  And Brayden with his Science choice also.  The boys have struggled this week to do their work.  There's not too much...but just a lack of attention span for anything except Star Wars and Mindcraft.  Go figure.

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

Lydia had zoo class today and World Travelers Club.  She loved seeing all her friends at World Travelers.  Next week is a busy week.  We have a library program on Mo Willems (one of Lydia's favorite authors), all our sports, the symphony, and Scouts.

My favorite thing this week.....

Cutting Snowflakes with the girls.  We were sitting around in our PJs.  We read Snowflake Bentley and cut pretty snowflakes.  It was fun to teach the girls.

Things I'm working on....

I have a variety of different things going for Scouts, Special Olympics and our own family.  It's a bit overwhelming, but drudging my way through.

I'm cooking.....

Joe and I have been eating more salads this week.  They sounded yummy.  We had grilled chicken salad, a citrus salmon salad.....and today for my lunch I packed a salad with mangoes, diced pear, yellow pepper, and fresh oranges diced up.  I baked a piece of salmon to eat with it also.  It was super yummy!!!

Brayden was happy that I made brownies and chicken N dumplings.  Lydia and I also made pumpkin coconut sugar cookies...and let me just say they were a huge hit with our kiddos!!!  I made a batch with and without choco chips!    They were actually addicting.

I'm working on next week's menu, but I think lasagna is necessary next week!  It sounds so good!!  I also want to make egg rolls with a special rice paper I found at Kroger.  So may make those Saturday.

Made Mickey Mouse pancakes for the kiddos too!  I was working on a pancake recipe experiment, and it turned out great.  Freezes well too.  Going to try and write a post up with pics on Sunday!

I'm reading.....

What can I say....I'm a sucker for a good love story!  I don't get to read for fun much, just one or two chapters a week.  I'm enjoying it so far.

I'm rewarding the kiddos with....

Tomorrow if we finish all of our work when we get home from having bloodwork done in the am.  3 of 4 kiddos need blood work and so does Daddy....they get a prize for going and doing the work, but if we get their small amount of assignments done we'll have movie time.  I have not decided on the series...yet.  I may let them pick out of the bargain bin tomorrow at Walmart..lol.  I got the Archie show from the library today, so maybe that one.

Photo to share....

Miss Caty has had a cold this week.  No fever, just congested and a sinus headache & a cough.  Wednesday I popped in a Shape movie for her to enjoy while I worked with Lydia.  She laid down with her pillow and blanket to enjoy it :)  Hopefully she'll be back to 100% soon!

Linking up with other homeschool moms at iHomeschool Network.  Be sure to visit them!!

Learning about Alexander Calder

Our artist this week was Alexander Calder.  Also known as Sandy, he was born July 22, 1898.  And died November 11, 1976.  He is attributed with creating the mobile.

This artist has the prime upbringing for a creative individual.  He had his own tools and instruments to create.   He sculpted with all kinds of materials that he found laying around.

He used to fashion his friend's portraits as movable.  But eventually he gravitated toward simple shapes.

 He used bright colors, favoring red, yellow, blue and black in his oil paintings.

Since he made a metal duck when he was 11 years old, I decided that Lydia's art project for Alexander Calder should be something to show form.  So she made a multi-dimensional dog out of construction paper.

She folded the paper in half and drew features on it, and then cut it out.

 Drew the head separate and cut it out.

 Connected all the pieces together and added features of a tail and ears.

I got this project idea from Artistic Pursuits.  It was fun to do.

Suggested links for Alexander Calder:

How to make a mobile.

This is a short 10 minute video, it cuts off though and doesn't finish his whole life.  But very informative about his early life.

Official Alexander Calder Website.

Next week..................Mark Rothko

Preschool made easy with Flowering Baby

Like most preschoolers, ours has the attention span of zilch.  And I have a hard time finding the right balance between making sure she is getting the education she needs and not getting enough.   After all, she's just barely 5.  There's a lot of playing left to do.

We had the opportunity to try out the curriculum created by Flowering Baby, Inc.   Flowering Baby offers curriculum choices from Birth to Age 5.  It's fun and interactive ideas to do with your child throughout all these crucial development years.  

I have been trying to allow the kids to learn subjects they are most interested in, and slyly throw in more "learning" without them realizing it.  So I was wondering how this program was going to work.  Would it be too structured or even allow any learning?  I have to say I was impressed with how well it has worked.

The 4-5 year old program is broken down by month and then by daily suggested activities.  Included in the daily activities are exposure to music, reinforced phonetic and math skills, ideas for science, literature activities, and game suggestions.

This young age group definitely learns a lot through play and interaction.  The activities included are play based and allow for a lot of interaction with your child.  Most activities suggested require very small amounts of time, which was awesome for our attention challenged daughter.  In fact, I was able to easily make adjustments to suggested items to fit our daughter's interests.  Such as when we were counting, we did it while hopping.  She didn't even realize she was doing Math.  Most days, we would work for 10-15 minutes at various times throughout the day.  

We have been using this program for a month now, and I am enjoying the simplicity of planning lessons for Caty with the help of Flowering Baby curriculum.  Basically I take the daily suggestions, and I add in an outside phonics program.  They do recommend outside Math and Phonics programs for your child, as their suggested activities are meant to reinforce other programs you would be using for these subjects.

A typical week for us might go like this.....

Changing the shape on the floor of our living room weekly.  This week was a triangle.  She would practice walking on the tape like it was a balance beam.  Or hop around it on one foot.

The suggestion of using painters/masking tape for a floor shape was great.  We would put together puzzles in it or we even used it as a sitting area during speech therapy.

We have been following the book suggestions from Flowering Baby on books about shapes. And we even practiced cutting triangles and made a flower with triangles.

Each day a math reinforcement activity is given.  The one for this day was counting items.  So I adjusted it to counting cereal.  We used fruit cereal and laced them onto pipe cleaners marked with the numbers she needed to count.  This was a favorite and got some important fine motor skill thrown in.

We practiced writing our numbers.  There is no set book listed, this happened to be the dry-erase book we used.

For Science we discussed healthy eating and exercise habits.  I easily was able to include library materials to go with this activity.  

 We used sale flyers to pick out good and bad food.

This was a following directions activity for making a snowman to go with the book suggestion for The Snowman.

 Of course we followed the suggestion of leaving out art materials for her to use whenever she wanted.

Learning about the eye using The Eye Book and color paddles:

 Using the mirror on a piece of doll furniture to look at her eye.

 Mixing colors with the paddles.

Our school day might last about an hour and half depending on the stories we chose to read.  Of course this is not all at once, but spread throughout the day.

Some of the stories suggestions we have been enjoying are:
Snowflake Bentley
Jack and the Beanstalk
The Snowy Day
The Snowman
Jack and Jill
The Little Red Hen

For parents of multiple children or even those who need a guide to get them started homeschooling their child, Flowering Baby is a wonderful place to get started.  Easy-to-follow lesson plans are provided.  The only real prep work I had was ordering materials from the library.  Prep for "Caty" school really took 15-20 minutes of my weekly planning time.  That makes my life so much easier.

Flowering Baby offers curriculum levels for Ages Birth to 5.


$30.00  Birth to One Sample Page


$30.00  One to Two Sample Page


$30.00  Two to Three Sample Page


$38.00  Three to Four Sample Page


$38.00  Four to Five Sample Page

Would I recommend this product for families with young children?  Without a doubt yes!!

The cost of the program is very reasonable.  I really wish I would've have this program 10 years ago.  The suggestions each day require little or no cost to you.  I have been able to use the library for book suggestions and can easily substitute one that is close to the book that is suggested if our library does not have one.

You use materials from around the house.  I splurged for one purchase so far, and that was the color paddles that we used to go with learning about the eye.  We could've easily done this activity with just paint or food coloring, but I got a good deal and bought the paddles.  I have to say that this is the least I have spent on "extras" for any program we have used!!!

I cannot emphasize how easy this program was to use.  The program allowed for very....very easy lesson planning for myself.  The only "extra" you need is in the last year program when you might want to start adding in a phonics program for your child.  They point out that if your child is big into math, you might even add in a structure math program also.

Caty has really enjoyed using this program, and we are going to continue using this to help me finish "preschool" with her.

And for our readers, Flowering Baby is offering a 10% discount when you order.  Just enter the code "Blog10".

Many on the Schoolhouse Review Crew had the privilege of using the Flowering Baby curriculum with their families.  Be sure the visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog to see how they used this product in their homes and what worked for them.




*****Disclaimer......I received Flower Baby LLC  product downloads free of charge for the sole purpose of this review for TOS Schoolhouse Review Crew. 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."

Caty School

Caty had a week of various activities.  We reviewed the Letter C and read our Letter D book.

In Science we read about the eye.  And then tried to draw her eye.  I asked her what happened, and she said that she wanted to draw the inside of her eye.

She is using the little mirror on the Dora doll dresser to look at her eye.

 We mixed colors with Color Paddles.

We read about homes around the world.  We printed pictures we found on the internet and made a poster of all the houses we found.

She had fun trying to roll out her pizza crust for her homemade pizza.

We played some games last week.  She loves this stacking Smurfs game we have.  So we played that, and Dora UNO.  And we even got in a little Scooby Doo Chutes and Ladders.

She asked to start playing guitar more.  She strummed along to Mary had a Little Lamb.  Who knows if she will like it or not.

 She returned back to tap dancing after a two week break because of our trip and illness.

She did school work last week, but after she was sick with that bad UTI we got out of the swing of things.  We played games. But no official "school" work.  So we are gradually making our way back to her schedule.

What we are up to this week....

Another busy week....life wouldn't seem like life without those!

For schoolwork:

Joey

Math - Comparing & rounding thousands

Grammar - Essentials in Writing - Simple Sentences

Science - The Plant World

Ohio History - Early Europeans in Ohio

Spelling

Bible - Jacob and Esau

Scholastic News - Learning about Rosa Parks

Adventure Club - George Washington

Handwriting - Handwriting without Tears cursive

Brayden

Math - Review topics from this month

Grammar - Essentials in Writing

Science - Start lesson on Bees

Scholastic News - Learning about Rosa Parks

Spelling

Bible - Lot

Social Studies - Harriet Tubman

Adventure Club - Finish George Washington Book

Reading Comp - Reading Bad Kitty and Reading Comp book

Lydia

Math - Starting Touch Math Grade 2 (watch for the upcoming review)

Science - Finish learning about Caniforms & Experiment from Hooked on Science

Spelling - AAS#1 & 2 (We are going very slowly with this.)

Reading - McGuffey reader

Phonics - A Beka Letters and Sounds

History - SOTW Book 1 CH 1 Earliest People

Bible Study - Creation of Man

Geography - Canyon and Cape

Art - Mark Rothko

Handwriting - I downloaded a new cursive writing app

Caty

Letter/Phonics - Hooked On Phonics PK (she will be starting this new this week)

Handwriting - Handwriting without Tears Wet/Dry app

Math - Practice Counting to 25, counting by 2s and writing numbers

Gym - playing catch with a very soft ball

Science - Shadows

Geography - What are maps?  Draw a large map of our house

Art - Dot Painting

Games - Frog Hop, Dora Uno and Puzzles

Speech therapy - Concentrating on the F and S sounds (playing with Go Fish speech cards)

Stories - Winter stories

That is how our week looks.  We have double gymnastics (because she has a make-up class due to her hand injury), tap dancing, storytime at the library, Joey has two games to cheer in, Brayden has basketball practice, zoo class and of course guitar.  We have Art class tomorrow too.  I also have some extra responsibilities this week for some clubs.  

Everyone have a wonderful and safe week!!!