It's the end of week two. This afternoon, I had a little time to reflect on our first two weeks, which left my heart overflowing with gratitude. I am so thankful I live in a country where I can homeschool. I am thankful God has blessed me with the patience, desire and opportunity to homeschool. I am thankful I have a husband who works hard to provide for our family. I am also thankful for my two eager to learn boys, and I am thankful for our simple life. Week two was fun. Simple and fun. I'm pulling my hair out a bit with the pictures I have to share with you. They are grainy and flat. (I totally need to get my little lens on my fancy pants camera so I can use it!) Soon. Like, next week soon. I'm sure this doesn't stress any of you like it stresses me, ha. Moving on. We had to give up on our bird studies for now. The squirrels overtook our bird feeder experiment, and to be honest, birds have been scarce. We'll pick our bird studies up again in the Spring. Next week, we'll start studying bats! Mr. Sunshine will continue to work on his very own bird guide. Here's a peek at the cover: His mission? To draw and write about birds he sees around town! I'm still doing cartwheels of excitement over Sequential Spelling. It rocks my socks, friends. Mr. Sunshine doesn't mind the lengthy word lists AND he's spelling words like "disagree, beginning, fleeing." Good stuff for sure. Math has always been a strong subject, and Mr. Sunshine and I learn the same way, so I am thankful for that. Once or twice a week, it brings tears. Sometimes this is my fault- I need to be more disciplined with doing some of the practice activities. Some of it is Mr. Sunshine's fault- like, the yawning, which automatically tells me "boy is tired!" I made this nifty little white board to help visualize regrouping. You know, if you have 9 tens and add one more, you now have 100. I found the tiles at a thrift store, and added numbers to them. We also started playing our own version of "War." Mr. Mustard Seed and Mr. Sunshine split a deck of cards in half. They each take turns flipping over two cards. They add the sum of their two cards. Whoever has the higher number takes all the cards. This game was recommended by Singapore and has truly made a difference! My 4th grade teacher taught me to add by visualizing symbols on cards. I STILL use that method today! This fun little game is definitely strengthening Mr. Sunshine's math skills, and we will probably play it every day. I like when math looks like this, and I love this cute face even more: On 9/11, we took time to watch a few videos on youtube. We also watched some tv. BW floated around, and Mr. Sunshine sat and watched. We talked about what happened that day. We also talked about how my cousin is a hero for serving our country. We decided to start school in our pajamas in the kitchen today. Yummy pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Yes, please! BW requested to work on his "Explode the Code" book again. Yay! I knew it wouldn't be too long! :) Some of the letters are capitalized, but I'm letting that go for now. We'll work on that in the future. For now I'm celebrating his excitement to work hard, write, and have fun. He's been a rock star with his reading, too! Go, BW, Go! I love when big brother comes alongside little brother to cheer him on. Love. these. moments! We're still enjoying our morning Peregrina Bible studies, and our Draw to Learn the Psalm books. Today, the boys had to design a colorful poster with the words "see, encourage, listen, consider." We talked about how the Lord is actively watching out for sad people. We also talked about how we can be like the Lord. We can watch for hurting people, listen to them, consider their feelings and encourage them. Two more quick little things to share. Thing #1- to conclude our bird studies, we watched this really beautiful video: And thing #2- BW drew a sweet picture for his penpal friend in Missouri. He even tried spelling his name! Extreme cuteness. And, that about sums up our week. Er, wait. No it doesn't. I forgot to share one thing with you. Fall. It's coming, ya'll. This past week was cold, and damp, and dull. As you can see, Fall is not my friend. It signifies the end of summer and the beginning of winter. The skies are always dark, trees go bare, I start to shiver, and occasionally have to wear socks (no!) And then on Wednesday weather.com pulled this evil trick: Do you see 9pm? Do you see it?!
Friends, this is what I'm talking about. Fall is a sure sign winter is coming, which in turn means, "-1 feels like" -21" is coming, and this is why Fall and I cannot be friends. But, because I absolutely can't end this on a sour note, I will share 5 fall things I DO enjoy. Even if fall isn't my favorite season, there are still glimmers of happiness scattered about. 1. Pumpkins! They're so round and fat and cute. You can't not love them. 2. Recipes. Soups! I love making soup and homemade bread. I made a butternut squash, sweet potato, coconut soup today. Fab.u.lous. 3. Apple orchards. Such a fun place to make memories, and we always do! 4. Pretty leaves & chubby squirrels! I always feel like the prettiness never lasts long enough *and* it reminds me of dying leaves, BUT... when they're pretty- they are pretty! 5. Christmas music. Yes, I said it. The tunes start playing in October. Usually. I may have to reconsider that. September might need a little Christmas jingle this year. How about you, friend? What are 5 fall favorites you enjoy?
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Our school year is officially underway. The first week was a lot of fun. I'm 100% happy I decided to pick my own curriculum this year. It's awesome to pick things out, and then see them come to life! Before I give you a peek at our week, you have to check our our "back to school" interviews! And now you're ready for a peek at our week- Hard at work: We're continuing to learn about birds. This week, we got to do a science experiment- fun stuff! We made our very own suet, and our very own bird feeder. We wanted to find out what type of food the birds that visit our backyard prefer. Here we are, getting our science on in the dining room: And here's our nifty homemade bird feeder: Isn't it cool?! The boys each made their hypothesis: They decided the birds would like the homemade suet best. Unfortunately, the week was rather rainy, so we weren't able to observe the feeders very much. (We had to bring them inside a few times) We hope to have them out this week, so we can write our little science report. Do you think the birds will prefer the suet or the seed? We're using Evan Moor's "Grammar and Punctuation." When I saw it, I knew it would be a good fit. This week we learned that a sentence has two parts. Here's a photo of Mr. Sunshine with one of his worksheets: I put a lot of thought into our spelling curriculum, and was happy to see our first week go so well. Here's a peek at our spelling week: BW started his week off loving "Explode the Code." His love for it may have lessened as the week went on, but I'm convinced he'll love it again someday. Here he is, working hard on his workbook: Math has been going well, too. We played a fun dice game this week. (When I saw these fuzzy dice at a thrift store, I knew they'd come in handy!) Mr. Sunshine rolled a die. Then he decided whether he was going to put the # in the "ones place" or "tens place." Then he rolled the 2nd die and put that number in the remaining place. Then it was my turn to roll. After I rolled both of my dice, Mr. Sunshine compared our final numbers. Whoever had the greater # was the winner. It was fun and a great way to practice greater than and less than! We're also really enjoying our "Draw to Learn the Psalms" book. We get to "do art" every day... I have artsy boys, so it's pretty perfect! They beg me to do it every day, hehe. I usually read the Psalm while we eat lunch. Then we talk about it. After we finish lunch, they do their drawing assignment. Here's Mr. Sunshine, working on his page: And, here's BW working on his: We're using BJU for History. It was pretty easy this week. We learned a bit about creation. We also learned about cause and effect. I'm using a supplemental curriculum for map study. Part of our map study is on the left, and BJU is on the right: BW has been keeping busy with his reading lessons. Here's a picture of Mr. Mustard Seed teaching him to read after work one night: We found a few fun treats in our mailbox this week. A sweet friend from New York sent us a scorpion sucker. Yes! That's a REAL scorpion in there. (AHHH!) And, some church friends sent a letter asking if we'd like to be penpals. Can you tell how excited my boys are?! Heh. Mr. Sunshine and Mr. Mustard Seed did some fun geography with this Wisconsin puzzle: For our "main" art project, the boys drew self portraits. Then, Mr. Mustard Seed and I added ourselves to their doodles, using a different medium. Two more things. BW wants to show you his fancy play doh race car: And I want to show you a tiny little rainbow: It wasn't even a rainy evening, but I was so excited to find this in the sky!
And what made it even more exciting was the fact that we *just* read about the rainbow in our Peregrina study the morning before. Well, I hope you enjoyed your peek at our week! We'll be back again next week with even more fun to share. |
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