Week in Review November 23rd & November 30th, 2012

We had a great Thanksgiving week!  We did lesson on Monday and Tuesday and then took the rest of the week off.  Thanksgiving eve we went to see Zoo Lights at our zoo.  The boys especially love the talking giraffe.  It is life size and loves to answer all the kids' questions. 

Thanksgiving day Jonathan and Daddy went to the downtown civic center for a car show.  They had a blast and even got to ride in a Jeep.  Jonathan, of course, had to sit in every car.  

We had a very laid back Thanksgiving meal at Grandma and Grandpa's to end the day.  Friday was all about Mommy being able to shop without kiddos.  I got everything on my list and did not start until about 10 AM.  

The week after Thanksgiving was back to lessons and our routine.  Jonathan was all about legos this week. He is getting very comfortable with the little legos and had so much fun moving parts around.

I decided to not have any new math concepts this week.  We are well into Right Start A and there is no rush to get it done since we have until next September.  The week was all about math games and practicing writing our numbers.  

We had our daily bible reading and prayer.  We also read several Aesop Fables and several picture books.  For science this week we read about trees from Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Trees.  

The Christmas decorations are slowing going up and the boys had to decorate their house (tent).  Notice their cars in the driveway and the yard all decorated!  

Thanks for sharing our journey!

Week in Review November 16, 2012

We had a pretty good week of lessons and learned some life skills.  Each day we had bible time, prayer time, math and read alouds.  The weather is so perfect this time of year the boys are spending lots of time outside playing.  

This week for read alouds we read from Aesop Fables, Blueberries for Sal and The Story of Ping.  

For science we read the book A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Aston.  

In math we continued to learn about money with dimes, nickels and pennies.  Another math lesson this week was learning about half by folding shapes in half.  Here is Jonathan cutting his shapes out (love the tongue!).  Of course little brother had to do one also.  This is the first time I have allowed him to use scissors.  

Jonathan has been asking to learn to read so we started some word building exercises.  For two days we did word building with 'at'.  It is very slow going since he is not really ready.  He loved doing the word building so I will continue with 'at' until he gets it or if it is no longer fun.  

I had been wanting to teach the boys to clean their bathroom but the cleaners I use are just too harsh for them.  I went to the mommies on one of my favorite homeschooling forums and this is the cleaner I made for them.

2 cups water
1/2 cup vinegar
20 drops of lavender essential oil

The boys had so much fun cleaning their bathroom!  

Week in Review November 9, 2012

This week had a rough start.  Monday was going to be a stay at home day.  We were going to get things done around the house and play.  Our normal routine is to start around 9:00 and do some lessons for about 45 minutes.  We did bible reading, prayer time and story time.  Then came MATH...  For some reason Jonathan wanted nothing to do with the lesson.  It is unusual since he loves math.  Since he was so uncooperative, I put up the math items.  This made Jonathan's attitude even worse so he ended up in his bedroom to cool off and I decided lessons over for the day.  The rest of the day was spent playing and getting stuff done around the house.  

The next day in math I decided to move on to a lesson involving building blocks.  After the bad start to the week I had to remind myself to teach the child, not the curriculum.  He chose to use his Trio blocks and we took turns building a structure that the other person would copy and also made reflection copies.  He loved it and said he wanted to do this every day!  

Later in the week we started to learn about money.  This week we learned about pennies, nickels and dimes.  We ended the week with playing math games.  

Since the weather is so nice this time of year Jonathan and I went outside with our nature journals and drew a map of the backyard.  We talked about observations and each took turns adding to the map.  It was kind of nature study, geography and drawing all in one.  Here is his finished map.  The blue is the pool and the big green area is the grass.  The brown at the bottom are the rocks.  There were 4 small planes that flew over the house this morning and Jonathan added them as well (see to the left of the grass?)

Since I anticipate the boys looking back over this blog for years to come, I wanted to add that this week there was a presidential election.  President Barack Obama (democrat) was elected to a second term.  The republican candidate was Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan.  This got me thinking about what will be the boys' first presidential election they will be eligible to vote in?  Ironically, they will both be voting for the first time in the year 2028.  Jonathan will miss the 2024 presidential election by about a month. 

Thanks again for stopping by!

Week in Review November 2, 2012

Christopher turned 3 and we celebrated with family and friends to start our week.  Here is his birthday cake with construction trucks moving around his dirt icing.

We started our school week with art projects.  Christopher received some fun crayons (shaped like ice cream cones) for his birthday so he also used them to create a master piece.  Also, we brought out the paints to make a few more master pieces.  

The boys also made homemade cards for Daddy's Birthday.

Daddy and the boys had fun trick or treating as pirates!

We read our Bible every day, Aesop Fables and picture books.  We do our reading each morning out in the backyard.  The weather is just perfect!  In math we learned about hexagons and built a beehive from pictures we found online.   We also learned about reflection with our geoboards and geometry reflector.  

Well that brings you up to date in our world.  Thanks for visiting!

Week in Review October 19 & 26, 2012

I am playing catch up for the last two weeks.  The first week started out like the last couple except this time it was me with barfs.  Ugh, so glad it only lasted a short time.  

Jonathan continued to learn his letters and sounds.  We did bible reading each day and Aesop Fables.  In math we started to learn about place value, numbers above 10 and played games.  The week was short since we spent a long weekend in Prescott with Grandma and Grandpa.  Here are some pictures from our trip up north.  The boys went on hikes and we visited a pumpkin patch.  

Here are the boys hiking near a lake.

Jonathan got to hike up Thumb Butte with Daddy and Grandpa.

Here are the pumpkins the boys picked at the pumpkin patch.

What a great weekend in Prescott!

This week no one was sick...yippeee!  To help Jonathan learn his letters and sounds, I pulled out the McGuffey readers.  They have the alphabet with pictures and words and he loved "reading" the words.  Since he was showing so much interest I decided to try some word building.  I put 'at' out and told him it was  "at".  I then added a 'b' and he had no clue what to do (even after I sounded it out).  He knows the 'b' sound but he is still not ready for reading lessons.  I learned very quickly that the pictures on the McGuffey readers were key.  He loves reading the words and for now that is just fine with me. 

In math we continued with place value and played games.  

We read from our bible each day and many Aesop Fables.  We also read some from the Wizard of Oz since Jonathan and I are going to a play this weekend. Our cousin is in the play and I wanted Jonathan to have a basic understanding of the story.  

We are almost through all the letters in Delightful Handwriting but his interest in handwriting is not what it used to be.  He is still only 5 and I think we are going to take a break for a month.  If he starts to ask for lessons again, I will pull it back out.  

For Science this week we read about the golden rod in Outdoor Secrets and looked at pictures of the golden rods on wikipedia.  He then drew a picture in his nature journal.

Thanks again for sharing our week!

Week in Review October 12, 2012

This week was our week to learn about earthworms.  We started the week with reading The Life of and Earthworm and The Uninvited Guest from Outdoor Secrets.  Then we went to Walmart and purchased 12 earthworms and a couple of magnifying glasses.  I wanted this blog to be the good and the bad so here goes.  The instant I poured the earthworms in the bowl, there was a very audible ewwh from me:(  The boys instantly stepped back and wanted nothing to do with them.  So I thought 'come on just pick one up and the boys can see it close up'. ahem, I touched one with the tip of my finger and that was literally all I could make myself do.  By then the boys were off with their magnifying glasses looking at all the plants and rocks in the yard.  Sooo, then we (I mean I) tried to get them some dirt to make tunnels in.  Well, let's just say I think I killed 12 earthworms:(  I think I will stick to plants and leave the bugs and slimy things for Daddy.  

My main goal this week was to work on Jonathan's letters and sounds.  We played a game called guess my letter.  He actually made the game up from a Right Start math game.  One person writes on a dry erase board a letter and then has to tell the other person the sound so they can guess it.  The board is shielded by a file folder.  It really works well and I always start with the first few being easy for him to build his confidence.  

For math this week we started to learn about solving problems with parts.  He did ok but still struggles a bit and definitely will need some more practice.  

For our read alouds, we continued with our daily Bible reading, Aesop Fables and The Wizard of Oz.  Every day we read outside in the backyard and it was fabulous!

I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but Christopher was the one this week with the barfs and fever, ugh:(  Apparently they both needed to have it twice.  Daddy and the boys decorated for Halloween to end the week.  Thanks for visiting!

Week in Review October 5, 2012

Sick again...ugh:(

The week started off with Jonathan having a tummy ache and the barfs again.  At least this time we did not end up in the ER.  It lasted about 48 hours and even though he did not feel good he wanted to do lessons each day.  I am amazed that we did several math lessons, handwriting lessons and of course bible reading and story time.  

Starting next week I am going to make scheduled time for more practice on letter recognition and sounds.  He has made great strides over the last few months.  I don't feel he is ready for word building or reading lessons (nor is he asking to learn to read), but it is time to really see where he is on his letters and sounds.  

Also, next week we are planning on learning about earthworms.  Should be a blast for the boys and I will post pictures of our earthworm farm.  

This week in math Jonathan used his geoboard to make patterns.  

When Jonathan was feeling better we made one of the boys' favorite lunches.  Make your own pizza!

One morning was spent doing some cleaning and of course the boys love to help:)

That wraps up another week of our journey.  Thanks for sharing it with us!