Gathered Together

Another week of school done!  I feel like we're nearing the end but that's probably because my focus is turning to the next school year.  :)  We ditched our long desk and got a small table with 4 chairs for school.  I didn't intend to have all 3 kids gathered there for morning work but they really wanted to sit together.  I just love this arrangement much better--seems more home-like and I do like that we can gather together easier.

You can see Lily and Hunter are thinking hard.  :)

Samuel did some fishing in math this week--we are working on subtracting.  He enjoyed this a lot--he likes to be active.  Actually, I like these activities better, as well.  When I sit with him with pencil/paper, it takes a year and a half to go through the problems on a page.  Ha!  Every picture has a story so he has to tell me it and draw on to the picture and etc.  It's very funny and sweet and I don't mind it--but it does lengthen the lesson.  Here's an example of a remark that I jotted down this week because it cracked me up: 

Me: Circle the pictures that start with 'f'.

Samuel: Mom, can I circle the pig?? Because I like pigs--they're squishy."

Ha!  It's an adventure but I'm glad he's free to have some ants-in-the-pants and use his imagination during his school day.

Our Geography curriculum had us in Peru this week but there wasn't enough to do for 5 days so we took a day out to do a continent puzzle (South America, of course).  This was a huge hit!!  We'll have to do the rest of the continents.

For science, we are entering the space portion of our book.  We learned a bit about stars and then made star jars--glow-in-the-dark paint inside a glass jar.  All 4 kids enjoyed this!  It may not have taught them anything about stars but I'm okay with that.  :)

Better Late Than Never

This weekly post is a bit late because it was a busy weekend!  We have a new computer so I had to wait to switch pictures and all that.  But, we're up and running now.  :)  Unfortunately, I've lost memory of last week.  So, here are some pictures:

 

 

Samuel playing a muffin match game to make sure he's remembering the capital and lowercase match.  He did this easily so that's good!

 

Lily working on those multiplication problems.  We are taking a time out from her regular math to do a bunch of multiplication printables to help her out with those facts.  It's tough!

 

Play dough was requested this week...we whipped up an orange batch and it is the best way to pass the time for these boys!

 

The twins worked on making sentences with linking verbs.  English is so fun!  :)

We finished our read aloud (Ginger Pye) and started our new book (The Trumpet of the Swan) so that's always exciting.  We all liked the last book a lot!  We also studied Panama and tornadoes last week.  That's about all I remember.  It's Monday morning...time for a new week!!

100

This week we had our 100th day of school!  We didn't really recognize it much but it's a milestone.  :)  It was a very busy week for us!

We made shaving cream clouds rain:

Nathan painted with shaving cream at the same time.  He thought it was whipped cream so that was a surprise to him.  Don't feel too bad for Samuel--he refused to do either activity.  :)

Making some paper chains to learn about linking verbs.  Fun stuff!

The kids had their dental appointments this week.  They all did a great job but I was so happy with how well Nathan cooperated--I was worried about a biting incident.  :) He celebrated with a snack of giant snowball.  Ha! This kid loves snow.

Samuel had his physical this week.  This was the 1st time he's actually spoken to our doctor and he was pretty ornery, answering every question wrong, intentionally.  Thankfully, we have a wonderful doctor who laughs this off.  :)

On Friday, we had a Valentine party at the library.  Another homeschool Mom that arranges PE and other activities for homeschoolers arranged the event.  The kids enjoyed games, crafts and a movie with snacks (and, of course, exchanging valentines).  It was fun for them!  Since it was at the library, the kids wanted to check books out.  Lily found 8 and read 1 before supper.  She rocks at reading!

Samuel with his pile of goodies.  He shared candy with me so that was nice.  :)

Nathan at the party.  He did pretty well sitting through the movie--although, we did stay in the back.  :)  He had a pretty good time and was so happy to get 4 suckers.  

Hunter focused on decorating his bag when we got home.  He's a budding artist.  :)

This week...

 We finished January up with a somewhat eventful week.  We knew it would be a 4 day week because we were celebrating Samuel's birthday on Friday.  Then, we had a snowstorm that kept Brian home from work so I was tempted to call a snow day from school but I decided we better forge ahead.  However, we did finish all of our school before lunch that day--mainly because Brian was here to help with the one-on-one time.  Then, we had a day where Nathan was very sick with a stomach bug--he keeps me hopping when he's sick because he resists using a bucket or anything like that.  So, it was a full week for us outside of school!

We also did some cloud painting in science.

Samuel practiced his -at words with some really great printables by this blog.

Samuel also made a fraction frog in math!  He loves projects like this.

We studied Brazil this week so we did make a rainforest diorama--not as intense as the curriculum suggested but it looked pretty cool.  It was very interesting to learn about the different layers of the rainforest!

Poor Nathan....sick all morning.

On Friday, we went to Playstation for Samuel's birthday.  Samuel is a Groundhog baby so his birthday was Saturday but I don't like to frequent these kids' places on weekends--too many kids, too many germs.  :)  

The big kids got worn out quickly!

We came back home for presents from us--he voted to open them early since we were celebrating early.

For supper, he asked to eat at the Target food court.  Ha!  I can't say I've done that before but it was fun.  

We also visited Brian's parents Friday night and then, on his actual birthday, we went to my parents' house for a party.  It was a full two days and he was exhausted by Sunday but I think he had a great birthday--6 years old now!!!!!!!!