Week 14

Thanksgiving week!  We had 2 days of school to finish up and catch up some things.  Nathan did a Thanksgiving grocery shop game and that was it for him!!

The other kids did some Oregon Trail activities to finish up our week of expeditions.  We are doing school at TV trays now because we removed the homeschool table for the Christmas tree.  :)

Lily went to see The Nutcracker, a great start to Christmas season.

Nathan helped make a Weight Watcher recipe for peppermint brownies--early Christmas baking!

The Christmas train came out and it's a huge hit with the boys.  They keep setting up and re-setting up the track however they like.  

The kids set up their own trees:

We set up the tree on the porch:

And we set up our big tree inside:

3 more weeks of school and then Christmas break!!

Week 13

Nathan had a Thanksgiving-themed week and he was totally confused to NOT have a letter focus.  Ha!  He didn't seem to think it was as important. :)  We made a pinecone turkey and his has 3 eyes...

We made turkey feathers fly in the parachute--too cold to do this outside!

We made pumpkin spice playdough.  We used the recipe that was in the packet I had and it was NOT as good.  It was very sticky and we threw it away after one day.  But, the kids loved it!

Samuel worked on some turkey math and reading.

I got up at 7:00 one morning and found Hunter at the kitchen table, working away on his schoolwork for the day.  This is the nice thing about the kids having assignment notebooks.  I write all their work in for the week and then they are responsible for getting it done each day.  Hunter likes to do his early and be done.  Lily often works ahead so she doesn't have handwriting, for example, each day.

In Konos, we studied attentiveness by focusing on maps, mountain men and animal tracks.  We had a lot of fun exploring library books on these topics.  We'll actually continue this study on Monday.  The kids had a map-themed mystery to solve here:

This is their camouflage pictures.  I thought they turned out really well.  They were all given an animal and had to create a scene to camouflage them.  Hunter had the deer, Samuel the lion, Lily the lizard and Nathan the butterfly. 

We have a couple days of catch up and wrap up work but they will be short school days.  Then we are off for Thanksgiving break.  :)

Week 12

This week I guess I didn't get any good pictures of Nathan and the letter 'U'.  It felt like a fast, busy week so here's the pictures I did get:

Samuel working on his sight words:

In Konos, we studied the rest of our senses (we had done hearing and seeing in previous weeks).  

Here is our taste project, which showed different taste bud areas:

We did 2 touch experiments, plus a texture page, clay modeling and shaving cream painting:

Finally, the sense of smell with mystery smells.  :)

We went bowling Monday with some other homeschoolers and everyone LOVED it.  Hunter always loves to bowl and Lily seemed to enjoy herself more this time.  Nathan was hilarious and just loved getting a running start on his turn.  Samuel refused for a bit but finally gave in to the fun and ended up really enjoying himself!

This week was extra special because Hunter and Lily turned 11!!

We had a party at my parents' house on Sunday:

They got a gift package from our friends in Singapore with handmade cards from Thailand, key chains, Lego guys, stickers and letters:

And, we stopped off at Grandma and Papa Kreger's house for presents and fun!

On their birthday, we had presents and ate out for lunch (Hunter picked Chili's) and supper (Lily picked Pizza Ranch) and went to this movie:

Here they are, 11 years old!!  I think they had a great time celebrating.  :)

Week 11

Nathan learned about 'N' this week. This was an exciting letter because it's "his letter".  Ha!  And the curriculum had us do "name" activities and he does enjoy spelling his name.

Samuel made a special name craft this week, too.  He spelled his name and then drew a picture of something that starts with that letter.  S-Snake, A-Apple, M-Moon and Mummy, U-Ugly, E-Exit sign, L-Lollipop.  :)

This was taken one day when Hunter was struggling with math.  They have their lunch sitting on the table but they are focused on getting through the math problems Hunter missed.  

For Konos, we focused on eyes this week.  We did a light/dark-pupil experiment and they were just amazed at that.  We also watched a video of a cow eyeball being dissected:

On Friday, we got to watch the movie that was made based on our read aloud book, Witches.  It was a good opportunity to get rid of some more Halloween candy.  

On Tuesday, the kids went with me to vote:

On Thursday, the boys and I kept busy while Lily was in class:

After we picked up Lily, we ate out for lunch and did some shopping, just for fun:

Saturday, Hunter had the chance to help with the tagging and release of some birds at a nearby nature center.  He was really excited about it when he came back.  This picture doesn't show it well, but he's holding a bird to release:

Hunter also explored the nature center and wants to take the other kids back for a field trip.  :)

Week 10

Nathan learned about 'H for Halloween' this week!  We had a lot of fun with horses, hands and hearts, too.  Hunter volunteered to be his show-and-tell since his name starts with 'H'.  :)  The sensory bin:

I did not at all teach Nathan to spell or write his name but he picked it up.  He's showing off here:

We made a spider's web for our Halloween-themed fun.  He counted to 20 while finding the spiders.

 Samuel and I had some fun this week.  I have been spending time with him, getting him confident in spelling and writing his name.  We've done a lot of activities on this.  I have heard him tell his cousin that he knows how to spell/write his name and he showed Papa PJ when he came over.  He's pretty proud and I'm glad I took some time off of regularly-scheduled-items to grow his confidence in this.  Anyway, here is Samuel smashing sight word pumpkins.  :)  This made a HUGE mess but it was too cold to do it outside.  He loved it! (It's printed pumpkins sitting on a pile of shaving cream.)

Hunter and Lily did some fun English activities to review parts of speech.  This game helped them  review proper and common nouns

In Konos, we studied ears/music/sound this week.  We brought the tent inside to be our ear and added construction paper for wax/hair, a bucket for the eardrum, a hammer for the hammer, a drumstick for the anvil, a triangle for the stirrup, a bottle with water for the cochlear and then there was yarn for nerves leading to a pillow (the brain).  We walked through the parts over and over but I'm not sure if it stuck or not.  :)

I discovered the joy of watching videos in school.  Ha!  We watched some orchestra-themed videos and a video on Helen Keller this week.  

We had Halloween-themed morning activities this week and this one was a hit because I had not called the kids to the table yet but there 2 were, getting started without me.  :)

Hunter and Lily started a new multiplication game on my tablet and this was a hit!

Also this week, they helped me chop about 48 peanut butter cups for a cheesecake.  So glad they helped unwrap all those candies!

We took Friday off of school to enjoy Halloween.  It was our 1st vacation day from school!  Halloween was a success this year--way too much candy in my kitchen now.  :)

Here are the kids with their pumpkins--Brian helped clean and carve while I was out one night.

The finished projects:

This year's costumes:  

Nathan is Iron Patriot

Lily is Maleficent

Samuel is a phantom

Hunter is The Thing

Our trick-or-treat group!