Our Week

In my life this week…I can't even remember the beginning of the week.  That's how I feel about time right now!

In our homeschool this week…we finished our 3rd read aloud and it was so good (The Sword in the Tree).  I actually read ahead to find out the ending but then the kids had me read double one day because they wanted to know the ending.  They love that part of our day!

I am inspired by…how well the whole family is adapting to this homeschool change--it's kind of a way of life!  Nathan is growing up in this atmosphere and it's so fun.  He had me bring a chair over to the calendar today and started clapping, expecting the songs.  Ha!  So, we did extra calendar time for just him today.  So cute!!

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…Samuel started speech therapy this week so that will be a fun adventure--especially when I take all the kids with me.  We spent a lot of time at my parents' house this week to enjoy the nice weather and have lunch with my Dad!  It's been kind of hot for my taste but the kids have enjoyed it!

My favorite thing this week was…For some reason, Hunter can add quite well but the counting totally gets him confused after a certain point--that what comes before/after a number has been a struggle.  We've worked very hard on math during vision therapy!!  Anyway, he had a worksheet this week where he counted to 100.  He filled it all out--by himself--and oh my goodness, the pride he felt!  He told me this math must be easier than last year.  I laughed and told him it wasn't easier, he was learning!  As soon as Brian got home from work, Hunter pulled out that math worksheet to tell him.  It was awesome. 

What’s working/not working for us…I think it's all working, athough I am anxious to meet with my supervising teacher to get some outside perspective on that!  Nathan really needs to be involved more so I guess I need to have more things ready for him.  I did give him stickers/paper and a workbook/pencil this week and that helped.  He wants to be a big kid, too!!

Things I’m working on…I actually started looking ahead to some fun Christmas things this week.  I have time blocked off from our regular curriculum but I wanted to do something Christmas-y for fun.  The Curr-click website had quite a bit of options!

I’m reading…too many books at once, of course.  Idols of the Heart, Educating the Wholehearted Child and too-many-old-magazines are my main materials.

I’m cooking…Tonight we had pizza, which was a nice reward after a long week!  Although, we had supper with my parents a couple nights this week so maybe I'm not cooking enough?!

I’m grateful for…having this opportunity to stay home with and teach my kids.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…I did not take any pictures this week!!  Shocking!  That's part of the reason I am linking up...it gave me questions to answer!  I'll do better next week with my camera, especially since we have a field trip coming up!

Something New

I feel like I am constantly changing things with our curriculum. First I added more science and I'm so glad I did. The kids love science and our days were not at all full to the point that adding something would cause stress. The next tweak I did was find a used math curriculum to switch to. I had debated over this math curriculum in the summer but decided against. Well, after a rough beginning with math and then talking with some homeschool moms about their experiences, I decided to just keep searching on a used curriculum site and one day it appeared! We started it this past week and so far, so good. It's basic right now but everyone is really positive about math right now!!  My final tweak (for now) was switching Lily to Hunter's spelling program.  I think both of us were rather bored with her program and she seemed to be interested in his so I just moved her over.  It sounds kind of chaotic when I type all of that out but we're figuring it out and still loving it!!! :)

Here are Hunter and Lily watching Mr. Steve on the math video.  They think he's hilarious.

Samuel stayed busy this week since he had a sick day (again).  This picture shows him working diligently on outlining an 'E' with cheerios.  It does not show his frustration when Nathan eats his cheerios--some of them glue covered.

Our other new thing this week was this piano!  I'm on an email list for homeschoolers and someone posted about this piano so I grabbed it.  I've wanted to teach the kids some basic piano for awhile--just to see if they hold any interest.  It's been a noisy house!!  Lily sits down with piano books and tries to follow instructions (very much her personality!) while the boys all just mess around.  I've also had the chance to brush up on my long-forgotten skills.  It's been fun.  The placement of the piano is still in negotiations, however... 

Field Trip Week!

This week seemed to be full of outings and it went by so fast!  One day, we got to do something fun and out of our regular routine as a reward.  It was actually kind of a cool, windy day but the kids voted on going to their favorite walking path (we hadn't been there in awhile).  We had a lot of fun walking the path, picking up leaves, pine cones and acorns for the squirrels at home.  There are also activities to do throughout the trail so the kids usually try those and we call it PE.  :)

Random picture:  We had a couple nice days and had the windows on the porch open--look how nicely Nathan and Cinders are getting along!  So refreshing to see!  :)

The next outing was a bigger one!  I had heard about these historical ship replications and thought it was too good to pass up!  It was about a 3 hour drive and I figured it wouldn't take long to check out the ships so I looked to see what else we could do and found a zoo just minutes away from the ships.  Best field trip ever was planned!  We weren't able to go until Sunday because Hunter had a Scouts thing on Saturday but I think that worked in our favor--nothing was busy! 

We got up early--really early--and woke the kids up equally as early and headed out before the sun came up.  We stopped at a rest area and it was pouring down rain.  I took the 3 big kids in and made the boys go in the ladies' room with me because I was nervous about sending them in a rest area bathroom alone.  Maybe that's weird.  We then got back on the road and 20 miles away, Lily started crying about her stomach.  We had to go a couple of exits before we found somewhere that had a gas station.  We were seconds from the gas station--it was in our sight!--and Lily threw up all over {my parents' van they had loaned us for the DVD player}.  Oh man!  So, we stopped and everyone gathered on the curb to watch Brian clean out the van.  Poor girl just gets car sick {like her Mom!}. 

As you can see, she was fine right after and we just took a 30 minute detour to our trip.  At least the rain had stopped.  :)

We made it to the ships and that was a lot of fun for us to see.  The only problem was that you had to walk on these docks to get to the ship and I was pretty anxious about the kids galloping along so close to the water.  I don't know where this anxiety comes from--both my Grandmothers, probably.  :)  Anyway, we climbed aboard both ships and looked around and then made a beeline for sturdy ground before I would let anyone discuss it.  Ha!!  I hope it was a good picture of the time period we are learning about in history!

As expected, viewing the ships didn't take long at all so we then headed to the zoo (okay, we first stopped at a park's outdoor bathroom for a child who swore they couldn't hold it any longer).  The kids loved the zoo!  It was great because hardly anyone was there and the weather was great at that point.  If you want to stand in front of the tigers for hours, you could have!  It had a lot of great animals {lions, giraffes, tigers, rhinos, monkeys, zebras...} so that was exciting for the kids.  It was a small zoo, though, so we were done faster than we had hoped.  We took a little bit of time to just play and climb just to avoid the van a bit.  We then piled back in and made it home much faster than the previous trip!!  The boys all zonked out on the ride home but no one slept long.  It was a lot of fun to do something special as a family.  I think summer trips will be out for us--we'll plan on these fall ones, instead!!

 You can see here that Lily is holding her stomach and not quite sure she's still feeling okay but she perked up with lunch.  Oh, traveling with kids!  Anyway, the kids LOVE seeing the big snakes so they had to have a picture with this rock python.

 Nathan loved being free of the stroller!  He ran around and the kids chased him for awhile.  :)  This was in the Africa section on the zoo and it was very educational, besides having animals.  It had recreations of houses, animal pens, crop holders, etc. 

 I actually think most of the zoo pictures have one or more child climbing something.  I don't know how people have children who don't climb.

 Brian and the 3 oldest put on a puppet show for Nathan.

Asleep before we drove to the interstate!

Losing Track of Time

I can't remember how many weeks it's been anymore--I even lose track of which day it is (and, yes, we do calendar!).  I'm also forgetting to break out the camera for much.  Plus, I'm not sure if even the Grandparents want to see a picture of someone painting every week.  Ha!  So, here's a break down of this week:

Monday, I made a quick tent for Samuel's preschool time.  It was a hit with everyone until Nathan destroyed it (no surprise there).

Here's Nathan sitting on the desk 'helping' the twins do their morning work.  I think they were journaling or doing handwriting or something.  He's kind of a distraction.

We did get out a couple times this week.  I'm helping out with the church library and we had to take a tub of books to church so I could shelve them.  It was a rainy day to be out and about!  The kids enjoyed playing in the one of the classrooms for a bit--a change of scenery is nice!  Nathan is stuck in the van for this picture but after my work was done, he did mange to run out in the parking lot and soak his socks (need to order shoes!).

We also went out to a friend's house who was having a garage sale because they are moving.  The kids ran around with their friends and I shopped the sale.  I spent $6 and walked away with some good buys--one of which was this super marbleworks toy.  The kids worked on their structure all afternoon!

And, we had a late night on Thursday night.  I went to a homeschool moms meeting and Brian and Hunter were at Scouts so my parents watched the other kids until Brian got back home.  So, the kids were up a bit later and I didn't get home until after 11pm!!  It was a very fun night, though.  Anyway, the next day, we had some tired kids and poor Samuel was having a moment.  We skipped preschool (which was an easy decision to make after hanging out with some experienced homeschool moms who had great advice!) and just played with the marble thing again. 

Speaking of Scouts, Hunter had to cook an outdoor meal--just when the fall weather hit!  We ended up doing a quick hot dog meal at my parents' house right before Scouts.  I think he was proud!

And here he is in his awesome new shirt!

Just because he's funny...here's Nathan in his new long pajamas for this cool weather, which I love.   We actually did a pajama day this week with our warm pj's I pulled out of storage.  :)

Linking up for the 1st time with this fun blog:

Interruptions

So, week 3 of homeschooling was an interrupted one.  1st of all, Labor Day was Monday so we {obviously} took that day off--even though both the twins asked when we were doing school again so I think they like it!!  Secondly, Samuel woke up on Thursday with a nasty (but brief) stomach bug.  That threw my day a bit only because Hunter wasn't sure he was feeling well, either.  I was trying to decide if I go on with Lily or what??  But, we decided to take the morning off and Hunter perked up so we fit school into the afternoon (not for Samuel, of course!).  It all worked out!  It did feel like a long week, though, and I couldn't remember what we had done so I'm thankful for the pictures.

Hunter and Lily making English rose gardens.  They love anything with paint!

Hunter working on a project with a lot of *support* from his brothers.  :)

Lily doing her typing lesson.  This is a "fun" game that I got for the kids but they both hate it.  I think it's because they don't pass the 1st typing test but they improve every week so I keep pointing that out.  They've stopped whining because I let them do a PBS kids' game online afterward.  :)

Samuel was into his work this week!  I thought I'd be doing this project but he was happy to participate.  C is for cotton candy, you know!

I picked up this game at a consignment shop for a few bucks and it was a lot of fun.  It's a little bit like Twister but we mainly just rolled the dice and found the color/animal.  All the kids joined in at the end and I had to put it up because it was a little too wild!  :)

In Honor of Labor Day

This blog had a post in honor of Labor Day and I loved it.  I just love baby stories but I have stopped watching Baby Story because I can't have any more kids so why would I want to get all sad and mushy?? Anyway, here's the hardest work I've done:

How long were your labors?

1 &2. about 12 hours

3. about 6 hours

4. about 4 hours

How did you know you were you in labor?

1 & 2. Induced in hospital because I was over 38 weeks pregnant with twins.  Enough said.

3. Induced at 38 weeks because of hypertension.

4. My water broke at home at 39 weeks.

Where did you deliver?

1 &2. In an operating room at a birth center (connected to a hospital).

3. In one of the nice rooms at the same birth center.

4. same as #3

Drugs?

1&2. Yes!  Epidural and then general anesthesia towards the end.  Then percocet for days... :)

3. Yes! Epidural and magnesium sulfate for my bp.

4. Yes! Epidural.

C-section?

No!!

Who delivered?

1&2. My OB

3. My OB

4. On call OB who was just fine since you don't see the OB much anyway!

Week 2

Another week of homeschooling over!  It's going really, really well.  I am so thankful to have all the kids home and to watch them grow in this area.  I can't lie--I also love the relaxed schedule that we still have (although, things will pick up after Labor Day).  Here are some highlights:

Preschool

Samuel sorting some fruit into a pie!  This is a fun game I picked up from somewhere (online?!) and he loved it!!  He had an audience, as you can see!

This was the day he did a float/sink test with some objects.  Hunter and Lily were excited because they love science experiments!  Nathan was just happy to see a bowl of water--it didn't last long!

This is Samuel using fingerpaints with a Q-tip because he didn't want to touch it.  Ha!  Also, please notice that he's wearing the same pajama shorts for each picture even though they were taken on different days.  That's Samuel! We also did B is for Batman activities (courtesy of this blog)

2nd Grade

This picture is reason enough to homeschool.  I give Hunter and Lily reading assignments but I usually sit with Hunter and share his reading with him.  Last school year and even over the summer, he was extremely resistant to reading {to put it mildly}.  The past 2 weeks, he has joined me in reading with a great attitude.  One day, he even set up Tapioca (an old bear of mine that I had given Hunter awhile ago) to read his/her own book while we read.  I was so encouraged to see that!!  He's doing a great job--especially compared to the struggle of a regular school setting.

Art day is a favorite day!  Here they are making {upside down} shields.  I didn't notice the upside down thing until it was too late.  :)

Doing some Math with a mermaid and Trio building on the desk, as well.  A bonus of homeschooling--toys can learn, too!  :)

Another art project--making a field of grain like we read about in the book of Ruth.  They sat working on this so long that I wrote most of this blog post while they worked on it.  Ha!  No rushing!

Miscellaneous pictures:

Nathan had a better week.  I've set out some puzzles for him and that's usually a mess but it keeps him a bit busy.  He did try to put the cat in a drawer this week and bit off most the pencils' erasers.  That's a good week!  :)

Samuel now prefers to play instead of having extra work in the afternoon.  I added more to his preschool time just to use some of the items I had.  It still doesn't take us long and he enjoys the variety!  He does pretty well staying busy in the afternoon and he always joins in story time because the kids get Thinking Putty!!