The Louisiana Purchase, Trotting Elves, and Christmas in Egypt....

This week has been slammed full!

Bible- The girls began by last Saturday visiting the Bethlehem Walk put on by a local church. Each year they build a mock city of Bethlehem marketplace and basically put on a walk through living history museum. Its really cool they have stalls "making" olive oil, jewelers, bakers, weavers, a "city hall" to sign the Roman census, and wandering Roman soldiers making sure you know Rome is in control and that Caesar should be "Hail"ed and Pharisees making sure as Jews we are keeping to the Law. It really helps put some context to the nativity story and why some many people just couldn't understand the miracle right in front of them. We continued on using some bits and bobs Christmas Bible lessons. We were also in high gear preparing for the Church musical.

History- We studied the Louisiana Purchase and briefly the War of 1812. The girls enjoyed making a skit of  the transaction between Jefferson, Livingston, and Napoleon. Book basket time focused on Lewis and Clark. Again the graphic novels were hits.

Math- We are up to lesson 61 on Teaching textbooks, and it seems to still be going well, though lately we have been doing more of the lessons in the workbooks (as opposed to the computer) and finding more errors related to sloppiness  and not lack of understanding the concepts.

Spelling- I am not sure this is doing much honestly. I can see some improvement over the year so far. Lesson 20 down. The best part is the using the words in a sentence, and the practice this is giving with proper sentence formation

Science- Focus on Plants- We did not do the seed experiment. The kids have done it 3-4 times before and honestly with everything going on the house was too much of a mess. Time 4 learning had a lot of good plant study stuff in their science section for 3rd grade so we used that in addition to the assignments.

LA & Phonics- Time 4 learning.

Now on to the fun stuff------

 Friday night, the kids and DH got to "snow" tube, bouncy house, and have fellowship at our home church's gigantic community Christmas festival. Glad they got out Friday night, because Saturday it poured.

Saturday morning, I got to leave work a little early in order to make it to the start of the kids big race. 36 degrees and pouring, but the Elves and Santa soldiered on. The girls ran the Elf Trot 5K in 48:34. Very proud of them. Hulk ran the Merry mile. His race was untimed but he definitely finished in the front of the pack for his age group (0-5). We dashed, soaking wet from the race to dress rehearsal. Then the Children's Choir preformed at the festival. Next, home and a 4 hour nap before I head back to work.

Sunday morning, the girls sang with the Choir in both morning services. Poor Ying forgot her solo in the 1st service out of nerves, but recovered for the 2nd service. Came home and got a 2 hour nap. Then got up, fed the crew and headed back to the church for the big performance! The girls rocked their solos, and Hulk was an awesome Toddler Jesus.

All of our B.I.G. Sounds kids did great. You can tell many of them are in multiple productions, because they have learned how to hide the flubs well. I am so very proud of them all!

Cello Wars (Star Wars Parody) Lightsaber Duel - ThePianoGuys

So this video is now represents my kids new favorite musical group....... Who needs Twerks when these guys are around...lol

O-Hi-O

 This week we floated westward down the Ohio River as we continued to build on the to the US.  We enjoyed it even if we were again no where near our groove. After a week off the girls were really on focus with independent work at the beginning of the week, which helped out a lot since Daddy had to take over school on Friday, while he worked from home. Some of Friday spilled over to Saturday, but it mostly got done. The girls really enjoyed making the "hand lambs" for bible, and reading all kids of animal stories.
 I spent 4 nights @ the the hospital somewhere between tears and committing bodily harm as we went live with a new computer system. Wait times were high, people were rude, surgeons and doctors ornery, and still all the kids survived ;).  The Lord was using some P12 grit sandpaper the knock off  some very rough edges on me this week, and honestly I am still very raw from it. Like bleeding , road rash, raw........
moving on....
Reading this week the girls  read an abridged version of Last of the Mohicans and really enjoyed it. For read aloud were are working through The Little House in the Big Woods. Math continued on the with our introduction of multiplication. LA and phonics reviews on the computer.
 That's all I got folks... I am still worn out from the this weekend and just struggling to get through today with my eyes open.

THANKSGIVING AND A WEEK OF REST.

   The past two weeks have gone by in a blur of fun, family and friends. TAZ got out of the hospital at the beginning of the week, but since his  little brother was sick too; he was at home with his mom. We went back and completed Week 13 of the curriculum the week before Thanksgiving. We were pretty hit of miss on the Adventures part to be be honest. My girls are little burnt out on Pilgrims and Indians. We did enjoy the pumpkin science stuff and watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. One book recommendation I have is the National Geographic's 1621: A New look at Thanksgiving. It explores many of the myths of the first Thanksgiving. My girls found it interesting that the pilgrims didn't wear really wear black ( they were actually very colorful) and the Wampanoag did not have  colorful woven blankets and war bonnets like often shown ( those are items specific to plains and southwestern tribes). The rest of the week autopilot Math and computer based language arts. Hulk was a pilgrim carpenter in the preschool Thanksgiving pageant.
    We took the actual week of Thanksgiving off. Tomorrow we will try to get some sort of groove back, though I have work a 4 day weekend upcoming thanks to the implementation of a new computer system at the hospital. Joy.. no sleep for me!

Eli Whitney,Christmas decorations and the ICU

This has been a strange week and  a true example of how you never know where the Lord will take you.  Monday, we had beautiful weather and played at the park for hours. Taz's asthma flared up in the afternoon and we amped up his treatments. Tuesday, we did a full school day in spite of the preschool calling me to come check Taz for being unusually quiet and still ( His nickname is Taz as in Tasmanian devil for a reason). By the time, we got to school he was playing in the office, and for him breathing fine so he went back to class. Taz's lungs are a general issue, and he always has to use more effort to breath than your average kid. Wednesday, the girls and I got school done in the morning then pickedup the boys. Taz looked like he generally felt like crap. I took him to work for one of my Docs to just take a quick look at him. He was very mildly wheezing and his ear was red, so he got steroids and a new antibiotic for his ear not being cleared up. By the time we got back here for nap, he'd spiked a fever. Bath, med and light jammies for a nap seemed to be helping. But unfortunately by 10 pm that night, his mom called to say his breathing was much worse. After 3 breathing treatment we went back to the ER . Two hours and an ambulance ride our local Children's Hospital later he was admitted  low oxygen levels.  I came home after that, but unfortunately few hours later Taz ended up in the ICU, because his oxygen levels went even lower. Turns out Taz has RSV pneumonia. Taz's lungs are so bad it doesn't take much to send him down the rabbit hole. The girls and I took Wed off from school because a) I was out til 3 in the morning at the hospital  b) we had already planned a 1/2 day so they could help decorate the Children's Building at church for Christmas. I know its early, but because Thanksgiving is so late, the church literally has event after event planned between now and Christmas.

Here's The run down of our academic week:

Bible..  "Jesus is the Lamb" Introduce new memory verse- John 1:29. . Continued with their Girls of Grace Bible study.

Math---- auto pilot

Spelling- Lesson 17 of Spelling by Sound and Structure. More intentional focus by the girls. We have started adding missed words from previous weeks onto the next weeks. Very motivating to pay attention to them when it means more sentences to write the next week.. ;)

Science- Started talking about cells. We skipped over living and non living as the girls did a whole unit last year in 1st grade.  Daddy and the pack will make the jello model Saturday since its been so crazy and its going to be overly cold for the southern climes..lol

History- We spent a lot of time on Eli Whitney. I have misplace out text book of The story of US. So we used other Eli Whitney sources such  as The Graphic Libraries: Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin, Biography channel quick bio, and several interesting videos on You tube. The girls did and extensive writing project on Whitney.

Ying's Notes on Eli Whitney

Ying's Final draft

Yan'g's notes

Yang's Final Draft

Handwriting- Largely ignored this week, except for final copy of  Eli Whitney paragraph

Art- girls helped me make pilgrim hats for Hulk's class snack

Music- Listening to Beethoven Lives Up Stairs from Classical Kids. The  pack does't care for it as much as they did Tchaikovsky  Discovers America. Also musical practice.

The Wilderness Road to Kentucky

This week we started our westward expansion covering the Wilderness Road and Kentucky. We enjoyed this week much more then other because we were back to history and not just fast facts on states. We condensed what was supposed to be 3 days of reading from American Pioneers and Patriots down to 1 day. Each day was supposed to consist of 2-3 pages of read aloud. Um... while the kids are enjoying this book ( hence it is still in the curriculum), its not like its so packed with knowledge that 2-3 pages are overloaded with knowledge that needs to be discussed. Maybe its just my girls, but it drives them nuts to read 2 pages in a story and then say wait for next time, but I digress.... After reading the unit, we went over the review questions at the end and discussed a little more in depth how much work it was for the pioneers to made everything (such as cloth) for themselves. This led to a nice discussion of consumerism. The girls drew me a picture representing what they learned or remembered from the story, While I read some more about the Wilderness Road from the aptly named The Wilderness Road by Sarah De Capua. Girls enjoyed it. We finished up Farmer Boy this week, and I think we may throw in Adventures on the Wilderness Road, 1775 by Laurie Lawlor to fill in the gap we have until the next Scheduled read aloud. I don't figure it would take more then a week aloud.
This week we are also trialing the website Time4Learning.com for our Language Arts instruction. I am struggling desperately in this area because a: Its so not my strong suit. I am an avid reader, but not a grand writer, speller or grammarian ( hence the typos, spelling, and run ons here..lol). b) I am having trouble placing my girls in a path and track. They are bored to tears by most 2nd grade level reading exercises. I bought a book just two weeks ago and already realize its so easy its pointless. Yang can read the passage and answer the questions in under 3 min. Ying just rolls her eyes.I AM FRUSTRATED!!!! So, we are trying plan 387. I placed them in second grade and already know its under them but they are enjoying it as review so I am OK with it. They finished what would be assigned for a week to complete second grade material by the end of April ( so condensed year) in just under 30 min. Why am I OK with this? Because, it is reassuring me that they got it and its not just a mom with a rosy picture of her kids abilities. Then they can just roll right into the third grade work when they have finished the 2nd grade stuff with no fuss. Yes, I admit I am still stuck in the compare yourself to the "school" yardstick, but there is still like a 25% chance the girls will return to public school next year so ....
Science.. the girls read lots of book on tornadoes and other weather phenom.
Math.....
Spelling... The girls played better attention this week to their lessons. We have started adding the missed words from our test on week to the work for the next week. Motivating to have to copy and write sentences for extra words each week...lol
Music... We have done our thing listening to The Nutcracker Suite and other works by Tchaikovsky. This week the girls got HOOKED on the Cd Tchaikovsky Discovers America. This is from a series called Classical Kids, and the girls are begging for others from the series. Gonna have to do some investing..lol... We also are nearing the girls musical and we are practicing daily all 12 songs, plus solos. Its very consuming to do well so the patriotic songs have taken a back seat.
The best parts of the week involved just regular childhood ;) Park day that involved cardboard "sledding" down a sod hill. We tried to meet up with a new home school group, but the park was so crowed due to it being election day and a public school holiday we never located the group. Gonna try that one again next week.

Week 16- RI,VT and Daniel Boone

This week we tried to be more intentional with school. To be honest we did a lot of worksheet/paperwork this week as I needed some measure in my head of where we are heading.

Bible- Immanuel- Ying is in love with the song from this week. Can't stop singing it and she's getting pretty good. Yang likes it but she's for the peppier tunes :)

History/Geography- added to more states to our notebooks. Read about Daniel Boone. The Wilderness road stretches into next week so well see what if anything they remember then. We did however spend a greater focus this week on our bookbasket time and the girls seemed to get more from the readings.

Spelling- We need to increase our time here and be more intentional. This was the first week that by Friday they had no clue. Not sure if its more drill time they need or time to use the words and think of them non repetitively. This will take some further investigation.

Handwriting/copy work- daily cursive practice. 

Math- :) crushing it :)

Sci-- Getting more and more frustrated with this. After Christmas we are going to switch curricula for this because its just not working here. I need more structure and content.

Reading- We finished our novels! Then took a break. Both books the girls were reading were self chosen stretches! Next novel is mama's choice and probably a little easier. This is Ying's final project on C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Read Aloud- We are really enjoying Farmer Boy. Wasn't sure I was going to. We read others in the series when the girls were younger and sorta struggled with them but this they really get into and now wish they were farm kids. ;)

Other thoughts- FYI THIS IS ENTIRELY JUST MY OPINON- Feel free to disagree, and I'd love to here from others on this...... I think we are going to have to tack on a writing curriculum soon. Adventures lacks in planned orinigal writing assignments. Compared to what the girls were required to write last year in public school vs this year we are not doing 1/2 the writing. While MFW encourages oral work, etc., I think they sell folks short on the idea that at 2nd grade a original few sentences every few weeks is enough. We haven't had an assigned writing task in at least 4 weeks. I have to keep in mind that we have promised the girls the choice as to continue with homeschool or return to public next year. If they return, MFW will have left them far behind when it comes to writing.

Halloween

So, this year again the debate raged on about being Christian and participating in Halloween events. I always have participated and we continue to as a family. We don't do gore. We don't do true evil (movie villains are allowed), and we don't do immodest. We do family time, creative, and joyful.

This was the first year the girls became really aware that many of their church friends do not participate in Halloween. A few families went so far as to refuse to participate in Children's Choir that week because the kids were allowed to come in costume. They didn't want to confuse their kids about Halloween. "Halloween celebrates evil and the unclean." 

I guess I don't understand being afraid of a day, and essentially locking my children away from the world. We are repeatedly told in scripture that "[He] has over come the world." John 16:33. And again in 1 John 5:4. So why fear the "Devils day"? He lost. How do you remind people of that if you are locked away in your house? When someone tells me " We don't do pagan holidays." I want to choke. Apparently you missed something in church history because most of the major holidays celebrated in the US are pagan holidays that the early church decided to takeover. We know Jesus wasn't born on Dec 25th, but guess what? We took over a pagan holiday and changed the script. Thanksgiving? Again we changed the script from pagan Harvest celebrations, honoring  his creation in place of the creator or giving offering to various gods and goddesses to focusing on the one true father. The examples can go on and on, so why aren't we changing the script for Halloween? Why are Christians locking themselves away, in stead of going out in the culture and changing it? If not you then who?

And by the way this is what you missed:

* teenage girls turning from catty to sweet instantly when my 7 year old told them they were beautiful, and then really taking time to remind my daughter how beautiful she was.

* Older teens stopping in the middle of their street to sing the Teletubbies theme song to an excited 3 year old.

* neighbors sitting out with each other sharing a gorgeous evening talking.

* a golden chance to teach concrete lessons in manners, etiquette, and greed.

This is one of those weekends.....

This is one of those weekends where I pay the piper so to speak... So many fun things that I am missing out on due to work and sleep on the weekends. I am BLESSED to get to be home for so much of their childhoods and daily life; weekends like this just make me a little sad but thankful for all HE does give me. Last night the pack and hubby attended VeggieTales Live at our church, and in the morning when I came home the house was full of silly songs. I LOVE that my girls aren't too jaded/cool to enjoy something like that with the little guys. Our culture tries to make them grow up so fast and then leaves them in this weird suspended adolescence. Don't get me wrong, I know they all grow up eventually, but I would rather is happen as designed and not in hyper drive, but I digress...

Saturday afternoon I helped get everyone dressed and ready for our family Halloween party. Again, I missed it. Ying was Peter Pan, Yang channeled Cleopatra, DH husband was the 11th Doctor and Hulk was the TARDIS. The latter 2 costumes you either understand or have no clue depending on your Whovianism...lol. Great time was had by all who attended...

Came home Sunday morning to tales of cousins and costumes as I passed out. I routinely miss Sunday morning services. I can't keep my eyes open, and the Lord knows where I was. Even He healed on the Sabbath because it often can't wait. I got up in time to again dress everyone in costume for the Children's Choir costume event. Oh the controversy! For our church, Halloween divides  like nothing else every year. The vast majority of our families in some way participate in the holiday. We do not do a fall festival/trunk or treat, etc, because there are sooooo many in our area. Our church instead puts on a 2 day community Christmas festival. This year we gave the kids the opportunity within certain guidelines to come dressed up to choir, but this offended some of our families, who then kept their children home because we were "promoting Halloween in the church". For a few of these families this was pretty hypocritical ( IMO... but my opinion is just that) because their children dress-up on a very regular basis, come to choir in costume, etc. They only made it an issue for themselves. Next week, their kids will be back to dressing up.

Anyway, we all missed out on one event this weekend. The Kilometer Kids were the cheering section for the 25th mile of the Atlanta marathon on Sunday morning. We couldn't make it due to it being on Sunday morning. Sunday is the Lord's day, and we focus on His word and work (work as in service at church). Sunday for us is morning service for DH and kids @ either 9:15 or 11, home for lunch and naps, then back to church for Children's activities from 3:30-8pm. I currently serve as the 1st-3rd grade Sunday School curriculum coordinator, choir volunteer, co-lead a girls bible study. DH rotates in the toddler room in the mornings. It's a full day of service and fellowship. 

PAUSE!

 We've covered 12 states, and very little has been retained. Even when it comes to locating them on a map... uhhh!!!. So we are taking a pause week to review the states we've done, and give our language arts skills some focus time. The MFW curriculum does not fulfill all our state required "school" days, so I plan on adding a few of theses weeks here and there to help with information retention. So this week's lesson plans:

Bible: The girl have joined a young girls bible study @ church about friendship and this week we are using the homework from this study to fill in the gap. We are also continuing with Buck Denver & Friend's 21 days with Matthew video devotional on YouVersion.com.

Math: This is so not broke that I am not messing with it. Let me say again how much I LOVE Teaching Textbooks. I am not fighting with the girls over math, lessons are short, and constantly reinforced. Math is by far our best laid subject this year!

Reading: 2 Fold- The girls are continuing to read their independent books. Ying is almost finished with The Lion,  The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis and Yang is finishing Royal Diaries: Victoria, May Blossom of Britannia, England 1829 by Anna Kirwan. We are also doing  daily comprehension practice focusing on main ideas via worksheets from Readworks.org. While the girls are excellent readers, we still need to spend focused time reading for certain skills and strategies. Readwork.org has tons of free lesson plans, novel studies, etc is a very easy to navigate format. They are written to common core standards and give me the chance to check the girls against that standard at home. Highly recommend checking them out.

Language Arts:  Worksheet review. Two, too, to; Are and is; Us and we, and editing work

Spelling: Last week we had a mix up and before we realized it the girls has down two different lessons in Spelling by Sound and Structure so this week they are just switching lessons.

Handwriting: Copy work passages from my new favorite resource http://practicalpages.wordpress.com/free-pages/free-copywork-pages/. The girls have completed Handwriting Without Tears and now we just have practice, practice, practice to do...lol ( addenum

Geography:  Review, Review, Review..... Couple resources we are using:
The United States Map for the TAG reader by Leapfrog
Learning games for Kids 50 States games http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/us-state-games.html
We will definitely continue using this as we ga forward. They have games for each states and the for the 50 together.
US Snap Map-  http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-geography-map-snap-usa/map-snap-United-States.html  This is a map of all 50 states in an open puzzle format. We let the girls us their place mat maps and they have enjoyed fitting the pieces together.

Science/Nature Study: I am planning a fall nature walk since the weather is has finally truly hit fall like. ;) 

Physical Education:  All three kids are still training for their 5K in Decemeber. The girls are up to running t2 miles 2 nights a week and Hulk is running 1 mile, 2 nights a week. We also are still trying to fit in as many park outings as we can until the weather defeats us!

Field Trip: Monday we drove the 2 hours to visit our favorite children's museum Creative Discovery in Chattanooga, TN. The kids had a blast and got in their last visit to the Magic Tree House Exhibit before it sadly leaves. If this exhibit comes to your town, and your kids have liked the books at all, I highly recommended it. That one exhibit captured the packs imagination like none other. We listened to 3 Magic Tree House books via audiobook on the drive too..lol... Thank you library system for your digital downloads!

Yang as a Pilgrim mommy!

Ying as Jack!

Hulk; " the Pilgrims cook who dropped the corn..lol"

Taz loved the water. Being younger he didn't get the Magic Tree House stuff much but loved the water and had a great listening day!

And that's this week... We are still trying to find a good fit for a co-op/social group so keep praying for us please, and also thanks to those who have interceded for us with the Lord. We feel your blessing and His.

NH,VA,NY,NC

Yang in the green shorts @ 1.5 miles.

Our fly by study continues.... This week has been a little better as we have been able to make more personal connections to the states we are studying. Cousins live in VA, Great Uncle works in the pentagon, Uncle J works in NYC, Mommy and Daddy used to live in NC etc. It's made it more real. I think the science is what the girls have most enjoyed. They like reading about the birds and trying to spot them. Where we live still has plenty of birds, and winters many birds from the north.

 Hulk has been approved to run with the girls' running club in the 5-6 year old group after the coaches watched him work out with DH & I for a few weeks. They don't usually allow 4 yr old for safety/ motivation reasons ( does the kid want to run or the parents just want a break? And can they be trusted to listen to the coaches since its not a closed track.) But Hulk's training has proven again a blessing and on his first night he finished his mile 2nd in his group. He's a very proud little man.

Ying @ 1.5 miles

Hulk in the little white blur in the distance. He was too fast and too excited for his first run!

We celebrated Hulk's 1st official mile and the girls 2 mile mark with some New York Style pizza.

New York Style Pizza!

Skipping over Thanksgiving and on to CT,MA,MD, & SC

Our Little Zoo Crew!

 We are slowly getting back up to full speed. So far the girls are enjoying the state by state "quick study". And yes.. It's a very "quick" look at each state. To be honest I am not sure how much the girls are retaining, but we shall see.Yeah, I know not much to say this week. Its been hectic. Taz is having discipline problems at preschool that I have never experienced with my own three, so much of the week has been focused on his training, etc...

We did squeeze in a trip to the Zoo...

Red clay Elephants!

Taz picking his nose by the giraffes and zebras

Hulk feeding the parakeets. How theses birds are not overweight with 9 million kids trying to feed them a day is one of God's great mysteries. 

week 11-12----Not George Washington Again!

We started back up this week after our two weeks off. Its been rough and full of distractions.  Between beautiful weather, fall break for the boys, and daddy not being home the week has kinda been a mess. I'll admit we have covered the bare minimums this week with all the distractions. It was easy to get the girls to focus in July when it was 90+ degrees, humid, and the playground burned your hand by noon. Now, that its 70's with no bugs and humidity good luck.
On Tuesday, when we started the girls were none to pleased to be back on George Washington. We are beating a dead horse here. Between what they studied last year and earlier this year (where we went more in depth then MFW intended) they were done. So... we just skipped week 11 of the curriculum and moved on to week 12. Luckily,  I had already done my library requests for this week. Also about 6 weeks ago I started requesting tourist information from the first 15 or so states online.  Most states have a magazine and other information about the state available for free upon request. My girls loved the huge maps many states sent and currently have Georgia and New Jersey plastered on their walls. We used these maps and brochures to supplement our book basket, and they have easily spent a 1/2 hour studying the maps independently.
Another distraction is weighing heavily on us, too. After 2 years of public school the girls are missing being with different kids on a daily basis, esp my super social Yang. Academically, the girls very much prefer homeschooling. They are just missing kid time and separation time. I ask and plead with anyone and everyone reading this to pray for us. Pray that we follow God's will in this. I want to continue to homeschool, but only if its His will and to serve His plans not mine. Pray that the Lord provides godly friends and role models for the girls. Pray that He can fill that empty place in their hearts for friends and companions with ones that will build them up and help them follow His way.

Disney Week

We are on our way home from a week at Disney World in Florida. The drive to was quite painless. Everyone picked me up from work Sunday morning about 7:45 and off we went. I slept much of the way, thanks to Hulk riding down with Grandma & Grandpa. He adored the solo attention. The girls loved having a little more room to spread out. They hadn't had video game time in about a month so they dove in and zoned... Lol

Let's start by saying we had the great Disney vacation where almost everything worked as it should. Disney can't control the weather.. Lol

We got the opportunity to test Disney's new "Magic Bands" & " Fastpass+" systems. I LOVED the Magic Bands! Everything you needed on your wrist. Park tickets, room key, dinning plan, fast passes, charge to the room purchases. You can read a thousand Disney blogs explaining the ins & outs of them so I'm just going to say I'm a fan. I also loved the Fastpass+ service. The App was slow but we got what we needed. 

 We stayed at Port Orleans-Riverside in the Royal Guest rooms. Lovely moderate accommodations. We were able to have connecting rooms with Grandma & Grandpa & we were fortunate to have a mini fridge due to Grandpa's medical needs. Fridges had to be removed from most of the resort rooms earlier in the summer. 

We were on the dining plan & honestly loved it. We tried a variety of experiences. Our favorite character experience  was the 'Ohana breakfast. Relaxed, plentiful & joyful. Granted we did this one on our break day which probably helped with the relaxed feeling. Character wise was also had breakfast with Pooh @ the Crystal Palace & the Disney Jr Play'n Dine @ Hollywood & Vine. These we great but because we were in park we felt rushed/pressured to keep up the pace. Our other table service meals were used at Boatwrights (Port Orleans), Portobello ( Downtown Disney), & The Wave of American Flavors (The Contemporary). All we great, but I enjoyed The Wave for flavor, atmosphere & service. On the quick service end I enjoyed the create your own salad @ the Rivermill  Food Court, the shrimp Po'boy @ Sassagoula Floatworks, and the chicken/lamb shawarma platter from the Tangerine Cafe in Morrocco in Epcot's World Showcase.

My hubby & I also ate off the plan one night to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. We enjoyed a lovely evening at Narcosse's @ the Grand Floridian Resort. The best part was watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks  & Electric Parade on the veranda complete with music and a full moon. Hubby did good on this one ;)

For parks we started off with Magic Kingdom. We did Fantasyland & Tomorrowland and called it a day. 

Tuesday, we headed off the Hollywood Studios first thing to make sure to get the kids signed up for the Jedi Training Academy. Getting to fight a living, breathing Darth Vader was the highlight of Hulk's trip, and ranked in the top 3 for Ying & Yang. Wednesday we scheduled  a break which was very providential since it was very stormy by mid afternoon. 

Thursday we returned to Magic Kingdom for Frontierland & Adventureland. We rode everything in these two by noon multiple times so we switched up our Fastpasses to allow up the reprise some favorites from Monday. Friday,we did Epcot. Not the kids favorite though the enjoyed Soar'n. Hulk & Ying loved Test Track, too. Yang was just done with it all & wanted the pool. Saturday, we checked out in the morning & spent the day at the French Quarter Pool.  The kids were amazed by a sky writer  who wrote "Jesus Loves U" & "Jesus 4Ever" over the resort. They immediately connected this with the great commission and were very impressed. We left around 5. Our plan had been to push on home, but due to rain and crankiness we stopped halfway home and spent the night in a hotel. Yeah, for internet booking on mobile apps! Now we're an hour or so from home.

All and all it was an awesome family week! We'll be off school for one more week coming down from Vacation and then we'll pick back up..,,

Week 10- American Revolution

Mashing our berries for berry ink!

 We have completed 10 weeks and now are on break for 2 weeks. We leave in a few days for our kids first trip to Disney World, the anticipation of which has made this week a bit more of a struggle. This week, we spent time on Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution. This was a lot for one week. I really think this part of the curriculum could be revised. We spent an entire week reading 4 pages about French pioneers, but gave an equal time to the American Revolution? Oh well... so goes life. We'll have to come back to it and spend some more time on the concepts of revolution. Here's how our week went:

Bible:
 Memorized John 7:37. Discussed "Living Water". Continued God & Me 3. Watched "What's in the Bible? vol 12."

History:
Covered the assigned reading and added the Magic Treehouse Fact Tracker: American Revolution. The girls read the  Fact Tracker aloud to me.  They gave two oral reports this week on what they learned: one to Nana, and one to me after we completed the book. We also completed a cute little book on the Declaration of Independence. Check it out http://www.teachervision.fen.com/fourth-of-july/printable/45983.htm

By far the girls favorite activity this week was making the berry ink and writing with quills. They played with this for hours. We also made hasty pudding, and the girls didn't see anything special about it. As far as they were concerned, we had just made grits...lol

We also started watching Liberty's Kids via YouTube. The entire series is available free of charge from the production company on the site. Through a bit of "Daddy magic," my husband made it so YouTube  can play through our Roku, so we can watch on the TV. I think this will come in handy for a lot of videos.

Language Arts:
 Instead of trying to summarize this weeks lesson for notebooking ,we went of course and tried our hand at fiction writing using historical figures. It was very funny to see how this morphed into different things in my two girls hands. Ying struggled.Her anxiety provided a real block until I got a prompt she could understand. Then her story very much followed the "Magic Treehouse" formula. But it was amazing how much she got down on paper once the stress of creating form was taken away. Yang on the other hand wrote me a 2 page story about Molly Pitcher, Sam Adams, and a Superhero on a speeding train. This was her zone.

Handwriting:
The girls are pretty much done with Handwriting Without Tears, so we have moved on the copy work to practice our cursive. This week the girls chose poems from Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein to copy.

Math & Spelling:
Our methods ain't broke, so we ain't fix'n 'em. lol...

Science:
Talked about absorption.

Physical Ed:
 The girls running club started up this week. They are training for a 5k run in December. Thursday they had their pacer run. Ying finished middle of the pack for her age group. Yang finished last but with a smile on her face. They are excited to keep training.

Week 9- George Washington

 Whoa!!!. This week has been a bit crazy... After working my regular shifts last weekend I had to cover Monday night also. In the past this wasn't a big deal, but with Taz now coming weekdays at the crack of dawn and my DH having to work Tuesday morning it just threw us off. After years of night shift, I have gotten down flipping myself between my weekday "day shift" hours and weekend "night shift work", but when an extra day gets thrown in I am out of whack. Needing naps @ 10 am, and not being able to fall asleep until 2 am. But, we survived, if not thrived this week. 

 History- We fleshed out history with a simple G.W. lap book project.This is the first the girls have done and it went over so-so. I am finding that just giving the girls free reign over the book basket isn't productive. They don't seem to be absorbing anything and pretty much stare at the book never getting off the first page cause they are watching the clock. So, we are often using the basket books for research for our extended projects like the lap book.

 Bible- We continued to add devotions from God & Me 3.

Handwriting-They practiced copying some quotes of George Washington.

Reading and Read Aloud- We gave up on The Birchbark House. We do read a loud at night and 1/2  a page in the girls were snoozing, and not getting anything out of it.  Independently, they are still working though the Harry Potter titles.

Math & Spelling- These are on auto pilot right now. Our current methods are working, though we did add more verbal drilling on the spelling. After listening to a Focus on the Family program about learning styles, I have come to the realization the Yang is a mostly auditory processor and needs to verbalize something to cement it.

Geography- Our ship remained in the Caribbean this week hitting the Port of Spain, Tobago and is heading the St. John's, Antigua currently.

Thanks again for the prayers. We need everyone and appreciate every single word interceded to the Lord on our behalf. Blessing to you and yours.

Week 8- Ben Franklin

     This week has been a lot of work but I feel like we got a lot accomplished. We took Monday for a library day and then hit to our local BMX track for the first time. The kids had fun, even if they were not strong enough to get up the bigger hills. Burned a lot of energy leading to a good quite time..lol. Thursday morning the girls also went to a homeschool meet up at our local indoor trampoline gym. Unfortunately  we had very low attendance but the few that were there has fun. Its early in most folks year, so we'll hope for more as the fall progresses.
On to the Academics:
 Bible this week focused on Matthew 7:24, and Jesus being our bedrock. The Bible lesson have felt a bit light lately at times not very relational to my girls. So we have added a new devotional workbook called God & Me 3 for ages 6-9. They enjoy the discussions about kids their own age. For History this week we expanded on the assigned reading by including Who was Ben Franklin? By Dennis Fradin. We read this as a group, alternating pages between each girl and me. At the end of the week, the girls notebooked on specific areas of Franklin's life that caught their interest.  Ying focused on his inventions, and Yang the people in his life. They used a graphic organizer to gather their facts and then I helped them edit their sentences and correct spelling. After tweeking, the girls typed their final paragraphs and added pictures. This was a 2 day project after finishing our readings, but by end of the school morning friday they were really proud of what they had accomplished. Math we trucked a long. Independent reading this week took many forms. Monday, at the library Yang read 20 or so books to Hulk from the picture book section that he picked out. Ying finished Frindle, and moved on to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Yang got jealous by the end of the weekend changed her next pick from Lemony Snicket's The Reptile Room to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We failed alot this week on getting our read aloud done. The Birchbark House is dragging a bit and while we are enjoying it, its not been our favorite. We are still struggling with spelling and are going to have to devote more time to drilling this down. I am thinking we may also need to step back and add in some more phonics lessons focusing on spelling. We shall see how that goes. We continued to follow our ship through the eastern Caribbean this week ending in Phillipsburg, St Martin on Saturday. 

     We also need to offer up praise this week for the Lord's protection. Saturday night, lightening struck not 30 feet from the girls. They were getting the mail when the lightening struck a utility pole. Only a few grey clouds in the sky. No rain. No previous rumbles. Nada. Then CRACK! BOOM! and my girls screaming. I don't think Yang has ever run so fast. But the Lord is good and they were safe. While the same can't be said for our cable modem and hubby's work computer, we give PRAISE to the almighty for His mercies. My girls are priceless, stuff replaceable and nothing.
       Next week will be a bit crazy due to Labor day. While for most it means an extra day off from work, for me it means covering an extra night recovering the world from their vacations and over indulgences. Pray for me that I may be humble and extend His mercy and grace.  Enjoy the holiday and be safe!

Week 7- French Pioneers

 So, this week we have moved to an official 4 day school week. With the little boys back at the church school now, the girls have been able to get a lot done in a focused period, because they want to hit the park after pre-school pick up. Monday when both boys are home with us all day we are now just doing independent reading, devotions, our night read aloud, and burning energy. This week they all played for 4 hours at our local gymnastics center.  So here's a subject by subject run down of this week:

Bible: Discussed "the bread of life". Memorized John 6:35 using this daily exercise hand out.  http://www.thecraftyclassroom.com/HomeschoolPrintableBibleVerse.html 
It's provided a nice structure and handwriting practice at the same time. 
History: This was just not our history week. We read our assignment. used it in a language arts lesson, and moved on. We didn't do any of the hands on history activities this week. We made bread last week with the butter and  well the napkin holders just didn't happen. But they did make rootbeer from scratch with Grandma & Grandpa ;)

Math: Continues on with Teaching textbooks Math 3. The girls are really enjoying it, and seem to be doing well.
Spelling: Lesson 7. We are completing Parts A & B on Tuesday, The using Stop and Smell the Spelling method I found for studying our words Wed and Thurs.
Handwriting: We completed 2 lessons in Cursive Handwriting without tears (we are more than 1/2 through to book), then worked on making sure we used our best printing for our copywork and spelling sentences.
Reading: We have moved away from trying to match up the girl independent reading to our historical time period, and are focusing more on what interests them. Ying has started Frindle by Andrew Clements, and Yang is challenging herself with Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning. I was able to find activities for both both book very easily on line.  Ying needs very direct questions to help her recognize the details she's reading. She is still very much in the recall phase of comprehension. She'll stare at you like a brick wall if you ask her to "Just tell me about the story." Yang is just more verbally oriented and will tell you EVERYTHING about what she reading. After the first tell me session with her, I went online and found a chapter summary to verify some details. Chick nailed it on the head. Very proud of her. 
Language Arts: We used our History lesson to identify nouns. Ying is working on forming sentences. She has a block when it comes to getting her thoughts down on paper. So we have been using her reading comprehension questions as the basis for forming written sentences. Taking the pieces of the question and reflecting them into an answer. Its been helping with her anxiety regarding writing assignments. Yang Finished The Bad Beginning and chose to make Popsicle stick puppets of the characters and then summarize the story for Ying and I.
Science: Once again Science was more impromptu for us then planned. The kids found and very cool caterpillar at my folks house. We went online to identify it and find out what it would look like when it turned into a butterfly. To the best of our limited skill, we identified it as a Pipevine swallowtail through the website http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?guide=Caterpillars . The girls drew the caterpillar in their journals and we printed out a picture of what it would become and identified where they were commonly found. 

Music & Public Speaking: The girls are preparing for auditions in our children's choir's Christmas production. The girls are going for solos and speaking parts, so we have pretty much be listening to the musical non stop and running lines. Its very funny how hard it is for a child raised in the south who has very little accent to try and put on a fake southern accent. Thank you you tube for some great example videos!..lol. With monitoring technology can be awesome!

Ps.  Our ship has come full circle and docked back in the port of Savannah on Thursday. Well keep watching to see if it makes the same circle another time.
If you're interested in how we have been tracking our ship, check out Marinetraffic.com.

Pray for us!

Week 6- Going Colonial

    This week we spent more time in Colonial America. We learned about New Amsterdam and the Dutch colonist that settle in modern day New York. Yesterday, the girls got a work out making butter. Today, we made maple wheaten read from a colonial recipe in a very good book I found at our library called  Hasty Pudding ,Johnnycakes, and Other Good Stuff: Cooking in Colonial America by Loretta Frances Ichord. Written in simple language with fun facts, my girls have enjoyed it, and I think we'll try some other recipes next week, too.

Butter in a jar :The girls were amazed that this really worked!

Yang kneading our maple wheat bread.

I had to attended a class for work on Wednesday, so Daddy handled school on Wednesday and tackled both science experiments in one day. The pack really got a kick out of it. Hands on stuff has been much easier this week thanks to Hulk and Taz starting school. Both boys love going and are tired when they come home leading to decent naps times. ;)

 I have decided to list our favorite book basket books each week to give some ideas of book my girls truly enjoyed perusing and reading. Our Colonial Selections so far:
Going to School in Colonial America by Shelly Sateren
The Dreadful,Smelly,Colonies: The Disgusting Details About Life in Colonial America by Elizabeth Raum ( This has been a huge hit. Who knew they used corn cobs as toilet..umm outhouse paper?)
A Day in the Life of a Colonial Doctor & A Day in the Life of a Colonial Sailmaker by Laurie Krebs

Again we've got other books in the basket, but these three have really caught their attention and held it enough that they've chosen to read on.

Independent reading this week:
Ying finished I Survived The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 by Lauren Tarnish, and started I Survived The Battle Gettysburg 1863 by the same author. This is a newer series,  featuring boys and some of the more catastrophic  events in US History... Shark attacks, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, etc.... They have really caught her attention. reading level is on par with Magic Tree House. We are just glad to get her reading again after our problems last year. 
Yang finished I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor 1941 again by Lauren Tarnish and has moved on the The Bad Beginning in the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. She seems to be doing well with it. I have found lots of good online reading guides for all the  books enabling me to have discussions with the girls even though I am not reading parallel right now.

    Primary Language Lessons and I are just not jiving. I have tried for 2 weeks now to get going with it, but its just not happening. The dictation and memorization pieces are just not for us. My girls are in the audition phase for our winter musical at church and have plenty to memorize and speak. Doing the musical in front of 1000 people is going to count for our public speaking. Dictation is going to wait another year. Just not what I want to work on. So, I have started to piece together some basic language arts stuff on my own. At the end of this week we started talking about nouns and identifying them. I plan to continue nouns next week, then move to verbs, and then show how you need both for a complete sentence. They have been informally taught this over the past 2 years but I figure for our writing to improve we need a better knowledge of structure.  We'll see if I am off my rocker or not... As always pray for me because Lord I know not what I do....

Thank you Lord for the boys enjoying school and the peaceful atmosphere its provided for the girls to focus. Be with us Lord and guide us along the path you have laid out for us. Do not let us turn left or right but boldly step forward on the narrow road. In Jesus' name. Amen.

P.S. Our Ship has made the long journey from St. John's and ironically is moored off shore waiting to enter the port of New York.