Week 23- ME, MO, KS, & MI

Monday we squeezed school in early in order to hit the park and a beautiful 60 degree January day. It was MLK day so public school was out and the park was crazy, but they kids were in heaven. Its been a really cold winter for our area and they were just happy to get out and play.

Plumbing problems also jammed us up for the week. Thanks to a clogg and previous renovators who had just enough knowledge to be dangerous 1/2 or kitchen had to be re-plumbed. So no washing machine, sink or dishwasher for the week. Made cooking interesting..... But the Lord blessed us by still having working bathrooms!

So on the school........

Bible- Continues with Jesus as the "head of the church".  After our assigned reading in Ephesians the girls made a lot of correlations to our family rules. Told them Mommy didn't just make'em up!

 History/Geography:

This week was a State Study week covering Maine,Missouri, Kansas, and Michigan. We also continued with our "Go West" Lapbook. We covered Mountain Men and trappers, Types of Wagons, and Some "Western" Vocabulary.

Math- Continued our Money unit on Time 4 Learning. Counting, converting, adding and subtracting....

Reading/LA- Finished Pioneer Cat, read Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express, Ying started Missouri Bound from the Little House Chapter Book Series, and Yang started Season of the Trail by Lynn Glaze. Phonics and writing via Time 4 Learning.

Read Aloud. Continued On the Banks of Plum Creek and the corresponding lap book.

Coop Time-

Science covered the Skeletal system, at home we watched the Magic School Bus episode covering muscles and bones.

Lego- The girls made spinning top and learned about inertia.

Classroom Play production- They continue to work on their production of "Trouble on the Farm"... Ying is one of the trouble making cows and Yang is a Sheep.

Friday was curtail by dental appts, but we had an interesting conversation about arctic vs antarctic animals sparked by the dentists murals...lol

Wagons Ho!

This week has been an very enjoyable one. Probably my favorite in the Adventures curriculum so far. We started the week covering Illinois and Alabama. Then we moved into going west by wagon train.  We've started a lapbook called "Going West" by  A Journey Through Learning ( http://www.ajourneythroughlearning.net/gowelawistgu.html ). It covers many subjects we've already studied or will be studying in the near future. The girls are very into it right now.

Bible-  Jesus is the "head" of the church "body"

Reading/LA- this week the girls are reading Pioneer Cat by William Hooks. Its a very easy read for them but they enjoying it.  We are also continuing our On The Banks Of Plum Creek lapbook. Phonics review and author's purpose via Time 4 Learning. I am also becoming more stringent on our basic standards of writing. That has not been met with smiles..lol... as much work has had to be repeated.

Math- Money unit on Time 4 Learning.

Spelling- Lesson 22.

Coop this week- 1st week and the girls loved it! They are taking Hands on Human Body study, Lego Early Simple Machines, & Classroom Play production. They also have a 1/2 lunch period which they are very excited about. The uniform is strict which was a bit of a challenge for them ( ahhhh real pants!) but they got over it. Told Ying it could be worse... She could have to wear a skirt!


Choir- The girl auditioned for our church's next production "Back to B.C." where the kids take a time machine ala Bill and Ted to different Old testament events to help lead a doubting friend to Christ. Yang is trying out the be the "mad inventor" of the time machine, Ying hopes to be David in the David in Goliath. scene.

Week 21- Steamboats, Mississippi, and Indiana

 We got back to it this week, and it was fairly painless except the little boys were running around. Hulk did some school with us. He's determined to learn to read like his sisters so he have have an e-reader,too! The girls received  Nooks for Christmas, and have been reading non-stop thanks to our libraries e-book collection for kids!)His me too attitude has kicked in..lol... but in 3 weeks he truly has 30+ sight words and is sounding out a lot of words so jealousy seems to be working as a powerful motivator..lol....

Math-- We did not jump right back into to teaching textbooks. We left off at an odd place because we stopped earlier than planned so we need a bit of warm up before we go back. So this week we retreated to some 2nd grade review worksheets on basic seconds grade concepts. Adding with regrouping, subtracting with borrowing. Ying does these sheet with very little difficulty, but Yang tries to make it soooooooo complicated. I HATE how public school made her think about math. Some days, just to do basic math facts of 8+7 it takes a number sentence, a picture and counting on her fingers, not because she doesn't know it, but because they told her that was the complete answer. She can't break the thought pattern and just do the problem. IT IS FRUSTRATING.... Thanks for the venting space ;).....

Spelling- Lesson 20.

 Reading- the girls finished up the "junk" books they got over the holidays. Ying finished Rodrick Rules for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and Yang finished her Ever After High Book.

History- We covers Robert Fulton's inventions and MS,IN. Girls thought it was very interesting that Robert L. Livingston was involved in both  the Louisiana Purchase and the invention of the steamboat. Oddly enough I had never heard of (or remembered maybe?) Livingston despite a college education before MFW. I like learning along with them.

Science- light this week. Read about plants for bookbasket. next week the girls start a coop science class so I didn't want to dive in here.

Read Aloud & LA- Continued with Time 4 learning, and  started On the Banks of Plum Creek. We are doing a  free lapbook I found on homeschoolshare.com to go along with the read aloud.
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/banks_plum_creek.php. So far its worked very well at slowing us down and really paying close attention to each chapter. We read at night and then the next day the girls do the exercise/minibook the corresponds.

Time to get our grind on...lol

 After 3 weeks off for the holidays we are trying to kick it back into gear but the weather is not cooperating...lol..  We are going to try to start back tomorrow but the little boys will be here since their preschool has been closed due to record low temperature in our neck of the woods. The girls can usually get stuff done with just Hulk around but Taz not so much. Plus Taz and Hulk fight continually. It's a really small house...lol... and really distracting. But, we'll do our best to jump back in. I had originally only planned on taking a 2 week break, but we ended up stopping earlier then planned due to some great extracurricular opportunities that arose. We couldn't pass up a day of caroling with a local group, or ice skating, or and then the little boys had their preschool Christmas pageant and festivities. Next week the girls will start going 1 day a week to local co-op for some Lego physics, Human Body study,a social lunch hour and Classroom play production. They are looking forward to it. Yang has recently started asking to return to public school and I am hoping this fill that social need for her. Ying wants nothing to do with public school again. Hulk has already told me that he wants to be home schooled next year for K. But, we will cross those bridges when we get there. We will finish out this year a homeschooling family. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wow, the holidays flew by. Didn't help that I had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Night on the heels of the previous weekend. But that how it is. The kids had an awesome time with friends and family. They even got a delayed gift. On New year's Eve a family of 6 kids 10 and under moved into their old BFFs house. It's been a non-stop play date since...lol I am very happy for them to have found new outdoor playmates. I always feel better with a large group of them outside then just the few. :)  We'll start back to school next week after a long break. The kids aren't ready but I am definitely ready for a little more structure to our days. I have L-A-Z-Y this week. Cold,wet, and with the kids unable to go outside I am only treading water with the cleaning so.... here's to feeling more productive in the new year!