CTG Week 4

From Hulks American Artist class: they learned about John James Audubon. I know for many of you this looks like your preschooler's work, but for Hulk this is amazing. We are talking bout a kid who as a pre-k'er would refuse to draw anything more then green lines...lol

2nd Week of Co-op and everyone is in heaven. Attitudes are so much better for both me and the kids. All 3 are taking full days with the girls picking lot of active classes this year. Ying and Yang chose to completely split up this year, not even having lunch together. Ying is doing Choi Kwan Do, Into to Computers, Lego Simple Machines, lunch, Ancient History,Recorder and Kidfit ( a fun exercise/organized game class). Yang chose Gym, Tap/ballet, Intro to Computers, lunch American Girl, Classroom play production, and an all girls Volleyball class. Hulk has started Choi Kwan Do with Ying, and  is taking a US Geography class, 1st grade Science,lunch, Storybook cooking, recorder, and an All boy American artist class.  

 While the kids got miss Grandpa's Tuesday Drs. appointment they were so lucky on Thursday, These kids know more about the American medical system then most adults..lol...But luckily it was fastest Pulmonary visit I can remember. Dad's doc literally kicked us out before he "could get sick"since he quite literally looks better then he has in years. We took Grandpa back home, did a little work, and then reward time. 1st homeschool climb session of the year! Ying and Yang met up with a friend from Co-op and Hulk disappeared with the boys. Mom even got her bible study homework done amidst the chaos!

This week we put Science in the Beginning on hold and have started the book Pyramids. We got out the clay to explore why ancient builders might have chosen pyramids as the preferred shape for massive buildings and some how it progressed to  playtime and build your own sphinx..lol..they loved it. Can you guess which one belongs to Hulk?

CTG- week 3

Welcome Rexie, our new school mascot. Rexie  moves around and gets dressed up sorta like an "Elf on the Shelf" but not as a reporter... More just something fun Grandma does to add a little surprise to the school day. Grandpa has been doing much better the last few days. He's been up and working through school with us. Hulk and he has a math facts race. Grandpa won this day but as Hulk says " He does have 60 years on me."

aps

 We studied  the migration of Noah's descendants through the middle east. We reviewed our map skills as we worked through our notebooking pages but I was very happy with the neatness and detail they used.

Hulk has really picked up his reading skills lately. We've been working on  reading with inflection. He's been  working with the Elephant and Piggy Books by Mo Wilhems. He definitely picks up on the visual clues in these book. Yang has been his partner and modeling the inflections for him. They've been alternating parts. He's also very excited about his recorder, and progressing well at reading music.

Our hands on project for this week was practicing writing Cuneiform. Ying and Yang had a blast with the cookie dough and even Hulk joined in. Unfortunately the writing didn't last through baking, but some sprinkles and icing with Grandma made up for the lost messages.

CTG and MFW 1st Weeks 1 & 2 and

Our not back to school celebration on the 1 st day of public school here.

 We are loving Creation to the Greeks  so far. The first 2 weeks have been so smooth compared to last year's start. I think they kids were really ready for some routine. They have also responded really well to the move to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I have already decided I am going to give myself grace this year when it comes to some of the hands on projects and feasts.  I couldn't manage the actual Sabbath feast the first week. Between school,work, doctors appointments, and home health visits, I don't get the time needed. Not sure how I'll handle the next one, but we did take a Sabbath school day...lol. I would love to really do them up, but I am just not sure we'll get to the feasts. So far we've studied the 7 days of Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Noah. I have been floored at the kids notebooking pages so far. They've made huge leaps in writing. I am getting entire paragraphs and adjectives!!!!! Best of all NO TEARS!!!!!! Even Hulk is not complaining about his writing exercises! He told me the other day that it had gotten much easier to write. So its an understatement to say I am one happy Mommy!

We are veering away from Dinosaurs of Eden.  We are more Old Earth Creationist. Also  we've already been through the discussion with the kids that the age of the earth is debated based on varying evidence and the thing to realize is we really don't know all the details of what happened. God didn't feel we needed all the details, and he is slowly giving us glimpses all the time. We watched a very cool documentary on  the T- Rex . It explained  how over the last 50 years pretty much everything we thought we knew about it  has been proven was pretty much wrong. What I wanted the kids to get from it was that theories are just that theories, humans guessing at the divine. And humans are always reworking theories and learning more.

Science in the Beginning has been awesome so far. The lessons have been great. Short and sweet with a great hands on angle. Even Hulk has gotten a lot of the lessons. I really appreciate all the work done by the ladies previously on the notebooking sheets. So far all of the experiments have been simple, and worked ( or quickly modified to make it work). Our only one that didn't "work" was the day we were supposed to light paper on fire with a magnifying glass. The sun was just not cooperating enough to get the white paper to burn, but we did manage to get some dry leaves and a black peice to light up. We just talked about why the leaves and black paper were easier to burn.

Math we are continuing on with Teaching Textbooks 4. the girls are already a 1/3 through and its going alright. We are having issues with attention errors. I am trying to figure out if its just too easy and they are rushing due to boredom or what. When asked to correct the errors they can fix them in less than a min. Its almost always tiny calculation errors or they skip 4 problems. Only time will tell.


 Hulk is flying through the phonics in MFW 1st, and Saxon 1 math. Dude just gets Math. He listening in on the girls lessons too and picking stuff up. I am going to be in trouble early with this dude..lol

While we celebrated our " Not Back to School Day" we did a little Chalk bombing. Our first year homeschooling my nephew Taz was with us pretty much full time as a 3 year old ( Including 4 days of  the Atlanta Snowmagedon). Taz started Kindergarten in the public school where his mother is a teacher this year, so we decided to surprise him and celebrate the occasion. The kids plotted and planned. We chalked the driveway, left balloons and a big poster. The neighbors must have thought we were crazy, but Taz will never have the "get off the bus" big welcome home that many of his classmate get. So, we wanted him to feel special and loved even though he's not with us daily anymore. Per his mother it was a huge hit, and she was very thankful for the positive encouragement. She is due with #3 in just a few months and was really happy to shine some light on her oldest before the big day.