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.