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!

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!