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.