Weekly Wrap Up - Week 17

I can't believe this was only the first week back after Christmas.  It has been the longest. week. ever!

Once again we have added on more school since Daniel was born.  As in more than just the basics, and both boys doing all/most subjects every day.  In another week or two we should be back up to our full load, plus some.

I am also putting us back on more of a schedule again.  It's hard.  But I know it's the best thing for all of us, so.... here we go!

Tyler stayed busy this week with workbook pages, puzzles, learning activities, and good ol' play time.

Dale only missed two words on his Wednesday spelling test, so 'argue' and 'continue' were the only words he had to work on the rest of the week.

He's been reviewing and practicing multiplication this week in math.  He reviewed cursive capitals (per his request) early in the week and did copy work the second half.  For Bible we continued in his Old Testament book, and for science he read aloud to Alan about worms from their science reader.  We've gotten back to piano practice for him; I was pleased with how good he did after several weeks off.  He also worked on social studies and computer science, and attended his second Library Book Club meeting.

My focus for Alan for the new year is lightening up in some ways, while be careful to only accept his best in others.  I think school had gotten a little dry and difficult for a 6 year old.  My first remedy for this has been easing up a little bit on quantity, and adding in Five In a Row.

With that, here was Alan's week:
Cursive: review
Reading: Frog and Toad.  I am so excited about Alan's reading.  That deserves its own blog post - soon.
Math - addition facts, ordinal numbers, telling time

Phonics - continued in Explode the Code 2 ('tr' blends)
Typing
Science (with Dale)

Five in a Row: We started with the book Three Names.  Alan loved it!

Today we finished it up with the fun stuff, roasting potatoes just like Mr. Beckett sometimes did: 

And after looking at all the shadows in the book's artwork, we went outside and traced our own!

Weekly Wrap Up - Weeks 13 & 14

We moseyed along for 4 weeks after baby Daniel was born, took 1 week for Thanksgiving, then started back to (almost) full-schedule school the Monday after Thanksgiving.

We have backed off on some of the extras for now as it is a busy time with a newborn, and also to slow down and ensure we are mastering the basics.

In the last two weeks...

Dale: Completed 2 spelling lists.  This week he seemed to have a good grasp on his list, so I gave him a pop-test on Wednesday.  The two he missed were the only ones I asked him to use in his practice activities on Wednesday and Thursday, and we retested on those today.

Read the biography of Harriet Tubman (and discussed it at our local Library Book Club).

Finished reading Romans and began I Corinthians.

Used the Bible and portions of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas for copywork.

Began a unit on fractions.

Joined Alan and me in for a few lessons in our study through Acts.

Made cookies completely by himself!  They were delicious; he washed the dishes, and then blogged about making cookies.  Success!

Alan:
Continued moving forward in his phonics book (Explode the Code 2), working with beginning blends.

Practiced numbers to 40 in math.  We both saw he needs more practice writing numbers, so I printed Twelve Days of Christmas-themed number-writing worksheets.

Reviewed all of the lower-case cursive letters we've covered so far.

Continued through Acts, using coloring sheets from CalvaryCurriculum.com

Tyler:
Decided he really really wants to "do school" with the big boys, so we busted out the hardly-used 10 cent preschool workbook Mimi scored at a garage sale this summer.  He was so happy!

Brought out a few of our printed activities, like this shapes mitten match.

A lot of school this week was done the afternoons during naptime, so that time didn't have to be filled for Tyler. :)

Brooklyn:
Napped during afternoon school, but also got to try a couple of new activites, like playing with some oat flour (oats ground in the food processor) I had leftover a while back from a recipe.

It's been a good 2 weeks, and good for all of us to get back to a routine.  It was also wonderful to have incredibly mild weather so the boys got to spend a lot of time outside.  Now to get through 2 more weeks before Christmas break! :)

Weekly Wrap Up - Maternity Leave

We just finished our second week off since Baby Brother Daniel was born, but just because we haven't been hitting the books doesn't mean learning hasn't been happening!

It was a wonderful blessing that the weather was so incredibly mild and beautiful the last two weeks.  The boys (and even Brooklyn a little bit!) spent a lot of time playing outside.  With the windows open I was able to listen in on their adventures and creative play.  It seemed the longer the week went on the more creative and content they became.  My favorite was hearing them play pirates.

I think their favorite was the bucket of fine planting dirt they overturned and claimed as their own sandpile.  That kept them busy at least a couple of days!

While the boys were busy outside in their dirt, I made use of some of those pinterest ideas I have saved and got Brooklyn busy with a pan of flour.

 She loved it!  And yes, she ate some.  And yes, by the time she was done the mess was pretty big, but swept up easily.  Very much worth it for how happy and busy she was.

For more inside play one day I got out the sea creatures and a bucket of water.  It wasn't long at all before Alan came looking for the salt shaker.  Everyone knows sea creatures live in salt water!

Another pinterest idea I pulled out for our maternity leave week was Slushies in a bag.

 We froze a quart-size baggie of extremely salty water overnight, then placed it inside a gallon baggie and added about 2 cups of juice, and shook, shook...

 ..shook some more...

 ...and pretty soon the juice froze into a yummy slush!

We used juice two days and on the third we used sweetened milk with a splash of vanilla to make ice cream!  For more details on this project you can visit here.

In addition to these activities Dale kept reading, and working on his ongoing story he's writing, Alan did some reading aloud to me and Daddy and Mimi, and lots and lots of playtime has been enjoyed, both inside and out.  Not bad for having a new baby brother at home!  

Weekly Wrap Up - Weeks 11 & 12

Seems like it has been a couple of uneventful weeks, school-wise, as we keep marching along toward maternity leave.

Last week was a full week, but this week has lightened up some to allow more time for resting and to-do list accomplishing.  For me, obviously.  

And the to-do listing is coming along, even if it is slowly and surely.  Last week I spent a lot of time washing, sorting, folding and hanging baby clothes.  So satisfying to see drawers full of baby things ready to be worn!

We're down to weekly dr. visits now, and those are on Mondays.  So Mondays are very full days with getting everyone out and still trying to get in all our usual school and home lists.

Tuesdays I've started calling our 'socialization' days.  Mostly kidding, of course.  We have library story time at 10, usually followed by a trip to Nana & PawPaw's afterward.  

This week Dale couldn't leave until he had completed one of PawPaw's word searches.  

After spending all morning on breakfast and morning jobs and getting ready to go, then being gone the rest of the morning, that leaves all of our school for the afternoon.  Plus menu planning and putting away our new load of library books.

Whew! Is it any wonder Wednesdays may be becoming my favorite day of the week?  This stay-at-HOME HOME-schooling mama likes just that... being home!

Then this week Thursday morning turned out to be another morning out as we returned our bottle calf-that's-no-longer-on-a-bottle to pasture.  

Once again I was glad for a day at home today.  Even more so with today being planned as a light day in an already light week.

After the calf-return yesterday I was feeling generous, afraid there might be some sadness at letting him go, and agreed to let the boys get out.....

The Legos.  

For just over 48 hours, and then they are all going back away.  Way away.  So, the baby gate has been across the boys door and when they haven't been out making the most of the beautiful fall weather they've been spending lots of time building, building, building.  I have to admit... it's been kind of nice!

So, between all our going and slacking, we're still making academic progress.  Yay!

Here's two week's worth:

Dale - Finished reading Numbers and 14 chapters into Joshua.  Covered first 4 time periods of the Old Testament.  Completed several exercises and reveiws on working with weights and volumes, both metric and standard.  Copied 2 poems for copywork/handwriting practice.  Learned 12 new spelling words, finished 3 journal entries and a couple of blog posts, and worked on "to be" verbs.

Alan - Studied Bible stories from Acts chapters 5-9, finished his first phonics book and went several pages into his second, starting on consonant blends, practiced his name in cursive, plus the letters 'h', 'f', and 'k'.  Continued practicing addition and subtraction, including an introduction to word problems (with which he did great!). 

Together we read about Italy, including Venice, Pompeii, ancient Rome, Leonardo da Vinci, and Vivaldi.  Hopefully a post on Italy will be forthcoming next week.

Tyler has spent two weeks making fall leaf and pumpkin crafts along with similarly themed rhymes.  Among other things he also got some scissor practice and playdough time.  

Tyler and preschool posts are in the works for next week as well.  

All of this posting is assuming we don't have a baby in the meantime, or at least that I can get them written before then.  Wish me luck, right?  

Weekly Wrap Up - Week 10

Another going, busy week.  Sometimes I wonder if we ever have a 'normal' 5-day stretch.  I think... as of right now... that next week is supposed to be that way.  We shall see!

For this week, Monday was another OB visit.  Afternoon this time, so we at least got our school done before then.

Tuesday was story time / library day.  Yay for fresh books!
In the afternoon we worked on a little craft project:

Wednesday was Miss Brookie's birthday!

And Thursday evening was her party!
With furniture pushed aside in preparation for that, we ended up doing some schooling in the floor.
I don't think anyone minded.

Party time!

This week's academics:
Dale: Began the 5 major time periods of the Old Testament, continued reading through Numbers, weighing solids with kilograms, blogged, journaled, covered action and linking verbs, copied poems for copywork/handwriting, took it upon himself to start learning a Christmas hymn, learned about our countries of the week, and only missed 1 on his spelling test!

Alan: Started the book of Acts, began the final review section of Explode the Code 1 (phonics), continued with subtraction practice, learned lowercase g,qu,c, n, and capital A in cursive, practiced his reading, and joined in our country study.

Tyler: Scissor practice, bug crafts & printables, stringing beads, got read to, and spent a good bit of time playing outside with his brothers!

Weekly Wrap Up - Week 9

Monday - Daddy had a day to take the big boys for a long-awaited canoe trip.  The trip had been promised since late in the summer.  They had an excellent day for it weather-wise, and enjoyed a couple of hours of canoeing, climbing, and exploring together.  No pictures because I didn't think of sending the camera.  And even if I had thought about, I wouldn't have sent it down the river!

Tyler stayed with Gramps and Mimi and I took Brooklyn with us for Mimi's chiropractor visit and my 35 week prenatal.

Tuesday - story time!  And we managed to go by and visit Nana & PawPaw afterward, a routine we have held off and on since before Alan was born, but have gotten away from a lot lately.  We had a good time visiting on the back deck while the boys ate their library popcorn and tried to see how fast they could ride on the exercise bike.  Woohoo... PE!

 

Wednesday - It was nice to stay home in the morning and just do our school thing.  Daddy got home in time for us all to go out for the Fair Parade.

Thursday - Field trip to the County Fair.  

Which meant another morning out!  Amazing we got any school (or housecleaning) done this week!  We did manage to work in a chocolate fondue snack for our country study that afternoon.  Priorities, you know!

Friday - After all the going you'd think we'd have jumped up this morning and gotten on with our day.  I guess we were worn out, because we didn't do much of anything the first hour or two of the day.  To motivate us all, I had the sudden idea to go through our entire day's to-do list backward!  I let the boys know the plan, and then sent them to brush their teeth and do their "before-bed" pick up and put away. From there we worked backward through our school day, starting with our country study, which was fun to get to mid-morning instead of mid-afternoon!   We ended up with the boys' "morning jobs" around 2:00 this afternoon.  So, yes, some things sat undone for a few hours, but in the end it all did get done and we all enjoyed the change of pace!

Our academic progress this week:

Dale: week of review in Bible, and I'm really pleased with how he's retained everything we've learned!  He's also halfway through Acts in his trip through the New Testament, and reading through Numbers for Old Testament.  He copied the poem "Geography" by Eleanor Farjeon for handwriting, continued working with length and distance for math, and covered contractions and reviewed pronouns for grammar.  Plus spelling, writing, and our country study.

Alan: Review and short 'o' in phonics, subtraction in math, d, c, o in cursive.  Read through parts of John together pointing out characteristics of Jesus that we can learn about him and try to imitate: creative, helpful, kind, compassionate, wise, giving/generous, forgiving, and thankful.

Tyler: Bugs.  We read some bug books and made a spider and spider web.

Weekly Wrap Up - Week 7

Monday - Labor Day.  Greg was off and cooked up some plans for himself and the older boys so we took a day off.

 Tuesday - Our weekly story time visit to the library.  Picked up books for our Country of the Week (France), aaand some others.  Because we can never leave with just a few books.

 Wednesday - I updated the blog throughout the day for my 'Day in the Life' post.  Fairly typical day in a lot of ways.

 Thursday - Glad I didn't live blog this day!  Overslept, felt behind and somewhat short tempered.  No particular reason.  Other than it being the 5th straight day over 100 degrees and that whole 8 months pregnant thing.

 Friday - Long day, with Daddy working late.  Took our time.  Our workload was the usual but felt light.  Boys could finally take it no more and escaped for some outside play in the last half hour before dark, even though it was still over 95!!  Finished the night with a shower from the hose in the backyard (soap, shampoo, and all!) and some lights-out, pjs, blanket nest in the floor baseball.

 

Academically speaking, this week: 
Dale - Still reading Exodus, working on mental math, copywork from Proverbs and our never-ending read-aloud, Swiss Family Robinson.  Spelling list of homophones,  sentences and verbs for grammar.  France and ants for social studies and science. Respectively.  Rhyming a bonus. :)

 Alan - Forgiveness was the Bible topic of the week.  Addition in math, still practicing same letters in cursive, review week in phonics (short a, i, u).  France and ants for this boy, too. :)  Discovered a new learning/fun website he likes: Little Animals, from BBC.

 Tyler - Week two of cars and trucks. Post to come next week. (You can read about our Under the Sea unit here.)  We've read books, done puzzles, and made a handful of crafts!  Also inspired by Tyler's unit is the 10 foot 'city' (as the boys call it) or 'road map' (as I call it) pictured in this post.  They drew it themselves and have played with it every day this week!

Weekly Wrap-Up, Week 6

We are wrapping up our first week back from a week off, rested, planned, refreshed, and jam-packed with learning and fun!

Our week started bright and early Monday morning with Tyler discovering a huge bag of play food and dishes recently passed down to us.  I had a blast spending some one on one time with him as he emptied the bag item by item, naming and admiring each thing as he pulled it out.

Hearing him name his discoveries - "Look! It's grapes!" - and then getting caught up in the whole event with statements like, "I love it!" were so precious.  The whole bunch of them enjoyed the batch of food goodies so much I am planning on bringing them out every Monday.

This was a big week for us with Aunt Kristin and Logan visiting!  They spent a couple of school days with us, just hanging out and helping out.  

 Oh by the way... another biggie this week... Brooklyn has mastered pulling up!  Cruising appears to be not far behind.

How we got anything done with this sweet boy around I do not know:

 But we did, completing a full week of....
Dale: Old Testament studies, continued reading through Exodus, finishing last year's math book (yay!), copying Proverbs on pleasant words, a new spelling list, writing, grammar (pronouns and sentence types), science, and social studies.

Alan: Bible lessons on respect, short 'u' in phonics, lowercase 'r' and 's' in cursive, continued addition in math, reading, science and social studies.

The boys are still working through the chapters on ants in their Nature Reader for science.

This week's country for social studies has been Spain.  We discussed some of the geography basics and spent a good bit of time on artists and composers, including creating 2 Picasso inspired pieces of art.  Complete blog post on Spain (and still one on the UK) to follow, hopefully next week!

Tyler began a 2 week unit on cars and trucks.  We've been doing lots of reading, as usual, and several transportation crafts.  Again, blog post on that to follow!

Our family devotions this week were centered around the letter 'D' with the verse "Christ died for the ungodly", Romans 5:6.

In addition to our usual lesson, the boys have benefited from Kristin being around with some fun bonus projects this week!

One of which involved quite a few dishes, and even though the final product wasn't edible...

 ... I do believe it was quite enjoyable, don't you?

Dale and Alan were lucky puppies yet again, getting to do a 'real' art project with Mimi.  Here's a sneak peek at that:

We did take a time out from all the creating Thursday for a cousin picture, since everyone was awake and happy.  That seems to still be a rarity at this point!

We finished up this morning with yet another fun Kristin project! 

 Care to guess what in the world is going on? 

Once again, blog post(s) to follow on all these fun projects.

I don't think my boys are going to let Kristin and Logan go back home!  On the other hand, I don't think Logan's Daddy will be convinced to let them stay on indefinitely.  I hear he's kind of fond of them, too. ;)

Below is a sampling of this week's work: