Week # 10

We had a great week. There were a few minor issues but overall things went really well. Probobally our best week yet. I feel like we accomplished a lot even though on paper we have had "bigger" weeks. We focused a lot on Math and reading. The only real issue is that I am still finding it very hard to find time to work and the business is suffering from my lack of time. It is a really hard thing for me to balance. Hopefully I will figure out something that will work for us all very soon!

No Bible this week. I am sad to admit that I slacked on my own reading schedule as well.

MATH
We got back on track this week, finally.
DD- Saxxon lessons 26-30
DS- Saxxon Lessons 33-36
DS got frustrated a couple times this week. He was trying to hurry through his math worksheets and as a result got 90% wrong and had to redo the worksheets. Which led to him getting really upset. Trying to teach him that taking his time to do things right will result in less time spent than doing things the way he currently does them. This was a problem we had in public school as well.
DD- Worked on telling time. She is doing great! Telling time doesn't come in to play until quite a bit later in the Saxxon program, but she had shown an interest during her brothers math time. I decided to do it now since she seemed to want to.
DRILLS- Subtraction/Addition DD
Multiplication- DS
We watched a multiplication video that I found at the library. It was very old and outdated... and boring....

GEOGRAPHY-
Continued reading from the Illustrated World Atlas. We are still learning about South America, with a focus on Brazil.
We spent a lot of time playing our geography game, this week adding the North America game in as well. The kids find it challenging but enjoy it, and are really seeming to retain the information. I am not focusing as much on the capitals as the cirriculum suggests, more so on the location of the countries, which continents they are in, and facts about the continents, countries, ect.
DS- Continued working on his Geography packet. It is an advanced assignment reccomended for kids 5th grade and up- but there were quite a few pages I knew he was capable of doing (and he was) and the ones that were a little too hard I did with him.
We continued working on our Brazil lapbook.

SCIENCE/NATURE
We continued reading from Wild Places about jungles, where animals live in jungles, what lives in the trees, rain forests.
We also read more from Living World - Learning more about the rain forest floor, Monkeys and Apes andAnimals that climb and glide.
We worked more on our Frog lapbooks. Observed our tadpoles, and focused on the frogs of the rain forest, reading more about them and adding some more info about them to our BRAZIL lapbook.
We continued with our potato experiment.
We watched a video about the rainforest.

ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS
DD- continued working on her workbooks. Pg 50-59 with daily review of sight words. She is doing excellent! Reading first reader books on her own now!
We also worked in a seperate workbook focusing on vowels and short and long sounds.
DD- Speech and speech homework- Her speech teacher took me aside after class and told me she doesn't think we will need to continue much longer. DS's speech patterns seem to be consistent with her age group now :)
DS- We didn't work from Yellow Book this week. DS gets really frustrated with handwriting, writing in general really, and since he was having issues with math I decided not to push it this week.
DS- Finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last week. I had him do a book report on it this week.

MUSIC/ART
No music this week. It just didn't fit in the schedule. The suggested art projects for this week required me buying a lot of materials and I didn't feel it was neccesary so we skipped that as well this week.

READING
DS- Finished Charlie and The Chocolate Factory this week. I caught him up at night reading several times this week :) Once he finished CCF he read from numerous Pokemon books and a few others that I didn't require him to log. He really seems to enjoy reading now. I am so happy with the progress he has made in such a short time!
DD- Read When I am Big (The same book that we used to help DS to read) It brought back so many memories. It was such a neat feeling when she finished it on her own for the first time! My kids are growing too fast.
She also read Pop Pop Pop
DS- Read to DD a lot this week as well. I noticed him reading Fancy Nancy to her as well as some other random books on the rain forest and animals, some Pokemon books too. It was a big reading week around here.
I read aloud from Nate Saint- Chapters 4-7, Fancy Nancy (DD loves those books!) Also read aloud from numerous books on the rain forest, animals, and atlas'.

SPORTS/EXTRA ACTIVITIES

Cheer, DS had his last soccer game, Girl Scouts, (We had a nut and candy booth that consumed A LOT of our time this week) Two playdates at different neighbors houses on different days. (We got to know a neighbor that we had been hopeing to get to know better for 2 years!) Royal Rangers, and Sunday School.

Pumpkin Decorating

The kids entered a pumkin decorating contest at a local bank. They worked really hard and came up with the ideas all on thier own. Unfortunatly, somehow I messed up the dates and we returned the pumpkins one day late, so they were not judged :( The kids were dissapointed, as was I. But there is always next year! Here they are :)


The ghost belongs to DD
Cowboy to DS

Week # 9

I came down with a nasty head cold on Tuesday. It really hampered our school efforts this week. We did manage to get a little done. Most of it on Monday and a few little things throughout the week.

English/Language Arts-
Field Trip Summary- the kids wrote about our field trip to Roloff farms and drew a picture of the things we did there.

DD-Workbook #1- page 48-49 + review of previously learned sight words.
Workbook #2- Still working on short vowels.
SPEECH CLASS

SPELLING- DS & DD- Spelling DVD 30 minutes each- new spelling words for both. They are still loving this game and are doing great with spelling!


MATH
DD- Saxxon Math Lesson 25
DS- Saxxon Math Lessons 31 & 32
DD- Math drill - addition and subtraction

GEOGRAPHY
Passport- Entered Belize- traded money for Brazilian real.
Intermediate World Atlas pg 52-55
Geography Game- (South America) By the end of the week, only having played it twice- DD could locate 3 out of 12 countries and DS could locate 7 out of 12!
A trip around the world- Interesting facts about Brazil- Crossword puzzle.
Started Brazil lapbook- Flag, Animals, layers of the rain forest


SCIENCE/NATURE
Tropical Rain forests-
Activity- where the jungles are- found all the rain forests on a world map- colored them, entered them in our World notebook
Wild Places- In the Jungle, Why rainforests are important, River Amazon, Strange Plants
Living World- Amazon, Rain forest plants

We started a potatoe plant experiment on Friday- more about it next week.

Video- Smithsonian National Zoo- Really interesting video- We learned about a lot of different endangered animals from all over the world and about thier conservation efforts. It led to a great discussion!

MUSIC/ART-
No special music this week- my head couldn't take it! We did an art project though. A local bank is hosting a pumpkin decorating contest. The kids worked on thier own pumpkins. They turned out SO cute! Pictures and results listed soon!

READING-
DS- Read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to page 68
I read aloud- 5 Little Monkeys reading in bed. Nate Saint Chapter 3 and Rain Forest.

SPORTS/EXTRA ACTIVITIES
Cheerleading, soccer, Girl Scouts. DS went hunting for the first time with Hubby and Grandpa! Had a great time! DD had her first real sleep over at a friends house. She had a great time. I, on the other hand, did not. She did call me quite a bit which was nice, but it was hard for me to go to bed without tucking her in :( and waking up without her here... It will be a long while before another sleepover happens!

Nature Study- Tree identification field trip

As much as I love it, nature isn't my strongest subject. I have to ask for help a lot when it comes to teaching the kids anything new. Before the leaves fell I wanted to an activity with the kids about the different trees that are native here in Oregon. I was lucky enough to meet a park ranger who was willing to lead an activity for me. I decided the activity was too neat not to share so we invited my Girl Scout troop to come along.
It was such a fun activity. The kids walked around the lake learning how to identify different trees by thier leaves and bark. Afterwards, they did leaf and bark rubs and made a book to take home for reference.
The kids had fun and so did all the parents!

Field Trip to Roloff Farms

Our family ran across the show "Little People Big World" A couple of years ago. I had seen the familiy years before the show appeared on a few talk shows and really admired them. They had been through so much and had persevered through it all with thier heads held high. Anyhow, we began recording the show and watching it every weekend. It opened the door to so many conversations with the kids. The kids became very interested in the subject of dwarfism and we began studying it over the summer. The kids love watching it also for all the references to Oregon, as they live only a couple hours away from us! It also doesn't hurt that one of the sons, Jacob, LOVES soccer and Chandler does as well. (You can guess who his favorite family member is!)
Anyhow after talking about it for the last couple of years we decided to take a trip to thier pumpkin patch this year. I am SO glad that we did!
We had such a great time! We got to meet Amy and Matt, and also Matt's mom and dad. Oh and we can't forget Rocky- Thier dog! They were all so friendly and exactly how we had pictured them to be. We took two different tours of the property and got to see all the neat places we had seen on t.v. After we finished the tours, got a snack to eat, and visited all the other fun little places they had set up around the farm we finally picked our pumpkins! It was an awesome day! We hope to go again next year!
The kids and I with Amy
Matt

Our family with Matt's parents

One of the kids favorite places on the farm!

In the western town

My lil pumpkin with her pumpkin!

Interesting quote

When you follow your passion,
Society's help is gone.
You must be careful.
You're completely on your own.

-Joseph Campbell

Week # 8

It has been hard for me to find time to blog. I am behind in posting this and know that if I wait too much longer I probobally won't do it at all. So here it is...

The week went by smoothly, busy as usual, but no problems.

BIBLE
Greenland
George Muller
Mathew 5:27-42
Memory Verse

LANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISH
Copied Memory Verse
Dicatation of Memory Verse daily
DD- Wkbk#1 Pgs 40-47 with daily review (working on short vowels and sight words)
DD- Wkbk #2 Animal riddles, short vowels
DD- Wkbk #4 Pgs 8-11 Short vowels
DS- Workbook- Reading comprehension 10 pages
DS- Yellowbook Page 38-42
I read to them some about the orgin of pumpkins/ Halloween.
Letter writing- They chose to write to Grandma and Grandpa Abbott this week- thanking them for a care package they sent them earlier in the week.
DD-SPEECH CLASS and homework
DD & DS- Vocabulary- lake and stream, wrote out definitions and added them to our notebooks.
MATH
DD- Saxxon Math Lessons 21-24
DS-Saxxon Math Lesson 30
DS- Math workbook 3 pages (Begining multiplication)
Math Drills-
DD- Addition and subtraction
DS- Division and subtraction


GEOGRAPHY
We continued our study on CANADA this week.
Finished our Canada lapbook- climate, religion, major industries, wow facts, people and landscape
Illustrated World Atlas- Nature Farming and Industry
A Trip Around the World- Read about Canada, crossword puzzle
CANADA STORE- Kids spent thier Canadian dollars on fun things from the "Canadian Store"
Canada Quiz- Quiz on everything we had learned the last two weeks. The kids did AWESOME! Both of them answered questions that I didn't really expect for them to get right. (I really didn't think they had been paying attention, but they proved me wrong!)
SCIENCE-
Living World- Living by Rivers and Streams, Water Birds
NATURE Video- Ugliest Animals of the world- A show I found on OPB, the kids LOVED it and learned a lot from it! SO DID I!
We continued on our Frog Lapbooks- Predator, Prey, tadpole, frog. We also continued to learn how to take care of our tadpoles- While still waiting anxiously for thier arrival!
SAHARA Video- Interesting, but too long and the kids lost interest.
Reading Rainbow- Animal Habitats

MUSIC ART
Going over the sea- Canada songs-


READING
I read aloud- The Frog Princess, Night of the Moonjellies, and Nate Saint Chapters 1 and 2.
DS- Read Cats that Roar, Started Tuck Everlasting, then his book request came through so he started Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Chapters 1-5

FIELD TRIP- I arranged for a park ranger to take us out to the lake to identify several different types of trees. I thought it would be fun to share so I invited my Girl Scout troop to come along too! It was really fun! I will post more about it another time.
We also visited ROLOFF FARMS later in the week. We had so much fun! Again, I will have to post more later.

SPORTS/EXTRA ACTIVITIES
Cheerleading, Soccer, Royal Rangers, Bible Study

Still searching for a guitar teacher :(