Weekly Review

 

We had a productive week this week. We played outside a lot with the nice weather we have had.  We went to the co-op and bought seeds to plant and a few strawberry plants for an experiment. We will but strawberry plants for planting in a few weeks when they are a little big bigger. As you can see these are baby plants.

 

We are going to plant the plants in cute pots(I still need to buy) then we are going to preform a cause and effect experiment with watering, fertilizing and hydroponic planting. He wants to also play music and say nice things to one plant and play loud music and say mean things to another plant.

 

The spring park and recreation department schedule came out and we have tons of activities planned for March, April and May. Our weekends will be busy. We are trying to get Kiddo back into a regular weekly activity other than bowling and having no luck at all. We have given him several options and told him to pick one and he does not want to do any of them. I think we will have to pick and force the issue. He refuses to go back to TKD. I hope it is just a phase.

 

He has started running his 25.2 miles for the Kids marathon in April.  The kids run 25.2 miles on their own and the last mile at the marathon.  He is running a mile or so at a time and coming home saying it is brutal, Mom just brutal, LOL.

 

I am using a dry ease board to put all of his assignments for the day on. He loves it, I let him basically pick the order we do them in and he has the best time getting to erase each assignment as it is completed. Also Dad will sometimes leave a note or funny picture on the board before he goes to work for Kiddo to see.  In the picture below you can see where we have two  things left to do, and the copy work is always last, he still hates writing.

 

I ordered some curriculum this week, ouch my wallet and yeah I love getting new books. I also took advantage of the Scholastic Dollar Days pdf download sale.  I am now looking at binding machines, I am thinking about a spiral one vs. comb.

 

I ordered our Latin program, Latina Christiana I the complete program with dvds.  I thought seeing another teacher going over things would be good for him.  I order Teaching Textbooks 4 and I am planning on trying the new Beast Academy math for elementary students from Art of Problem Solving that comes out this month.  It looks like curriculum Kiddo would love. You can see samples on their Facebook page. I also ordered Map Skills 5, Have Fun with the Presidents: Activities, Projects, and Fascinating Facts, Draw Write Now, Book 5: The United States, From Sea To Sea, Moving Forward, and Apologia’s Zoology 2 for science. It is 30% at CBD.com this week. 

I will have another order closer to July when we finish Easy Grammar, Sequential Spelling, etc.

I think that is about it for this week.Running, gardening , school and ordering curriculum.

Have a great weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

Baby strawberry plants for an experiment.

Weekly Review Spring Fever

We have been enjoying the few days of spring like weather we are having. There has been lots of outdoor playing and garden planning this week.  We did have another week of a subject a day, we will be returning to a regular schedule next week.  

Kiddo is thrilled we finally got a new school computer.  We have gone through 2 old computers this year that have broke or died on us.  I was able to get a 17” Dell laptop for a great price from the Dell outlet.  We have purchased several computers from the outlet and have never had a bit of trouble from them and it is a great way to get a discounted computer. They often put out coupons for the outlet and that helps a lot. 

I let Kiddo help me get the computer set up load antivirus software and all his educational software. We set up shortcuts for the websites he likes such as Lego.com and Hotwheels.com.  We also set up his own email account. The email for now is for grandparents, aunt, and uncles so he can practice his typing skills and it is a great way to begin practicing letter writing so to speak.

We are within a month of being finished with Latin, Math and Story of the World 3, I will be ordering new curriculum in March. I know  we started school in July but it seems like this year has flown by curriculum wise.

Have a good weekend, we will be planning our garden and starting plans for building built in bookcases in dining room(jumping for joy). 

Wordless Wednesday - Getting Ready for Spring

Weekly Review–I am not even sure what week this is

I have been gone from the blog for weeks, I am sorry. We had been so busy getting ready for vacation, then vacation and then we all got sick again!  It has been a long busy few weeks. 
First we had a great time Walt Disney World, it was a great vacation and I am in no hurry to go back any time soon, it was exhausting.  We are more of sit on the beach vacation people so this was a big difference for us.  Kiddo had a blast and said he would like to go back. His favorite rides were Tower of Terror, Star Tours and Test Track. We visited every country in Epcot. Harry Potter World at Island of Adventure Universal was amazing just like the movie. 

Met Mickey and took an animation class at Hollywood Studios Park

Safari at Animal Kingdom

Great time visiting all the countries at Epcot and finishing his passport in a day.

Magic Kingdom was great even though there was a ton of construction and closures while we were there.

Hogwarts

When we got back from our vacation and I do think we needed a vacation from our vacation  We all were sick again.  Kiddo’s allergies were in full force, DH had a double ear infection and I had bronchitis.  It was a tiring week trying to get back into the swing of things. Very little school work got done that week.  Finally last week we got back to school and did a lot of work trying to catch up.
Kiddo asked if we could do a subject a day, which we do from time and time and that was a great idea.  I was able to concentrate on one subject at a time and we were able to make serious progress and are close to where we should be this time of year.  I don’t see any trouble with us getting all caught up and ready to take a spring time break to enjoy the weather in a few weeks.
As I was doing lesson plans for the rest of the month I noticed we are almost finished with several curriculums. Ahh!!! You know what that means curriculum shopping time.  I sat down to go over what subjects we will want to do next school year (remember we are year round) and it was way too easy and that worried me a bit, LOL.  I am used to spending hours going over curriculums, reading reviews, discussing different styles and etc. and I had very little need to do that this year and it just seems odd.
We are using basically the same ones we used this year. The only real difference is history, while we will move on to Story of the World 4 at the beginning of 2013, we are going to spend the rest of this year on early American History and government. With the election, I feel it is the perfect time to go from the Revolution through the beginnings of The United States. I can not find one good American History curriculum I like so I will be piecing it together myself and we will be using a lot of extra reading materials.
Otherwise here is a rough list of what I will be purchasing in the next few weeks.
MATH
Teaching Textbooks 4
Singapore 3A, 3B
HANDWRITING
A Reason of Handwriting Cursive C
LANGUAGE ARTS
Easy Grammar 4
Daily Grams 4
Wordly Wise 5
Sequential Spelling 2
LATIN
First Form Latin Kit
BIBLE
Telling God’s Story 2
Big Book of Bible Skills
SCIENCE
Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day: Exploring Creation with Zoology 2
Scientific Method Dvd and study guide
HISTORY( the list I am working on so far)
Story of the World 4
Driving Through History Dvds
Draw and Write through History
American Facts and Games
OTHER
Expedition Earth
Map Skills 5

Now that things are back to normal I will be posting more. We are starting on our spring garden journal, planning seed starting, and growing flower bulbs in water. We are getting ready to move the school room from the office to the dinning room. 
Have a great week!

Wordless Wednesday - Disney World

Weekly Review–Week 2 & 3

 

Week 2 and 3 of the new year was a bust. We got in a half a week of work and then Kiddo got sick. It was some virus he could not shake on his own so we ended up at the Doctor over the weekend getting medicine to help.  He is feeling better now still tired and coughing but on the road to recovery.  I got sick last week with the same thing and once my hearing and sense of smell return I will feel better. And this weekend DH has caught it, so we have passed around to everybody.  We hope to get rid of it by this weekend because our vacation starts Friday!

Since we have completely derailed from my lesson plans due to illness and this week is a mad house trying to get ready for Disney World our lesson this week will be centered on our trip and we return we will get back on track. 

I am planning all of our lessons this week to revolve around travel and Disney.  We will be reading up on Disney World, planning our travel route, counting miles and learning about gas mileage.  Our handwriting and spelling will come from the Disney character encyclopedia.  We have made our touring plans and he is helping to map out where each ride and attraction are. It will be a light week but fun with Disney as our inspiration for lessons while still getting plenty of learning in.

 

 

Have a good week!