LEGO Nativity Scene

His nativity scene

(the large white thing in back is the star)

3 wise men with gifts for Baby Jesus

Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus

Wordless Wednesday - Reindeer

They had a Live Reindeer experience here this week for you to come meet reindeer and learn about them. What they really meant was come see 2 reindeer in a pen.  Kiddo still enjoyed seeing the reindeer.

Wordless Wednesday - Blacksmith Shop

Wordless Wednesday - Birthday Hot Wheels and Mickey Mouse

Weekly Review–First Semester Review

 

We worked extra hard this week and finished up our semester today. I am ready for a break we started our year in July. Even though we are year round homeschoolers, we take breaks at Christmas, early spring and fall. 

We have accomplished everything I wanted to before break. We did not do as many experiments as I would have liked, it seems there is never enough time and the health issue I still have going on has slowed down a few of the extras. 

I have plans for a few unit studies next year such as one on government and the election process and I have a lap book on inventors we are going to incorporate into his reading of biographies next year.

Here is a progress update for each subject:

MATH – We are almost finished with Teaching Textbooks 3 and I will be ordering TT4. We are working through Singapore math workbooks 2B, 3A and word problems. I think the extra practice in Singapore really helps with mental math and speedwork.  He is getting better at multiplication but subtraction is still a trouble spot, borrowing that second column he has a mental block with it.  It will click one day.

History – We are half way through Story of the World and are ready to start studying the American Revolution. He can not wait, he has been watching Liberty Kids on Netflix and has read one book already.  We will spend a good bit of time on the American Revolution and the beginning government and then I am going to incorporate a unit study I bought from CurrClick on government and elections. With the election next year it is a perfect time to introduce the process to him.

Language Arts -  We started Easy Grammar about a month ago and it is going so well, he likes the easy small worksheets. I am amazed at how fast he is picked up the concepts, I wish I had Easy Grammar when I was in school! He also does a Daily Gram every day he loves them(go figure).

We finished Wordly Wise 3 and have started on Wordly Wise 4. I think Wordly Wise 4 is still a bit too easy for him. He started reading on his own at age 2 so he has a huge vocabulary but I want a solid foundation.

Spelling – Spelling causes me a headache we are using Sequential Spelling, it is great and works but…  He hates writing and writing out the spelling words everyday is a huge chore, it can up to an hour. Recently I started dividing up the week 2 days he has to write the words and the other 3 the can say them. It is working better.

Latin – Latin is going great we are using Prima Latina, we are more than half way through the book so next year I will need to start looking into what comes next.

Bible – We are using Telling God’s Story and while we could easily do more than one lesson a week, they are short we are spending a week on each lesson. We read the lesson one day, do an activity from the activity book next day, we the Bible passage next day and the the next day He tells me the lesson in his own words.

Science – We are studying Apologia Human Anatomy and he read the book before we ever started school.  We are a little more than half through the book. I am taking time to make sure he gets the vocabulary and definitions down. He loves science, it is his favorite subject.

Reading – He reads so much on his own I don’t require much reading. He is reading biographies

 

I think that covers it for the most part.  I don’t have many changes I plan on making next year, tweak our schedule a little and try to work in more extra curricular activities. He is doing great and I am always wondering should I be pushing him a little harder he can learn so fast on most things. Moms we never stop worrying about something

 

I may not post much the rest of the month since we won’t be doing many formal school things.  We are going to keep doing our calendar page everyday, per his request, reading, he will be helping to make a touring plan for Disney, and I will sneak in math as often as possible. 

Happy Holidays!

Wordless Wednesday

Kiddo's Christmas tree, he decorated it by himself.  

Weekly Review–Week 18

 

 

We have been busy with school this week.  It is almost time for our winter break and I have my list of things to get finished before then. 

We started division this week!  His only question was when did he get to start algebra and geometry.  I wanted to say NEVER!  I did tell him he had to learn his multiplication tables first. 

I am surprised by how much he is liking Easy Grammar. We are working on prepositions.  I found a daily calendar journal on pinterest and he loves it.  Everyday you fill out the date, tally marks, day and draw a picture of the weather for the day.

My Pinterest Homeschool Board

This week I started working on my Disney World planning notebook and Kiddo wanted to make his own planner.  He drew a front cover and chose a graphic for the back cover. He wanted to include chapter with the maps to all the parks, a map and photo of the hotel we are staying and note paper.  After he organized it in the order he wanted we took it to Kinkos and had it bound.  Seeing how much fun he had making his own book I am going to look into getting a spiral binding machine for home. It would be a great way to begin journaling and book reports.

 

Weekly Review - 17

 

I have a very fast update for this week. There is no review we have both been sick with a virus that turned into a wicked head cold for the both of us.  Kiddo is still under the weather and may get a trip to the doctors this week.

Other than endless games of Wheel of Fortune on Wii (could count as spelling or problem solving right?)  and reading we did nothing this week. 

I have been working hard on our to get finished by the December list.  We take the month of December off for the holidays.  In December we will keep doing a little math and a unit study of the meaning of Christmas.  I learned the hard way a whole month off with no school at all makes January very hard on everybody. Doing just a little on top of reading along with crafts helps make getting back to a full schedule in January easier. 

 

Have a great week!  We will be very busy getting to the end of our semester.

Happy Halloween

 

 

Hope everyone has a great day.

 

Weekly Review 15 & 16

Not much to report school wise we are moving along with our new schedule which is working fairly well. We have spent a lot of time outdoors enjoying the fall weather. 
We did finish Wordly Wise book 3 last week.  The last thing we did was make a sentence from each word in the book, he did great there were only a few he couldn’t remember and as soon as he looked them up he remembered. We will be starting Wordly Wise 4 next week.
We worked on(caught up) our Anatomy Notebooking journal , I am terrible about putting it off until we have 2 or 3 chapters to fill out.
Here is one of the items we did, an idea I got from pinterest. It is a skeleton made with Qtips. 

We enjoyed our annual trip to the farm and pumpkin patch.

I purchased a bulk order of apples through a local co-op many homeschool families here use.  I had a moment of insanity because I am now working on baking with 40lbs of apples. 

Have a great week!

Wordless Wednesday–Pumpkin Patch

 

 

Wordless Wednesday - New Books

I can't believe we are ready for more school books already. We are finishing up Wordly Wise 3, we just started Easy Grammar 3 and we need the daily grams. The new Singapore math book is to help with mental math, speeding up easy addition and subtraction. I think he will love the speed tests. 

Weekly Review - Week 14

 

This was a pretty typical week for homeschool. We started working in Easy Grammar 3 and finished up the printing portion of A Reason of Handwriting and we begin cursive next week.  We are sailing along in the new Singapore math workbooks. We are moving a little slow in history and science with the weather being nice we have been spending more time outdoors. 

He worked on life skills this week, he helped Dad replace an O2 sensor in our car and he cheered Dad on while he ran his first half marathon.  WAY TO GO DAD!

We also made a fleece blanket, this was fun and only took a couple of hours.  I let him pick out the fabric he wanted and he helped tying the knots in between playing with Transformer toys, of course.

This is the patterns he chose, TN Vols and checkered flag.

Working on the knots

Enjoying the blanket he help make.

Wordless Wednesday - Knex

Kiddo built a double ferris wheel from Knex this week.  It has a motor, turns and 3 feet tall. I wonder where I am going to put this thing:)

Weekly Review 13

 

 

This week has gone well, we are moving right along with our new schedule.  Nothing really new to report, ordered a few new school books and learned I forgot to order a few more.

I got our new math books in Singapore 2B and 3A we are going over them as a review to supplement Teaching Textbooks 3.  We are on the last cd of TT so I will need to order TT4 soon. 

After placing a order with CBD.com I realized we are almost finished with Wordly Wise 3(only 3 lessons left). We also started Easy Grammar 3 this week and I do believe we will need the Daily Grams to go with it so I will add it to my order list. 

We did a few crafts this week. We were working on a You have been booed basket for his great grandmother and we made a couple of little things.

 

 

Oranges with Jack O’ Lantern Faces drawn on. I got this idea from pinterest, I love that website. One of the face he drew reminds me of Wilson from Cast Away with Tom Hanks.

 

A hand tree. You paint their hand and wrist for the tree and use fingers to make the leaves.  A quick messy art project that is fun.

Wordless Wednesday–Hot Wheels

Walked in to find this – Hot Wheels tracks and little boy all on dining room table.

Weekly Review Week 12

I can not believe we are in week 12 of our school year already.  Time is flying by.  I thought I might give an update as to where we are in each of his subjects and the progress he is making. 
Handwriting  -  This year he is only doing handwriting 3x a week. It has made a difference since he dislikes handwriting so much only doing it part time is great for him. There is no balking about handwriting and he has yet to realize all the writing he does in grammar, Latin, and Bible counts.  
Grammar – He is almost finished with Easy Grammar 2. We will be starting Easy Grammar 3 next week. He is doing well with grammar and I like the easy no stress way of learning rules and definitions.
Science – We just finished chapter 6 in Apologia Human Anatomy book. It takes about a week to complete one chapter with the experiments. We have also been watching Standard Deviants dvd on anatomy and using the Greys Anatomy coloring book. I am in no hurry to go through this book. He is very interested in the book and has  already read most of the book on his on time.








History – We are on chapter 15 in Story of the World 3. I would like to be further in this book but we have stopped to read extra on American History and on some of the figures in the book.  He is very interested in the American Revolution and we will be spending time on that subject with lots of extras.  We have been watching Liberty Kids on Netflix streaming which is excellent for kids.


Latin -  He loves Prima Latin and would do it every day if we had time. We do Latin 2 to 3x a week.  Every Monday we do a review of all the vocabulary we have learned so far. We are on Lesson 10 in Latin.
Language Arts – Wordly Wise has been a huge hit. We are on lesson 11. Spelling has been a bit of a struggle. Sequential Spelling is meant to be done once a day but that is too much for us. He wants to sound out the words and figure them out for himself, which is fine but some days we are doing spelling for over an hour. We are doing spelling 3 days week, that way I can schedule the time we need but keep up with the building on words, some days are much faster than others.
Bible – We are using Telling God’s Story. I am very pleased with the program. It maybe a bit oversimplified for Kiddo’s age but I would rather it be too simple rather than too hard to understand. Learning about Jesus, his life and his teachings in a conversational manor is prefect for us. We are also using the activity book.  We do 1 lesson a week, one day we read the story, the next day we read the Bible verses, next day reread the main Bible verse and do the activity book and the next day I have Kiddo retell the lesson in his own words.
Math – We are using Teaching Textbooks and Singapore math. We are almost finished with TT3 and I will be ordering TT4.  We have also been using Singapore 2A, Intensive practice and challenging word problems. We are working on learning times tables and doing extra practice on subtraction with renaming. He does math to figure out the multiplication questions. He does not have them all memorized yet. He can do his 0,1,2,3,5,and 10s.  I just ordered Singapore 2b, 3a and Math Express level 2.
Reading – I don’t count any books his reads on his own time for fun and he does a lot of that. He has read two autobiographies so far this year one on Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison. He wants to read one on Paul Revere next. He also loved Charlotte's Web and after reading the book I think he has watched the movie a dozen times. He had Dad are reading Harry Potter together and they are on book 4 still. We have also reread a few Magic Tree house books that have to work into history.

I think that about covers it. We are moving right along making progress and enjoying the school work.  I do have one confession. I wanted to start on piano this year. I bought the books, I did some practicing since it has been a long time since I played but we have yet to start.  Between all the work we are doing and my medical issues which have zapped me of all energy I just have worked it into our schedule yet.

12 weeks worth of grammar, singapore, activity pages. Time for a new folder it is full.

Wordless Wednesday - Bread Bowls

 

 

 

Bread Bowls

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast(2 packs)
2 1/2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
7 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornmeal
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water

In a large bowl (or bowl of an electric mixer-I used my kitchen aid), dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
Add salt, oil and 4 cups flour to the yeast mixture; beat well. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well with an electric mixer at medium speed after each addition until a soft but not sticky dough is formed.

When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes (or let knead in an electric mixer). Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Punch dough down, and divide into 6-8 equal portions. Shape each portion into a round ball. Place loaves on lightly greased baking sheets sprinkled with cornmeal (or use silpat liners or parchment paper). Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in bulk, about 35 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, beat together egg white and 1 tablespoon water; lightly brush the loaves with half of this egg wash. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Brush with remaining egg mixture, and bake 10 to 15 more minutes or until golden. Cool on wire racks.

 

 

 

I divided mine into 9 portions (since there are 3 of us). The bowls were a bit small but they worked fine. I will try 6 portions next time. Husband thinks a bigger bowl will be needed for chili, LOL. These will be so great for soup dinners this fall.

Science Experiment–Acid and Teeth Update

Here is an update to our tooth vs. acid experiment. A very successful experiment and an easy one to conduct.
Just a warning the last picture is gross and will make you want to brush your teeth immediately. 

We have been doing an experiment listed in the Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy.



You can see the beginning of our experiment here. 

We used a baby tooth. Here are our results: Within 21 days all enamel was gone and the tooth had softened considerably.

Day 1 

Day 10

Day 21