HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

 

Happy 2013 everyone!  I have been missing from the blog for a couple of months sorry about that.  It has been busy here and I have had some medical issues that have left me with little energy. I am hoping to do much better with the new year.

 

We finished our first semester just in time to take a break at Thanksgiving. We have had a nice long break and I am ready to get back to a school schedule. We are starting back on Jan 7th. I still need to make lesson plans but I have started looking through my planner and getting ready to get back into the swing of things.

 

Kiddo flew through Apologia Swimming Creatures and finished it before break.  So I bought several of Apologia’s middle school science books that were on clearance at CBD.com and I am going to let him work through those and we will do some experiments from the books for the second half of the year. Here is one of the books I bought the companion cds are great and are on clearance also.

Apologia General Science Clearance book

 

Otherwise our curriculum will stay about the same. We will start Story of the World 4 in history and keep on moving through the rest of our curriculum.

 

For New Years we were discussing our book reading goals for the year, instead of resolutions.  Kiddo decided this year he is going to read 20 books, 10 new ones and 10 he has read before (aka LEGO and Horrible Science). He will read more than that but to him 20 sounded like a huge number.  I chose 75 books, I read 62 this year so I am going to challenge myself a little.  My new Kindle Paperwhite should help with that, I love it.

 

Happy New Year! Look forward to posting more and reading more blogs this year.

Wordless Wednesday - Color Run

Had a great time at The Color Run.  This is a non timed 5K for families, walkers, runners etc.  The goal is to get as much color on you as possible.  You wear white shirts and at every 1K you get color thrown on you and at the end of the race there is a color explosion to make sure everyone gets plenty of color.  It was a ton of fun and he can not wait until next year.

The clean up was a mess but everyone did finally get clean. :)

Wordless Wednesday - Science Experiments

Supplies gathered 

Writing out the experiment and conclusions 

Wordless Wednesday - Owl Mail

We are starting Hogwarts Correspondence school for the month of October and this is his Owl post.

Weekly Review–Week 11

We have a had a good but rather short week.  Kiddo broke out in a rash on Tuesday and after trip to the doctor we found out he has atypical chicken pox.  It was a surprise since he has had the vaccine.  He has felt just slightly under the weather so school has been light this week.


It has given me a chance to start looking for a new science for January.  He is almost finished with Swimming creatures of the Fifth Day by Apologia.  He loves the Apologia books he reads and absorbs everything.


The two I am thinking about this week are using the Disney Imagineering DVDs along with extra books from the library etc. to have a topic a week type of science class.  The down side is the DVDs are expensive. Our local library does not carry them.
Disney Imagineering DVD


The other one I have been looking at is a program by NOEO Science. It is a all in one program with the books, experiment materials etc together.  They have three levels for biology, chemistry and physics. 
NOEO Science



I am also thinking of trying to piece one together using the Apologia General Science book I have here, with extra reading and experiments but without the math.  He may be ready for the science but not the math involved.

That about sums up our week.

Have a good weekend!

Wordless Wednesday - Boys and Dirt

Weekly Update

 

I am so behind on weekly reviews. We are starting week 11 this week, we are half way through our first semester. Things are going well, the workbox system is working great for us. It makes lesson plans so much faster for me, I do the weeks plans over the weekend and then file each days lessons in a file folder.  All I have to do each night is refill the workboxes, it is great a huge time saver for me during the week. Kiddo likes the workboxes he gets up in the morning has breakfast and then goes to pick a box to start working on.  It gives him a choice as to which box he starts with and encourages independent study. 

 

Handwriting and times tables are our hard subjects at this time.  He just has not memorized his times tables yet. I am working on plans to make that a priority next week and get it done.  I bought a new handwriting book for us to start and see if I can improve his handwriting some.  He just hates handwriting with a passion, he would rather give you the answers verbally.  He can write neatly I have seen it on occasion. I am hoping the new book helps some and mostly I am just trying to be patience knowing it will come eventually.  If not, thank goodness for computer and typing 

 

He has been reading non stop the past few weeks, weekly trips to the library plus he is reading Harry Potter book 5 and listening to The Red Pyramid at bedtime. He has a love of reading which I am so happy about. He is discovering a interest in biographies and I hope to encourage that. Murderous Math and Horrible Histories are on his Christmas wish list.

 

We will finish science before the new year, I have no clue what to do after that.  We have one Apologia elementary science curriculum left to do.  He loves them and just flies through them.  We have Apologia’s General Science and Physical Science (older versions) he is reading on his own but there is no way he can do the math in those books.  I will have to start researching other science programs for us to try. 

 

He is liking gymnastics and loving piano lessons.  He has asked to go the the symphony. I hope to find a good deal on tickets this fall. 

 

Not a lot to update we are plugging along.

 

Have a great week!

Wordless Wednesday - Field Trip Zoo

 Giraffe

 Macaw

Elephant 

Flamingo 

Blue Poison Dart Frog

Zebras

Lynx

Snow Leopard 

Wordless Wednesday

Reorganized pantry - still need to make labels 

Science Project

 

We are studying Swimming Creatures on the Fifth Day by Apologia this year in science.   When I was moving the school room to the never used dining room, I though getting a small fish tank would be a nice addition to our room.  Little did I know I was starting a hobby that was going to grow fast.  We bought a little 5 gallon tank and a betta fish. Kiddo picked a fallen city theme.

Kiddo loves his fish tank he turns on the light every morning feeds his fish and talks to him through out the day.  I have even caught him reading to the fish from the books on fish he had to have to study about fish.

Then we started looking at fish tanks on you tube and reading a message board on the hobby of fish keeping. You can see where this is leading right.  We wanted/needed a bigger fish tank We fell into this hobby completely and Kiddo is so enthusiastic about learning about fish it was  easy to indulge him with it. So we started looking for used fish tanks on craigslist I thought it would be easy to find someone getting rid of their old tank.  I had no trouble finding used tanks but after watching for a few weeks I noticed a trend everyone around here is selling 55 gallon tanks! Now I am all for a larger tank but 55 gallons or larger seemed too much.  (I say that now, LOL)

Petco was having a $1.00 a gallon tank sale so we went with that and purchased a 20 gallon tank.  Kiddo had it set in his mind he wanted a 20 gallon tank with black gravel, a black background, tiki themed with a big school of neon fish and two ghost shrimp.  He knew exactly what he wanted. 

He and Dad built a wood stand for the tank and put the tank together this weekend.  We will not be adding fish for a while, we are going to cycle the tank with a fishless cycle.  As part of his school science project, he will be monitoring the water with a test kit and learning all about ammonia, nitrites and nitrates and how they are essential parts of the water cycle to keep fish healthy.  He will be charting the fishless cycle to know when it is safe to add the fish and then monitor the water periodically to maintain a health tank. 

My idea for a 5 gallon fish tank for a school pet has turned into a interesting hobby and learning opportunity for Kiddo, have to love homeschooling.

 

We spray painted the back of the tank black for a completely black background. Added black gravel for the substrate.

Kiddo helped build a simple but sturdy stand out of 4 2x4’s, It was also painted black.

He helped put the tank together and picked the placement for the decorations.

The bubbling red volcano is his favorite thing ever, so he says.  He also picked a tiki mask and a little greenery.  We will be adding just a few more things to give the fish hiding places.

The hood we got has a moonlight mode with blue lights.

We attached the cords to the back of one of the legs so you don’t see all the cords.

We can call our new fish tank a science project, a new hobby, insanity or all three combined. We will be learning and having fun no matter what.

 

EDIT TO ADD:

 

We lost our first betta fish Kicker, it was very hard on Kiddo, he was sad and still talks about him.  We did get a new crowntail betta his name is Blaster and is doing great in his 5 gallon home.

 

We have slowly over several weeks filled the 20 gallon tank with different type tetra fish, neons, red flame and glo fish(which look awesome with the blue night light) .  We have 15 fish in the 20 gallon tank and it is full. 

We are enjoying the tanks the fish are fun to watch and have so much personality.  Kiddo is doing great about feeding them, helping to clean the tank and check the chemical levels.  

 

Weekly Review 5 & 6

I am combining weeks because week 5 I can sum up with food poisoning. I was sick for a week it was horrible.  I have to brag on Kiddo though, DH was out of town and he did a great job taking care of me.  He brought me an ice pack and water.  He played by himself quietly and he fixed his own lunch. He even did some of his school work with me just mentioning it.  We took the week to read a lot, watch Liberty Kids and the Story of America.

This week we have been reviewing the past 5 weeks.  He is through chapter 6 in science, Telling God’s Story and chapter 5 in Latina Christiana.  It has been a fairly easy week since it has been all review.  I can not believe we have completed our first 30 days already, it flew by. We have a few field trips planned for September and are busy with gymnastics and piano.  We have not decided if we are going to do fall bowling league or not.  I like it but every Saturday for 16 weeks can really interfere with family time on the weekends, we will see.

Hopefully I will have something more interesting next week to report.  Have a great weekend. 

Wordless Wednesday - Dreaming of the Beach

Weekly Review Week 3 & 4

 

 

It has been a busy two weeks here with school, piano lessons, gymnastics starting and insomnia.

The workbox system is working wonderfully, I am so happy about that. He has not griped about the work much and likes only having one or two things per drawer to do before moving on.  Breaking into small amounts makes it seem so much easier. 

The trouble we have been having with spelling is getting a little better. We are doing sequential spelling and I have switched to a dry ease board instead of the student book.  If he can spell the word correct orally he does not have to write it down and if not he writes it out until he gets it correct.  

 

Last week we worked on an Olympic lapbook and other fun Olympic activities.  We played Olympic bingo during the opening ceremonies to find certain flags, graphics, words, etc. that was fun.

 

 

We made an Olympic torch from tissue paper and foil.  We are keeping a medal count for a few countries he picked during the games.

 

We separated M&Ms and made a cake with the Olympic circles. 

 

We have been watching as many events as we can find time to.

Finally an open spot in the boys gymnastic class opened so he started gymnastics this week. I still have no idea why he wanted to go back to gymnastics instead of TKD but he loved it. 

I got in my last order (I think) of curriculum, I love getting a box of goodies.  I was happy to find so many good buys in the bargain section of CBD.com.  I was able to get a few damaged books for a good discount.  The books that were discounted were barely bent or dented.  I was able to save $40.00 on books I needed to purchase. I also purchased Apologia edition 1 of General and Physical Science books(they are on clearance for $9.99).  While we are not ready for them I thought they would make good reference and reading books for Kiddo who loves all things science.  He and DH have already found an experiment they want to try.

Have a great weekend!