Boo at the Zoo

Saturday, the kids had fun dressing up in their costumes for Boo at the Zoo. We love our zoo and getting candy, too just makes the day even better. LOL

Our sweet kiddos, MJ was a Ninja, Jadyn was Belle, Gabe was Bumblebee and Job was a Home Depot worker.

Watching the gibbons and orangutans get their treats. 

The momma gibbon gives her 1 year old baby a ride.  She's a baby-wearing momma!

The tortoises loved their pumpkin treats.

It was a fun family day and now my kids have enough candy to last til next Halloween.  Oh wait!  There's still Trick or Treat night.  I might have to hide some of this candy! ;)

We're a Mini Van Family!

Yesterday, we became owners of a 2012 Honda Odyssey! We've been looking for 6 months for it, and God had this one waiting for us!  We've had a Ford Explorer and I loved it, but with 4 kids it was kind of cramped especially grocery shopping and when we make the long drive to Pennsylvania from Miami.  So last summer when we drove to PA, we rented a mini van to try it out.  We fell in love and the search for a mini-van began!  This mini van exceeds all that we could ever have wanted in a vehicle.  It will be perfect for the long drive to PA at Christmas.  The kids have space, there is a DVD player, lots of cup holders, a great sound system, there is even a holder for a grocery bag for trash, oh and did I say space yet! LOL The kids were pumped about the DVD player and Mj loved the video game hook up. Oh and I freaked them out when my phone connected to the mini van and my playlist started playing their favorite Josh Wilson song.  God is so amazing and we truly do not deserve this amazing vehicle!

This was Mark & I driving home. We were just a wee bit excited!

 

A Short Week

We had a short week of school this week and were done on Wednesday.  Thursday we were supposed to have a field trip, but it got cancelled because of rain so we just chilled and played video games with some friends.  Today my husband has off so we're going to take it easy.  It's raining again, so I'm not exactly sure what we will do.  We can't handle all this rain in sunny Florida.  It doesn't usually rain for days.  We're going stir crazy! ;)  Here's what we did this week.

 

 

Mj-6th Grade

 

English: Action Verbs, Linking Verbs, Predicate Nouns, Predicate Adjectives, and Direct Objects.  Yep, Mj was totally excited! (sarcasm)

 

Math: Adding and Subtracting Fractions

 

History: Mj started a chapter on Ancient Israel.  At first he had a bad attitude cause he "knows all the stories", but when we really dug in and saw how God's plan was at work from Creation through Abraham and David and understanding the symbols in the tabernacle and temple it made it very exciting for him.

 

Science: Cells, cells, and more cells.  We talked about mitosis and meiosis.  We also talked about classification.

 

Mj used play dough to show the process of mitosis and meiosis.

I got 8 different kinds of pasta and Mj had to make his own criteria to classify them.

 

Jadyn - 1st Grade

 

Bible: Jadyn learned about the birth of Jacob and Esau and about when Esau chose stew over his birthright.

 

Phonics & English: Jadyn is learned about bad cats -er, -est, -ing-, and -ed.  She learned that Uncle Short has to come and help Mr. & Mrs. Short so that means you have to add a consonant when you add one of the bad cats to a word. 

 

Math: Jadyn finished her chapter on money.

 

History: Jadyn is still learning about her community.  We talked about taking care of our community and how we should leave a place looking better than when we got there.  We got to practice this when I took the kids to McDonalds to eat lunch and play and the playplace on Thursday (remember it was raining all day I needed to wear the kids out some how! ;))

 

Science: Jadyn is learning about seasons.  We talked about summer and how things grow in the summer and animals grow to prepare for fall and winter that is coming.

 

Art: Jadyn loves Homeart Studio for art.  Gabe & she made reflections with watercolors.

 

Other Big News!

Jadyn lost another tooth.  That's 3 teeth that she's lost.



She's been dying to get a library card, but I told her she had to show some responsibility to get one.  She had really become lazy with keeping her room clean and picking up after herself.  She has done very well the past month so I surprised her on Monday and we got her a library card of her own!

She loves her American Girl class at Enrichment.  She made butter in class and that night she buttered bread for all of us to try.  It was yummy!

Gabe - Preschool
I really didn't do anything formal with him this week, but he was all about drawing when he discovered the how to draw animal books.  I think he drew about 15 of the animals.  This was the first one he did.  So cute!!!  Definitely going in his scrapbook! =)

 

Check out what other homeschoolers are up to at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

 

 



Cells, Ancient Egyptians, Community Helpers, & Legos

We had a great week of school this week.  Maybe it's cause I got a much needed Mom's Night Out at Hobby Lobby with friends from co-op, or that the kids had pretty good attitudes, or God gave me an over abundance of patience this week but it really was a great week.  Here's what we did.

 

Mj - 6th Grade

 

Bible: Mj is doing Apologia's Who Am I? and What am I Doing Here? He studied Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." The book broke up what each of those things meant. 

 

English: Mj wrote a persuasive paper about why he should be able to buy more Super Mario brother games.

 

Math: Lots of fractions!

 

History: Mj finished his chapter on ancient Egyptians.  This was a fun chapter and we both had fun learning together about their culture and customs.  We found some fun videos on pinterest that we watched together.

 

Science: Mj began a new chapter on cells.  He learned the parts of animal cells and plant cells.

Mj was pumped to get the microscope out and look at come plant cells.

 Mj had fun making an animal cell out of jello, fruit and candy.

For dinner we had an edible plant cell.

 

Jadyn - 1st Grade

 

Bible: Jadyn learned about Abraham and Sarah.  We finished our unit on Abraham and Sarah by watching What's in the Bible with Buck Denver? Volume 1 to review what we have learned in Bible so far this year.

 

Phonics & English: Jadyn worked on "sh", "ng", & "th".  She also learned about suffixes and how adding a suffix will change a 1 clap word to a 2 clap word.

Working on her sight words with our educubes.



Math: Jadyn finished her chapter on subtraction and began a new chapter on money.

Working on her subtraction facts.

 

Heritage Studies: Jadyn is learning about communities.  It worked out perfectly that her little brothers had to dress up as community helpers for Awana this week.

Some of the cutest community workers I've ever seen!

Science: Jadyn is learning about the seasons.  We talked about how the seasons are a cycle and began talking about Spring. I've realized that living in Miami has made it kind of difficult to talk about seasons.  Jadyn doesn't remember spring in Pennsylvania so we got on the internet and looked at books of pictures of spring.

 

Art: Jadyn was so excited to use her oil pastels for her art project this week.  I use the Homeart Studio DVDs with the kids and they absolutely love them.

 

Jadyn had a fun afternoon yesterday with her friends from co-op for their Elementary Explorers' Pool & Pizza party.







Also, big news around here.  Jadyn lost her 2nd tooth!  We looked at it under Mj's microscope!  She's got another very wiggly tooth so I'm pretty sure by next week her smile will look a lot different.

Gabe - Preschool

 I was so excited to do "L" with Gabe cause it meant Legos!!!!!

 

Job thought Gabe needed some help coloring his Lego Batman picture.

Which Lego minifigure is different? He loved this!

Prewriting with Lego friends

A Lego movie puzzle.

Working on numbers with Lego friends.

Gabe joined in on Jadyn's art project. I loved listening to his story as he was drawing about his astronaut's adventure in space.

 

 
Gabe actually let me get the ladybug stuff out that I used with Jadyn for one day. Here he was separating the uppercase Ls from the lowercase ls.

Matching shapes with ladybugs.

Some geometric shape fun!  I love when he just gets in the educational bins and finds something to play.

Finding his "l"s  on the paper.

Job - Totschool

 

Job loves doing anything that his older siblings are doing.  We counted Lego minifigures together and he worked on using the clothespins.

He loved playing with the educubes.

 

Columbus Day Fun

 The enjoyed watching a video about Christopher Columbus on youtube.  Mj wrote a paragraph on what he would do if he was an explorer.  The 3  younger kids colored a picture of Christopher Columbus and for lunch we had a Columbus theme.

 

 

Today was an absolutely beautiful day here in Miami.  I didn't want to stay cooped up inside and neither did the kids so we took school outside and had so much fun learning and doing their papers. I walked outside to find this - the 2 older kids were helping Gabe with his paper.  I just sat on the porch and watched them.  This is why I homeschool!!!  They fight like cats and dogs the majority of the time (please, tell me my kids are not the only ones that are mortal enemies 99% of the time), but on those rare occasions where I see them getting along my heart is overflowing!

Jadyn thought she was hilarious coming up and jumping on Mj's back while he was working on his reading paper. 

While we were doing school, we heard a lot of commotion and looked up to see a flock of beautiful green parrots circling above and land in our tree.  We watched them for awhile until our dog scared them and they flew away. The fun things we get to see in Miami!

So that's what our week looked like.  Check out other homeschool blogs at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Long Overdue!

Wow! Has it really been a month since my last post!  Yikes!  Well, we have been busy..... extremely busy! So here's a quick wrap of what the past month has included.

 

 

Job is all about flashcards right now. He loves looking through them and they keep him entertained for awhile.

 Jadyn decided it was great fun to add the Leappad to our phonics time.  I love using technology to supplement our work.

 Mj learned about the mosaics of the Sumerians in Heritage Studies and made his own mosaic.

 We had a fun day at Deering Estate's free day.  Check out the golden orb weaver spider we found.  They were everywhere.  We came home and learned a lot of about them.  They look scary, but are not dangerous unless you're a fly or mosquito. =)

 Gabe loved the butterfly scavenger hunt at Deering Estate and he was so excited when he found one of the butterflies on his paper.

 Jadyn made a weaving pattern in art using water colors.

 Gabe has been working hard on his letters.

 Gabe had his first tween activity with our co-op.  It was at the Venetian Pool which is absolutely beautiful.

 Jadyn had her first elementary explorers activity with our co-op.  She loved the kickball game.

 We loved celebrating Native American Day with some free fun at Miccosukee.

 The kids loved this sign at Miccosukee.  Gabe had just said that he was going to feed the alligators cheeseburgers.  We walked past this sign a little later and it said no cheeseburgers.  They wanted a picture with the sign.=)

 Gabe working on big K and little k.

 Mj made a beautiful clown fish in art.

 Mj learned about nonrenewable and renewable resources in science.  We talked about advantages and disadvantages of both.  One of the disadvantages of petroleum is oil spills.  He did an experiment to find what was the best way to clean up an oil spill.

 Gabe is loving the geometric shape puzzles right now.

 Jadyn loved working on her math facts using the Velcro bean bags and frog.  I think this is a Melissa & Doug toy.

 Jadyn loved working on alphabetical order with the names of friends of family.

 Mj's most recent Heritage Studies chapter is on ancient Egypt.  He wasn't feeling well one day so I had him make a pyramid out of Legos.  It  turned out awesome.  He had all sorts of chambers inside and a sarcophagus with a skeleton inside.

 Jadyn wanted to use some leaves for her own art project.

 Jadyn sewed a pillow in her American Girl class at enrichment.

 This girl is becoming such a great reader!

 Job loves when I get the unifix cubes out for him.

 Jadyn made a timeline of her life in heritage studies. This was a fun project for us to work on together.

 Reading, spelling, & writing are not strong points for Jadyn.  It really is a struggle for her, but when I let her do spelling in fun tactile ways she amazes me at how well she does.  And she feels so great when she accomplishes the task. =)

 Mj has been using the Duolingo app for Spanish.  He loves it and is really learning the language well.

I'm hoping not to get so behind again.  No promises. =)  But that's a little of what we've been up to.

Check out other homeschool blogs at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.