Friday, July 24, 2015

Weekly Wrap Up - Lots of Learning Going On

Weekly Wrap-Up
3 weeks down!  I can't believe how well our school year has started. I really thought it was going to be awful adding Gabe to the mix in Kindergarten and having Job, my crazy 2 year old running around. I knew Gabe & Jadyn would need my undivided attention and thankfully Mj can do a lot on his own, but still I went into the school year thinking the worst. It's been a great start! God has given patience when needed. Gabe loves school time. He plays happily while I work with Jadyn and she plays happily while I work with Gabe. I've found some great Ipad apps for them to do, too while I'm working with the other one. I'm so thankful for a great start.  3 more weeks and we get our first week long break! I'm loving this year round homeschooling!  It's been so unbelievably hot, too that the kids would rather be inside than outside playing.  So here's how our week went.
 
MJ - 7th Grade
 
Bible: Mj is doing Apologia's Who is My Neighbor? I love this series and it's been a great study for Mj.  We talked together about how we are made in God's image and we desire relationships. We talked about why having a good relationship with our parents and friends is important.
 
English: Mj worked on dictionary skills. He also started his observations for a journal he will be writing in a few weeks.  He's watching our bird feeders from 11:30-12:30 every day to see how many birds and what kinds of birds visit during that hour.
 
He worked all morning on this contraption. It connects from our bird feeders to our fort with 2 minions from McDonalds hanging off of it. The minions make noise when they shake.  He made it so he can be working on school and hear if a bird is in the bird feeder.
 
Math: Reviewing Order of Operations and Decimals.
 
World Studies: Mj finished up his chapter on the Persian Empire.
 
Science: Mj worked on classification and the cell theory.
 
Typing: Mj uses Typing.com to practice his typing.
I caught him practicing his typing with a little brother watching his every move. =)
Jadyn - 2nd Grade
English: Jadyn and I wrote a personal story together about our trip to Naples in May. We discussed the writing process.
 
Math: Jadyn learned how to rename 10 ones and 1 ten. Thank goodness for unifix cubes that helped her visualize this!
 
All About Reading: Jadyn is flying through level 1.  I'm thankful that I chose to have her do level 1 which I knew would be a review.  She is gaining confidence and is loving to read!
 
All About Spelling: She is also doing Level 1 for this and her spelling has greatly improved already!
 
Heritage Studies: Jadyn learned about continents, oceans, the equator, the poles, and the compass rose this week.
Pointing to the equator.
Science: Jadyn learned why scientists do experiments and then she did her own experiment.  She wanted to see if our cooler actually kept things cooler than if the food was outside of the cooler.
 
Her experiment worked.  The cooler does keep things cooler.  She checked the ice after an hour and there was more water in the cup on the counter than in the cup in the cooler.
Art: We love the Homeart Studio DVDs for art.  Today Jadyn made a color wheel.
Gabe - Kindergarten
All About Reading: Gabe worked on letters A-L this week. He is loving the pre-reading program and is learning his letters well. He looks forward to watching a Sesame Street video on youtube about each letter, too.
He loved putting yarn on his L is for llama paper today.
Math: Gabe worked on one to one matching, more and fewer.
Homeschooling perk: Instead of circling the shape that is different he turned them into monsters. Can't do that in school. =)
Art: Gabe uses the Homeart Studio DVD's too.  His lesson today was on primary and secondary colors.
 
 
Job - Totschool
 
Job enjoyed a lot of learning through play this week.
Play dough is always a fun activity for a two year old.
Job loves trucks, police cars, fire trucks, cranes. So when Mj noticed that there was a crane at the school next door. Job was the first one running into the backyard to check it out.  They were putting an air conditioning unit on the roof of the gym so we all had to watch. Job was so excited!!!
Learning Together
 
I love our times learning together.  We started our Grapevine Bible Studies this week.  We talked about the first three days of creation.  They love drawing pictures as we read the Scriptures and talk together. I'm loving this program so far.

On Fridays we watch an episode of What's in the Bible? with Buck Denver and the kids color a coloring page to go with the episode.  I love this series to help kids understand why God gave us the Bible. I may sing along with all the songs.  What can I say? The Bentley Brothers are my favorite! =)

We are doing Road Trip USA from Confessions of a Homeschooler. This week we learned about Delaware.  Did you know that the longest suspension bridge in the world is in Delaware. We made our own suspension bridge.  It was a great activity on team work and patience. =)
The awesome thing about homeschooling is letting my kids enjoy being creative and curious! I love watching their imaginations blossom and see them study the things around them without me saying, Hey did you see this.  This week, I enjoyed documenting Jadyn's curiosity and creativity.
 
We planted some seeds for a butterfly garden several weeks ago.  I caught Jadyn and Gabe noticing that there are buds on the plants.  They studied them for 15 minutes. Love it!

 
Jadyn made a kite out of sticks, yarn, ribbon, and paper. It didn't fly, but it sure was creative.
 
 
My track-making queen.

 
That was our week. You can check out other homeschooler's weeks at Weekly Wrap Up.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Weekly Wrap-Up: Week 2 in the Books

Weekly Wrap-Up
 
It was a fun and busy week. Here's what we did...
 
MJ - 7th Grade
English: Mj wrote a book jacket about the book he just finished reading.
 
Math: Exponents, Square Roots, Orders of Operation
 
World Studies:  Mj finished his chapter on Creation through the Roman Empire
 
Science: Mj is starting a chapter on cells and their structure and functions.
 
As soon as his school work is over, you can find him in his room making Lego creations.
Jadyn - 2nd Grade
English: Jadyn learned about fragments and types of sentences this week.

Math: Jadyn kept reviewing addition. We had fun getting our education cubes out this week and rolling an addition equation.
Reading: Jadyn is loving All About Reading.  It has been review so far, but the confidence she is gaining is awesome to see!

Spelling: Jadyn is also loving All About Spelling. We got the letter tiles out this week and she loved that. It really is helping her take her time to think about each sound to be able to spell each word.  We are doing level 1 for both AAR and AAS.
Heritage Studies: This week we learned about the compass rose and directions. She loved getting maps out and finding what direction different oceans and continents were.

Science: Jadyn is learning about scientific process skills. She observed, measured, predicted, and inferred.

Jadyn also finished up her swimming lessons and passed level 1.  She was pretty excited about it!

Gabe - Kindergarten
Phonics: Gabe has learned letters "A" through "G". We took a day to work on writing his name since he has learned all the letters in his name.
He loved "rainbow tracing" his name.
Math: Gabe worked on sequence patterns and reviewed his shapes.
 
Working on a sequence pattern at his desk.
After we had finished school one day, Gabe ran around the house bringing me things and telling me what shape they were.  It was so cute!
While I worked with Jadyn, Gabe could usually be found playing blocks.
Job - Totschool
With Jadyn's swimming lessons, our school time has been cut short, so Job got to play during school a lot which is the best way for a two-year old to learn anyway! =)  He loved the wooden blocks this week.

 
On Friday we took a day off from book work, to enjoy the beach with a friend of mine. We got to see some flying fish and learn about them.  It was the first time we've ever seen them. The beach never gets old!
I caught Gabe making letters in the sand! This was his letter "A".
I'm linking up to the Weekly Wrap-Up.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Weekly Wrap-Up - The First Week of School!

Weekly Wrap-Up
 
Well, this week we started our school year.  We're trying out schooling year round so we'll be schooling for 6 weeks and then take a week off.  My oldest was so pumped today when he realized in 5 weeks he gets a week break! LOL
 

Our first activity was coloring our first day of school pages and doing our first day of school interviews.  I love seeing them all working together around the table (without fighting ;)) and having fun being creative.
Job is in Totschool.
Gabe is in Kindergarten this year.  That's hard to believe!
Jadyn is in 2nd Grade.  She's been begging me to start school cause she wants to be a 2nd grader!
Mj is in 7th grade - Ummmm...... I'm having a hard time with the reality that my boy is in 7th grade!
Seriously, the days are not easy. But I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to homeschool these crazy kids! I really have just been enjoying them this week, watching them learn, just soaking it all in. They are my mission field. I sometimes struggle with feeling like I'm not doing enough, that being a homeschooling stay at home mom isn't important enough. I see so many other women being used and able to do things that I just can't do because of the stage of life I'm in. I've had people say hurtful things, but you know what?! If I fail these 4 kids, then I've failed at the most important role I could possibly have. So I really have enjoyed this week with my kids and being their mom!
So here's what our first week of school looked like:
 
MJ - 7th Grade
 
English:  I use BJ Press for English and really like how it is set up.  So far this has been review for Mj - subjects, predicates, types of sentences, comma splices, fragments, and run-on sentences.
 
Job thought he could help MJ with his English. I love when I walk in on moments like this. =)
Math: I use BJ Press for Math as well.  Lots of review for him, which is good.  He tends to be in a hurry when it comes to math so I made sure he was checking his answers and being neat and orderly. He may not have been very happy about it. ;)
 
 
Literature: Again, he uses BJ Press for Lit. He read two stories this week.  His favorite was about a boy who was scared of the dark and his friend wanted to have a camp out.  It was pretty funny!
 
Science: We are using BJ Press' Life Science this year.  The first chapter has been an introduction to what science is, the importance of world view, and why it's vital for Christians to study life science.
 
World Studies: And, yes, we are using BJ Press for this, too. Mj started looking at Creation through the birth of Christ this week.  He's not a big history fan, but he told me that he thought it was interesting.
 
 
Jadyn - 2nd Grade
 
Jadyn started every day this week with swimming lessons.
English: We are using... you guessed it... BJ Press. Jadyn loved her first week of English.  She learned what a sentence is, that a sentence has a subject and action part, and she learned about telling sentences, commands, and exclamation sentences.
 
Can I give a shout out to technology? I love that when Jadyn says, "Mom, please take a picture of my good handwriting and my sentences and show it to daddy" I can take a pic and text it to him! So awesome!
Math: We are using BJ Press for Math. Jadyn reviewed addition.
 
 
Reading/Phonics: We are using All About Reading. Jadyn struggles with dyslexia and I had heard some great things about this program so we're trying it out this year.  She's using level 1, because I wanted her to feel confident in her reading.  So this week has been very easy and she's so excited how easy it has been for her to read!
 
Feeding the monster the word bones.
 
Spelling: We are using All About Spelling.  We are using Level 1 and I'm excited to see how this will work.  Already, I can see her thinking differently about how to spell and really listening for all the sounds in the words.
 
Job had an bathroom emergency, so I asked Mj if he would help Jadyn with her spelling lesson. They had so much fun doing this together! Proud Momma Moment! =)
 
Heritage Studies: We are using BJ Press. Jadyn learned God creating the world and sin entering into the world.  She also learned about cause and effect.
 
Jadyn had some spare time on her hands and really has gotten into Legos. She worked a whole afternoon on making a store for her Lego friends. I love watching kids play with Legos and letting their curiosity go wild!
 
 
 
Gabe - Kindergarten
I have an overabundance of pics, since it was his first week of Kindergarten! =)
 
Working on his calendar notebook. He loves tracing the month and the day of the week.
Phonics/Reading: We are using All About Reading. I'm having Gabe do the pre-reading level. He is a slower learner and so I just want to take my time with him and give him a good solid foundation. No need to rush! =) (You can tell he's my 3rd child and not my 1st. lol - I've learned from previous mistakes!)
This week we looked at letters A, B, C, & D. We watched a Sesame Street podcast each day for each letter.  He loved those.
He loved the poems in The ZigZag Zebra book.
Using Ziggy Zebra to help him find the letters we learned in the alphabet magnets.
Working on making blueberries for his "B" paper.
Reviewing his letters with the ABC's of God app.
Gabe really struggled with learning "C" so I had him find all the C's in the rice bin and say it's name and sound.
Stamping the letters.
Math: I'm using BJ Press Math for Gabe. This week was learning shapes and sequence.
He was so proud of himself for find the circle on the book he was reading!

 
Job - Totschool
With the busyness of swimming lessons, and getting the older ones lessons in, Job got an easy week.  He'd rather be playing anyway! He did a lot of coloring with us, though and when I pulled the alphabet magnets out, he wanted to find letters, too.

 
Learning Together
We will be doing Confessions of a Homeschooler's Road Trip USA this year.  We learned about the regions of the United States and Washington D.C. this week.
The kids watched a virtual field trip of Washington D.C. on you tube.
It was shark week this week - a highlight at our house! So most afternoons you could find the kids watching some shark documentary! Their favorite was the Ninja Shark one.

 
I love when free time involves Bananagrams and Rummikub! I loved that Gabe started taking out the A's and B's since he had learned them and I didn't even ask him to do it! =)

 
Our friend stopped by this week and dropped off fun activities for the kids since we had started school this week. They loved the silly string and had a fun silly string battle in the backyard!

 
So that was our first week back into the school groove. If you want to check out other homeschoolers' weeks check out the Weekly Wrap Up.
 

 

 

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