Weekly Wrap-Up–March 8–Unit Celebration 3

I have been focusing more on keeping us on schedule with our schoolwork, which has taken a lot of time and left not much for blogging. Add to that the quantity of books that I’m reading right now plus trying to be more intentional about being a better housekeeper, and that really doesn’t leave much for blogging!

Anyway…we have been doing great with keeping on track and having a good routine since January at the beginning of this “semester”. Also, I had been thinking a lot about schooling year round, and then I had a chat with my friend that I co-op with, and we both agreed that we’re going to do a modified year round schedule. That has really freed up my attitude about finishing everything that we’re “supposed” to do by the end of May, which in turn frees up my week to do other things, like skip school for a day at the park (or a day of heart training instead, which happens more often).

A few things that we decided to change at the beginning of the year:

* We started and breezed through All About Spelling Level 1. It was basic for her since she’s been reading for awhile and loves to write, but I wanted to start there to give her the spelling rules before we moved on. We’re now starting level 2 and will finish before starting 2nd grade. We also started All About Reading Level 2 and are really hoping that Level 3 will be available for next year!

* We have picked up our Artistic Pursuits book again. Now that I have us on a tighter schedule, we have time to do this, which we’re both happy about. She tells me she’s going to be an artist when she grows up, so I’m glad we have something to help her with that goal.

I also posted our current curriculum choices and what I’m thinking of for next year, which you can also get to under the “Tots and Homeschooling” tab at the top of the blog.

Okay, so what have we been up to?

A month ago, we celebrated finishing Tapestry of Grace Year 1 Unit 3 by having a mini Olympics and a Greek-inspired lunch. The kids got dressed up in their Chitons and away we went!

The horse race

The discus throwThe javelin throw

The foot race

Cheering on the last place finishers

Tasty lunch of English muffin pizzas, olives, oranges, sesame bread, and grape juice.

Can’t forget the littles!

Her display board from this unit’s projects. Not all-inclusive, for sure!

All crowned as winners with their laurel crowns (they were tired from running, and ready for lunch. Really, they had a great time!)

I have so many more pictures, but we’ll call that good. Now to not wait another 5 months before posting another weekly wrap-up!!

~S

Also linked up at

First Day of School

No, I didn’t fall off the planet again. Really. We just went on vacation for a week, and it was lovely. But more on that later…

Today is the first day of school for us! I was going to do “staggered entry” and have Nate start today and Kahlen start in a few weeks, but she was so excited for the first day of school that we’re all starting today :)

Hopefully, I’ll soon post about my curriculum choices for Kahlen and my crazy ideas for tot school for Nate. In the meantime, pray for me to keep my sanity as this begins a insanely busy week for me/us!

~S

Kindergarten with Kahlen–Thanksgiving and more

Four weeks later…Oh well, I guess I’m not perfect after all ;)

Here’s a little recap of what we’ve been doing. Make sure you check out our fun Thanksgiving activities at the bottom.

Our main curriculum - Tapestry of Grace Year 1:

We’ve been moving forward from Creation through Noah’s Ark. For this activity, I printed two sets of animals. Kahlen cut out one while Nate glued the other one on. Then she had to find the matching one and glue hers near his. Simple for her, but a good way for them to work together.

Then we discussed the Tower of Babel and made a Ziggurat with paperboard boxes

(The finished product)

We moved on to the patriarchs after that, but I don’t have very many pictures. We made a travelling table and then had an indoor picnic co-op. We’re also working on an ancient Israelite costume for our end of the unit party in January.

Fun Stuff:

On a whim two weeks ago, we went to the Butterfly Pavilion. I have a membership good through January. It’s about an hour from our house, and we were only there for about 2 hours, but it was still worth it. The kids had fun and so did I. Nate was not happy that he didn’t get to hold the tarantula that they have there, but you have to be three, and he’s definitely not.

Thanksgiving:

We’ve done a few fun crafts related to Thanksgiving. We’re having a co-op feast on Monday and will have a little lesson about why we celebrate Thanksgiving. To prepare, we made woven placemats (which I don’t have any pictures of, oops) and bonnets/headbands

One of my friends posted this cute turkey craft, which we did yesterday. Turned out pretty cute, I must say :

We’re also starting a thankful book. I took a basic composition book and mod podged a piece of fall-ish paper to the front along with their handprints. We’ll write some things we are thankful for inside and then pass it around during our Thanksgiving feast on Thursday and Friday with family. It will be a neat record of what we are thankful for right now. Then we’ll pull it out every year and continue to write things in it. I’ll have to add the baby’s handprint next year, probably on the back cover.

We’re still plugging through Math U See Primer, First Step Reading, and Handwriting Without Tears without incident. In math, we’ve started actual addition, which she was very ready for, it’s almost to easy for her :) She’s getting more interested in reading, which I love love love. I’ve gotten her a couple beginning readers from the library which she’s been able to read almost by herself, hooray! We haven’t been stressing the handwriting as much because she gets lots of practice in other places, like her reading book, but that’s going pretty good too. I’m trying to get her to write her name in proper case more often, but she forgets a lot and just writes it in all caps.

I’d love to hear what’s been working and not working for you! Leave me a comment or come link up with me at HomeSchool Creations!

Also, anyone have any great ideas for Christmas Advent? This is what we did last year, and I’m thinking of something similar, but not exactly the same for this year. I got sucked into Pinterest, so you can check out my current ideas there if you feel so inclined. Once I get everything all finalized, I’ll try to blog it in hopes that someone else can use it too :)

~S

Linking up at:

First Stitches

It’s happened. One of my children had to get stitches. Of my kids, though, I’m glad it was Kahlen. I think she handled it better than I did. Of course, I can see them and she can’t, but I don’t think it would have mattered much if she could have watched the entire process.

So, here’s how it went down…

We were at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for a school field trip. We just finished studying ancient Egypt and they have a mummy exhibit, so we thought that would be perfect. AND we’re starting on Creation next, so we wanted to go see Prehistoric Journey, the dinosaur exhibit too.

Anyway, we were playing outside, getting ready to go home. They have four or so wolf sculptures surrounded by rocks that the kids love to play on. That’s what they’re there for, and it’s usually a good thing to get them super worn out before the drive home. They had been playing outside for about 10 minutes or so, jumping from rock to rock, etc, etc. K was trying to jump from one rock to another while reaching for one of the sculptures. She missed. Fell from the rock, onto her back, and cracked her head. I was soooo glad my mom was there because, honestly, I’m just not up to picking my 42-pound daughter up off the rock and carrying her these days.

We left immediately. We had one ice pack in the car and stopped at McDonalds for ice and the gas station for ibuprofen. Buela sat in the back with her and helped her keep her ice on her head. I wasn’t really thinking we would need to take her in because it was just a bad bonk, right? Well, once we got about halfway home, the swelling was down enough to get a good look, and it was a nice sized, ragged edged gash on her scalp.

I called the doctor’s office and they were able to see us as soon as we could get back to Fort Collins. I can’t believe how well she did. All through the cleaning, exam, numbing, and stitching, she hardly made a peep. She didn’t seem distressed, or shy, or overwhelmed, she just really seemed to think it was no big deal. And, hey, they gave her a cool dinosaur bouncy ball when she was done. The doc said she can come back anytime for stitches because she did better than a lot of their adult patients.

Sorry if this grosses you out, but I had to take a picture so she could see since they are on the back of her head, so now you get to see too. See? Just two little stitches.

~S

“Not” Back to School – My Students

We haven’t actually started school yet, we officially start tomorrow. BUT this was too fun to miss!

 

Here are my students for the year:

Kahlen will be entering Kindergarten

 

Nate will be doing tot school and whatever else he feels like, as long as it keeps him occupied and out of trouble while we do Kindergarten :P

 

Can’t wait for school in the morning! I’ll be posting pictures of my new school room and the first day of school later in the week.

~S