Weekly School Summary - Brazil (October 24-28)

We took off on Monday since we were making the drive back from New York. It was nice to have pre-arranged our schedule to allow for a day off and not have to do any schoolwork in the car. After we got home, unpacked the car, and started attacking the laundry (aka Mount Washmore), I was able to quick get the younglings' workboxes set up for Tuesday.

Here's what we did:
Math: Similar to usual. They each had 4 days of lessons to compensate for the days we had off.


Reading and Language Arts: Soprano continued with Owl Moon  from 'Across the Centuries.' She made an owl puppet and owl mask and created a 'wise owl' saying. We did a creative writing exercise on 'Why the Owl Says Whoo' also.

She progressed through her Phonics book, one day's lesson at a time with only a few errors.
Her English work is definitely improving and there were no tears this week! That's a huge praise!
Since we were coming off of a long weekend away, I decided to hold off on introducing spelling for either kid until next week.

Tenor continued with his 'A Reason for Handwriting C' and 'Writing Strands.'
We also did some more work in "A Lion, A Witch, and A Wardrobe" from 'Across the Centuries C Level 1.' He read chapters 6-8 with some vocab word study, a verse decoding activity, and a creative writing exercise (writing a letter to Edmund.)

He's doing well with his new English (Rod and Staff Level 4). 

Since my time in the morning is spent helping Soprano, I usually make him do the oral portion of his lesson as written work instead. The lessons are short enough that it's not too overwhelming for him and it's additional handwriting practice.

Electives:
Typer Island for their typing instruction and continuing with SOS Elementary Spanish.

They did a health worksheet about different types of germs.


Phys Ed.: The first thing they did when we got home was get on their bikes. They stacked some wood for dad and helped rake leaves too.

Bible: This week included:
Reading about Columbia
Reading Matthew 5:43-48 and 6:1-18
Memorizing Matthew 5:14

Geography: Stamping our passports to enter Brazil (and South America.)
Playing the geography game with our new mnemonic devices.
'Very Good Students Frequently Bake Bread and Pick Up' and for the west coast 'Cows Eat Pretty Clover'.
Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guinea, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile
Doing the Brazil crossword puzzle.

Tenor also used a book I found at the library called 'How To Draw Brazil's Sights and Symbols' to create the Brazilian flag and other famous landmarks.

Tenor's pages from World Geography this week were 'Physical Features of South America', 'Rivers of South America', 'Mountains of South America', and 'Bodies of Water in South America.' They also did their vocabulary card this week (zone.)

Science: Discussion on rain forests--- tropical rain forests and their locations and rain forest plants. They also did their nature study again this week. Soprano's was too funny not to share. She writes:

"Birds are cute. cute. cute. cute. soft and fuzy. soft soft soft.

They come in all the colors. [sic]"

Soprano worked on more Insect sheets from The Complete Book of Animals.

Other MFW: Wee sing: Brown Girl in the Ring and Ciranda
For more music, I found the Brazilian Channel on Pandora and played that in the background during school time. I also hunted up some youtube clips of bossa nova and samba dancing. Disclaimer: Samba doesn't always allow for the most modest costuming so preview before you show your kids.
 
Since I'm not really loving the Global Art book, our art project was another substitution.... we made a TP Quetzal bird. I got the instructions here: http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mquetzal.html

It was a pretty easy week which was nice to return to after our trip. We've still got some fall house projects underway so I had a little time to work on those. Hopefully, we'll get the yard cleaned up before our first snow. They're calling for anywhere from 3-5" or 6-10". In October! That's unusual for our area. We'll see....
I had time to plan out what we will potentially need for next year's curriculum (if all continues in the same way.) That way I can keep my eyes open for bargains in the next few months to try to save some money.
I also started compiling their state-required portfolios. I have all their logs and a few samples from each subject filed in their portfolio binders. I'd hate to leave that until the end of the year! I'd be buried under a mountain of paper! And my file box was getting heavy. :)


Linking up at www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com and
at at http://discovertheirgifts.blogspot.com/.


Disclaimer: I'm an Amazon affiliate now so clicking on links to Amazon and then purchasing items will put a few pennies into our piggy bank for future homeschool purchases. Thank you!

Fall.... Finally

I had 2 easy, quick projects to do to complete my fall decor this year. I finished one back in the middle of September but the other just drug on and on. Now that I've finally finished them both, I'm done decorating for fall. Perfect timing, too, since they're calling for 3–5" of snow this weekend. (which is not normal for southeast PA!)

Here are our fall updates:
Fall 5-minute pillow covers (made the same way as these)

The striped pillows are also 5-minute pillow covers. The center embroidered pillow is actually a placemat ($2.50 on sale at Kohl's) that I opened up, stuffed, and sewed closed.

And then the projects.... I wanted to alter a fake pumpkin that I've had in my to-do pile for the past 4 years. Years ago, I had seen a really cute project where they mod-podged squares of coordinating fall scrapbook paper onto a pumpkin and then lightly distressed it. I had never been able to find the right paper so the sad little pumpkin just sat and sat. I decided to just go for it this year but didn't want to go with the traditional orange since our living room has more of a beach cottage color scheme. I ended up using left over sheet music from the wreath project. After I covered the pumpkin with sheet music, I painted over the whole thing with blue.

Epic fail! (What is up with me and sheet music anyways!)
The paint was too dark and not the right shade of blue for the living room. So I re-covered the pumpkin again. This time I left some of the blue peeking through and then washed over it with a light apple green color. Much better! It coordinates better with the little pumpkins I got at Christmas Tree Shops.

Project #1 complete.

 

Then I decided I needed a fall-ish banner for the mantel. After scads of pinterest and blog searching, I opted for something with burlap. And then life happened, and the project didn't. After a month of interruptions, I finally finished it yesterday!
Here are the basic steps:
#1 I cut my burlap into rectangles and sewed a 1" pocket (like a curtain rod pocket)
#2 I zig-zagged around the edges at .5" to help stop fraying
#3 I cut 4 1/2" letters out of scrap cardstock with my Cricut (using Stone Script font)

 

#4 I used dark brown, acrylic craft paint and a foam brush to stencil the letters. (I used an up and down pouncing motion, being careful to press the stencil edges down as I went along to help prevent bleeding.)

#5 I let it dry.
#6 I picked it up and realized that I should have had something underneath while painting. (Slapping forehead!)

#7 I threaded brown ric-rac trim through the pocket and tied a loop at each end to hang it.

#8 Enjoying the finished product.

And our newest addition.....a bird feeder right outside the dining room window. The kids have been keeping a count of the types of birds that have already stopped by for a treat. We've seen robins, blue jays, chickadees, and cardinals.

Finally, the house is dressed for fall!

Linking up at these great parties. 

and here:

Weekly School Summary - Canada (October 17-21)

Another week flies by! We had 3 school days planned in order to head to the Adirondacks to visit my sister for a few days.

Here's what we did:
Math: Almost the same as usual. They each did 3 lessons this week to adjust the schedule for our mini fall break and trip.

Reading and Language Arts: Soprano had her final evaluation for Ira Sleeps Over (reading from 'Across the Centuries') and began her next book, Owl Moon. She completed a worksheet and did a word search based on the book. We had a couple of corrections on her already completed pages in her Phonics book, and we got through the first unit in her Rod and Staff English.

Since we're still waiting on Tenor's new Rod and Staff English and Spelling to arrive, we continued with 'A Reason for Handwriting C' and 'Writing Strands' this week. We also continued with his first reading selection from 'Across the Centuries C Level 1.' He read chapters 3-5 of "A Lion, A Witch, and A Wardrobe" with some vocab word study and worksheets.

Electives:
Typer Island for their typing instruction and continuing with SOS Elementary Spanish.

They did a health worksheet about spreading germs.

Phys Ed.: More bike and scooter riding and some leaf raking.

I arranged our schedule this week to have 3 days of Language Arts, Math, and Electives because of our trip but we brought our books along so that we could still finish up Canada by the end of the week. We skipped the extra activity and the cooking but on our 7-hour car trip, we listened to Anne of Green Gables on CD and watched the DVD at my sister's house.

Bible: This week included:
Reading about Greenland
Reading Matthew 5:27-42
Memorizing Matthew 5:12
Reading about George Muller (His testimony of reliance on God's provision has fascinated me for years and is such an encouragement. I started to cry while reading the story about the breakfast at the orphanage.)

Our Canadian "feast": Timbits from Tim Horton's on our way home from NY

Geography: Another week in Canada. Discussion about the nature, farming, and industry of Canada and the French language. I tried to call up my 2 pitiful years of Junior High French to squeak out some pronunciation. Fortunately, the younglings looked suitably impressed and wouldn't know otherwise. We played the geography game again this time with candy corn for markers.

They also did their vocabulary card this week (continental divide.)

Science: This week we started talked about plant life, and showed how trees draw nutrients up their trunks by observing celery. Getting that celery was quite the expedition. I don't know if it's just the pre-Christmas retail slump, a sign on our declining economy, or a bigger population in our area, but the shelves are more and more empty lately. My desperate trip to the grocery store late Sunday night for celery was in vain. Bass had to run out to another store to find some. It wasn't a big deal but I'm finding more and more often that when I go shopping I can't get the items I'm looking for.

We observed our celery on a worksheet I made up. You can get one here: celery experiment sheet.

Another of my 'failed' science experiments. I can't even rig it to make it give us the intended results when I know what the results are supposed to be.

We did read the Animal Life section from Living World although I covered up the bottom of the left page and skipped over the reproduction section. We also read about Relationships Among Living Things. Soprano started the Insect sheets from The Complete Book of Animals. She loves doing them and was disappointed that I didn't assign any during our trip. I know MFW says that all sheets don't need to be completed but I think we'll try to fit them in because she enjoys them so much.

Other MFW: Wee sing: Going Over the Sea.
We were going to do the leaf print art activity but ran out of time this week. We had other activities planned for our trip to New York so I'm okay with skipping this one this week.


We didn't have a super exciting week of school work but our mini field trip made up for it. We've had great plans for mountain hikes, homemade pizza, and a trip to a natural science museum.
We spent Friday at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, New York. It was a really cool and well designed natural museum. We watched several short films in their theater, spent some money in the gift shop, and had a few terrific hours exploring and learning. The best part were the 2 river otters, Louis and Remy. They were too fast for me to get any pictures of them though.

Meeting Stickley, a 20 lb porcupine

A Coral Mushroom (that pink thing)

On Saturday, we went horseback riding with some of my sister's friends and then had some awesome pancakes with real maple syrup. After an afternoon nap and yummy dinner of homemade pizza, we went to an itty-bitty theater and saw Dolphin Tale. It is a super sweet movie about Winter, a rescued dolphin with a prosthetic tail.
We enjoyed the Sunday service at Kim's church and lunch with some of her friends afterwards. Then the kids helped her rake leaves, and we carved pumpkins. After dinner, Soprano went to bed while Tenor played a game of War with Aunt Kim.
Unfortunately, he received a minor war wound. He had lost several of his best cards in a 'war' and in frustration threw his head backwards. He smacked it right on the edge of the wooden futon frame and gashed the back of his head pretty bad. Since it was a Sunday night and she lives more than an 1 hour from the nearest hospital, we decided to do our own first aid. A butterfly bandage or several stitches probably would have been better but it wasn't bleeding too much just continually. We applied pressure and then wrapped his head with gauze and tape.

His only comment was, "You're not going to put this on Facebook, are you, Mom?" HaHa
Of course, I am. :)

 

Other than the rough ending to our trip, we had a great visit!

Linking up at at http://2ladybugsandalizard.blogspot.com/.

New Front Door

What a relief! We finally had the time, weather, inclination, and time to tackle the house exterior. Our poor house was previously owned by an elderly woman who in her old age and advancing Alzheimer's wasn't able to care for it. She also became a recluse several years prior to selling and wouldn't allow anyone in to help. The outdoor trim was in such bad shape that every time you'd walk in the door, a shower of peeling paint chips would follow you.

Bass took a week of vacation to tackle some of the more time-consuming projects that he hadn't gotten to yet. On the "October List", as we started calling it, we planned to:

Replace the last 2 windows

Scrape, sand, prime, and paint all exterior trim, shutters, and garage door

Power wash the house, swing set, and garage floor and

Replace the front door (you know, the one with the crack in it)

Now for the picture proof that we got it all done!

 

BEFORE: back steps (totally slimy!)

 

AFTER: clean, ugly bushes removed, new windows, fresh paint 

 

AFTER: clean and painted; I even spray painted the super rusty railing.

 

 

BEFORE: East side

AFTER: clean, dead bush and branches removed, new slider window

 

 

AFTER: old, icky shutters removed

 

BEFORE: West side (by garage); branches and compost pile in the side driveway

AFTER: washed, new windows, small perennial planting bed

BEFORE: Peeling garage door overgrown with evergreens

AFTER: bye bye bushes, hello garage. 

Our neighbor was amazed that we found a garage door that matched our shutter color. He thought we had put in a new aluminum garage door. Amazing what a couple coats of paint will do!

 
BEFORE: Peeling paint everywhere, slightly hidden behind scary bushes.

AFTER: Fresh paint, new windows, new landscaping. 

BEFORE: front of house in there somewhere

AFTER: Finally finished painting!

BEFORE: Peeling paint, crack in the door, nasty step. Ick!

AFTER: I painted the trim behind the faux pillars with brown to make the pillars stand out more.

Such a big change! It was a lot of work but totally worth it.

Still on the list for outside: 
replace the light post in the little bed next to the driveway,
repave or resurface the driveway
replace the back door
add a motor to the garage door
add a few plants (and bulbs) to the garden beds
and someday replace the roof.
Maybe we'll just save all that for next October.

Linking up here.

Weekly School Summary - Canada (Oct.0–14)

This week flew by! I had exterior painting to do so on Monday and Tuesday while the weather was nice, the younglings did their work with Mom in-between coats of paint! I figured if the trim, shutters, and garage looked so nice, I should have Bass completely remove the front screen door so I could paint it and its hardware too. I also had a scrapbook day planned with friends for Saturday, so I needed to get my projects together for that, and I decided that our iTunes was a mess, which ended up with me taking CDs in a huge storage tub and CDs from all over the house and car and spreading them all over the family room. I think I had too many plates spinning this week but we managed.

School-wise here's what we did:
Math: Almost the same as usual. They each did 5 lessons this week to adjust the schedule for next week's mini fall break and trip to the Adirondacks.

Reading and Language Arts: Soprano continued with a stuffed paper bear activity, wordsearch, and evaluation for Ira Sleeps Over (reading from Across the Centuries.) We had a couple of corrections on her already completed pages in her Phonics book, and we are making good progress on using proper capitalization in her Rod and Staff English.
I sold her old CLE curriculum on eBay already (Thank You, Lord!) and am now just waiting for her new spelling book to arrive.

 J's stuffed bear project for "Ira Sleeps Over"

Since we're waiting on Tenor's new Rod and Staff English and Spelling to arrive, we continued with A Reason for Handwriting C and Writing with Ease this week. We also started his first reading selection from Across the Centuries C Level 1. We jumped into reading the first few chapters of A Lion, A Witch, and A Wardrobe with some vocab word study, worksheets, and an evaluation on chapters 1 and 2.
Writing with Ease tanked on Day 3 though. *sigh*

I had 2 volumes of Writing Strands on-hand from a yard sale lot that Bass bought this summer. So, we're going to try that instead. We doubled up lessons on Thursday and Friday and finished week 1. Tenor seemed to like it much better than the narration/dictation method of Writing with Ease. We'll see....

Electives:
Typer Island for their typing instruction and continuing with SOS Elementary Spanish.

They did another health worksheet about germs, a PA History sheet about our state seal, and we talked about our Community Helpers: Farmers and the important role they play in our lives.

Phys Ed.: More bike and scooter riding. Even after a soaking downpour on Wednesday. Although they came in quite wet and muddy.

Bible: This week included:
Reading about Garifuna (a people group in Central America)
Reading Matthew 5:11–26
Memorizing Matthew 5:11
Reading about William and Catherine Booth (founders of the Salvation Army)

Geography: We entered Canada. I remember visiting New Brunswick pre-9/11 and not needing a passport. Now you do, and of course, we used our passports for MFW. Discussion about people and places of Canada and its flag. We played the geography game again eating up our stash of M&Ms and Skittles. I have a bag of candy corn for next week.

Tenor's pages from World Geography this week were "Languages of North America" and "Religions of North America." They also did their vocabulary cards this week (bay and cape.) 

Science: This week we started talking about food chains. Tenor loved the book Poop Eaters that I found at the library. Hardly surprising for a 9-year-old boy. They both enjoyed reading Who Eats What? and rather than drawing food chains on Tuesday, they proudly showed me a food chain they made using K*nex.
Soprano finished the Reptile sheets from The Complete Book of Animals.

 

Turtle eats fish (not sure about the accuracy of that), fish eats coral

 

Fox eats turtle (to left), rabbit (to right), and cat (above); cat eats mouse; mouse and rabbit eat grass

Other MFW: Wee sing: Going Over the Sea. (Complete with marching around the family room and silly motions. Soprano might just be a future choreographer.)
We attempted the Inuit soap carving for our art project. It flaked. lol Tenor eventually carved a shark tooth out the whole bar of Ivory. It's no loss though since I use shredded Ivory to make our laundry soap. (Plus I think we need some for week 14.)

Tenor's small boat on the left and shark tooth on the bottom right.

With all the other projects that I had going on this week, I didn't add too much extra to the schedule. We watched a couple of DVDs from the library about Families in Canada and Ecosystems,which had a section about food chains, and they blazed through a bunch of book basket books.

We had exciting news at the end of the week that added a little extra to our schedule too. My brother and his wife had their first baby! A sweet little girl with a head of dark hair and the longest toes I have ever seen. She's adorable, and we got to go see them in the hospital and rejoice with them over the arrival of this precious little one!

Next week will be a 3-day week as we head up to the ADKs for a mini trip!


Linking up at weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com and at discovertheirgifts.blogspot.com/.

Disclaimer: I'm an Amazon affiliate now so clicking on links to Amazon and then purchasing items will put a few pennies into our piggy bank for future homeschool purchases. Thank you!

Weekly School Summary - Mexico (Oct. 3–7)

 

This week was a little different because Bass took a week of vacation to work on some house projects. I thought I'd have a hard time keeping the kids away from Daddy in order to finish school but they stayed on task (as did Daddy.) We got a lot done house-wise, which I'm hoping to post about by the end of the week if we can wrap up a few more things.

School-wise here's what we did:
Field Trip: Our church held it's annual Fall Fest on Saturday and part of the activities was a presentation by Forgotten Friend Reptile Rescue. The kids learned all about different reptiles and got to touch several of them. Perfect timing as we wrapped up learning about the desert and Soprano did her Reptile pages.They are based in Lancaster County, PA and do school assemblies, special events, or homeschool co-ops.

Math: Same as usual. Tenor had 5 lessons while Soprano did 4 and played games at sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm on Friday.

Reading and Language Arts: Soprano was introduced to Ira Sleeps Over for her first book from Across the Centuries. She read the book, completed a couple worksheets that I created, and did an activity where she had to fill a suitcase she made out of paper with items that she would take on a sleepover. I think she enjoyed it.
She also flew through her Phonics book and completed the whole week's worth of assignments in 1 day. We got through her Rod and Staff English. That's coming a bit slower, but we'll keep at it. At least there were no tears or cries of "It's too hard!" We received her A Reason for Spelling, and I was quite excited to implement it, but things have changed. (Surprise, surprise.)

Tenor continued to struggle with his CLE English and Reading. And I... got... sick... of... it! I shouldn't dread it. He shouldn't dread it. It was wretched. We finished the week with the final tests in both subjects, and T only did so-so. So, I said that was it. I spent the rest of the afternoon researching new curriculum for him.

The question was do we use what we chose for Soprano, so that when she gets to 4th grade we'll have resources already on-hand. Do we pick less expensive ones but then need to buy Soprano new anyway in 4th grade so not saving much money in the long run? Will what we picked for Soprano work for Tenor? Will what we picked for Soprano work for Soprano? :)
After much teeth gnashing (and serious prayer), we decided on what to get.
So now we await Rod and Staff English 4 (grammar) and Rod and Staff Spelling 4 (spelling.)
Tenor will continue with his A Reason for Handwriting C and Writing with Ease. I also ran over to the college library and got Across the Centuries C Level 1, which is actually 3rd grade but I'm going to use both levels this year and see how far we can go.

Since we're going to use Rod and Staff Spelling for Tenor, I decided to return A Reason for Spelling (although it looked fantastic) and get the much less expensive Rod and Staff for Soprano. That way she'll be familiar with it and can use Tenor's books when she gets to 4th grade.
Here's hoping we're on a better path now! And thankfully, Tenor's unused curriculum has already sold on eBay, and Soprano's is listed.


Electives:
Typer Island for their typing instruction and a restart on SOS Elementary Spanish.

They did a health worksheet about how germs enter our bodies.

Phys Ed.: Lots of bike and scooter riding. They are loving the cool fall weather, and it's been absolutely gorgeous. We're going to spend as much time as we can outdoors because it's going to get cold soon!

Bible: This week included:
Reading about Haiti
Reading Matthew 4:17–25, 5:1–10
Memorizing Matthew 4:19

Geography: Discussion about interesting facts about Mexico, Mexico's nature, farming, and industry, and it's flag. Tenor used a book I found at the library called How To Draw Mexico's Sights and Symbols to create some Aztec pyramids and medallion. We each won the geography game. Playing with Skittles as markers is definitely more fun!

Tenor's pages from World Geography this week were "Population of North America" and "Cities of North America." They also did their vocabulary cards this week (canyon and gulch.

Science: More discussion on deserts --- oases, coping with dryness, and rain in the desert.
Soprano worked on more Reptile sheets from The Complete Book of Animals.

Other MFW: Wee sing: El Coqui and Chi Chi Bud
Our art project was a substitution.... we made mini sombreros. I got the instructions here: crafts.kaboose.com/mini-sombrero.html

 

We ended our week with a Mexican feast at a local restaurant, Carlos and Charlies. We enjoyed chimichangas, burritos, and fried ice cream.

Linking up at weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com and at 2ladybugsandalizard.blogspot.com/.

Disclaimer: I'm an Amazon affiliate now so clicking on links to Amazon and then purchasing items will put a few pennies into our piggy bank for future homeschool purchases. Thank you!