6 Quick Takes!

When I sit down to upload pictures and journal some of the things we do over a few weeks time, I really do get OVERWELMED!   As we are wading through this game of LIFE, some days I feel like we have accomplished nothing.  I am glad that I do snap a few pictures (even though most are blurry on my phone) because looking back at them reminds me that we have made progress and accomplished a lot!  So here are ****6 quick takes**** for the last 2 weeks!

---1---

Operation Shoebox Assembly for Awanas Club

We went to the Dollar Store to pick out things for our shoeboxes this year.  We have stuffed Shoeboxes every year since Tyler was a tiny tot!  These two girls enjoyed packing their own boxes this year, and Lauren packed two boxes from stuff she purchased with her own money (or Awanas bucks on store night).  

---2---

Crafting on a Fun Friday
This year we have followed a 4 day school week which actually means we cram 5 days of work into 4 so that on Friday we can have fun.  We have art class, homemaking class, field trips, and many other things to fill our FUN Fridays.  They are technically school days because we are learning but in a different way!  Today the girls cut and assembled heart shaped rag wreaths after our bi-weekly art class.

---3---

Sit down, Stand up, 1,2,3....Latin is as easy as can be!
We are continuing our latin lessons.  The video teacher is quite fun sometimes.  Today the girls played a "Simon Says" game at the beginning of class using their Latin phrases from last week for sit down and stand up!

---4---

The girls have joined a homeschool handbell choir.  It is a beginners choir.  A month into practices and they really sound great!  The girls are having fun, and I really can not believe Lyndsey's focus on the music for the entire 1.5 hour!  

---5---

Pringles STEM challenge
The challenge was to mail 1 Pringles chip in the smallest and lightest container with no damage to the chip.  The girls assembled their chips to mail!

We met the next week with the other participants in our homeschool group.  We weighted, measured, calculated, opened and examined each box and chip.  A winner was announced and we were all amazed at his awesome packaging!

---6---

We are studying South America in geography over the last 3 weeks.  We have learned all the countries, and we have read about the rainforest.  This week we read about Easter Island and the Moai Statues.  I had found this nano block set at Target on clearance back in the summer.  The girls were super excited to learn with Legos!

What Makes an Orchestra Work

Each year the Alabama Symphony hosts a few Young People's Concerts.  The fall presentation was What Makes an Orchestra Work?  We learned about the different sections of the orchestra and heard each one play.  The performance was entertaining and educational.  The girls really enjoyed hearing the beautiful music, and they learned to pick out the sounds of the different instruments.

The bonus to these Young People's Concerts is free admission to the McWane Center next door.  After the concert, we spent the afternoon exploring the McWane Center.  We watched a great IMAX movie on the Arctic and bears (for lack of remembering the real name of the movie).

The afternoon passed by so fast.  We were not ready to leave at 4, but we knew we had to leave to get back to Montgomery by 6 for Awanas tonight!

Alabama Fair

It is a big day when MOM takes you to the Alabama National Fair.  Mom really avoids places like this with multiple kids because she avoids filth and chaos when possible!!!  Corynne and her friends wanted to meet at the fair so we all went on Saturday.  Corynne and her friends split from us almost immediately upon getting money from me!  I did enjoy the day with another mom as we chased these 4 darlings around the barns and rides.  It was a fun and exhausting afternoon!

 Afterwards, we came home to cowboy stew that had been cooking in the crock pot while we were at the fair.  We ended the day with S'mores, and the kids could not have been happier!

Just Another Week

A quick glance at what we have done over the last 2 weeks actually!  Time flies when you are having fun!
Lyndsey finished her geography fair project on Canada!  Yeah!  One down, and one to go!  The fair is next Friday!  Lauren is working on her information for Malawi, but she is no where near ready to put it on a board!

Last Saturday, Lauren and I went shopping for a few items for Lyndsey's birthday party that afternoon.  We made a stop by Williams & Sonoma for the Jr. Chef class first.  It was so much fun and delicious!

We are moving right along in Science.  We should finish up our study of each of the planets this week!  We are all ready to move on to the next chapter in our Astronomy study!

I got home from an out-of-town volleyball game just in time to sit in on Lauren's 1st online literature class.  Technology scares me sometimes!  The webinar was fun even at 6:30 pm!

Lauren is not taking gymnastics this year because she is taking a Manners class with some of her Eastwood School friends on Mondays at 12:30 which conflicts with gymnastics.  That also leaves her sitting in the bleachers with me on Wednesdays, so we started an extra learning activity for her to work on while we are watching gymnastics.  She is learning how to write computer code.  Right now she is going through CodeMonster online.  After she finishes this learning program, i think we will move over to Scratch programing designed by MIT.  She is having fun learning how to move, resize and color these boxes right now.  She would sit and do it for the entire hour if I would let her, but she also has to memorize her Awanas and do her vocabulary work during gymnastics!

I pulled some quick-sketch lessons from my Geography Through Art book to go with our quick study of the United States.  Lauren loved these, and she did a great job!

Last week was E week at Moms-Day-Out.  Colleen loved the elephant mask.  She did a good job writing her name for the teacher.   

 On September 11th, we took a break from our regular history lessons to learn about the significance of 9-11 to Americans.   My girls love the Learn Our History DVD series.  The DVDs are worth the money if you are studying American History!

This week Lauren had her first online writing class, Adventures in Writing with The Potter's School. This writing class came highly recommended by another homeschool mom.  I am expecting great things!  Lauren is progressing along nicely with her piano skills.  She is enjoying her new teacher and the more popular music she is getting to play!

Lyndsey and I started her writing curriculum this week.  We are trying the WriteReflections course.  I like that it spells everything out for me.  She did compose a few simple paragraphs/stories last year, but I did not put any emphasis on paragraph construction.  This year I am!  This first week was learning the writing process of brainstorming, main idea, and supporting details.  Then we edited and revised her 4 sentence paragraph.  At the end of the week she proclaimed, "That wasn't too hard!"

Lyndsey has a hard time sitting at the piano to practice for a long period of time (anything greater than 10min)!!!  It always makes it easier when Dad is home to make the pieces duets!

The girls enjoy theme nights at Awanas!  They are ready for BLACKOUT in honor of Commander Andrew's 40th Birthday!

Music Appreciation

This year we are using Music Appreciation for the Elementary Grades from Zeezok Publishing.  We are really enjoying this program.

 The first composer we read about was Johann Sebastian Bach.  The story books for this composer is entitled Sebastian Bach: the Boy from Thuringia.  The book is also published by Zeezok, and the Music Appreciation workbook is based off the books you read about each composer.  The books are well written, and the stories make learning about the life of the composer fun.  The series also comes with a CD of music which you are directed to play at certain points as you read the book.  The girls love listening to me read the books.
The workbook is full quick experiments like this Oxidation Experiment to explain why the lantern of the church at St. Michael's is green.

In chapter two , Sebastian Bach and Erdmann take a break from their journey to stop and rest.  They eat a small lunch of black bread and sausage.  We made German Rye Bread one Friday and served it with Sausage for dinner.  The girls were excited to explain our meal to their dad and siblings!

Over the few weeks it took us to complete the book and workbook pages, the girls were also completing lapbook pieces each week.  The girls assembled their lapbooks on the last day after they took the little quiz in the workbook.

Our next composer was George Handel.  The book for this composer was Handel at the Court of Kings.  Again, the book was great and the girls enjoyed it!  After I read each chapter, there are comprehension questions for the girls to answer about the chapter.  The workbook also has a "character qualities" section for each chapter where difference character qualities are discussed and explained.

There is also a section for each composer where different "Elements of Music" are introduced.  So far, these have been been a good review for the girls since they have been exposed to them at piano lessons.

A small geography lesson is included with each composer.  These help the girls put the composers on the map!

They have also had to do a little instrument research from time to time!

At the end of the book, the girls took their quiz and put together a folder of their weekly projects.  They are excited to go hear The Messiah this year at Christmas, and so am I!!!!

Next up is Joseph Haydn!  All of this is new to me and the girls, and learning is fun!

Day of Colleen

While the girls where at Space Camp and Tyler was at school Friday, Colleen and I had a special day. She waited patiently while I did a clean up through every kid bedroom in the house.  WOW!  These kids accumulate a lot of trash in there rooms.  Colleen's room took a little extra time because she had dumped just about everything in her room!

 Then we ran a few errands, ate lunch at Subway per her request, and then to the nail salon!  This was also her one request for the day!  She wanted to go have her nails done at the salon!  How could I turn that down?!  She had so much fun, and she was so proud to show them off to anybody who would listen and look!

Homeschool: Week #6 and What is Working for us!

I posted our Curriculum for 2014-2015 back at the beginning of the summer, but I just wanted to update and share a few things since we have been back at school for 6 weeks now.

::::Spelling and Reading for Lyndsey::::

This year I am using All About Spelling and All About Reading with Lyndsey.  I let her phonics lessons slide the second semester of last year just because we did not really like the level 3 of Sing, Spell, Read and Write.  I could definitely tell by May that we HAD to get back on track for this year!

I started her in level 2 on spelling and level 3 on reading.  It has been an easy adjustment other than she had never learned how to label syllables or an actual list of Silent E rules.  We spent a few weeks just covering those basics to catch her up.  She loves the reader, and the stories are fun to listen too!  We try to cover a lesson a week which is 2-3 days of material.  I hope we can speed this up as she adjusts to the schedule and other new subjects!

 ::::Geography::::

This year we are covering world geography with the Trail Guide to World Geography.  The girls are enjoying the daily questions and looking up answers in the atlas.  We are labeling a lot of maps and reviewing a lot of basic geography terms along the way.  We are studying the continent of North America right now.  The girls have learned all the provinces and territories of Canada as well as the Great Lakes and United States (from last year).  They had fun using Shephardsoftware.com to learn and review the provinces of Canada!  

Lyndsey chose Canada for her geography fair project for the end of September.  The girls worked through a Webquest to discover interesting facts about Canada this week.  They had fun looking through JM & Corynne's coin collection from their trip to Canada last October.  

We were able to participate with our homeschool group on a geography Mystery Skype with another classroom in the United States.  I am so glad that our group sets up these skypes.  It is a great way to focus in on solving geography clues to determine where the class is skyping with us is from!

::::Music::::

We love our new music history curriculum! I hope to post more on the unit on Bach that we just completed very soon!

The girls are also continuing their piano lessons with a friend of mine this year.  She comes to our house on Thursday mornings and gives the girls lessons!  

The girls started working on Flashnote Derby and Noteable iPad apps this summer to work on musical note memorization.  I think it is helping them!

                                                                    ::::Latin::::

We have started Prima Latina again this year.  We are in Lesson 4 which is still a review from last year when we completed through Lesson 5 (sad)!  This year is going so much better!  I bought the DVDs, and the girls and I watch the DVD on Monday morning.  Then we do the workbook pages together.  I have set up the vocabulary (and other information) on Quizlet for each Lesson.  Everyday they login to Quizlet to review the vocabulary.  On thursday or Friday morning, they take a little vocab quiz just to make sure everyone is on the same page!

:::::Science:::::

For this first semester we are studying Astronomy.  I ordered the Focus on Elementary Astronomy  for Lyndsey and the Focus on Middle School Astronomy for Lauren.  I am really not pleased with these books. We are just using the middle school version because the elementary is just to easy for Lyndsey.  I am basically using the books as a guide, and I am pulling much more information from internet homeschool sources.  It is taking a lot more planning time than I wanted to spend, so I will be looking for a different curriculum for our Chemistry & Geology studies later in the year.

As for the topic of Astronomy, we are loving it!  We have done many projects already.  I am putting together an Astronomy post for the blog to document our fun!  Best of all, the girls left for Space Camp at the Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, today with JM.  I know they are having a BLAST!!!

:::::History:::::

We are loving Mystery of History Volume 2!  We listen to the CDs for the reading.  This is a nice reading break for me!!!  After the reading, we fill out the notebooking pages to review the material. We are also putting together a timeline and lapbook as we go through the lessons.  We cover 3 lessons each week.  Then I choose one of the extra activities each week for the girls to do.  I like how some of the extra activities use geography/mapping skills and artistic skills.  In the picture below the girls are free hand cutting on the island of Patmos where John was exiled and wrote the book of Revelations. 

:::::Art:::::

I am working on individual posts for each of the artists we are studying with Meet the Masters.  Each lesson is very interesting and the projects create art work based on one of the artist's original pieces.  We just finished Van Gogh's Starry Night last week. 

Starting next Friday, the girls will also be taking a lesson from an Abrakadoodle instructor.  The lesson will focus more on the artist we are studying.  We are all very excited about this class with other homeschoolers!

::::Extras::::

We are continuing to use AlwaysIceCream.com for basic skill reviews and typing.  I really never have to ask them to do this because it is so much fun!

Xtramath.com is a flash card game on the computer that they both work on every morning.  They work on math fact mastery and speed.

Another homeschool mom is leading a K-nex Bridge building class this year.  During the first class, the kids focused on learning the terminology and working together to build bridges using limited resources.  This class is going to be a fun class to apply a few engineering and scientific skills!

ASF: Behind the Scenes

Today we went on a behind-the-scenes tour of Alabama Shakespeare Festival Theatre.  We were taken from the lobby to the club room to the props and construction area to the costume department.  The costume department was by far the funnest area.  Who would not like to play dress up in this room?!!  This was a fun afternoon with a great group of kids!

National Banana Split Day

On the way home from dropping off the volleyball practice carpool today, I heard on the radio that it was National Banana Split Day.  I decided to stop by the store and pick up so fresh bananas, strawberries in syrup, and whipped cream to surprise the kids!

They all had a great time making their creations!  After I posted to Facebook, JM was a little jealous that he was missing out!  He did make one for himself when he finally got home at 10:45pm!

YUMMY, YUM, YUM, YUM!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes Mondays are worth celebrating!