in between week :)

we had school 3 days last week. we didn't row anything as we are waiting for our Babar book to arrive from our Inter Library Loan program.

Tic Tac did several pages in his Horizons Math workbook. i think he gets whinier and whinier every time! i told him we have to finish this workbook before we get anything else, though. he is also progressing s.l.o.w.l.y. through his HWT handbook. anything that has to do with copywork or printing has him writhing in his chair. i am tempted to give up on it altogether for a while, but his printing really needs help. suggestions anyone?

Bonobo, on the other hand, is thriving in his workbooks. i never thought that he would sit still for workbook activities, as he is such a kinetic kid. but he loves getting stickers for being teachable! i need to increase his workload a bit to challenge him more.

Stinkerbell is just having a lot of fun playing and torturing her siblings. i want to get more purposeful with her, but my energy is pretty well sapped as i only have a few more weeks to go in this pregnancy. we are hoping the little guy stays put until the beginning of April, but i might not be so lucky.

this week we have our Read and Share group. we are focusing on the letter "A" and the boys have their books picked out and are ready to go. we had to cancel last week as two of the families were home-bound with illness. i love this group we have, and i love seeing how the kids have developed their communication skills (even the 3 year olds!!). it is wonderful group of families!! i am grateful to be part of it :)

Follow the Drinking Gourd

today, we finished up our two week row of the book "Follow the Drinking Gourd" by Jeanette Winter. This was a fabulous book, easy to find in our library, and had great themes throughout that we could rabbit trail!

our first day we introduced slavery as a general topic, discussing the Israelites as slaves in Egypt as a tie in. Bonobo jumped right on it and said he wanted to run really fast to Egypt and free any slaves still there! we also looked at a map of the Underground Railroad and talked about the virtual railroad stops and conductors and passengers along the way.

next we focused on language arts and compound words. we had a great resource from homeschoolshare.com and both boys had fun mixing and matching words to see what made sense and what didn't. we also found a snowman compound word file folder game at filefolderfun.com and TicTac was able to complete all of them, whereas Bonobo (since he couldn't read) was a bit more frustrated but really wanted to play the game. i made some goofs while making the folder game (like using contact paper on both sides of the snowman bodies and then trying to glue them into the folder...just left me frustrated and got lots of wrinkles in the folder). but, live and learn!

next we read a go along book called "The Drinking Gourd" by F.N.Monjo. also readily available at the library. we broke out the dry erase board and focused on the similarities between the stories with the dangers and modes of transportation used to escape the plantations.

the 18th was MLK, Jr day, and daddy joined in the schooling fun to talk with them about his role in history. it was neat getting daddy involved!

i was hoping to delve into cotton plantations, but we never got time for that.

co-op was at our house, and first we read the story. then we all gathered in the kitchen to make 8.5 x 11 replicas of the Big Dipper and talked about some very interesting facts about the constellation. then we gathered in the living room to work on a timeline of Harriet Tubman's life in correlation with happenings in the US. all the moms had lots of good information to contribute about the book as well as Harriet Tubman's life. what an amazing woman she was!

i would love to provide links for all the games, etc we found on-line to give credit where it is due, but those links are saved on the other computer, and it is having issues as of late. when i can access them, i will edit this post.

this book was a wonderful study of slavery and history.

as for school these last two weeks, Tic Tac has been doing his math workbook with a less than exuberant attitude, but it is getting done. whoever knew that counting by 2's was torture?

his writing is being put to the test with his CBS bible study through Luke. and he continues to work in his HWT book.

Bonobo has been super excited about his Explode the Code books! he begs me to do pages every day!! what a switch from the beginning of our year. he is even getting excited about his Kinder-Math book that we started at the beginning of january. we are spending the off days reinforcing his letters and phonics with programs like Starfall online and a few other preschool workbooks we had around.

Stinkerbell is even getting her own schooling done in the mornings. we have lots of fun working with lacing blocks and buttons. i am trying to get her to focus on sorting by color, shape, etc, but she is more into the sheer mechanics of lacing. we are also working on her word/picture recognition.

all in all, a good two weeks! i hope to post more regularly so it isn't such a long summary at the end of the unit :)

happy schooling!

December in Review

ha ha! like that title? since i haven't done a week in review for a while, i thought it appropriate. heck, i may even do monthly reviews instead of weekly and that way i will have at least 12 posts by the end of 2010...tee hee!

but, seriously...

december 2009 was a tad unkind to us. we didn't make it to church until the very last sunday of the year due to illness and travel. the beginning of december saw all of the kids getting ill...twice!

tic-tac started it off with a fever following our bible study. and by fever i mean 104 and climbing. it lasted 24 hours and then was gone, followed by the lovely congestion and headache that seems to accompany the flu this year. then bonobo got it 2 days later...same fever and other symptoms. i thought stinkerbell was in the clear til she started vomiting 4 days later. and she had a lovely fever that wouldn't come down below 102 despite all our best efforts. she is miserable when she is ill, let me tell ya!

we finished up our fevers just in time to travel 15 hours in a minivan to northern california to visit friends and family. we were there 10 days and then traveled back the grueling interstate another 14 hours. daddy had to start back to work the very next day, so needless to say...we were all wiped out.

Christmas was amazingly peaceful at our house. thankfully we didn't have any repeat performances of our hospital stay with bonobo last holiday season. we did, however, have a repeat performance of traveling to the local wal-mart for last minute gifts because i didn't have all my ducks in a row before we left (remember the illness?). i don't know what it is about wal-mart and humanity at christmas time, but it usually is not a pleasant experience.

all this to say...school didn't happen in december...just life :) which is kind of like school, right??

if you are still reading this, thank you! i pray that you had a merry christmas and are going into the new year with hope in your hearts. we are holding fast to our faith in Jesus Christ that we are traveling on the path He has for us, as imperfect as we are. we know that in all things, He is working for His glory, and i am so thankful to be a part of that. blessings to you all in the new year!!

Down Down the Mountain- FIeld Trip

we finished off our FIAR with a visit to a pioneer museum. it was so much fun! we had a blast looking through the old log cabin homes, seeing people dressed in period attire, and watching a gunfight! the gunfight was a bit loud for Little A, so i didn't get any pictures of it as i was busy holding her ears! below are some pictures of our morning. we got to eat a picnic lunch on the town green, and then listen to one of the moms read our story.
this was my favorite thing of the morning! we got to watch the blacksmith make a nail! i was amazed!

the printing press office was pretty amazing. it was fun to watch the kids' faces when i explained that each letter had to be put into the template before they could print out the newspaper! they couldn't believe they couldn't just point and click!

my ha-ha moment of the day was when one of the girls had a conversation with me about the cameras in the old days...you know, the ones with film that you had to take to the store to have developed...boy do i feel old!

Week in Review :)

wow..does it feel good to write that title!!!

we have been away from school for waaaayyyyy too long!

we began our rowing this week in earnest :) thanks to a few helpful websites from a friend we were able to start rowing our co-op book (even though we didn't have our manual yet):

Down Down the Mountain by Ellis Credle.

i decided to start the kids off with a lapbook, and boy was it a hit! both boys enjoyed making a floor plan of Hetty and Hank's cottage, finding the Blue Ridge Mountains on a map of the US, doing vocabulary word matching, and listing foods found in the story and deciding which was their favorite.

today we worked on word problems. the boys have never seen math done that way before. we got down on the floor with counting blocks and did several addition and subtraction problems and introduced the concept of one-half. both the boys had so much fun, and before i knew it, almost an hour had passed!

what a difference FIAR has made for us. i actually enjoyed doing school with the boys this week!

we will wrap up our week with a trip to a semi-local pioneer museum. saturday, we are going to have a lunch of johnny cakes and hot dogs (don't have any ham on hand).

i am eager to start prepping for our next book. i am not sure if we will do another lapbook, but the boys have had such fun showing their dad all the cool stuff in it, it may be the way we experience rowing :)

my highlight of the week:

Joel was able to pull out his vocabulary matching cards last night for dad and get every one of them RIGHT! woo-hoo!!!

I'm in love...

well, sort of...

i am definitely becoming an admirer, and i don't think it will be too long before i am in love.

what am i in love with?

Five in a Row.

i am discovering that i am not the teach at the table with workbooks kind of teacher.

my kids are simply more hands-on kind of kids.

although tic-tac likes his workbooks to an extent, it only holds his attention for say, 10 minutes at best.

and bonobo just can't do them at all... sigh

i was getting so discouraged as of late with our "failure" at staying on task these last several weeks. i had just lamented to my husband about how much i was feeling like i just wasn't capable of teaching our children.

it was a 'bus day' for sure.

you know, when you were wishing you were a traditional schooling family and the bus came and carted your kids away for 8 hours.

i only have them in my most desperate of moments.

and then, like God is so apt to do, an answer came in the perfect time.

a woman who is in my bible study and i were talking and i was just sharing with her my recent frustrations with our curriculum and my, well, my angst over my own abilities.

she asked, have you ever heard of Five in a Row?

i told her we had the first volume, but hadn't done much with it, because i was so stuck in my rut.

she graciously invited me to her home that friday to share in their FIAR co-op! they have been praying for another family to join, so she asked me to come and check it out!

isn't that so like God?

so, anyway. we went and heard a wonderful story, then played outside acting out elements of the story. we also did a craft emphasizing the desert landscape that was so much a part of the story. it was a joy to watch my kids living out the story. it really cemented the elements into their minds.

they talked about it all the way home and then got to share with daddy about how much fun they had.

wow! my eyes were really opened up to the possibilities that exist with FIAR. i am hooked, and just might be in love. thanks, julie, julie and yvette for opening your co-op to me and letting us get creative with you! i had so much fun, and came away with a lot of ideas :) i hope to do it again soon!!

oh, the book we read? Roxaboxen, by Alice McClerran. definitely a keeper!

life school, fall break, and one tired mama

so, we haven't been 'schooling' lately.

at the end of august, we found out we were expecting our fourth little blessing. we have officially crossed over into the big family realm.

you know, when people start to look at you funny and ask silly questions like, "don't you know what causes that?"

ahem. yes.

but i digress.

anyway. this first trimester has been especially difficult. the all-day sickness has been pretty awful. i even lost 7 pounds in the first few weeks. doesn't make the OB too happy. oh, well.

i have been overwhelmingly tired...man, about 1 pm i just want to fall over and stay in bed for the day which i can't.

i am supposed to be schooling my kids.

eeek.

we haven't done a lot of workbooks lately. i have been trying to at least get their Bible in and continue on with the TOG curriculum. we should be well into the 2nd unit, but we are still stumbling along in the 1st.

we are doing more life school and character training, which i think we would have had to do anyway as the boys are really having a hard time being kind to each other these days.

i am feeling pretty down about how 'behind' we are. and then i remind myself that tic-tac is only 6. i think we can slack a little and still do just fine. we will just call it our "fall break"

they have "fall break" out here. i had never heard of it before. they take a whole week off (sometimes 2) just like a spring break. seriously?


happy schooling! i hope you are doing better than we are :)