Week Four

Emotions were running on all cylinders this week. Doesn't help that the prego hormones amplify an already stress ridden situation. But like always, we motored through and ended up having a much more pleasant end to our week than beginning. Things don't always go so dandy. I have come to accept that fact. I don't have to like it, but I do recognize the reality of it. Anyway, here are the more successful moments from our week.

Bible

This week we continued our study in the Book of Matthew. Our memory verse this week was Matthew 1:23 "The virgin Mary will be with child and will give birth to a son whose name will be Immanuel, which means God with us." Isaac and Julia had some good questions for discussion, like what does virgin mean. Never fear all you parents out there. I tackled this one! Actually, Gabe and I have already had our initial talks with the kids about sex. (if you are curious, we used these books as guides) So it was easy to explain what a virgin is and why Mary's pregnancy with Jesus was so spectacular and miraculous. We also spent time talking about Immanuel and the significance of God walking this Earth in human form. Wow! He didn't leave us. He came to rescue us. I love Him so.

We also read about Harriet Tubman in Hero Tales. This led to a lot of questions and discussions about slavery. After Harriet Tubman gained her freedom she continually went back to help others escape to their freedom through the Underground Railroad. One of the discussion questions was "Why do you think Harriet risked going back to help others once she had reached freedom?" We had a great discussion about how this is a wonderful example of how God wants us to view our freedom in Christ. We should want so badly for others to experience this same freedom that we would put ourselves in "uncomfortable" situations too. We also talked about the character traits of compassion, perseverance, and joy. Interesting that we discussed these three traits during a week full of strife. I love the way the Lord works!

compassion - bearing someone else's burden as if it were your own

joy - a gift from God, a taste of what it will be like in heaven

perseverance -continuing to do what is right, even when you get tired or run into problems

Geography

We are still studying North America and more specifically the U.S.A. The kids learned a lot about the states last year through the MFW Adventures curriculum. So this week as we reviewed state names and locations, it was fun. We read about the differing landscapes across America and the variety of animals that can be found in our country. We ended our week of study on the U.S.A. with an American feast.... grilled hamburgers, lemonade, and apple pie! I totally had the intentions of letting the kids make their own apple pie, but we ran out of time and went with a pre-made.It was so yummy!

Science

We continued our lessons on forests this week focusing on Temperate forests: deciduous and coniferous. We also learned more about the canopy and forest floor. This week I really wanted to incorporate the layers of a forest project that I mentioned last week, but alas we ran out of time and didn't get it done this week either. Slacker!!! Just kidding. Sometimes we can extend our learning through projects and sometimes it just doesn't work out. No worries!

Music/Art

This week's song is original to America, a well known children's song about a certain spider. Can you guess? Yes indeed it was the Eentsy Weensty Spider. You should have seen the embarrassed look on my 3rd grade son's face when I turned that song on. He is all about doing "grown up" things and this was definitely not that. My 3 year old joined us for music, so I just turned it into a time for my big kids to teach their little brother the movements to this song. That was okay with them. Teaching it is much more of a big kid thing to do. Ha!

We read about the Navajo Indians this week, so one of our art projects was to do a sand painting. It was a whole bunch of messy fun! The kids really enjoyed doing this.

Isaac made a desert scene

then he added his name in cursive

Julia made a rainbow

And Caleb made...??? He just had fun with it!!

We also got our our Draw Write Now books. I let the kids browse the books to find inspiration. They were to draw a picture and write a short story to go along with it on the back. They did a great job at this. I enjoyed their stories.

Read Aloud

Have I mentioned how much we are enjoying Kingdom Tales?We finished the first part this week and will take a break for a couple of weeks to read another read aloud. The kids do not want to take a break and neither do I. That's how fascinating the Kingdom Tales book is.


Poetry

We read and learned about the poem The Snake by Janet Lawler.  Our discussion this week focused on alliteration and rhyme. The kids read this poem aloud Friday night during our weekly school presentation. If I had the energy to mess with getting the video from my phone to my laptop, I would post a video here of the kids reciting the poem. We talked about reading it with enthusiasm, in a way that would engage the listeners. Gabe, being the former communications teacher, was very impressed with how well they did.


Isaac

This week Isaac continued learning how to write book reports. This week's focus was character relationships and describing characters. In Language Arts, he learned about contractions and opposite meanings. Isaac is learning about adjectives and writing interesting sentences with Writing Strands. And in math he learned about multiplication by 2... again review! One of these days I am actually going to have to teach him something new in math!! This week I ordered The Life of Fred for elementary. A friend of mine had shared this book with me previously but not until recently did I know there was now an elementary version. So for fun, Isaac will work through this book on Fridays. I can't wait to get it in and take a look at it. I think Isaac will enjoy it.

Julia

Julia is finishing up her chapter book study of Andi's Lonely Little Foal. Circle C Rocks!!This makes her 5th book in this series. She has one more but says she wants to wait until right before Christmas to do it because the book is called Andi's Circle C Christmas. I can't wait until Susan Marlow releases her new series in which I think Isaac will equally enjoy. For math Julia is learning beginning/simple addition. SUPER EASY!!! In Language Arts, Julia learned about homophones, specifically to, too, and two. She also learned the correct usage of was and were.This week for writing, Julia is learning about paragraphs and pronouns.

I know this picture is not the best quality, but if  you can read this journal entry from this past week. She wants to be in the ilmpicks (olympics) Cute, right?!

Caleb

Sickness has hit my poor little boy yet again. Monday afternoon he started running fevers. Poor lil' guy. However, we did manage to get a little bit of school in this week despite that. He is learning the nursery rhyme "Hickory Dickory Dock" He learned to recognize the number one, count one of things, and of course we had fun with the positional words like up, down, under, and over. He got to make a mouse craft as well. I also introduced circles to Caleb. He did circle printing, sorting, hunting, matching, etc. He also made a circle caterpillar. He is so fun! I love teaching my sweet little Caleb.

Caleb wanted me to read and re-read these books all week.

Circle Caterpillar

 

Circle printing

Shape Mouse

Circle/Oval sorting

It is hard to believe that it has already been a month since we started this school year. Time flies!! Bring on Week 5!

The Good and the Bad

I used to teach public school years ago, long before I had kids of my own. Feels like forever ago. When Gabe and I made the decision to home school I naively thought, "I've got this. If I can successfully teach a classroom of children, surely it'll be a snap to teach my own child" What's the saying? Pride comes before a fall?! Yep, that's it!

Nothing and I mean nothing prepared me for the challenges of teaching my own child(ren). I quickly realized that I was highly invested in their successes and failures. And the personality conflicts... whoa buddy. I can't just send these kids home to their parents and wash my hands of it.

Before I began home schooling in earnest I had visions of such a serene and peaceful environment where we were totally engaged and having fun while we learned. Don't get me wrong, there are days just like that. They do exist, but there are days too that are the complete opposite. Those are the days that make my head spin. Let's be honest, there are days when we are all in tears and so frustrated we can't see straight. That's reality folks.

While we are being honest, there have been days that I have questioned my ability to homeschool my children. I can get really caught up emotionally with them. The last two days have been trying to say the least. I finally reached my limit today and locked myself in my room to "cry it out". Thankfully my Lord listens to me through tears and rants and loves me anyway.

As I am pouring my heart out to Him saying, "I can't" or "I've failed", I clearly get this message..... No you can't, but I can. Yes, you are weak, but I am strong. I too often rely on my own strength and am somehow surprised when things break down and fall apart.As much as I get frustrated with my kids for continually making the same unpleasant choices, I am doing the same thing. I am repeatedly choosing to go my own way and rely on my own strength. Over and over again, God reminds me and gently teaches me to follow Him and lean on Him alone.

I am not perfect... He is.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"
 Phillipians 4:13

Week Three

We are on a roll! The kids and I have gotten into a great routine and schedule. Our schedule allows for breaks throughout the day, which I believe has really helped Isaac's attention span issues, and it allows time for me to tackle other chores around the house. Last year I really tried to get all of our school done by noon or a little after. I found I was always stressed to "to hurry up and get it done". This led to a lot of frustrating days. This year I have had to adjust my thinking and know that school is an all day affair now. This gives us freedom to go at a good pace for us, accomplish all that needs to be accomplished, and not stress over it.

I started the week with a little treat. Just a little something to brighten their day!

Bible

This week we began our study of the book of Matthew, which we will focus on throughout the school year. We read and discussed some introductory stuff about Matthew and talked about how it was originally written in Greek. On Friday the kids made a bookmark to keep in their Bibles with Matthew written on it in Greek.

We also read about Dwight L. Moody in Hero Tales and began discussing the character traits of repentance, boldness, and strength.

Geography

We have enjoyed studying map skills and world geography. This week we began to focus on North America. The kids and I have had fun locating lots of features of North America like bodies of water, rivers, countries, U.S. states, vegetation, mountain ranges, etc. It's been awhile since I have studied this type of geography and I found it so fun to locate all these places in the atlas and label them on our own maps. Yes, I am a nerd like that!

I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but each week the kids will have two geography vocabulary words to define. So far they have defined  ocean, ocean ridge, continental shelf, and continent. This week they defined forest and isthmus. At the end of the 6 weeks, we will review and test these vocabulary words to make sure we have them tucked away in our memories.

On Friday we did a project called "My Place in the World". I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to include it this week. The kids really enjoyed making these and will be a great keepsake for the geography notebooks.

My Place in the World

My Place in the World

They just can't resist being a little silly!

Science

We began studying forests in science this week. We talked about the different layers of a forest and did an activity where the kids had to place different animals in the correct layer. For example, a bald eagle would live in the emergent layer and a rabbit would live on the floor layer. I also saw this project on Pinterest and wanted to include it this week but didn't get around to it. Maybe next week!

After learning about the layers in a forest, we focused on certain types of forests such as deciduous and temperate. The kids labeled a world graph with areas of different types of forests and made a map key on it as well. We are rockin' these map skills lately!

We took some time on Wednesday and went on a Leaf Collection Nature Walk around the neighborhood. Isaac and Julia collected two interesting leaves. They did a bark rubbing of the tree, drew a picture of the tree, and spent time at home later figuring out the name of the tree from which their leaf came. We will do this periodically throughout the year and keep our collection in their science notebooks.

Nature Walk

Love his sweet little smile

Caleb found a leaf too!

I let Caleb "walk" Ollie. Not sure who was doing the leading!

Tree bark rubbing

Tree bark rubbing

Working on their leaf collections

Music/Art

This week we began learning the song "The Crooked Path" which is an Omaha Indian child's play song. The children would sing it as they played follow the leader. So we did the same!

We also studied the artist Georges Seurat who is known for pointilism. We looked at and discussed his painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Then the kids made their versions of pointilism. I told the kids to draw a simple drawing then use the Q-tips and paint to fill in their color. They all enjoyed doing this little art project!

Pointilism Painting

 

Caleb's painting - he started with the "dotting" and soon gave up and did his own thing

Isaac's painting - as you can see by his tree on the right that Isaac can get a little impatient with tedious art projects!

Julia's painting - there is a cat in there somewhere. It just so happens to be the same color as the rain.

Read Alouds

We are still immensely enjoying Kingdom Tales. Isaac and Julia are able to relate the stories and lessons to their own life. I love when they get it! I am also still reading through the Little House series. We are on the book On the Shores of Silver Lake. Not sure when we will actually finish this series, but it is a fun to read none the less. I am convinced that all the reading aloud I have done with my children over the years has helped them become great readers. And more than just being great readers, they truly enjoy reading. I often catch them with their noses in a book. LOVE it!!

Isaac

Isaac worked on learning how to write a paragraph correctly. It was another week of review in math as he worked on skip counting by 2, 5, and 10. Easy Peasy!! Spelling is going well but I have noticed that he gets really frustrated when taking the tests. He gets upset when he knows he can't spell a word correctly. I try to tell him that we are only taking the tests everyday to see which words he needs to study which is usually only 3 or 4. Sometimes I don't know how to get past his perfectionist tendencies. For Language Arts, Isaac read a poem and then found and labeled the adjectives, nouns, and rhyming words. He also learned the uses of go, went, and gone. I am really liking the Primary Language Lessons book. The lessons are short and sweet, but teach a lot of grammar and language arts skills.

We finally got our Rosetta Spanish up and running this week so the kids are continuing with their lessons.

Julia

I don't know what I have done while teaching my children to cause this, but Julia also struggles with perfectionist tendencies. I tell her over and over that I am more concerned with her doing her best and trying her hardest than I am about her getting everything "right" all the time. This week Julia struggled with this during her spelling test. She HATES to get a word wrong. I just have to gently remind her that this test only shows us which words we need to study further. She didn't buy it. I will keep working on her in this area!! She had another easy week in math. I am liking that the first weeks of math are review so we don't have additional meltdowns over challenging work. For writing, Julia became a reporter. She learned how to observe an event, take notes, and write a short report. For language arts Julia worked on writing complete sentences with capitalization and punctuation.

This was Julia's journal from last week. Isn't she a sweetie! Totally made my day!

The house got quiet one day which usually signals trouble. I went to investigate and found this. Big Sis reading to her little brother. Love it!!

Caleb

Because of all the sickness lately, we used this week to catch up on all the activities that we didn't get to last week. Caleb continued to review Humpty Dumpty and Hey Diddle Diddle. He sorted ovals by color and made oval bean art. He also played some balancing games with me in the hall with a piece of painters tape. We played catching, throwing, and kicking games as well. I let him finish painting his color book and on Friday he got to do Sticky Art. I gave him a piece of contact paper, sticky side up. He tore pieces of colored paper and decorated his sticky paper. We back it with another  piece of contact paper and ta-daa.... we have a beautiful piece of art that is proudly displayed on his bedroom window. Isaac and Julia like it so much that they want to make one now!

Balancing Games

Working at the Chalkboard

Oval Bean Art

Markers at the Easel

Sticky Art

Fine motor: tearing paper

Caleb was so proud of his art

Caleb decided to practice his scissors skills. Don't worry this was an approved activity!

Phew, three weeks of school are behind us. I can't believe we are about to head into our 4th week.... a full month of school already!!! Two more weeks of regular school then we will take a break and have our first project week in which we will do a book study of Charlotte's Web. I am really looking forward to the fun of that week!