Monday, December 23, 2019

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 17

Some of the cold, cough, sinus headache stuff that has been going around descended on the house this week.  5 out of 8 have had it in some form so far.  Some ran low grade fevers for a day, most have had sore throats, headaches, runny noses, and coughs.  Hopefully everyone will be completely well by Christmas.


Week 17 in our Homeschool

Bible: We finished the book of John and read Luke 2.

Read Aloud: We finished Day and Night in the evening and started reading some Christmas picture books.  For the boys read aloud we read a few chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring.  The chapters are long and usually split into two days.

Geography: We completed lesson 5 in Let's Go Geography on Mexico.

History: We completed lessons 76, 77, and 78 in The Mystery of History Vol 1.

Music: We listened to The Nutcracker from Maestro Classics, Stories in Music.

Art: We worked on some homemade Christmas cards and gifts.


Writing Assignments: We did two this week: Describe Your Favorite Holiday Dessert and Write About Some Things You Would Like to Do Next Year

Emmie: Worked on some lessons based on The Poplar Express in Lightning Lit.  She had finished her section in math last week so did not do any math assignments and did one lesson in AAR Level 3.

Lily: Practiced multiplication tables this week in math and completed lessons for The Family Under the Bridge for Lightning Lit.

Christian and Anthony: Finished up their math sections and completed lesson 4 in AAS Level 7.


Other Activities this Week:

We had the babies Monday who were still recovering from their bout with RSV but both in really good spirits.  Willow is 4 months and becoming more mobile.  She can roll over and wiggle around and happily chews on whatever she can get in her mouth.  Liam is a very sweet big brother and brings her toys to play with and even covered her with a blanket when she fell asleep.

She played in her Uncle Nick's old exersaucer for the first time.





Monday afternoon the girls had gymnastics and the boys went to pack food bags for the soup kitchen to hand out the next day.

Tuesday we stayed at home!

Wednesday we had Kid's Club and the Children's Choir Christmas Party. 

Thursday I baked all day for the STEM Club Bake Sale.  Emmie had dance that afternoon.  Nicholas finished his semester tests so I excused him from school and he stayed home Friday.  Only one semester of high school to go.

Alex went driving for the first time.

Friday was the STEM Club bake sale.  Friday evening Nick, Christian, and Alex went to the Teen Leader Christmas Party.

the lump under the blanket is Emmie.  It was cold that day!


We are off of school for the next two weeks and really do not have any plans to go anywhere except for church.  There is not any kind a chance for a white Christmas for us.  It is supposed to be 70 degrees Wednesday!  The children would love to see some snow this year, maybe we will get some on January.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 16

Week 16 in our Homeschool

Bible: We read 4 chapters in the book of John.

Read Aloud: We finished The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  In the evening we are still reading Day and Night and started The Fellowship of the Ring.

Geography: We completed lesson 4 on the Pacific Northwest States.

History: We completed lessons 73, 74, and 75 in The Mystery of History Vol. 1.

Science: We finished the notebooking activities for lesson 3 of Botany.

Art History: We watched a video on Post Impressionism.

Art: We did a drawing lesson from Creating a Masterpiece using charcoal to draw a baby elephant.  Christian did not like his but I thought it turned out good.  It is not easy to draw with charcoal.






Emmie worked on money lessons in CTC Math.  She completed 3 lessons in AAR Level 3 and worked on some Advent copywork that I printed from Apologia.

Lily is still working on multiplication in CTC Math.  She is reading The Family Under the Bridge and completing the assignments in Lightning Lit.

Christian and Anthony completed 4 lessons in math and lesson 3 in AAS Level 7.

Our group writing assignments were: The Most Unexpected Present I ever Received Was ?(or favorite present), Write a Funny Story About the Day it Snowed Marshmallows, and Write A Funny Story About a Lost Elf.

Other Activities this Week

Monday Christian, Nick, Lily, And Emmie went to a candy making workshop.



Alex went and packed OCC Boxes with members of  the Trap Team.

After candy making the girls had gymnastics.

Tuesday we stayed at home!

Wednesday we had Kid's Club and Children's Choir.


Thursday Emmie had dance.

Friday Art and  I had a shopping date.

Saturday I took the girls to a cookie decorating class.  The boys were happy to eat some when we got home!


Emmie's

Lily

Sunday we had practice for the Cantata, Sunday School, and the Cantata during church.  That afternoon we went Christmas Caroling and delivered pointsettias to some shut ins from our church and had the Youth Christmas Party.


When it is all listed out and written like that it all sounds so wonderful and a lot of it is.  But there are also lots of disagreements between children, chores that are "forgotten" and need to be reminded, a messy house, dinner that was not made, impatient mama moments, and mistakes that I make with my children and also other people's even when I am trying to do my best.  Forgiveness and Grace need to be given and accepted often, even when it's hard, and we have to find when to forgive ourselves even when others do not.   I think sometimes people think that moms that stay at home have it easier then moms that work.  The truth is it's all hard.  I wouldn't trade it for anything but it definitely isn't easy!


This next week is our last week of school before Christmas break and after Friday will have two weeks off to rest and relax during winter break.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!


Monday, December 9, 2019

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 15

December is a busy month and we had a lot going on this week!

I changed some things in our homeschool for the month of December.  We will not be starting a new composer until January but will be listening to some music (like the Nutcracker) in December.  Instead of the children working on their separate writing assignments we are doing a 10 minute writing activity together each day.  I found some fun ones for the month of December.  The boys will not start a new literature book until after the holidays since they just finished Robin Hood and we only have 8 school days until the holiday break!




Week 15 in our Homeschool

Bible: We read three chapters in the book of John.

Read Aloud: For our morning read aloud, we started one of my favorite Christmas books, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.  In the evenings we are finishing up the last book in the Horses in History series by Mattie Richardson called Day and Night for the girls.  For the boys we just finished The Hobbit and started the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring.

History: We completed lessons 70, 71, and 72 in The Mystery of History Vol 1.

Geography: We completed lesson 3 in Lets go Geography on The Mountain West States.

Art History: We watched an art history video on Post Impressionists.

Lily has started The Family Under the Bridge in Lightning Lit.  She did 3 days of Math working on multiplication.

Emmie completed two lessons in AAR Level 3 and her math lessons this week focused on money.

Anthony and Christian did 4 days of math and completed lesson 2 in AAS Level 7.

The two writing exercises we did as a family this week were : One Thing I Like About December Is? and Write a Funny Story About a Snowman that Goes Sledding.

Other Activities this Week

Monday we went to the parade.  We were not on a float this year, just spectators.  Liam was so cute he waved at all the floats that went by and said Trick or Treat every time they threw him candy.


Tuesday I had an appointment in Hot Springs.  Art took the day off and we all went so we could go and get our tree and take a field trip to the Botanical Gardens, Garvan Gardens to see their Christmas Lights.

We had never been to this Christmas Tree Farm before.  They had a ton of trees!




We took our family photo in front of the trees (minus Nick who was on his way home from Atlanta.)

Then we had about an hour to kill before Garvan Gardens opened so we went to a fun and beautiful park beside a lake.






We were one of the first people to arrive at the gardens ( I wanted to do that because I had heard about some days you have to wait an hour to be able to park!) so we had about an hour before dark.  We walked all the way through one time, took a popcorn, cocoa break, then walked through again in the dark.  It was beautiful!












Wednesday Nick was home! For a day... We decorated a bit in the morning, then had Kid's Club, Children's Choir, and youth.


Thursday Nick left for Robotics Competition in Dallas.  That day we had the babies. 
Liam was sick (RSV but only a mild case) and Willow was very cranky so we did not get the school work completed that I intended for that day.  They were both asleep at the same time for about 15 minutes.  Liam is feeling better but now it seems that Willow has caught it from her brother.



After they were picked up I ran Lily to a sewing workshop and Emmie to dance.


Friday Alex took his permit test and passed.  Friday night was the girls' music recital.  Emmie played Away in a Manger on the ukulele and Lily played It Came Upon a Midnight Clear on the piano.

Saturday Nick arrived home again.  I think to stay for awhile.  His team had some technical difficulties and did not do very well.  The rest of us spent a quiet day at home.


I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!