County Fair 2019!

We took the entire week off of school because it was County Fair Week!  It was the hottest fair I can remember in a long time.  It was mid to upper 90's on the thermometer all week not counting the heat index and it got hotter as the week went on.  Very thankful for the fans but it was still hot!!! Mon we were there 9-7 Tues- Thurs we were at there from 9am- 9 pm.  Friday we were able to leave by 1 and go home to our nice air conditioned house.  Saturday we were there until 1 and then back at 5:30 to start clean up.  We are tired!  But it was a great fair week for the children and I appreciate all of the people that work so hard to make the fair possible.


Monday morning we were putting up booths.  We put up the Nature Seekers and STEM Club and Nick and Alex also worked with the other Teen Leaders on the Teen Leader booth.  After lunch we worked on sorting chickens and worked with the goats until it was time to start weighing in animals.  We helped weigh in the hogs and the goats and sheep.

Tuesday we had to enter all of the other entries.  I use to only allow the children to enter 5 things each because that made 35 entries and it took a really, really long time to get them all in.  This year they let me tag the entries ahead of time.  The children were so proud of all of the things they worked on I told them they could enter them all.  My family had a ton of entries, especially Lily who had worked on so many sewing projects this year.

Then we washed and clipped goats and the pig.

The lamb and pig show was Tuesday night.  The pig did much better and won 2nd in Commercial and 3rd in her market class.

Wednesday we worked on the hay bale in the morning.  Chelsea brought Liam and Willow out.  We left to go to lunch in a nice air conditioned building.

After lunch the inside exhibits had been judged so we got to go see what everyone won.

Nick entered a decorated cake (1st place) 2 puzzles (one 1st one Best of Section) a dream catcher (2nd), string art (1st) and a LEGO set (1st)

Anthony entered 2 photographs (2nd and Best of Section), jam (1st), a wooden bird (1st) 2 LEGO sets (1st) and string art (2nd) Christmas Board (1st)

Alex entered a leather bracelet (Best of Section) key chain (1st) coaster (2nd) model truck (1st), cross (1st) and string art (1st)

Christian entered 2 LEGO sets (1st), zippered pouch (2nd), pillow (2nd), string art (1st) leather bracelet (2nd) key chain (1st) coaster (2nd) Christmas Board (2nd)

Emmie entered a Christmas Plate (2nd) 3 paintings (2nd and 2 1st) string art (1st) pillowcase (2nd), jam (2nd) and decorated cake (1st)

Lily entered decorated cake (1st), jam (2nd) 3 drawings (1st) 3 paintings (1st and Best of Section) soup cozy (2nd) laundry bag (1st) zippered pouch (1st) potholder (1st) fleece blanket (1st) skirt (Best of Section) string art (1st) bracelet (1st) key chain (1st), coaster (1st) table runner (1st)

Then it was time for rabbit and chicken judging.  We helped with that.  Anthony's birds won Grand, Emmie's won Reserve, and Lily's 1st.  One of Nick's rabbits didn't place.  The other won 1st and the other Grand (that rabbit was the only one of its breed.)

Next we had to get the goats ready for the goat show.

Alex won Senior Showmanship, 1st in his market class and 2n in his commercial class. ( I was working in the announcers booth for the shows so the pictures were taken from above.)

Christian won 1st in his market class and Reserve Grand Champion for Commercial.

Thursday was school group day.  Nick, Emmie, Lily, and I did chickens and rabbits.  Christian and Alex did goats.

Thursday night we helped with the cattle show.

Friday was the Premium Sale.  This is not a real sale.  Businesses donate money to the exhibitors to help with the cost of raising livestock (it costs a lot!) but the exhibitor keeps the animal.  We went home after lunch and rested and Nick went back to feed and water that evening by himself.

Saturday was the parade.

Then there was a BBQ contest that Alex entered.  He won 1st but his category was uncontested.  It was the first time they have done this at the fair and hope for more entries next year.

Clean up was Saturday night.

Today after church we tore down the booths and picked up the inside exhibits.

Our next fair is in a little over 2 weeks, but it is a shorter fair and hopefully won't be so hot!

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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Homeschool Crew Review: 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade

Reading Eggs is my favorite online subscription program for children.  I have a subscription for my 8 year old daughter and she absolutely loves it!  There are 3 different reading programs in the Reading Eggs Family.  Reading Eggs Junior is for children ages 2-4 years old. Reading Eggs is for 3-7 years old, and Reading Eggspress is for 7-13 years old.  The company also offers an online Math program called Math Seeds. Last year, they released a new line of workbooks to go along with the online lessons.  We had a chance to review the First Grade Workbook and Emmie loved it.  We were glad to be given an opportunity this year to review 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade.

 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade is a 220 page consumable workbook that contains activities in comprehension, spelling, and grammar.  There are 36 weeks of lessons split up into 5 days.  Each day's activity is one page in the workbook.  The Table of Contents in the front of the book tells what each lesson will focus on.  It also has a year long planner.  On Day 1 and Day 2 students work on comprehension lessons.  Days 3 and 4 are spelling lessons.  Day 5 is a grammar lesson.  Every 9 weeks there is a review to reinforce learning.  Lessons take less then 15 minutes per day to complete.  An answer key to all of the activities is included in the back of the book.

For the comprehension sections, students are given a short passage and asked to do some things within the passage such as circling or highlighting different words.  The passages are a mixture of fiction and nonfiction texts.  The first day they answer multiple choice questions about the text and the second day short answer questions.

For the spelling pages there is a list of 20 words for the student to copy.  Then they have activities to us the words like rewriting words to make them plural, underlining spelling mistakes ,using the words to complete a sentence, etc...On Day 4 they are also given a list of challenge words and activities to go along with those words.

The grammar lessons focus on a particular topic such as verb tenses, adjectives, pronouns, etc..There is a short explanation of the topic and then activities for the student to do related to the topic.

My 5th grade daughter has been using 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade each day for less then 15 minutes per day.  I did not have a specific plan for her for language arts this year and Emmie loved the 1st grade workbook so much we thought that we would give it a try.  She told me that she likes this workbook better then anything else we have used for language arts in the past.  The workbooks are colorful and the activities are fun and interesting and have a good variety.  She likes getting her highlighter out and highlighting the section of the reading passages the best.  The instructions are clear and lessons only take 10-15 minutes to complete.  I think this workbook is great as a stand alone but would be even better with the online lessons to go along with it.

Reading Eggs is offering a 4 week free trial for my readers! Use this link https://readingeggs.com/happyh/

Members of the Crew reviewed  all of the grade levels of the 200 Essential Reading  Skills workbooks and also 200 Essential Math Skills for K-2.  To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Crew Review: Zeezok Publishing Music Appreciation 2: for the Middle Grades

Zeezok Publishing carries a variety of quality materials to complement your educational needs.  We have been blessed to use several things from Zeezok over the years including some of their Z Guides to the Movies and Music Appreciation Book 1.  We LOVED Music Appreciation Book 1 and were very excited to be offered and opportunity to use and review  Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades.

 Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades is recommended for students in grades 5-8.  This curriculum will increase students knowledge and appreciation of music and even history as the students study the events going on in the world around each composer.  This course has several different components:

9 Composer Biographies (Chopin Early Year and Chopin Later Years, Robert Schumann and Mascot Ziff , Adventures of Richard Wagner , Stephen Foster and His Little Dog Tray ,The Young Brahms, The Story of Peter Tchaikovsky , Peter Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Ballet , Edward MacDowell and His Cabin in the Pines.)  The illustrated biographies are paperback books that gives interesting and detailed information about the composer and their lives.  Each of the books also contain sheet music to several of the composers compositions.

Student Activity Book The activity book is a paperback consumable book.  It is recommended that you have one for each student.  In the book you will find a variety of activities about the components of music (time signature, note values and names, etc..) character trait studies, recipes, interesting facts, history, geography, timelines, grammar, and more.  Comprehension questions and quizzes are also in the book and answer keys are provided.

 Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades App–QR codes (this is one of my favorite things about this curriculum!) There are QR codes in the front of the activity book that you can scan with a tablet or phone that will take you to a YouTube page so you can listen to the coordinating tracks for each composer.  Also, throughout the activity book there are other codes you can scan to find out additional information online about a particular topic.  If you cannot access this information with a QR scanning device you can access it online via a website.

A Journal Notebook or lapbook is also recommended.  The journal can be as simple as a spiral notebook. The lapbook can be purchased separately from Zeezok.  There is also a coloring book that can be purchased to go along with the program.

Music Appreciation 2 has a suggested weekly schedule in the front of the student book.  We completed the schedule over our 4 day school work and started with the first suggested composer Chopin.  We do a lot of reading aloud in our home so I read the biographies aloud to my 8, 10, 12, and 14 year olds. They all also enjoyed listening to the music.  The book work in the student activity book was assigned to my 14 year old son.

We absolutely love the biographies.  They are written in story format and are just packed full of information on the composers lives.  Did you know that when Chopin was very small he heard a song once and then played it on the piano? Or that when he was on his way to Paris as a young man he was down to his last bit of money and wasn't sure what he would do when he opened a gift from a friend and not only did it have money but a hand painted autographed portrait of Beethoven?  I also love that they include the sheet music to some of the selections.  It is fun to follow along with it as it plays.

The student activity book is  packed full of so may wonderful things.  It is absolutely amazing! There is plenty of information given about music itself as I mentioned above and I love that.  Especially for my son who does not play a musical instrument and has no background in music at all.  I love that they include comprehension questions, character trait discussions, geography, and fun things like recipes. But one of our favorite things in the activity book is the Tidbits of Interest section.  In the biography on Chopin's Early years it talks about he and his sister being sickly but doesn't really tell with what.  In the activity book we learn that it was TB.  In the Later Years book Chopin is really struggling to make it with his music.  He is in Paris and poor and helps his fellow countrymen as much as he can.  We had no idea what was going on in Poland at the time until we read the details of the upheaval in Europe at the time.  

The music being accessed through QR Codes is my favorite part of this program!  It may seem like a little thing but we do not have a CD player in our house.  We have to use a DVD player.  Putting the CD in every day and finding the correct track and then making sure it got put away in the proper place to locate it the next day could be a pain.  I also always worried about the children scratching the disks.  With the QR Codes, I  just need to have my phone.  When we come to the track in the biography I scan it and we can listen to the selection then go right back to reading.  This is so convenient!  We also love the short videos you can access with the codes.

We have loved our study of Chopin and look forward to reading through the next biography on Robert Schumann.  The Nutcracker is one of our favorite pieces of music and cannot wait to find out more about Peter Tchaikovsky's life.

I highly recommend  Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades!  To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 3

Dentist appointments took up two days this week.  One for me and one for the children.  The children's dentist is all the way in Texarkana so it takes up a good chunk of the day.  None of the children had cavities (yay!) but Christian needed some filing done on one of his caps and Emmie had a spot that could turn into a cavity if it didn't get taken care of.  Usually we have to go back for any kind of "work" on their teeth but the dentist did it while we were there and I'm thankful I don't have to drive all the way back for less then 10 minutes of work. I was under the weather for a few days this week.  Emmie very sweetly told me if I didn't feel well we could just take a day off of school, but we muddled through.


Week 3 in our Homeschool

Bible:  We read two chapters in the book of Luke.

History: We finished Passport Ancient Rome!  We did not do any of the projects past the first few stops but the older the children get the less interested they are in those kind of things.  We will be jumping back into The Mystery of History Vol 1 after the fair.  I am excited because I was selected to review the brand new 3rd edition!  It is a beautiful hard cover book with color pictures similar to Vol 3 and 4.

Music Appreciation: We are about halfway through the biography of Chopin's Later Years.

Art: We have two art reviews right now.  HIGASFY is a art history video series with some hands on activities.  Our video this week focused on the start of Impressionism and Claude Monet.  We have a review of Drawing Lessons from Creating a Masterpiece.  Monet started with cartoon caricatures of people.  Our lessons in Creating a Masterpiece was a cartoon drawing of giraffes. 

Math: We did 4 days of CTC Math and Emmie, Christian, and Alex started a new review ( we didn't get access until Friday so they only used it for 10 minutes each) of Elephant Learning, a math supplement.

Language Arts: Lily is working on her Reading Eggs workbook.

Spelling/Reading: We have not started Spelling yet.  Emmies book has disappeared ( I need to go through their bedroom) and the boys arent starting for a few more weeks.  Emmie did start back into AAR Level 2 we read Life on the Blue Whale which leaves us 3 more stories in Level 2. 

Other Activities this Week

Monday I had to go to the dentist. Lily went back to the sewing workshop and finished her skirt.

Wednesday all the boys had youth.  Our regular Wednesday activities start up in two weeks.

Thursday kids dentist. No music lessons since our teacher is still in the hospital. I recorded Lily playing a song and sent it to her. 

Friday I took Alex out to the shooting range so he could practice before a 6 week trap shooting activity starts next week.  Then we went grocery shopping which took forever.  Walmart was very busy and there were only 3 cashiers working.

We have spent a lot of time working with animals this week and finishing up other projects.  The fair starts today and will end on Saturday.  It will be a long and busy week!  The muffins I am baking for breakfast are finished so I am going to grab mine and eat while the house is still quiet!

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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