Catching Up

I've been avoiding my blog like I avoid my sewing areas after big projects!  :D  Seems like the weekly homeschool posts were too much for me to keep up with.  Since I keep up on my Homeschool Tracker software as well as a yearly binder, I just find it to be a lot to post about it too.  I may find another way come fall...maybe a highlights vs. a log.  We're about 1/2-3/4 done with the ITBS (our standardized testing) for the year- hoping to finish that up by Saturday.

Onto the pics!  Mostly some of my most recent projects.

This is a sketch of a chicken I made for Mother's Day for my mom.  The frame idea is from Pinterest.  If you are curious, I can dig up the pin and subsequent tutorial.  Otherwise, if you follow me on Pinterest, it'd be in the house and home section.  After J cut the frame, I taped to paint the inner border white, then painted the outer area black and the inner frame with the black boxes to make it checkered.  I sanded a bit to rough it up and then coated with a couple layers of sealer after modge-podging the sketch on (which I'd sealed prior to that as well so it wouldn't smudge).  I'm very pleased with the final result and now we have a way to frame our own artwork at home in a very cost-effective way!



J participated as a delegate at the GOP State Convention this year.  He got to meet Ron Paul- the reason he got so involved this time around.  Met up with some people he knew and was able to have some good conversations with new folks as well.  
 

I made a few things to welcome my new niece, Imogin, who was born the end of May.  I made her 2 outfits, then had to make big sister Romi matching pj's and a little doll outfit too.
Here's a pic of her in the hospital:
 
Ooga Booga monsters:

Little frogs:

Romi's pj's with her doll:

The doll outfit looks huge here, but Romi's doll is bigger than the ones we had here at home:


Following Imogin's arrival was Emily's 9th birthday!  My sister Cassie made an awesome Perry cake!:  


We had a nice birthday.  A family party at the farm, and a good time out with a friend at the Mega Mall- rides, treats, Build-a-Bear, and the Rainforest Cafe.  

I participated in a charity dress sewing group online in May/June.  I took some of the older girl sizes and sewed up these two dresses to send to Haiti with some missions groups that were going.  One of the groups left a little early, but we're hoping to catch another group the end of June.  Both dresses have ties a the shoulder so they're more adjustable.  The grey one has ties in the back as well, with a flower and hummingbird appliqued on each pocket, size 10.  The printed dress is a typical 'pillowcase' dress, with pockets, size 12.



Also participated in a doll clothes swap on my favorite sewing board.  Sent them in yesterday and will hopefully have outfits back in a couple weeks!  I made 2 ballerina outfits, plus one for E:

2 tunic/legging sets:

And my favorite- a woven wrap dress with a belt a matching headband.  I made 2, but we kept one of them.


Out at the farm this year, if you're lucky, you'll spot some really cool hummingbird moths!  We thought it was a regular hummingbird at first, then saw the antennae and proboscis.  He wasn't afraid at all...this is a cellphone pic- nothing fancy.  We were able to get really close and he kept coming back.


I turned 29 just a couple days ago, so it's my last year in my 20's!  J's started back at school and it's been a grueling month.  We're hoping July will be a little less so.  We're shooting to get all of his pre-requisites done by the end of fall so he can apply for a master's program in Jan that starts Fall 2013.  He's going for occupational therapy.  It's a pretty competitive program, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  That field would be a dream for him- very fitting for his personality, skills, and work history.

Phew- hope I'm caught up now!  :)

HS Week Review 1/30-2/3

I've been debating for awhile on whether or not I'd like to post more homeschool related details here. I've read other blogs that post a review of what they've learned or done that week. I just read a few more last week and decided that I would give it a whirl.  So here goes!  I'm starting with last week, but I hope for future to have these up on Saturday.  I'm going to give abbreviations for curriculum we're using that I'll use going forward to speed things along.

Bible

• Each morning she reads 1 chapter of her bible.  She started Psalm 5 this Monday (she started in Genesis and is working her way through).  
• Every night one of us (usually J) reads her a devotion from one of our many devotionals we have.  Once a week it's our Veggietales devotional, sometimes it's Sticky Situations, sometimes it's a lesson on a character trait.  Other times we vary between seasonal studies, the bible, some of our children's bible items we have here, etc.  
• Mondays, the start of our homeschool week, she does an Elsie's Life Lessons devotion.  This week was Firmly Committed to God's Word...part of the Walking in Faithfulness chapter.  She read a few of the Elsie books prior to starting this devotional.

Language Arts (I'll post our reading list after the other subjects.)

• Spelling Workout D (SW-D), Lesson 32.  We give a pre-test at the beginning of the week and if she gets 100%, we cross off spelling for the week after reviewing the rules of the lesson.  She got 100% on Monday, so we were able to leave that for the week.
• First Language Lessons 2 (FLL), Lessons 49-52.  This is our grammar program.  The beginning of the week was review in address formatting and writing postcards.  She's beyond this, so we skimmed and moved ahead.  We worked more with nouns, adjectives and verbs and reviewed some poems for memory work.  
• Writing With Ease 3 (WWE), Week 13.  The reading selections were from The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright.  In this program, 2 of the days she reads a couple of pages from our workbook and I ask review questions.  Then she summarizes the passage in about 3 sentences, capturing the main points or ideas.  One of the days, I write it and that's it, the other I write it and dictate a sentence or two back to her to write.  The other 2 days of the week, I dictate 1-3 sentences, depending on difficulty and she writes.  During this time, we also work in a few grammar items.  This week was helping verbs, direct quotations and semicolons.
• Daily 6-Trait Writing 3 (D6T), Unit 4-1, Days 1-5.  This week focused on sentence fluency- varying the way we write sentences by starting them in different ways, using different kinds and varying the lengths.  There are 4 days of worksheets where you might rewrite, correct, choose another way of doing something, etc.  Day 4 is brainstorming for the writing you do on Day 5.  Day 5 is writing...this usually ends up being anywhere from 1-3 paragraphs, from 7-15 sentences on average.  Perhaps sometime I'll scan and post some of her writing here.
• Building Language Lessons (BLL), pages 106-113.  This is one of our vocabulary programs.  I split lessons- instead of doing one lesson each week, I like to do half of one and half of the next.  This way we're working on each stem word for 2 weeks, along with periodic review that is built in with the lessons.  This week we finished up the stem post and were introduced to port.
• Red Hot Root Words- Book 1, Grades 3-5 (RHRW), page 31.  This is our other vocab program we use.  We focused on the prefixes ant/anti and contra/counter.
• Presidential Penmanship 4 (PP), lesson 79.  This is one of our cursive handwriting programs.  It's a quote by a former president- some tidbit of wisdom that we discuss after she copies it.  This is once a week.
• Zaner Bloser Handwriting 3 (ZB), pages 140-145.  Our other program which is more traditional.  We don't mind it, but at times I think we should drop it and move on.  I'm starting to require final work for writing and other areas in cursive.  We have book 4 for later this spring- I'll decide before then whether or not to continue formal handwriting curriculum or not.  She really does well for her age in this area and I feel like just writing in daily work will improve speed.

Math

• Horizons 3, lessons 52-55.  This is our daily work for 4 days of the week.  We take Wednesdays off and use that for math games and mind benders/critical thinking.  She's constantly reviewing and adding in something new every few lessons.  Examples of where she's at: working with $ and making change.  Comparing numbers to the ten-thousands place.  Beginning algebra concepts and equations such as n+4=(7+1)+5.  She needs to solve the equation on the right first, then isolate n by subtracting from both sides (even though I always want to use the term move across the bridge like Mr. Stanek taught us in middle school!).  She then inserts her answer into the equation.  She's doing multiplication up to 10, albeit not timed or for speed yet.  By summer we will be working for speed more.  She also has learned to multiply a 2digit number by a one digit number.  She does addition through the 1000's or 10,000s with regrouping and also works on adding up 4 or 5 numbers under 100 (like 28+32+74+61).  There's always a few word problems thrown in, or sometimes she'll need to come up with a word problem and solve it.  Sometimes there are sudoku puzzles for her to complete.  She works with Roman numerals through the hundreds.  Subtraction with regrouping in the thousands.  Shapes, weights and measures, etc etc.  Hopefully that gives an overview of where we are at currently.  We also have dabbled in division since last spring, but it's still very light.  No long division, certainly and most of our division is still under 5 (like 12/4, 30/5, etc).  She was introduced to decimals (just tenths, and very light) this week, as well as equal fractions.  I can see we'll need more immersion and visual aids/manipulatives for fractions- she's not a real mathy kid and I can see it on her face when somethings not clicking.  That's how I felt with those two concepts this week.  You'll see in this Saturday's post that we worked through a book on fractions to help with this.  Phew!  I won't normally take up this much space with our review...just new concepts or goals met/tests/etc.  
• Singapore Primary Mathematics 2A (SM), week 10.  We work almost a full year behind in this more mathy curriculum.  It's a lot of mental math and I like reviewing concepts for mastery and getting that solid base without the hair pulling.  She tends to learn traditionally at first...she likes to memorize facts and feel comfortable with just doing before understanding the whys of it.  I know that seems backwards, but I tell you- when I've pulled out the cubes or beans to illustrate a new problem, she just gets lost in looking at those shapes moving around in different piles.  When I try illustrating on the board for her, she'll get caught up in just going along for the ride that it seems easy until she realizes she wasn't really thinking...she was just watching.  Drives me batty!  So I like using Horizons- a more traditional program and then going back to the Singapore for mastery.  She's not afraid to tackle those concepts more fully when she feels she's already got a good handle on it.  Well...not as afraid.  It's still not her favorite subject!  So week 10 was about measuring weight- we have a balance from one of J's college chemistry classes and used that to measuring grams.  We talked about kg and g and then moved on to our own pounds, ounces, etc.  At the end of those lessons, day 5 (which we do a week in 2 days- on Thurs/Fri) was review.  There are reviews every 4 weeks or so of concepts learned so far.  She did very well and liked measuring with the balance scale.  Of course!  :)
• Math games- we have been playing cards and learning to add and subtract through the hundreds in our heads (with and without regrouping).  She did NOT want to do past the 10's and dug her heels in, but once she realized Mom wasn't letting her off the hook, she's been doing very well.  She's definitely the kid who has most things come pretty easily and therefore has a poor work ethic when she has to try and give it a bit of effort.  She tends to shut down if something doesn't come to her right away.  We're working on that.

History/Geography 

• Story of the World Ancients (SOTW).  This week, for some reason my Home School Tracker software hadn't scheduled this in.  Which was great for me as I felt swamped in library materials.  We were able to finish up a few lingering projects and weed our way through the books and vids.  I'll post the books/vids a bit further down.  We finally painted her Mycenaean sword, shield and helmet.  Unfortunately, when we paper mached the helmet it shrunk a bit.  We're hoping if we cut out a little of the inner support that it will fit.  Looks pretty cool!  The week we were working on though for reading and other was about ancient Persia.  Our geography is built into this curriculum.  We do U.S. geography informally on the side through games, etc. 

Science

• Apologia Astronomy.  We completed most of our Mars chapter this week.  It was fun to take a break from Botany...we've been studying that since late summer.  We did finish up our Fruits lesson from that on Monday.  Anyhow- we love space stuff!  Reeeaally need to get that telescope up and running!  :P  We left the extra reading, online links and the volcano project for this week.  J and Emily did do the edible Mars rover project (just a fun graham cracker/oreo concoction that looks like a space robot).  Yum!

Art

• Mark Kistler Video Art Lessons (MK).  Did a few of these- we like to do this as a warm-up for our Art time in the evening.  We shoot for Tuesday evenings, but many times it gets pushed out for one reason or another and we do it a different day.  We love Mark Kistler!  Easy, quick lessons but you still are learning and working with some art elements.  Since it's in a cartoon sort of way, it's low pressure and you don't worry if it doesn't look true-to-life.  :D
• Artistic Pursuits- Book 1 Grades 4-6 (AP).  We worked on our final day of unit 4- value.  Again...sometime I'll have to scan some of our work and post it!

Health/PE

• We've abandoned Stew Smith for now in favor of just getting out in the winter for a walk and focusing on 1 activity each week (sometimes those weeks are repeated).  Since we are skating in co-op for the next few sessions, we have been doing that for our own PE time.  We got out Monday for about an hour with some friends and again on Wednesday for another 45 minutes.  (Before she fell on the ice, cut her chin open and ended up with 3 stitches!!)  Anywhoo!  It's been good to get on the ice more...my feet actually started to relax in my skates on Wednesday.  

Co-op/Field Trips/Etc

• Monday afternoon we drove with a friend and her kiddos to the St. Paul Ice Festival.  Got to see lots of really cool (and really melting!!) ice sculptures.  I'd be so bummed if I took all that time carving a sculpture only to have it melt a few days into the event.  The squirrels weren't helping...chewing off pieces right in front of everybody!  You can always tell the out-of-towners from the city-people.  We're all watching the cute, cuddly critters and smiling at their antics while the city ones walk by in disgust.  We skated in Rice Park, right next to the festival.  Actually, the kids skated while the moms watched and chatted and took pictures.  :)  It was a good time to go too- not too many people out on the ice yet.
• Wednesday we met up with friends again for a skating playdate and lunch.  This is where Emily had a spill and got her 3 stitches.  She wasn't too horribly concerned about stitches or the doctor...just that we'd still make it to lunch.  Right, Mom?  We can't miss lunch!!  Yes, honey- we'll still have lunch with everyone.  :)  

Other

• Started a weekly journal sheet where you just write a few small thoughts or events about the previous day.  Saw it on Pinterest...my new favorite site!  Emily has a board there too- she loves finding things with me on there and that they go on HER board.  :)
• She's enjoying her box house- she likes to do her free reading time and sometimes her Horizons in there during the day.  J's given her a few notices 'from the city' about her lights being left on in there overnight.  One notice also for an inspection...it was getting quite full of art supplies, stuffed animals, books, blankets.  It's a box house, not a room!  :)  Memories!

Books Read  (I don't always catch everything she's picked up throughout the week, but assigned books, library books and ones I see her reading that she hasn't read before, etc I try to write down)

• The Wanderings of Odysseus- The Story of the Odyssey by Rosemary Sutcliff
• Myths of Ancient Greece in What Your 2nd Grader Needs to Know...edited by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
• Ancient Greece in What Your 2nd Grader Needs to Know, edited by E.D. Hirsch Jr. (also part of the art section related to Greece)
• King Midas and the Golden Touch by Charlotte Craft
• Ancient Persians- Myths of the World by Virginia Schomp
• King Midas and the Golden Touch by Demi
• Jason and the Golden Fleece, Schlessinger Media, DVD
• The Persian Cinderella by Shirley Climo
• Emma, unabridged by Jane Austen read by Donada Peters, Audio
• Esther's Story by Diane Wolkstein

That wraps up our week!  Hopefully now that the format is there, this post will go quicker.  Otherwise I may not keep up each week (I already track with my software, etc on my own).

Christmas 2011

We had a very nice Christmas this year, even though we were all sick quite a bit from late October through December. So far January has been kind.

We took 2 light-hunting trips just the three of us- plugged some of the area highlights into the GPS and just followed along! Here are some cell pics from a few houses:

We stopped for coffee/cocoa before and brought our own cookies along to munch on as we drove. This will probably become a little tradition- Emily had a ball, saving cookies until the next stop, then eating one...music on...free-save-for-gas Christmas entertainment. :D

Christmas Eve day J worked at the PO. He got home early though and we were able to make it to church. Had a nice dinner and then watched our Nativity movie. We love that tradition for Christmas Eve...it's nice to keep it low-key and fairly quiet and solemn. We always open one gift- pj's. E keeps forgetting each year that it's pajamas :) This year was Phineas and Ferb jammies. I didn't make something pj-wise since she still had a few that fit. The last nightgown I made was in the fall and it was a long sleeve flannel one. After the movie, we sang a few songs and she zonked out on our bed. We tucked her into her own and followed suit after stuffing stockings. :)


Christmas morning! She's still bleary eyed here:


I have lots of present pics, but I'll just include this one for her faraway aunt to see. This is E playing her new Active Life Explorer on the wii- super fun and it actually keeps them working for good portion which is nice. Can't just sit on your rear and play tennis with this one! :)


Nice to chronicle a bit of the season for remembrance!

Weather

It's been quite the unusual winter here in MN. Last week we walked to the library and around town. It was in the 50's and we ended up taking our coats off at times. Very strange for January!


This was earlier- perhaps early Dec. E would normally not wear her light fall coat past October:


A week prior to that, we'd had a good dusting of snow:



Now it's pretty cold, but I hear it's warming up again. The city where we attend co-op was even debating whether or not to flood some of their rinks this year. Luckily, one of our moms went to the meeting and they decided to go ahead with it in hopes that there's still a good season of ice left. We're all glad since our skating class runs through January and February! Our first one was already cancelled due to no ice.

We're getting quite spoiled though...anything much below freezing and it's reason to stay indoors. Sad! :P

Summer Review

Update time!

I figured I'd share some pictures- a little of what we were up to this summer:

Mama-made suit:



Sundress with matchy doll dress:


New summer bed set with pillow I made to match (I can't remember the tutorial I used for the butterflies):


Short haircut!


Earrings for a birthday girl!


A brief vacation to Fort Sisseton in South Dakota:







While we're posting about Sammy...she had minor surgery this summer to remove some growths from around her eyes. She had to put up with the cone for a whole 10 days, but we spoiled her rotten at the apartment to make up for it!



Fall is in full swing here. We've started a new co-op every other Wednesday and are on week 3 of our own homeschool semester. Our favorite subject at the moment is Botany for science. We have plants and leaves and microscopes scattered about the house which suits E just fine. She's always collecting bits and pieces out on walks anyway, so we're just adding to them! J started a PT postal route along with the managing job and has been busy training in the past few weeks. We're settling into routines again and enjoying the cooler weather.

I'll post again soon with some pics from our 3 week trip to DC!