Our new pets

Matt and I decided to let the kids get some new pets. Nothing large, in fact they are each only about the size of a golf ball.

They are super sweet and cute as can be to us.

Tutter is the dark brown/white one.

Scarlet is the tan one with red eyes.

Rosie is the tan/white one

This is there new house

Week 12 Review -- December 14-19

This week was a wrap it up week for us. We did a little school to finish up somethings that were in the works. We also took a field trip to the Children's Museum in Portsmouth VA. The kids and I had a lot of fun and even saw a nice show in the Planetarium about the different holiday celebrations of the season.

I won't list the assignments we actually did since it was just a little of this and a little of that.

Here's a slideshow of our field trip.

We're taking the next 2 weeks off, so we'll see you again in 2009 for our next week in review.

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.

Week 11 Review -- December 8-12

It was a hectic week here as Matt was not around, so it was just me and the kids.  We did our best to get some schooling done but with the holidays approaching it's getting harder.  We did get a little bit done and also had some fun days out exploring the library.  Lucas had a hard week and although all injuries were minor they seemed like catastrophes to him.  The first came Monday when he was running into Everett's room to say good night, tripped and landed face first on the window sill.  He ended up splitting the inside of his lip up pretty bad and after 10 minutes we got the bleeding to stop.  He had a fat lip for a few days but seemed no worse for wear.  Then on Wednesday he was walking through the toy room and managed to find the one tiny shard of glass Matt and I didn't find on Saturday when the penny jar fell off the shelf in the school room and busted.  He had a tiny cut to the bottom of his heel which only bled for a little while, and he even allowed me to put a bandaid on it, which for him is big, as he absolutely hates bandaids.   We also had a loss in the family as Everett's black mystery snail "Shadow" died.  We think she died of old age, but we also found a tiny snail in the tank, so we think someone may have had a baby, which would be weird as we never saw an egg clutch or anything, but we didn't add anything new to the tank that would have brought this snail in.  We've decided to leave it in the tank and see if it grows at all.

Here's the run down of what we did accomplish. No pictures again this week as all the worksheets were pretty boring stuff.

Everett
Grammar: Shurley English 4 arrived on Monday and we spent Tuesday and Thursday doing the first 2 lessons of chapter 1, which was all goal setting and organizing, but it was fun for Ev to pick out some new notebooks for his vocabulary book and journal.
Penmanship: We did a few pages of HWT, but kept penmanship pretty minimal this week.
Spelling: Completed step 14 of All About Spelling level 1. 
Writing: We started Copywork for Trumpet of the Swan, but we'll stretch this week out and skip week 12's copywork and narration.
Math: The new presentation method Matt and I decided on for Saxon 5/4 is working well. Everett completed Test 5 and Investigation 3, which we spent and extra day on since he was having fun with it.

Annika
Spelling: She completed step 10 of All About Spelling, we'll set it aside for a while until phonics catches up with it a bit.
Penmanship: She did a few pages and stills has wonderful handwriting.  She is really enjoying the Handwriting without Tears format and style.
Phonics: The Hooked on phonics CD-Rom arrived this week and she spent a few days doing some of the lesson on it in a review of what we've done in the Yellow book so far.
Writing: We started Copywork for Trumpet of the Swan, but we'll stretch this week out and skip week 12's copywork and narration..
Math: Rightstart Math level B continues to be a hit.  She completed Lessons 4 and 5 and can't wait to do the next one.  Math has become fun again which is just what we were looking for.

BOTH:

History:We worked a little on history this week, by working on our 1st pocket of our Native American History pocket.  Next week we'll hopefully move on to the Seminole tribe.

That's all she wrote for this weeks folks, tune in next week for the Week 12 review.

Week 10 Review -- December 1-6

Well we had a nice vacation of 2 weeks to celebrate Annika's birthday and Thanksgiving. We read a few books on the first Thanksgiving and did a few crafty type things too. It wasn't easy coming back but we've been in a rut lately with someone seeming to have a cold every time I turn around. Gym class has been consistent at least and kids really enjoy it. We've focused on only Language arts and Math this week, the next 2 weeks we'll be keeping it light with the holidays coming up and Matt's work schedule being a bit hectic until the holidays.

Here's the run down of what we did accomplish.  No pictures this week as all the worksheets were pretty boring stuff. 

Everett

Grammar: He started working on Direct and Indirect quotations.  Growing with Grammar is a nice program but the amount of writing is becoming to much and he would like more interaction in grammar from me.  We will be trying Shurley English once it arrives in a few days and see if that fits his style better.

Penmanship: He's still working through Handwriting without tears and his cursive is getting much better.  We may even have him start doing some of his other work in cursive.

Spelling: Completed step 12 and 13 of All About Spelling level 1.  This curriculum still seems to be a big hit with him.

Writing: Copywork  about Davy Crockett and Sacagawea was done this week with some oral narrations.

Math: Saxon 5/4 is still working well for him, we have had to adjust it a bit so that I present the lessons instead of him reading them on his own and now we work the new concept and practice problems on the board instead of on paper.  He completed Lessons 28-30

Annika

Grammar: We've decided to put grammar on hold with her for now until her reading takes off a bit more.

Spelling: She loves using All About Spelling level 1 and we've noticed it is helping her in phonics so we're using it at a very slow pace.  She completed steps 8 and 9 this week, we'll do a few more steps before taking a break from it.

Penmanship: As usual her printing is amazing.  She's very precise and loves handwriting without tears.

Phonics: Hooked on Phonics seems to be the thing we've been waiting for.  She's even getting brave enough to try some other easy readers we have in the house now.

Writing: Copywork  about Davy Crockett and Sacagawea was done this week with some oral narrations.

Math: She started Rightstart Math level B this week and so far it's going well.  She is "getting it" and likes the more hands on approach.  She doesn't seem to miss the Saxon worksheets at all.  We only completed 3 lessons this week, but it's a very different approach to math so we're taking our time with it and having fun as well.

I've decided to put of Vocabulary for Everett until after our trial run of Shurley English and Latin just hasn't happened.  We did get some art covered but mostly just projects we did for fun.  We'll start our actual art curriculum this week.  Maybe we'll get Latin in there too, I guess we'll just see how it goes.  We did decide to give the Library another shot and found they've done some rearranging there and it's much more user friendly now.  We will mostly likely start weekly or biweekly Library trips into our schedule.

I'll be back next week with the Week 11 review.

Week 9 Review -- November 10-14 UPDATE!!

Well here they are the awaited Cactus Desert Lapbooks.

I decided to only put these up this week.  After all how many grammar and math pages do people really want to see. 

Everett's lapbook

Annika's lapbook

Week 9 Review -- November 10-14

We've now reached the end of the our first quarter of school.  It seems to have taken us longer than we had thought, but I'm ok with that.  We had a wonderful month long vacation and not many people can do something like that in the middle of a school year.

Here's the rundown for week 9

Everett

Grammar: He continued on with compound subjects and predicates as well as diagramming of sentences.  Some review of the different types of sentences was also covered.  

Penmanship: Handwriting without Tears continues to be a hit.  Matt and I are both amazed at how much better Ev's handwriting has become.

Spelling: Completed step 11 of All About Spelling level 1, and did our first spelling dictation phrases.  He did really well.  I'm very pleased with this curriculum.

Writing: None this week as it covered "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White and we've read and discussed it many times already.

Math:  Lessons 26-28 completed, beginning Multiplication as repeated addition was covered, as well as review of all previous lessons. 

History: We covered "The Age of Enlightenment" with a week on Galileo, Newton, and others of the time. 

Geography: Picturing North America on a map was covered.

Science: We continued our study of the Cactus Desert and will finish up our lapbooks over the weekend.  We have just the covers to finish and that could take some considerable time, knowing my kids.

Annika

Grammar: A review of all sentence types was done.  She did really well and seems to be retaining a lot.  

Spelling: None this week as we focused on Phonics.

Penmanship: Handwriting without Tears is continuing to be a huge hit.  She really enjoys the lessons and her printing is amazing.

Phonics: She is continuing to enjoy Hooked on Phonics and read us a few stories in the book as well as a new "reader" she found on the shelf.  It was a cute story about a worm that got stuck when trying to make his body into different shapes.

Writing: None this week as it covered "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White and we've read and discussed it many times already.

Math: Saxon Math 1 lessons 57-58.  She continued practicing counting by 2's and 10's and although Saxon is working well, but it's not as fun for her as it is for Everett.  She needs more fun in her math lessons and the flashcards and fact practice are turning into nightmares, so I've found Rightstart math and we'll try incorporating some of the math games from that to work on learning our addition facts.

History: We covered "The Age of Enlightenment" with a week on Galileo, Newton, and others of the time. 

Geography: We continued with basic map reading, she is enjoying the fun lessons that Evan Moor provides.

Science: We continued our study of the Cactus Desert and will finish up our lapbooks over the weekend.  We have just the covers to finish and that could take some considerable time, knowing my kids

I've decided to put Latin and Art off until we come back in a couple of weeks.  It's just not fitting in now.  When we start fresh in 2 weeks we'll be able to add that in along with Vocabulary for Everett.  The kids gymnastics and karate classes are continuing to go well.

I'll be back in 2 weeks with our Week 10 review.

I'll be back with pictures once we're done with our Science lapbooks.

Week 8 Review -- November 3-7

This week had it's ups and downs.  Everett was struggling a little this week, but after a nice talk with me things turned around and the week ended well.  We took the 4th off because of the election and spent time discussing what an election was and the kids made some "planets" of their own with craft supplies and Everett wrote up a "speech" about why he'd make a great president for his new planet.  I explained to him that our election here in the US was only for the President of our country not the whole planet, to which he replied "Well my planet only has one country, so I guess I'd be the President of both"  

We have one more week to go and then we'll have time off again.  I know it seems sudden, and it is, but Annika's birthday is coming up, and my mom is coming into town for that.  Then we have Thanksgiving the following week.

Here's the rundown for week 8

Everett

Grammar: Compound subjects and predicates were covered and he did very well with them.  He finished the week by starting diagraming of questions. 

Penmanship: He is really enjoying Handwriting without Tears Cursive.  I like that he's starting to write very nicely with it and it's not too much on a page.

Spelling: Completed steps 9-10 of All About Spelling level 1.

Writing: "Caddie Woodlawn"  copywork and narration.

 Math:  Lessons 23-25 and Test 4 completed, Solving for missing addeds and subtrahends were covered.

History: We wrapped up the unit on France by learning of the rise and fall of Napolean.  Next week we start the "Age of Discovery" 

Geography: Reading of Map scales was covered this week.

Science: We began our study of the Cactus Desert.  We're reading One Small Square Cactus Desert and began work on a lapbook for the study.

Annika

Grammar: The exclamation was introduced as the next sentence type.  

Spelling: Completed Step 6 of All About Spelling Level 1

Penmanship: She is really enjoying her Handwriting Without Tears My Printing Book, began lowercase letters with c and o.

Phonics: She is continuing to enjoy Hooked on Phonics and has been reading us the first book as well as one of her Bob Books each night, sure they are the same ones each day, but it seems to be working for her.

Writing: "Caddie Woodlawn" copywork and narration.

Math: We have returned to Saxon Math 1 and completed lessons 53-56.  She covered counting by 2's and 10's, learning about cup and teaspoon measurments (although we skipped on making peanut butter and she just helped me make bread this week) and finished the week with an introduction of reading time to the hour on both analog and digital clocks.

History: We wrapped up the unit on France by learning of the rise and fall of Napolean.  Next week we start the "Age of Discovery" 

Geography: She covered the important parts of the map this week.  Learning to recognize the title, map key and compass rose were highlighted.

Science: We began our study of the Cactus Desert.  We're reading One Small Square Cactus Desert and began work on a lapbook for the study.

Art and Latin just didn't happen this week.  We'll definitely try to fit them in next week, but we'll see what happens.

  I'll be back next week with our Week 9 review.

Week 7 Review -- October 27-Nov 1

We've finally gotten back into the swing of things after our long vacation back to the midwest. It was a really good week for the kids and I. We had lots of fun and can't wait to start again on Monday.

Here's the rundown of what we did.

Everett

Grammar: Continuation of Subjects and Predicates, differenciating between simple and complete ones, as well as diagramming of them.

Penmanship: He began Handwriting without tears Cursive.  He has worked on mastering the letters C and A.

Spelling: Completed steps 6-8 of All About Spelling level 1

Writing: "Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter copywork and narration.

 Math:  Test 3, Investigation 2, and Lessons 21-22 completed, these included learning about radius, squares, circles, and rectangles as well as perimeter.

History: Continued learning about France and the French Revolution, we will wrap up the unit on France next week.

Geography: Reading of projection maps was covered.

Science: Covered Creepy Crawlies.  Learned about land invertebrates. Next week we'll start in on the Cactus Desert Habitat.

Annika

Grammar: The question was introduced as the next sentence type.  

Spelling: Completed Step 5 and began step 6 of All About Spelling Level 1

Penmanship: Started Handwriting Without Tears My Printing Book, she covered a review of capital letters.

Phonics: She began Hooked on Phonics Yellow book.  She's made great progress and read her first HOP story.

Writing: "Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter copywork and narration.

Math: She completed unit 2 in the Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners book and week 2 of the Daily Math Practice which focused on simple graphs and basic addition facts..  Next week we'll return to Saxon 1

History: Continued learning about France and the French Revolution, we will wrap up the unit on France next week.

Geography: Reading a Map Key was introduced.

Science: Covered Creepy Crawlies.  Learned about land invertebrates. Next week we'll start in on the Cactus Desert Habitat.

Next week we'll also add in Song School Latin, and may start Artistic Pursuits.  The kids have also started some classes at a place not far from the house called The Little Gym.  Annika has started in the non-competitive gymnastics class.  Her teacher says she's doing great and has the gift of being ambidextrous when it comes to cartwheels, which apparently is quite rare.  Everett has started non-competitive basic Karate and is loving it.  He's the tallest boy in his class but is very gentle and patient with his smaller and younger couterparts.  He teacher says he's showing great skill and promise.   Lucas has joined the toddler gymnastics class which they call funny bugs.  He's now mastered forward rolls and is almost able to walk the balance beam unassisted.  His teacher really enjoys having him in class and says he's a great listener and she is very impressed at how quickly he picked up the forward rolls.

We hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and wish you the best in the coming weeks.  I'll be back next week with our Week 8 review.

Halloween 2008 Costumes are finished!

Hi all,

After waiting 9.5 years my kids have finally decided that they wanted costumes not readily available at the Disney Store. After a afternoon of shopping for fabrics and a basic pattern and 3 days of cutting and sewing, they are finished!!

They all wanted to be Pokemon characters. Everett picked Charmander, Annika picked Squirtle and Lucas picked Pikachu. Here are the pictures of the finished suits. Luckily they all turned out a bit big so we'll be able to use them again another year.

Hope everyone has a happy Halloween!!

Week 6 Review -- September 15-30

Hi all,

I know it's been awhile since I've written an update.  We spent September 8-10th preparing for our drive to Wisconsin.  We drove to my parents house on the 11th and 12th and on the 14th had a baby shower for my cousin who is expecting her first child.  It was a wonderful trip and baby shower.  We have been at my parents since then and will start the return trip home on Oct 8th. 

We have spent the last couple of weeks taking field trips and working on some school work.

Here's some pictures of our latest field trip to The Cave of the Mounds in Wisconsin.

Here is what we did as far as school work.

Everett:

Language arts: He continued on to grade 4 of Growing with Grammar.  Completing 4 lessons on subjects and predicates.  He also complete another week in Writing with Ease year 1 which he's really enjoying.  He's even writing his own narrations now which is a big step for him.  We're taking a break from Spelling power and worked a bit in All About Spelling.

Math: He completed lessons 16-20 in Saxon math 5 which covered numbers written in expanded form, reading scales, reading clocks and rounding to the nearest ten and to the nearest dollar.

Geography: He worked on learning to read latitude and longitude and in locating places on a map using coordinates.

Annika:

Language arts:  She continuing to enjoy her Growing with Grammar lessons and completed lessons 16-18, which included learning about Statements and continued learning the difference between a sentence and a fragment.

Math: We took a break from Saxon since we're on vacation and she's been using Evan Moors Daily Math and Skill Sharpeners.  She's really liking them so we'll most likely keep using them along with Saxon when we get home.

Geography: She worked on reading a map key this week and enjoyed being able to add her own symbol to the key on the map they gave her.

Both Kids:

History:  I read the Barnes and Noble Children's classic The Man in the Iron Mask to them this week.  They really enjoyed the story but we're looking forward to wrapping up France and moving on.

Science: We completed the bacteria experiments in week 6 of NOEO Biology 1.  Luckily with 3 adults, 3 kids, 4 dogs and a cat living in my parents house we had no problem finding things to test.   The kids enjoyed their first experiment and we're anxious to start on the animal kingdom when we get home.

I also received my copy of Artistic Pursuits for grades K-3 book 1 and it looks just like what we've been wanting for art.  We will start this after we get back home since we've been so busy here that we haven't had time to start it.

Hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy the review.

Week 5 Review -- Sept. 1-Sept 6

Another week down and we're still having fun! This week was a week to wrap up any loose ends from other weeks as well as doing all the usual work.  We leave on Thursday the 11th for a trip back to the midwest to visit family.  We already have our books packed and ready to go.  Yes we will still be schooling when we're back in Wisconsin.  So we'll actually skip a week while we clean the house, pack the van and drive on up. Then we'll start up again on Sept. 15th.

Here's a run down of what we did this week.

Everett:

Language arts: 

We wrapped up the few things on verb tense we wanted to cover in Growing with Grammar grade 3.  Next we'll move on to Growing with Grammar Grade 4.  He's excited about this, he really enjoys this program.  For penmanship we ditched A reason for handwriting.  It's a great program but we're not a religious family so copying bible passages just wasn't our cup of tea.  I searched online and found Happy Scribe copybooks.  Everett chose to work on the Planets book this time around.  Each book has a months worth of penmanship practice if done 5 days a week.  We'll only do 4 pages from the book and then on the 5th day of each week they'll be able choose 2 of their favorite sentences from the past 4 days and write them in their best handwriting on a special border sheet I've made up using my new toy, Stationary Studio from Fablevision.  Writing with Ease is still going well.  Everett actually wrote out his own narrations this week which was a big step for him.  Spelling Power is still going well.  We will occasionally take a break and use All About Spelling if he needs it since I already have the program.

Math:  He's continuing with Saxon 5/4 and still loves it.  He's been doing very well working independently on the lessons which has really taken a heap off my plate.

:

Language Arts: Anna is continuing to do well with Growing with Grammar.  She's been working on fragment vs. complete sentence and word order this week.  I'm amazed at how much she's retaining even though she's not a strong reader yet.  She's working steadily through Headsprout phonics and is doing very well.  We need to work more on reading of real books though to help cement what Headsprout is covering.  That was really more of me dropping the ball on that, so I'll be focusing more on that from now on.  She's doing pretty well with Writing with Ease.  Narration is a bit difficult for her, but she's getting there.  Each week things get a bit better.

She's really enjoying the switch to Happy Scribe for penmanship and has decided to work through the cats book first.  She has fantastic penmanship.  Matt even thought her paper was Everett's the other day because it was so neatly written.

Math:  We've been working on our +1 and -1 facts this week with Saxon 1.  We also covered 1 cup liquid measure which was a fun lesson.  

:

History: This week I spent some time revamping history.  We will still use History Odyssey but will drop it for the time periods covered by the Time Travelers cds from Homeschool in the Woods.  I recently discovered these project cds and they look like a ton of fun.  This week we started covering France and learned about Louis XIV.  We finished the week with a Sun King mask project.  The kids really enjoyed this.  I wasn't sure about the project mess but it went really well.  I think they just absorb more when there is a fun project involved.

Science: For science we finished our weather lapbooks and are continuing with Noeo Biology 1.  They love this program and were thrilled that we're moving on to the animal kingdom.  Although this week covered Louis Pasteur and his discovery of microbes.  They have enjoyed the book on Pasteur and are very much looking forward to week 6 when we get to do some experiments on bacteria.

Lucas chose to just play with his trains this week. 

We still haven't started Latin other than to listen to the Song School latin cd for the 1st weeks songs.  I really need to focus more on this, but that will have to wait until after we return from Wisconsin.   While we're there I hope to get quite a few field trips in.  They have an awesome museum and zoo where my parents live and my Aunt and I will be taking the kids to The Cave of the Mounds for a fun "underground" field trip.

Hope you all had a great week.

Week 4 review August 22-29

Another week down and school is still going well.  We had our rough patches this week but all in all things went well.  We are continuing to plug along and are getting excited to move on from weather in Science class.  We'll be moving on to Louis Pasteur and bacteria.  We'll then move onto animals classification.  We've done a little revamp of history and decided to add in the Time Travelers project DVDs from Homeschool in the Woods, we'll begin using those when we reach Colonial America and then take a break from world history to focus on America.  Today Lucas decided he wanted to start doing school too.  I bought some simple Kumon workbooks for him and have been waiting for him to make a move to use them.  He did pretty well and was very proud of himself.

Here's some pictures of things the kids have done.

Everett's work

Annika's Work

Lucas's Work

We're looking forward to next week and hope you all have a great Labor day weekend.

Week 3 Review -- August 18-22

It was another fun week here for us.  We've now been back to school for 3 weeks and all is going well.  The kids are enjoying their studies and there's been absolutely no complaining about what we're doing.  

Here's what we've done this past week.  Sorry no pictures this week.  Maybe I'll get some up next week.

Everett

Language Arts

Grammar-- He concluded his chapter on pronouns in Growing with Grammar.  

Spelling--Spelling Power is working really well, he's really enjoying the daily tests and study sheets.  I think we've finally found a hit for spelling.

Writing-- He continued to do well in his Writing with Ease assignments and is enjoying the format.  Hopefully in a week or two we'll have the Year 2 workbook and he'll move on to that.

Phonics-- 5 lessons completed this week in Headsprout phonics.  4 left to go and he'll officially be completely done his phonics training.

Penmanship-- Another week done in A Reason for Handwriting book D.  His cursive isn't the prettiest but it's coming along.

Math

He completed 3 lessons, 1 test and 1 math investigation in Saxon 5/4.  Math is continuing to go well since switching back to Saxon.

Geography-- This week he covered the earth's hemispheres in Daily Geography Practice for Grade 4.  So far so good.

Annika

Language Arts

Grammar-- 3 lessons done on subject and predicate as well as learning the difference between a fragment and a complete sentence.

Phonics-- 5 lessons done in Headsprout phonics.  She's well on her way and starting to read a bit better.

Writing-- Another week done in Writing With Ease and she's really enjoying it.  She's been asking to hear more from the book selections used in the lessons.

Penmanship-- Another great week for Annika.  She has really gotten her printing down and it looks beautiful to me.

Math

She's completed 4 lessons and 1 test in Saxon math 1.  She really enjoys the Saxon format and is retaining a lot.

Geography

She really likes doing this.  It's very simple for her but she is starting to hone her map reading skills.

Both Kids

Science-- They are continuing to love NOEO Biology 1.  We're still covering weather and the kids have learned a lot.  We're also starting our first lapbook with a kit on weather I found at the Hands of a Child site.

History--We've just wrapped up a few loose ends on the Fire of London and the Plague since we did a little more last week than was actually planned.

Reading-- Anna is still working through the first box of Bob Books but is doing pretty well.  Everett is starting to enjoy reading a bit more and has almost finished his first book read this year.  It's taken a bit longer than we'd like but we'll keep working on that.

We hope you all continue to have a great year and are looking forward to continuing ours.

Week 2 Review--August 11-15

Well it's been 2 weeks now and we're all still alive and sane.

We are still enjoying all of our studies and have truly enjoyed the weather lately. It's been a bit hot during the day, but by late afternoon it's cooling off and we can get a lot of outside time to play.

Here's what the kids did this week

Everett

Grammar: We covered 4 lessons in Growing with Grammar 3 which covered pronouns.  He caught on really fast and has been enjoying this.

Writing: We continued with the week 2 Copywork and Narration from Writing with Ease year 1, we'll make the switch to Year 2 once the workbook is released by the publisher.

Phonics: He's almost finished with Headsprout, just a few more lesson to go and phonics will be behind him. 

Spelling: We've continued to work on a few steps of All About Spelling Level 1, and received our Spelling Power book.  He took the survey and placement test over the last 2 days and can't wait to start the daily tests next week.  He thinks he'll enjoy this method of spelling much better.

Penmanship: He continued working on A Reason for Handwriting D, this week was Lesson 2.  Cursive isn't easy for Ev, but he's plugging away on it and has turned out some pretty good writing the last few days.

Math: He covered 3 lessons in Saxon 5/4 and is continuing to love the program.  I'm so glad we switched back.  Math is so much more fun now.

Annika

Grammar: She did 3 lessons in Growing with Grammar 1, which continued the focus on Fragments and Complete Sentences.  She's really catching on and enjoying the program.

Writing: She's also working on Copywork and Narration with Writing with Ease Year 1, and enjoys it, although the Narration is a bit hard for her, but she gives it her best shot.

Phonics: She completed 4 lessons in Headsprout Phonics and is truly loving the program, I've noticed it helping quite a bit in her ability to decode words.

Spelling: She finished Step 2 in All About Spelling level 1, which covered segmenting words into their different phonetic sounds.  She did much better than I expected so we'll be moving on next week.

Penmanship: She worked on Lesson 2 in A Reason for Handwriting B and has some pretty gorgeous printing when she really tries.  She is especially careful on her week end border sheet and it takes her about 40 minutes to write and color it.

Math: She completed 3 lesson and a test in Saxon math 1.  She really likes the program and I can see a major improvement in her retention.

Together:

History: We covered the 2nd week of History Odyssey Early Modern Times Level 1.  The kids enjoyed learning about some of the rulers of England and Scotland, including Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.  We also covered the plague and Fire of London.  

Science: We continued with our second week of weather studies with NOEO Biology 1.  The kids are doing some great pictures and narrations.  A few more weeks of weather and we move on to animals.

We haven't done any Latin yet, but I figure we'll add that in later in the year when we're well established in our routines.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Week 1 in review August 4-8, 2008

Hi all,

Our first week of the 2008-2009 school year is now under our belts. The kids did excellent work and we have enjoyed everything we did. We were trying quite a few new curriculums including new things for Writing, Science, and Spelling. We also went back to our original Math curriculum which the kids were very excited about.

We've started doing some schooling in the late morning with an hour to two hour break for play and lunch. It's worked well. School is taking a bit longer this year because Everett is getting into some things that just require more time to work through.

The kids and I were really looking forward to starting school again and so far things are looking good for us. We are enjoying all the new things we're using and having a lot more fun.

No pictures of their work this week, since I already posted things from the first day (Scroll down to see that posting)
Here's the low down on what the kids did.

Everett:
Language Arts:
Completed 3 lessons in Growing with Grammar, covering things like plural nouns, possessive nouns, some simple sentence diagraming.
Writing covered some copywork and starting narration exercises. These came from our new writing program Writing with Ease.
Spelling, we reviewed our All About spelling phonogram cards. He did very well with this despite not having much phonics instruction before homeschooling.
In Phonics, he continued toward finishing the online program Headsprout phonics and complete 3 lessons. Only 11 more to go and he's finished.
He's continuing to work on Penmanship using A Reason for Handwriting, we'd love it if we could find a program similar that used things other than bible verses for the kids to copy, but this is the best fit for us so far. He's now starting the 2nd cursive workbook.
Math:
He complete 3 lessons in Math, which covered number sequences and recognizing them, as well as addition of lists of numbers and some word problems.

Annika:
Language Arts:
She started Grammar lessons with 2 lessons in Growing with Grammar covering sentence vs. fragment and learning about placing a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence
Writing was the same as Everett, they are working through the same level of Writing with Ease mostly due to my lack of finding a good fit for Everett in past years and because the level 2 workbook hasn't been released yet. She enjoyed the copywork and narration from "Little House in the Big Woods" and can't wait until we can read it as a read aloud.
Spelling was simply introducing the phonogram cards, since she's still working her way through the phonics program we're taking spelling very slowly.
Phonics, we've now switched over to Headsprout phonics for Annika as well and so far after 3 lessons she's enjoying it a lot. It's very fun for her and she's been doing really well with it.
Penmanship is also with A Reason for Handwriting. She's working with book B which is the second level of manuscript writing. She really enjoys the border sheet at the end of the week and is very careful about finishing it neatly.
Math:
We're continuing with Saxon math grade 1, she completed 3 lessons, which worked on learning the "doubles" addition facts as well as patterns, and sequences.

Both kids do history and science together. This week in History we started History Odyssey Early Modern Times level 1. We will be covering from the 1600's through the Gold Rush. The kids are looking forward to it. This week was simply the introduction which included learning about the continents and oceans. The kids have realized that they prefer me reading the "Story of the World" out loud instead of listening to the audio book version. Annika said the narrator on the audio book, "Sounds creepy" . I must say, I do enjoy reading to them, so I'm kind of happy about this.

For science we started our new NOEO Biology 1 course and the kids are really enjoying the reading followed by narration format. This week we started a 4 week study of weather. The kids enjoyed learning about the seasons and how the tilt of the earth helps determine this. They also liked the reading on the different types of clouds. Today we placed our thermometer for our temperature graph we'll be doing over the next few weeks and will be checking on our experiment about "the water cycle" in a few hours.

Lucas spent the time sitting in on the things he wanted and playing Bob Builder while watching the Sprout network.

We're now all anxiously awaiting the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics!

Hope all went well with everyone else's week.

Tune in next week for "Week 2 in review August 11-15"

The First day of School! August 4, 2008

Hello all,

Today was the first day of our 2008-2009 school year!  It went fabulously.  The kids were very excited and woke up at 9am just raring to go.  We started school at 9:45 which is definitely not normal for us.  They worked straight through to 11:15 then we took a break for some play time and lunch.  At 12:30 they asked to finish things up so we got back to work and were done by 2pm.

Just as we were cleaning up our supplies the doorbell rang and it was the UPS man. He was delivering our new DVD's we got 3 "Signing Time" sign language DVDs and "Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry's Big River Rescue", our newest Veggietales DVD!  What a great way to end the first day of school.

Here's a few pictures of the kids in their new "uniforms".  They wanted polo shirts to wear on school days.  Then some pictures of Ev and Annika's work.  Lucas's "lessons" for the first day were to put the ant on our magnetic "Tunneling to 100 day "board and to play with the math      

Some of Everett's First day work 

Some of Annika's First day work