Summer report 2

CC with Lacey and LB with Apple

Buddy, the Mutt

We are slowly getting back into the swing of summer after being gone for a couple  of weeks.  When we got back, the kids spent the first day doing art projects because they had missed art.  The next day back, we restarted our daily math, logic, and phonics.  CC declared, "I just love geometry!"  I guess two weeks isn't too long to go without math (we're working through MM Blue sets over the summer to keep things fresh until we start Fred Decimals in the fall).   LB read one of her phonics readers and  realized that she was really good at reading still.

One of the series of hands and feet by LB, the kitchen floor was nice too

Part of the playset CC is making for small toys she's also making

The girls spent the day yesterday playing outside all day and guarding the new chickens in case our mutt, Buddy, decided that the new chickens are fair game.  Today, CC is off to watch Harry Potter with hubby while LB is making a treasure map and planning a treasure hunt in the yard.  BB stayed behind in FL to visit more family.

As for me, next time I go on vacation, I should really make room for a day to rest when I get back before I start work.  I have suitcases to unpack.  But if I planned an extra day, I'd just decide to spend it on vacation too.  Oh well.   At least I know what I'm doing this weekend.

Week 31

LB was sick from Sunday through Wednesday, so I've only had one student for the week.  I was super-busy the first of the week, and CC accomplished her work mostly alone.   I was able to help her understand cross reduction when multiplying fractions which is supremely awesome since neither of us can ever remember me successfully helping her with math before.  Ironically, I had to spend the first part of the week preparing a training session for work instead of teaching my kids. CC listened to me do the training, and I rocked it.  I covered the material including answering questions without a single stumble.

CC is on lesson 27 of LoF Fractions, finishing chapter 3 of SoTW 2 with great written summaries 3 times a week and working through a perplexor daily;  she read a section from the Kingfisher encyclopedia of science and performed The Spider and the Fly for her enrichment school talent show.  She's been reading Asterix books all week for her free reading then looking up the historical references and anachronisms in each book.  Our chapter this week in ClassiQuest Biology concerns living organisms.  Her favorite things from the week were scoring a point on a point on a much larger opponent in fencing, playing with friends and getting a new chick.

LB was sick this week so she missed the talent show at her enrichment school but was able to join the show on her sister's school day and perform her poem, The Fifth of November.  She's done no school this week  until today but did pick up a chick from her enrichment school after the talent show.  Today, she did 4 pages of ETC 3 and 2 pages of Miquon Orange plus took a nature walk with our friends and participated in CC's science experiment.

We have very dear family in Apison, TN that lost their homes to tornadoes this week.  They survived mostly unharmed, but with nothing.  Our hearts are heavy over their loss and the catastrophe that struck the area.

WR19 - All about predators

This week, I'll start at the end. This morning when the girls went out to care for the hens, they found that a fox had been in the hen yard. We've raised poor Goldie since she was a day-old chick. She was our best layer providing us with a big, brown egg everyday. We spent the rest of the morning, looking for and identifying the tracks of the predator using our trusty Scats and Tracks book. We decided that it must have been a red fox then we talked about the food chain, foxes, predators and prey. Next, we worked on ideas for protecting the remaining hen, since we are sure the fox will be back now that he knows where to get an easy meal. I couldn't think of a way to transition this day into a school day in the little time that was left before I went to work, so school was canceled for the day.

The rest of the week was much more predictable.

CC worked her way up to the next bridge in Life of Fred. She also started working on Problemoids - these are terrific. We really enjoyed the mathematical thinking involved in solving them. And she has mostly mastered her multiplication facts - she only missed three from the whole flashcard set. In addition to all that, she did Saxon lessons three days this week. I think we are spending close to two hours per day on math now, and she is enjoying math more than ever.

French is awesome. CC is still deeply enjoying Rosetta Stone, but she is starting to ask more questions about why things are the way they are. I finally ordered a grammar based French program to supplement. Again, she spent two hours a day for three days on this (not counting working on it over the weekend last week). She is scoring in the 90's for all of her evaluations and is quite happy to have some work that is graded.

LB is still enjoying working in the ETC online although I'll be happy when she moves past those short-a words. She and I volunteered at CC's school this week, and she was able to see some of her "old friends."

Tuesday was almost completely devoted to art and nature. After our 4 hours of real school, we had 4 hours of art classes between the two girls, and we spent a chilly couple of hours at the park feeding geese, mastering monkey bars and braving jumps onto and off of the merry-go-round. We experimented with getting on and off at different speeds and trying to stand up at various places inside the merry-go-round.

Besides all of that, we saw a one-person play, read the first four chapters of Grammar Island, giggled at Lewis Carroll, studied and tried to predict chain reactions with dominoes, discussed square numbers, pi and that illusive division by zero, enjoyed some Jataka tales and Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, and tried to sing some songs in French. I apparently forgot history and am still looking for some magic solution for writing.

Weekly Report - Week 6

Well, the pictures tell the whole story this week, almost. The glorious leaves are turning. Autumn color is glowing. The butterfly is enjoying fresh flowers. The favorite hen, Goldie, started laying and we are getting an egg a day from her. The other four need to catch up.









We started Writing With Ease 2, this week. CC does well on the narration and is enjoying dictation so far. I put a time limit on the math today. I set the timer for twenty minutes and told CC that she had to be done or had to do another page. She has been dragging her feet all week. Today she finished with 8 minutes to spare. I knew that 25 problems shouldn't take 45 minutes. She is quicker than she thinks she is. We are doing problems that she can easily do, but needs more practice to improve her confidence before we move on to 3 and 4 digit addition with carrying and borrowing.


I started to worry that CC had lost her love of history since she didn't want to move into the next time period yet. I also started to feel bad that we weren't studying any history so I put the SOTW 2 on the bedtime reading stack last night. As I was waiting for her to finish Balto from Five True Dog Stories before I read the next chapter in By the Shores of Silver Lake (which she had already read), I realized that we are doing some history. It isn't the history I have planned for this year, but it will do until I get around to the Middle Ages.


CC is learning to sew. This week we picked out a pattern, pinned and cut the material. This weekend, we will baste it and practice with the sewing machine.


LB finally, got to go swimming again. She can swim on her back the whole length of the pool. She is amazing, a true little water bug. She hasn't been wanting to sit with us for school this week, but that is fine. Her main job for now is to play and experience the world.


BB is still working his community organizer job. He is now working full-time and talking to a variety of people about their political views daily. I think its a great experience for him and will help build his confidence. He also used his first paycheck to buy himself a skateboard to save on gas since he has to pay for his own. There is a lot he is learning before he goes to Japan in January.

What can you learn from chickens?

Our chickens are now 3 months old. They should be ready to start laying eggs in a month or so. I thought this would be a good time to update what we have learned from our chickens.

We started out with 26 day old baby chicks. We learned why chicks are shipped the day after they hatched - they can survive for three days on their reserves. This is so that they can stay in the nest while mom sits on the other eggs.

We met several other home school families while we sold 21 of the chicks. We learned a little about profit and loss and practiced some math while we worked out how much we should charge for each chick including shipping, food, and supplies.

We learned about caring for sick animals when our favorite chick injured herself. She is all better now, apparently she just knocked herself silly. We learned a lot about bird anatomy and compared our birds to others. We learned about flight watching our chicks learn to fly and then clipping their wings. We learned about social structures while watching our chicks develop their own pecking order. We are learning about gender differences and percentages while we wait to see if all of our hens will lay or if some will crow (chicken sexing is only 90% accurate).

We have even learned some about construction by building a coop. Power tools are fun, and wire is pokey. We have only had to cut the grass in the back yard once this summer because the chicks eat a lot of grass and weeds and bugs too - there is a lesson on the food chain coming in about a month or so. We are learning about responsibility because they have to be let out every day to eat and locked up every night for protection.

Overall, I think the chicks have been a great experience for all of us. We haven't even gotten to the eggs yet.

Sick Chick

Goldie - who is now 8 weeks old but is 2 days old in the above picture - is the darling chick that CC loves best.  She had an accident this morning.  She ran away from the dog at top speed right under her favorite tree.  That is where something happened.  We were outside, but we don't know what exactly happened.    We found her lying on her back under the tree and feared that she and broken her neck.    She is now in the chicken hospital in the house resting.  We aren't sure if she will make it.  I knew getting chickens would be educational for the kids, but this isn't exactly the lesson I had in mind.

More Grammar and Writing

Okay that is a four-week-old golden Polish pullet named Fluffy, not a grammar book, but she is cuter.

I have been going back and forth over grammar ever since I decided that we needed to do grammar next year. I do like the R&S Grammar, but CC is not ready for the 3 since we haven't done any formal grammar yet. The second grade grammar from R&S would annoy her because of its simple sentences. I would love to use something with writing integrated, but I really want to use IEW for writing.

A new friend let me borrow her LCC2. I haven't read it yet, but it solved my problem already - at least in theory. I realized that I have Lively Latin. It integrates Latin, English grammar, and Roman History. A great big DUH to me. I am going to give it a whirl. Not only does it address my need for grammar in some sort of context, but it also solves my problem with CC wanting more Roman History. And of course, I already own it.

Summer Report Week 6

BB is in Mexico this week with his friend and his friend's family. He sent me a text message this morning telling me he loved me, Mexico is beautiful, and so far they have been "atving, ziplining, rappeling, parasailing, and snorkeling."

I think he had a much more interesting week than we did. We went to the park with friends, met new friends at the park, blew bubbles, played, sang, pretended to be dragons, sat in the shade and generally relaxed together. We also planted some flowers and blueberries and started multiplication.

LB started writing a story about two sisters. I helped her outline the story before she started it and now she is adding to it daily. I told her that someday she might be her own favorite author.

Big news this week for LB, the three year old. She can tie shoes. I have never had a child learn to tie shoes so early! I am amazed. I'm also glad she's not my oldest or I would have expected the other two to learn just as early. I also don't think I have ever seen anything quite as cute as a little girl in a pricess dress chasing chickens.

Summer Report Week 3 - Mother Hen

This week I learned that CC is a perfect Mother Hen, and LB loves to be the Auntie Hen. We put the babies in a little chicken wire pen this morning so they could have some fresh air. They kept gathering around CC like she is their mother. It is really sweet.

We have found homes for all of them except the 5 we are keeping. I think CC would be happy if we could keep them all. I can really see a small farm in our future.

This week was slow and peaceful. We are enjoying the warm weather and the sunshine. The trees in the backyard have their leaves so we have a perfect shady cover over our swing so we can enjoy the slow pace of summer.

The Chicks are here

This morning, as I was finishing my first cup of coffee in bed, CC came squealing upstairs jumping up and down announcing that the chicks are here. I didn't expect them until later in the week so it was a surprise. We have 26 baby chicks in a big bin. The girls are very excited. The lady at the post office said that they had three boxes of chicks come in this morning - amazing since I live in a suburban neighborhood. We ordered the "Rainbow Layer" collection from McMurray Hatchery. Next week, we will sit down with the chicks and try to identify which breeds we have. I think the girls will learn more about birds and food chains from these cuties than they could from any textbook.

In case there is any question of my sanity - we aren't keeping them all. Once they are fully feathered, we will be selling most of them.