The last weekly report for 2009-2010 school year

I'll have to follow-up with a year-in-review once we do our anual testing, but this was the last week of the school year.

It has been a very mixed bag this week. BB is in Cali at an electronics convention; I've been super busy at work; hubby had to actually go to the office; the girls have done amazingly well.

For school, we took sample standarized tests which reminded us that we have a very non-standard way of schoolin' here. CC did math three times, and I must say that any child that can finish a problem set on division and declare that is was fun is amazing and in the right math book (Saxon 5/4). LB decided she loves math (BJU K), and spent most of the week enjoying Jan Brett stories. We all four went to the zoo for member's appreciation night so that we could enjoy it when it was a little cooler.

We also went to the park with friends, took walks after dinner and survived me publishing another BIG, Important document.

That was our week.

Week 30 -

This week, the kids played mini-golf and went swimming with their brother and went bowling with daddy. Math and Japanese were accomplished daily. Writing is still the struggle it has been all year, but I added a new type of assignment that was terrific. Grammar, science, history,art and engineering somehow were completed. Reading and literature are the easy subjects. I delegated less this week, but felt the strain more and seriously questioned how this can work, but it is important to us all so it will work because it has too.

Here some are pictures of our work this week including the new writing.


This writing assignment pretty well summarizes what CC wanted to do this week. It was hard to get her motivated to do anything else.




Friends and dodge ball are CC's favorite things about her weekly enrichment school.


She also kept a good science notebook.



LB did some intentional writing this week. She decided what she wanted to do, dictated it to me then drew a picture of herself doing it. She spent an hour or more working towards her goal. I really like this assignment and plan to try to put it in the daily schedule.





In addition to normal math this week in which CC rocked division and was rescued in exponents by BB, she learned about surface area and volume with some building. LB followed the directions on the cards to make letters and a dog from the blocks.

Week 24 - The Grand Adventure

Remember - Life isn't confusing. It is a Grand Adventure.
Yes. That is corn growing in out of the trap in my nice, clean sink.
It has been a long week. Wait. No. It was a grand adventure.


On Monday, I had the brilliant idea to use fraction circles to help explain common denominators, again. Of course if you give my kids scissors, markers and circles, you will get paper pizzas not math. I did know enough to do this after doing Saxon. I retreated to the shower after the pizza defeat. We made it through our read aloud, writing and French before the phone rang. While I was on the phone, they made address labels and labeled the backyard then delivered their pizzas. There was only a little sleet and then some graupel - no reason to stay indoors. We finished the day with warm, homemade vanilla milk and The Royal Diaries on video.

Tuesday for fractions, we did a sample mini lesson from Plato then CC played a fraction game. She tried really hard to get all of the answers wrong in the game which she thought was hilarious. After that, she did the Impossible Fraction lesson from Fred and had no trouble adding mixed fractions. Somethings just need a little time and extra practice. She had learned fractions with the idea of parts of circles and had to switch to a more abstract way of thinking about them in order to do actual math with mixed fractions.

I won't trudge through the details of the whole week, but here are a few standout details. I tried to teach CC to multiply two digits by one digit, but she taught me to multiply two digits in my head instead. One morning we woke to sunshine and warmth with looming snow clouds so I rushed the girls to dress, and we enjoyed our breakfast outside daydreaming of summer gardens and a new tree house before the north wind forced us back inside to our normal day. Don't read Shakespearean tragedies to five year old girls. LB cried inconsolably when Juliet died.

CC wrote two letters this week which LB had to be a part of so she dictated a letter to GMa to me and then copied it with no backwards or upside-down letters. The girls were making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies when I left for work. LB called to tell me they were good, and CC asked how to empty the dust pan.

After CC cried for Laurie's broken heart when Jo rejected his proposal, she has decided that the last few chapters of Little Women need to wait until she is older so she has switched to Eight Cousins and wants to read "all of those classic orphan stories." Anybody know and classic orphan stories? The only ones I know are by Dickens, and she isn't ready for those.

WR18 - Day 90 the midpoint

This week turned out less productive than I had wanted because I had a migraine on Monday and then a 5 hour web conference on Wednesday. French and math are holding steady and are the two favorite subjects. Writing suffered from neglect this week - again. The house suffered too. We switched to doing French first and it just seems that the whole day is out of whack. I need to rethink the plans, but she loves having French first.

Here is what we did this week -




Monday -
10am - 11:45am CC - Rosetta Stone French included review, writing complete sentences, prep phrases over, under, in, new vocabulary, listening
LB - Play with Schleich with me while I go back and forth to between her and CC
11:45am - 12m transition and get dressed
12m - 12:30pm free play while I shower - I might have been late, but at least I showered.
snack
1-4 errands
4:15 - 5:15 math multiplication and division facts
learned to move kids pix pictures into Photobooth to use as a background.

Tuesday
10:30 LB worked on ordinal numbers while signing The Twelve Days of Christmas from book by Jan Brett.
10:30 - 11:45 CC Rosetta Stone French . LB fed chickens and dogs, jumped on trampoline, played with stuffed animals

11:45 - 12:15 both Chee-Lin: A Giraffe's Journey by James Rumford set in 1435 in Africa, Bengal & China talked about Chinese exploration and Giraffes
12:15 - 1:10 CC Saxon 5/4 Lesson 33 & LB phonics with me - reading short a sentences (lesson 12 How to Tutor by Blumenfeld ). CC's lesson was about writing numbers in the millions - CC wrote her answers in French
1:15 - 1:45 CC Life of Fred chapter 7 (sectors and fractions) and LB made circles and paper pizza
Lunch
2:30 - 4:00 Went downtown to shop for friend's birthday and got to watch crepes being made outside the French restaurant then enjoy some
4:15 - 5:45 CC art class at art school while LB and I hung out and read and played quietly.
We met dad downtown and enjoyed a walk and dinner and another walk
midnight - told CC to turn off her light and go to bed at the end of her page because she'd been up reading since bedtime at 9



Wednesday
10am -3pm I had an online conference for work so the kids were left to run wild in the house.
3:00pm decided school was never going to get done so instead of trying to educate them for a few hours after being in my conference all day, I decided to cancel school and play with them. Listening to They Might Be Giants Here Comes Science doesn't count as school does it, maybe tomorrow?
CC did notice that her beanstalk has been growing noticeably everyday, so she started measuring it.



Thursday
CC - read You Wouldn't Want to Be Mary, Queen of Scots!while eating breakfast - she didn't like the book although it did hold her interest
CC School - art, music, science, p.e., chess, recess, world cultures
LB - cuddles and cartoons
castle building
Explode the Code online for 15 minutes
helping with dinner
singing and dancing with Under a Shady Tree by Laurie Berkner
read Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book
While we were making lunch, LB and I put some celery in water then talked about what she thought might happen.

Both - watched two episodes of Walking with Dinosaurs while dinner cooked
-
CC started reading Calvin et Hobbes (the French version of Calvin and Hobbes)



Friday
before 10am - CC tried to do Rosetta Stone French before I got up, but couldn't find the bookmark. I made a simple way for her to get in first thing after I got up.
worked with LB on Explode the Code Online for 15 minutes while CC was finishing breakfast.
10am - CC worked on the Roman Gods lapbook while LB played on pbskids.org. CC had a hard time deciding on a picture to symbolize Venus. She didn't want to use a heart because Romans didn't associate a heart with her. She eventually settled on a seashell since it will "make you think of the Birth of Venus painting."
Both kids played with KidPix while I took a shower and started getting ready for work.
noon - CC did chapter 8 from Life of Fred while LB made a picture for number 5 - it was 5 doughnuts then she cut out a purple heart for her sister.
1pm - CC declared she was bored and hungry.
CC helped me with lunch while LB typed a list of everyone's names and ages on the computer. We also read a section from The Annotated Mona Lisa about Miro since she her teacher had talked about him in school yesterday but didn't give much information.
1:30pm - They were both on the computer when I left for work. I think CC was illustrating a phonics reader for her sister.

Week 17 - a list not a report

This week, I kept a log of everything we did so that I wouldn't get to Friday feeling as if nothing is working. I confirmed that we actually "do school" most days between 10am and 3pm. Some of the activities listed happened after school was done - like playing wii and knitting. On Wednesday, we didn't finish until 4:30 and CC was mentally tired which is why they had an active time listed as part of schooling. Most days they play vigorously at the end of the day and they always play before school. CC is still reading Little Women - she cried herself into a puddle this week over the death of Pip the bird. LB is still listening to Trumpet of the Swan which is written of course by the dad from Charlotte's Web (if you ask her). She loves E.B.White.

CC - Third Grade
Monday -
copywork from George Washington's Rules of Civility
math - Saxon 5/4
Roman gods folder
Rosetta Stone French
nature walk

Tuesday
copywork
we read about different periods in art from The Annotated Mona Lisa
did a Cave painting
math - squares and square roots
Poe - read poems and listened to The Raven on storynory.
worked on knitting
listened to Our Island Story chapter about the American "rebellion" on librivox
Snow White
The Little Mermaid

Wednesday
Do Not Open
Math Saxon 5/4 - 9 multiplication tricks
learned about the number 500 billion and did comparison and a measurement activity
had a play break
history writing - short essay about Columbus
Roman god lapbook
Rosetta Stone French 1 1/2 hours
played wii winter sports
mile on the treadmill

Thursday
school - science, art, pe, world cultures, chess

Friday
writing - dream journal - 10am - until forever
had a hot tea break
Life of Fred chapter 6 - awesome chapter on doubling
was building a train station with KEVA Blocks when I left for work


LB - Not-K
Monday
phonics
number practice in Kumon
nature walk
Roman gods folder

Tuesday
phonics
Annotated Mona Lisa
made a handprint painting
Poe poems - she spent the next hour saying "Nevermore" in a spooky voice whenever I asked her a question
Snow White
The Little Mermaid
Made a picture for the Celery Raw poem and copied the poem onto the paper.
made cave painting
learned finger knitting

Wednesday
Played on Starfall
free play
phonics
Roman god booklet
helping mom
Madlenka by Peter Sis and talked about the different countries from the story and found them on a map
wii winter sports
mile on the treadmill


Thursday
phonics
free play
grocery shopping with me
helped with laundry
watched Between the Lions with me

Friday
math - addition within 5 activities from RS A.
puzzles
building with blocks

Week 16 mid-winter blues

I think I really miss green and summer and sunshine and warmth. This week I bought some palm trees and spent an afternoon defrosting frozen potting soil and repotting palm trees (who would have thought that dirt actually freezes solid like that?). The girls planted box gardens complete with soon-to-be bean stalks - they traded paper cows for beans to plant of course. This morning when I went to work, they were trumpeter swans and golden eagles sitting on their eggs and watching French sing-a-long songs on the computer because CC decided that she couldn't do Rosetta Stone French today since she had to sit on her eggs.



CC used her free-write day to start writing the "Twelve Days of Spring". She spent a lot of time researching spring flowers to figure out what order they should bloom in so that her song has the correct order. Writing improved through the week and became easier after our Day 2 Standoff. Our assignments went like this: copywork was painful, short answers for history were more painful but informative, free write was awesome even if it took a long time, and today's lesson was to create sentences using homophones. She loved that and created a comic strip panel for it.

For grammar this week, we covered pronouns and homophones. If you ever need to teach pronouns, it is fun to just stop using them and see if your kids catch on and figure out what you are doing. The girls joined in the fun and decided that if you leave out pronouns and helping and being verbs that you sound like a caveman. It was a hilarious lesson and is becoming a new game.

In math, we are plugging through Saxon lessons without much protest. CC also got all the answers right on her Life of Fred bridge so she is happily moving on instead of doing more bridges. Today she actually told me that she needs to learn her multiplication tables faster so that division is easier for her! I fought really hard to not jump up and down cheering.

LB got the pleasure of phonics lessons everyday this week. I'll write more about it later, but we are doing lessons on the white board, and it is going great. It is now called "Mommy Phonics," and I think it is helping her reading. She even started picking out words on her own in Boggle last night. I went back to having her practice writing numbers and making sure that the numbers are all correctly formed and in the right direction. We've been working through a book on Visual Perception that makes me feel like I am doing something positive to help her instead of just waiting to see if she outgrows her visual processing issues.

I also actually cracked open SoTW3. I gave LB a copy of the map and a copy of the Charles V picture from the Activity Guide to color while CC was trying to not write her assignment. I read the section on Tuesday then did the follow up on Wednesday. LB started Wednesday by telling me she didn't remember me reading any history to her, but when I asked her what she remembered about Charles, she actually remember how old he was when he inherited his first crown and how many countries he was king of. I thought that was terrific. She colored him with a lovely pink shirt which looked terrific on him. We discussed the map and I pointed out the countries to her and had her color the ocean.

CC told me that she wasn't paying attention when I had read the story the day before and asked that I please reread it. I politely declined and informed her that being able to find information in a text is an important skill. Ahem.... maybe that is part of the reason that the writing was tortuous - she had started out unhappy about the assignment and then went downhill from there.

It probably didn't help that LB tried to help her by telling her which countries he ruled. We've always done history together in the past, but it has been optional for LB. She used to just listen to the stories and do any crafts with her. Now that I am including her in the lessons I need to work on the logistics a bit, but I am sure this is going to be terrific.

The weather was unseasonably warm this week and stirred a longing for southern latitudes. I don't know that I can face months more of brown and cold. I'm still working to find that right balance in our schooling so that the kids keep progressing in every area. It seems that whenever I focus on one thing, the rest slip. At some point I hope to feel like I am teaching my kids instead of just rotating between subjects that aren't working.

Milestones

Ever wonder what you do while you wait for your son to arrive on the other side of the world?


After you get done crying, you Put your chin up and walk like a duck then register your 5yo for kindergarten for next year.

The plane just landed, but it will be a while before he makes it "home" so that he can let me know that he arrived safely. And of course I am planning to homeschool LB. I did the online registration so that I can enroll her in the enrichment school with her sister for next year. Apparently January is when you are supposed to start planning these things - kindergarten and semester's abroad.

Week 15 - Back to Normal somehow

We had a fabulous week even if it went by in a whirlwind. BB is on a plane to the other side of the world and back to college. It was so good having him home. This week we were able to squeeze in one more snowboarding trip so that he and CC could snowboard together. CC loved going with her brother, even if she did fall off the ski lift and scare me to death. He got to be her hero by jumping off the lift so that she wouldn't have to ride up alone. LB spent the day in ski school - remember Put your chin up and walk like a duck - that is how you get yourself to move when you are stuck on your skis. It seems like generally good advice. My kids (and other members of the family) have tossed me some strange looks since I started handing out that advice.


This morning the weather was beautiful, so I sent the kids outside (yes in their gowns, snowboots, and coats) to swing while I got ready for work. It had been really cold for a couple of days and they needed the fresh air.

We did a short week of school, but CC and BB did get to math everyday, and CC spent at least an hour everyday on French. She has finished Unit 1 of Level 1 and has progressed amazingly. While she was getting her haircut on Monday, I heard her tell her barber that her favorite subject in school is math (we just finished lesson 24 of Saxon 5/4). Amazing. She's been staying up late reading Little Women and loving it.

LB and I did a science lesson together this week about states of matter. We read a book about solids, liquids, and gases then did some experiments including making clouds in pot. I think that I will be able to do a full science lesson like this with her at least once a week thanks to the new Nebel book that I was gifted. I'm trying to keep it simple yet be consistent - one topic, one, book, one experiment every week. Once I get that down to a normal part of our routine, then I'll think about adding to it, but not before.






And my bold and adventurous son has applied to and been accepted into a semester abroad program in NEPAL for next fall. There is a lot to do between being accepted and actually getting there, but I am proud of him for dreaming big and following through.

Here we go again

School starts next week. Vacation is over. Lets get busy. Right after I clean my house, pay some bills and get some sleep.

I declare Monday to be a Get Ready To Learn day. I've got everything ready for the new school session except the teacher and the school.

For CC and Third grade - We're going to learn Where the Sidewalk Ends as our new poem. French is still on the agenda. We're going to pick up Saxon 5/4 and Life of Fred right where we were. We are moving on to Week 3 in LA, starting SOTW3 along with the Activity Guide. And science will be both reading the Ocean encyclopedia and starting Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Nebel which we are starting so that we can fold LB into some hands-on science with us.

BB is here for one more week before he returns to school in Tokyo for the beginning of his Junior year. Hopefully we can fit one more day of skiing in before he leaves. I'm starting to miss him already.

I'm going to try to incorporate some hand-eye type activities into our day to help LB with her vision. Her eye doc noticed the same things I have noticed in her reading - letter reversals, letter flipping and a mid-line jump where she loses her place when her eyes cross the midline while she is reading. It explains why she compares a word she has read to the same word on a different page - to her they don't always look the same. It also explains why she is progressing faster with reading since I started her copying words, spelling and reading words from flashcards instead of just doing phonic and chugging through readers. The eye doc said that she should outgrow it soon, but I'm not one to sit by without trying to fix things.

Tomorrow is the perfect day to clean the house. It'll all be easy after that.

Week 14 - Report Mob Rules

70 days down - now count me out for vacation. I am beat.

This week in third grade, we did 3 more Saxon 5/4 lessons and another chapter in Life of Fred. Math is currently awesome. We also did another full week of SL 3+4 LA. English is currently awesome. We finally started Rosetta Stone French thanks to the school district. CC loves it - and she can actually pronounce the stuff unlike her mother. LB has even been walking around repeating French things she has heard.

LB has completed her week of SL K LA. She modified some of the Explode the Code exercises. Instead of copying the words from the top of the page to the right place at the bottom, she likes to cut them out and paste them at the bottom. We've been using the little word cards for writing and spelling practice. We also discovered that scratch paper is awesome for copywork. BB also likes it for practicing the kanji he is studying. This morning, while she was making invitations to a dog wedding, LB sounded out the word invited. We were all pretty impressed.

We've been practicing our poetry, learning to weave, learning the words to The Twelve Days of Christmas, reading Jan Brett's Christmas Treasury, Alice in Wonderland, Om-Kas-Toe, a book about Squanto and a book about Sequoyah and finishing a weather unit at school. I made 24 finger sandwiches for the school party and the girls went to their first wedding with us. CC also had lots of practice writing friendly letters and addressing envelopes this week since she decided to send out her own Christmas cards while I was sending them. Hey - I sent Christmas cards with pictures of the kids for the first time in at least 6 years.

I've been trying to get ready for Christmas and finish up school. I really shouldn't put Christmas off for so long. I still don't have the tree up, and I only have one or two presents. My brother is coming this weekend, and I don't know where they are sleeping, and the house is a mess. I don't know when we'll go skiing or anything.

Anyway. School is out until further notice. I'm undecided about continuing math over the break. I really want to because BB is home and CC loves having him teach her the math lessons. However, I really need a break. I also think continuing the French would be be good, but then again I don't know how 9 people can be quiet enough for CC to do a Rosetta Stone lesson. My brother leaves on the first of the new year. BB goes back to Japan on the eighth. I'm not sure when we'll restart school, but it will be after the first.

Only 110 more days of school, but who's counting?