Catch-Up Wrap Up!

THE 3 READS ~

Me ~ The Yearling, well I am suppose to be reading this for book club but have only done the first page. Can I get it done in 2 weeks???

La ~ The second book in The Berinfell Prophesies, Venom & Song ~ these are Christian fantasy YA fiction books. She loves fantasy books like Lord of the Rings and the like. She gets that from me!

Morning Read Aloud ~ A Wind in the Door, Second in the A Wrinkle in Time Series ~ more fantasy!

Learning & Living at Home ~
I have lots to update since I haven’t written one of these in a while. I will try to be brief! La has been bouncing around topics in her study time. Her latest bounce was from Planets to Egypt. She found a book at the Library in Scholastic’s series Horrible Histories about Egypt & loves it. It’s history with all the gruesome details. Kids love the yucky stuff. Some people worry about this being an expression of our sin nature, but I think it is more about a safe way to deal with and process the yucky stuff in our world that they need to deal with. Like dressing up in a scary costume ~ it’s a safe way to confront these issues.

La has also taken it upon herself to learn her times tables. She works on it everyday. We purchased for her a copy of the Timez Attack program, of which you can get a free version here. She is over half way through it and is really getting them down. After she learns these & masters long division she will be able to restart Life of Fred. This is a really engaging math program that we both love! She has also been very diligent in her spelling work.


Out & About ~
Firefly Corps is still going on along with art classes at Kimball Art Center & PE Class. Farm Team is over. I can’t believe I missed blogging about the whole Farm Team season! La had training every Saturday & Sunday & a few night trainings. She also Had 4 Giant Slalom & 1 Slalom race. She is the only kid in her coaching group that did not miss a single practice or race! Last week we got to go to the US Ski & Snowboard Association’s Center of Excellence and take a tour. This was such a treat, because it is usually only open to US Ski & Snowboard Team Members & Coaches. It is literally 4 miles from our house and the only one in the country!

The kids going crazy in the ramps & tramps area!

La & her friend in the foam pit

 Video Below of YSL (Youth Ski League) Finals

My Journey ~
In book club we have read Jane Eyre & David Copperfield. I have taught myself to crochet & opened an Etsy shop. I also started a blog about my crocheting and shop. I’m trying to do 2 tutorials a month on the 1st & 3rd Tuesday. I am also coming up with my own unique patterns which I plan to sell. If you crochet you can go to Facebook & like my fan page here. I will be looking for pattern testers soon!

I am also in the throws of planning Vacation Bible School. This year I wanted to do something different. I have been inspired to do an Extreme Creation Science Camp! The ideas are coming along nicely. It should be a lot of fun.

Hopefully I will get another update done next week. I am already thinking about next year - school wise. So I will share some of that. Can you say Homeschool Co-Op? :-)

I'm Back

I cannot believe how long it has been since I have posted on this blog. I wanted to be so diligent with my weekly wrap-ups.
Well here is the last few months wrapped up!

Ski season stared & La started on the her racing team. Her racing season is over & ski season is almost over! I went back to Mt. Hosting once a week and that is almost over! La has been very good about making weekly goals & her daily study list. Her main goals right now seem to be reading about science, getting her math facts down & playing her tin whistle. I see little glimpses of an emerging scholar in this new ability to set goals that take more than one day to accomplish.

I have started an online Etsy shop. It's going slow but I have learned a lot about crocheting. I also started a crochet, crafty blog. Links to these are on the sidebar (or will be soon).

Snow is melting & spring birds are back. Mud season is upon us and I cannot wait until we dry out a little. Hopefully from now on I will be faithful to my weekly wrap-ups & ponderings about our homeschool life.

Until my next epiphany or weekly wrap-up, whichever comes first!

Weekly Wrap Up 11/8 to 11/12

THE 3 READS ~
Me ~ Pride and Prejudice
La ~ Finished Shiloh Season & Started Percy Jackson ~ The Sea of Monsters
Morning Read Aloud ~ Finished The Silver Chair & Started The Last Battle

Learning & Living at Home ~
Lots of reading and math games this week. La finished one book and is halfway through another. This is amazing to me considering that she only started reading beyond “cat, mat, sat” a little over a year ago. When it clicks, it clicks!

The math games are really helping La get her facts down. One game we play involves adding and subtracting negative numbers. She uses a number line, but is really getting this concept down! It’s funny because I never intended to teach this. It makes me wonder what other things she is learning incidentally. You just can’t stop kids from learning! Why would you want to?

We are enjoying The Last Battle. So, far it is a pretty dark book for the Narnia Series. It is reminding me of thing going on on our society today.

I tried my hand at making fabric flowers. My sister in law directed me to some  great tutorials at Snazzie Drawers. This is my first attempt. If I can get good at it & faster, I am going to open a shop on Etsy.com.

Out & About ~
Our Firefly Corps meeting was on Monday. It was our first meeting on Israel. We learned about kosher food, Hanukkah, and the Uzi submachine gun (which was invented by an Israeli man).  Lots of fun & matzo ball soup!

My Journey ~
This week we I had my book club meeting on Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto.  It was a great discussion. It made me think about what a real education is and question all my assumptions. I hope to write about that soon. Now we are reading Pride & Prejudice for our December meeting. I have been looking forward to a novel! I am enjoying it so far.

Weekly Wrap Up 11/1 to 11/5

THE 3 READS ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction & Pride and Prejudice
La ~ Shiloh Season
Morning Read Aloud ~ The Silver Chair

Learning & Living at Home ~
Poetry & Projects
This week we spent a lot of time reading poetry.  La always says she doesn’t like poetry which I thought was due to her lack of exposure to it. I was right. I took several books out of the library on poetry. I checked out a large variety ~ silly kids poems, Robert Frost & Edgar Allan Poe to name a few. La really liked Edgar Allan Poe!  This interest is probably because of due Halloween. The Poe book had a small biography which gave us a chance to talk about his alcoholism & how that effected his poetry. It’s amazing how insightful a 9 year old can be! Now she wants me to read her The Pit & the Pendulum & The Cask of Amontillado! I think she needs to wait a few years for those!

We also did a few projects. I had bought some flannel to make La some jammy pants. When we went to start the project, I discovered I didn’t buy enough! So we made a pillow case instead.

Isn't this the cutest flannel!

La also made & designed a cat toy. The cats loved that!

We learned about Nov. 5th being Guy Fawkes Day in Britain.  We talked about whether the men in the Gun Powder Plot were traitors or freedom fighters.  It’s a good topic for discussion! I highly recommend the movie V for Vendetta for adults & youth on the topic of tyranny & freedom. (Warning - it’s very comic book style violent, but great themes.)

Out & About ~
This past weekend was Halloween! La was a Zombie. We had 3 little girls ages 4,6 & 8 spend the weekend with us! It was a lot of fun & a great learning experience for my only child! :-)

Firefly Corps met on Monday. It was our second meeting on India. The girls presented on Indian food, Henna & traditional dress.  This club is something we look forward to with great anticipation!

My Journey ~
I have been reading Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto.  It is really challenging my assumptions about education! He relates all these biographies of people who were out in the world contributing to their families & community at very young ages. It has made me think about whether or not we are living in a homeschool bubble & how to get out of the bubble!  I am considering adding a lot more community service type activities to our lives. I am not sure the final form of this yet. My book club meeting for this book is Tuesday. I can’t wait to discuss it!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/25 to 10/29

THE 3 READS ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction & Pride and Prejudice

La ~ Finished Shiloh, started Shiloh Season

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ Finished The Best Worst Halloween Ever, started The Silver Chair

Around the House ~

No extra projects to speak of this week. I feel like I don’t know where my time is going. I have two sewing projects I need to start. Time to revamp our schedule. Why does everything in the universe tends towards chaos. I wish I could just stay organized once I get organized!

Out & About Learning ~

Firefly Corps was rescheduled until this coming Monday due to illness, so I’ll write about that next week. This week was swimming at our weekly homeschool class.

Study Time ~

This week’s study time got off to a very relaxed start. We woke up to snow on Monday morning. I did not have the heart to keep her inside! The neighbor kids came over by noon & they stayed outside sledding & jumping on a snowy trampoline all day! Before the kids came over La made a town in the front yard she named Crystalville. She outlined walkways and buildings just like the kids in Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran.

La in her Crystalville house. The circle in the center is a fire pit.

Main St., Crystalville

La had another baking lesson. This time chocolate chip cookies.

La wrote some thank you notes to her Nani & Kitty Grandma for sending her a small Halloween package.

Last time I wrote about La being inspired to learn her math facts. She still is, but I almost killed it! As soon as she said this I came on too strong with a traditional approach using worksheets & flash cards. After all, that’s how I learned my math facts.  Well it backed fired right in my face. She hated it and felt pressured.  I should have known better! This approach has never worked with her!  So I took a deep breath & regrouped.  A reader named Cherie (Thanks Cherie!) posted a great link to a math card game. She loves this approach & is quickly getting all the addition facts down. I am also playing factor games with her to help her see the relationship between addition & subtraction.  Now things are smooth sailing again!

Afternoons ~

More playing on the snow & reading. This weekend we are taking care of my friend’s 3 daughters ages 4, 6 & 8. It’s going to be very fun! We’ll be trick or treating, going to a Harvest Carnival & swimming with pumpkins at the pool!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/18 to 10/22

THE 3 READS ~
Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction & Pride and Prejudice
La ~ Finished Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief & Started Shiloh
Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island
Morning Read Aloud ~ Finished The Horse  & His Boy, Started The Best Worst Halloween Ever
Evening Read Aloud ~ Finished Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~
No extra projects to speak of this week. I did however set fire to some tortilla chips in the oven. That was fun. ;-) Luckily nothing else caught on fire. I kept the oven door shut & the fire just burned itself out. It was my first kitchen fire.

Out & About Learning ~
This week we had our regular Homeschool class at the Aquatic center. They did team building games.
We had our monthly art class at the Kimball Art Center. We studied this very unique artist,Devorah Sperber, who recreates masterpieces like DaVinci’s Last Supper out of hanging rows of spools of thread. To top that off she creates them upside down and then you look through a small crystal globe and they appear right side up. It was amazing and gave me an opportunity to talk about hoe our eyes work.

Study Time ~
This week was a great study week! Here are some highlights.

• La finished 2 project on India. One about Henna & another about the Hindi Language
• We caught & studied a yellow jacket in a bug jar.
• worked on spelling, cursive, latin, math
• I have been doing Life of Fred: Fractions. La loves to do this with me. The stories are very entertaining & she can do some of the problems. Even if she cannot do the arithmetic (like long division), she can tell me how to figure out the problem (e.g. you need to multiply the hours times 60 minutes). We are on Chapter 10 & it is getting too hard for her. So she asked me to stop doing Life of Fred on my own and help her learn all she needs to know so she can finish the Fractions with me. Now that is the art of inspiring!!!
• I found out that La understand negative numbers & can add and subtract them!

Afternoons ~
Nothing to note out of the ordinary this week. The weather has been great so lots of outside time with the neighbor kids.

Weekly Wrap Up 10/11 to 10/15

What we are reading ~
Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction
La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief 

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island
Morning Read Aloud ~ The Horse  & His Boy
Evening Read Aloud ~ Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~
After not having internet access on my computer for about 10 days I finally got it back up and running again! Everything else was pretty normal household-wise this week.

Out & About ~

We has our first Firefly Corps meting about India this week. La did her presentation about Indian Payal or anklets & then the girls all made their own complete with little bells. Sorry I don't have any pic's. They came out all blurry with my phone camera. During the meeting other girls presented on geography, contributions & Ghandi. La skipped weekly homeschool class this Wednesday to stay home and play with the neighbor kids.

Our Study Time ~

We continued with the regulars of spelling, Latin & math. La says Latin is getting boring and she doesn't want to do it anymore. I tell her that is fine with me, but every time I get the book out she is right there doing it with me! Other highlights of the week ~

• online jigsaw puzzles
• started cursive practice
• read some about Columbus
• catching salamanders

The cursive writing was a surprise to me. La just said one day during spelling that she wanted to learn cursive so she could write faster.  I reminded her that she had a cursive work book she could use. That seemed to kill her interest. The next morning I suggest I write a sentence from one of her favorite books in cursive & she could copy it. She loved that idea. Now she is spending a few minutes a day trying to write out this one sentence perfectly. She said when she can write it well she will start with another sentence.  It's amazing how kids will find an interesting way to learn something when they want to learn it. That is the essence of Simple not Complex.

I had my first book club meeting this week. It was so much fun. Seven fun ladies came over & we discussed The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne. It was a lively discussion! I can't wait until next month!

Afternoons ~

Outside catching salamanders! Need I say more?

Next week we have art class at the Kimball Art Center. That is always wonderful!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/4 to 10/8

What we are reading ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction

La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief & Finished Brewster's Courage

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ The Horse  & His Boy

Evening Read Aloud ~ Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~ 

This week I made my grandmother's sticky buns! Making these made me miss her. She passed away about a year and a half ago. before that she suffered from Alzheimer's Disease for many years. I do wish I had asked her to show me how to make these when I could have!

Out & About Learning ~

We had homes school class at the South Summit Aquatic & Fitness center as usual. I don't think I have been including that in my wrap-ups. It was Playground Games this week. Always a very fun & social time!

Friday we went to the Bug Brigade at the Utah Museum pf Natural History. Out study of microorganisms has led to an interest in bugs. So off we went! La held a few bugs & had a confrontation with a praying mantis. 

Study Time ~

We decided to not make a lot of plans this week and let study time flow. We still accomplished so much! 

• La made a Lunch Menu with prices & we used it at lunch time to practice counting money, making change, etc...
• La planned her project for India to be done at the next Firefly Corps meeting.
• Continued with Latin & Spelling
• Learned about the Tower of Hanoi puzzle & played it. Tough logic puzzle!
• La got curious about where yeast comes from & what it is. No doubt due to my recent fascination with baking. We looked it up which lead to thre days of learning about microorganisms.
• We watched videos about amoebas & cell division. La made a model of a cell out out of Ziploc bag, water, a marble (nucleus), pencil cushion (contractile vacuole) & an eraser (food vacuole). 
• sketched some insects. Do you know what makes an arachnid different from other insects? We do!

Afternoons ~ 

We either continued studies or La played outside. She has been catching newts. They look like small black & green salamanders & we have lots of them. La & the neighbor kids love them!

Next week we have Firefly Corps Meeting on Tuesday. Should be fun!

Weekly Wrap Up 10.1.10

What we are reading ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction

La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief & Brewster's Courage

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ Finished Voyage of the Dawn Treader & Started The Horse  & His Boy

Evening Read Aloud ~ Chris started reading Gulliver's Travels to us.

Around the House ~ This week I made bread for the first time! it came out really good. I might make my grandmother's sticky buns next week.

I also started & am still trying to finish some onsie dresses for a birthday gift. Our pastor's granddaughter is having her first birthday party on Sunday. I will post pictures of these when I get them done.

Out & About Learning ~ Firefly Corps Meeting was Monday. We learned a lot about Greek Gods & made a Greek time line. It was fun. friday was our our Greek fieldtrip to the Olympic Cauldron Park & lunch at Yanni's Greek Express. Yum!

Study Time ~

A few less lessons this week & more organic learning. I let 2 days slip by without official study time. Mind you a lot of other learning was done, but do want to get back to 5 days a week of scheduled study time. The day just goes much smoother when we do this.

• Latin 2 days
• Sequential Spelling 2 days
• Math lesson and practice. I was pleasantly surprised that La understand place value of to one trillion. She is always surprising me with what she knows.
• La on her own
• geoboards, hook & latch, lots of reading, practiced her tin whistle
• In Momschool I  covered the following
• Peloponnesian Wars 
• Odysseus & the Cyclops
• Looked up the species of some trees on our hike

Afternoons ~ We either continued studies or La played outside. She has been collecting and chopping acorns. I love to see her spend a few hours outside everyday. Chores & errands also ate up a few afternoons this week.

See you next Friday!

Weekly Wrap Up 9.26.10

What we are reading ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction

La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Around the House ~ Getting back on track for daily chores. La is starting to help me with every household job now. She doesn't like cleaning toilets! Who does? She asked me why she needs to do all this with me. I said, "Because we don't have cows." 

Out & About Learning ~ Art class at the Kimball Art Center & Homeschool PE Class.

Study Time ~

Our scheduled study time is from 9:30 until lunch. La has been wanting to do lots of lessons during this time. This is very different than from years past. In the past we mostly did whatever we felt like during this time, but now she is wanting to make plans and is sticking to them. Here is what we did this week.

• 1-2 Latin Lessons 4 days - one great thing about this Latin book I have is that is covering English grammar by talking about subjects, verbs & conjunctions, etc...
• Sequential Spelling 4 days
• A science experiment about fall leaves
• Lorelei finished 2 Greek projects 
• Olympic fact finding exercise
• Researching how Christmas is celebrated in Greece
• In Momschool I  covered the following
• Ferdinand Magellan
• First Day of Fall
• Thales - Greek mathetician
• Euripides - Greek playwright

Afternoons ~ We either continued studies or La played outside. She has been collecting and chopping acorns. I love to see her spend a few hours outside everyday.

Next week La asked me to plan Math a couple days. WOW! She is asking for math! 

I hope to do a weekly update for every week. Firefly Corps meeting tomorrow. Should be fun!!!!