One homeschool day...

It's about time for me to post one of these "day in the life of" posts again, so I was excited when Tristan from Our Busy Homeschool hosted a "one homeschool day" linky.  I immediately did it the next day which was not a normal day for us.  It was a day with appointments, and running around.  Not a typical day for us, but certainly a type of day that happens when life happens.

We started out our day around 6:30 am with Aric being the first one up like usual, and right on time.  I usually let them watch a show until about 7:00 am when I'm more ready to wake up.  I lie on the couch during this time, or if I'm feeling more chipper than usual I get up and get started.  Mornings are hard for me to get going.

I usually turn on Wild Kratts.  On this day I was more chipper, so I checked my email on the ipad, took some pictures for this post, and got started on some dishes that I left from the night before. 

 At 7:30 all the boys are ready for breakfast.  They moved to the table after their shows were over.  I ask Aaron to pose for a picture with his completed reading chart that he finished the night before at bedtime.

 I didn't have a lot of time for a big breakfast this morning since we were scheduled to head out the door.  Cereal it is for the kids!

 I start with a vitamin drink.  I don't drink coffee, so this is my energy boost for the day sometimes.  I decided I would really need it today since I stayed up way to late the night before!

 Love that they are hugging and not fighting!  We have had plenty of spilled bowls of cereal over arguing brothers.

 I change the numbers on the calender because I remember.  It doesn't always happen.  This is the day that we are sharing.  Time for me to eat breakfast.  No picture of what I ate, so I don't remember.

8:17am free time.  The boys are playing computer, April is practicing the piano, and I'm off to the shower.

 Yes, this is our very cramped, very unorganized computer/piano/school stuff room.  Someday I will fix it.

After my shower I put on some music.  I like to put on some music in the morning before we get started, or in today's case before we leave.  Today I put on some fun music for playtime.  Aaron picked out this trumpet classical CD at the library.  It's pretty fun and upbeat.

Aaron plays with Alex while the music is on, and I'm getting things ready to go to Daddy's physical therapy appointment.

But, before we head out we have a quick chick holding session.  We realized we have been holding these chicks a lot less than our last ones.

Talking while looking at the chicks.

9:50am we leave for physical therapy appointment.  We drop Daddy off, and head to the church bookstore just over the bridge.  We all love going to any type of bookstore.  We didn't take enough time there so we stopped at Home Depot too.  Then we finally got the text that he was done.  We thought about stopping at Costco on the way home, but didn't.  We'll save that for another day, it wasn't urgent.

 11:43am we arrive home.  Alex is sleeping, and it's time for lunch!  Again this isn't a normal day for us.  This is a bigger than usual lunch since Dad is still home with us.  We were having leftover tri-tip, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese.  It was super yummy.  I guess I should add that we do usually always have some sort of leftovers for lunch.  They just aren't always yummy steak with sides.

 12:45pm lunch is over.  Time to see what school we can get done.  It's math time.  April is doing Khan academy, and Aaron and Aric are working in their horizon math books.

1:10pm I sit down to read aloud High Time for Heroes with the boys.  I really can't remember what April did at this time.  I think she may have been working on her to do list for school work.

3:00pm the boys have been difficult today.  We had a play date scheduled at McDonald's play land with some friends at 3:30, but at this point I had had enough. I decided that their behavior was not acceptable for it, and told them we were not going.  They were pretty upset.  It turned out to be a great afternoon though.  We watched a Dirty jobs episode about a bridge maintainer, and a nasa crawler-transporter cleaner.  Which lead to a lot of questions about the nasa vehicle transporter, which led to some more youtube videos about the crawler.  Which led to more videos of past rocket launches.  It was a very nice unplanned afternoon of learning about all the neat things that go into launch things into space.




I decided it was time for some cookies, so I pulled out some dough I had already made earlier in the week, and popped some in!

Some more watching in our very messy living room.

5:15pm time to head to wrestling mat club for the 2 boys.  April stays home with Alex until Dad comes home.  This was the last picture I shot before my camera battery died, so no more pictures.

6:50 time for dinner.  Thankfully Dad started tacos for us while we were at wrestling!

7:15pm clean up dinner.  Get ready for bed/wind down time.

7:30pm story time.  On this night I put on a Dr. Seuss audio book in their room for them to listen to while laying down.

8:00pm lights out, and time for bed for all the boys.  April stays up a while longer.  I send her to bed at 9:30 usually.

After that it's my time to tidy up, read scriptures, blog, plan for the next day, and whatever else I need to get done.


That about wraps up one homeschool day for us!

I'm linking this up to:

 

by
Desiree
 

Weekly wrap-up: butterflies and chicks

Here's what we did this week.  It's not much.  We had leftover snow on Monday, and Tuesday a Dr.'s appointment for Hubby.  Then the rest of the week was Valentine's day stuff, getting Valentine's ready etc.

Art (and a little nature study):

We painted this monarch butterfly craft from learn create love.  Our butterflies are all out of their Chrysallises, so we sat and watched them while we painted.  It was a fun art project.  Loved the results too.

Top left: Aaron's butterfly, Top right:  Aric's butterfly, bottom left: Alex's butterfly, bottom right: April's butterfly

Outside time and observations:

We have been getting quite a bit of rain this week, and sometimes we get these clouds that come through that drop a ton of rain.  This day it was pretty stormy.  April took these shots of the silhouetted tree against the dark cloud, and then the rainbow.  It's amazing to see what the weather brings sometimes!

One day we made it to the park when it wasn't raining for a short time.  Another shot of trees against the clouds.

One day the sun came out, and the boys wanted to play bubbles!  They found all kinds of bubbles we had from last summer.

Lapbooks:

Aaron is working on a Mexico lapbook.  Aric is working on a months of the year lapbook.  And, April is working on an Ancient Greece lapbook.

For Aaron's lapbook project this week we read about Omar from our Children just like me book while eating homemade enchilada's for lunch.  Aaron learned how to make the enchilada's too!

Aric is getting good at recognizing the months of the year.  He finished 2 elements for his lapbook.

April's ancient Greece lapbook is there on the right side of the table.  She has been reading the Percy Jackson series.  Flying through the books.  She couldn't have picked a better time to read them because now we are embarking on this ancient Greece history unit.  She is recognizing a lot already.  Love it when things work so well like that!

Other news:

We got chicks on Friday!

They are so cute and tiny.  I'm looking forward to fresh eggs again.  I have decided that having chickens is pretty cool, and worth all the poop.  The kids just love holding them. 

  

 I'm linking this up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschooler's weekly wrap-up.

Desiree

Thankful Thursday

Taking a moment to look up and be thankful...

• I am thankful that I let my boys stay up one night to watch the olympics.  We have no way to record it and watch it later, so we have to watch it when it's on.  They loved that, and it was fun snuggling up with them.
• I am thankful that I decided this week to continue apologia science astronomy.  My boys really enjoyed it.  The sonlight science is not enough for them each day.  We might continue with bits and pieces of the sonlight, but I really like the apologia books much better.
• I am thankful to see April at the piano/keyboard a lot this week.  She's just doing her own thing, and teaching herself again which I love.  She stopped playing around for fun when she was taking lessons, and lost her love for it.  I'm glad to see it's back!
•  I'm thankful for all the food that we have.  That we have plenty of it.
• I'm thankful for all this extra time at home while Hubby is recovering.  It is hard for me sometimes to be stuck at home all the time.  But, I have had a lot of time for blogging, and re-organizing!
• I am thankful for being able to get books we need for school from the library.  I love the library.

Desiree

Wordless Wednesday: Window catchers painting fun

Desiree

Homeschool favorites: Hodge Podge pastel art

I really want to start doing homeschool favorites again.  A post where I share a resource or something that we've liked using in the week.  Or, maybe just a book we liked!  Anyway, this week one of my favorite homeschool resources was A simple start in chalk pastels: Winter Olympics by Hodge Podge.

We have loved getting to know how to use chalk pastels this year with other Hodge Podge tutorials.  My kids really feel like artists because they are so easy to work with.

This week we made the olympic medals.  I didn't get any action shots, so here are the final results...

April's art

Aaron's art.

Mom's art.  I love doing it too!

Yes, pastels are messy, but I always take the advice of HodgePodge and keep a pack of baby wipes at the table.  IT really helps!  

 Desiree

winter nature walk

We finally have snow, and enough to really enjoy.  I thought we should take the opportunity before it all disappears to take a winter walk.  So yesterday we walked to the library!  I consider this a nature walk because there's nothing quite like walking in the snow.  The sights, the sounds, the feeling of the cool crisp air on your face.  I especially love the sounds.  It's amazing how wonderful and peaceful the world sounds with a thick blanket of snow on the ground.  The crunching of the snow as you walk. 

We brought our two sleds to pull books in, or the little ones as they got tired.  It was a great walk.  And, surprisingly tiring!  I found myself getting a little breathless at times, especially when I was pulling a sled.

As we started out on our trek.  It is so beautiful!

We saw lots of different tracks.  It was fun to try and figure out who or what the tracks belonged to.

I love to see how the snow settles on branches and objects.

So cute!  Loved that the sidewalks were covered so we could pull the sleds the whole way.

April found these snow covered leaves that reminded her of stars.  It's neat how a little bit of white changes the view of everything!

I probably could have taken a picture of every tree and branch.  It's so neat to see the layer of snow on the tops of them.

Alex did this pretty much the whole time.  He dragged his hand in the snow.  It was pretty cute.

More hand dragging.

Some snow covered berries.  Love the reds and greens against the white.

Finally, the library!  It was a warm destination.  As you can see Alex stripped off all his snow gear, and his socks and shoes.  I tried stopping him, but he's used to doing that at home from all the times they go in and out.  Pretty funny.

They had a lot of Dr. Seuss on display.  So fun.  Makes me excited to get into Dr. Seuss in a few weeks for his birthday.

 On the way home it started snowing again, so we walked as fast as we could.  It was a little colder too because it was getting windy.  Felt good to take a walk!

Desiree