Friday, September 19, 2014

My homeschool mother's journal: week 5

Life this week...

Another busy week has come and gone!  We had a good week, but it had its moments.  There was a lot of dragging feet, and they weren't mine necessarily.  Although, today (Friday), my feet seem to be dragging quite a bit.  I'm tired.  I've been feeling it all week.  It probably didn't help that I had 2 late nights, and 1 interrupted night of sleeping because certain boys thought it would be okay to get up and play minecraft in the middle of the night.  Oooh, that game.  That game has become quite a nuisance as well.  The boys are obsessed with it, so now it is a Saturday only game.  They have also lost it for this Saturday because of their little middle of the night fling.  Hoping to catch up on sleep this weekend!

In our homeschool...

On Monday morning we started out with both April practicing her violin, and Aaron practicing the piano.  It was loud, but not bothersome.  It made my heart happy to hear them developing such great talents.  April doesn't usually practice out in the main part of the house, but she decided to this week, and she decided she likes it.  I also like starting out each day with them practicing, that worked really well for us this week.  Aaron didn't practice on Friday morning, and sure enough the day got away, and he didn't get his practicing in.  I think doing it first thing in the morning really helps!

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For science the boys finished the first chapter of Swimming creatures this week!  They really enjoyed it, and remembered a lot of facts in the review today.

They made these ocean zones flip books.  The books turned out pretty good, but the boys kind of petered off at the end and were tired of making them so not a lot of information got put inside them.  I ended up having them just draw something found in each zone because for some reason writing things is like pulling teeth around here.  We are working on that.

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The inside of the midnight zone flap of Aaron's book...

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They also finally got to making their "ocean boxes."  They were pretty excited to finally get to this part, and covered their own box in blue ocean colored wrapping paper.  Looking forward to seeing them add sea/water creatures to these as we study throughout the year.

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This is all their project so it isn't necessarily going to be perfect, but that's okay!  It was tricky getting all that paper on there, and they used lots of tape!

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It was fun to see them so excited about this project.  They were also talking about all the creatures they want to add.

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We had some Fall fun this week.  Alex did plenty of these kinds of sheets, and read some fall books.  We also started Autumn treasures download and go unit with the boys.  Lots of Autumn fun coming up in school!

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April finished her book report.  She did a "pinterest" style book report on The Giver.  It turned out pretty neat.  Some pictures she put more detail into than others.  I think she was in a hurry at the end there :-)

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For history we finished chapter 26 in SOTW.  Yay!  It was about the ancient America's, Nazca drawings (which I didn't know about!), and the Olmec people.  So one of the projects we did with this was to create a bean and seed mosaic out of beans and seeds that are grown mainly in the Americas.  It was a neat project.

I made a sunflower.  Although I didn't have any green for the leaves.  I was thinking split peas would have been perfect, but I didn't have any of those.

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Aaron did his mosaic on an outline of the Americas.  He wasn't too into this project so he basically sprinkled some glue and then put his seeds down, and done!  Sometimes this boy is just a "do what I have to do" kind of boy, and that's it.

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April was creative and did a nazca drawing for her mosaic.  I think this is supposed to be the monkey.

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Art.  For art we have been just doing whatever as I haven't had a "curriculum" or plan for it yet. So, this weeks art includes Aaron making a weaving out of construction paper.  He chose this out of a paper crafts book that he picked up at the library.  He loved doing that.

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For a more formal art lesson I did this with the boys.  We painted apples, and explored mixing colors, although the 2 youngers didn't quite get it.  They thought that since there were 3 colors on the plate (red, yellow, blue) that they should paint each apple that color.  Oh well!  It's art.  I'm just glad Aaron got it.  He made a yellow apple, orange apple, and a red apple, and he got his stems green using the 3 primary colors.

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Places we're going and people we're seeing...

Last Saturday Aaron and April got to go to the Shrewsbury Renaissance faire with Daddy.  They got to spend the day there with Grandma and Grandpa (who have a booth there), and April even stayed the night so she could enjoy the faire the next day too.  I was bummed that I couldn't go this year.  I still was not feeling all the way better, so I stayed home with the 2 little boys who also had their soccer thing.

Here they are all dressed up...

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Aaron apparently did really well at this catapult game and won his necklace, I think that's the right game that he was telling me about.

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Our homeschool group meets on Friday's, and today it was at the library.  We had a great lesson on public speaking, and then a show and tell for their first time getting up and trying it out.
Three of my 4 did something!  Here is Aaron sharing his necklace that he won at the Renaissance faire.  They all picked fun things to share.

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Alex was the only one who had a hard time getting up there, and actually talking.  He tried twice!  He really wanted to, but just couldn't bring himself to say "my name is Alex, and this is my yellow ball." That's okay, I'm really proud of him for trying, and sitting and listening so well.  He enjoyed that.

Here he is enjoying playing with his friends afterwards...

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All of the kids waiting for the class to begin.  All the kids did so well in presenting their show and tell, and being a good audience.

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Our first fall fun activity was picking apples this week!  I will share more on that in a separate post, but just wanted to include it in the places we've gone this week.

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He just loved pulling the wagon.  Almost too much, so we ended up with 2 wagons because he wouldn't give it up.

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I think that about wraps up our week!  We had a busy, fun filled week of learning, and I'm so grateful for it, and for the freedom to homeschool.

Desiree

I am linking this up to:
My week in review at Home to 4 kiddos
Weekly wrap-up at Weird unsocialized homeschoolers

1 comment:

  1. That looks like a fun and busy week. I like the artwork. Art has not yet happened at our house. I need to work that into the schedule.

    ReplyDelete

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