My homeschool mother's journal: Angus Lost (BFIAR), dolls, and climbing rocks

Life this week...

My little Alex discovered his sister's American Girl dolls. Actually, since she's kind of grown out of them, and didn't want it anymore, one is mine. He had fun playing with them. I loved seeing the sweet, gentle side of this crazy boy. I love that he wanted to brush their hair, and put them to bed at night. Someday this boy will be a father (I hope), and it will be a blessing for his family to be a nurturer. I have to admit I got a little excited that he wanted to play with them too because I love playing with them! He wants to make some new clothes for them, so I might find some projects for him and I to work on. He was very excited when April gave him the boxes of outfits that she collected when she used to play with them.

School this week...

We read Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack for our Before Five in a Row study, and did a few activities. I am trying to get back into a Five in a Row groove. He is really at the FIAR level, not the BFIAR, but we never got to some of the titles in the BFIAR level, so we might throw some of those in along the way this school year. 

We watched a fun little 'movie' version of the book on YouTube. Of course there were many parts that weren't true to the book, but it was fun to talk about the differences with the boys, and they got to see how much movies can differ from books.

We looked at the silhouettes in the book, and focused on that for an art project.

I googled Scottish Terrier silhouettes, and printed 2 up (one for each boy). I let them choose the color of the background they wanted, like yellow or blue for sunset time. They created the picture however they wanted.

This was Aric's picture, and there is a reason the dog is not in one piece. He wanted to make it look like the dog was walking into the picture and then back out. He also added a house and tree, and the moon.

This is Alex's picture. He had fun cutting some shapes out of black paper for his.

I practiced spelling some of the words from the book with Alex. I printed up some Read, build, and write mats, and slid it into a sheet protector.

He decided he wanted to write his words big on the white board too. He is getting really good with writing his letters.

We had an art day on Wednesday after we had been out a lot of the day, so the boys got a few lessons done from their Home Art Studio DVD's.

Alex had a symmetry butterflies lesson. He worked on making the butterfly look the same on both sides.

"Symmetry Butterfly" by Alex

The symmetry butterflies was a Kindergarden lesson, but Aric wanted to try it too. He made his one as well.

"Symmetry butterfly" by Aric

Aaron's lessons all have a beach or ocean theme. He has made a lighthouse with shading, and an under the sea picture, but this day he worked on finishing his flip-flop on the beach picture. This lesson was in 2-parts. He previously worked on painting the yellow and blue background with watercolors, and used salt to give it texture. The next lesson was making the flip-flop. Honestly the flip-flop didn't excite him as much, but he did it anyway. It turned out fun. It is supposed to have a 3-D effect.

Flip-flop on the beach

Aric's lesson this week was a falling through space picture. He had to draw his hands and feet in full size, and the body smaller in the background to give the effect that the boy is falling through space. All the others thought it had a neat effect.

"Falling through space"

Alex wanted to do 2 lessons from his DVD, so he also chose to do the paper tearing owl. I couldn't help him with this lesson, so he did it mostly himself. I thought he did great improvising when he didn't have all the supplies he needed, and didn't want to tear anymore. It is his special creation even though it doesn't quite look like the finished product that was on the DVD.

Places we went...

This week got a little busy going places! We ended up at the Kroc center one evening while April was at orchestra because we have a gift card that we need to use up. Since there was a little time before the swim session started the boys decided they would finally brave the climbing wall. We used to have a membership, and they never wanted to do the wall before. It was fun to see them finally try it.

Alex started climbing pretty quickly.

If they let go they could swing back over and try to grab the wall again. Alex did this a lot, but it allowed him to get pretty high.

They switched to different ropes a few times to try different or easier areas of the climbing wall.

See how high Alex got! He made it about halfway up!

We headed to the pool for the swim session. It was refreshing.

We also went roller skating twice this week. Both were spontaneous, but for different reasons. I will probably do a separate post about it. But, at one of the places we went skating all the kiddos had fun playing some hockey while on skates.

Something I accomplished...

I didn't get a picture of this, but I cleaned up my sewing area, and brought back the folding table so I can leave the sewing machine out all the time. I have some projects I want to work on, and decided I was done pulling the sewing machine out (which never happened because it was too much of a hassle). Right now I'm working on some camo bags for the boys.

In the kitchen...

I made some Lemon ricotta pancakes this morning. Thanks Bethany for a great recipe! They were delicious to me. Some of my people really liked them, some not so much. It was a fun new recipe to try. That's about the only good thing I made this week. I was mostly a failure in the kitchen as this was a busy week. I am hoping to get better at planning my meals better!

That about wraps up our week. I have more I could share, but this post is long enough.