My Weekly Notebook: Fall, games, and books

Life this week...

Life has become busy and full again, so that means that weeks are starting to fly by at a very fast rate. I can't believe it's already mid-October. So even though it's a new week, here I am sharing about the last one.

Homeschool this week...

Alex chose to learn about Colorado for his United States Journal, and one of the things he's supposed to do is watch a movie about Colorado. I found a fun YouTube video called Unboxing Colorado. It's not your average here are the Colorado state facts type of video. It's actually not even really meant for kids specifically, but it's pretty funny. Alex really liked the song at the end. If you'd like to see what the video is you can visit YouTube Unboxing Colorado. The song at the end is just one made up by the YouTuber, but Alex just thought it was funny and sang it all day. He even had me write the words down in his journal so he could remember them.

But first, let's dance to it....

For Columbus day we tried to get some pumpkin globes painted. It ended up taking a few days because we started so late that night. Alex didn't even make it past painting his blue ocean. He just decided to call it done after that.

He chose a metallic blue to paint his ocean. I'm not sure the other colors would have shown up on it very well, but it's a pretty color!

Painting a globe is not as easy as it looks! I loved the challenge though!

Alex read some facts out of this book about space for his Space Journal. He wrote about some of the things he read in his journal.

Helpful homeschool tips and advice to share...

I took this picture of my crocs for a friend whose foot Dr. told her to wear crocs around the house to help her ankle heal and keep the pain down in her feet. I told her that's exactly what I do! I wear crocs because my feet get tired and painful fast when I'm on them a lot. So my crocs really save my feet when I have to stand to do dishes or things around the house. They have great cushion and space so feet aren't squished, and great for around the house becuase they are so easy to get on and off. So, that's my advice this week. Take it if you need it. If your feet get tired, give it a try! I never thought I'd be sharing that for advice, but there it is. Also, it's my advice that if your crocs are as old and worn as mine are, it's time for new ones.

My favorite thing this week was...

Putting fall/halloween decorations around the house and the outside.

 

I was excited to finally be able to put up the vampire Mickey that I purchased last year after halloween on a cleareance sale. He's so fun and festive.

My kids' favorite thing this week was...

Playing Rodeoopoly! He loves pretending to be a cowboy. 

Something I accomplished...

Starting the process of weeding out books and curriculum, and getting rid of ones we don't need anymore. I'm going to have a lot of things for sale soon! Trying to figure out the best way to go about getting books into the hands of those who need/want them.

What we're reading...

We read J is for Jack-O'-Lantern, A Halloween Alphabet by Denise Brennan-Nelson. I love these alphabet books, and we have quite the collection now. We've read this one every year for a few years now. This time we paired it with a fun craft/treat, little tissue paper pumpkins with candy inside. Hoping to pass those out to friends soon!

In the back of the jack-o-lantern book it has some recipes. We are looking forward to trying the witch's brew drink.

One of the topics that Alex chose for his funschooling journal is learning about food. We found this book, Eat This not that for kids!, in one of the little libraries this week, and I think it might be a fun addition to his food study.

To go along with his Colorado state study we read C is for Centennial, A Colorado Alphabet. Another abc book. See, I just love them! You'll probably see them pop up more here on the blog.

We checked out this book, The Raft, by Jim LaMarche, for Alex's nature journal. It's a lovely book. We both really liked it. Imagine my surprise and happiness at finding it on our own shelf just a day later! I forgot we already owned it!

Movies we watched... 

No really big movies to note this week!

Games we played...

I love playing games, but that doesn't mean I always have the patience or energy to play them with the kids. So, we really don't play them as often as I'd like, but I'm hoping to change that this school year. We have some new games that we just got this week. We also utilized some game time for school too.

We played Asteroid Escape in the van while waiting for Aric to do his piano lesson.

 

We played SkipBo to help warm our brains up before starting school one rough morning. Part of math time too!

 

Alex worked on this space puzzle one evening. I helped him a bit because I love puzzles, and why not? It was fun to build with him.

 

 

I'm cooking...

Nothing very exciting! I made a caesar salad for lunch one day.
 

 That about wraps up our week!