The highs and lows of a homeschool lifestyle
This week has not gone as planned. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder yanking fence posts out of my garden to prep for winter. As I rested with a heat pack on my back I had grand illusions of homeschooling from the couch and perhaps even getting *more* than our regularly scheduled program accomplished. Instead it happened like this: I sat down, immediately had three boys trying to volley for the spots next it me, jostling, bumping, wiggling, so much movement. In the end we played one of our favorite clean up games, 10 Minutes to Win It, upon the completion of which I told them to go do screens. Tuesday was a repeat, except I hadn't slept well, and was extra sore from having my back worked on, so we skipped chores even, just fed animals and resumed our screen binge. So, therefore we have missed our Thursday deadline to write up our blog, and it is 3:15 on a Friday and still have Lego Robotics to accomplish...and it isn't looking very positive as my back isn't constantly hurting, however I made an attempt to catch up on housework and am now paying for it. What we did accomplish in academics is below:
Tuesday night we attended our second night of Cub Scouts. The boys are LOVING it, especially the part where they each have their own group and are not vying for attention from the same adults. Michael is a Bear and is studying outdoor survival skills right now, starting with how to set up a tent last week and knot tying this week. Emmet is a Wolf and both weeks has been working on healthy meal preparation and even gets to create a meal to share with his den next week. Avery is a Lion and I am leading his den. Currently we just trying to figure out how it all works, however next week we are scheduled to study first aid skills for 5 year olds. Should be rather interesting.
Wednesday we jumped back into our regularly scheduled program, starting with Chapter 7 of Story of the World: Middle Ages, and continued learning about Muslim faith and Islam culture. The story continued with Muhammed gathering followers and taking over Mecca. We grabbed a few more books on the subject yesterday at the library to read.
Avery did lesson 6 and 7 of All About Pre-Reading covering the letters F and G and playing more rhyming games. The older two did their lesson in All About Reading, learning the rules about the letter Y.
Our nature studies focused on ponds this week, which worked out perfectly as our library trip took us to one of our favorite locations (we are lucky to have about 10 libraries in our district within twenty minutes of us), upon which location has a beautiful pond full of wildlife and flora to explore. The boys marveled at the overflow section, first rather confused as there was no evidence of water making to under the bridge and into the dry beds, but it didn't take long for them to connect the dots and conclude how horrible it would be if the library flooded (those poor books!). We found some awesome library books about ponds. Jo McDonald Finds a Pound was a favorite, and I really enjoyed Pond Walk, a cute story about a mom and child observing a pond, but with tons of information packed into the story. The boys drew pictures of ponds, including three plants or animals one might find.
Village Home this week had the boys creating landfills in Engineering. Michael's group actually broke down the costs of landfills, both from a money stand point and environmental. Michael continued his study of seeds in Garden club, and although Emmet is enjoying Taekwondo, Avery has asked to drop out. You just never know what they will find interesting until they try it out.
Fiber arts has not gone as I had planned. We should be studying crochet, but just haven't committed to it yet. Grammy gifted us some embroidery supplies and the boys, having done stitching before, jumped on the opportunity to create. Emmet made a man, Avery stitched the straightest stitches i have ever seen, and Michael got to busy thinking up ideas and never started. I found a wooden mini loom for only thirty dollars on Amazon, so adding that to our school supplies soon so we can try our hand at that. Next week we will visit an alpaca farm and learn about the process to make yarn.
Despite taking two days "off" schooling (one never really does stop learning tho, do they?), we managed to fit quite a bit in, including our writing books, math books, and playing our math game Prodigy. We also planted about 200 flower bulbs and went to the ballet to see SOAR. Avery's tinker crate came too, and all three boys worked together to create a fun toy showing how pistons work! Overall not a bad week. Now, lets hope my shoulder hurry ups and heals so we can get even more done next week. ;)
P.S. Ten Minutes To Win It is played as follows: walk through the room or area in need of cleaning and create a list of simple, quick tasks that need accomplished. Such as "place books back on shelf", "clothes to laundry room", "10 toys in toy box", "dust bookshelf", "recycling", "shoes", etc. Start a 10 minute timer and give each kid a first task, as the complete tasks cross them off the list and assign a new task. I have also written them down on slips of paper and placed them in a hat or bowl and pulled them at random. Somehow a timer and a goal, with short easy to accomplish tasks, really gets them focused. We can do a good deal of damage to a messy room in just ten minutes we are focused!
Tuesday night we attended our second night of Cub Scouts. The boys are LOVING it, especially the part where they each have their own group and are not vying for attention from the same adults. Michael is a Bear and is studying outdoor survival skills right now, starting with how to set up a tent last week and knot tying this week. Emmet is a Wolf and both weeks has been working on healthy meal preparation and even gets to create a meal to share with his den next week. Avery is a Lion and I am leading his den. Currently we just trying to figure out how it all works, however next week we are scheduled to study first aid skills for 5 year olds. Should be rather interesting.
Wednesday we jumped back into our regularly scheduled program, starting with Chapter 7 of Story of the World: Middle Ages, and continued learning about Muslim faith and Islam culture. The story continued with Muhammed gathering followers and taking over Mecca. We grabbed a few more books on the subject yesterday at the library to read.
Avery did lesson 6 and 7 of All About Pre-Reading covering the letters F and G and playing more rhyming games. The older two did their lesson in All About Reading, learning the rules about the letter Y.
Our nature studies focused on ponds this week, which worked out perfectly as our library trip took us to one of our favorite locations (we are lucky to have about 10 libraries in our district within twenty minutes of us), upon which location has a beautiful pond full of wildlife and flora to explore. The boys marveled at the overflow section, first rather confused as there was no evidence of water making to under the bridge and into the dry beds, but it didn't take long for them to connect the dots and conclude how horrible it would be if the library flooded (those poor books!). We found some awesome library books about ponds. Jo McDonald Finds a Pound was a favorite, and I really enjoyed Pond Walk, a cute story about a mom and child observing a pond, but with tons of information packed into the story. The boys drew pictures of ponds, including three plants or animals one might find.
Village Home this week had the boys creating landfills in Engineering. Michael's group actually broke down the costs of landfills, both from a money stand point and environmental. Michael continued his study of seeds in Garden club, and although Emmet is enjoying Taekwondo, Avery has asked to drop out. You just never know what they will find interesting until they try it out.
Fiber arts has not gone as I had planned. We should be studying crochet, but just haven't committed to it yet. Grammy gifted us some embroidery supplies and the boys, having done stitching before, jumped on the opportunity to create. Emmet made a man, Avery stitched the straightest stitches i have ever seen, and Michael got to busy thinking up ideas and never started. I found a wooden mini loom for only thirty dollars on Amazon, so adding that to our school supplies soon so we can try our hand at that. Next week we will visit an alpaca farm and learn about the process to make yarn.
Despite taking two days "off" schooling (one never really does stop learning tho, do they?), we managed to fit quite a bit in, including our writing books, math books, and playing our math game Prodigy. We also planted about 200 flower bulbs and went to the ballet to see SOAR. Avery's tinker crate came too, and all three boys worked together to create a fun toy showing how pistons work! Overall not a bad week. Now, lets hope my shoulder hurry ups and heals so we can get even more done next week. ;)
P.S. Ten Minutes To Win It is played as follows: walk through the room or area in need of cleaning and create a list of simple, quick tasks that need accomplished. Such as "place books back on shelf", "clothes to laundry room", "10 toys in toy box", "dust bookshelf", "recycling", "shoes", etc. Start a 10 minute timer and give each kid a first task, as the complete tasks cross them off the list and assign a new task. I have also written them down on slips of paper and placed them in a hat or bowl and pulled them at random. Somehow a timer and a goal, with short easy to accomplish tasks, really gets them focused. We can do a good deal of damage to a messy room in just ten minutes we are focused!
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