Weeks 11-12 Getting Busy!

Over the past 2 weeks we have gotten so busy.  We are having a blast!

Madeline and Duncan continue to love all of their outside classes.  Although, I don't feel that gymnastics is as much of a joy this year as it was last year.  Madeline continues with ballet but I fear this might be her last year.  She seems to want to try drama but I fear what that would do to her self esteem.  I have heard stories from friends about their child not getting into a play and then having to take tons of extra classes just to give them a fighting chance to get in.  Sounds expensive and time consuming.  We will continue to let her do the drama camp in the summer I believe.

Anyway, as far as school, Madeline's favorite subjects continue to be art, science, and history (Veritas Press).  She often does 2 lessons of history in one sitting.  Last week in art we did potato paintings of our family.

We didn't have any peach colored paint so she got creative.   I love how she put a 49ers shirt on daddy and a superman shirt on Duncan.  I'm very proud of that painting!  I might even have to frame that one.

We finished up birds in science (finally).  Madeline learned about the components of an egg.  She learned that you need a LOT of pressure to break an egg.

She wasn't able to break it but she sure tried!  The kids also painted their bird houses.  The directions say to hang them in March so they are now sitting on my dining room table until I figure out where to store them until then.

Lets hope that the birds appreciate the brightness of their potential homes!

Madeline continues to attempt cursive writing.  Some letters are easier than others.  She has a really hard time with f but a pretty easy time with i.

In First Language Lessons she learned how to write a letter and address an envelope.

Here she is addressing an envelope to my cousin.

Madeline finished up multiplication and division of 7 and started on the 8 family.  Some days are easier than others.  I'll be glad to take a break from multiplying for a while, hopefully soon.

We finished up Egypt in our Sonlight history while she continues with that in Veritas Press.  I might have to hold back on Sonlight for a little while so she can catch up with VP.  I'll have to think about that for a while.

Our circle time plans sort of stalled.  I promised myself that this year I would not sign us up for so many things.  Well that went out the window so I feel like we rush school a bit therefore skipping circle time.  I really have good intentions.  Maybe next  year.  There are just so many tempting activities!

Duncan is getting some time of his own.  I try to take him to story time at the library on Monday while Madeline is in her coop classes.  I also take him to Coffee Break with me on Tuesday where he gets to learn all about God and do some crafts.  It's not really mommy and me time unless you count the car ride, but at least it's concentrated Duncan time.

We have some fun activities coming for week 13.  I hope to have time to write about them at the end of the week.

Week 10 wrap up

I finally got around to taking a "first" day of school picture this week. It was our first day of Mosaic Coop so it's legit. 

 2nd Grade

Madeline started her week with 2 classes at Mosaic.  She is taking On the High Seas and Super Powers this semester.  Oh the High Seas is about ocean travel.  Super Powers is all about how things work.  She enjoyed both classes.  Hopefully that continues.

We car schooled Latin and learned the terms for mother, father, sister, brother this week.  After lunch it was time for her favorite, Art.  She learned how to draw clowns this week.  The art teacher had an unnatural collection of clowns.  I've never seen so many creepy clowns in one place.

The long blue thing is a tie.

Tuesday she took her spelling pre test and spelled all but 1 word correctly.  Unfortunately by Friday she spelled 2-3 words incorrectly.  Silly girl.

In science, Madeline finished her notebooking journal pages on nests.  She had to match the type of nest to the picture.

Madeline learned math facts of 6 this week.  She did both multiplication and long division using these facts.

She completed her book of the poem The year this week. She is very proud of her illustrations.

This week she will start to learn the poem.

We skipped ahead in the handwriting book and started cursive.  She has been begging me to do this and I finally caved.  There was really no reason not to.

making L's and E's

I ordered Owl Pellets to dissect for science this week.  I also am contemplating making a mummy of some sort for history.  I think we will move on from Egypt soon and want to sneak that in at some point.  We finished reading Owls in the Family and started Henry Huggins for read alouds.  Madeline continues to read about 1 chapter book per day in her readers. I need to find some harder books.

Madeline also started Ballet this week.  Our schedule is now a bit crazy. I hope we make it through the semester in one piece.

Where a Kid Can be a Kid!

Potty training.  It's the phrase that strikes fear into boy moms (and maybe girl moms) everywhere. I seriously HATE potty training my boy.  Madeline was SO easy.  She was trained, night and day, in like one day.  Seriously.  I KNEW I was in for it with Duncan.  There was no way it would be that easy, no way.  I was right.  We have been working with him since he turned 2.  He was not having any of it.  He would arch his back and make it impossible to put him on the potty.  We gave it a rest for a while.  The plan (God laughed) was to take a week during Christmas break last year and train him.  The Flu.  Yep we all got that nasty flu that went around last winter the very week we had open for training.

You see when you are homeschooling older kids they have activities during the day that you need to bring them to.  We literally had one week open last winter that we could hang out around the house. Literally, one week.  The flu struck that very week.  Ok, we said I guess we'll try again in May when the activities have finished for the year. 

Along comes May.  We wanted so badly for Duncan to be trained before our trip out to California at the end of June (God laughed AGAIN).  Enter The Bribes.  Yep we bribed him.  We started with small things like an M&M.  Didn't work.  We then brought out the small Tranformers.  They worked a little.  Then we moved to bigger Transformers.  Ah finally he was PEE trained.  Yes we had to break this into 2 steps, #1 and #2 (haha).    This brought us to about June I think.  He still refused, REFUSED, to poop in the potty.

Big guns came out.  I NEVER wanted to go to this place, NEVER EVER.  Mickey Mouse is my kind of mouse.  Chuck E. Cheese is NOT.  When I think of that place I shudder.  Ewwwwwww is all I could think.  But, I did it.  I told my son that if he pooped in the potty 10 times I would take him and his sister.

Day 1 he somehow managed to poop 3 different times in the potty.  Uh oh, I thought, I should have made it 20 or more times.  Then he didn't poop in the potty for 2 MONTHS.  Yep he pooped on the floor, in his underwear and even down the stairs.  It was not pretty.

About 4 weeks ago the light bulb went off over my head.  Duncan had been locking himself in his room for about a month to do his business.  What if we were to put his potty in his room?  Success!  He could now run in there and do his business in private.

Within about 7 days he earned his trip to Chuck E. Cheese.  I took the kids there this week.  And you know what?  It wasn't bad. It was dare I say FUN?!  Of course all of the kids were in school so we practically had the place to ourselves.  I'm sure that helped.  I may even take them back some time.*

The kids won about 200 tickets and were able to get a couple of $.05 prizes each.  As you can see in the pictures I was not exaggerating when I said it was empty.  Duncan still has some work to go before I consider him totally trained but we're finally getting there.**

*if school is in session and it's a nice day outside

** The day after our Chuck E. Cheese trip Duncan decided to pee in the potty.  After peeing he went to his drawer got a pair of underwear, put them on, and proceeded to poop in them.  Seriously. 

Week 9 in review.

WOW!  One quarter of our school year is complete.  That is hard to believe especially since most of the country has just been in school for a week or two.  We accomplished 4 days of school this week.  We schooled Wednesday thru Saturday.   Starting our week on Tuesday just didn't happen because of our week away last week.

Madeline accomplished all that was assigned. 

History
Ancient Egypt continues to be the topic in both Sonlight and Veritas Press.  I need to schedule a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago to check out their Egypt exhibit.  We have yet to talk about mummies so will wait for the field trip until after that happens.

Science
Bird nests were the topic of the week.  Madeline learned about cup nests (most common) and 4 or 5 other types that I can't remember at the moment.  She also learned why there are blue and green bird eggs (to sort of camouflage them against the sky and leaves of the trees their in.  I'm getting a little tired of talking about birds.

Math
Long division was the task of the week.  She also completed the end of unit review.  The 3 weeks we took to practice math facts helped tremendously but she will be practicing them daily for quite a while I suspect.

Language Arts
Helping verbs were the continues subject in First Language Lessons 2.  She also completed week 10 of Writing with Ease 1.  Spelling was U sounds this week.  Those words can be tricky.  She received 100% on her test at the end of the week.  Normally I have her do a written test so she can see her mistakes as she writes them.  She insisted on doing the test orally this week.  I was very impressed!

Reading
We continued reading Owls in the Family during school time and started Little House on the Prairie at bedtime.  Madeline finished the Paintbrush Kid, some library books, and started the Littles.

We did not get to Bible (printer ink was out so couldn't print the pages), art, or Latin this week.

Duncan did some cutting in his Kumon book, listened to a couple of read alouds from Sonlight P3/4, worked with pattern blocks, and did some adding and subtracting within the number 4.

Highlights for this week were a trip to Chuck E Cheese and the Brookfield Zoo.  It was so nice going to both of these places while they were practically empty.  I love back to school!

Vacation!

We just returned from a week out east visiting my sister and brother-in-law.  They live near New York City so we were able to spend a day there.  We also headed to the Jersey Shore for a beach day.  The kids always have a blast when we're out there!

As soon as we arrived at their house the kids were able to play with their 1 yr old "cousin" Lambeau. Madeline and Duncan desperately want a dog.  We visited a very nice pet store while there.  It's a good thing Eric wasn't with us or I'm sure we'd have brought home a dog. 

 Duncan and Autie Kim

 Lambeau

We had planned to go to the shore on Tuesday but Duncan seemed to have some sort of virus so we held off.  We made it to the beach on Wednesday.  Rain was threatening but we had a really good time.  The main objective at the beach was shell collection.  Madeline has a business selling sea shells.  She was low on stock so the beach was a priority this trip.  Or course they wanted to play in the sand too.

 Looking for sea shells

 sand castle building

 At one point some military planes flew really low right over the beach.  That was a little nerve wracking. I think the entire beach went silent when this happened.

Duncan loved the foot wash station.  I think he would have spent the entire day there if we let him!

On Friday we headed into the City.  All of us had our first experience on the NYC subway.  It was gross!  Everyone was packed in like sardines.  It was also very hot underground waiting for the train.  The first train we got on was going the wrong way.  We had to then cross then street and enter on the other side.  Let's just say we didn't ride the subway again.  The EL in Chicago is so much easier and not nearly as hot! So, we rode the subway to Columbus circle and then had to find our way around Central Park. Our first mission was to find the Balto statue.  Madeline had read about Balto last year and fell in love with him.  She's been planning this activity for almost a year.

 We then happened upon a neat little playground.

 We kept walking and found a pool with remote control boats.

 Captain Duncan

 Uncle Chris, kids, and Grandma

 Grandma even got a turn.

 Because he's cute.

 Alice in Wonderland

We finished up Central Park and decided to find FAO Swartz.  It was a long walk almost back to where we started.  Neither of the kids have seen the movie Big yet but when they do they'll be glad we found this.

The store is massive.  We used to have one in Chicago but it wasn't nearly this big.  We could have spent all day here.  After the piano we found the Lego section.

The kids each got to pick out a couple of toys.  It was a very hard decision.  We then headed out for our next adventure.  Top of the Rock!  This was another mile or so away.  We did a lot of walking.  Top of the Rock is in the Rockefeller Center.  The elevator ride up is really neat.  The ceiling is glass so you can see the elevator structure along with disco lights the entire way.  The ride to the 67th floor takes 45 seconds.  There are 3 levels of the observation deck.

 1st level

 2nd level

 Top of the Rock!

 Sibling Love ;)

 Favorite Smile

We were wiped out after our long trek through New York.  We took it easy and just enjoyed family the rest of our visit.  I think Madeline is already planning the activities for our next visit.  I'm sure it will include a visit to the Statue of Liberty and maybe some whale watching.