Back-Tracking

I wanted to catch up on my school weeks here! Before Easter and after Micah's birthday, we had a great time studying India. I am determined to crank out Asia and Australia before we head to DISNEY (!!!!!!YEAH!!!!!) in May. Anyway, we spent a week and a half on India, and will do the same with China. Then I think we can fit Japan, Russia, and Australia into a week each. I love that MFW is actually flexible enough to allow this kind of scheduling to happen. I will say that we are doing A LOT of work each day, and this is teaching me to be way more diligent during the beginning of the year and not to take a month on a segment that was scheduled for 2 weeks! We finally finished our David Livingstone book, and I will be skipping the last two biographies...instead I picked a read aloud for China from the book list and am saving Mr. Popper's Penguins to end our school year with.

Nothing new for the basics...we are just cranking through math and language arts. Eli is enjoying the new Dick and Jane or Benny's Adventures book I place in his bucket each day. And he is just working on printing his letters with our memory verses. Abby will finish her Alpha math book with flying colors. I'm debating whether to do another year in Math U See for her or to switch her to Singapore next year like I did with Zeke. She doesn't seem to have the issues with Math U See like Zeke did...hmmm.... Speaking of Zeke...he's doing great, but we have had to have a lot of discussions about attitudes and Philippians 2:14-16a (we made it our memory verse for last week!). I will always butt heads with him since he and I are SO MUCH alike: rule followers, stubborn, perfectionists!!!! It is good to have the pep talks from my husband that remind me to focus on the important things... character issues are more important than completing a math page or a craft project! Issues are very inconvenient when they occurs during math time and take 45 minutes of discussion and training to solve, but I know it is the right work. :)

Here are our face paintings during our India study. The kids had fun performing a little skit for me after their paintings were done.



Here we are making volcanoes. The funny thing was getting a phone call during this project, answering it, exiting the room, leaving the children with vinegar and baking soda and having a LARGE mess to clean up! But it was OK. They had fun.

We ended our unit on mountains doing this activity suggested in the textbook. I'm pretty sure Zeke was the only one that understood why we were doing this activity.

And over the span of 2 weeks, we fit in a "green craft" activity from the Family Fun magazine. It fit in well with our science lessons on Reducing, Reusing, & Recycling. These fish are made from 2 L pop bottles. Fun!

School Days

Thought I'd give a school update! We are finishing up our 3-4 week study of South America, Brazil, and Rain Forests in My Father's World ECC this week. We made some paper mache masks last week and they are dry, waiting to be painted this week. We plan on having a little Brazilian mini-carnival next week sometime complete with the shirts and masks the kids made. Of course, I've found a few authentic recipes I've got to try out!



Abby is almost done with the first grade book in Sing, Spell, Read and Write. She is an amazingly smart little girl. She informs me that she can do her math "in her head" and doesn't need the blocks (Math-U-See Primer). And she is incredibly cute with her missing two front teeth!



Zeke has an amazing work ethic and gives his all in each subject. I am impressed at his math skills. I think Singapore really pushes him to use logic and mental math. It is getting to the point that I am challenged too! It takes me longer to check his work now, for sure! He is writing a persuasive essay this week in english. He really seems to grasp things quickly and apply what he is learning.

Eli has been really working on his reading, and it is ALL self-motivated. He can read all of the first BOB books and Animal Antics and Playful Pets level 1 books! He read the Macy's sign today at the mall. He said it phonetically "Makys" and I explained that that was a "c" that steals the "s" sound because of that y! It melted my hear to hear him trying to read all the signs he sees. He has no fear and will just give any word a go! I am going to go ahead and start the kindergarten curriculum in Sing, Spell, read and Write after Christmas for him. I'm bored with the stuff I'm doing with him and it isn't challenging him at all. He's ready to read those little stories!

Micah continues to, well, be two. :) He LOVES glueing and painting projects, so I've been trying to let him do a little more of that the last couple of days and it helps keep him out of so much trouble. Just leaves a big mess to clean up!

Here are some samples of our work from the last couple of weeks:

Zeke's Anaconda Report:



Our egg experiment to see how strong arches are (I may be missing something here, but I'm not sure how this fit in with anything we are learning in science right now...but it was listed as an experiment to do):


It held all of these books before breaking!


Eli and Abby drew an illustration of our read aloud, "Jerry Muskrat". I was so impressed by Eli's interpretation of the "merry little west winds": those little swirly lines in the sky!





An example of Zeke's science notebook sheet. He is never very fond of this assignment, but I love his little drawings! This is a Roseate Spoonbill. And I am having real problems with my camera. It will only focus on the left focus box in my viewer; I don't know how to change it! I've got to have Steve change some setting for me...that is why this picture is not the greatest!



I'm REALLY looking forward to the next two weeks to casually finish up some projects (mask making, a rain forest mural to name a few), make lots of homemade ornaments and christmas projects, bake Christmas cookies, visit the library (which we never do any more!). We are going to try to make it to Grand Rapids to take advantage of the Meijer Gardens Christmas trees from around the world display. That will fit in perfectly with our curriculum! Lots of fun and good learning going on here!

And this has just made my night! If you know me well, you know that I love snow!!!! It is a pretty wet snow, so I'm sure it won't be around long, but WE HAVE SNOW, HURRAY!