Weekly Highlights & Review

This week, we got to experience two special events! Thursday morning we went to the play Jack and the Beanstalk put on by Wild Swan Theater. I took my camera, but forgot to put my memory card back after downloading pictures, so no pics :( Then Friday, we went with a few other families from our co-op to the Providence Metropark in Ohio and rode on the Miami-Erie Canal and saw the Ludwig mill. It was a great little trip on a beautiful fall day!

I used the rest of the afternoon Friday to run some much needed errands: getting a long overdue oil change, and getting the boys' hair cut. It was Eli's first time in a barber chair! He loved it!

Before

During

After

Catch-Up on School Reviews!

If I am remembering correctly, we did manage to get two days of school in last week before we all got sick. This week we are catching up, although we have a half-day tomorrow and no school on Friday due to a field trip, so maybe next week will be our catch-up week :)

I had a random twenty minutes yesterday afternoon, so grabbed Eli and Abby to finish up the Nile River model we attempted. I can't find the site where I got the directions for this, but in my recent searches, found another cool model of the Nile River where you actually "flood" the river and have grass seed growing on either side. Too bad I didn't find it when I was looking for models to make! That would have been neat, but it is too late now! At least we got to carve out the irrigation ditches in this model.


We did get to build our sugar cube pyramids last week and Zeke was dismayed at how imperfect the cubes were and frustrated that they would not fit together like they should! He is way too much like me!!! We also made some mummies, which was a fun and quick project! And that last picture is Abby thinking out of the box, as usual. She made dice out of the sugar cubes :)




We have been plugging along at fractions (Zeke), tally marks (Eli), and "money math" (Abby). We just finished an English chapter on nouns and after discussing a very rough English day with Steve, we have decided that Zeke could use some "homework" in the English department. There are some things that he is just not catching on and not remembering like I think he should by now...possessives, proper nouns to name a few. And getting him to write a "more creative" sentence is just painful. Today was a difficult day for homeschooling...I was ready to send them all away to school! But then, I wouldn't get shots like this:

"Mom, it's too sunny at my desk. I can't see anything." "Here, use your sunglasses :)"

Weekly Review in Two Words:

STOMACH FLU!!!!

UGH!!!!

Yes, we had a horrible rendition of the stomach flu last week. We went down like dominoes, including me! We are catching up this week from our sick days last week. I do have quite a few pics to post from the school we did do last week; I will try to post on another night.

My Nine Year Old!

Happy Birthday to Zeke! God made you so amazing! Your maturity this past year has astounded me. You handle things better than I do sometimes! You are so polite, a talented athlete, a hard worker, a kind and caring big brother...Mommy and daddy love you and are so proud of you!

Messy Monday Morning

Here is my house this messy Monday morning. If you happen to visit me every other Tuesday, you would get a completely inaccurate view of my house because mommy's helper comes those days and the house is completely, surface level clean for a whole 10 minutes :)

Most of the time, it is a complete disaster :) Here is what I encountered the first half hour I was downstairs this morning !

A complete bowl of spilled Rice Krispies, which, I am proud to say, I barely batted an eyelash at and completely ignored while I finished dressing and washing my face, drinking my tea, and walking past it a few times until I decided to get the camera out.


My kitchen counter : (

My kitchen sink

My basement

Creation to the Greeks wk 4.5

Well, I stand to be corrected! I have been finding PLENTY of projects to do for Ancient Egypt. Not a surprise, I know. I have gotten some books from the library (based off of the book list in the back of the TM) that have some nice ideas for projects as well as the curriculum's Ancient Egypt book (I can usually find the same projects with simpler directions and steps in other sources). This past week, we worked on a model of the Nile River, which is finally dry and just waiting for some paint :) And we attempted to make a reed boat using directions from a library book. We also made a model of a succah, since I was not up for constructing an actual structure in our backyard (although we are having such beautiful Indian summer weather here, I kind of wish we had so we could be eating lunches outside under a succah structure!!!). The kids have REALLY enjoyed learning the books of the Old Testament and Micah is often wandering around the house singing the song '...Numbers, Dueteronomy..." We used the song off of Wee Sing Bible Songs.

We are plugging along in our core subjects too. Here is Micah working on his letter "E" this week. Eli completed book 3 of the SSRW Raceway book this week. Zeke conquered two-digit multiplication rather quickly, although he still needs lots of drill work. He just needs to be quicker at his basic facts. Abby was introduced to regrouping in math and caught on quickly.



We continue to enjoy our experience at co-op. The most stressful part is trying to reach all 3 of my younger children in time to transition from first to second hour classes. But, thanks to the help of another mom, I think I can manage it easier now without finding Abby crying in the bathroom!


This week are studying mummies and pyramids, discussing the meaning of Sukkoth (we are a little off-schedule with the weeks in the curriculum...), beginning fractions (Zeke), cursive writing (Abby), getting our teeth cleaned, and celebrating birthdays this weekend!

Hope you all have a good week!

Baking Frenzy

Friday night, Steve and Zeke were gone so I had myself a little baking frenzy! I'm glad Steve wasn't home to see the mess I made in the kitchen :) I have to share this recipe with you, because it is the BEST, moistest pumpkin bread you'll ever have! I LOVE it and LOVE to make many batches of it during the fall season! Just don't buy a large can of pumpkin and quadruple the recipe like I did...what a mess! :) Only use a small can of pumpkin and I think you'd have to one and a half times the recipe (or I think I just double it and put in only 1 1/2 cups pumpkin). Enjoy if you have the time!

Pumpkin Bread

1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup water

Mix the above ingredients in your mixer. Then add:

1 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp sald
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp (I actually only use 1/2 tsp) ground cloves

Optional: throw in some mini-chocolate chip morsels!

350 degree oven~Bake in loaf pans or muffin cups. Loaves need about an hour, muffins about 40 minutes...

Weekly Wrap-Up

We had a pretty good week of school. In regards to my last post, I think I am just going to add a few extra Egypt projects of our own. I think I need to be fully immersed in a topic to feel like I did it justice! And I have been waiting to study this period of history for a couple years, so I have been so excited about it...I just need to do a few things of my own! Since we had 2 half days this week, we need to push most of our history assignments back a week anyway, so I will have plenty of room to add in a few projects. We'll see how it goes!

Zeke wrote a personal narrative, which you can read here. He also began two-digit multiplication, which he picked up very fast. It is nice to see him grasp things so quickly because he is building on a good foundation.

Abby also wrote her first paper, and starting regrouping in math. She had a day of intense character training as well :)

Eli continues to plow through his kindergarten math and the first grade English curriculum! I'm not slowing him down! He started counting by tens and adding tens this week. Onto something else next week!

Micah is still enjoying his preschool activities...seems to have a bit of trouble recognizing his letters when I point to them, and we only have A, B, C, and D on his board...I'm not sure if he really doesn't know them, or is trying to be funny...he truly is a clown...Anyway, this week he worked on writing D's, and we made donuts one day for a snack. Fun! Oh, and I did hear him utter "biblos" once when he was playing. This is one of our Greek words we learned in vocabulary a few weeks ago!

Here we are coloring our notebook sheets, dressing up in some Egyptian costumes (Although I can't convince anyone to be a pharoah or Egyptian queen for Halloween, darn!), learning about Upper and Lower Egypt, and how sound the structure of a pyramid is.

Fun field trip

We took a half day this Thursday because it was one of those perfect Michigan fall days. Low-70's sunny, breezy...aaahhhh....we jaunted over to one of our favorite fall stops. I was not going to buy our pumpkins yet since the squirrels and ants love them and often eat them before we even get to carve them, but I couldn't resist! They were huge and not that expensive. And we had the favorite donuts and apple cider--the only time besides camping that I allow myself to eat donuts! And above, the hay maze/tunnel is always a hit!



Here we are enjoying their local farm animals :) (We were looking at pigs--down wind!)



Micah choose about 5 pumpkins, here is one of his finds:

Nice family shot...I've noticed we don't have many of these! Gotta work on that!


Happy Fall Days!!!

The down side to organics...

****warning*****
do not view following picture if you have a really weak stomach!

I went on a local grown kick this summer and had a great time going to the AWESOME Kerrytown Farmer's Market every Wednesday, and have continued the trend this fall by going on Saturday mornings. I love buying my eggs there, fresh fruit from in-state orchards, local lettuce, squash...and plan on putting my order in for a 1/2 a cow with a butcher 25 minutes southwest...but this week, I was reminded of the down side of buying organic:



EEWWW, EEWWW, EEWWW!!!!! YES! That is a HUGE, JUICY WORM!!!!!!!! AAGGGHHH! Unfortunately, the first worms I found were in the broccoli I COOKED the night before! I about tossed my cookies right there at the dinner table when I forked a huge, nice, fresh piece of broccoli and almost put it on my son's plate until I saw the worm. I am still mortified. I will NOT be buying broccoli from the farmer's market anymore. I either need to eat our own, worm free organic broccoli, or buy my favorite pesticide rich, but worm-free broccoli at my local Kroger :) I am still not over this and am noticing how squeamish my stomach is the older I get!