November 2-6

We had a full week!

There was writing stories

coloring pages & talking about our beloved dead for All Souls Day

Poetry tea time where we ate cake we baked and read poems about the autumn fairies

practicing sounding out words and trying to read them

math consisted of graphing last months weather and Halloween candy: sorting, making patterns with, trading and counting

Drawing class with the homeschool co-op

socialization at ballet, drawing class, two playground dates with homeschool friends & chatting with our neighbor

outside time observing leaves, raking & finding all kinds of nature goodies: pieces of bark from the trees, a whole bunch of moss growing on the front steps & different insects

and that is all on top of our usual creating, reading, chores & living that we do!

I have declared today a day off since we all are battling colds (oh there was a building of a town with legos for a few days and then an epic battle between two forces to see who could take it over)

Pumpkins!

This morning I led a pumpkin class for littles with our homeschool co-op. We read a story about pumpkins, did some pumpkin math, decorated pumpkins (with stickers) & made a jack o lantern decoration.

Later this afternoon we did some observing & taking notes about the pumpkin she chose for her jack o lantern. She then sketched out how she wanted to carve it in her journal before writing on the pumpkin itself. We'll carve it on Friday & count how many seeds are in it (goes along with the observation worksheet).

We are planning on finishing up our pumpkin day by watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown after supper!

Catch up post

The other night she spent some time designing and creating her own business cards: Marie-Therese's art class to be held here at our house. With her as the teacher!

This was taken a few Saturday mornings ago. Daddy works Saturday mornings so a lot of weeks we use the morning time to catch up on any school work that we didn't finish over the course of the week.

We've been learning about the states, one state every week & a half or so. The state bird, flower & capital. We are putting together a book that includes a coloring page for each flower & bird. We've also been looking up videos of each bird. Here she and Veronica are watching & pretending to be Ruffed Grouses from Pennsylvania. 

She finished her math workbook last week so we began working with Khan Academy on-line. She'd rather have the workbook so I'm researching those....she really enjoys her math time. And doing math with a superhero cape is even better!

Making up her own Halloween math problems on the white board!

Learning to read is still slow going and sometimes painful. We are going slow, practicing letters & sounding out words. Patience with herself is needed! She gets easily frustrated that it isn't coming easy. I keep assuring her that as long as we keep practicing she WILL get it.

Each Monday is ballet class with Miss. Rachel. This is another highlight of her week!

The other day we went outside for a science experiment that she came up with on her own: put water on a sunny spot of the driveway and a shady spot on the driveway and see which one evaporates quicker. She did the same experiment with the pink paper.

We began going to the new playground near the airport. Homeschool friends; slides & watching the planes land & take off right in front of us make for a very fun morning each week!!!

Fall Festival

Last Friday was the homeschool Fall Festival at Frerichs Farm in Warren. There was pumpkin painting; scarecrow building; a hayride; searching for treasure in the sand; running around & playing with new friends; an overall very fun time!! 

Handwork: nature purses

Last week we used the pattern from the Martha Stewart website to make simple felt nature purses. I did most of the cutting out but Marie-Therese did most of the sewing, decorating the leaves, picking out yarn & buttons. She enjoyed her first taste of "real" sewing. Over the next few months we have plans to sew using the machine, to learn to knit (next week we have a how to spin yarn class at the homeschool community center!) and other hand craft projects!

Weather: Snow

We are working on a mini weather "unit" this month. Marie-Therese was gifted the set of Weather Fairies so we are reading them a-loud at night with Daddy and then focusing on the specific weather that is talked about during the day. So far we have covered snow & wind (finishing up wind in the next day or two. A separate post on that the beginning of next week).

For snow we read through a few how snowflakes are formed books from the library; in that book they talked about the molecules that make up snowflakes & how they differ from salt & sugar molecules. So we looked at grains of salt & sugar using Daddy's jewelry loop.

Then we made crystals using pipe cleaners & Borax soap. That was a fun project (taught her to have some patience with the process!) we looked at the crystals and noted how they started out slow and then grew the longer we let them sit in the borax solution. She has plans to make more as Christmas gifts!

We also are tracking the weather each day. I printed out an October calendar and each morning we observe what the weather is, Marie-Therese looks up the temperature in the weather app & records both on the calendar. 

Poetry Tea Time

I found an on-line homeschool site, Brave Writer, that promotes Poetry Teatime each Tuesday. This has become a highlight of our week!! So far we've done it for three weeks (I don't have a picture of the second week). Tuesday morning we bake (or buy) a special treat. We've made chocolate chip cookies, lemon sugar cookies & cinnamon rolls. We then make some tea, light a candle and enjoy a nice time of chatting, eating & reading some poems. So far I've printed out poems and we've colored them in, we are planning on putting together a binder with the poems....making our own poetry book! The first week we read & colored poems about Autumn; the second week I read some animal poems from an Eric Carle book; this week we read some wind poems.

Marie-Therese has seemed to really enjoy this time (me too!) baking, tea, some art time & read a-loud. It's a great tradition that we all are enjoying!

Rhode Island Adventure Day: Hike at Trustom Pond

On Columbus Day we went on our second Rhode Island Adventure Day. A hike with Grumpy at Trustom Pond in South Kingstown. Both girls walked the trails (almost 2 miles!). There was practicing reading maps; noticing plants & ferns; we saw a green grass snake; looked through the binoculors to see birds floating on the pond; had lunch and of course stopped to sketch a few things we saw!

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday

I couldn't remember the password to up load pictures hence no posting the end of last week!

We were busy. On Wednesday, the first day of Fall we headed off to Goddard Park for the morning. We climbed trees, hiked, looked at the water, ran in the big fields & took some time to observe flowers & trees and sit and sketch in our journals for a little bit. We decided that Wednesday's would be dedicated to nature!

We watched as much of the Pope's first visit to the United States as we could. This led to many questions (why does he wear those hats; why does he carry a stick; how come he's so important?). It made my heart happy to hear her ask "is Pope Francis on TV right now & can I watch him?"

She was thrilled that he went to Pennsylvania as that's the state we are learning about right now. We began a new notebook....I am printing out each states Flower & Bird with some facts on it and she is coloring them as close as she can to the real thing. At the end of the 50 (or so) weeks we'll have a state notebook! 

We finished up our dinosaur eggs by painting them; she spent countless hours clipping pictures from magazines making collages of restaurants, weddings, menu's, flowers. Except she's not gluing them down "just in case I need them for something else." So we have piles of little clippings all over the place!

A big passion of her's right now is baking. She loves to play restaurant or bakery with Veronica coming up with new recipes & dishes. On Friday this led to making oatmeal muffins and then spending the afternoon writing up her own recipes of new meals she invented. I have high hopes that this project will turn into her wanting to take over the cooking duties ;-)

And of course little sister is with us every step of the way! Whether it be getting outside exploring, sitting at the table coloring/doing school work, dancing, or playing at our feet while we do things (or elbows trying to "help" cook) she is on this journey with us!

All of this doesn't include the "usual" things we do each day: always math, read a-louds, prayers/talking about our faith, some type of writing and of course the daily chores she helps out with. We have full days of learning & life. Some days are fuller with activities & outside fun. Other days are slower paced with lots of free time for imagination, outside time & play. 

We are finding a very good balance as we move along. Things have already changed a bit from what I had envisioned but for the better. We have dedicated days of the week: nature, baking, handwork, art but I have stopped giving them a dedicated day (i.e. Tuesday was supposed to be baking....baking seems to be happening on Friday's, etc).

Monday & Tuesday

Yesterday was a usual day....math, reading, practicing writing, playing outside, running a few errands. Ballet class & then some state work with Daddy after supper.

Today was morning math & writing in her Elsa costume. She is really picking up words here and there to learn to read. If she allows herself the freedom to relax she would pick it up a bit sooner. I'm not rushing her. I know she will do it when she is ready.

We went to the homeschool community center for a puppet theater making workshop. A morning of friends and art! 

We then came home for lunch, some read a-loud and rest. After rest time we made paper mache dinosaur eggs. Once they dry (which could take some time....there was a lot of glue used! A good lesson in needing to be patient for eggs to hatch) we will paint them and then "hatch" them at some point in our dinosaur unit.

We then went outside for a few minutes to watch the last sunset of summer!