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!!!

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).

Second week re-cap

This week was busy & I didn't get a chance to update here each day. But I took pictures!

From Wednesday through Saturday there was:

**ballet

**work at Nana's: math, writing & more Delaware work (naming the state flower, bird, nickname & year it came into the union) we also colored in the state flag

**some engineering work: taking a pen apart then diagraming the pieces & how she thinks they may go together. She spent quite some time doing this. I might have to find some small electronic things that she can take apart to investigate

**Thursday was a lot of time at the new whiteboard

**she made up her own math problems
**practiced reading & writing the sight words: A, AND & AWAY
**a trip to the library and grocery store
**Friday was helping with laundry; lots of playing; lots of coloring; more practicing writing; math work
**Saturday was our first "Rhode Island Adventure Day." We took a trip down to the port of Galilee. We watched the Block Island Ferry come in and then go out. Built sandcastles in the sand; dipped our feet in the water; watched many fishing boats come in and out; tried to get up close to the Point Judith Lighthouse only to find that it was fenced off for repairs.

I just finished planning out our coming week, more constellation fun, some dinosaur fun, some fun science experiments to try, beginning our nature study, ballet, and some get togethers and play dates!

Fifth Day

Today we spent the morning playing at a local playground with people from our homeschool group

We got home just after lunch & everyone was tired. So we watched one show & then Veronica went for a nap and Marie-Therese went upstairs for rest time: she spent her time up there making clothes for her paper dolls princesses that she made at the beginning of the week

After an hour or so she came downstairs to do some table time: she worked in her math book....today we began subtraction

She finished her Book About Me

Began a September calendar....she is planning on drawing one thing we do each day in each square of the month

Right now she and Daddy are learning about our first state: Delaware. They found it on the map; he is reading to her about it from a book; they are writing down the state flower, bird, capital & motto (I think motto). His plan is to work through each state of the union with her this year in the order that they came into the union.

Today was a good day to help us realize that "school" doesn't just happen in the morning. There is no set time for it to happen. Most of what I would call our "formal" work happened starting after 4 this afternoon. 

Our first week went great and we all are excited for next week: we are going to do some things with learning about constellations. She is excited to get outside after dark and see if she can find some!

****Don't think we are forgetting Veronica! She is right by our side while we do our work. Usually she is sitting at the table with us coloring in her coloring (or on the floor like right now....while they are doing their state work she is to the side of them coloring).