Beginning Again

I could do a huge "catch up" post of what we have been up to since November. But really these three pictures sum it up: outside time when we are able; baking often; art every day. 

We have sort of lost our motivation since the holidays, I think it's the winter and the lack of abundant sunshine. We have been getting together with homeschool friends at least once a week, doing projects at home, lots of reading out-loud, lots of math, practicing reading & writing. 

It all came to a head last week though: our attitudes were bad, I was anxious & frustrated over everything, Marie-Therese had energy that needed to be got out, Veronica was teething (those 2 year molars!) 

Wednesday morning I made an executive decision: vacation. We all needed a few days of break, no formal school, time to do whatever we wanted without me worrying that it was past lunch and we hadn't gotten school done. 

It was a freeing few days. I was more aware and noticed the learning that went on without me doing anything to plan it. I noticed the change in my attitude, I was more laid back and relaxed. This past weekend I took a few hours each day and dedicated it to "teacher in service day". I made lists of things I want to change, to add in, new directions to go, things that we really enjoy that we want to keep. 

One thing I want to begin again is journaling here again. I like having all the pictures in one spot to look back upon with a few words describing what we are up to. There are some changes to our days that I am excited to start implementing and I look forward to sharing them. 

Overall we are REALLY enjoying the homeschooling lifestyle. It is a wonderful fit for our family, learning side by side and following the passions not only of Marie-Therese but Ronnie & I too. 

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.