Our Week - End of April

Last week of April!  The calendar year is 1/3 over, the school year has only a month left.  Time is flying!

We've got a new computer based learning program that Jack and Katie are working on.   Review coming in June.

If you missed it, we had a BIRTHDAY this week!  Even though she's 9 now, she's such a little peanut that I just last month bought her a high backed booster carseat instead of her harness carseat.

This was a project that we started last week, but didn't finish until the weekend.

Our art DVD called it Figure 7 in Gold.  I believe Jack used bronze paint.  Hannah used gold, but our gold is a bit see through, even after a couple of coats.

We also made mandalas on Bristol board.  This was Jack and Hannah's first time working with a compass.

Exploring the concept of Radial Design.  I tried to explain that if you cut the finished circle in half, both sides should be exactly the same.

Perfect timing for Jack's new headphones we got free to review.  He's using them while he does his computer work.  They help cut out the distractions of the world around him, and keep the overall noise of the house down since we're not ALL hearing his computer programs.

Paul was trying to get Luke to clap.  After about 10 minutes of Paul clapping Luke's hands then clapping his own hands to try to get Luke to mimic him, Luke did actually clap a couple of times.  I haven't been able to get him to repeat it, though.

He has an appointment with a new pediatric neurologist next week.  It will be interesting to see if they've ever heard of Luke's condition or not.

We're pushing through our curriculum at a slightly faster pace than laid out in the manual, in order to finish when the high school kids do.  That spring break evaluation page I filled out was a big wake up call for me.  We're going to start trying to do at least one spelling lesson on the weekend, and when we do second dictation day (the 5th and final day of the passage) we're going to "double up" and do A of the next passage, too.  Not back to back, but in the same day.  Taking time off for our LOE Essentials review was good for all of us, but it's come back to bite me in the butt, now that we're left with more book than year.  I don't want Jack and Hannah to have to do summer school.

Katie will need to do summer learning work because we've been really relaxed about her Kindergarten year, but she won't put up a fuss like Jack would.  She's on week 23 of 30 weeks in Math and week 14 out of 36 in Spelling.  She'll finish her Handwriting book, though, and she's using up several leftover Kumon workbooks that Jack never finished when he was little.  It's nice to clean those off the shelves.  I think she's got Mazes, Numbers, and Dot to Dot going right now.  The cutting practice book that the photo above is from was actually Sam's when he was in K.  Definitely time to get that used up!  (He's 17 now.)

Our review of Kwik Stix will be live on Tuesday.  Be sure to come back and check out all the masterpieces the kids have been making with them and enter to win a set of your own!

In God and the History of Art, we were reminded again to practice drawing lines and eggs to gain greater control.  We did it in pencil early this week, and then today, for some extra practice, I had them draw lines and eggs with the Kwik Stix for a different feel.  

This doesn't sound like much, but these Post-it flags make me so happy.  We use them as bookmarks in all the many books we have going around here at any given time for school.  After a while, they lose their stickiness and have to be tossed.

About a month ago, I used the last one out of a pack I bought 2 school years ago.  A couple days ago, I got an email from Staples with an extra $5 bonus coupon.  Plus I had a $5 Staples reward coupon.  So I took my 2 $5 coupons and went to Staples today.  I picked up these flags, on sale for $10 (reg. $14.95, and even higher on Amazon).  While we were there, I picked up another 10 pack of poster board for the high schoolers, since Eli recently used the last one, and I got a 3 pack of half size poster board, since sometimes their school projects don't call for a full sheet.  Oh, and a little treat from the checkout candy display.  $8 bucks out the door.  We actually saved $11.90 since the cashier scanned an additional coupon behind the register.

Sometimes it really is the little things.  I know every time I open the drawer and pull one out I'm going to smile.


This post may be linked up at these linky parties.

Thanks for clicking for us!