Our Week with Wacky Weather

Monday was a high of 90* and Friday was thunderstorms and a high of 63*.  Welcome spring.  I'm glad I didn't take all the long sleeved stuff out of Hannah and Katie's closet when I started bringing out the short sleeved clothes.

So you remember how last week we got a new dryer?  Well, I asked the delivery guy to leave the box for Katie and Hannah to play in.

Only Eli totally claimed it and he and Jack made a tank out of it and were shooting stomp rockets and nerf guns from within it.

Maybe when we can replace the dishwasher the girls will get a box.  (Although, now that I think of it, when we replaced the dishwasher in the old house, there was no box.)

This week's lesson on our Home Art Studio DVD was the color wheel out of oil pastels.

Last year, we painted the color wheel, but blending oil pastels is a bit more challenging.

Even though this was is "fourth grade" disc, I find that most projects appeal to a wide range of ages and abilities.  Katie is 5, and although she didn't exactly blend the the overlapping areas, she did get the experience of working with pastels.

See the water in the bag?  That's tree sweat.  We learned about transpiration this week.

The leaves' stomata (which breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen) release excess water back into the air.

This week is Terra Nova testing at the high school.  Since the seniors aren't tested, Sam has late start, and has been home until 10 am most mornings.

This gives Sam free time in the mornings, some of which was spent playing with younger siblings.  Katie is "fishing" for Sam with links.

This coming week, I'm going to be posting a review for some art supplies that we've been thoroughly enjoying!

In God and the History of Art, the kids reproduced "The Bird Cage."

The idea being to blend colors and capture realistic details.

This book is part of our My Father's World, Exploration to 1850 curriculum.

It's nice to have art related readings and projects that go along with what we're learning about in history, but some of the work is a little beyond my artists.

You know, it's funny.  I make these rice trays for Katie, since they're designed for toddler/preschooler play, and everybody ends up playing with them.  In fact, even Paul picked it up while we were talking in the school room one day.  Jack has developed a game where he'll ask someone to hide a lid under the rice, and then he'll search for it using a magnifying glass and the dig tool from his bug excavating kit.

The Magnatiles continue to be a favorite around here.  The boys like to build structures and drop "bombs" of more Magnatiles on them to see how the buildings collapse.  I'm calling this hands on engineering.

We got outside to do leaf classification just one day before the weather turned into rainy thunderstorms.

I brought Lukey out with us to pet the grass and rock in the sunshine.

The cat answers me when I meow at him.  I hope I'm not saying something offensive.

This was actually a pretty interesting project, where we looked at how the leaves are situated on the plant, what shape the leaves were, what kind of veins they have, and what sort of edge they have.  It's really made me pay more attention to all the variety in plants we see when we're out and about.

My teens' school has uniforms, but they allow their athletes to dress up for game days.  I thought Brianna looked particularly cute this morning as she headed out the door.  Her game will probably get cancelled, as the weather is icky, but it's nice to get a break from the polo shirts once in a while.

Now that we're back to our normal curriculum, we're moving along nicely.  We got 6 days of work done this week.  I need to absorb a week of work by the end of the school year if we're going to finish when the big kids do, so I'm hoping we can keep up this pace.

Fortunately, we still make the time to bird walk.  Today, Jack asked me how pencils were made, so we googled it, and watched a rather interesting video.  I love it when I get to learn something new right alongside the children.  We may need to watch some of the other How It's Made videos, too.

Next week, we'll get into the dawn of the steam engine and machinery, touch briefly on China, continue our state by state look at the USA, and begin learning about Napoleon!  Sounds fascinating!

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Our Week with Progress in the Sewing Room

We spent a day at Shriners again this week.  Fortunately, both girls' legs are good now, so we should be able to go a couple months before needing to go in for growth adjustments.  I don't like appointments cutting into our school hours, but I'm grateful for the technology that allows my girls to walk.

Another field trip with Daddy.  Paul took the children to a vendor show.  Yes, my children are standing under a fire engine.

Confession:  This trip didn't actually happen during this week.  But since the pictures were on Paul's camera, I just got them.

I wish Lukey could appreciate how cool it is that he gets to ride in fire engines.

And here's a significant part of the reason the kids got to go.  Swag bags.

We celebrated our anniversary recently.  Paul took me to Ikea and we brought home boxes.

The boxes went into the sewing room, which I've been working on (slowly!) the last few months.  You can see before pictures here.

Paul assembled the 6 million Ikea pieces and produced...

This!  A narrower sewing table (meaning I won't have to sew with my toes to reach the foot pedal!) with drawers on both sides!  I've amassed an embarrassing amount of thread.  Most of the drawers are now full of thread, which frees up some wall space for part 2 of this project (which will come around Mother's Day), the other side of the room.

The center machine is my embroidery machine, which doesn't usually go on the table, but since my sewing machine was at the spa for a tune up, it's sitting in it's place for the picture.  Now my sewing machine is home, and it's time to start churning out projects again!

We're starting to learn about the 50 states, so I had the kids do our GeoToys puzzle of North America.  Jack ended up doing most of it.  Not because Hannah couldn't, but because he wasn't feeling like sharing.

When we learned that Massachusetts is a major grower of cranberries, I remembered the Curiosity Quest DVD we reviewed that talks about cranberries, so we pulled that out to watch.

Hannah has finished this year's math book!  So what happens when there's more "year" than book?

You start next year's math book!  I figure, if we get the opportunity to review a math program next school year, she can take time off from her book without falling behind.

I got a chance to sew, so I made Hannah red bike shorts for under a navy & white striped dress.  Katie will wear Hannah's old shorts from last year.

One of the big things that happened this week is that the dryer stopped working.  On Monday.  Paul took it apart and decided it was time for a new one.  So Tuesday, he went to the appliance store and ordered one.  To be delivered on Saturday.

With 10 people in the house, I was a little concerned about being without a dryer all week, but the backup hasn't been too bad, actually.  I did about 5 loads today (starting the minute the delivery guy left) and I'm almost caught up.

Brianna's team won 10-0 this week!  She's enjoying soccer.  I'm really proud of her.  She's never played before this year, and she's just jumped right in and done great.

I just realized I have absolutely no art to show for this week!  We watched a segment of the 4th grade Home Art Studio DVD, showing a metal sculpting studio and talking with the artist.  And we read about French artists (to go along with learning about the French Revolution).  But we didn't actually do any art projects.  Hannah and Katie took their sketch pads out in the back yard and drew, but I didn't get any pictures of that.

Next week, we get to learn a bit about Russia, and continue learning about leaves in Botany.  (This week, we learned about photosynthesis.)


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Our Week with a Visit From Zach

This week has been a rainy one.  In our homeschool, we're working on several review products, which I'll be sharing with you soon.  In case you missed some of our recent reviews, we've been having a blast with Laser Maze, Jr. and we've also discovered a way to make learning the multiplication table less painful.

Jack is drawing more neon sword fight pictures.  I'm glad we currently have an abundance of sketch paper!

Did you know the Bible mentions dragons?  I think that's cool.  Jack is copying a verse with "dragon" in it.

The language arts program we're working on includes spelling.  I kind of miss the stories from Spelling You See, which you guys know I love, because I've gushed on and on about them.  But we're learning a lot more than spelling with these other materials.

I made a batch of green rice for St. Patrick's Day/spring sensory play

Interestingly, as we've had a large load of review curriculum lately, I totally hit the pause button on our My Father's World curriculum in February.  Instead, we've had literature, language arts, and Bible products to work on, while keeping up with our usual math and handwriting.  I miss the history a little bit, but I'm not missing the science.  I'm sure as time goes by we'll be able to get back to MFW, but I finally just let go of the idea that we have to finish Exploration to 1850 this school year.

Still not sure what's going on with Lukey's circulation.  Paul pointed out his purple feet one day, and they really reminded me of the hands of the precious heart baby from my China trip last year.

But Luke's never had so much as a murmur, and there aren't any cardiac issues connected to his diagnoses.  So I don't know what's going on.  He's going to the doctor again on Monday.  Looks like we'll be hopping back on the crazy train to more testing.

Katie continues to work in her handwriting, spelling, and math books, with various other things thrown in for variety.  For someone who did not want to teach kindergarten, I think we're doing pretty good this year.

The highlight of our week was having Zach and Brayden come over for a visit and bring their new husky puppy, Elsa.

The cat was none too sure about this hyper, furry interloper.

While I was taking pictures of the puppy, Katie started telling me a story, and she was so very animated, I took a few pictures of her, too.  She's been extra cuddly this week, after a talk we had recently where I assured her that I loved her even when she misbehaved.  We assume they know that, but sometimes I think they actually need to hear those words.

Josiah, who is normally camera shy, tries to get some of Elsa puppy's cuteness to rub off on him.

Katie and Hannah were delighted to have Brayden over to play.  We haven't seen them since Christmas.  The kids got soaking wet outside, so he wore one of Luke's shirts home.

Next week we head back to Shriners to hopefully pick up new legs for both Hannah and Katie!


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