Week of 10/10- 10/17/2014

Ever have one of those weeks that just seems to go so slowly?  That's how this past week felt.  Not necessarily in a bad way, it was just slow.  Sunday we went to Red Top Mountain State Park for a picnic with our Sunday school class.  The weather was overcast, but we had a nice time.  We definitely prefer the view at Fort Mountain State Park though. 

When you're on a tight budget, board games are a great source of family fun.  If you knew how many times a week my family plays Monopoly, you would think we're nuts.  Someone has finally decided that he is big enough to join in on the fun.

 

Today we did a huge monthly grocery trip.  While we were in Rome, we tried out a different restaurant called Cookout.   They have burgers, dogs, chicken sandwiches and BBQ pork.  The prices were SO reasonable and the food was really good.  We fed all six of us for $20...and we got a TON of food.  After we were done in Aldi, we saw part of an airshow.   The kids enjoyed seeing the planes that looked like they were falling from the sky.  On the way home, we noticed that a few leaves are finally starting to change their color around here.  Hopefully we can make a trip to Fort Mountain to see the beautiful colors soon.

AWANA has been going great.  One of my students was very excited to share that he received Christ as his Savior last weekend.  That made my heart so happy.  I love sharing the gospel with them each week.

This week I got word that my grandma was lifeflighted because she had some medical complications.  She will be in Iowa for about five more weeks.  She has been through so much this year.  I am praying she makes a speedy recovery.  I hope to visit her if we are able to make it up at Thanksgiving.

We had a pretty good week of school.  Miss Claire finished the letter J.  J is for JESUS!  She and Aiden both learned some J Spanish words and said their J Bible verses.  

Jesus letter match

Baby Jesus cut and paste

do-a-dot

Lion coloring paper (We were working on neatness.  Lately she's become a little sloppy in order to get done quicker.)

Our daily learning notebooks.  They trace the day of the week and color in a bubble with the date.  They also write the number of the week, and write it.  We fill in a square to chart how many days of school we've completed.  We've done 60 so far.  One the next page is the number of the week that they have to trace and the last page is the shape of the week which they also trace.  In the front pocket of our binders we also have a chart we fill in each day to chart the weather.  They were excited because Tuesday was the first rainy day that they got to fill in. (It has rained since we started in July, just not at the time we do the weather.)  There is also a calendar page where they write the date in the square.

Lacing beads

J color match

J magnet page

Aiden had the sight words was & the this week.  He has really been improving in his ability to sound words out.  He gets so excited when he figures it out.  I love it!  No way would I want someone else to have the joy of teaching him that.  I've been trying to throw in some extra fall themed worksheets to change things up. 

graphing pumpkins

sight word practice

beginning sound recognition

ABC connect the dot

cutting practice  (Aiden cut out combs and he and Evelyn were combing their hair.)

color by sight word (like color by number)

Jacob and Evelyn studied VanGogh's painting Sunflowers.  They also listened to a classical piece by Johannes Brahms.  We played music bingo to see which instruments we heard in the piece.  We're getting closer and closer to finishing Charlotte's Web in literature. 

I introduced Evelyn to the world of equations this week.  It's basically simple algebra.  She was not as excited about it as I was, but she is getting the hang of it.  We've been discussing the meaning of singular and plural in Language Arts and how to make certain words plural.  We're reading about William Penn in history and finished up reading about pond life in science.  

Jacob just started a unit on the ocean in science.  We also just started a unit on Africa in history.  We've been reading about ancient Egypt.  It's been a blast.  Jacob has also memorized the Preamble to the Constitution and is now moving on to the first amendment.  We've been continuing researching Operation Desert Storm for his research report.  We're working on percentages in math.  

Working on flashcards while I help Aiden graph his pumpkins

We finished up this week with a J party.  We had jambalaya while watching Tom and Jerry.  

I will not have typical post next week as we are not doing a full week of school.  We are having friends from Ohio stay with us for a couple days, so we are going to enjoy visiting with them.  I may do a book review post though since I have finished a couple of them recently.  Hope y'all have a great weekend!

Week of 10/2- 10/9/2014

We've had a great week around here.  The temperatures are wonderful- upper 70's to mid- 80's.  We did have some crazy storms roll through this past week though.  On Monday afternoon, we had a pretty big hailstorm.  It only lasted about two minutes, but the hail was nickel-sized so it made plenty of noise.  Praise God there was no damage!  One minute it was sunny, and the next minute there was a big flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, followed by the hail.

This picture of Evelyn holding the hail made it on the Atlanta news.  She thought that was awesome.

My sister sent me some ultrasound pictures.  It was great to catch a glimpse of my niece/nephew!!  I can't wait to see my sister's baby bump if we make it back up for Thanksgiving.  

I have been enjoying teaching my third grade AWANA class about sin and salvation.  I love hearing them recite their verses to me each week.  This week we did an experiment about sin and how God cleanses it from our life when we accept Him into our lives.  I put some iodine in a jar.  I added a penny to show that we can't buy salvation.  I added a Bible verse card so show that going to church won't save us.  Then I added a spoon to show that doing good works like helping your mom with the dishes won't take the sin away.  The only way to be cleansed from our sin is through God.  I used bleach to represent God. Immediately once I added the bleach to the jar, the water cleared up.  no sign of sin anywhere.  They really enjoyed that visual.  

Our kids must have been super focused during school this week, because we got done earlier than normal most days, which fine by me because the weather was so great.  In our group studies, we're still reading Charlotte's Web.  After the skewer/ string web-making debacle, we decided to draw our webs this time.  The kids each chose a word to write in them just like Charlotte did in the book.  Jacob and Evelyn got to paint their own version of one of VanGogh's famous paintings.  

The original is in the middle.  Jacob wanted me to notify everyone that he did his very best, but he is not an artist.  I just think he doesn't have the patience for painting, and that's ok.  

Jacob started working on ratios and percentages in math this week.  he seems to be doing well with them.  He has started his research for his Language Arts research report.  He chose the topic: Operation Desert Storm.  We ordered a couple books for him to read since our local library is closed all month for remodeling.  I think learning about the Middle East in history a while back may have helped him become interested in the Persian Gulf War.  We just finished up our unit on Asia today.  Jacob scored a 96% on his test!!  This past week we read about China and the far east.  He is now able to identify those countries on a map along with their capitals.  We're finished up our study of rocks, minerals, and fossils in science and reviewing for a test this coming Monday.  We read about different accounts of dinosaurs in the Bible.  Adam, Noah, and Job were just a few of the men who saw dinosaurs.  We also learned that the Bible mentions dragons.  I always thought they were a mythical creature that never existed.  I learned something new too!

Evelyn just finished up a science unit on oceans, and is starting a new one on ponds.  Today we compared oceans and ponds.  I never knew there was such a thing as pondweed.  It's like seaweed, but it grows in freshwater.  We have been reading about William Penn in history, and today we learned the locations of eleven of the United States.  In Language Arts we have been studying possessives, and today we introduced the topic of plurals and possessives.  She also did a little creative writing as well.  She has been continuing to work on her long division in math, as well as memorize the six multiplication family.  

Aiden has been breezing right through his kindergarten lessons.  I am thinking of adding a few more things just to bulk up the curriculum and challenge him more.  He's been working on counting to 100, learning his sight words (So and me were this week's words.)  I was very proud of him for memorizing this week's Bible verse.  Here's a few of the other things he worked on this week:

Mazes- this kid LOVES mazes.  These ones are part of his curriculum, but I think they are too easy since he did more challenging ones last year.

He completed his final shape in his shape book.

Working on simple picture addition

Number puzzle

practiced writing his sight words

Telling time worksheet

cutting activity

He wanted me to take a picture of the trains he cut out.

Counting money worksheet

This week was Letter H week in preschool.  Miss Claire had lots of fun doing all her hippo activities.  She also memorized her Bible verse, along with her AWANA verse.  I love being able to instill the Word of God in their hearts.  

Hippo lacing

Hippo size sort

Letter matching

Hippo building- she had to copy the pattern

Bambino Luk puzzle- Aiden had these in his preschool curriculum last year and Claire always liked watching him do those, so I pulled them out for her.  She spends lots of time doing different ones.  It has a self check on the back (which is pictured).  If all dots match, then the puzzle is correct.

Do-a-dot

Things that start with H: Hat and horse

Color match

H Poke page

Horse sticker activity (had these left from her horse birthday party last year, and thought they would work for letter H week)

H alpha pattern blocks

H cutting practice

Hippo cut and paste

Hippo graphing

magnet page

Of course, we ended today with a letter H party.  We ate Homemade potato soup and Hot cocoa.  I had to get creative and make do with what we had, thus the homemade acting as our H.  The kids didn't care.  After dinner they watched Handy Manny.  

I tried a new recipe for potato soup and of course, put my own spin on it.  Turned out pretty good. 

I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to be able to bring up our children in the ways of the Lord.  It's such a blessing to be able to give them a good, godly education, while having them home with us.   I don't take it for granted at all!!  

Week of 9/24- 10/1/2014

I'm a little late in getting this post up.  A "school week" consists of five days even though those five days aren't always in the same calendar week.  The way our school week went this past week made it end on a Wednesday.  Wednesdays are crazy with getting school done, the house picked up, supper made, and everybody out the door on time for AWANA.  Thursday after school I decided to play games with the kids all evening instead of blogging, so I'm just not getting to  post our info.

In our letter of the week studies we finished up the letter G.  G is for gumball.

Gumball size sort

Letter matching with wooden letter magnets

Letter G bracelet

Fall puzzle

Leaf magnet page (part of our fall week activities)

Gumball coloring page

Gumball magnet page

Uppercase/Lowercase g sorting

Gumball cut and paste

We ended the week with a snack of grapes while watching Curious George  (It was the closest thing we could come up with that had a G in it.  All our movies on our DVR got erased when our satellite box got messed up.)

Aiden is doing really well with sounding out words on his word ladders and reading his sight words.  He gets so excited when he recognizes the word.  

I threw in a shape puzzle just for fun and to mix things up this week.

Word ladder

Working on his fall ABC puzzle

number writing practice

Evelyn has been continuing division with remainders in math and we just introduced the 6 Multiplication family as well.  She even got to show off her division skills to Grandma while they were visiting.  In Language Arts we learned how to make nouns possessive.  She is still reading Charlotte's Web and working on various lapbook activities.  She reviewed everything she's learned so far in history and took a test on that, which she did very well on.  In science we're studying the ocean.  We learned that the ocean is salty and why it is getting saltier.  We did an experiment to see that even though the water evaporates, the salt does not.  

We added four tablespoons of salt to one cup of water and mixed until it was all dissolved.  

We let the water boil out of the pot.

Once the water had evaporated, we measured the salt that was left and it was still four tablespoons.

Jacob has been dividing with decimals as the divisor.  He has also been learning how to multiply and divide by powers of ten.  In Language Arts he's been learning the writing process.  We've been getting ready to begin a research project.  He's chosen the Pyramids of Giza as his topic.  This will tie in nicely to history, because once we're done studying Asia, we're going to begin the study of Africa, and that's where the pyramids are located.  We've been studying China in history.  We even read about some famous missionaries to China.  We learned the differences between a free country and a communist country.  Jacob thought it was sad that our country has more communist qualities than free ones.  He's a smart guy.  We're studying natural resources in science, specifically rocks.  Our trip up to the mountains this past weekend fit in perfectly because he collected some different rocks.  

In other news, fall is just starting to settle in here.  You can see a few of the leaves starting to change on some trees.  I can't wait to see what it will look like in a few weeks.  The weather is also getting cooler.  Tomorrow is only a high of 63.  It hasn't been that cold in a LONG time.  I think this time of year is really going to be enjoyable here.  

Last weekend Matt's parents stayed with us.  It was so great to see familiar faces and we are so grateful they took the time out of their busy schedules, and thought we were important enough to visit, even if only for a couple days.  The kids sure took advantage of getting spoiled, playing with Grandma and Poppo, and playing Candyland.

That's pretty much what our life looked like this past week.  We would love to hear what you're up to.  Hope you enjoy this beautiful fall weekend!!