This week is a combo wrap-up/tot school post. Because we didn't really do much of anything other than prep for Thanksgiving, eat turkey and be thankful, recover from Thanksgiving, and put up our Christmas decorations.
First I have a confession...Last week, in Mackenzie's Wrap-Up, I claimed that we would get our last day of school down for the week. We didn't. We were driving home from piano class and I just didn't feel like doing school. So we didn't. LOL
The only school work on the schedule for this week was to finish our work from Friday. We didn't work too hard at that either. Mackenzie did manage to get almost everything done though. Except history. So we'll be reading two chapters tomorrow. I really hope they're short ones. =o)
Here are our Thanksgiving highlights. We spent the day with my brother-in-law and his family. We kept my niece overnight since she had Friday off school. She's the same age as Mackenzie so that works out great. And my nephew was happy to have a Rachel-free day off. LOL
The tree, the tree...
Today Kayleigh did a couple of Tot School activities on a whim. I guess it's a good thing since it's the only time she played with our November sensory bin. We'll be moving on to December soon. (The cut/paste sort was from 1+1+1='s Thanksgiving pack.)
And that was our week. Next week will be a short week as we're going to NYC for a long weekend. Woot!
I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving. We enjoyed a nice dinner with my brother-in-law and his family.
As is our tradition, we put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. That also involves dragging out all other things Christmas. The girls had a grand time digging through all of our Christmas books and movies. We own A LOT! Back when my oldest was a tot I started collecting Christmas books. I wanted one for everyday of Advent. Plus we have some secular ones as well. I'm still adding to it because I'm addicted. =o)
Anyhow, I thought I'd share our favorites with you. I love scouring blogs this time of year looking for good books that I don't own. It's a sickness.
So here's are collection of Christmas books, movies, toys, music, and Advent materials. I'd love to hear what favorites you have in your house.
A while back I got a new laptop to replace the one that crashed on me about a year ago. A Macbook Pro. Woot! That took a lot of saving but sooo worth it.
At anyrate, I had buy Photoshop Elements again because, of course, you can't use the Windows version on a Mac. (Incidently when I bought the new one it came with a Mac and Windows disc. Those rats!) But it also came with a digi-scrapping tutorial from Digital Scrappers. That excited me because I've recently started digi-scrapping and I'm not that good at it. =o)
So here are some of the layouts that I created while doing the tutorial. I'd like to say that I've got this stuff down but I keep having to review the dvd to refresh my memory because I suffer from CRS (can't remember squat). It's quite tragic. The dvd is always nearby when I'm trying to scrap. LOL
This is my favorite one. I did the page stacking, corner folding, and made the vellum myself. Without a template or pre-folded paper. Don't ask me how. I couldn't have told you 5 minutes after doing it. LOL
It's my mommy when she was in 3rd grade. Wasn't she adorable? I have to say she was a little offended when I called her and asked to scan me one of her school photos for a vintage layout I was doing. Maybe it was the word vintage? LOL
This is my second favorite, although I'm not totally happy with the journaling and the title yet. But that's the great thing about digi-scrapping. You can go back and change things. What I LOVE about this layout is the background paper. It's a photo that I took when we lived in Guam.
Here are some random ones from last Easter. Some I like more than others.
These are from my hubby's Navy retirement earlier this year.
So now I'm obsessed with tutorials. Love you tube for this. One day I'd like to do this without someone holding my hand. One can dream...but for now I'm satisfied with sucking less. =o)
As I sit down to write this post I can't even remember what little we did. Hopefully the pictures I took will prompt me. Our theme was supposed to be turkeys this week but we didn't get much done at all. We're not doing much for 4th grade next week so I plan on doing more with Kayleigh then.
She did some lacing with cards I made from over at Home Grown Hearts. She doesn't usually like lacing so I was really surprised when she pulled this off the shelf.
We got this adorable Turkey/Spelling Puzzle from 2 Teaching Mommies. She loved it!!
We did the Color the Turkey book from Carisa's Thanksgiving Tot Pack. She did a great job coloring the turkeys the right colors. She likes to "read" the book to us. And every, single time she'll name one color incorrectly. And everytime the color changes. LOL Then she got into a huge battle with Daddy over what color the yellow turkey was. Stubborness at it's finest.
We went on a field trip with Daddy to The Mariner's Museum to see the USS Monitor exhibit. Big sis just finished studying it. It was an AWESOME exhibit.
We also played a lot with pumpkin play dough but I didn't take any pictures of that. Maybe next week.
I decided to do something different with the Wrap-Up this week. I decided to post it early instead of late. How's that for new and different?
It was a pretty alright week. The worst part was when we were out looking for a turkey cookie cutter on Tuesday and couldn't find one. Here it is, a week and a half before Thanksgiving, and I somehow missed the entire holiday. I know my mind isn't as sharp as it used to be but I didn't think I could miss an entire holiday.
But the proof is in the shopping. 2 A.C. Moores, 2 Bed, Bath, & Beyonds, a Michaels, Walmart, and a Harris Teeters later, I had not found ONE, SINGLE, THANKSGIVING ITEM. I wasn't just missing cookie cutters, I couldn't find anything for the holiday. What's up with late?
On the cookie cutter end I found lots of Santas, snowmen, stockings, candy canes, valentine hearts, flowers, Easter eggs, footballs (closest thing to T-Day), and dog bones. Because clearly dogs having cookies is more important than Thanksgiving. They've also got more costumes than toddlers and more aisles than baby supplies but that's a whole 'nother rant.
I got a turkey cutter on my last shopping trip. Of the 4 different holiday cookie-cutter packs, one of them had a turkey thrown in there. Just one? Maybe it's because Thanksgiving isn't commercial enough yet?
On the bright side, I now know that if I want Thanksgiving items I need to buy them in late August or early September. I put that in my phone because I'll never remember that. It's going to beep and remind me on August 25.
But, despite the never-ending shopping trip, it's Thursday and we're not only caught up with school, we're slightly ahead. I am completely confident that we'll finish what's left of tomorrow's work tomorrow. (Who wants to bet that something happens and we don't get it done? It's probably gonna happen. LOL)
Here are the highlights...
Bible
We're reading through the book of 1 Samuel. It's pretty much review, as she just studied it at church, but we're going a little more in depth.
Math
Mackenzie had her second unit test of the year and did great. I believe she missed one and it has probably scarred her first-born, perfectionist self but I'm happy with it. Her new lesson was on finding the area of trapezoids.
Science
We're finishing up our unit on mating and eggs. Some of the mating rituals had us in stitches. This week she made a comic strip on a bird's life starting in the egg up to the point the bird has it's own clutch. Mackenzie had a lot of fun being silly with it.
We also have a couple of experiments in the works. The first one involves candling the changes that occur in an egg as it rots. So that will be ongoing for the next couple of weeks.
Her second experiment was for her to design an experiment that will show if an egg, a porous, object would absorb water. She really surprised me by coming up with a great idea. I was honestly expecting her to flip out and cry about how this was too hard.
She decided to submerge the egg in water for a week. When I asked her how she'd be able to tell whether or not the egg absorbed anything she had 3 thoughts; She could weigh the egg before and after, measure the water level and check the difference after a week, or crack the egg open and look for water. She decided to go with her third option. But then she wasn't sure she'd able to see the water so she added food coloring to the water.
I was impressed. Especially after I checked the Apologia website to see what they did. Her second and third options were the ones that were tested by the author. A proud mommy moment.
Now we just have to wait and see if her hypothesis' are correct.
Social Studies
She's still doing great with geography. We're using The Star-Spangled State Book and she still calls it fun. The only thing she doesn't like about are the words she has to look up. In a dictionary...GASP!
She read The Story Of Thomas Alva Edison in history. She was fascinated by all that he accomplished and thrilled that he shared a birthday with her little sister.
We also started discussing the reconstruction and Andrew Johnson's time in office. Mackenzie was very disappointed with how the reconstruction was handled by the Radical Republicans. I think she was really hoping for something positive about our history after the war and the treatment of the Native Americans. But like with all things, you have to take the bad along with the good.
Extras
She is still doing awesome with her piano lessons. Last week she started playing more than one note at a time. She sounds great!
We started our composer study on Tchaikovsky. I choose him first because we're going to our annual viewing of The Great Russian Nutcracker in a few weeks. We really enjoy his music and Mackenzie has decided that her ultimate "piano goal" is to be able to play his Concerto #1 one day.
We've been slacking in our art lessons lately but we did 2 lessons from How to Teach Art to Children this week. Her first assignment was to draw simple outlines of objects.
The second assignment was to create a shape design using felt shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) and then copy the design onto paper. Now way was I making shapes for that so I thought I'd be smart and just grab the tanagrams. Which would've worked great had I grabbed the tanagrams instead of the pattern blocks. =o)
It was all great in the beginning. She happily created her design and all was going well. Then the drawing began and so did the meltdown which resulted in her crying under the table. Copying the design with the tanagrams would've been simple, but drawing the intricate design she made with the pattern blocks was too much for my perfectionist first-born.
Eventually, she finished but it didn't turn out quite like we'd envisioned. It was then I realized my error. LOL Opps! My bad. She can laugh about it now. Maybe we'll do it again. The right way. Or not.
And yes, I took a few pics of the meltdown. I'm that kind of mom. One day I plan on making a scrapbook filled with crying children. LOL
And that was our week. Except for Friday, which hasn't happened yet. The plan is piano, school, and a trip to the park with friends. Yay!
Be sure to visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and see how others fared this week. That is, once the link-up is posted. Sometime tomorrow.
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and she still calls it fun. The only thing she doesn't like about are the words she has to look up. In a dictionary...GASP!
in history. She was fascinated by all that he accomplished and thrilled that he shared a birthday with her little sister.
