Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where 3 Manly Dudes Pile Out of a Girly Van

Since last week I only blogged about Mackenzie's week, I'm mainly going to focus on Kayleigh this week.  But rest assured, broken ankle or not, school continued on for Mackenzie.

See...

We wound up taking to another ER because getting her in with an orthopedic doctor through the system turned out to be impossible.  She still wouldn't have seen anyone had we done it that way.  My husband wound up taking her to the military hospital's ER where they have an actual ortho on call for the ER.  What a novel idea!!! They xrayed her, put on a real cast, and they gave her pain meds.  First time our military health care worked for us. lol

As for Kayleigh, we've been just rolling along.  Slowly.  Taking our time.  Doing school or not.  Mostly not.  We've been working on what's to follow for a couple of weeks.  Because we can.  Or we didn't feel like it.  Or Charlie and Lola was on.  Or a bike ride sounded like a better idea.  Or whatever.

Raising Rock Stars Preschool and All About Reading

We've been working on N for the last couple of weeks.  (See the reasons above.)  Because of our lack of progress RRSP and AAR are still lined up for the moment.  So I'm lumping them together for this post. They might not be next week.  Who knows?  We throw the best of plans to the wind on a whim. LOL

The length of the verse was not to her liking.  She hung it on the wall any way.  The craft was a win-win  her book.  Watercolor paints and glitter.  I wasn't as thrilled because paint + glitter = big mess for me to clean up.

Of course, I could've done the project however I wanted, lol, but I'm trying to be a good mom and let her enjoy school and fun projects.  But now my school room is covered in gold glitter despite repeated vacuuming.  Sigh...

She was still working on getting ready for syllables in All About Reading.  They did this by having you break up a compound word, like "Sunshine" and saying each part separately pausing between the words.  Then the child had to say them together to guess the "new word."  It took Kayleigh a few minutes to figure out what I wanted but once she figured it out she was gung-ho.  We repeated this a lot. What a great idea!  I would've never thought of teaching syllables like that.

I do have to say that the AAR animal for the letter N was a stretch.  They chose Nanny goat.  Seriously.  What a silly choice. She just kept saying goat because what small child says nanny goat? LOL And to her, goat starts with g.  How about nightingale or newt? The Nanny goat was referred to as goat each and every time she saw it. lol  She did LOVE the rhyme from the book and the craft (color the goat and glue on foil "tin cans" but she'd never say it started with N.

 

 

You Can Read

We are still working on unit 3 of You Can Read.  Part of the issue has been we just haven't been schooling consistently for those pesky reasons.  They other part of the reason is that she just wants to call "my" "you or me."  It's always a surprise.  LOL  We've been having fun with the unit though. We broke out the nerf guns and rolled (our education cubes with YCR inserts) and shot our words.  HUGE hit!  I totally recommend it.  Seriously.  Do it today.  And we've been working on some of the activities included with the unit.

For Fun

Mackenzie, a Webkinz nut, saw that the Webkinz Road Trip was coming to a local museum.  So we went.  With her broken ankle.  Like that would stop her.

There are only a couple of things that I want to say about it.  First, you leave there with a TON of FREE Webkinz stuff.  Massive amounts.  Please see how full my friends arms are.  Then note that all of the kids were also carrying stuff and I had a bag full of stuff.  That's a lot of FREE stuff.  (On a side note, all of the kids were very well occupied with Webkinz activities for the evening.  I call that a double win.)

Most important...Please take a good look at the Webkinz van behind my daughter.  Notice the festive and somewhat girly colors.  Then imagine our surprise when the van rolled up to the curb and three manly-type dudes pile out. (You can see a couple of the dudes in the pictures.)  My friend and I were cracking up.  Our minds were reeling. We had so many questions. Especially once we found out that they've been doing this for two years.  How did you wind up with this gig?  And why? What keeps you road trippin' in this girly van? Do you like to play Cash Cow when you're not driving?  Do you tell potential dates about your job right away? So much to find out.

We fully intended to find out, dear readers, but we failed.  It got really hot, really quickly and we had to bug out.  We don't do that kind of muggy heat. It's not in our skill set. Plus it was about to start pouring for the hundredth time.

I'm so sorry that you'll have live without that knowledge.  Next time...I promise.  I'll be watching for their return and we won't leave until Neil from Merritt, Georgia spills his guts.  Unless it's hot, muggy, and ready to down pour.  Then we bail.  Again. Just keepin' it real.

 

Weekly Wrap-Up: Splat!!

In Our Homeschool This Week:

We just finished up week 17 in our Sonlight studies and we should finish with Russia/Mongels next week.  Then we will be done with Sonlight for this school year.

We finished reading about Ghengis Khan today and Mackenzie just loved it.  He was a fascinating man. On one hand he took such good care of his people while, at the same time, wiping out anyone in his path.  It's a shame that Sonlight pulled this book out of the core.

Speaking of books being pulled, our read aloud is really keeping us on the edge of our seats.  If you haven't read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase we highly recommend it.  So far, it's been our favorite book of the year. Another head scratcher as to why Sonlight would pull it.  Just two of many decisions that I disagree with this year.   What's with curriculum companies getting on my nerves this year?

Math, science, and LA are moving along.  We'll keep going with those until we're finished with the levels.

In Our Life This Week:

Piano is winding down.  Mackenzie has her recital next week and she is nervous for the first time.  This year she has two pieces and both are unaccompanied.  She plays them perfectly everyday so I know she'll do well.  I'm sure I'll have a video for you next week.

In house news, we had a bit of a scare.  One of the upgrades we've chosen was a dormer window in the FROG, which will be our school room.  We were expecting a tudor style dormer, as that is what was on the house that we toured and what every other dormer in the neighborhood looked like.  As ours was being built, we thought it looked a little funny.  But what did we know? we thought the foundation looked like it was meant for a different house and we were wrong about that.  We guessed they just had to add the peaked roof to the window.

But then the shingles went on and the roof was definitely flat and covered in shingles.  And it was really, really short.  So we called the realtor and went to talk to her.  Apparently the elevation that we chose came with a shed-style dormer.  We were under the impression that the only difference in elevations was the size of the porch.  The realtor forgot to mention the difference in dormers.  Opps!  Not sure what, if anything, could be done we asked to go inside to check it out.  When all is said and done, the outside doesn't matter to me as much as the inside.  I probably won't even look up at the window from the outside after the first few months but I'll be in that school room every day.

As usual, God knows what He was doing.  While we weren't thrilled with it from the outside, from the inside it was love, true love.  The dormer space is much wider than what it would've been with the tudor-style.  Wide enough for a love seat for a cozy spot for read alouds.  Or maybe a couple of HUGE bean bags, some gutter shelves and our calender for a fun reading nook/circle time area.  Decisions, decisions.

And once they put in the windows, I even like how it looks from the outside too.  Those 3 little windows are so cute and it will make great lighting for photos.  You know how I like photos.

My Favorite Thing This Week:

She just rolls off, SPLAT!! hits the ground, and never moves.  Twice this week. LOL After the first time, we started moving her bean bag next to her bed.  And yes, my first thought was to grab my camera.  Obviously. lol I'm that mom.  Kevin's first thought was to make sure she was still alive.  That's why we make such a great team.  I capture the memories and he makes sure the kids survive them.  =o)

 

Weekly Wrap-Up: Lots of Christmas Entertainment

Busy, busy time.  We've been continuing on with our Christmas Around the World study.  WP added in another book this week and that upped the content somewhat.  Now we actually feel like we're learning something.  Woot!

One of the first things that we did was actually make the fabric ball ornament from our Russia study last week.  I thought it came out cute.  We also studying Spain, France, Germany, and Sweden this week.  Some of the craft ideas seemed silly to her so she opted not to make them.  It's very interesting to learn about the various traditions in other countries.  A lot of them have been very similar to what we enjoy here but with different little twists.  And it was neat to learn about what countries many of our traditions originated.

For a hands-on activity, Mackenzie decided to make a traditional French Christmas cookie called "colombe."  It means dove.  They are cute little dove shaped cookies.  She made them entirely on her own, from scratch.  Well not entirely.  Her little sister placed the chocolate chip eyes on the birds.

While she didn't choose to do a lot of the crafts from the around the world study, she did several from her little sister's advent activities.  (Truth in the Tinsel) I think that she liked the simplicity of them.  She claims to like crafts but I sense she doesn't really like things that have a lot of steps or "pieces."  Kind of like how her mother feels about cooking.  lol

There were outside activities aplenty this week.  We hit the Scholastic Book Fair with our buddies.  She is a bonafide bookworm so that is always a huge hit with her.  She would've liked to have bought everything she saw but I had to cap her at 5.  She suckered me into 6.    Then we went and had lunch afterwards.  Shopping for books makes everyone hungry.

Our church also had their Christmas play last weekend.  Mackenzie, drama queen that she is, had a part. They performed the Christmas County Spelling Bee and Mackenzie played "Katie Collins-head cheerleader."  Her is a sampling of her skills.  All the kids did a fabulous job.  It was one of the best shows that they've ever done.  So good that our pastor asked them to perform a few numbers for the Christmas eve service.

We also got to go watch her best buddy perform in her school's holiday show.  Mackenzie was a little nervous to go because her friend, formerly homeschooled, now attends public school due to behavior issues.  Mackenzie's attitude hasn't been all that stellar lately and I think she was worried that I might be tempted to leave her there.  LOL  It did cross my mind briefly.  

Not enjoying a glimpse of a possible future. LOL

Awesome performances

Best friends!  And Kayleigh. lol

And if all of that weren't enough Christmas entertainment, Mackenzie had her informal Christmas piano recital this week too.  Shew!!!

And really, there's still more.  Tomorrow we're going to see a local theater group perform The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.   We are ready.  We read the book and watched the movie.  Ha!  Hotlips Houlihan was in it.  Woot!!  Can't wait.

Weekly Wrap-Up: A Day Late

So not only have I not "Wrapped-Up" for two weeks, here I am finally getting around to it and I'm a day late.  Better late then never I guess.  Thanksgiving house guests, illness, the Christmas play at church have cut into my blogging time.

We had Thanksgiving week off because my in-laws came to town.  I'd like to say that we showed them a wonderful time but the little one got sick so we didn't get to do much in the way of fun.  But it was nice to be able to visit with them.

We are currently in our "Christmas School" mode.  We have a more laid back schedule for the holiday season with more of a focus on Advent.

For Bible we are reading the Jotham's Journey devotional.  I just LOVE this series!  We look forward to it every day.  It's been a bit of a challenge this week because I've had a terrible cough and can barely talk but we plug away. LOL

We've dropped our normal social studies, Sonlight Core F, for the moment.  Since we couldn't get a refund from Winter Promise, I decided to use all of those Christmas books that I had sitting on the shelf.  I debated about whether or not to use their schedule or create my own.  Due, in large part, to my laziness I decided to use theirs.  I also thought it would be a hoot to see how what "gems" they had in store for us.

There's not too much to report about it actually.  It turns out they didn't go too deep into their Christmas around the world unit.  (Shocking, I know. LOL)  This week we "studied" China, Japan, Russia and the Ukraine.  Studying consisted of about a paragraph or two about each country and our choice of crafts from the book.  I guess that fits perfectly with our laid back Christmas mindset though. LOL  But we find ourselves wanting to know more so we spent some time scouring the internet because WP didn't really recommend any additional material for digging deeper.  

I do have one WP funny.  We're reading a book filled with Christmas Classics and our first assignment was interesting.  Not!  We had to read the introduction.  The introduction was 3 incredibly boring pages about how the stories were chosen.  Why we had to read that instead of a story, I'll never know.  But hey they once suggested I read a list of country names instead of the interesting facts about the countries.  I don't claim to understand a thing about this company.

So this week we made a Chinese pagoda nativity (pictured), a Japanese fan, and we are going to make a Russian fabric ornament but hit a snag with supplies.  So we'll get to it on Monday, I guess.

As far as other subjects, I've been picking and choosing.  We did math, Writing With Skill, science, and spelling.  Math will remain constant but I'll switching out the other subjects according to my whims.  =o)

We had some awesome progress on Writing With Skill.  It's meant for the student  to work fairly independently but Mackenzie has been quite needy in the "hand-holding" to complete the assignments.  But this week she had a breakthrough and she did all 4 assignments without any help!  And she even said that one of them was a lot of fun.  Woot!!!

We are going to see a local theater group perform The Best Christmas Pageant Ever next week, so that has been her reader.  We are looking forward to that.  And we'll probably watch the movie too so we can compare performances.

And that is pretty much our week.  Check out other Wrap-Ups over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One That Ended in Tears

Well week 2 of our new school year was just as perplexing as the first.  Sigh…  So on to the highlights.

Bible

We are still working our way through Genesis with our Bible Study Guide for All Ages program.   Mackenzie is really enjoying working through the pages on her own.   She tends to get testy if I try to get in on it. LOL

Math

We’re using Math-U-See Epsilon.  Mackenzie had her first math test of the year.  We weren’t surprised to see that grade, as it was just review.




She also got to try out the fraction overlays this week.  Those are pretty neat.

Language Arts

We’re using  Advanced Language Lessons and Writing With Skill this year, but they won’t be out until October.  In the meantime, we’ve been working through Word Root Beginnings and Wordsmith Apprentice.    She likes both, especially Wordsmith.  The premise is that you are an “intern” at a newspaper and you are learning the art of writing from the “editor.”  She thinks it is great fun!
For spelling we are using Big IQ Kids.  She is also enjoying that.  I’d like to tell you more about it but that will have to wait, as it is something that I’m currently reviewing for the TOS Review Crew.   I will tell you that she is doing well with it and really enjoying it. 

She is currently reading Sherlock Holmes as her reader.  And just look at her.  Chewing gum and blowing bubbles!  During school.  I made that mistake once in fifth grade and all that got me was 50 sentences declaring that “I will not chew gum in class.”   LOL  The things homeschoolers get away with is shameful!!

Science

Science is definitely our favorite subject at the moment.  We are LOVING Exploring Creation with Anatomy and Physiology. 

Our apple that we mummified last week was ready.  It worked great and we were thrilled.  You could definitely see the difference between the mummified apple and the control apple.

Our focus this week was cells.  She made a drawing of a simplified cell in her notebook.



She also made her “person” that we will be adding to throughout our study.

The highlight of the week was our edible cell.  So fun!!

Social Studies

The best part of social studies this week was one of our review items.   A wonderful game called Civil This.  We’re having a B-L-A-S-T reviewing past studies with this game.  And that’s all I’m going to tell ya for now.

If only the rest of social studies were this wonderful.  We had one issue after the other.  So lets start at the top.

Let’s start with the labeling of the Travel With Me map.  We were supposed to label the countries.  Sounds simple enough.  Except the maps are inaccurate and we had four extra labels.  I can sort of see maybe forgetting some of the tiny countries, but Iceland?   Really?  Plus I paid a lot of money for these things and I want all the countries on there.

Make no mistakes, Mackenzie does not like having to deal with all the Winter Promise errors.  Every. Single. Day.

The map’s looking pretty full now.  And we’ve yet to add the cities and “landmarks”.

We were assigned this…

Sounds simple enouch, strange, but simple.  What we found.  A table of contents.



And this…

These pages had lots of interesting facts and stats.   And yet were are never assigned these pages to read.  Just to pronounce the names of the states.  Why Winter Promise, why?  We read them anyway.  Ha!!

Then there was this one.  Simple enough.



Opps!  Pretty much every page for these readings are mis-numbered. 

And now the one that took us an hour.  Color and label a landform map of Europe.  You get a list that they expect you to label.   Please note that the things circled in pink are items that we couldn’t label.  We were also supposed draw the boundary between Europe and Asia.  We couldn’t do that either.  Why you might wonder…

Well it was pretty much impossible because, once again, their map cut off about 1/4 of the eastern part of Europe.    And, again, Iceland wasn’t even on it.



We had to add all the rivers and mountains ourselves.  So those are definitely not accurate.  They did have the Alps on there, so kind of them.  However, they had them running into Spain.  The Baltic and Black Seas were entirely closed in by land, making them lakes.  Do I really need to keep going?
The result of this “educational” activity…tears.



When she tried to label the Baltic Sea and couldn’t find it, because it was blocked in by land and looked like a country, well…it was the straw that broke the camels back. 

And that, my friends, was all she wrote.  I’m revamping my plan.  Definitely anything from Winter Promise involving a map is being tossed out the window. 

We shall see what I come up with.

Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for more pleasant happenings.