Weekly Wrap-Up: The One That Was Difficult

It was another busy week. Somehow we managed to survive.

Mackenzie

Science

This week we were studying pinnipeds in science. Seals, walruses, manatees, and such. We also had a field trip to the local air and space center. What does the air and space center have to do with aquatic life you ask? Nothing but they have an IMAX theater and they were showing Under the Sea in 3D for homeschool appreciation day. So we got to see an awesome film and wander around the museum. I'm going to be completely honest and say that this is my least favorite museum, except for the IMAX. Yawn! lol The only flying vehicle I'm interested in is the one that's jetting me off to somewhere fabulous.

Afterwards, we went to our friends house to do our science "co-op." We worked on our whale activities from out last lesson. They added some whales to their ocean box and did a few activities. One thing we did was  measure out the sizes of different whales.

This was where it got difficult. It was really like pulling teeth. lol The tape measure was only 50' long and many whales are longer than 50'. So we had to mark out 50' feet and start measuring again from the 50' point. You'd have thought we asked them to perform brain surgery, the pretty little dears.  Child A, you're the beginning of the whale. Stand there and don't move. Child B, you're the 50' point. Stay there so we can measure out another 40'. Child C, measure another 40' starting from Child B. Sounds simple right? One would think two 11 year olds, a ten year old, and an 8 year old could handle that, right? Getting these four to get this done was like herding cats. They couldn't stay in their spots. lol Sheesh! Finally we got it down but the mom's were ready for a stiff drink by the time we were done. Poor us!

Math

One more lesson in MUS Epsilon. Happy, happy, happy dance.

LA

Almost finished with our last lesson in Growing With Grammar. Happy, happy, happy dance. Since we're not doing our Sonlight yet, I have her reading a biography on Monet as her reader. Since we're doing an artist study on him and all.

Other Stuff

We almost finished with our artist study on Monet. Mackenzie is working on finishing up the Monet components of our World's Greatest Artist lapbook. No pictures though. Maybe next week.

In the sports world, she's won four out of four soccer games so far. I'm not sure how much help she was with all the ducking from the ball that she did. lol

Her favorite school activity of the week... stuff she got to do with her little sis and a review product.

Kayleigh

Kayleigh has had a busy week too. And she's working on two review items that she loves. Our letter focus was E and her bible verse was "Even a child his known by his deeds." Proverbs 20:11. I love the Raising Rock Stars Bible printables. This time around we're using the song sheets found in the kindergarten bundle.

She did a really fun stuff in First Language Lessons. We were reading a poem about fireflies all week and that included some narration and creative expression activities. She "wrote" a story about fire flies and she was supposed to draw a picture of fireflies. I decided to nix the drawing and do this adorable firefly craft that I saw on Pinterest. All you need is some paper, goggly eyes, glue, and colorful band aids. Who knew there were so many uses for band aids? I typed up her little firefly story and glued it on her picture. So cute!!!

Her story reads...

"There were three fireflys. They were flying and flashing. They were Baby Face, Googly-Eye Face, and Wing Face. They were flying to the woods to find treasure. And it was food. It was chocolate coins. It made them chocolaty and all crazy. They danced and shaked their booties."

She also used the iPad app, ABCs of God, for her All About Reading letter practice. I like that app because it works on upper and lower case letters. And it includes Bible verses. Triple win!

We had a fabulous good time with her Sonlight books. We read a story about a puppy and made "Puppy Chow." Lemonade flavor instead of tradition chocolate peanut butter. We read another story about a greedy baker who needed to be taught a lesson so we practiced counting coins. And putting the bowl on our head. In the Berenstain Bears Book of science we read about fall and the moon so we made leaf rubbings and then made the phases of the moon out of Oreos.

Naturally Mackenzie was involved in all activities that involved food. She loves it. She would bake something every day if I let her. I don't want to be expand around the middle anymore than I already have or I'd let her. lol


She drew a picture of her sister for her Artistic Pursuits lesson. She didn't want to give her hair but she finally gave in when Mackenzie got emotional. lol Good times!

Finally she did some handwriting. A little bit in her work book and we worked with the wooden pieces and made the capital letters that we've "studied" so far.  Also pictured below: Some math sheet, and a couple shots from the air and space center. Notice that she and her sock monkey were going on a trip. To Africa, I think. They made it back safely.

So that's pretty much what we've been up to. How did your week go?



Linking up to: The Weekly Wrap-Up, Preschool Corner, Collage Friday, The Homeschool Mother's Journal

Review: Marshall Publishing

We were recently given the opportunity to review America in the 1880's from Marshall Publishing. I don't know about you, but enjoy being able to show my children quality films about what they are studying. This DVD did not disappoint me.

About The History of America in the 1880's

From the publisher:

What was life like in the 1880's? Certainly nothing like today, yet many of the things we so cherish now had their roots during this significant and often neglected decade in history.

Just like a time machine, we'll transport you back to discover the people and events that shaped this exciting decade: the Brooklyn Bridge ...Washington Monument ...Statue of Liberty ...Gunfight at the O.K. Corral ...Oklahoma Land Rush ...Johnstown Flood ...Thomas Edison ...Mark Twain ...Baby Doe ...Sitting Bull ...Sarah Bernhardt ...John Philp Sousa ...Buffalo Bill ...Gilbert & Sullivan ...Wyatt Earp ...Jesse James ...Billy the Kid ...Alexander Grahm Bell ...John D. Rockefeller ...Andrew Carnegie ...Samuel Gompers ...Susan B. Anthony ...Lillian Russell ...and many more!

You'll learn about fashion, politics, sports heroes, famous inventors, Wall Street financiers, railroad expansion, buffalo extinction, Indian resettlement, Civil Rights, union organization, urbanization, the music of the times and much, much more!!

Wow, right? And in only 60 minutes.

Our Experience

Mackenzie and I both really enjoyed the video. It was a combination of photographs and historical footage. The narrator had what my daughter referred to as a "soothing voice." I had to agree and it also gave me a flashback to movies I'd watched as a child. lol

We learned a lot of new information as well as reviewed some stuff that we've already studying. It was nice for Mackenzie to get a visual look at some of the things she'd been studying. The section of the plight of the Native Americans was particularly touching for her, as she was very sensitive to this time period when we originally studied it. We both really enjoyed the section about the period's architecture and clothing. Mackenzie was giggling over the bathing suits.

It was also very easy to just watch a particular section as the video was divided into chapters. There is also a free study guide available on the website. It offers a summary, discussion questions, a timeline, vocabulary and more. Did I mention it was free?

There was also another video on Alexander Graham Bell. This was also jam packed with a lot of great information. This video was actually put out by the Bell Company a loooonnnnggg time ago, so it was in black and white. It wasn't as quite as attention grabbing as the 1880's portion but it was pretty good.

All in all, I thought that this video was very well done and would make an excellent supplement to any history curriculum. I'm going to be looking to see what else they offer that might compliment our studies. Other Crew members reviewed different videos and I can't wait to see what they thought.

F.Y.I.

Website: www.marshallpublishinginc.com

Age Range: 4th grade and up

Cost: regularly $24.95 but it's currently on sale for $19.95 plus they are offering free shipping to my readers if you use the the code: TOS27

You can also sample many of their DVDs on their Youtube channel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFxYHzttkeg&lr=1&uid=JYKmWdYeDGE9fnkca_LsnQ

Disclaimer: I received this DVD free of charge for review purposes. All opinions are my own or those of my family.

B is for...Busy!

Is it just me or does anyone else find that life suddenly becomes very busy in September? You'd think as a HOMEschooler, that I shouldn't feel this way. I should be a home. Schooling. Yet I find myself running around to soccer practice, play dates, piano practice, art lessons, soccer games, music class, field trips, church, youth activities.  Shew!!!  And I haven't even signed Kayleigh up for her dance lessons yet.

Fortunately, I've been able to pack most of these activities into the same day. But still... it's exhausting. Here's what we've got going on this week...

Sunday: Church. We tried a new one this week. A BBQ in our new neighborhood so we can make our new neighbors love us before we move in. As if they wouldn't... ;o)

Monday afternoon:  1:30 Play date at the park with Kayleigh's bff. Kayleigh spends sooo much time with Mackenzie's friends or waiting for Mackenzie's activities that I'll never turn down an opportunity for her to hand with her little friends.

Tuesday: Young Musicians of VA Day. We have preschool music at 10:30, art for Mack at 11, and private piano at 1:30. We bring our school work with us. Soccer practice for Mack from 5:30-7:00

Wednesday: Field trip to the Air and Space Center to see Under the See at the IMAX. Then off to our friends house to do our whale science activities. This is not a typical Wednesday. Oh and I forgot. Mackenzie might be going to the mid-week youth group Wednesday night. Sigh...

Thursday: Stay home! Praise the Lord!

Friday: Stay home! Praise the Lord even more!!!

Saturday: Soccer games...Mackenzie has 2 games at 10 and 10:30. Kayleigh has soccer tots at noon. I'm hoping Kayleigh will decide to quite after this Saturday so we can leave earlier.  Does that make me a bad mom? She doesn't really like it except for the snack at the end. lol

I think that the next time some one expresses their concern about homeschoolers and socialization, I'm going to fight the urge to smack them upside the head and make them cart my children around instead.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The Not-Back-to-School Celebration

It was back to school week for the public school kids but, for us, it was back to the museums week. We  have patiently been looking forward to the day when the museums would be empty again and that day finally arrived. This year, for our Not-Back-to-School celebration, we choose soup at UNO's for lunch and an afternoon at The Children's Museum of Virginia. It was a beautiful afternoon. We practically had the place to ourselves. We saw more staff members then other visitors. Just the way that we like it.  Woot!


Public school wasn't the only thing that started back up this week. It was back to music and art classes for the kids. And Kayleigh is finally old enough to take a class herself, preschool music. She was so excited to finally do smething besides wait for Mackenzie to finish her classes. She came out of her class proudly holding her very own music book. So cute. Mackenzie is continuing on with art and private piano. She came out of class with a list of new piano books that she needs. She absolutely must stop progressing at such a rapid rate. lol With music class came lunch in the YMV lunch room. Yay a bunch of noisy kids acting weird. Just like public school. I guess I can check off socialization.

Mackenzie

Mackenzie's load hasn't changed much. We still haven't added in our Sonlight studies. I've decided to hold it off until after our move in a few weeks. No sense starting a great book only to have to put it on hold.

Our latest science lesson was on whales and it was totally fascinating. Obviously, we knew that whales were huge but some of the comparisons that the book made were mind blowing. The heart of the a blue whale is the size of a VW beetle. Holy cow! And the blood vessels are large enough for a baby to crawl through. Those examples really put the size of these creatures in perspective. I've decide that we will be going on a whale watching trip this winter when the whales are "in town." We're super excited about that.

We're almost finished with our Monet artist study. This week one of her assignments was to make a copycat painting of one of his works. She did an amazing job! Especially considering that she was using water colors instead of oils. You can see how it came out at the end of the post. I had no idea how talented she was at art until I started paying for her to take lessons. lol

Kayleigh

Kayleigh plugged full speed ahead after her mini-break last week. She got right back into all her learnin'.

I made a bit of a change for Kayleigh in regards to her All About Reading lessons. Basically the book is divided into three sections: Capital letters, lowercase letters, and phonics. She is currently in the second section, letter 'd', but she is more than ready for the phonics portion. So I decided to do both at the same time.  She's doing them 4 days a week instead of two. The lessons are really short and she loves them so she didn't even notice. Since we weren't very far into the second section, it won't take long to get those sections lined up.

The fun part about the third section is that they have a "Tasty Alphabet" activity for each lesson. Since we're quickly working through a-d, and we covered a/b this week, we made applesauce in the crockpot. Both the girls helped chop the apples and the both certainly enjoyed eating it.

She finally got to work in her Handwriting Without Tears book. Unfortunately it was just a coloring activity and she was over coloring for the day. lol Not that she likes it on a good day. We also practiced her grip and learned a song about the proper way to hold a pencil. Or crayon in her case. She liked that better than the coloring.

We read lots of fun stories with our Sonlight reading and she got to pretend to be a "hotel waitress" to go along with one of our books. She was not interested in pretending to be the "hotel maid" though. lol Smart girl. I'm hoping this book, Things People Do, has a section on massage because I should would like my feet rubbed. ;o)

Other Stuff

Not only did we head back to music class but soccer has started up too. I'm a little nervous about how Mackenzie's ankle holds out since she broke it earlier this summer. She was given the go ahead but she's pretty wimpy like her momma. She's only had one practice so it's hard to gage. Her first games are this weekend so we'll see how it goes. Kayleigh also starts soccer tots this weekend. She usually refuses to play so I'm not expecting much. We stopped bringing her before the season ended last year because she never wanted to do more than play on the playground. I wouldn't be sad if that happened this year either. lol Mackenzie's games are at 9 & 10 and Kayleigh doesn't play until noon. It's a long morning with a lot waiting.

As promised, here is Mackenzie's beautiful watercolor. She painted it in about an hour. I loved watching her use the techniques she's been learning in art class. I couldn't have taught her all of that. I like to look at art, not create it. lol

 Kayleigh did some watercolor painting too because she didn't want to be left out. She's more of an abstract girl though. She also made a self-portrait as part of her Artistic Pursuits lesson. First she drew herself and then she glued on some "hair and a dress." She loved it.

And that was pretty much our week. Did you do anything special to celebrate not going back to public school?


Linking to the Weekly Wrap-Up, Preschool Corner, Photo Collage Friday, and the Homeschool Mother's Journal.

Review: Speekee TV

The phrase "it's a small world" has never been more true then it is now. Just hop on a plane and you can be across the globe in just a day. Our family, before Kayleigh, has been blessed to spend three years in Guam and travel a bit. Even without traveling, you're very likely to bump into someone who speaks a foreign language. Learning another language is something that can only benefit everyone.

I was very excited to learn that I was being given the opportunity to review Speekee TV with my little one. I have seen it around on various blogs and had always thought it looked interesting. And my hubby was just saying that we needed to start teaching Kayleigh another language while she was still young. God's perfect timing!

About Speekee TV

Speekee TV is an online Spanish immersion program geared for children ages 2-10.  It is designed so that children can learn Spanishin their own time and at their own pace. Includes:

** 10 episodes of Spanish

** Over 150 minutes of pure Spanish learning

** Learn Spanish from real Spanish children
in real Spanish locations

** Features songs, animation, and puppets

** Optional subtitles

** Free activity sheet downloads

** Free optional curriculum

** Created by specialist language teachers.

Our Experience

We were given a six month subscription to Speekee TV.

The first time we watched an episode, Kayleigh was very overwhelmed with the amount of information presented. It was a lot. Especially considering that it is a full immersion approach. I quickly learned to break the episodes into more manageable pieces. This is very easy to do since they already have them divided by scenes.  You can watch the whole thing or just click on a specific scene. Nice and easy!


Another nice feature of Speekee TV is that they have done all of the lesson planning for you. A nice feature for a busy homeschool mom. All I had to do was sign up for the Fast Track Lessons and they deliver them to my inbox every week. How is awesome is that? You can also access the lesson plans on line. The plans include watching the video, practicing vocabulary, making puppets, and playing games. Lots of fun!

As soon as I broke down the lessons into smaller bits, Kayleigh was all smiles. She loves the characters in the episodes and asks to watch it all the time. And she really started picking up the vocabulary. You never know when she's going to pop out with one of her Spanish phrases. She thinks it's the coolest thing ever.

They also offer other resources such as flash cards and worksheets. Kayleigh wasn't old enough to make use of these yet but they are great supplements for the older children.

All in all, we loved this program and are continuing to use it past the review period.

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.speekee.co.uk/index.php

Age Range: 2-10

Pricing: $7.50/month or $60/year
Try it free for two weeks!

Disclaimer: I received a free subscription to this program for review purposes. All opinions are my own or those of my family. 

A is for the Arts

Marcy, over at Ben and Me, is hosting her second round of Blogging through the Alphabet link-up.  I'm going to try and hang in for all 26 letter. Just remember that I said "try". lol

For A, I'm choosing the Arts. I like the arts in pretty much all it's forms... Music, traditional art, dance. I was pretty good at the art of dance as a child.  And I don't want to brag, but these days I'm totally gifted in the art of sarcasm. Don't hate.  ;o)

I've never been the crafty sort so art projects have never thrilled me. It's dirty and messy. But I love looking at art. And I try to include it in our homeschool even though it's not my favorite thing to do. I'm pretty good at including artist and composer studies and even some crafty type stuff. We try to go to museums, the theater, or the ballet at least a couple of times a year.

My older daughter, Mackenzie, has quite an artistic bent that took us by surprise. A few years ago we finally had the funds to get her piano lessons. It turns out that she is really gifted at it.  She's on her third year of lessons and she just continues to amaze us. Here she is playing at her second piano recital.

Last year I decided to farm out her art lessons because they were always the first things I skipped when life got busy. Boy am I glad that I did. As soon as she had proper instruction, we learned that she had a bit of gift here too. She painted this beautiful beach scene this summer and I was stunned when she brought it home.

This week, during our artist study at home, she made a copycat painting of one of Monet's works. She worked on this for about an hour and I couldn't believe what a good job she did with just the knowledge she gained last year. She painted this in about an hour using watercolors, as opposed to oils as Monet used. Not bad considering her very limited supplies at home.

I'm interested to see what Kayleigh's take on the arts will be. She does enjoy looking at art. I make a point to share famous forms of art with her. She loves to look at art in her books and museums. She was able to impress some of the employees at The Met (NYC) with her knowledge of paintings she recognized from her books a couple of years ago.

She's taken dance at the local Little Gym and we plan to move her to a regular dance studio soon. She's also started taken her first music class at our local co-op. We hope to try her out with the violin in a couple of years. For now, her regular art lessons happen at home through Artistic Pursuits and fun crafts.

So what do the arts look like at your house?

Review: Reading Kingdom

We are starting the road to reading with our youngest so I was very excited to get the opportunity to review an online reading program called Reading Kingdom.

About Reading Kingdom

The Reading Kingdom is a fun, easy-to-use online program that teaches children 4-10 years old how to read and write at a third grade level.

• Most kids can use the program on their own after just a few lessons.
  
• It's fun so children think they're playing a game and want to practice.
  
• It was created by Dr. Marion Blank, Director of the Light on Learning Program at Columbia University and one of the world's top experts in reading.
  
• It works with any other curriculum a child may be using.
  
• It's the only program to offer customized online reading instruction for each child.
  
• And, it's the only system that teaches all 6 skills needed for reading & writing success!

Our Experience

The first thing students are asked to do in Reading Kingdom is to take the skills assessment test. They were checking to see if she understood the left to right sequence used in reading and whether or not she could match letters from the screen with letters on the keyboard. Being that she's only four, she clearly did not have any keyboarding skills so it wasn't a surprise when they placed her in the lowest level.

Unfortunately for Kayleigh, Letter Land and Seeing Sequences was just a repeat of the skills test. For more than two weeks she had to endure the same dry typing exercises over and over. And the way they repeated the same directions between every exercise dragged out the lessons even more.

Letter land was essentially teaching typing skills. The would show a letter/number/punctuation mark on the screen and she would have to type it on the keyboard. You also had the option of using an onscreen keyboard with the mouse. The mouse was easier for Kayleigh as she's been using that for years.

I was very surprised that there was so much focus on learning the keyboard required for a learn to read program. Generally, small children learning to read do not have knowledge of the keyboard, let alone the fine motor skills. And since you are given a time limit for completing each question, the fact that beginning readers do not have these the necessary motor skills for this created a lot of frustration. I did discover that you could increase the amount of time for each exercise but this did little to relieve her frustration.

And though the program claims to customized to the child, I didn't find this to be exactly true. After the first couple of days she pretty much got mastered the sequencing exercises, yet it didn't move her to the next level. You do have the option of contacting the company and they will move your child's level behind the scenes but I don't think of that as being truly customized. She had to complete another two weeks of this and it was not pleasant for either of us. Honestly, she was in tears every time we used the program. I kept telling her that once she finished this level that she would be playing some fun reading games and I wound up forcing her to complete the lessons so that she could get to the fun part.

Finally the day arrived where she completed these levels and advanced to Reading/Writing Level 1. I was so happy. We sat down that day eager to try out the much anticipated games and start learning to read.

Right off the bat, she was asked to type the word kid. The directions are given verbally so she didn't see the word at all. They just expected a four year, who can read a hand full of sight words, to spell a word she had no prior reading knowledge of. She just typed in whatever, I think she got 'k' right, and eventually they showed the correct spelling. Next they had her find the word among a few other words  and eventually she was able to recognize it in a group. Finally they gave you the target word and several similar words with missing letters. She had to click on the word that could be the target word and then type in the missing letters. Then it started all over again with a new target word. Sadly, these activities did nothing to alleviate her frustration or add to her enjoyment of the program. I was very disappointed that there still wasn't a game-like feel to the activities.

In the end, I would not recommend this as a learn to read program. The amount of keyboard knowledge excepted of the learner is way too much for the average beginning reader. I don't know any 4, 5, or 6 year olds who have the keyboard skills required of this program. And the drill like nature of the activities in not engaging enough for the average young child.

I did find the graphics to be colorful and friendly.  Occasionally my daughter would giggle at some of the onscreen antics through her tears. I also liked that they sent email updates each week so I could keep up with her progress.

If you have a young child who has adequate keyboard skills, then I would suggest you take a look at this program. An older child who struggles with reading might also do well. Their philosophy is an interesting one, as they put a slightly different twist on phonics and whole language. You can read a more detailed account how How Reading Kingdom is Different from Other Programs to see if it's right for your child.

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.readingkingdom.com/

Age Range: 4-10

Cost: $19.99/month of $199.99/year  They also offer a free 30-day trial and a scholarship program.

Disclaimer: I received a free subscription to this site for review purposes. All opinions are my own or those of my family.