We finally had some warmer spring-like days this week! We took a couple of half days from school and took our shovels to the beach! It was lovely. Emmett dug a 5 foot hole both days and then we worked as a team to fill it all back in.
Beyond Kale - A Mother's Mindful Journey
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Week 26 - Beaches, Muscles, and Reading
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Week 25 - A Wrinkle in Time, Flash Floods, and the Skeletal System
Happy Sunday all -
Can anyone believe this post is actually on time? Ha. Also, a quick note, if you are interested in the videos (mostly science) I haven't been able to get them to play on my phone. They do work on the computer and i am going to try and also add the YouTube link for anyone interested. Sorry about the technical difficulties.
Week 25 has come and gone. February 28th - March 6th.
It finally did NOT snow this week. It's been really cold and windy and the kids have been outside a little but man are we looking forward to some warmer days. Patrick keeps telling me "I tell you this every single year, it's March in Connecticut. This isn't Nebraska, spring doesn't exist here until the middle to end of April." He's right of course but a girl can hope.
Emmett started the book study for A Wrinkle in Time as well as poetry from Nikki Giovanni. He continues to work on his fractions and seems to be understanding all the concepts! Smart guy. Science this week was all about the skeleton. He asked me last night if we can study the digestive system of the peacock next week so I guess we will be learning together. He also finished up the digestive system with a lab where he and Jonah made a "stomach smoothie". Sounds gross, right? Video below.
Norah girl is as sassy as ever. I tried to wash and put away the snow pants that she despised at the beginning of the winter but she refused to give them up. She has been sitting at the table with the brothers and doing her "math" each day. So much personality, so little time.
Saturday, March 6, 2021
Week 24 - The Water Cycle, Spanish, and the Digestive System
February 21st-February 27th
Still playing catch up. It was snowy this week and so the little two and I got out to play. We had a little fun outing on Tuesday. Patrick took the puppy to work for the morning and I gathered up the kids after school, at about noon, and we went to the local pizza place and got pizzas. They are so great at Sound Beach Pizza. I take in a bag of our shredded vegan mozzarella and they will put it on a pizza for us! So we picked up pizza and juice and took it in the car to the beach. We had a fun car picnic because it was freezing cold and sleeting. They thought that was great fun. We even called Grammy from the car to let her "join" the picnic. Man, we miss our families. It has been soooo long and I am holding out hope that maybe we could see everyone this fall.
On to school -
Norah still loves all things "letters". She is a big fan of the alphabet puzzle, no surprise.
Jonah is hanging tough with his word list and working on a few letters every week.
Micah learned about the water cycle in science. He did a fun lab where we drew clouds, mountains, a river, and an ocean on a ziplock and filled it with an inch or so of blue tinted water. We taped it up on a sunny window and waited. He got to see how the water from the "ocean" condenses and returns to the atmosphere and then when it acculumlates, it turns into rain and falls back on the land and finds its way to the river and back to the ocean. Pretty simple, fun illustration. He is finishing up with his word lists and continues to listen to Folk Tales from around the world. We are staying right on track with his math as well.
Emmett is really enjoying human anatomy. He studied the digestive system this week and we learned about all the grossest things we could find, per his request. (The beauty of homeschool.) I'll leave it to your imagination but one of the labs he did involved an extension cord and a tape measure. He got a visual representation of just how long the small intestine really is and he was impressed. See the video below. He and the brothers also added several pieces of the digestive system to their life size "guys". See photos. He finished up reading Guero this week and we integrated some of his language arts into his Spanish lessons. He really liked the poetry and it was motivating for him to actually learn a few more Spanish vocab words. He continues with fractions and is doing well (although occasionally frustrated) with his math.
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
Week 23 - Snow, snow, and more snow - and a few clouds
Feb 14th - Feb 20th
I am so behind! As we are currently in the middle of week 25 of school, I am playing blog catchup. Oops.
Anywho, week 23 was cold and snowy. Sunday was Valentine's Day and I had fun putting together the table for the kids.
Wednesday was Ash Wednesday. For the last 4 years or so, Patrick has done "Ashes To Go" where people can drive or walk through and get ashes and a blessing on their way to work or school or the train station. I didn't take the kids this year for several reasons. It was sooooo cold, poor Patrick and Cydney were frozen solid. At the end of the day, one of the kids asked about getting ashes and so Patrick did them for us at home. I apologize for the picture overload but it was so sweet to watch them with him while he placed the ashes and gave them a blessing. Norah got hers and then demanded one on the other hand too. Ha.
So, do you all know where the ashes come from? The palm leaves are burned from the Palm Sunday the year before. Sometimes a bit of oil is added to help them stick. Oh, and if you have three interested little boys, they like to stand outside and watch in very interesting outfits.
On the school front -
Emmett is going strong with his cursive. He has almost learned all the letters and will begin to formulate words! He continues with The Call Me Guero for English, and is working through his Spanish book independently per his request. The fractions are still going strong in math and his science lessons will be focusing on Anatomy for the rest of the year. He worked on the mouth and throat this week. We were going to do a tasting party for his science lab but ended up opting for sledding with dad instead!
Micah read a folk tale this week from Iceland. It was strange but he seemed to follow along. He is also listening to me read Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky and is digging the African folk heroes. Each day he works on his work list for the week and has almost completed his handwriting book. It's time to really dive in to encouraging him to try his hand at reading stories himself. In science this week he learned more about clouds. We made a cloud in a jar together. It was a simple experiment but it will set him up nicely to learn about the water cycle next week.
Jonah continues to play, play, play and to work on his letters. He has enjoyed the snow and he loves having his brothers home to play with.
Norah is 100% diaper free. She is quite proud of herself and definitely won the kiddo vs puppy potty training race. Just kidding, she was just ready and fancies herself a big girl. She is very happy to walk Maddie with me and she and I spend a LOT of time in the cemetery where she tells me all of the letters on the headstones. She prefers R and N.