Week 26 - Beaches, Muscles, and Reading

 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. 

On Monday morning, I took Norah girl to the doctor for her two and a half year physical. She rocked it, complete with a purse carrying three Cars guys, a wrench, a set of pretend keys, a pretend credit card, and a lipstick. A girl who is prepared for anything. She even had a purple mask to match her purple purse. She is a solid 6% for height and about 11% for weight, small but mighty. 

We also received our boxed order and it must have had a rough ride. The jelly beans and the m&m's exploded and it was like a giant rainbow in the box! We had a great time talking about their journey and looking at them in box!

Jonah continues to work through his letters and letter activities. He also has become fascinated with dolphins and whales. He will have an interesting comparison project to work on next week. Stay tuned!

Micah is practicing daily on his reading. He is also working through his math modules and definitely has tens and ones place value addition and subtraction down! His science lesson this week was supposed to be on snow. Ha! We talked about it and learned a few basics but I think we are all ready to put that behind us for the year. 

Emmett is in the middle of A Wrinkle in Time. He has actually finished it without me, which is excellent timing as Maddie worked really hard to tear the cover off on Friday. Doh. He is also working on mixed numbers and improper fractions. That kid has one smart brain. Science this week was all about muscles! He learned the different types of muscles and we put the muscles on "our guys". 

On Saturday I did a run to a new location and did a little exploring. So many cool things to find around here and always better on foot.  

We even ate lunch outside quite a few days this week. Between that and the robins, I can feel it, spring is in the air.

Cheers!

Kate

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.

https://youtu.be/HVPiYfZezTE

Micah has ended his word lists and has moved on to more comprehensive reading. He chooses a new book out of his book box each day and we work through it together. He studied rain this week. His lab was all about a box canyon flash flood. See videos below. We also talked about the average rainfall in several places. Apparently, Lincoln, NE gets 30 inches of rain per year and Greenwich, CT gets 51 inches. Micah decided that Lincoln was slightly more "arid" than Greenwich. He also continues with ones and tens place value and handwriting. 

https://youtu.be/Iw75vdUkADc

https://youtu.be/L0sueqTvIzE

Jonah continues to work on his letters. He also discovered a little treasure. He and Betsy planted some bulbs around the church and our gate in the fall. This week he saw some of the little shoots poking up. He was so excited! We talked all about what they might have been doing underground all winter and why they look different now than they did when he planted them. He even called Betsy to inform her. 

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. 

Cheers - 

Kate

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. 

Jonah reading!

https://youtu.be/j38AtzSW3P0

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. 

Micah

Jonah

Small intestine lab explanation

https://youtu.be/W6Z8s4ybjXc

Until next time - 

Cheers!

Kate

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. 

https://youtu.be/R1yuEt-eubs

https://youtu.be/8NOzMqgQR0I

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. 

On Friday, we borrowed Patrick for a couple of hours and went sledding! This was Norah's first run down the hill and she LOVED it. "More! More! More!" She hiked back up over and over and never once complained about being tired or cold. Also, Patrick thinks that someone should invent a toddler coat with mittens attached that can't pull out from the sleeves and let snow in. 

https://youtu.be/egDGuIG4d0w

More coming soon! Next week - the digestive system... 

Cheers

Kate