Weekly Update

I think instead of weekly updates, I should do monthly updates, at least it seems like that is about how often I end up posting. I guess I really don't have as much to say as I originally thought. ;) But anyways, here a bit of what we've been doing -

Math: Jake is FINALLY finished his geometry. Now again, he didn't do ALL of the books in the set, just a few. If he feels later he wants more we'll either get the rest of the set or a different curriculum. But I am pretty sure he'll never, ever want more Geometry.

English/Writing: He's getting a little further into his book and finding the exercises getting a little harder. He is not enjoying "finding such & such clauses" and all that sort of stuff. hehe His writing is still horrible, and I hate trying to read anything. He insists on writing so tiny.. *sigh*

Geography: I am REALLY hoping that by the end of April we will finally be finished with this. It was started forever ago. We did great when first starting, because we were doing this as a group with some others. Then that fizzled out and, well, it just got pushed to the bottom of our pile. Here and there I've tried to get it going again, but it fizzled out every time. But no more, it needs to be finished. So he is almost halfway through it. So if we keep at this pace, then it should be finished by the end of April if not sooner.

History: We've been jumping all over the place here. I was going to start with Ancient History using Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. But instead I think we are going to do a US study first using America The Story of Us book & DVD first.That won't take us long. Basically I'll have them (Amanda is doing this as well) read a Chapter sometime M-Th and on Fri we'll watch the DVD chapter and do any lessons from the Teacher's Guide. I think there are like 9 Chapters or so in the book. If they end up reading the chapter early enough in the week, we can go ahead and do 2 per week instead.

Science: We are changing this, yet again. Not sure what I am going to pull of the shelf, but something Biology. And I think we'll do Chemistry at the same time, using The Joy of Chemistry: The Amazing Science of Familiar Things

Amanda's been really into artsy stuff lately; working in her sketchbook, crafts of one sort or another, etc. We've made pom-flowers:

Notebook paper t-shirt:

Crayon art:

And we had a failed attempt at an altered t-shirt, which then become a cleaning rag. LOL So no picture of that one. ;) Oh, and I finally finished my tiles I made the beginning of Feb.

Holiday Happenings

Been awhile since I've posted and I thought I'd do an update. :) We finally moved! The end of October to be exact. It was a bit rough at first... Amanda is never good about change, so we had about a week before she felt "ok" about living here. She was the one that BEGGED us to sign the lease and then once we moved she wanted to go back to the apartments. (She was like this when we moved into the apartments as well, but I thought it was because we moved from Smithsburg because we HAD to, not WANTED to.) I was very stressed about about various things and that was the icing on the cake. On the plus side of it all, I did lose 10lbs. lol School-wise things are up & down. We started off ok back in Sept. then with the move we kind of slacked off since we were packing and what-not. And since we've been moved & unpacked things haven't restarted yet. The Holidays came up quickly and we were wrapped up in that. We did manage to sneak in a field trip in Nov. We drove to Triangle VA to the Marine Corps Museum. We had a really nice day. There was a LOT to see there.

We've done a bit of baking since early Nov. Cupcakes, pie, coffee cake, and cookies. A LOT of cookies!

Jake also turned 16, so that's why the slice of pie is getting a candle stuck in it. ;) Mid-Dec we attended our homeschool groups Christmas party. We wanted to go since we really aren't "active" in the group much anymore. There aren't many older kids in the group so there just isn't anything going on for my 2. :( But anyways, we went and had a great time. The kids each got a gift from the kids' gift exchange. Jake got a recycled butter box with about 27 tiny wrapped "presents". He had to open each one to find the Gamestop gift card. We had a fun time watching Jake open them. Amanda got a cool Hello Kitty "lunch-box" with 4 Hello Kitty Pez dispensers. I had seen this at AC Moore and told the mom about it. So Amanda was happy about getting that. For the moms gift exchange, anyone participating just brings a gift. we draw numbers and go round choosing or stealing a gift. Whoever gets #1 can go again at the end to steal if they choose. I got #1 (again) this year. My first gift was a bunch of nice ornaments and scented items. It of course was stolen. My 2nd one was a really nice crochet shopping bag. It was stolen. The 3rd time I thought I was picking up some candy or something, but it was a Port City Java gift card, a really cute coin purse and a handmade Golden Snitch ornament. I LOVED it. And I warned everyone if they took it from me I would be stealing it back at the end. So of course, I kept it. :) I had made a really awesome recycled newspaper sparkling tree. I have to make one for myself yet. So hopefully will get that done this week. lol

Amanda and I also made cranberry & popcorn garland for the trees out back. I meant to get this done for the Winter Solstice, but we were a day late. Christmas has come and gone and we had a very nice one this year. Kids got a lot of cool & fun stuff. I guess they were pleased as they both dove into their games and such. lol

Here is sweet little Dwight posing...

Amanda's pile

Jake's loot

Family gifts

Now we just need to figure out what to do for New Year's Eve, besides eating Chinese Food.

Week in review

Ok so this week was a little better. :) Maybe we'll get back into a routine by, oh Jan or Feb. hehe It is hard enough getting back into a routine after "taking a break for the summer" but after taking a break from sit-down-book-learning for a few years, it is REALLY hard to get back into things.

I had hoped to do some geocaching this past week, but the weather was not all that great for being outside. The temps were low but the humidity was just ridiculous! I felt miserable just going out to get the mail. Our upcoming move (no clue as to where yet, but we are staying in the same town just really need to get out of this apartment!) is looking like it will be Nov or later. We're going to have stay here at least another month. The places we've been looking at just aren't nice on the inside. And while we hate living here, moving into a new shitty place just to get out of another one isn't going to work. So the search continues!

On the school front, here's what we did:

We have everything (or will after I go shopping for the last few items this weekend) for chemistry, so Mon will start on that finally. My Home Science Tools order came in on Thursday right before I had to head out for my weekly MNO. (A bunch of us went to see The Help, great movie! We were all crying, and a group of 8 ladies crying together is quite a scene! We all looked like Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer coming out of the theater. hehe) So anyways, back to chemistry... I should have lots of fun reports next week on our experiments. We're looking forward to getting started.

Math - Jake finished book 1 of the Key to Algebra. He breezes right through most of it and actually went ahead and finished this coming weeks work as well. As for the geometry, he only did the minimal amount he had too. LOL There are 8 books in the set but we only have the first 3. Not sure if I'll have him do them all or not. I just wanted him to have a little bit of geometry, so if we do more it might be next year.

Writing - This weeks lesson was on Parts of Speech. He had to copy out the sentences and label the parts of speech. Not the boys most favorite way to spend his time. LOL But he got through it ok and didn't do too bad.

Grammar - Not much to say here, he finished up his 5 lessons for the week.

Economics - Same here, Chapter 3 read and questions answered. These chapters and questions are usually pretty short, so he gets them finished up quickly.

Art - He finished up his chapter reading, but didn't get the Artist Bio pages started. So he can either do them over the weekend, or first thing Mon.

He also finished up a "small" amount of his geography work. Why he is dragging his feet on this is beyond me. *sigh*

Another thing I wanted to note is the reason I do not mention Amanda in my posts is because she has basically "finished" homeschooling. But she isn't quite ready for taking classes at the community college yet either. So she is actually doing some things at home as well. She needs some math review so we are working on that. But she also wanted other work so she is doing the art lesson along with Jake. Plus she is doing a Shakespeare unit study and some other Language Arts "classes" (vocabulary and writing). And of course reading history books. We have to go digging through the boxes of books I've already packed up because apparently one of her fathers military dictionary type books was packed away by mistake. And she needs it out.

So that's out week. Hopefully I'll have picture to add in next week. :) Of chemistry and hopefully some nice Fall scenes.

Waiting on Spring

March is quietly (& coldly) leaving us soon. The few days of warm temps we had this month seem like they were years away. Its been quite cold and icky, I've debated turning the heat back on. lol We did venture out on one fairly nice day and took the short hike/walk up to the Washington Monument. It was a chilly, breezy day so we didn't stay long.

 

The closer we get to Summer, the more work it seems the kids have to finish. Of course, they haven't been doing much at all.. which is normal and they have to bust their asses to finish it up before our final review of the year. They've both still been doing a good bit of reading. So they aren't JUST playing on the computer or Xbox. hehe But I've redone their schedules and I am *hoping* they stick to it a little better in April.

We've changed the dates a bit on the boys game days we were doing. It was becoming to much *work* for Jake since 2 of the boys were bickering a lot between them. So instead of every week, we are now hosting it once a month. So with the once a month Family Game Nights at the game store, that should be plenty of non-family game time. Which we've been doing a lot of. Jake won't always play, so mostly it is Amanda, Randy and I. We have all the Settlers of Catan expansions now. (We'll eventually get all the 5-6 player expansion sets so we can have friends join us.) We took a break from Settlers this past weekend though. On Saturday I showed Amanda how to play Uno Rummy Up. I hadn't played it in years. So Sunday, with dad with played that and Life. I think she's getting burned out on Settlers and needed a break (after all, it was usually her wanting to play Settlers so much!)

April brings so many activities I have on the calendar. Whether we'll get to them all, I have no clue but there are a few I *really* want to do. On the 2nd we a bake sale to raise money for our MS Walk team. So I'll help out a bit then, not sure if the kids will. The 9th is an open house at the Earth & Space Science Lab. The 16th is the MS Walk. Amanda and I will be doing this, not sure if I can talk Jake into it yet.  And then on the 17th is the Brookside Gardens Earth Day Festival. This is the things I am most looking forward to this month. On the 23rd, there is an Earth Day Festival at Morgans Grove park. Not sure yet if we are doing this. And sometime in April we are hoping to spend a Friday in DC.

I'm Back!

Ok, I am going to give this a try AGAIN! I really do want to be "a blogger", but well I just forget to post sometimes. But I will try harder (I know I say that every time).

So obviously, we are on break from "school" for the summer. Jake finished his math program up late this year (well he got started on it late as well). Amanda did not like the MUS set, so we switched from that to the Key To Algebra. She is *supposed* to be working on it throughout the summer, but hasn't done too much recently. I am trying to get them to do more reading.

As for how the school year went, well it was kinda pathetic. LOL With the move and all I just had a hard time getting into a routine. We've really taken a turn in our homeschooling style, moving towards more unschooling. So our relaxed, eclectic approach has gotten WAY more relaxed. ;) Regardless, I will continue with a math program for both of them. I just can't let that go completely unschoolish. They can work at their pace though.

For the 2010-11 school year though we do have some unfinished things to complete. So these will be a priority come September. The things we need to finish are:

1. Trail Guide to US Geography needs finished by both
2. Story of Science needs finished by both
3. Health unit needs finished by both
4. Word Roots by Amanda

Then here is a tentative "plan" for other work:
Amanda:
English/Language Arts - Shakespeare study; Literature Through Movies
Math - Finish Key to Algebra books; Consumer Math
Science - Life Science/Chemistry/Physics (her choice)
Social Studies/History/Geography - US Trail Guide to World Geography; You Decide (Bill of Rights).

Jake:
English/Language Arts - Literature Through the Movies; Shakespeare study?
Math - Key to Geometry (books 2 & 3); Key to Measurements (Books 1-4); Key to Metric Measurements (books 1-4)?; Key to Algebra (books 1-10)?
Science - The story of Science: Newton at the Center; Life Science/Chemistry/Physics (his choice); Other Joy Hakim books
Social Studies/History/Geography - US Trail Guide to World Geography; You Decide (Bill of Rights); Civil war
Arts - Computer programming

But they will be able to work at their pace. Trying to make a schedule and stick to it is useless, I'm not that disciplined. LOL So we'll see how things go. :)

I'm Back!

I can't believe I haven't blogged in so long. (Well ok, I can believe.. I was never that great at blogging regularly.) But I'll try harder. ;)

We've had many things going on since I blogged last. The major event was we moved at the beginning of August. We are now apartment dwellers. hehe That's been quite an adjustment. We were living at my husband's fathers place, we had a small house on his same property that was about 6 feet away from the main house. While it was "our" place, it was way too close. We had planned on moving 3 years ago but then Randy hurt himself at work and was unable to work at all for 2 years. So we were planning to move sometime this fall, then began having major issues with his dad. And we ended up moving before we had wanted to (or I should say before we were planning.) But we are moved and much happier.

Another event was my oldest turning 16 in August! I can't believe I have a 16 yo. She didn't want a big party or anything, but I kind of made her invite her friends over. She had about 10 kids here last weekend. Then girls chatted, played Guitar Hero and walked around the neighborhood a bit. The boys ended up playing a game of Risk. lol They all ate and ate (lots of pizza & cupcakes were consumed!). They all had fun, I had to keep quieting them down some. ;)

But anyways, I have LOTS of updating to do on school-ish stuff. So I'll be working on that this weekend. School started last week, so I hope to post soon about what we're doing weekly. :)

What can I say?

I just keep forgetting to update here. I'll keep at it, but I really don't think I'm cut out to be a blogger. LOL

So what's been going on with us? April went by really freaking fast! We had a lot of colder, yucky days with a few really nice ones and then a few ridiculously hot ones.

We had 2 Earth Scout meetings, 2 book club meetings and 2 co-op days. They all went well.

With Earth Scouts, I'll be changing the schedule a bit for the summer months. We usually have a hard time getting enough kids there to make the meeting worth it, so we're going to cut back to once a month. And those will be outdoors. So this weeks meeting will be the last indoor meeting until Fall. If the weather is too nasty we'll come up with something else.

Book club is going very well. This weeks meeting, we'll be discussing the 4th Percy Jackson book, The Battle of the Labyrinth. I must say, these books are really good! The 5th book is released today, The Last Olympian. So we are heading to Border's this evening to grab it up. I really wish Amanda would read these, I think she'd enjoy them also. So, with the kids reading the Percy books, we'll be holding a Mythology Bee. This will be on May 15th, not our usual book club day. Some of the kids will either be on vacation or moving, so we bumped it up a few days so they can participate.

Co-op has ended for this school year. May 1st was the last meeting, which the kids and I missed due to some UPS deliveries I needed to be here for. :( I'll miss co-op, but also thankful for the break. I am not sure what we'll do come fall. I might just rejoin for Jake and I, and Amanda can come along if she wishes. Jake really likes it, and so does Amanda... but for her, its just so terrible to have to wake up so early. I think starting at 11am would be a good idea though. LOL Hint hint Marti if you read this. ;)

So we have some fun stuff coming up in May with Earth Scouts and Book club. Plus we'll be continuing with the Geo-Club, once a month.

Today is Cinco de Mayo, so we're having a potluck picnic at the park with friends. I really, really, really hope the weather cooperates with us today!

So that's what's going on in a nutshell (or a nuthouse?) with us lately. :)

Week in review

So I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging more about our school life. :) So here's what we were doing this past week.

Math - Not as much math work was done as I had hoped, but they both did get a decent amount finished. Amazingly I think Amanda finished more than Jake. She's at the mindset now where the more she does, the sooner she'll be done (thankfully!!).

Geography - Geo-club is going well. We did miss the last meeting though. :( My kids are not super into it, but they do learn (and remember) some interesting things as we go along.

Reading - Jake has jumped ahead and finished reading the first 4 Percy Jackson books. He really got into them more than I thought he would. So I went ahead and ordered The Demigod Files for him also. The 5th book will be out sometime in the beginning of May. But I don't think we'll use that for the Mythology Bee for the book club. We might still read that but not sure if everyone will have it before. We'll have to wait and see.

We had another Earth Scouts meeting this week. We've been working on the Peace and nonviolence principle. So we talked about signs & symbols of peace. I showed the kids the symbols and we talked a little about them. Then one of the boys showed the group a bit about meditation, they did some yoga and got all stretched out. :) For the final activity they each colored in a peace Dove (of Picasso's) and wrote some words on their paper that they think of as peaceful.

After ES was the book group. We only have 7 kids reading the Percy Jackson books, and the group was small this week. 4 kids were there. But we still had a great meeting. It's interesting hearing what the kids think about the books. We did have a bit of an issue though. Some of them have read all through the first 4 books (my son included) and they are getting the books mixed up. Which I had a feeling was going to happen. (Mental note to myself: I need to email the group and have them re-read for next meeting.) So I had to keep them straight on things so they didn't give too much away for those of us who haven't read that far.

And on Friday, we had another co-op meeting. Co-op day is always fun, but as I've said, I come home with a terrible headache. LOL The things we go through for our kids. ;) First class is Wizardology. I have Jake (& Amanda but she just reads something else) in the class. We had a small group this week, just 3 out of 6 boys. So it was MUCH calmer and quieter. lol We actually finished the last 3 lessons in the handbook, which completes the Spring lessons. So now the boys can do the Summer lessons at home and they'll have completed the entire "course" on Wizardology. :) So for our next class, I think we'll view a movie. So I need to find a good one to show.

Then in the 2nd class, Jake had dissection. They did the starfish. That was pretty cool. I'll upload some pictures later. Jake had a medium sized starfish, so you could see things fairly nicely. Lots of digestive yuck. lol Amanda was in photography during 2nd period. Not sure exactly what she did. I know she needs to get some pictures printed up.

And that was our week. We have nothing NOTHING!! planned for next week. But I do need to figure out a day to have some kids over for a going away party for one of Jake & Amanda's friends. His family is moving to Australia soon for 2-3 years. But that's about it. Let's hope the week is a calm and quiet one. :D

Amanda and Avatars

So, Amanda has a major addiction to the Xbox 360. And her ritual everyday is to modify her avatar. I think her goal is to make it the weirdest, stupidest looking thing EVER!! Anyways, just thought I'd share one of her more recent "looks". I can't even begin to label what style this would fall under.. but here ya go!

Goodbye 2008!!

This year seemed to go by really fast. I dunno, maybe it was because the kids and I were involved in more things this year. We certainly weren't bored! Here is a look back at some of what we've done:

Homeschool co-op: This is an ongoing group that meets the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month (aside from summer months). We've had so much fun with our co-op. We've done science classes, cooking classes, gym classes, a Wizardology class, the kids have had plenty of time to just hang out and chill, they've made some really funny videos. I've been able to watch all of the kids grow, not just my own. I've watch the babies go from just newborns to toddlers. I really love our group of homeschoolers. The new semester starts in a few weeks. YAY!

Earth Scouts: We got this group up and running in April. We met twice a month on Tuesdays at a local library. We've had some members leave and have gained some new members. So right now our group is staying at about 8 families. We did a lot with the Respect for Nature principle. Some things we did include: made field guides and went on a nature walk along the C&O canal; made bird feeders & nesting bags; made glass lanterns & some of us braved the cold and went on a nighttime stroll around the local park during the Christmas lighting; Trick or Treated for Unicef - the kids raised almost $200!! There were a lot more we've done since April, and it has been a blast facilitating this group.

Parties: Oh so many parties & potlucks!! In April we celebrated Earth Day with a huge potluck. We had a speaker come in from the recycling plant, the kids & parents enjoyed that. Our food spread was to be only earth friendly foods (meaning organic if possible, using the least amount of energy as possible to make it, etc); We had a park potluck for Cinco de Mayo, everyone brought lots of yummy foods; in September, we had our annual "Not Back to School" park picnic. As always TONS of food and great time being spent with each other. Then the year ended with our Geo-lunch international holiday party. There was lots of food, gift exchanges, games, and just some fun hang out time for kids and moms.

Field Trips: In March we had a trip to the local PetCo. My kids have done this before with another group, but they never pass up a chance to hang out in the pet store. It was a crazy day, we had the store totally overwhelmed with kids. The manager was a little crabby due to a misunderstanding on her part. But all in all, the kids had fun so that's what matters; April brought around a trip to a local Martin's grocery store. The kids learned about eating healthy and making good food choices; We also headed out to Philly for a day in April. We went to the Franklin Institute to see the Star Wars traveling exhibit. This was great. We all really enjoyed seeing the actual costumes and props from the movies; June brought a very impromptu field trip to Winchester to the Discovery Museum and Sonic. hehe It all started with a discussion of the Sonic drive-in's, so of course to make it educational, we went to the Discovery Museum which the kids had to themselves for the most part. Half of our group worked in the "apple orchard" business, the other half worked in the "hospital" business. LOL Of course, my kids were in the orchard. No big surprise there, since we live in one. ;) But they had a great time!; We headed back to Philly in October. Again to the Franklin, but this time to see the Pirates exhibit. It was nice, but I was pissed because we couldn't take photos. But the kids still had fun.

Geo-lunches: one of the moms in our group decided to start monthly Geo-lunches. Each month we'd have a different country, everyone would bring a dish from that area and if the kids wanted, they can share something they've learned about the area. We attended a few and had a great time. The kids were bummed we didn't get to them all. They'll be continuing in the new year, but I *think* we'll be doing the US this time around. We ended the year with an International holiday potluck/party

Losses: In June we had Amanda's cat put down. He wasn't very old but had a lot of health issues. I had really put this off for way longer than I should have. I don't think he was suffering, but he was getting worse. And it would have been way more traumatic if she found he died rather than just putting him down. And then if that wasn't enough, either on Halloween day or the day after, something killed her bunny. We are pretty sure it was a fox as we've had one stalking around all summer. But whatever it was, took the bunny. we couldn't even find any trails of fur; And not as sad & upsetting as the pets, but Amanda had her wisdom teeth removed in Sept. She did WAY better than I ever expected. So either she is really tough, or everyone else is wimpy. hehe We had planned to start back with school that week, but that was put on hold. Jake didn't mind one bit. ;)

Fun & Entertainment: I like April sometime I had won tickets from a local radio station to see John Mayer playing at Merriweather Post. So a friend and I headed off one icky day in July. Yep, it was storming something terrible on the day of the concert. We still went, in the rain. And wouldn't you know it, the rain stopped during the last song of the night. Aww, how kind of you monster nature. LOL We also saw a few movies throughout the year. Not as many as I had planned on. But oh well.

Birthdays: Amanda turned 15 in August. She just invites some kids over anymore, they hang out and chat, play Rock Band, etc. This year though they did Henna tattoos. This was fun, but stinky. lol I am glad the evening was nice and they could go out to the patio. Jake turned 13 in November. So know I have teens in the house!! He had some boys over, and of course, they played the Xbox & the Wii all day. lol Parties get easier & less expensive as the kids get older. :D

Work: Randy FINALLY got back to work in July. He was off for 2 years with a work related injury. He likes the job and it seems to be going quite well. So keep your fingers crossed for another raise next month. LOL

That's our year in a nutshell. I am sure I forgot to tell you something really exciting. But I figure this post was extremely long as it is. ;) Have a wonderful and safe New Years!! We'll be staying home as usual. I don't like going out on New Year's Eve anymore. We're ordering Chinese food for dinner tonight. YAY!