Saturday, January 30, 2010

Ice Storm 2010



















We lost power last night. My husband had to leave for work about 9pm last night and around 9:30 the electricity went out. We were fine and lit candles and the fireplace. The kids made a pallet on the floor. We actually did a little school work and read a chapter of one of Tyler's books, Charlemagne.

Before we settled down by the fire, Tyler and I had to take care of the pool. We don't winterize it but leave it open year round. So when the electricity went out I was comcerned that the pipes might freeze up. So like little utility works we headed outside with flashlights and started wrapping the pipes with towels and packing tape. Then we found some plastic and covered the whole thing up. While we were outside we could hear and see large limbs snapping off our neighbors tree. Thankfully the pool is fine and the electricity came back on around 4:45 am.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Weekly Wrap Up:It Snowed!





This week has been good. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened except that we got snow today!! Well, it was more sleet than snow but it was still exciting for us since it is something we usually don't see a lot of around here. The kids wanted to just take the day off since all their non-homeschooling friends had off but I stuck to my guns and they got their work done...in record time I might add. Snow is definitely a motivator! (I did suspend spelling and grammar.) We are supposed to get some more snow/sleet tonight.

Not much to say about this week. I guess I will talk about my 1st grader and language arts. I am so amazed at how well she reads. Right now we are using a Christian Liberty reader called Meeting New Friends. We have an older edition we got for free. The book has phonics charts (which I really like) and vocabulary words plus short stories. We also read our scheduled book from the Beyond Little Hearts for his Glory schedule. Currently, we are making our way through the Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book One. It is a great book because not only does Ashley get to practice reading but she is also getting to learn about the world around her. We also have comprehension questions with this reader or sometimes she will just narrate back what she has read. I will definitely be incorporating book 2 into our curriculum next year. We are almost done with Explode the Code book 4. I like these books but I am not sure she is really getting it so I am going to change things up a little. I am going to order Christian Liberty's Phonics book for 1 st grade. I will start it next month and continue with it throught the summer. If we like it then I will use their 2nd grade book next year. We also started using First Language Lessons back in December. This book is awesome! It is such a simple approach to introducing grammar. The lessons are short but to the point. I can really see the learning taking place as Ashley works each day. We started out the year with Language Lessons for the Very Young and I am continuing with this book as well. We use this book twice a week but I am skipping over the copywork since I feel she is getting enough of this through handwriting and First Language Lessons.

I am looking forward to next week, getting my haircut and getting back to normal temps.
For more weekly wrap-ups please visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Weekly Wrap-Up: Except Mine are Usually Monthly!

Okay, I am pretty much the worst blogger. I haven't posted in over a month. But, I guess it probably doesn't matter too much since I'm pretty sure no one really reads my posts anyways. :D I actually wrote a post in December but I wrote it in Word thinking I would copy and paste it into Blogger. But when I tried to do that I couldn't find how to paste what I had written and just gave up. I really didn't feel like writing it all over again either. I will just consider it the "Lost Post".

So I guess this is really a mid-month update. We celebrated two birthdays. Tyler turned 13 (uh-oh teenager in da' house) and Ashley turned 7. We didn't start back to school until Jan 7. Tyler's b-day is on the 6th so we just decided to stay on break until then. Oh, the joys of homeschooling!

The first week went great but this past week things slowly fell apart. Things run much better around here when we go to bed early and get up early, starting school by at least 8:30. The problem is that the girls of the household (me included) are late night owls who enjoy staying up until we can no longer keep our lids open. Then come morning we prefer to stay huddled up under our covers way too long. Result: we feel like our whole day is shot.

I have changed a few things since we started back. Tyler hated Wordsmith. It just wasn't working for him. I also needed to work with him on it quite a bit. Because of this we would just skip doing it which isn't good because this boy needs to learn to write. I looked around and decided on Jump In which is sold by the Apologia people. So far it has been going well. He says he likes it better and there is minimal work for me to do with him excep t check his work and provide feedback when necessary. I also dropped the Apples Spelling books and Ashley's Horizon's Spelling. Apples just seemed too redundant for us. And Ashley's book was too hard for her. Ashley reads wonderfully but she is a terrible speller. So, I have started Spelling Power with them and again so far so good.

Some friends and I have started a once a month co-op. We started it mainly for celebrating the holidays but on months where there isn't a huge holiday we will still meet or have a field trip. Right now, we have 7 moms involved and 13 kids. We want to grow it slowly inviting those we know to join in each time we get together. I'm really excited about it and hope that it will bring some fun and fellowship to our children. Here is 2 pics from our very first co-op meeting, the big kids and the little kids. It was a Christmas breakfast. We had a couple of games, exchanged $1 store gifts and made mini gingerbread houses (glued together graham crackers).


For more weekly wrap-ups please visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

 
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