Homeschool Notes Week 13 - A Bit Late

We kicked the week off with Monday mayhem. There was seminary, homeschooling, Makayla's orientation for her first job, an endocrinology appointment for me, a work related injury evaluation for my husband, and more. Oh, and there are still a couple sick kids. Despite the list of things to do the kids were able to do their school work cheerfully and well. I think it helped to remind them that next week is break week. :) I know it helped me.

Our Tuesday was cold and rainy, a beautiful quiet morning. Kids worked steadily through their subjects with me. I took a mid-morning break to make a fruit salad. Today that meant cutting up:

• 3 apples
• 2 cups grapes
• 3 kiwi
• 1 pineapple
• 3 oranges

Yum!

Makayla shadowed the veterinarians as usual for several hours. Kids played, created, crafted, and relaxed. 

Wednesday we had more rain and cold. It's wonderful! The kids did schoolwork. We baked 48 muffins. I prepared the last bits for Cub Scouts Pack Meeting. Our theme was slingshots and catapults and it went great tonight! We had three stations for kids to work through:

• Long Range Slingshot - Kids got into teams of three to use a waterballoon launcher with little plastic balls from a kiddie ball pit to knock over a wall of boxes.
• Medium Range Slingshot - This had kids knocking over towering stacks of plastic cups. Their slingshots were made this way: Lay a chair on it's back. String two rubber bands, one milk jug ring, and two rubber bands together and slip around two legs of the chair. Add marshmallow to the ring, pull back, aim, and fire.
• Short Range Catapult - Kids built their own mini catapults with craft sticks and rubber bands. Then they shot cotton balls through football goal posts made from craft sticks, standing up in balls of playdough.

Thursday morning I had to scrape ice off the van window before I could take Makayla to Seminary. Brr! The kids knew that Grandma K from Utah was in town so they got school done early to be ready for a visit. She came and spent the afternoon and evening visiting. She even taught the kids a new game (Farkle). We had an early Thanksgiving style dinner with a turkey I had in the freezer.

Friday morning was the last day of school for our 6 weeks. Hooray! I think this Sabbath schedule is lovely so far (6 weeks of work and 1 week of rest). I know it will break down a bit over the holidays and birth of baby, but I will be sure to err on the side of more breaks than fewer. We attacked our school work and got it all done. We spent a little time pulling papers out of binders for portfolios, I will finish that during our break week. Then is was just waiting for Grandma to arrive again.

*** So, life got away from me a bit and I'm just now posting this a few days after my last update. Such is life! ***

Homeschool Notes Week 12

Monday was a bit more scattered than I prefer. I had a grocery pick up at 8am and bloodwork at 10:30am. In between those and after I helped kids with their new week of learning. I really prefer just being able to stay at home and do the school work uninterrupted. Daddy was home and so some of the kids just went to him for help when I was gone, while others waited for my return for things like a new math lesson.

In the afternoon Mason had physical therapy. I remembered to put dinner in the crock pot in the morning (shredded beef sandwiches) so it was pretty easy to come home from PT and finish up dinner prep. Right after dinner we spent some time outside just enjoying the chilly weather. Then it was inside to settle down before bed.

Tuesday we woke up to a gloriously chilly morning that was almost cold enough for snow. Hot chocolate, pumpkin bread, and banana bread were a popular breakfast. Unfortunately a couple of my kids are getting a cough/cold. In a large family that also deals with a lot of allergies it's a rare month when we don't have someone sick or at least miserable from allergies. Right now Makayla is still dealing with allergies but they are morphing into something respiratory. It seems Caleb and Tobias at least are getting sick with a cough. We've got essential oils helping to manage symptoms while we see where this goes. So far no fevers and no loss of appetite.

We still managed school work. Several of the kids did an art project using some of the painted paper we made two weeks ago resulting in new art for our art line. We also had piano lessons in the afternoon. Then we surprised the kids with dinner in the backyard with the fire pit. It was really simple - just hot dogs, tortilla chips, and smores. For about 3.2 seconds I considered adding a fruit and vegetable. Then I decided the kids would be just as happy to skip them.

Wednesday I sat down to pay bills (oh the fun of adulting) and Oliver sat beside me and plowed right through his school work. Other kids were busy in various parts of the house doing school work or playing. It was a predictable, quiet day. I even got a nap!

Dinner was homemade pizza. Now before you think this was a lot of work, remember I'm pregnant. We used garlic toast and English muffins as the crusts and everyone got to add sauce, cheese, pepperoni, etc. Easy.

Thursday was a nice uncomplicated day. School work happened all morning. I'm getting excited because I can see our next break week on the horizon. We just have one more week of school to go. In the afternoon my sister and her four kids came over. While kids visited and played we talked budgets and figuring it all out when you've just moved internationally, changed jobs, and are still waiting to get important information like just what the paycheck and bills will look like now. Yeah, I don't envy her right now. Talk about complicated!

During dinner prep I decided to work ahead. While I was browning up a couple pounds of ground beef and black beans for tacos (tonight's dinner) I mixed up another couple pounds of ground beef with some ground sausage and other ingredients and filled a pan with a meatloaf. That got foil on top and was tossed in the second refrigerator. It will be dinner tomorrow night. Two dinners (plus leftovers!) with just one time touching raw meat and getting a messy kitchen. Yay! The taco meat leftovers tonight can go in quesadillas tomorrow for lunch. The meatloaf leftovers will be lunch for the next day.

Friday the local schools were out so Makayla didn't have seminary. Sleeping in was the order of the morning - except most of my kids don't know how to sleep in, so I was still up at 6am. Oh well. We did do school work to finish off the week strong. Then Joseph cooked a bunch of different things for his campout tonight. By afternoon it was time to pick up two teen cousins and drop off my two teens and cousins for a youth activity at a pumpkin patch with a huge fun zone. Then it was back home for me to do afternoon medical care for Mason. My sister (mom of the cousins) was on pick up duty for the teens. I tossed the meatloaf in the oven to cook, fed most of the family dinner, then it was time to take Joseph and one cousin to their Boy Scout campout.

Saturday was filled with a library book sale, cleaning the house, cooking, meal planning, picking up the scout campers, grocery shopping, and realizing that Tobias, who has been coughing for a couple days, was not going to be well enough to go to church on Sunday. Saturday had a lot of other things in it like a trip to the bank, games, school for daddy, rearranging one bedroom, and laundry. It was just a full day.

That brings me to this morning. It is Sunday and most of my crew is off to church. I'm going to go snuggle Tobias for a bit and take it easy.

Homeschool Notes Week 11

The kids were excited to learn that this week is only a 3 day school week. We're taking Thursday and Friday off for various reasons (doctor's appointments, friends visiting from out of state, just because we can). We got the week started right with a good solid Monday.

Kids had new math lessons or math review. This looked as follows:

• Algebra 2 - Review for Makayla and I doing lesson 6 review pages. 
• Pre-Algebra - Joseph and Emma had a new lesson. They met Pythagoras and were introduced to the Pythagorean theorem, which quickly made clear just why they had been practicing squaring and square rooting a number. 
• Epsilon - Daniel's new fraction lesson was his first introduction to dividing fractions using the rule of 4. We'll cover dividing by multiplying by the reciprocal later on.
• Gamma - Oliver's next lesson uses the skip counting by 9's he learned last week as a stepping stone to learning the 9's multiplication facts. 
• Alpha - Caleb is on the last few subtraction facts: 7-3 or 7-4, 8-3 or 8-5. 
• Hands on math - Mason is still not using a formal curriculum, just learning math concepts in a hands on way.

There were writing prompts to choose or writing from last week to continue if you were really engaged in what you had been working on. Caleb and Oliver had the drawing portion of Draw Write Now today. One drew a sheep while the other chose a squirrel. Mason and Samuel had fun with dry erase boards writing letters as Daddy called them out. Mason's handwriting is becoming legible and his fine motor control is definitely improving from where he was at the beginning of the school year.

Makayla and I finished Unit 1 in Latin Alive 1. That means we spent time translating the story of the Trojan War (a very simplified version) and reached the Unit Review. In the Unit Review we begin translating stories from the history of Rome, which we will start this week. In Chemistry she was looking at light spectrums using a feather - crazy interesting what our eyes can see when we give it the right kind of filter!

Kids did their history reading. Beginning reading lessons happened for three boys with a fourth boy tagging along. Fix-It Grammar lessons were new topics for Joseph, Emma, and Daniel today. As I said, it was a solid school day.

I made tacos for lunch and we sat down as a family (remember, daddy is home on Mondays too! He switches between joining in with homeschooling and doing his own college class work). As we finished eating we sat around the table and did our reading in the Book of Mormon. Dinner was pancakes tonight.

Tuesday morning I was a bit grumpy and the kids were a bit loud and chaotic so we had a bumpy start. I really needed some more sleep but the 5am seminary wake up call couldn't be ignored. After a while things settled down and we got through all our school work. Momma also got a better attitude going after some snuggles and laughs with the littlest boys.

Lunch was leftovers - kids could add taco meat to a quesadilla or just stick with tacos. It was easy and everyone could adjust it to what they liked best.

Every afternoon I spend about an hour and a half doing medical care for Mason. During this time kids are allowed to use their Kindles and Tobias naps. It is a quiet time in our day. We decided today that at least once a week during this quiet time we will listen to the Book of Mormon on audiobook. There are a couple reasons for this. First, I have several who LOVE audiobooks and listening. Second, I'm generally the one doing the reading aloud during our regular scripture reading time, which is great, but I'm getting short of breath as baby gets bigger. The audiobook can go much longer than I can in the read aloud department right now! We live in a time with technology like audiobooks so I'm going to take advantage of it!

We had piano lessons in the afternoon. We are really blessed because our piano teacher comes to our house. The kids adore her.

A rainy Wednesday started off our last day of school for the week. The kids got things moving, worked hard, and reminded me to get to the music store to pick up the next level of piano books for those who need them. One fun thing we did today was get out water beads. I soaked them overnight so they were ready to play with once school was over.

Wednesday evening was youth activities, Boy Scouts, and Cub Scouts. I'm doing preparations for this month's Pack Meeting. We're having a slingshots and catapults night.

Thursday was a no school day. It was great! I spent part of the morning at a checkup with my obstetrician and shared a pregnancy update on the blog. Everyone enjoyed the day off. There was a lot of playing, building, and reading going on. Makayla had her first day driving with a driving instructor (it's a mandatory 8 hours in Ohio, in addition to the 50 you drive with your parents while you have a permit).

Friday we were thrilled to host a homeschool get together with friends who are back for a short visit from out of state. They were part of our book club and art class last year before moving and we've missed them. We had a houseful (20 kids and not even all the kids in our families were able to come) and one mom was missing - but she had a really good reason. She had a baby yesterday, 9 weeks early, so she's still recovering and baby is stable in the NICU.

Saturday started out with the whole family attending a baptism for two children we know. Then it was home for a bit before the teens (because Joseph turned 13 today!) and two cousin teens heading out to a youth fall activity at a state park. I placed my first online grocery order today. Our local Wal-Mart just started offering free grocery pick up. I decided that because walking long enough to grocery shop gives me contractions every week that we should try the pick up service. We'll see how it goes! I pick up our order Monday morning and I'll report about it in next week's post.

Now I need to get into the kitchen again because Joseph (birthday today) and Daniel (birthday in 4 days) requested that I make sugar cookies for their combined birthday party tomorrow. I'm making one batch of sugar cookies and they requested one batch with andes mint pieces, so I'll do a separate batch with that. We keep birthday parties really simple. Generally we just invite family over for dessert. Occasionally a child requests a birthday party with friends, but most of the time we're just as happy to keep it a small family party.

That's it for our week! I'm off to bake!

Pregnancy Update #9 - Weeks 21 through 25

21 weeks - Lots of tailbone pain this week. I've had a broken tailbone a couple times in the past so tailbone pain during pregnancy isn't unexpected for me, this is just starting earlier than usual. It makes it hard to walk much, sit for long, or lift and carry Mason. I've had the occasional bout of heartburn. They're pretty much my own fault - I'll eat and then forget that laying down is a bad idea until things digest. The laying down is happening fairly often again because I'm tired. I need regular naps! They're hard to come by but I'm making an effort.

22 weeks - Tailbone pain has been better this week but heartburn has been a more frequent visitor. I'm trying to remember to eat smaller amounts and spread my drinking liquids out over the day instead of guzzling a lot at a time. Baby girl is moving around often.

Something new I haven't mentioned yet - my feet have changed sizes! I noticed over the last month or so that when I wear my tennis shoes they're too tight, even in the morning when I haven't been on my feet all day. I finally gave in a used a coupon at Payless shoes to buy a new pair of tennis shoes. I have no idea if my feet will go back to their old size after this pregnancy, we'll see.

Weeks 23 and 24 - Heartburn is a regular visitor when I lay down at night. Or for a nap during the day. I'm having some aches and pains with my sciatic nerve, pubic bone, and tailbone. It's all part and parcel of pregnancy, just showing up earlier than usual. Baby is active and growing.

Today I had my second doctor's appointment. I am 25 weeks along in this pregnancy. I had an ultrasound to do measurements of baby and check to see what is going on with my partial placenta previa. Happily everything looks good. Baby girl is measuring about 1 pound 13 ounces, all organs look good. My placenta has moved up and out of the way, so I am cleared to have a vaginal birth. This will be my 3rd VBAC. I'm measuring on target and gained 7 lbs since my last appointment. Baby was breech today, with her head up behind my belly button and her hands, arms, and feet up by her face.

The crazy thing is I've already reached the point where my appointments start getting closer together! I go back in 3 weeks, then will go back every 2 weeks for 4 appointments, then it is every week until baby arrives.

Homeschool Week 10 Notes

Saturday and Sunday my family enjoyed watching General Conference. There were so many wonderful things about it that I'm going to try to get a separate post up about that. So let's move on.

Monday morning school was helping one child after another with new math lessons, listening to them read aloud, or helping them choose a writing project. Because Daddy is home on Mondays we were able to do our family reading in the Book of Mormon at snack time.

For science with the 7th grade and under crowd we talked about migration today. I started by asking them what migration means. We brainstormed different animals that migrate including some birds, butterflies, salmon, and whales. We read a book about how birds know where to go when they are migrating. I loved that in the end the book admitted that scientists don't really understand how birds know where to go. They have some ideas, have done some studies, know some possibilities, but they haven't figured it all out yet.

After school was finished 7 of the kids decided they wanted to paint. We pulled out oil pastels and tempera paint and they set to work. A couple boys created dinosaurs, others made pumpkins or bats, and one child made a pumpkin coach like Cinderella had.

Tuesday - A lovely cold morning (41 degrees F) started off with taking Makayla to seminary at 5:40am as usual. Most of the kids were awake before 6:45am. People ate breakfast and did chores. I convinced a few reluctant ones to get dressed instead of staying in pajamas all day. Then I settled into a seat at the table and did school with Mason. Samuel joined us for some of the fun. Before long the table was filled with kids doing writing, math, and grammar.

After lunch Mason and I spent 2 1/2 hours doing a bracing appointment. We'll go back in a few weeks when the orthotist is finished adjusting the braces to do a final fitting and bring them home. Makayla babysat, much to her delight, because she earned money she's planning to put toward a new tank for Olympia, her ball python.

Wednesday - I had an extremely long night with not much sleep thanks to a cranky Tobias. I think he's feeling a bit under the weather. When I got a text at 5am (after about 3 hours of interrupted sleep) cancelling seminary for the day I cheerfully went back to bed. Of course, Tobias woke up again so I really didn't get back to sleep until about 6am and slept until 7:30am. Still not a full night of sleep, but enough to get by on.

Here is part of Joseph's Secret Codes writing project.
He used Pigpen code to write a note (and I replied in kind).
He also used pictograms one day and created a cipher another day.

The wonderful thing is that we're solidly in a routine for school. Even when my energy is low or I'm busy taking care of someone who isn't feeling well our days roll ahead smoothly. Routine and habit sees us through. This is one reason why I'm so protective of our mornings. I remember early in my homeschool years that I was more likely let others infringe on our morning hours. Now, unless it is a medical appointment I have no other options on, I do my best to keep mornings set apart for homeschooling.

Everyone did their school work with a minimal of groaning. Makayla and I worked together to review her chemistry chapter. She is less than impressed that chemistry involves so much math...lol. I remember feeling the same way in high school.

Thursday - There was a lot of math today. It just boggles my mind sometimes jumping between all the levels. We got it done and everyone is pretty comfortable right now, including the high schooler doing Algebra 2. Slowing down the course has been the best idea ever!

There was a fair amount of finishing happening today. History reading books were finished. Writing projects were finished. Beginning readers were finished. To celebrate I played a game of Settlers of Catan with most of the kids.

In the afternoon while Tobias was napping I pulled out paint and set the kids to work making up a stack of painted paper. We'll be doing some art projects that use painted paper in the near future. To make this doable I used just a couple of supplies:

• Plastic roll of tablecloth - Clean up was a breeze because my table was covered. Just throw it away! This was the best investment ever. I found mine on Amazon of course (aff). It is 300 feet long and 40 inches wide. We use just over 8 feet of it to cover our table so it should cover my table about 35 times. I got it on sale for under $14 so that's 40 cents per tablecloth. You can't even beat that at the dollar store. 
• Food services bowls with lids - These are great paint containers! We poured in some tempera paint and water, then added a nice fat paint brush. The base of the bowl is wide enough that they don't tip over with a big paintbrush and little hands messing around them. When we are done you just pop the lid on and the paint doesn't dry out. We can use it for projects on another day. Again, found these on Amazon (aff). They are 16 oz bowls with lids and I found 50 for $14. 
• Cake scrapers - Once the papers had been painted and were rather wet the kids used these to add texture and interest to their designs. Amazon to the rescue (aff). This set had 10 scrapers for $8.
• Pacon sulphite paper - I get this at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon when we need it. Our painted paper is 12"x24".
• Tempera paint - We have bottles of tempera paint from Hobby Lobby, again, purchased with 40% off coupons. These have lasted a LONG time (we're in year 2 of using them). We will run out this year some time.

Friday - Yes, we made it to the end of the week! I challenged the kids to get school done early. Most of them got to work before 8am. Everyone loves that feeling of finishing a good week of work.

Oliver's most recent copywork.

I noticed today just how much Oliver's handwriting is improving by using Draw Write Now - and made sure to mention it to him today.

Joseph helped me bake 48 muffins for lunch today. We went with pumpkin chocolate chip for half and banana chocolate chip for the other half. Mmm.

MOM FUN:

This week and last I have been working on my Project Life album. I'm not a scrapbooker - at all. I just don't have time for that. For Christmas almost 2 years ago I bought the basic materials to do a Project Life album. Basically, all you do is print 4x6 pictures and slip them into page protector pockets that are just the right size and already in a 'scrapbook layout'. The smaller pockets on the page fit little cards where you can journal about what is going on in the pictures. I had done some pages in my album but then ran out of printed photos. I'm not super consistent at taking pictures, much less getting them printed, so this put a halt to my Project Life work just a few months in.

Last month Shutterfly had a quick one day deal where you could print as many 4x6 pictures as you wanted for free, all you had to do was pay shipping. Well, that and survive the abysmally slow website because everyone was trying to do the same thing. I printed off several stacks from the last year and sat around waiting for them to arrive.

Over the last two weeks I have tried to take 10 minutes most days to sort pictures, slip them into pages, and then journal about them on the little cards. The kids have been fascinated to flip through photos of themselves and reminisce about things they may or may not remember doing.

That's all my notes for this week! I'm linking with Weekly Wrap Up.