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!