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.