2018-2019 Homeschool Week 26: Mary Blair Art and Shopping for Next Fall

Next week Oliver turns 10.

Half of my children will have reached 

double digits. Crazy.

The Weekend Notes

Family time and sick kids sum up the weekend. We kept a very laid back pace with lots of rest, laughter, and more rest.

Monday Notes

Rebekah's sleep is still messed up from being sick last week. She wakes up in the middle of the night and is up for 2-3 hours wanting snuggled. Put her down and she cries, hold her and she is usually ok. I'm tired, but I know these days won't last forever and try to just soak it in.

School went well for a Monday. The 5th grade and under crowd was thrilled to start our science unit. We began Kingdoms and Classification from The Good and the Beautiful. Today we sorted buttons by rules we each made up (and tried to guess the rule others had used), figured out how to decide if something is living or non-living, observed two paintings looking for living and non-living things, learned about why we organize and sort things, studied Carl Linnaeus, learned about taxonomy, and read "Karl, Get Out of the Garden".

Monday afternoon I ordered a lot of our homeschool curriculum for next year. I have found that ordering in February or March is a good idea to avoid things being out of stock or backordered once convention season is in full swing (April-July). If you are like me, you are curious to know what was ordered, so let me tell you! There will be a few more purchases, but this was the bulk of what we needed. I will sort them by where I purchased the items.

• Math U See - While I own all the teacher's manuals and dvds, each child needs their own workbook ordered each year. Today I ordered: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, and another Algebra 1. 
• Ebay - I grabbed a second copy of  Exploring Creation with Biology by Jay Wile. Joseph and Emma will do this together in the fall and so we needed another book. 
• Home Science Tools - Dissection Kit for Apologia Biology, with extra specimens. Worm, crawfish, perch, and frog dissections are ahead. 
• The Good and The Beautiful - Language Arts 3 (Oliver - we looked at the samples and decided that he is ready for this and will be done with All About Reading level 4 by fall). Language Arts 5 (Daniel). Language Arts 6 (Joseph and Emma). History 2 (This will be used by Emma, Daniel, Oliver, Caleb, Mason, Samuel. Joseph plans to study a History of Science course separately.)

Monday evening Makayla decorated a cake. She works at a bakery/bistro and wanted to try some new things for fun. It was pretty amazing to see what she can do with some frosting and food dye. She doesn't want me to share a picture, so I won't, but imagine the top bursting with flowers in shades of pinks, mauve, and green leaves. If you look up 'blooming flower cake' on Google images you'll get a good idea of what she did.

Tuesday Notes

Daddy took over the homeschool morning while I took Tobias and Rebekah to the pediatrician for a checkup. When I got back I did science with the 5th grade and under crowd while we enjoyed Makayla's cake. Yum! There were a few kids to check in with on one subject or another, but overall, daddy handled most of the teaching today.

In the early afternoon the kids' piano teacher came for lessons. I played one very long game of Uno with boys who were waiting their turn, then did playdoh with Tobias for a bit before reading some more of The Brave Learner. Rebekah napped through all of this.

I spent a few minutes after dinner putting some books on hold with my library. I also ended up making a quick run to our library drive through to pick up two books that came in: Your Fantastic Elastic Brain by JoAnn Deak and Home Body by Joanna Gaines.

Wednesday Notes

I woke up just after 5:00am to see snow and ice outside. Rebekah, whose sleep has been wonky since last week, slept through the night. That meant I had better sleep, only up once in the middle of the night for Mason's medical care, and so I got up to have some quiet time just for me. I read my scriptures and then read more in The Brave Learner (my review is coming soon). Oliver wandered downstairs around 6:20am, around the time I decided to use up some ripe bananas. I made four dozen muffins (24 banana chocolate chip and 24 blueberry lemon). The snow turned to rain, hail, and sleet tinkling on the windows.

Over the morning there was math, math, and more math. Okay, we did other subjects as well. Joseph and Emma had a science experiment. Kids did reading, writing, grammar, spelling, and more.

Today a couple of kids joined me to read a book about Disney artist Mary Blair. We then created art using watercolor resist based off her abstract style from the ride It's a Small World. I've sprinkled a few of these pieces through the post.

In the afternoon I got an email with homework for my upcoming photography class. I'm taking a half-day class at a local photography studio on Saturday. Today was spent printing parts of the manual and adding tabs to find a couple specific sections in the manual.

Thursday Notes

A simply straightforward day today. Kids trickled down the stairs and the day started slow and steady. We read Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes by Nicola Davies (aff) for science with the 5th grade and under group. The kids were fascinated by how quickly some microbes reproduce and they loved the variety of shapes they come in. We will be pulling out our microscope next week to observe all sorts of things.

Friday Notes

A quick morning of school was followed by finally having a Valentine party with our friends. It was so fun to just hang out, talk, play, and snack together!
It is early afternoon now and Rebekah is down for her nap, Makayla is at work, and the rest of the kids are sitting in the living room and freezer room playing group games on their Kindles (Minecraft and War Robots). We're also in the middle of Mason's every afternoon hour and a half of medical care. I'm going to hit publish on this post and then it is time for some more research for books on the history of science for Joseph's history course this fall.