Week 8 - Our Week of Productivity

This week was extremely productive.  Yeah!  Luckily, we seemed to work hard enough to get a little bit ahead of our planned schedule.  I have a busy work week next week, so we will probably be taking full advantage of our head start.  I think much of our productivity has been due to our new organizational system.  I've been making a list on the whiteboard for each day and for each person.  The boys love to erase their tasks and I am less likely to skip something if it is written down and in my face.

Olivia was our star of the week.  She has been a potty training superstar!

 

 

History/Geography

Our lessons have been very brief readings on North America, South America, Africa and Asia.  The pictures in the books are very cartoonish, so we've been watching tourism videos on major landmarks (mostly from Asia).  We watched a video about rice fields in China, the Great Wall of China, St. Basil's in Moscow, Angel Falls in Venezuela, and (our favorite) climbing Mount Everest.

 

Luke used his map to help reassemble the Africa puzzle.  My in-laws got it for him from South Africa.  It is handmade and each piece is a different country.

Language Arts & Spelling

Although spelling is not Luke's favorite subject, it is probably one of his best.  I pulled out our old whiteboard so that he could do some of his writing on it.  In Language Arts, he worked on possessives and using an apostrophe. 

When working on his possessives, Luke added a little extra note :)
 

Co-op

We love our co-op!  All three kids are meeting new friends and love their teachers.  By the time we head home, all four of us are exhausted.  My engineering class had a fun competition this week.  We have a paramedic/fire fighter coming to our next class, so we discussed the definition of safety.  For our project, we divided into two teams and designed safety devices for water balloons.  Once they were done, we went outside and threw them against a brick wall to see how well they worked.  Luke was very happy to rub in the fact that his team beat my team!  He is also taking a history class titled "Story of the World".  They are learning about different explorers right now.  He came home and went on a treasure hunt with his map he made it class.

 

My group of 5,6 and 7 year olds designed this device together.  Inside each cup is a wad of newspaper.  Part of their requirements was to leave the face exposed so their balloon could breathe.
 

He said each of the shapes was a different continent.  In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is a ship of explorers.

Ben School

Ben worked on the letter H this week. 

H is for Horse!

 

I love his excitement for doing anything school related.  He really wants to be like his big brother.  I made a uppercase/lowercase matching set with clothespins and index cards.  I liked that he could work independently in his room on a lesson while I helped Luke with his math and Olivia played in her room.

Each clothespin has a lowercase letter on it.

He is also working on learning more sight words.  We started on "at" this week.  He really can't wait to learn to read!

 

Ben's caterpillar is growing!

 

Ben was "reading" a bedtime story to Olivia.

Ben's big accomplishment this week was learning to spell our last name.  He practiced writing it on the white board and soon had it memorized! 

 

 

 

Family Fun

We had lots of family fun activities this week.  On Sunday, we made a big pot of chili in the slow cooker and bought real hot dogs (all beef from the deli) to make chili dogs.  When we came home from church, we ate them and watched the football game.  Eating in front of the TV is a big treat in our house, so the kids were really excited.

I had to add oranges to salvage the nutrition of the meal!

  On Friday, Aaron was off so we met my sister and niece at the zoo.  Because the weather was cooler, the animals were much more active and entertaining.  Everyone came home completely exhausted and took nice, long naps.  Ahhhh!

Up close with a crocodile

Cousins!

The polar bear swam right over our heads!  It was really beautiful!
 

On Saturday, we went to a block party celebration and saw Paws.  The boys suddenly clammed up as they gaped in awe.

 

 

That evening, we went up to Aaron's office to watch a movie on the big screen of the conference room.  We brought food from our favorite Mexican restaurant and lined up the recliners like a movie theatre. 

 

 



Week 7-Back in the Groove

This week felt especially short because we arrived home from vacation on Monday.  On Tuesday, we barely managed to pull ourselves together to make it to co-op, so it felt like our week didn't even really begin until Wednesday.  Most of our school week was pretty much status quo.

Co-op this week was a little crazy to say the least.  My little engineering students were going to learn to use a stopwatch, so I found a project in which they would make a timer using empty water bottles and sugar (somewhat like an hourglass).  Their task was to make their timer last as close to one minute as possible.  Great, right?  It turns out that if you allow twelve 5-7 year olds to work with cups of sugar, masking tape, and funnels you will have a mess within 8.5 minutes.  They ended up learning the concepts (how to use a stopwatch, the number of seconds in a minute, engineers have to do many trials to get their project to work), and we now have a new class rule - No one is allowed to eat their experiment unless given permission.


History/Geography
This week our readings were about rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and seas.  We found a Planet Earth clip on YouTube about the tallest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls in Venezuela.  The boys watched the clip at least 5 times.  They drew pictures of the falls and decided a trip to South America would have to be our next field trip.  

Ben loved the rainbows created by the water.

Spelling
This was only our second week of spelling.  I had delayed it because his phonics includes so much spelling, plus I thought it would be a source of contention.  It has actually turned out to be one of Luke's favorite subjects and he loved taking his spelling test on Friday.  Go figure!

Writing his spelling words as large as possible on the driveway.
 

Reading
Luke's reading is really progressing.  Now that his confidence is building, he has started to read a little on his own and to his siblings.  We're making really good use of the readers from our local library and so far have a season high of 16 books checked out at one time.  I've been reading "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" to Luke and I think we'll watch the movie soon so that we can compare and contrast the movie and book.

Reading to Ben during his breathing treatment

Bible
Our curriculum includes a verse per week to memorize.  We usually try to create a song or watch a YouTube music video with the verse to help.  Every Friday, Luke recites all the verses.  Each one progresses through the alphabet, so this week the verse started with G - Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  This week, he created a puzzle of his verse.

The Arts
The boys had quite the cultural weekend.  Some family friends were in a play on Friday night, so the boys were able to go to their very first play.  Luke loved it and is now expressing an interest in trying a play with a children's theatre.  We also attended our local high school's marching band competition.  We watched bands for almost 1.5 hours and the boys were entranced.  The bands put on really entertaining shows, and the boys thought the stories they told were really fun.

Life Skills
Luke learned how to make macaroni and cheese this week.  He was so proud of himself.  Ben was then in charge of plating our lunch.  It wasn't a healthy meal, but I didn't have to make it!

Olivia had a banner week.  She began potty training!  It was much earlier than I expected, but she initiated it, so we're giving it a shot. 

Baby girl was so proud to go shopping for training pants!

Our Week Off / An Extended Field Trip

This was our first week off of the school year.  It was really weird to take a break from school while most other kids are just beginning their school year, and at a time when we weren't in desperate need of a break.  I'm still debating if I should've scheduled us for longer sessions between breaks but I think it may be good in the long run that we haven't reached our breaking point at the end of a session, and that we aren't dreading the beginning of a new session.  I don't know . . . :)

We spent the first part of our week just relaxing and preparing for our trip.  All three kids enjoyed lots of extra playtime with each other and I got a bunch of work around the house done.  We went to co-op, but otherwise did nothing school related. 

I'm starting to teach Luke how to help get our lunches ready the night before co-op.  He did great . .  then we left our lunch bag at home and had to buy pizza! 

I assist in Olivia's room during 3rd hour. 

On Friday morning, we left for Mackinac Island.  We've been doing some Michigan studies in preparation for the trip, so the boys were really excited to go across the Mackinac Bridge and visit the Upper Peninsula.  

After we crossed the bridge, we spent some time throwing rocks and walking along the pier at St. Ignace.  Rock throwing is one of my children's favorite activities.   The pier and lighthouse were beautiful and had lots of little things to learn.



Throwing rocks with Daddy

I really do exist!

She would try to throw a handful of rocks, but kept dropping some.  Aaron picked her up and found she had a hood full of little pebbles!



We learned about boats that used to carry train cars across the Straits of Mackinac.  That would be a hard job!

One of my favorite picture of Ben.

Luke loved laying on the log just looking into the water.

Friday night, we stayed at a hotel in Mackinac City that had an indoor waterpark.  The kids loved it, but we were so busy keeping everyone safe that I didn't take any pictures.

Saturday morning, we left for Mackinac Island.  All three kids were excited to experience their first boat ride.  We were fortunate that we happened to board a boat that looped under the bridge (I believe it only happens a couple times a day).  The bridge looks even bigger when you're down on the water. 

We only planned to spend half the day on the island, so we decided to visit the fort.  We learned about the Battle of Mackinac and watched rifle and canon firings.  We spent a good chunk of time in the Kids Quarters and took lots of pictures (except for Ben who was not in the mood for pictures).

The beautiful view from the top of the fort

Blurry picture of the canon firing

rifle firing



Olivia loved banging on the Morse Code exhibit

Dressed as a soldier  - I think he was trying to look serious.

Luke wanted to take a picture in every one of the openings.  This is the face he made when I told him it was the spot for a little girl.

Learning how to be a soldier

When we were done, we went back to the main streets for lunch and , of course, to buy fudge. 

Watching the fudge making process



One of the fudge makers gave each of the boys half a chunk of fudge for free.  I let them nibble on it for as long as I could handle it!

 

Olivia couldn't handle all the excitement and fell asleep.  She woke up after 20 minutes, murmured "fudge" and promptly passed out again!

After Mackinac, we headed over to Boyne Mountain to meet up with my parents for 2 nights.  We stayed in a villa with a playground, so after dinner we spent some time outside.  The boys love to make up games with my dad.   This week, they invented shuffleboard ball (pretty much shuffleboard, but played with a ball!)





Rope ball - The boys had to try to hit the jump rope with a racquetball.

My dad wanted to wear out the boys, so he suggested climbing one of the skiing hills next to our villa.  I teased the boys that if they made it up the entire mountain, I would give them each $2 for their piggy bank.  I never thought they could actually do it!  The mountain was pretty steep and very big for two little boys.  All of us were panting and sore by the time we made it to the top.  Ben stopped a few times to say, "I don't think I like this," but refused to go back down.  He was completely determined to make it.  On our way, we saw a family of white-tailed deer.  Amazingly, no one broke a limb and we all made it to the top.  The view was amazing.

This picture was taken about halfway up.  It doesn't do justice to the size!



The lights are from our hotel. 

By the time Sunday came along, the kids were exhausted and the weather was cold and rainy.  We went out for lunch, but spent the rest of our day hanging out at the villa watching football and movies, and just hanging out together.  The boys completed most their schoolwork that was scheduled for the car ride home, and Luke and I finished the last book in the "My Father's Dragon" series.

We left for home on Monday morning.  I think everyone is ready to get back into our normal schedule.  Vacation is exhausting!