End of Week 2!!!

We made it to the end of your second week!  We have been focusing a lot on Math this week. Both Luna and Gamer are following the Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool's Math curriculum.

Luna was struggling with Math in school so we are going back and reinforcing and relearning the basics.  She finished the first 2 weeks of the First Grade curriculum.  It does a pretty good job of introducing the concepts to her.  First it teaches a concept and then it links to different games to reinforce and practice what they learn.  This at least made Math tolerable but still not something she wanted to willingly engage in.

While searching the web for other resources I saw a few homeschool parents mentioning Prodigy, a Math game that kids actually wanted to play.  I had to check it out and I liked what I saw.  I had the ability to set up a 'Teacher' account so that I could monitor the kids' progress.  As the teacher I can also control what skills they are working on and even "assign" them skills to work on while they play. Sold!  Now to test it on the children.

Can you guess how the kiddos reacted?

They LOVE this game!  They even went back after school hours to play!  It will automatically adjust to the kids' skill level or I can start them at a particular grade level.  I have already added some specific skill review assignments for Luna.  Even that didn't deter her!  The game itself is like a cross between Harry Potter and Pokemon.  The kids get to create their character by choosing things like hair style and eye color.  Then they set out to explore and quest.  They come across different creatures and have wizarding duels with them as they each cast spells against the other. To successfully cast a spell they must correctly answer a math problem.  Fingers crossed that it keeps Luna engaged in Math!

The kids also received a toy train set from my grandparents and it has seen plenty of use this week!  I had to make a special trip to the store for C batteries so they could run it.  We did discover the train has both a bell AND a whistle.  At least we can turn off the whistle!

It quickly turned into a Stuffy Train

We also have some exciting news to report from last weeks Science project...

We have tomato seedlings!!!

We have 9 little seedlings as of this evening.  A new one seems to pop up every few hours!  Although one little seedling is mysteriously missing it's little leaves that it sprouted with so we may have to keep an eye on the little guys.  Not sure who or what has taken a liking to them.  

Sadly no progress to report from the Glow and Grow Terrarium.

Luna is very vexed by the lack of progress with her terrarium.  Her friend's terrarium has already sprouted so she knows it works.  We decided to go back and tweak our experiment.  We added just a tad more dirt to make sure the seeds were covered and made sure to add some water along with it.  We will see if this yields any results.  

In the meantime we decided to take advantage of a break in the rain and head out for a walk with Jimmy.  There were workman at the park removing a broken slide last time we went for a walk.  Luckily the kids were able to sneak in a little play time while we were out this time.

Jimmy and I waited somewhat patiently for them.

We had to go out and pick up a friend from school today but luckily our homeschooling can happen anywhere!  We watched our first video from our new Science curriculum today!  We'll follow up with that on Monday and report back on that next week.  Hopefully the kids and I will be done with this annoying cold by then and get to do our first field trip.  Fingers crossed!

We had a busy few days.  Weekends can be that way.  Luna found a painted rock outside her art class.

She loves rocks and art so of course she loves these!  The tradition is to find it and rehide it for someone else to enjoy (unless of course you just can't part with it and then it is fine to keep it).  Luna can't seem to part with any of the painted rocks she finds.  She takes them right into her room and adds them to her collection almost before showing them to anyone else!

My parents were down for a little grandparent time this weekend as well!  Luna, Nana, and I went to a Doll and Teddy Bear show and out to lunch.  Of course Luna's favorite part of the show were the teddy bears and some jewelry that someone was selling in one of her booths.  Lunch wasn't bad either.

Gamer got to spend the day with Pa.  They managed some clothes shopping and grocery buying before they stopped for lunch.  There may or may not have been a battery powered bubble gun purchased as well.  😏

The kids have worked on their handwriting a bit.  It is safe to say that this is not one of their favorite subjects in school even though they both agree that it is something they need to work on.

We even out the horrors of handwriting practice with typing practice using this typing game on BBCs website.  They love the wacky animals and goofy songs they sing.  The kiddos usually beg me to start the school day with typing practice so I guess they really like it!

The weather was kind enough to take a break from all that rain and give us a window of sunshine.  We harnessed up Jimmy and took him for a nice long walk.  They also decided to have recess outside today before the rain started again.  In fact I looked out the back door and they were busy shoveling holes around the yard looking for buried treasure as the rain was starting to come down.  I had to convince them to come in from the rain before they made their colds worse.  Crazy kids!

I found a Math song on YouTube for the kiddos to listen to. It's a little cheesy but Luna has trouble memorizing Math facts in the traditional way.  She can bust out a song lyric months after hearing it though!  Can't hurt to try different ways of getting the information to stick.   

The kids also liked a new spelling game I found for free on their Kindles.  

SpellingCity.com has a free option that includes several spelling lists to work with.  Each list has a group of games that the children can play to help them learn how to spell the words on their list.  There is a paid option that allows parents and teachers to add their own spelling lists as well as access to additional games and the ability to track your child or student's progress.  We'll work our way through the lists that are offered for free before we decide on the upgrade.  There are a few Geography and History Apps I have my eye on as well so we have to be selective about where we spend our educational budget!

We are still finding the right tools and workbooks for our homeschool journey.  I have an Usborne History book coming in the mail soon that I hope to use in conjunction with a new History curriculum as soon as it gets here.  I can't wait to teach them to love History.  I absolutely hated it when I was in school.  It wasn't until after I was out of school that I discovered that I liked learning about it!  Fingers crossed!

Hands on Thursday

Luna woke up ready to go today.  She read Scooby Doo and the Lochness Monster to us while we ate breakfast.  After breakfast the boys had a music lesson.  

Daddy showed Gamer a few finger positions on the guitar

Luna had been begging to plant her tomato seeds that she got for her birthday.  We soaked the growing medium overnight so it would be ready for us today.  

Placing the seeds just so

After we were done planting we decided to make a drawing of what our project looked like on day 1.  We'll draw pictures of it periodically to make note of the changes we can see.

Tomato plant on Day 1

Since we were already a bit messy from planting the tomatoes we decided to go ahead and put together Luna's new terrarium.  

She spent her own birthday money on it.  She bought one for a friend's birthday and she's been wanting one for herself ever since. 

Adding the final stickers to the outside of her terrarium

After lunch we tackled Math.

Can you tell Math is Luna's favorite?

Gamer got to use the computer to create a pictograph for Math

Then it was back to a project for Luna.  Gamer decided he'd rather read a book than do an art project.

Can you guess what we're making?

We also did some internet investigation.  Gamer has a loose tooth that is being stubborn so we took the opportunity to check out the anatomy of a tooth, root canals, and the world record for the longest human tooth.  From there we somehow we made our way to the history of lip disks among the Mursi people.  A BIG leap, I know!  I think we also checked some MLS stats in there somewhere.

After school they managed an episode of Horrible Science before I loaded them into the van for errands.  Overdue library materials and groceries wait for no one!  Gone are the days of errands and grocery shopping while the kiddos were in school!  One more day to go and we will have managed our first whole week of home school!!

Day 2

Well we had a pretty restless night last night.  Gamer came downstairs and climbed into bed with us around 2:30 in the morning.  His cough was bothering him and he couldn't sleep.  He succeeded in pushing me out of bed around 5:00 am.  It was all down hill from there.

Jimmy needed to go out at 5:30.  Luna climbed into our bed shortly after that.  Daddy was then pushed out of our bed and found the guest room.  Then Luna found my hiding place in the other guest room.  Mom and dad conceded defeat and let them have screen time this morning while we got some extra z's.  Our homeschool day didn't get started until around 10:30am but I'm pretty happy with that considering we didn't lose a whole day to a sick day like we would if they went to public school.

We started the day off with Math.  Both of them are really enjoying their individual lessons. We are starting Luna with 1st grade math and I think it's the right decision.  She is missing Math facts all the way back to 1st grade so we needed to start from scratch.  It's also a big boost to her self esteem to go back and really grasp the concepts before moving on to the next one.

Their lunch times were staggered today and Luna found herself drawn to Gamer's Language Art's lesson.

We snuck in some Art time today too.  They listened to Horton Hatched an Egg and drew pictures of the story while they listened.

Luna's drawing of the nest, the tree, Horton, and the hatchling

Luna decided that she needed to draw a picture of the egg too

Gamer's drawing of Horton in front of the tree, the hunter's deciding what to do with Horton, Horton in the circus, and the hatchling

After some play and reading time we switched to keyboarding.

We found a free program on BBC to teach them typing skills. Luna loved it.  She would say it was hard but when I told her she didn't have to complete every level she insisted that she wanted to.  She even worked past the end of the school day!  Gamer thought she was having too much fun and had to try it as well.  He didn't get as far as she did but he enjoyed himself.  Keyboarding skills will come in handy!

I can only hope we have a less eventful evening tonight.  We need to make a trip to the library and return some books and movies.  Hopefully we can make it out of the house tomorrow!

We did it. We made it to our first day of home schooling. The kids woke up with coughs and raspy voices.  We're all happy not to have the "Are you too sick to go to school" debate!  We started our day by making a few lists of what we will be required to study and what things they would like to add to that list. We also reiterated that there will be no screen time during school hours unless it is computer use specifically for school or preplanned learning videos.  We are breaking now for free play while I get the things ready for Math.

They decided to figure out if they could put this puzzle stool together without looking. They can be pretty creative with no screens. 😊

We recently decided to start homeschooling our two elementary school aged children.  Monday, March 13th, 2017 will be our first official day of homeschool.  We hope to post the children's projects, progress, and homeschooling ideas on this blog.  We are all really excited to begin this journey!  Follow along as we figure this thing out.