My room, Link restored

Blogger was being silly yesterday, when I was posting. Here is my room.

We got a new kitchen over the summer. I am sooo grateful for it. Now I have a school area. I just cleaned it today. So, now I can see the counter. :) I like it cleaned off, so we can do crafts and let them dry there, and not on the kitchen table.

I've been thinking about moving the school room to the basement, but it gets sooo cold in the winter, and I won't go down there for long periods of time. Then we'll end up up here, so I might as well stay up here.


The underneath part is the best part. It is very deep so I can fit two rows of books. The downside is that I can fit two rows of books. :) You see, when you can put that many books in there, you forget what books you have in there. So I took everything out today, and only put things we'll use this year underneath. So one the left is all of our main curriculum, reading, phonics and math. On the right is all the art stuff. That is their side. They can go into the right side anytime and make something, as long as they clean it up. The drawer also has their scissors and tape and other odds and ends. I love my space!! Thank you Hubs.

weekly highlights--Well, we tried.

Another week down the drain. Kinda. We did another week of the basics. I realized that if I don't prepare on Sunday, I bomb the rest of the week. Well, guess what didn't happen on Sunday? So I tried my best to do it on Monday, but that's too late. And another reason I didn't do much was that Hubs was off M-TH. And I don't know about you, but it's very hard to focus when Hubs is home. Not his fault, but we like to see him, so school is hard to focus on.

I did have Sassy read "The Cat in the Hat" a few times. She is almost there. Little man and I have been reading "The Boxcar Children" back and forth all week. He doesn't like reading out loud for a long time, so we went back and forth to make it easier and more enjoyable.

We had our first all boy playdate at one of my friends house this week. There was about 12 moms and 20+boys. It was a blast. Sassy stayed home with daddy cuz she had the sniffles. The Little man got a sore throat, which he gladly shared with me. What a sweet kid. So now I sit here in pain. So no school yesterday or today.

But after reading a few other blogs, I realize that We're not the only ones dealing with this. Remember, next week will be better. :)

weekly highlights

OK, so I said that I was gonna do school everyday, well....... Does only math on Tuesday still count as school? I did school school every other day, but that day I went grocery shopping and hit a million stores while Hubs helped them with math.

We are loving our Geography game that comes with ECC. Sassy struggles, but Little man and I try to beat each other, while Sassy tries to read the names for us. Even though next week we start Africa, we still haven't mastered Europe. But we are getting a general knowledge of where the countries are, so that's all that matters.

We were moving kinda slow through our Olympic lapbooks, but to day we plowed through a bunch of it. Little man likes it, and again Sassy is being a stinker. I think the task of reading frustrates her. Oh well. She'll get it when she gets it. She did like the word search though. I have to find more for her. Or I can just use this site and make our own. I think I'm actually gonna do this for our spelling words. Little man will do much better if he gets to practice them like this. Sassy got excited when I showed her the one I made this morning with all the countries we're learning in Europe. I made an extra master copy, for later in the year.



This is the first of three lapbooks that we've done. I'll get a picture of the rest when we're done. I was in the process of taking bread out of the bread maker and sticking it in the oven, so we didn't ge as far as I wanted. :) Such is life.

I started Phonics Pathways with Sassy this week. So far, she's more confused than before. But we're gonna keep at it. It's hard for her to learn the first two letters as opposed to word families.
So far she's done Sa-se-si-so-su, Ma-me-mi-mo-mu, Na-ne-ni-no-nu, Ra-re-ri-ro-ru. I review previous letters and teach another letter each day. I decided to give her a penny for every lesson she does without complaint. So if we get two new letters done in a day she gets two pennies. Then when the jar is full, I'll take her to the penny candy store near our house. Candy is the key word around here. :) I am determined to have her confidently reading by next school year.

Little man is trying my patience with reading also. He can read, but doesn't like to. He says it's boring. I get every book he asks for from the library. I think a trip to the library is due for us today. He will find books that interest him. :)

Usually at this time of the year, I feel like giving up, but not this year. I'm having fun staying home and teaching. They actually want to stay home, which helps. In the past we were always going somewhere and always falling behind. But we're figuring it all out this year. I think it helps that they are older now. Sassy just turned 8 last Friday, so I think she wants to learn. And the promise that she can join American Heritage Girls next year helps a bit also. :)

Hope your week went well.

Monday fun

Today, we actually got everything done. We even did two parts of our Olympic lapbook. We learned about the stadium and the prizes. I'll be taking pictures of them for my weekly review.

And today we had a special dinner. Rachlette(pronounced rock-lay). It requires special cheese, of the same name. You place different meats on the top grill, and different veggies, covered with the cheese, underneath the grill in special trays. It's actually a Swiss dinner, but since we were doing Europe, this would work great. We have a friend who's from Switzerland, and he introduced us to this. It's a great meal to have company over. It takes a long time to eat. Your food can digest and you can have lots of conversation. We like it cuz no one has to get up for anything. All the food is in front of you, it's perfect. :) I wish I thought of taking a picture when it was covered with food, but I was too busy eating. :)




I'm hoping the rest of the week is equally fun.

weekly highlights

I wish I could say that we did an awesome job, but I cannot. Chalk up another week of incomplete. But, it wasn't all my fault.

Ass you know, the kids stayed up WAY too late watching the Superbowl. So we didn't do school on Monday. Then we did do school before the dentist, and had every intention of finishing afterwards. But I got to thinking that I didn't want to have my cleaning before MAFA, and be rushed. So they told me that she could clean my teeth after the kids. But I'd have to wait an hour, cuz she already had an appointment. So that means I couldn't go home, but it was lunch time and they were starving. So I took them to Burger King. I really hate eating out, but I had no choice. The roads were starting to get slick, cuz of the snow that decided to grace us with its presence, so we had to go somewhere close. So never finished what we started. We'll do it another day.

Looking back, I'm glad they got me in when they did. We got 7-9 inches of snow overnight, FINALLY!! So all the schools had their first snow day, which meant MAFA was cancelled also. So we did school on Wednesday, then played outside with Daddy on his day off. We made forts and things. :) Gym class, right?

Thursday we did double the work, cuz I should've done school on Monday. Then we went sledding with some homeschool friends. It was perfect, since all the public school kids were back in school, we had the rule of the hill. Gym again!!

Sassy's birthday is today, so we don't do school, so we had to do extra. Movies and eating out all day. Yuck! Go to my family blog for a Sassy update. :)

We never got a chance to work on our Olympic lapbooks at all this week. Little man kept asking, but we were too busy. :( Maybe today we can. They don't consider that school. :)

Next week will be better!! Nothing is on the calendar, except MAFA. So I have every intention of completing the entire week on time.

Problems?!?!

The title says it all, I think. It's a question and a statement. The statement is that I am having a hard time keeping up with two blogs. I don't know how other people do it. I am falling behind and I feel guilty. Who wants to feel guilty about not blogging about school? I am too busy doing school to write about it. I don't wanna pull out the camera to take pictures, but I know in 8-10 years, I'll want to look back and see all the stuff we did. I can't believe my son will be graduating in 8 years, and Sassy in 10!!! Holy moly!! Where did the time go!!! Now I feel like crying.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent. I'm back. The question form is, is anyone else having trouble doing school? I haven't had a complete week since before Christmas. I hate that. I just wanna get done, but something always comes up. I'm really trying my darndest, but it's sooooo not working. Example: Yesterday we stayed at a Superbowl party til the game was done, which was 10pm our time. So the kids slept in and I didn't get a chance to get the school stuff together this weekend, so I knew we were gonna start late anyways. But I needed to hit the store before the snow they say we're supposed to get. I'll believe that when I see it. :) So we didn't get to do school today. Tomorrow they have dentist appointments, Wednesday I have a dentist appointment, then MAFA, then church in the evening. Then Sassy's birthday is on Friday, so no school. AUGHHHH!!!! I need a complete week.

Is anyone else having trouble? Not that I ant you to, but it would make me feel better if atleast one person was. :)

Ah...Monday

I love Mondays. Now I know that makes me a bit nuttie, but I do. I love the fact that on a relaxing Sunday, between washing and drying laundry, I can prepare the week's lessons. On Monday mornings I can wake up and just start school. I don't have to think of anything, or print out papers. It's the best way to start out the week. I am confident in myself, my children are ready to get to work, we are motivated to get things done and move on. It's generally a perfect day.

Although, if you talk to me on Tuesdays, it's all going downhill. :)

Happy Monday!!

Thanks!

Thank you, everyone, for all your kind words. I feel 100% better. We even did school this week. We are loving the Olympic lapbook. We are doing do parts everyday. It says if you do one part, it will take a month. So, I'm hoping to be done around the start of the Olympics.

We only did two days of France this week. We're going to Splash Village tomorrow, so we're done with school for the week. Today is MAFA. So, it's a light day. So, we only did lapbooks and math. Sassy did have to write, but not by choice. 25 sentences of "I will obey my mom" She whined and crabbed and talked sassy and she earned sentences. Lucky girl. :) She earned her name today, too. :)

I remember learning the countries of Europe when I was in Jr high, I think. Well, I forgot almost all of them. We're really trying to do the geography game, but we are doing terrible at it. :) We have forgotten almost every country. So we decided that we are gonna work on one at a time, not all three at the same time. Way too confusing. But they know more at their ages than I did, so it's all good. An understanding, not perfection, right?

Hope your week is going well.

Olympic lapbook

This isn't much of a weekly recap. But here it goes.

With the Olympics starting very soon, some of my friends were looking for lapbook ideas. One of my friends in my homeschool group sent this to us. I bought it. It looks so cool. Here's the site.I can't wait to start next week. It says it can take up to a month to do all of it. But, I plan on doing it in less. I also have Mario and Sonic at the winter Olympic games, that we're gonna do with school also. The kids are gonna be surprised when they get to do the Wii during school. I am gonna earn brownie points with them. :)

I've been sick all week AGAIN! I feel like bricks are sitting on my cheeks. So, needless to say, we didn't do school this week. They did do some math. So now Sassy is done with Alpha and is taking next week to do only online drills. She is super excited. Little man has 5 more weeks to go, then he can take a week off before he starts Gamma. It's only fair.

OK, I'm off to steam my face again. Have a good weekend.

weekly review- Norway

I don't know about you, but last week went by much better than this week. :) Little man had trouble with his asthma, which then turned into a cold of sorts. So we did no school Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday we were able to get some things done. We learned about hibernation and migration. I was so thankful it was simple. I haven't been in the mood for anything lately. I think it's the weather, and the fact that my kids haven't had a playdate in over three months(sickness). And if the kids don't see their friends, I don't see my friends. :)

Anyways, yesterday we did our Lapland felt squares. Well, actually they ended up making maps and things. But it was art, so no one cared. It's been forever since art was done at home. They do it every week(when they're not sick) at MAFA, so I don't really worry about it. Again, another thing I'm trying to work on. Making school more fun.

Little man is doing so well with his math. I am so excited that double digit subtraction with carrying is not hard. Clocks seem to be giving him more trouble. But, he got a watch for Christmas, and I think it helps him to look at it and then look at the digital clocks to check himself. Kinda neat to see. Sassy is on her last week of Alpha. Then she is gonna do online drills til February. She needs a break.

Today, we only got as far as math. I'll have them read to me later. I was busy making biscuits and bread and cleaning the house a bit before our guests come over today. PLAYDATE!!!

I'm looking forward to going to France next week. I'm hoping to find some yummy food to make. Any suggestions?

Hope you're having a great week.