Update and end of school year!

 

We did it we finished our 2012-2013 school year! I really feel like it was our best year yet but I am excited to have a break. All of the kids worked really hard this year and learned a ton. Buster finished Preparing Hearts For His Glory and he really enjoyed all of the books we/he read. It was really fun for him to be able to show daddy everything he learned about this year by going through his science and history notebooks together. I already packed up Preparing and put out Creation to Christ. I'm excited for Buster to do that in the fall. It looks awesome! Sweetpea finish Beyond Little Hearts and up to Unit 7 day 4 of Bigger Hearts. She will continue with Bigger Hearts all of next year. Buttercup finished her preschool work and up to unit 6 day 2 of Little Hearts. I had her stop at that point because that was the end of the first storytime book. I didn't want her to wait all summer to fins out what happened if we started a new one. She will continue with Little Hearts all of next year. Buddy is really getting into doing his preschool workbooks and he loves that he goes first for storytime. I have been reading to him out of A Child's First Bible and a picture book every day. He loves reading time and listens really well. He will start Little Hands to Heaven in the fall.

 

 

My husband finished Exploring Creation Zoology 2 and started Exploring Creation with Botany. They will continue with that throughout the summer and start Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy in the fall.

The kids made it a little over halfway through memorizing their Catechisms. We will do the second half next year. We read about Bach, and Beethoven and enjoyed their music. We also learned about Degas, Van Gogh, DaVinci, and Raphael. We are up to lesson 37 in Getting Started With Spanish, and I hope to do some review this summer.

 

Sweetpea played soccer this spring and she really enjoyed it. Buttercup is doing swim lessons and finally started swimming really well and she absolutely loves to swim now. Buster is still doing swim team and loving it. He had a meet in May and shaved 19 seconds off his 50 back. He was so excited about that and so were his coaches. This summer Buster will continue swim team, Sweetpea will be doing the top level of swim lessons/pre-swim team, and Buttercup is taking the rest of June off of swim lessons and might do them again in July and August. The times for her lessons changed and there isn't really a good time.

 

Other than swimming we will be enjoying the sun this summer. The kids will continue reading and do a bit of math review and some handwriting practice. We also are working on some home improvement projects this spring/summer. Buster will be going to his first kids camp and we have VBS. I plan to get a post up sometime this summer about our plans for the 2013-2014 school year.

Spring Break 2013!

We took a camping trip earlier this week. The trip was pretty casual and we had a bit of fun. Of course as usual someone had to get sick part way through and we got a bit rained out the last day.

Playing at Bastendorff beach and camping:

 

Being silly in the cabin.

  

Playing some tunes for us as we packed up. 

 

Feeling sick on the second day.

  

 Heceta Beach.

   

Bundled up because she was sick.

  

We stopped at a tiny Museum in Florence. The volunteers there were so sweet.

 

School Update!

I have been terrible this school year about posting Weekly Wrap Ups for school. I just wanted to give an update about where everyone is at regarding their schooling. This week we are taking our spring break. I will break it down by kids.

Buster grade 4:

He is still plugging away with Preparing Hearts For His Glory and he completed unit 27 last week. I know I have said it before but I'm going to say it again I absolutely love this guide! Buster has learned so much this year. He is totally into the history, science, poetry and storytime. The other subjects are going great too, but of course they require more work so they aren't as exciting. Since the last time I posted about school he has finished learning about ancient times and moved through the dark ages and into the middle ages. Buster was especially interested in the Vikings. This was supposed to be a Roman Emperor leaf crown but I forgot to tell him to put the leaves sideways.

 

For science he has been studying stars, constellations, coral reefs, and Columbus.

Constellation map.

 

Model of a coral polyp.

 

For Drawn Into the Heart of Reading he has read The Sign of the Beaver and The Little Pilgrim's Progress. Both of these books were a hit and here are the projects he did for them. Character mask! Daddy interviewed him as if he was Matt from The Sign of the Beaver.

 He made a map of Christian's journey.

 

Buster decided on his own to make a map of Oregon and label all of the counties.

 As far as the rest of the subjects are concerned he is just plugging away.  

Sweetpea grade 1/2: She finished Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory at the end of February.

 Panning for gold!

  

 I then took a month to review math with her. We read Little House on the Prairie, If you traveled west in a covered wagon, and The World of Christopher Robin. She also continued with her handwriting, ETC, Reading Pathways, Phonics Pathways, and HOD Emergent readers.

  

Last week she started Bigger Hearts For His Glory. Starting now allows us to continue doing school 4 days a week. She will complete 9 weeks of school before summer break and pick up where we left off, so that she will finish at the end of next school year.

  

Sweetpea was super excited to start and our first week went really well. It is an adjustment for her because Bigger Hearts takes longer and is more involved than Beyond. I attempted to use the dictation from the back but it was a bit too hard, so she went to the second spelling word list for now. She really enjoyed learning about Columbus this week for history.
 Her Ocean painting. 

 

Learning the continents and oceans.

   

For storytime right now we are reading through a few D' Aulaire Biographies. Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Buffalo Bill. She is still plugging away at the Beginner's Bible because she has taken breaks from it to read other books such as, Dust For Dinner, Mouse Tales, Dolphin, and Snowshoe Thompson.  

 The biggest surprise for me this past week was how well she did with Singapore 2a and Rod and Staff English 2. She also is really enjoying the Poems and Hymns. 

Buttercup PreK/K:

  

Buttercup was still going through Little Hands to Heaven this year and in the last month or so we kind of rushed through a bunch of units. She was really ready to move up, so I decided to start her in Little Hearts For His Glory the same week as Sweetpea moved up. She will also be doing it 4 days a week.

  

Buttercup was so eager and excited to start Kindergarten, and she proved to me that she was ready. Her first week went awesome after a couple minutes of resistance the first day. For math she is using Singapore Essentials K.

   

She was learning about same and different this week so we played memory.  

For Phonics she is doing All About Reading Level 1 which she is really enjoying so far.
For handwriting she is using Hand Writing Without Tears.

   

Buttercup really enjoyed our reading time also. I let her color this picture the first day while we were reading Reddy Fox. 

 

Reddy Fox turned out to be a big hit. She also enjoyed her history and Science.

Buddy Preschool: For the most part he just plays and all of the kids take turns doing things with him. He loves his Kumon workbooks.
 

Playing with rice. This picture makes it look so sweet but it really was quite a mess.  

 Do a Dot art.

  

Buddy will start Little Hands this fall.

Lent week 7 and Easter!

We had a very blessed Holy Week and Easter! Here are some of the highlights.

 So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:31-35

We read this book and had an egg and spoon race.

   

We learned about Jesus being the Lamb of God and the kids made these lambs.  

Maundy Thursday!
 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. John 13:12-17

 Feet washing and learning about the Last Supper.    

Good Friday!
 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’” Having said this, He breathed His last. ⁴⁷ So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous Man!”Luke 23:44-47

 Hot Cross Buns and a caterpillar that Sweetpea put on the cross.  

 Holy Saturday!

 It was a gorgeous day and we had lunch and an egg hunt at my Sister and Brother in law's house.

   

Egg dyeing and Resurrection eggs with daddy.  

Easter baskets ready while the kids are asleep.

   

He is Risen!
 Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.  But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments.  Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee,  saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”Luke 24:1-7

   

Egg hunt at Gumpy and Moogy's!