Weekly Wrap up!

Well we finished our 4th week of school, and next week my husband is on Vacation! We won't be doing school next week, but we will be going to Enchanted Forest, camping for two nights, The campground has a bunch of Waterfalls, staying at a hotel for one night, and checking out our State zoo. Here are some pics from this week.

Wrestle time with daddy.

Buster made started his first time line with daddy during History class.

For art we drew on white paper with white crayons, and then painted over it to reveal our designs.

We also picked these gorgeous tomatoes from our garden.

And Finally our caterpillars arrived in the mail this week. The kids are really excited about them. They have doubled in size already!

Caterpillars!

Guess what came in the mail today!

Our Caterpillars! From Insect Lore. As you can see the kids are really excited about them. I will keep you updated on their progress. The mailman was their favorite guy today when he brought them, and we had fun looking at them and reading some books about butterflies.

Weekly Wrap up!

We just finished our third week of school! The kids are really enjoying themselves. 6 seems to be really the magic number for Buster. He is just learning so much faster this year, and really enjoying himself. Sweetpea started her Get ready for the code book, and there was no stopping her. She just wanted to keep doing pages. We were doing Ff this week. Buttercup wants to be in on all the action, and she loves to color.

Here is what a typical morning looks like around here. We start around 9 and do calander, phonics, and math. At 10:05 my husband comes home for lunch so the kid's get a break then.

After daddy goes back to work, and the kid's eat lunch we do read aloud time. Finally we finish off our time with differnt subjects each day. Monday: spelling, and Bible we read a bible story then Buster writes a verse in his bible journal. Tuesday: Handwriting, and then History with daddy. Wednesday: Spelling, Art, Music, poetry during reading time. Thursday: Story Journaling, Spanish, Geography, and Science with daddy. Right now we are just doing spelling tests on Friday's. Once September starts I will be adding more to our Friday schedule.

Today was my husband's birthday! The kid's made a birthday banner for him.

They insisted we make him a shark cake, so here is what we made. It is a little rougher than are typical cakes, but I only had a couple of hours.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Trick candles!

Finally blew them out with 3 helping.

That was pretty much our week!

Tot School 17

Buttercup is 18 months!

She is changing so much lately. It is amazing how many new words she learns every week. We are also starting to see a little terrible two's peeking out here and there. She is as sweet and curious as ever though.

Checking out the Globe.

Playing potato heads

Coloring with big brother.

Napping after a long day.

First art lesson!

We are doing art on Wednesday afternoons. Last week I got a childrens book of famous art from the library, and the kids enjoyed looking at the paintings. After we looked through the book together I found the horse section in a Draw write now book that I got from the library. We are reading black beauty, so that's why I chose horses. Buster sketched the horse, and I sketched one for Sweetpea. When they were done I had them paint them with watercolors.

Buster's work

Sweetpeas Black Beauty

Tot School! Finally back!

We started school last week! It has been going great! This year I will be featuring Buttercup for tot school only. Sweetpea will be 4 on October 31st and I'm treating this year as her PreK year. Buttercup is 18 months old and very curious. I have been occupying her with different toys while we do school. Of course I had a hard time remembering to take very many pics because I was busy with the older two, but here are some from this week. As the year goes on I plan to give her more variety of activities, and take more pics.

This one is actually from July, but it is Buttercups first painting.

Playdoh time! She really wants to eat it!


Stacking blocks!

More Charlotte Mason

I came across this while looking through some booklists on http://www.amblesideonline.org/index.shtml and I thought is was so sweet. I even printed it out for myself.

"A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six"
A reprint of a curriculum outline from a CM school in the 1890's. from Summer 93 Parents Review pub by Karen Andreola
1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns
2. to recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm
3. to add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters
4. to read--what and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child
5. to copy in print-hand from a book
6. to know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows
7. to describe the boundries of their own home
8. to describe any lake, river, pond, island etc. within easy reach
9. to tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stories from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history (my note here, we may want to substitute early American for early English!)
10. to be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views
11. to mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.
12. to do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees
13. to know 6 birds by song, colour and shape
14. to send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed
15. to tell three stories about their own "pets"--rabbit, dog or cat.
16. to name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences
17. to sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song
18. to keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations

First Day Of School!

We started school on Monday! I want to get some extra weeks under our belt, so I will be free to take off some time when the baby comes. The kids were all actually excited about it, and so far this week has gone great. I have really enjoyed all our new curriculum choices. Buster has been asking to do phonics, and told me "Phonics is actually fun". Sweetpea has been following right along, and I give her something to occupy her when Buster needs one on one. Yesterday she wanted to do Phonics Pathways too, and she read Cat with some help. She was very excited about it. Today she didn't want to do it so we didn't. My husband is going to be doing Science and History for me when he gets home, and they did their first History lesson yesterday. I told Sweetpea she could listen if she wanted. It was really cute because she sat through the whole thing, and actually listened better than Buster. As usual Buttercup is right there with us too, and has been having fun with toys while we work.

Buster took this picture of us girls.

The three musketeers!

and the two crazies!

Our School Room!

With my husbands help last year we turned our laundry room into a school/laundry room. I thought I'd give you all a quick picture tour of our set up this year.

Here is our calandar and flag.

I have been seeing the workbox sytem everywhere lately. The idea interests me, but we don't have room for two racks. Instead I found these magazine holders at Big Lots and we have one for each day of the week. I like the idea of stocking them on Sundays.

Here is a TV and where a bunch of our stuff is stored.

The kids pet frog.

Another storage unit. The top drawer is science stuff, second is educational games, and the third is craft supplies.

Our new world map. I found this at Target after much looking. You can see our stack washer and dryer in the corner.

US Map from the dollar tree.

Buster's weekly boxes. Sweetpea participates in some of his stuff though. They are on top of a book shelf.

Here is the kid's work area.