Week In Review: May 28th - June 1st

Oh my goodness! What a busy week! I really feel like I'm starting to repeat myself here. There always seems to be more things to do than days to do them in. But I absolutely LOVE homeschooling! Connor and Amelia love it too (so far anyway :).)

This week I decided to unplug the cable jack from our TV. I think it was really more for me than for everyone else. I'm pretty addicted to anything "Bravo" related so I thought it would be a challenge. But do you know it was actually a seamless transition. I ended up pulling out my guitar and playing for the first time in close to eight years. I also sat in front of the piano and started practicing the hymns in our Easy Hymnal. Jason recommended a FREE app for my iPhone (not surprisingly originally recommended by Jared), similar to Rosetta Stone. You can learn German, Spanish, French and Italian. So I started working on German earlier this week, and then thought, "Maybe I should relearn Spanish." So I switched to Spanish. Wow! I forgot A LOT! Maybe that's because I never truly learned it in the first place.

On a side note- I really love homeschooling because it is more focused on mastery than just memorizing. I love the idea that my children will be filled with knowledge. I know I wish I had acquired more of it when I was in school. Luckily, I get to relearn everything through my kids (and a few things I never learned in the first place.)

Alright! Alright! It's time for the week...

IMPROMPTU SCIENCE LESSON
Check out this bug we found at the park during our co-op meet-up. I love accidental lessons! We discovered (thank you smartphone!) that it's called an Eastern Eyed Click Beetle.

This is the underside of the beetle. Notice that all of its legs are tucked in. This is because it's playing dead as a defense mechanism. 

Here is the top of the beetle. Notice the two large "eyes" on the top of its thorax. Obviously this is where its name comes from. The other half of the name comes from the clicking noise it makes when it flips itself over. I wish I had it on video. It completely FREAKED EVERYONE OUT! (Including me!)

For more information on the Eastern Eyed Click Beetle, check out these websites:

http://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Eastern-Eyed-Click-Beetle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJPIU7QVa4

BAKING LESSON

The kids were REALLY hungry earlier this week ;) so I said, "Let's do math and make some chocolate chip muffins!" So we did some measuring and talked about math as we mixed up some breakfast. Definitely a super yummy lesson!

Taking turns mixing. (No Amelias were hurt or injured during the making of this video :)

Separating into tins.

It's a messy job, but Connor's gotta do it!

Ready to go into the oven.

The final product.

Enjoying the final product. It was a tough lesson ;)

OUR FRIEND

This is one of our bird friends. We have a whole family that lives in the backyard and eats the bugs out of our gardens. We haven't been able to identify which type they are yet, so if anyone knows, please feel free let us know!

NATURE WALK & SKETCH

We found a REALLY cool specimen to sketch during our nature walk this week...

I think nature walks are my FAVORITE homeschool activity. Thank you Charlotte Mason Theory!

CRAZY ART

Honestly, I have no idea. The picture speaks for itself.

KARATE LESSONS

One of the local karate studios offered our homeschool co-op a special rate for being able to have class during the day. So we signed them up. I was a little worried about Amelia because she didn't seem like she would be that into it, but it was at the same time as Connor's class, and I AM SO GLAD I SIGNED HER UP! She followed the directions perfectly! Connor really enjoys it. 

We got there at 10:00am. Unfortunately, class didn't begin until 11:00am, so we went to the park, played on the swings, and had a Spanish review. I had Connor counting and identifying the colors of items on the playground all in Spanish.

Amelia doesn't look thrilled, but she LOVED it!

Learning the proper way to fall.

Up and down. Up and down.

SCIENCE OF LIGHT

It was a lazy and rainy Friday afternoon and Connor specifically requested a science lesson. So what do you do? You talk about light and put on a shadow puppet show!

AND FINALLY ... SOCCER TOURNAMENT SATURDAY!!!

It was a bittersweet day this weekend as our soccer season came to an end. Amelia FINALLY ran around the field without Jason by her side. She loved her trophy and carried it with her for the rest of the afternoon.

Amelia falling...and getting right back up!

Amelia kicking the ball.

Water break!

Connor scored a sweet goal in the championship game. He apparently lifted it and shot it over the goalies head. I say "apparently" because I missed it. I decided the middle of the game was a good time to pick up trash :) UGH!

Jason nicknamed these three the "triumvirate." They were the movers and shakers on their team.

(left: Craven; middle: Maxwell; right: Connor)

Receiving their 2nd place trophies.

The full team.

Trophy kids. Amelia isn't smiling because she wanted to take her picture on the stairs. Whoa momma were we in trouble!

Can't wait to see what's in store for next week!

WHOA! No, We Have NOT Given Up Homeschooling :)

Holy cow! So not having an internet connection at home has resulted in my lack of making time to get to the library and update this blog. So hold onto your hats because you're about to take a fast-paced trip through our last month of homeschooling...

EPCOT...
Let's start with my mom's visit to Florida during her April vacation break. I took her to Epcot as a belated birthday gift for their annual Garden Festival. We had SO MUCH FUN! Big shout out to my hubby for taking care of the kiddos for the day so we could be kid-less. I took some GREAT photos! Unfortunately, you won't be able to see any of them because my phone crashed a few weeks ago and I lost ALL of my pictures and videos. So sad :( So you will just have to take my word for it that it was a blast and that my mom and I about peed our pants at the end of the "Spaceship Earth" ride. I am so mad that the video for it is gone. BOOOO!!!!!

*On a side note: My husband kept reminding me that I needed to update iCloud. One of the few times he has been right ;) WHOOPS!

OUR LIFE IN THE WORLD OF MATH...
Connor is still working through the math book I ordered for him. Really he's blowing through the math book I ordered for him. He has been working on shapes and learning the differences between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes. Enjoy these little photos of my budding architect...

LEARNING ABOUT OUR HOME STATE OF FLORIDA...
We have moved on from learning the states in our country to learning about individual states. Each day we would read an excerpt from a book about Florida and then fill in our Florida map. I've had him practice using symbols and a key to complete his map. No pics yet, but I'll post one of his finished product.

BLOWING A LID OFF OF SCIENCE...
Boy have we been having a good time in science! I'm pretty sure I won't be hearing from my kiddos that science is boring. We, of course, continue to take advantage of our library programs. Check out this little assortment of pics and videos from the last Super Science Monday program at the library...

Hot and cold water separating/mixing.

Candle vapor catching on fire.

Liquid using heat from hands to move through the tube.

It's a tough day of school when it has to end with fresh cotton candy :)

We've moved on to learning about sun, moon and stars. We've gotten to look through telescopes, study constellations and some of the stories behind them, learned about the planets, talked about gravity, watched videos on eating and going to the bathroom in space, amongst so many other things. It has been SO AWESOME! I found space food in the expo hall at the homeschooling conference I attended (discussed subsequently) and the kids just loved getting to eat dehydrated ice cream. At one point Connor held the ice cream in the air in front of him and said, "Look mom! It's floating!" So cute! Lack of gravity is such a fun thing to experience ;)

Connor has also taken a HUGE interest in insects. We look for worms on our daily walks. One day we collected the ones we saw that were still alive and put them in a jar to use for fishing later in the day for Family Home Evening. 

By the way, worms left in a jar for the day do NOT have a very pleasant odor. YUCK! Perhaps it was the smell that scared off all the fish because we were completely unsuccessful on our fishing excursion

 :(

READING AND SPELLING...

One of Connor's weak spots is in reading comprehension. He knows a lot of words and can pronounce most words he comes across, but he can't always tell you what he read about. We've been working on reading skills. I've also been using the box of phonics materials my sister sent to me to help him with spelling and blends and so-on. Here's Connor spelling words...

I love finding ways to incorporate manipulatives in our lessons. Especially for my little gremlin because he can't sit still ;)

We've also been reading through the Book of Mormon. We talk about our favorite parts of each story and talk about how Heavenly Father's eternal plan for each of us. What precious moments I get to share with my little ones!

PETS GALORE!

So every once in a while I come up with some CRAZY idea that my husband is kind enough to go along with. This time I decided I wanted a dog for Mother's Day. So off to the "pet store" (the Largo SPCA) we went to find the perfect four-legged friend. We came home with a 10-month old terrier mix we named "Harley."She is her mother's dog for sure! She just LOVES me to death. So far, she's crate trained, doing pretty well with housebreaking, plays fetch, knows "sit" and "lay down" and loves to eat the marigolds in my garden. 

But we still love our LUNA!

Tired yet? Almost done...

FLORIDA PARENT-EDUCATOR ASSOCIATION (FPEA) ANNUAL HOMESCHOOLING CONFERENCE IN ORLANDO, FL

Shout out number two to my hubby for watching all three kiddos for a full 48 hours so that I could attend the homeschool conference in Orlando, FL. What a GREAT weekend! My neighbor, Tammy, whose oldest son will be ready for kindergarten in the fall, came with me and we just had a BLAST! Nor had we had such a full night's sleep in nearly 5 years and 6 years, respectively.

*Double side-note: Two more shout outs to Tammy's husband, Jim, and my dad for watching kids and getting us a hotel room, respectively. Couldn't have done it without you guys either!

First of all, you would NOT believe the number of families who were in attendance. The event was super family-friendly, and I have NEVER attended a teaching conference where the inclusion of prayer, God and Jesus Christ were talked about. How REFRESHING!

Second of all, you would NOT believe the number of vendors and homeschooling resources there are out there! It took us two days, in between sessions, to get through the whole expo hall. Check it out...

I actually took this picture for my zombie-loving gremlin. The store was near our hotel.

This company reprints out-of-print books. I took this picture for my hubby.

So many quotes hit me as good reminders during the conference, but perhaps none as much as this one.

Yep, that's right. I got to pet a gator! They're pretty soft. 

Tammy and I cannot WAIT to go again next year. This time we plan to take our hubbies. They would have had just as much fun as we did!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...MEMORIAL DAY

What kind of a homeschooling mom would I be if I neglected to teach my kids about our most important holidays. We began our Memorial Day celebration last night as our church presented, "Preserve Us a Nation." What a great reminder of the sacrifices those leaders and soldiers who came before us made in order for us to be free. 

We began today's festivities by watching this short video I found which discussed the history of Memorial Day:

http://www.history.com/topics/memorial-day-history/videos#history-of-memorial-day

http://www.history.com/topics/memorial-day-history/videos#a-memorial-day-tribute

Some friends of us were kind enough to invite us to the YMCA pool party, where we got to celebrate by eating hot dogs and watermelon...

Bryn got her first taste at swimming. (Literally, she was trying to eat the water.)

Then it was back to the serious stuff. We returned home and finished making pinwheels to put on Grandpa Lehman's grave. Both of Jason's grandfather's served in the armed forces. We wanted to commemorate their service by saying "thank you."

And of course since we were in Bradenton, we had to stop at our favorite custard shop!

And a big thanks to my in-laws for letting me ignore everyone for an hour while I updated this blog. 

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!!

Me too, Bryn. Me too.

Thursday, April 17th "Half" Day

So one of the biggest arguments against homeschooling is the "lack of socialization" that kids get. Well, today we proved that wrong! We probably had a little TOO MUCH socialization :/ . We actually didn't get to a specific reading, writing, or science lesson today. WHOOPS!

Here's what we DID get done...

Connor's first piano lesson!! Thanks Alaina!

Where are the states? He's doing really well!

Amelia's first attempt at scissors. Scary!

Connor taking his chapters 1 & 2 test. He only got 1 wrong. Way to go!!!

"Mommy and the Beanstalk" By Connor Rice

Last week I posted about a story Connor had written, but I kept forgetting to bring his notebook with me to the library so that I could type it on the blog. Well, without further ado...

"Mommy and the Beanstalk"

   Once upon a time there were two people named Connor and Amelia. They loved their rabbit named Luna. And one day Momma gave Luna away for five magic apples. And then she planted the magic apples. And then it grew into an applestalk. Then momma climbed up the beanstalk (not a typo) with everbody. With everybody we found a giant fish. And it had Papaw's gold and Mimi got the gold back. Then they killed the fish giant. Then they lived happily ever after.

The End

Wednesday, April 17th "Experiment FAIL!"

I had Connor take a chapter test in math and he got a 100%! So excited for him. Tomorrow I will give him a chapter 1 and 2 review test. Moving along and building up his portfolio!

We went to the library again today for story time. Here is Amelia doing her little "Hokey Pokey" dance:

So in science I tried to do another magnet experiment, but this one didn't work AT ALL! BOO! I think I have to get a different magnet, so we are going to try again another day. Poor Connor was pretty dejected.

In art we sculpted shapes out of our modeling clay and we talked about what it means for something to be 2-dimensional verses 3-dimensional.

I know, not very many pictures today, but I was really tired and so we moved through our subjects really slowly. But when I got up this morning, Connor informed me that he had already gotten dressed, made his bed and brushed his teeth. He absolutely LOVES homeschooling. It is so much fun for all of us. For the first time, I feel like a REAL mom. I am 100% in charge of teaching my kids and I take the responsibility very seriously.

On a side note....I met two more homeschooling moms today at the library. It is like an underground club you didn't know existed, but once you become a part of it, you can pick out the other members in an instant. What an amazing network!

Tuesday, April 16th- "Magnetism" continued...

I promise we do other things besides science in our homeschool lessons...

But for today's experiment, the kids put on a "puppet" show using magnets, paper dolls and a shoebox.

I also worked with Connor on sentences today, helping him to understand that capital letters are special. You don't have to use them with every word :)

For Spanish we played a memory/matching game. He's doing really well with his colors.

For social studies, we are still practicing our "United States" song and learning where all of the states in the United States are. Our goal is to have the song memorized by the time my mom comes into town on Saturday so that the kids can sing it to her. I can't wait to post the video of that one!

Another SUPER cool thing we got to look at today was a hornet's nest that Jason pulled out of our bird feeder. What was particularly awesome about it was that it still had the larvae inside. So, too bad for the larvae, but we enjoyed dissecting it! Check out our pictures...

If you look closely at the larva in the middle, you can see the eyes are already formed. It was the one that looked the most like a hornet.

In this picture, you can actually see the various stages of larvae. The two on the bottom are much less developed than the ones above them. The one at the very top had two eyes forming. You can already see the body formation in the upper right larva. Close up, you could see its wings starting to form along with little legs. All in all, pretty cool!