It's been rough.

The transition back into a routine has not gone well.  There have been lots of meltdowns and temper tantrums by kids and Mom.  This has led to a signing of the Continuing Homeschool Agreement (à la Big Bang Theory), by which no one is allowed to complain or argue about any aspect of school.  Three strikes and we're signing up for public school.  I might just actually do it, too.  I'm really, really tired of the attitudes.

Anyway, here's the nutshell of the past couple of weeks:

Language Arts:

We've been working on some more sentence analysis in Practice Island.  We worked a lot with contractions and using apostrophes to demonstrate possession.

Both boys read and did book reports on Galileo's Leaning Tower Experiment.  They are now reading Frindle for book club.

In handwriting, we've been practicing writing words in all cursive and have learned capital A & B.  I made them write some of their spelling words in cursive, and you would have thought I was making them scrub the entire house with lye.

Spelling words have included contractions, words with the root post and words with the root port.

In poetry, we talked a little bit more about personification, simile and metaphor.  We've been reviewing all our poems and have begun learning The Eagle by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Still listening to Inkheart in the car.  I think we're on disc 11 of 14, though, so we're getting near the end. What will be next?

Math:


Really ugly!  We started working on multiple digit multiplication in MUS.  This is the first time math has been the slightest bit challenging for either of them, and the resistance is enormous.  They understand the concept- they just don't want to do the careful work of lining up the numbers in the correct place value columns.  I have to say, Eddie has had a better attitude about it, but Andrew understands the lining up of numbers better.  We suffered through a few lessons, and then I decided to take a break from it and review some stuff before moving on.  So, we are reviewing multiplication facts, time & measurement, place value, skip counting, addition and subtraction of larger numbers, etc.  until such time as I can muster the courage to go back to multiple digit multiplication.

History:


We learned about Isaac Newton, John Locke and the concepts of modern farming in SOTW.   To go along with these lessons we read Why Doesn't the Earth Fall Up? by Vicki Cobb and Century Farm: One Hundred Years on a Family Farm by Cris Peterson. We also read The Farewell Symphony by Anna Hardwell Celenza, about Joseph Haydn, traveling to Prince Nicholas of Esterhazy's summer home to be the court music master.  We also listened to SOTW about Peter the Great and his war with Sweden and read Peter the Great by Diane Stanley and The Sea King's Daughter: a Russian Legend by Aaron Shepard.

They wanted to collaborate on this, but Eddie wrote the first page and Andrew wrote the second.

       Here's Andrew's Peter the Great narration:

Science:

We've been learning about mixtures and solutions and how some things will dissolve and others will not.  We're observing how some things will un-mix easily, and others will not.  We've done a few experiments to observe these phenomena:

French:

We are learning weather words and expressions, along reviewing the months and the seasons and talking about what kind of weather goes with each season.

Latin:  

We've learned nihil sub sole novum, vita sine libris mors est and circa.

Music:

They worked on the song Flowers and May Day.  We reviewed the count of the notes and learned about 3/4 time.

Health:  

They completed a worksheet about foods that contain fats, and talked about the importance of a balanced diet.  First, I had them draw a picture of what they think they look like right now.  Then, they had to read some hyperbolic scenarios of unhealthy diets.  Finally, they were asked to draw a picture of what they would look like in one year if they ate only those unhealthy foods.  Ed, as usual, put his own spin on the assignment (WARNING- There is cartoon nudity!):

P. E.

We've been taking long walks to playgrounds in this beautiful weather.  We also did some more of the exercise video from the library, as well as some stretching.  They went to another Swim & Gym, too.

Eddie learned to dive for a dive ring.

Andrew enjoyed himself after the lesson.

They had to go to various stations to practice fitness skills.

Then they ran an obstacle course. 

Ed pretended these were barbells

Andrew got into the hoola hoops.

Art:

We did Lessons 11 & 12 in Artisitic Pursuits, which were about shape and form.  They made pictures out of flat shapes and then they made the animals to demonstrate how art can show form.

The boys are still going to Chess Club, Book Club, Cub Scouts and Sunday School, so lots of extra activities there.  

We went on some cool field trips lately, too:  

First we explored the new aquarium:

Then we went to Gray's Armory with the Cub Scouts.  That was a very interesting place. 

These were things sent back from WWI.

Digging for treasure at the shooting range.

The Ballroom.

These next pictures show the area that was a Speakeasy during Prohibition.

Eddie wanted to go to the Art Museum for his birthday so that he and his brother could scope out the medieval armor.  We had to vote on our favorite swords and daggers.  

Eddie was trying to pose like a mummy in these pictures!

So, all in all, it has been a busy few weeks.  I think we will start to get our groove back soon and power on through the rest of the year.  Let's just hope math starts going a little better, or Mommy's gonna need a vacation soon!

Veggie Cooking

 Yesterday afternoon was another food prep/cooking day.

I made a dip out of green peas and garlic, a spiced butternut squash soup, a roasted beet and roasted garlic soup, a chard and cabbage slaw, a broccoli and steamed acorn squash salad, and a roasted cauliflower and roasted red pepper salad with kalamata olives.  The recipes were on WholeLiving.com in their 28 day challenge.  I changed some of them a little to accommodate the ingredients I had on hand.  I also accidentally put tahini in the cauliflower salad, but it sure made it taste good!

This was lunch on Sunday.  I found a Mimolette cheese at BJ's of all places, so I had to buy it and try it.   It was pretty good.  I felt like I was back in France or Germany with this meal!

And here is the juice I had yesterday- pink grapefruit, carrot & ginger.

Orange-y

I can't get over some of the gorgeous colors that come out of the juicer.  Today's mix was 1 Honeycrisp apple, 5 carrots and a big, ole' chunk of ginger.

Back to work

It has been challenging to get back into a routine after the holidays, especially since Hubs and I went away for our anniversary over MLK weekend, and the Babysitters-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless provided way too much fun for these children!  They want to keep the good times going and not buckle down.

Well here's a rundown of what we've been doing in the new year.

Language Arts:

We've covered the parts of a sentence and have begun learning about prepositional phrases and clauses.  We are starting to do some sentence analysis in our Practice Island book.  We did some worksheets on capitalization and comma placement.  We've been working on writing short poems (laborious!) and writing similes.  I tried to get them to write short stories with a sentence prompt, but that concept didn't take hold in their brains.  We'll have to keep trying with that.  They read a few history related books independently and have also been reading a Thea Stilton book for their upcoming book club meeting.  In spelling we've covered words with au, aw, o as in log, al as in halt and all.


We just finished learning all the lower case cursive letters.  I'm going to start assigning some written work to be all in cursive.

We are listening to Inkheart in the car, and all of us want to keep driving around to hear more of it.  We don't want to come in the house!  Great story!


Math:


We've been reviewing multiplication facts by working on Kumon workbooks.  They did a little multiple digit addition and subtraction review as well.  We covered Lessons 21 & 22 in MUS Gamma, which are introducing multiple digit multiplication.


History:

We learned a little more about Prussia.  We studied our big maps to see where modern day Germany is, and we pointed out all the countries we can identify on the map.  We learned about conflict in the New World and King Louis XIV of France sending over troops to fight the Native Americans.  We learned about the strife between the Wampanoag and the Plymouth colonists.  We learned about William Penn establishing a colony for Quakers in the New World.

Science:  

We have been learning about acids and bases and acid-base reactions.   We made two different kind of base indicators and tested out some household cleaners and other substances to see if they were acids or bases.  

French:

We've been reviewing everything we've learned so far and today we had a scavenger hunt.  I hid clues around the house and the boys found them.  The grand prize was lunch at Panera, including a pastry!

Some of my clues were misspelled, but they didn't catch on.

  

Latin:

We've learned caveat emptor and ex libris.

Music:

We reviewed all the songs we've learned and learned the high C on the recorder.  They started practicing Corn Song.

Life Skills:

We worked on phone manners, and are supposed to be working on eating with utensils.  That will be on ongoing project!

Health:

We talked about common household hazards.  We had a discussion about what we will need to do to babyproof the house for when we start babysitting The Tiny Girl.

We reviewed the food groups and made a shopping list of fruits and vegetables.  The boys shopped from their lists by themselves at Whole Foods.  I think they did a fine job, but we have about 30 bananas.  Guess I'll be freezing quite a few for shakes.

P. E.

We've been having dance parties in the living room and doing segments of a kids workout video we got from the library.

Art:

We did Lesson 10 in Artistic Pursuits, which is about showing your works.  I told them we would have an art show at some point.  I also had them make self portraits.  Ugh.  They really are not artists, although this is some of their best work to date!

We haven't done much in Chess, except play a game or two.  Need to get back to that.  

I let them each have one day to choose the schedule of classes for the day.  I was surprised by what they chose.  They both chose Language Arts, Handwriting, History, Reading, Science and Recess.  Andrew also chose Chess and Art, while Ed chose Health, Life Skills and a double dose of Science.  Neither chose Math!  Guess they're going to have to do some Math in the summer to catch up!  ;)

Juice!

I'm so happy to be juicing again.  It really does make me feel better.  This morning I juiced 2 large carrots, 3 stalks celery, 1 medium lump of ginger, 2 granny smith apples and 3 large beets.

This is the glorious concoction that came out of the juicer.  I want to paint a picture with it.