Adventures in U.S. History Week 9

Last weekend I was busy getting all ready for Kids Clothes Week and didn't get my week-in-review post up! I figure I better get it posted before I get any further behind.

Little Guy has been "doing school" with Ooka Island (review coming soon!) and is learning to read! He has collected five books in the game and is so proud of his achievements!

This is the Path to Reading that documents Little Guy's progress on Ooka Island.

I think Little Guy feels a little left out since he doesn't know how to read yet (he's only 3!). He sees how much fun his big sister has reading and he wants to join in the fun!

Reading about the seasons upside-down.

Most days, book basket time goes something like this with Miss M getting lost in a book for at least 15 minutes.

Tuesday my mom came, so we made Tuesday our Friday and just did math, reading, and our nature walk. Nana brought her rigid heddle table loom and showed us all how to weave a placemat.

It was a cold, gloomy day, but we took a nice nature walk anyway. We discovered lots of wild onions growing.

Wild onions growing in abundance.

Wild onion.

Later in the week we saw a turkey vulture near the house. Such ugly creatures!

Miss M learned about how the earth is tilted on its axis and that's why we have seasons. We demonstrated this idea with a bare-bulb lamp and a small ball-globe.

It was a fun, busy week! Miss M got very excited when she realized next week will be our 10th week of 2nd grade!

Our adventures from previous weeks:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8

The rest of our adventures:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6,

Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12

Week 14, Week 15, Week 16, Week 17, Week 18, Week 19,

Week 20, Week 21, Week 22, Week 23, Week 24, Week 25,

Week 26

Comments

MFW ECC: What's different this time around?

I am so excited to go through Exploring Countries and Cultures again. The last time my kids were so little -- 3rd grade and Kindergarten. And now they are in 5th and 8th grades! They have grown so much over the past five years. As I began to think about our plan for this year, I realized two things: 1) my gifted eldest child remembers just about everything we covered in ECC the first time, and 2) my younger one hasn't had many of the basics that ECC covers. So I was faced with a dilemma -- how do I adjust ECC to suit the very different needs of both children? How do I shift the focus for my 8th grader to aspects of ECC that she hadn't spent time on before (such as types of governments, imports and exports, etc.) while also taking my younger child through the more foundational information that he missed when he was just a kindergartener? ECC is designed to be parent-led, family learning, with a supplement for 7th and 8th grade. But I came to the conclusion that I need to deco...

Pilcrow pajamas

I finally finished a sewing project...it's been a while, huh? Little Guy has outgrown most of his pajamas and bodysuits. He has several onesies, but they're mostly short sleeved which isn't really appropriate for this time of year without a cardigan. Ottobre to the rescue! I had traced off the "Naava coverall" (Ottobre 6/2009, #3) but it was already a size too small. I "remedied" that by simply cutting it out a little larger all around and keeping my original seam allowance...a bit sloppy perhaps, but time-saving! I actually cut out two at the same time from the same material. I was going for practicality (something for the kid to wear!) rather than fashion. The other one is nearly done - just the leg binding and snaps left to do. Still, I needed to do something fun to spruce 'em up a bit. The other one was voted by hubby to be video game themed, so I decided to make this one reflect my abject nerdiness personality....

Letter posters with memory verses

I have very fond memories of the cursive letter banner that was posted around the top of the walls in my fifth grade classroom. I thought it would be fun to make something similar for our homeschool classroom (a.k.a. our kitchen). I decided to include a Bible verse for each letter. At this point it's mostly for my own benefit since Miss M doesn't read yet. They serve as great reminders to help her memorize these important bits of Scripture while her little mind is still a sponge. (It saddens me that my memorization skills are not what they were when I was a kid!) The fun part is I saved my work in a pdf file for you to use too! Just click the image above to download the file. I laminated mine before sticking them around my kitchen walls with ticky tacky. (The laminator is a new toy!) Enjoy!

CHRISTEPHI

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