November & December 2018 Wrap-Up

When I realized I missed our November Wrap-Up, I decided to just hold off and combine it along with December.  These two months have been a balance of school and life in the best possible way.  We have been able to reap the benefits of our lifestyle and have school when we wanted to and then be able to enjoy our time at home as well as enjoying Daddy-o’s availability to join in on the fun.

We left South Carolina mid-November and arrived in Wisconsin and to a dusting of snow just in our area.  We arrived in time for Wisconsin’s deer season and both girls were able to go out and spend some time in the woods with Daddy-o.  Both girls at various times have also heat to gotten to help Daddy-o and their Papa split and gather wood for our wood furnace. Being back home has allowed us to get back into our local library’s story time for Thumper and Mouse was able to sign up for her first Library card.  The girls have also gotten to spend lots of time with family while we have been home.  Participating in craft sales as both shoppers and workers.

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We of course have also been prepping for the holidays with picking out presents for others and helping wrap to put under the tree.  We had a visit to Santa and decorated the girls first real Christmas tree. What snow we have gotten the girls have made good use out of.  Daddy-o helped them build an igloo/cave on the pond, once it has frozen over.  It is also equipped with a bed, should anyone want to come out and spend the night. I have been busy inside while the girls have been enjoying the outdoors and their toys at home. I have been busy getting school ready for next year.  Everything is “planned”, printed and packed into containers waiting for us to head out after Christmas and head to North Carolina for Hubby’s next job. Look for a blog article soon on how I planned out our school year for 2019.  I’m hoping to be more stream lined and not have to plan as much during the year, as I have had to do in the past.

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Oh, we have also gotten some schooling done too! While we have been busy these last two months, and while school still has gotten done, it hasn’t happened on our normally daily schedule, as we have had various appointments and things in life come up that we chose to do instead.  I also decided not to stress about school not getting done as I added up our totals for the year and we far exceeded our 875 hours and 180 days and required by the state of Wisconsin.  School for November and December has mostly been tying up loose ends and making the goals I had set for the end of our academic year. 

 In history we have finished up Roman era and the end of Sonlights Core B together.  We read aloud and “The Tale of Despereaux” and then we were able to watch the movie together as well.  For Bible we continued using Kids of Integrity, from Focus on the Family, and covered “Thankfulness” during the month of November.  As part of our Advent Season in December we read aloud “The Gift” and “The Angel Tree” and discussed how we can have a Christmas spirit all year long, by having Jesus in our hearts.

Our beginning adventures with cursive writing is going well, but I think I will be adding in another curriculum choice that adds a little different approach to it.  Mouse is taking off with it, and I think once we learn the alphabet through, she will prefer cursive to manuscript which is a lot neater in appearance. 

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Mouse wrapped up the last of her lessons in Math, Reading and Spelling for the year so basically each day her school time became less and less as subjects started disappearing form her schedule. 

Thumper finished her first round through the alphabet and the first 9 weeks of her Sonlight core.  We will pick up with it in January. I added to our reading time together and pulled out our collection of Christmas books and she has enjoyed adding in her picks from the library as well.  She has enjoyed adding in Christmas songs to her weekly song time as well.

October 2018 Wrap-Up

Fall has finally arrived in the South.  It has only taken most of the month of October, but relief from the 90 plus temperatures is here for us.  We are still in South Carolina, but our days are quickly coming to an end, and we foresee ourselves heading back to Wisconsin by Thanksgiving. 

October kept us very busy with the girls actively finishing out their soccer season with the local YMCA.  We had games 1-2 nights a week, and luckily for this Momma Bear there was only two of those nights where they played on the same night at the same time.  Mouse was recommended to play as a midfielder as she gets older.  This position seems to her defensive personality well.  Thumper (the only girls on her team) didn’t let her brute strength show until the end of the season and most of the time was content t follow the pack screaming like a banshee. 

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We also spent a warm Sunday at a local corn maze, and later that week the girls got to carve their pumpkins they picked. 

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School kept us going this month as well and we are making strives to be on target to finish up our major spine curriculum by the end of the year.”.

 In history we continued with he Roman Empire which tied in with our read aloud “Detectives in Togas”.

We seemed to have started a mouse theme and read “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” and started “The Tale of Despereaux”, which we will finish in the next few days.  We continued in plants in science and studied Roots, Stems and Leaves and Flowers this month.  We have attempted to start a leaf research project but keep getting sidetrack with the rain.  New to us this month is our adventure with cursive handwriting for both girls.  The program started out with practicing numbers, and Thumper surprised us by being able to keep pace right along side her big sister.  We are taking the rest of the program slow and have just begun introducing letters this week. Our new bible study time with using Focus on the family seems to still be going well.  We talked about obedience this month and that we need to obey God, even when it is difficult remained in our minds as we approached each lesson. 

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Mouse this month has continued to grow in her independent reading and with the help of participating in the BookIt program with Pizza Hut has earned her first certificate.  She was able to cash in on her pizza after her game earlier this week.  She had a goal of reading 5-chapter books and surpassed it by reading 10.  She is enjoying writing them down and rating them, she is also trying to take over my read aloud library for herself.  In the future, I may begin to post a recap of what she reads each month, and what her ratings for each book were, so be on the lookout for those posts if she keeps up this appetite for reading. 

Once she passed her little stall in Math she is moving right along with subtraction and telling time.  We just started subtracting with regrouping, a new concept, that may take some time too. 

We finished Writing with Ease Level one, and I decided to up her challenges in language arts, where I haven’t before, and we began using Sonlight LA 1.  It is going well, and I think she is finally ready to write more on her own, as this program is having her do on some days.  We are taking it gently, but she on her own has written a few “books” this month so I think it was time for such a transition into more work for her in this area.  She is also continuing to progress through All About Reading Level 3 doing 1-2 lessons a week and we are pacing ourselves through All About Spelling Level 2 doing a bout 1 lesson per week.

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Thumper has still been enjoying her changes and additions to her day.  We have covered letters R,S, T and started U this week.  She has enjoyed getting to sing Halloween songs this month.  She particularly enjoys getting to add extra things t her All About Reading Activity Sheets with each letter.

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Our year is winding down as we get to reaching our goals for the end of the year, our work load will get less and less for the next 2 months as we transition into the holiday season as well.  I have been in the background prepping for next year and revamping my approach to planning.  I’m starting to find a healthy balance for things in relating to school and life.

August & September 2018 Wrap-Up

Both the months of August and September has seemed to escape me, and I have no idea where they went.  We have been very busy these last two months. We still managed to get a lot of school done and have a few victories to show despite how busy we were these last two months.

August was full of trips and birthdays for us.  We started the month by Hubby and I taking a belated anniversary trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  We enjoyed visiting an alligator park, the Pirate Voyage show, Wine Tasting and some shopping and sight seeing along the way. 

Later in August both Hubby and I celebrated our birthdays as well.

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While Hubby and I were away Bahgum (Hubby’s Mom) came to stay with the girls and they had plenty of adventures of their own.  They went to the NASCAR museum in Charlotte, North Carolina had their nails done, went to a water park and then celebrated Bahgum’s birthday at the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, North Carolina. 

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In September we went to the Discovery Place Science Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina after church one Sunday.  We then left South Carolina during Hurricane Florence and returned to Wisconsin for a brief trip there.  We were not in the direct path of the hurricane, but Hubby’s job shut down during the storm for safety reasons, so we decided to make the trip home rather than coop ourselves up during the rain. 

While we were home in Wisconsin we watched a volleyball game, had Friday Lunch with family and the girls had a date with their cousins at the local pumpkin patch.

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When we returned to South Carolina Mouse Celebrated her 8th Birthday.  The night before we celebrated with Daddy-O at Olive Garden. The next day on her actual birthday we went shopping during the day and ate at Texas Rodeo House (AKA Texas Road House), before ending our evening at the soccer field. 

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Both girls have started soccer here with the local YMCA and have kept this Momma Bear Busy with three nights a week of practice.  They will practice for the rest of September and the month of October they will start playing some games as well. 

I have also distracted myself with a lot of planning and prepping for next year.  I’m trying to stream line my planning pages and binder system to be able to work our year in quarters instead of chunking things together randomly.  I’ve also been looking and planning out a few extra things for our other curriculums as well, because I have to create or plan a few things to do with these as well, and my logic is if I start now, I hopefully won’t have as much planning to do once the year starts next year.  It has kept me busy and distracted during my free time these least few months 

We have kept up with school as best as we could during these last two months but have a had a lot of short or interrupted weeks. 

Together we finished “A Wrinkle in Time” and then we were able to watch the movie.  The girls were a little disappointed the Aunt Beast did not play as big of a roll in the movie as she had in the book. 

We have started to study Macedonia and Alexander the Great in history and we were able to tie in “Magic Tree House: Stallion by Starlight” as a reader this last week or so for Mouse.  We have been learning about different aspects of plants for science.  We have discussed what makes up a plant, deciduous and ever green trees, monocots and dicots and have begun exploring roots this week as well.  We are happily anticipating fall here so that we can study some of the leaves around us as they fall of the trees completing a leaf project for school. 

We continued our theme of Honesty through August and September for bible.  This seems to be working for us well and I have been busy developing coloring sheets and activities to tie in our learning for each character trait.  Eventually I hope to share what we have been making and have it available to purchase or free to print. 

Mouse has trucked right along with All About Reading and we will begin Lesson 20 nest week.  She has been averaging about six lesson a month and at this rate we will quite possibly finish AAR Level Three right at the beginning of the year next year.

Independent reading wise she has soared over the last 3 weeks in this area.  On her birthday we bought a book called “Princess Pulverizer Quit Bugging Me”.  She devoured it with delight.  When we bought it we didn’t realize that it was the fourth book, so with her eagerness for the book Daddy-O and I decided to purchase the first three books in the series for her.  She has already finished the first book (in two days) and has happily started the second.  I signed her up for the Pizza Hut Book it program this year and we agreed that her goal for the month of September would be to read the series.  She is almost there to earing her pizza reward. 

We have still been stuck with 3-digit column addition.  I think we may move on once she test next week again.  She shows the proper skill and knowledge and can teach the problems and concept back to me (which is what I look for in mastery).  She isn’t quite getting 100% every time, but she is consistent in her knowledge of the subject and I’m confident to move her to the next lesson, since it is a continuation of the same topic anyways. 

She also continues to make strides in Spelling, but I’m keeping the pace slow with this still as she gets easily upset with her if she misses a word or two and must repeat them the next day.  I have confidence as she has picked up writing for pleasure more that spelling will come easier to her.

July 2018 Wrap-Up

We spent the week of the 4th with my family at the beach in Destin, Florida.  It was a jam-packed week of beach days, the aquarium, a lunch with alligators, playing in the pool, a day at the water park, fireworks, shopping and crab legs, and of course lots and lots of sun (and a few rain storms too).  The girls enjoyed themselves, as did I, but we were glad to be back with Daddy-O in South Carolina and back to our daily routines.

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At the end of the moth we explored our area a little bit and ventured one morning to the Kings Mountain Battlefield.  We took one morning and visited the visitors center, but since I didn’t have on proper walking shoes we chose to come back and walk the trail another day.  We also took a trip into Charlotte, North Carolina one afternoon and visited the Discovery Place Nature Center.  The girls mostly enjoyed playing outside and building a fairy house, though they also enjoyed the butterfly room and especially enjoyed it when Winnie the dove, decided to visit Momma’s head.

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For part of the month we attempted to do school after lunch in hopes of getting more outdoor time when it was cooler out.  Outside time didn’t happen as much as the girls just wanted time to play with toys and the bugs were not very friendly no matter the time of day.  Schooling in the afternoons, however quickly became a no go for us.  We did learn that we can do school in the afternoon, should something come up in the morning, but we function better for school when it happens first thing in the morning rather than later in the day.  We returned to our morning schedule this week and part of last week and things seemed to flow more smoothly as a result. 

This month we began a new approach to our bible study time together.  We have begun using resources from Kids of Integrity and the 365 Veggietale Devotionals for Girls.  Using Kids of Integrity, we will begin a monthly focus on a character trait.  This month our trait was Respect.  We made a family rule chain, learned new ways to pray and learned 2 verses that help us show respect to others according to God’s word.  The girls were able to practice these rules and manners, and each had a Daddy-o and Daughter date night on their own.  I am still perfecting this system and finding activities to incorporate, but I really like the intentionality this new focus is giving us.  I want to help instill in the girls a sense of why we behave the way we do, is because it is how God outlined it for us in the bible long ago.  We also continued reading in the bible about Moses and the Arc of the Covenant. 

For our read aloud this month we read Little Pear, which tied into what we were discussing in history learning about Ancient China and the Great Wall.  This week the girls are excited to begin A Wrinkle in Time as our next read aloud.  As a reward when we finish the book we plan on watching the movie that came out earlier this year.

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Mouse is trooping right along with All About Reading Level 3 and we are in the middle of Lesson 15 learning about vowel suffixes this week.  For spelling we are in a season of review as we began Level 2 this week.  Prior to this week we took 15 words a day from the word cards in level one, just to solidify the rules and to help me identify areas she may still be struggling with.  As we moved along I noticed we still needed review over plurals and the use of plurals and -ck.  We are taking step 1 in level 2 very slowly as we review and gear up to continue with this level.  In Math we hit a stumbling block at lesson 18 with 3-digit column addition.  She’s having trouble with the visualization of so many numbers.  So right now I am printing out extra practice from the worksheet generator on Math-U-See’s website and we are building each problem with the blocks.  Hoping it eventually clicks for her to add multiple digits together without the blocks, because she does well when I sit through and work with her, however with the mastery approach she will have to be able to do it on her own to be able to move onto the next lesson.  We are also focusing on correct penmanship as an incentive to be able to learn cursive writing in the fall.  I’m having her intentionally take her time to make letters/words neatly and correctly.  I’m hoping by the end of august she will have improved in her intentionally and we can begin cursive in September. 

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It was Thumper who had the biggest struggle with our adventure of having school in the afternoons.  Her little brain was wearing out by that time of day and her heart was no longer in participating in her favorite part of school, her songs.  With her we reviewed the letters I,J,K and L and have moved onto the letters M,N and started the letter O this week.  While not exactly a part of her school time songs, her favorite song this month has been I feel Like a Monster by skillet. 

April 2018 Wrap-Up

As I mentioned in our March Wrap-Up we are now in South Carolina with Daddy-O for work.  We are most definitely enjoying the warmer weather and the girls are taking advantage of the beautiful days and spending a lot of time playing at the playground across from our camper. I have posted 2 posts this month for the blog titled Home-school Year-Round and Planning our Year this month.

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We have gotten to also visit family and spent the month traveling to see my cousin play in some High School Baseball games.  We have also taken part in two local festivals near us (the Iron City Festival and Spartanburg’s Spring Fling.  We have also busied ourselves around the campground with mini golf, fishing and taking our dog ‘lil Lucy for walks.

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In school this month we have been covering the story of Moses in Exodus and learning about what makes up the Trinity in our bible studies.  We have continued to study Ancient Greece in history, we have talked about the first Olympics and the differences in Athens and Sparta and have started working on studying Babylon.  I finished reading aloud The Year of Miss Agnes and we have started Follow My Leader.  We finished the circulatory system in science and moved onto and finished studying the respiratory system.  We were able to make “blood” with Daddy-O one evening when he came home from work. 

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Mouse has been moving right along in her school work and began Level Three for All About Reading and is moving along at a good pace with it.  She is almost done with Level One All About spelling but is currently hung up on spelling plurals with two lessons to go.   We took a break for a bit and I had her read Magic Tree House: Hour of the Olympics.  I’m trying to build her confidence in being able to read chapter books.  She did very well and I for see being able to use other Magic Tree House books in the fashion in the future with her.  She started back with Math U see upon our return and her first lesson back in the book was right along the line, of where I had to fill in while we were in Indiana, where I had her and started with adding money.  She came to a stumbling block on the next lesson of rounding to 100, so I added in some more practice sheets for her and we seem to be well on our way again. 

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Thumper spent the first part of the month reviewing the letters A through H.  We also finished her number book, and she really enjoyed showing off her result to her Daddy-O.  We also began work on the letter I and began working on a shape study.  We were able to read Junie B. Jones Has a Peep in her Pocket and a few other short stories.  She seems to be catching onto and enjoying the rhyming we are working on with All About Reading Pre-Level.  She rhymes all the time and is constantly asking me if two words rhyme.  I had an AH HA moment with her this month as I chose “Every Move I Make” for her songs one week.  She had come home from church several times saying she sang “Na na na” this was the song, and a favorite of hers this month.

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Looking forward to what the Month of May brings us as we spend another month in South Carolina.  I plan to blog about in this next month about what a “typical day/week” looks like for us and how we approach the use of mastery learning. 

March 2018 Wrap-Up

We spent the month of March in Indiana while my Dad finished recovering from a surgery he had back in February.  Happy to report that he received the all clear from his surgery.  We will finish out March now by traveling to South Carolina to be with Daddy-O.  We finished a lot of the curriculum I had brought with me when we started our stay in February, so I improvised some with workbooks I had on hand and a few I picked up at the Dollar Tree. 

Here is a re-cap of what we have done during this Month.

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Not School Related:

We took a field trip one Saturday afternoon with my Mother the Muncie Children’s Museum.  Hilariously I think besides the slide our girls enjoyed the school room replica the most. 

We also celebrated Thumper’s 4th birthday.  Since we were in Indiana we were lucky enough to get to celebrate with some friends of our whose son shares the same birthday with her and is her “birthday buddy”. 

We spent a few other days playing with our friends here and spending a few more days with my Mom before we head out to South Carolina.  We were also able to share a visit with my sister and nephew (along with their cute puppy) who came in from Kansas during their spring break. 

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During Our School Time:

Together:

Together we finished our Read Aloud and study of Greek myths in History.  We also explored more of the Human Body and looked at the Digestive system and we have started working on the circulatory system.  We have begun to read The Year of Miss Agnes.  I had the girls draw some during our Read Aloud time, because I couldn’t print of the doodle sheets I had made to go along with this book.

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Mouse: She finished up to week 18 f our Writing with Ease program (as that is all that I had brought with us).  I improvised for a few days encouraging her to use her spelling words to create some sentences.  We are now on Step 23 of All About Spelling Level 1 and should finish it up when we start school back up in South Carolina.  Since she had already finished All About Reading Level 2 I improvised here as well with some reading workbooks I had in my stash.  She learned more about homophones and rhyming words in these workbooks.  Since I also didn’t have any more math lessons with us and she finished the Kumon workbook dealing with coins I picked up a time and money workbook and an addition workbook from the dollar tree to tied us over as well.  In her state work she complete the states Ohio and Missouri. 

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Thumper: In addition to turning four (which according to her makes her a big girl for all sorts of things), we completed the letters F and G.  We will gear up for a review when we get to South Carolina.  She worked on rhyming words in All About Reading Pre-Level, which she had a lot of fun with.  Her favorite video during her music time was a ASL video and Little Red video. 

February 2018 Wrap-Up

ON THE ROAD AGAIN! We started our February packing our camper and our ruck to travel again with Daddy-O for work.  We all drove first to Indiana, where the girls and I have remained for the rest of the month while helping my dad after having surgery.  Daddy-o left after spending a few days with us and made his way to work in South Carolina. 

We are still making school happen even while we are in Indiana helping my dad.  I did have to rearrange a few things I had originally planned for school, because we have ended up staying longer than I had first anticipated.

Here is a highlight of what we have accomplished this month for school:

Thumper has always sat in on our mornings and this month has not been any different.  We have read Mountain Born, and Henry Huggins.  We have just started reading Greek Myths and will continue that into next month.  We have primarily been learning about Egypt this month for history and we are now starting in on Ancient Greece.  In science we have been discussing our nerves and senses and will be exploring the digestive system soon. 

 Mouse has continued writing basic copy work from using Writing with Ease and a workbook I picked out for her to get a little more practice with.  We had to adjust math a little bit, but luckily for us it was a natural break in our program to stop and talk about money, more specifically coins.  So, we are using the Kumon My First Book of Money: Counting Coins  to learn about pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.  We relate this back to skip counting by 5’s and 10’s, which we have covered up to this point.  She has worked on the states Michigan, Illinois and Indiana (how coincidental for us).  Our favorite thing for this month would have to be using the new app for the All About Learning Press Letter Tiles App.  It has saved my sanity of setting up and taking down a whiteboard or baking sheet while we travel to do reading and spelling.

We reviewed letters A, B, C, and D and introduced the letters E and F this month.  We have learned about the numbers 1-7.  We have read about Abraham, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph in our bible stories. As always, she has been enjoying her singing time and home of her favorites have been: Old Mc Donald had a Farm, Jesus Loves Me, Rain Rain Go Away. She has also been into drawing and coloring a lot during her free time.