What we've been up to :)

Things have really fallen into a pattern around here. I wrote a few weeks back about some concerns I had about how long some of our book work was taking us. I can happily report we have cut that time in half! I really appreciate the book work in a classical education and Lovely enjoys seeing what she knows, but Lovely and I both really love diving into other ways of learning - and I felt we were not getting time to do that - even fun reading time! Things have greatly improved, and our learning has gone into other directions as well. I don't feel I have to bribe Lovely (for now) to write or do phonics, etc. as I once had to. She is getting more and more independent with her work and I can check in with her as well. It is wonderful.

Co-op (Totus Tuus) has started. Lovely really enjoyed meeting new friends and her new 1st-3rd grade class of students.

Lovely in her classroom with her small group working on science

I don't have pictures yet of Lovely's Montessori Good Shepherd class, but that has started as well. Lovely really enjoys that class! I'm thrilled both co-op and Good Shepherd afford her time in a mixed age group. It is really wonderful.

Preschool has also started a few days a week for Val. It has been so nice to have a couple of ours to focus just on Lovely and the baby. When Val is with us, she plays, or joins us with her toddler kit I have, or I try to do some Waldor-ify (lol!) things with her and we all read together. Here she is on her first day:

I really admire you homeschoolers who have all your kids at home. Val is great, and as I said - we include her a lot and she does well MOST of the time, but then there are times she just wants me, or gets frustrated, causes noise,  etc and the balancing act for me can be hard with a newborn and a student. Preschool has been such a help. If you don't do something like this for the little ones - what do you do to keep the flow of learning in your home for the older ones?

The weather here (especially in the mornings) is starting to hint of fall, so Lovely has taken full advantage of the great outdoors:

Working on contractions. She erases the extra letters and adds an apostrophe on the words.

Doing copy work from a reading on Pinocchio

Doing some review Math work on bar graphs.

Lovely also recently celebrated her 7th birthday. Her Godparents gave her a lap desk! She has really enjoyed it.

Drawing a picture after reading about mummification.

Her drawing of a woman wrapping a mummy after reading our history section. I promise, there is a covering on her, but the pink is hard to see - lol!

I also meant to share this sweet picture from our first week. She colored a page from a faith assignment. She was asked to draw herself in God's hands. :)

I'm loving time with my angel. So far, this has been a great family decision!!

How is everyone doing? As swamped as we are? I knew this would be a lot of work...but wow - it is SO much work, time, love, and energy. My hat is off to you all!

Blessings!

PE Fun

Our local classes have started and Lovely signed up for two activities that are great for physical education.

Taekwondo

Gymnastics

She LOVES both activities!

Field Trip - Ancient Egypt, Nubia and Mesopotamia

We've been so busy over here, I have not been recording some of our adventures - but we've been enjoying the last few weeks for sure!

Lovely is currently studying a bit of a social studies fusion. Our home school goals in Social Studies are to start with ancient times and move forward year to to year - cycling back through again in middle school so things she is exposed to now can give her a foundation and feel familiar to her later when she's older and things are re introduced. We are using "Story of the World" and really love it. It blends reading and history as well as living books and hands on activities. It is great. We also take a look here and there at the state standards and its small checklist and talk about important facts stateside as well. Many of our field trips expose Lovely and our family to both. This post records our trip to an ancient history museum to cover our "Story of the World" chapters. This Sunday will find us doing some early US as well. Hopefully I'll blog that later...hehe!

Here are some pictures from our trip into the past. It was very enjoyable! We focused in the part of the museum on Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. They had so many impressive artifacts:

Ancient Egypt

Here Lovely sketches artifacts in her sketch book.

Lovely by a cabinet of mummified animals

Mummified kitten

Mummifed baby crocodile

Beautiful Hieroglyphs

Mesopotamia

Artifacts from Mesopotamia

Daily life of Sumerian women

Sumerian Cuneiform

It was a GREAT experience. Lovely could not stop looking at everything, made some great sketches (I need to scan them), and asked a lot of questions. We took my dad, so it was also a nice family trip for us as well. We'll definitely go back when we hit Greece, Rome, and the Americas. They are enlarging their African exhibit to include more cultures than just Egypt and Nubia.

It was a great day!

Go Us!

Danielle Bean and Faith and Family Live gives us permission to celebrate the little things in our lives today!!

1. Though, once again, I'm not getting tons of things done in our home currently (thus, I'm posting this here on my home school blog vs my main blog) because of the wee ones and making homeschooling our focus, I did manage to start work on a photo wall I've been wanting to do for some time. I never have really had pics of my kids up on my walls...WOW! So now I have this by our den stairs:

2.  We've had a great week of homeschooling after a more challenging one. I know it takes time to get one's groove, and we had one week where Lovely was not protesting, but she was over working. Things felt more like college than homeschooled 1st Grade, and I was worried Lovely would start to get upset. I opened up here and to friends, and got some great ideas. This past week has been a 180 degree turn!  The tips are working, and this past week was renewing and a big success! I'm always looking for more tips on making our days better, a good routine (how do you all start the day?), and motivating our kids to stay on track but enjoy as well.

3. Scrolling down below, I've posted some of our fun lesson successes, but one lesson in particular has ended up saving our yard lol! While getting outside, enjoying nature, studying insects up close, and learning all at once was a huge plus this week over last week, we discovered some of our specimens were part of an invading "army". This army sometimes never gets caught because they are more active at night and their damage blamed on the heat or dry weather. So, our whole family has learned something new. I do admit to feeling a bit grossed out - I feel watched by millions of hidden eyes!!

Laundry? What's that? Cooking meals? Huh? Not many successes this week, but I'll take what I can get above! I love what we've been able to do!

How is your week?!!

Thankful Thursday
This week I'm thankful for...

1. The support of my husband.
2. my children...such joy!
3. my incredible friend and neighbor.
4. time with family.
5.  prayer.
6. A God who is there for me even when I'm not always there for Him.

Much love!!

Life Skills

One needs to know how to clean. Usually (and still, lol) I have to ASK or remind Lovely to do her part, but I caught her in the act of being good in this moment! Mommy has to remember to share the cleaning duties...I find myself wanting to do everything for my kids, and honestly one of the best gifts I can give them is the ability to do things themselves and take pride in it, and give up some of my control issues.

This is part of learning too - for the child AND the mother!

Just More Visual Evidence on Why I Adore Homeschooling!!

Today, after reading about the invention of writing, the girls made their own clay tablets (or simply played) with cuneiform (early Sumerian writing) with play-doh. It was just a fun enrichment activity that allowed fun, hands on learning, creativity, library books, and mommy/daughter learning conversation on the topic. It also was something both girls could do together.

I LOVE homeschooling!

Army "worms" ARE intersting to study though....

(see post below for info on our Army Worm Moth caterpillars)

We spent more time outside today interacting with and studying our invading horde of army worms (moth caterpillars). Army Worms love apples, drink dew off grass, and love to munch and poop. LOL!