Two MORE reasons I love homeschooling....

Nature Study: sketching a tree while hiking today.

School Cafeteria: our picnic lunch yesterday.

Trick or Treat!

Greetings from the world of Dr. Seuss!!!

Hope your weekend was wonderful!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween from our family to yours!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Storyteller

This morning we did some homeschooling, then hopped in the car and headed to Valiant's preK (Lovely used to attend there as well when she was in preK). Valiant comes here a couple of days a week, but she doesn't attend this day, but we were not going to miss this Princess story teller. She was really good! She acts out books kids can get at the library to promote a love of reading and literacy. At the end, she applied glitter on all the kids after they promised to keep reading. It was a fun morning!
 

You can see Val and Lovely in the crowd transfixed.

Getting glitterized!

Thanks your Highness! We're off to read!

Co-op Day - All Saints

Today we had a really fun day at coop! We met for Mass, then started our "assembly day" with a decade of the rosary then met in one big room for a celebration of All Saints. The kids all got to pick a favorite saint and dress up, give a short speech about their saint (minus their name), and then the kids had to guess the saint. It was cute and fun!

Lovely picked St. Rose de Lima, and researched her a little and included in her costume a red face (I put blush all over her face to make it red like St. Rose) as St. Rose was so beautiful, she felt it distracted people from her love for Jesus - so she would irritate her face (Rachael found that fascinating - better than a fairy tail story with its twists and turns!). Little Val also went dressed up. In looking for saints for Lovely, we saw a childhood picture of Therese Martin   - the future St. Therese of Lisieux (The Little Flower). They both are/were so cute, curly, and little that it fit Valiant well.  

Lovely presenting her facts

all the kids waiting to present or guessing

our "Little" Flower

My parents came to see the presentations and have a feast lunch with us (so fun!) and then the kids played on the playground, had dessert, and we visited with everyone. Lovely went home for a sleepover with my parents. She was excited.

One of the highlights for me (aside from my girls) was seeing Kate again! I feel such a kindred spirit in her, and I feel God wired us the same way and she just touches other people's lives  - such a gift. It was so great to have her around with all of us - and her to see all her co-op friends. I was not in co-op when she was so I feel I missed out! I miss that our girls don't have Good Shepherd together anymore! Love you Kate!!!!

And...what would I do without the lady pictured above? My friend, mentor, and guide as I've gotten started homeschooling? Thanks K!!! (I'm not brown noising...I promise....much.......not because I bother you with constant questions hahahahahahaaha)

It was a fabulous start to the weekend! Thanks all!! Great job kids!!

Schooling Successes!

Morning Folks! I haven't had a chance to really update here. Our lives have been so busy, but I've been taking lots of pics. We've done some book learning, but also branched off and worked on some projects to bring together different areas.

1. Homeschooling has been going very well. We've hit some bumps here and there (see below posts) but we've had two good weeks. Last week was spent working on a summary project using the book series you see me reading in the picture above. In History (Story of the World) we were studying the Assyrians. Instead of doing one of their chapter projects, I made up my own since Lovely REALLY enjoyed reading a children's trilogy on the story of Gilgamesh, an Assyrian epic that Story of the World recommended.  The books had incredible artistic illustrations, and as shown above as I read  - Lovely would be drawing in her sketch pad little "notes". After we finished all 3 books, she spent time the rest of the week going back and picking out parts of each story to summarize all three books into one summary through drawing. She would recreate the illustrations from the book and dictate to me her verbal summary to write on back, and then would read her dictation back to me. It seemed to be a great way to do both art appreciation, drawing practice, literature, and reading while practicing a tough skill like summarizing.   Overall, she did pretty well picking out key parts of the story to put into one book of her creation.

She did much of it outside:

Hehe!

outside learning is fun for siblings!

deep thinker

hard at work.

skipping to the last day - last pictures and book creation

Lovely cutting out her colored picture of Gilgamesh from the Story of the World materials

creating her book cover out of a recycled paper grocery bag

She made her book flaps like a real book LOL!! She was so proud of her book too.

"The Story of Gilgamesh:  A Summary" - lol.

2. Our co-op went together this past Friday to a dairy farm. We enjoyed a hayride tour of the farm, the history, how a dairy works, how they make milk, and some fall fun with a picnic and letting the kids roam acres of fields. It was a great day!!! I was facinated to learn how they make skim, 1%, 2%, and whole milks....I had never really thought about it!!

corn on the stalk!

Hayride - my lap runeth over.

Lovely sat with friends - hayride heading to fields

Lovely enjoying the ride and sights

Gift hanging out

more corn

a herding demonstration with a dog - the dog brought cows to our wagon

Valiant feeding a goat

Lovely feeding a goat

sisters

feeding a calf

feeding a calf

ducks!

chickens

a real milk cow - Rosie. She showed how they get the milk from the cow

Lovely listening to the milkman

about to hook Rosie up for a demo

Valiant wanting to ask a question or waving at Rosie

The great Kris shows how the pump works lol!

Valiant puts her thumb in to feel the suction.

the milk plant - where they make and bottle the milk for consumption

Free pumpkins for the kids!

Pumpkin patch

After our picnic, Valiant enjoyed some freedom...

She walked all over the big field. It felt so good to just let the kids run FAR and free!

Lovely goes off to join the others

Co-Op friends

Valiant far away....

kids playing a game together

HAHA! At one time, this was Lovely's carseat...wah!!

3. We took our niece with us to the natural history museum for a great new exhibit on water. We'll definately go again with friends or with Hubby so we can take more time! This exhibit is FANTASTIC - so good!

Lovely here on a scale that tells her how much % of her is water.

The 3 stages of water...solid (glowing block of ice) that drips in a water (liquid) pan, that evaporates into the gas you see there. Very cool!

The girls liked the gas

example of how water carves rock - like the Grand Canyon

Trivia game

REALLY cool example of water and crops (rice, corn - people and animals, and cotton)

How an aquifer works...Lovely cranked it

melting ice caps

Ways to tap water in other countries, etc. This showed how kid playgrounds can power water towers

A water collection jar in Asia

Me showing how heavy water is....yet in Africa women can carry this on their heads or backs!

the waste of water bottles

the Tufu towers created in Mono Lake from over consumption

How a dam works and the effects of building one, and stopping the use of one on the environment with silt, etc.

Classroom study on eggs

Girls on info phones

Lovely roaring like a dino

being taught about dino fossils

This model egg with baby was the life size version of the HUGE dino skeleton the girls are under BELOW !! WOW!

Kids under the "mama" of that egg above lol.

It was a great week! I love being with my kids! How was your week??  I admire you greatly....

Thanks for reading!
Much love!!!