Earth Hour 2011

This year for Earth Hour the girls and I got into our pj's, lit candles and hung out in my bed. We played board games and read from our Harry Potter night time read aloud. The pictures are kind of bad quality but they work.

Weekly Report - I Hate Tummy Time and My Lamb Suit

Note to self: Don't give a baby Tummy Time when baby has a cold. Especially when said baby hates TT and never puts in effort, just kind of rubs her face back and forth and cries. The end result is excessive amounts of "nasal mucus" (being polite) all over the face. Lesson learned. 

I was doing the happy dance late week (not  really dancing because I don't dance, more like a sway) because it seemed that the house cold was going to pass me by. How silly of me. I should just accept the fact that I will indeed catch any and everything that passes through this house plus most things that don't. So I schooled with a cold this week which made me cranky, irritable and a little bit of a space cadet, not too far from the norm except the space cadet part.   

What we finished this week:  

Memory Work - I didn't add anything this week, we just worked with what was already in the daily section since she hasn't got them memorized yet. We already have a good list of things in memory as per what I put in my Memory Work Monday post. I did find some more memorization ideas for history though. 

Spelling (All About Spelling) - Since we have now finished OPTGR we started AAS 1 spelling at the end of last week. We have done one lesson per day and each lesson takes an average of 20 minutes to complete fully. I knew we would go through level 1 quickly because it has the simple spelling rules for CVC words, but she seems to be really enjoying it. Actually, I think what she is really enjoying is using the Bingo dabber to stamp each lesson completed as well as stamping the mastered Phonograms list. As you can see by the picture, she has mastered all phonograms except for most of the vowels and Y. She is having trouble remembering all of the sounds each vowel makes, but it seems to be getting better each day she does review.

First Language Lessons - Lesson 73-75, a poem, poem narration and searching the poem for uses of nouns, pronouns and action verbs.

Writing with Ease - Completed week 24 of copy work and narration exercises from The Happy Hollisters excerpts. Roo has decided she may want us to read this book because it sounds a little like Scooby Doo.

Latin (Song School Latin) - Weather terms

French (Nallenart) - Unit 9.1 new words  and flashcards for clothing terms.

Math - We worked on Math Mammoth 1A addition facts 1 page a day as well as 1B telling time one page a day. We are almost done 1A addition section and 1B time section probably by the end of next week and will move onto 1A subtraction and 1B measurement. 

History (Story of the World) - We finished chapter 23 Greek Gods and Chapter 24 Greeks War with Persian and the Peloponnesian War. She did map work for these chapters, coloured the Parthenon and we toured The Acropolis via Google Earth.

Science (Elemental) - From our body study we covered the skeletal system, skull and bones/joints. Roo decided that at some point she wants us to buy a full scale human skeleton model if we can afford it;) I was able to pick up some diagrams of various parts of the human body from the dollar store for $1.50 a piece (I know, what is the point of being called a dollar store if items cost more than a dollar). But it was a good deal nevertheless and the heart diagram I got was in a clear package and when I opened it there were 5 of the same poster in it. So if you are ever in the neighborhood and need a diagram poster of the heart, let me know because I have 4 to spare:)

Art - We did a picture narration and she completed and art project about shapes. She was to look out the window and make a picture using construction paper cut into shapes to represent what she saw. 

Roo wanted me to take a picture of Merle in her lamb suit. Merle hates the lamb suit (I think it's the hat she hates). Anyway, we put it on her to taunt her. Mean I know, but I have to get my excitement somewhere. Here's the picture,

You can kind of see part of Roo's face while she is laughing at the her sister.

Here is a close up of another day, she looks more ticked in this picture.

Memory Work Monday

So one of the ladies at the WTM forums came up with a great idea. She thought it would be beneficial if people posted what memory work their children were working on, on a weekly basis. That way it will let others see what your are doing and maybe give memory work ideas to those that are getting stumped for ideas or inspire those that haven't yet to start.

First off I'll explain what system I use. Actually I won't explain it, I'll just post a link to the site and that has an explanation way better than what I would give. I use the Charlotte Mason Memory System minus the scripture memorization. I started gathering a lot of what I wanted Roo to memorize before the school year started. I also used the book Living Memory By Andrew Campbell, which is filled with great things.

My list for Roo who is 6, so far is:
The Caterpillar poem
Definition of herbivore, omnivore and carnivore
Hearts Like Doors Poem
The Oceans
The Egyptian Ennead
Periods of Early History
Work Poem
Vertebrates
Invertebrates
Canadian Provinces and Territories
Seven Main Levels of Taxonomy
Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt
The Continents
Days of the Week Poem
The Months Poem
Periods of Egyptian History
Signs of the Zodiac
The Senses
Human Body Systems

Most of these have already been memorized they just fit somewhere into the odd/even, day of the week, day of the month rotation. Memory work is the first thing we do for school work in the morning. Many of the list came from things we were studying in science and history at the time.

Weekly Report

I just finished laminating Greek Paper Dolls and what a pain in the butt that was. But the kid is happy so it makes it worth it....to some extent. 

Stalking the mailman paid off this week and my All About Spelling levels 1-3 arrived on Wednesday. I ordered the first three levels because I knew we would zip through level one and I didn't want to have to pay for that much shipping (to Canada) on each level. It arrived too late for us to squeeze a lesson into that day but early enough that I spent a significant amount of time cutting out letter tiles and attaching magnets to them. If I would have read the teachers guide first I would have realized that a) I didn't need any tiles until lesson three which would have given me more time and b) Only certain tiles were needed for level one, not all. So now that they are all cut out I will probably lose some of them before I need them. Especially if I put them away into a "safe spot"where I think at the time, "this is a good spot, I'll definitely remember this spot". Yeah right.   

Also Merle's Bumbo arrived the same day, so we got double the excitement. She is sitting in it beside me right now complaining about something:)

What we finished this week:  

Memory Work - I added the five senses since we began our body study in science this week as well as the human body systems.

Phonics - We finished The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading today. She was able to read the following sentence:

The extraterrestrial creature wanted to do some interplanetary travel. 

As well as the word: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (it took her three times because she kept getting tongue tied) She kept saying that she could keep hearing Mary Poppins saying it in her head.

First Language Lessons - Lesson 70-72, covering seasons, holidays and the use of I.

Writing with Ease - Completed week 23 of copy work and narration exercises from How to Eat Fried Worms excerpts.

Latin (Song School Latin) - Review week covering the topics on food.

French (Nallenart) - A test on unit 8.4 and completed unit 8.5 reading and translating a simple French story.

Math - We worked on Math Mammoth 1A addition facts 2 pages a day as well as 1B telling time one page a day.

History (Story of the World) - We finished chapter 22 Life in Athens and Life in Sparta. Hence the Greek paper dolls.

Science (Elemental) - We started studying the body this week, covering cells, skin and hair. We also did a fingerprint experiment. 

We received three more postcards via postcrossing  from Taiwan, Texas and China with real Chinese writing which she was very excited about. I registered to send 5 more cards (the limit at one time) so that we can receive more. After we get the postcards we have been locating the place on the wall map and reading about in on the computer. 

A picture of my girls in their St. Patrick's Day festive gear. One is happy, one is not.

St. Patrick's Day - WW

I Hate Waiting.......I Need to Work On That.

This week was a behaviour battle for the last two days and I found out why this morning.....she was getting sick. Roo was awake no more than 20 minutes this morning before she puked. So today is rest on the couch and take it easy day. Apparently taking it easy means playing and hogging the remote. I wish I got those days when I am sick.

So much for stalking the mailman this week, I'm still waiting for All About Spelling to arrive and the wait is driving me nuts. Have I mentioned I am not a very patient person?

I have been an Ebay addict for years, but for some reason I never thought about looking there for cheap printer ink. I have no idea why. I search Ebay for the weirdest, most random things but not for something I use all the time and loath spending $$ on. Anyway, I found  2 black and 2 colour cartridges for the price of one and free shipping to boot! Now I have to wait for those too. (for those of you who have never seen The Goonies or Fresh Prince of Bel Air, that is where those two Ebay shirts are from).

We were supposed to go to Barrie to day with my husband to watch his band BeforeTheCurtain open for Three Days Grace tonight, but Pukey McPukster changed those plans quick. Now I have to wait for pictures and video footage. Do you notice the waiting theme? I think someone is out to get me.

What we finished this week:  

Memory Work - Nothing new added, just going through our memory work box daily. We use the Charlotte Mason method for memory work minus the Bible Scriptures as our method.

Phonics - Homonyms, homophones and homographs. Also reading harder three syllable words.

First Language Lessons - Lesson 67-39, we are doing seasons and abbreviations.

Writing with Ease - Completed week 22 of copy work and narration exercises from The Velveteen Rabbit excerpts.

Latin (Song School Latin) - We learned names of certain types of foods, fruit, milk, bread, cookie and chicken. She learned how to use et cetera as well as how bread (panis) ties to the English word pantry.

French (Nallenart) - Review, review, review. Today was supposed to be a test for unit 8 but sick people don't do well on tests. It is put off until Monday.

Math - We worked on Math Mammoth 1A addition facts 2 pages a day as well as 1B telling time one page a day.

History (Story of the World) - We finished chapter 21 The Medes, Persians and Cyrus the Great. Next week we are off to Sparta. Do you think she is too young to watch 300? ;) Kidding.

Science (Elemental) - With the final study of ants, butterflies and grasshoppers we are done animals. These are our completed habitat pages as well as our Carnivore, Omnivore and Herbivore food chart.

We received our first postcard Wednesday via postcrossing  and it came from Finland. She was very excited to get it so I am off to register to send more cards so that we can receive more. I would love to visit Finland one day. I have a thing for the Nordic countries and I love snow, it must my Scandinavian heritage coming through.

Since Earth Hour is coming up soon I made a post about it earlier this week that has some links to some to downloadable teaching/school activities for Earth Hour on their website.

To finish my week off here is a video from my husbands show on Wednesday when they opened for Apocalyptica. Good luck tonight guys!

Earth Hour 2011 - Join in This Year

There are also some links to downloadable teaching/school activities for Earth Hour on their website.

Present and Future Plans and All About Spelling

This week has been a focus on what we are working on now, what we will be doing next year and what we will be doing during the summer. We have reached the final section in The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and I was trying to think of what would be the next logical step since her reading isn't totally fluent yet and her spelling is all phonetically (which obviously doesn't work all of the time). I bit the bullet and ordered All About Spelling. We aren't currently using a spelling program and I figured it would slide in and take OPTGR's place once we finish it. It's expensive but according to all the raves about it, it is supposed to be completely worth it. I am selling a bunch of stuff on Ebay right now anyway so that should cover the costs anyway. I bought the first three levels because I figured level one we would go through fairly quickly and I didn't want to pay shipping to Canada again anytime soon, so I got the first chunk of them all at once. I am excited to start so I hope shipping is fairly quick. I figure by summer we will be done our history, science, writing and geography programs so we can focus on All About Spelling, math, handwriting (probably cursive) and latin/french review. A lighter load for the summer but we definitely won't stop because she will forget at this young age. So that's my plan and this is what we did this week (which is now alternating between ballet/princess school and Hogwarts).

Memory Work - I added the signs of the zodiac this week because she was interested in them and who we knew under each sign. 

Phonics - We have reached the final section, today's lesson included homonyms.

First Language Lessons - Lesson 64-66, we are doing seasons and abbreviations.

Writing with Ease - Completed week 21 of copy work and narration exercises from Tom Sawyer excerpts.

Latin (Song School Latin) - We learned how to say I eat, I drink, food, supper and water, how the word for water (aqua) ties to aquarium and the phrase et cetera.

French (Nallenart) - The focus this week was feelings and sizes and how to pronounce them when referring to masculine and feminine objects.

We will stop in the middle for a shameless plug of cute baby wearing her aviators.

Math - Math Mammoth 1A number bar counting and sums up to 7. I am going to jump back and forth between 1A and 1B because I want to introduce new subjects such as clock and money while we are working through the addition and subtraction units. It will lessen the monotony of some of the lessons I think. 

History (Story of the World) - We finished chapter 20 and learned about the Greek alphabet in which we wrote our names and the Olympics. We are going to start Black Ships Before Troy once we finish our current history read aloud.

Science (Elemental) - We studied shrimp, crabs and spiders this week. All of the above make my skin crawl so it wasn't the most fun chapter for me to teach. We are almost done with the animals unit and will move on to the body within the next two weeks.

Art - Was a painting based on an experience. It is supposed to be of when she went boating on the lake. It appears to be more of an abstract interpretation of that;)

Our final two postcards of the first batch we sent through postcrossing arrived at their destination in the Germany and China. It's neat because once they are received the receiver enters them into the website and you get a nice little message from the receiver via email thanking you and commenting on what you wrote. 

Another positive week for my husbands band BeforeTheCurtain. They got the opening slot for Apocalyptica this Wednesday and are opening for Three Days Grace on Friday. I am very proud and very excited for him.