It was cold and snowy weather this week. We got hit by a nice big snow storm on Wednesday that closed many parts of the city down. My husband took a snow day, so we ended up having one as well.

This is from our window about mid afternoon and it kept on snowing overnight. The blue building across the street makes awesome Eggs Benedict, which is convenient because it is my favorite food to eat. My motto is "Everything is better with Hollandaise sauce". 

So with all this snow now, I don't have any winter boots. My husband puked on/in mine and he still owes me a new pair. Now that the winter weather is more than halfway done though I have decided I will accept a new pair of non winter boots in their stead. So honey, if you are reading this I dig this style in a size 8. I like all of the colours but probably would get more use out of black. Plus, they are on sale right now. 

This week in review:

Memory Work - The Canadian Provinces and Territories are now memorized and we have added a science list and terms. 

Phonics - We have finished lesson 216 in OPTGR. We are getting close to being done and I hope she doesn't get stuck and stall out over the next few lessons.

First Language Lessons - Lesson 54, we are on action verbs.

In this lesson she had to read the sentences and underline the verbs.

Writing with Ease - Completed week 17 of copy work and narration exercises.

Latin (Song School Latin) - We learned some more Christmas words as well as did a big review of the whole year.

French (Nallenart) - We started words that are found on a farm. I need to buy some more lamination supplies though so I can finish the flash cards for these terms.

Math (Singapore Math) - I added a bunch more new math facts and we have begun addition of numbers higher than ten by making a 10 first. It's a slow process but I think she is grasping the concept.

History (Story of the World) - We finished chapter 17 The Return of the Assyrians and read about Ashurbanipal and Nineveh. She made a book for Ashurbanipal's Library in Nineveh and used so much glitter I had to do 3 sweeps of the floor to get it all up. 

Science (Elemental) - We have now entered the studying of reptiles. This weeks animals included a snake which she hates. She didn't want to read about them until I pulled up some videos on YouTube of snake charmers. She thought that was kind of neat and relaxed a little bit. We also watch a video of the Australian Frilled Lizard running which she howled and laughed at.

Composer Study - We listened to more works by Henry Purcell and watched some YouTube videos of people and orchestras playing his pieces.

On the WTM this week there was a thread about typing programs and Angela from Satori Smiles recommended Dance Mat Typing  which we tried this week and Roo loved it. So thank you Angela!

Where Did The Week Go? - Weekly Report

Is it just me, or did this week seem to go by in a blink of an eye? I had a list of things that I wanted to finish this week (or at least start to accomplish), but I found myself with the end of each day nearing and putting it off until the next day. I'm now going to have to try to do some of it this weekend. I only have approximately 10 weeks left before I should be having this baby and I have so much that I need to do.

We did do school everyday this week and some days took longer than others based on Miss Crankeypants waking with a bad attitude for several of those days. Currently she is in the other room singing some random song that she is making up as she goes long. She should be sleeping, but she is fighting it and she has ballet early in the morning which will be fun to wake her for (note the sarcasm). It's hard to get her to sleep sometimes because we live right downtown and often there are festivals in the streets. This is what we watched from our bedroom window a few days ago.

The picture looks weird, but it is of a fire spinner doing his show.

We began to work on the memorization of the poem "Work" in First Language Lessons and completed week 5 in Writing With Ease. For memory work Vertebrates has been memorized and has moved out of daily work replaced with Invertebrates. We are still working on the Egyptian Ennead list as well. We had a breakthrough with spelling this week though. There is an exercise in some lessons of the workbook that involves  looking through a list of words and determining what word is spelled incorrectly. She used to guess randomly because she had no idea. Well this week she not only could figure out what words were wrong, but also what the incorrect part was. Phonics is still an everyday thing, but we have slowed and review more for awhile.
One day this week Roo decided she was going to chores. So she tied a scarf around her head, put on her rain boots (I'm not sure why) and grabbed a broom. I took a photo because more often than not it is her making messes not cleaning them.



In Math we have reached the end of the first part of the addition lessons for facts up to 10. Before we move onto subtraction we are going to take the next week to just focus on math facts and and cementing the number bonds into her head. Song School Latin focused on family names (mother, father, sister, brother) and review. She noticed the similarity between that and the French version of those words. For French we worked on numbers 6-12 and review of past units. I like how quick and efficient these two programs are. It's nice to be able to see progress from something that only takes 5-10 minutes a day. On a side note, my library has finally gotten an online subscription to Byki. So now I can finally start my own French and Latin lessons for free.

Giraffe, camel and deer were the animals we studied in Science this week. There was a camel experiment that we didn't complete, but I am planning on doing this weekend. Mummies and Pyramids were the focus of history. I borrowed the DK Eyewitness Mummies book from the library. I thought she might be a little scared from some of the pictures, but she was enthralled. I should have known better because when we went to the museum last time, she really, really enjoyed the Egyptian exhibit. For the activity this week I couldn't bring myself to do the mummified chicken. So we opted for the pyramid from sugar cubes. It suggests making your own cubes from sand and glue for a more realistic effect, but lets be honest. I am not a uber crafty individual. Although she may have enjoyed that process, it was just a little too much work so I opted for the easy alternative. She enjoyed it, and made it herself. Afterwards she asked if we could wipe off the glue so that she could eat the sugar.




This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend and we are not planning on having a full on Thanksgiving meal. My husband is on a strict diet and I am not cooking for two, especially when one is picky. So I need to find a good alternative that will be easy to make and satisfying to have. I did promise Roo that she could pick the dessert and she chose this after seeing it in my cooking magazine. Is it sad that one of the highlights of my week was getting the new 2011 Ikea catalogue?


And she sleeps.

Not Back to School Blog Hop: School Room Week

School room week. A frightening thought for me since we live in a two bedroom apartment that hasn't been completely unpacked or set up yet. So I have been working at tidying, organizing and moving stuff. Too bad I don't have unlimited funds because I know how I want it to look. What I want and what I can afford are two different things (think Ikea catalogue). That always seems to be the way though.




This is of the computer area viewed from the kitchen, our school room shares with the dining room. Roo is demonstrating one of her worst habits of peeking over her glasses in this shot. It drives me nuts. Her desk is beside mine against the wall since she tends to get distracted easily, there is not much for her to stare at in this spot. The newly laminated world map an addition fact sheet are posted on the wall.




Same shot, slightly different angle, to include the white board and her old desk. The urge to fiddle inside of the desk was too extreme so a friend found us a flip top desk at a garage sale. When we do white board work she either sits in my chair or bounces on her bouncy ball in the middle (a good energy release for a very active child).




Our book cases, mine, hers and ours. Baskets filled with miscellaneous math manipulatives, games and crap I don't know what to do with yet. Every homeschool room is not complete without its Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Evil Dead movie poster;) This was not the wall I initially wanted these shelves on, but due to the age of the building and the slanted floor it was the best choice.  




Standing in front of the bookshelves you get the glorious view of  the fire escape:)




Due to lack of wall space our calendar, weather charts have been banished to the side of the fridge. It's actually a good spot though since it is pretty much visible from my desk.




Busy, busy work circling the things she likes from the Build-a-Bear catalogue. Those pink heart balloons are from my birthday last week. She made my husband drive all over town to find the exact colour and style she wanted. The computer is showing her favorite game of Jumpstart.




So that is our homeschool room. More tidying and organization is needed but overall this is what it will look like (unless we win millions of dollars). Most of our read alouds are done in the living room and in bed but since I haven't cleaned those rooms yet, there was no need to photograph my shame:)

Wordless Wednesday - Helping Mom Unpack

I think some words are needed to explain the pictures context. We recently moved and Roo decided that she would help me by unpacking her room (without telling me). The result was everything, everywhere all over the floors and in piles. The room is currently a catastrophic disaster area.

And the Beat Goes On

So we have been moved into our new apartment for almost two weeks now. There are still boxes floating about, but not too much to inconvenience daily living. We realize that we are going to have to invest in some kind of kitchen shelving unit. Too many kitchen boxes left and not enough counter top and cupboard space. It becomes kind of annoying to try to make a meal in a 1ft x 1ft square of available counter space. Not that we have been making major meals since the weather has been so hot lately, I have placed a ban on oven cooking. Have I mentioned before how much I hate summer time? At least there is a great little take out restaurant downstairs that has yummy Asian noodle and rice dishes served out of those great little boxes. I totally ruin the effect though, when I dump it into a bowl, put the chopsticks in the drawer and use a fork to eat it.
School, school wherefore art thou school? Just kidding, we are still doing school daily, but have cut down and shortened the lessons enough (for summer) that it makes it seem like we aren't. We get in our reading lessons, math, spelling/handwriting and french (which I still need to cut out and laminate the flash cards if I can remember which box I packed the lamination stuff into). It's funny to watch her putter around the house repeating "le stylo est bleu". It's even funnier to watch her face when she actually came across a blue pen when she was saying it. I love to watch the progress of reading but get bewildered when she has no problem with the word, playing or sunshine, but when she sees a cvc word instead of sounding it out she will make a bizarre random guess. For example bad became cleaning, I think she sometimes makes random guesses based on the pictures in the stories. I'm waiting for the light bulb to go on though, I can actually remember the moment that it went on for me when I was 6.  Now scheduling, online vs paper? We have a Mac so many computer based planners won't work for us, but I like the idea of being able to move lessons forward or back without the use of an eraser or white out. I need to get my butt in gear and figure out how I want to go about everything. I see people on a forum that I frequent (TWTM Hive) and they have these fabulous detailed plans for their new school year and  I sit back in awe and reverence. By the way, does anybody know if Staples laminates huge wall posters (39x55)?

Oh the perils of moving.....

We moved on the first (Canada Day = Bad day to move). It took all.day.long from 9:30 am to 9:00 pm to get everything over to the new apartment. Then we stayed up until 2:00 am trying to get the basic necessities set up and put away so we would have things for when we woke up. The next morning my dh had to get up at 5 in the morning to leave for the entire weekend. Which totally sucked because it left me alone to start attacking the boxes. I had to sit at home all day on Friday waiting for the satellite guy to show up because he was to be there between 8am and 5pm. It would be nice if they could pin point a more accurate time. He didn't show. The excuse of the company when I called was, there was no one home when he came. What? I stayed within 15 feet of the front door all day to ensure I wouldn't miss him. Now we won't have cable until Wednesday. Also, my phone and internet didn't transfer to the new house on the first like they were supposed to. I had to wait at home again today for the phone guy to show. He just came and he had to install a new jack because there wasn't a working one in the apartment apparently. This sucks. I am unpacking all by myself assembling beds and moving boxes and it is hot as hell outside. Although I will admit that this apartment is way less hot than the other one was. I managed to make a dent in the dining room/office/school room (a completely multifunctional room;) to hopefully get back into summer lessons on Monday, much to Roo's chagrin.  I would have posted pictures but the piles of boxes were too horrifying to keep documented. I just want to get into bed and sleep, but I probably won't from over stimulation and new surroundings (because I'm weird like that). At least I can hopefully sleep in tomorrow since I don't have to get around and wait for anyone to show.