Cuddy Academy

Weekly Report 10/31-11/6/09

2009-11-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

WOW! I haven't done a report in a long, long time. I am so behind on downloading pictures and everything. So sorry everyone but I hope to catch up soon.

Literature: We listened to two chapters of Robinson Crusoe. We are almost done with this book. It was a slow start and I almost dumped it but I am glad we persevered. The discussions we've had from this book have been fabulous. We also did 4 chapters each of Pollyanna and Secret Garden and continue to compare and contrast the protagonists of each. We started a new Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar. For our myth, we read Latona and the Rustics from Bulfinch's Mythology.

Reading: We started our humor unit. The kids are reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. We are examing cause and effect in this unit.

Poetry: Continued working on My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson plus reviewed the other poems learned so far in IEW Poetry memorization. We read two Goops poems and covered Jack Be Nimble for our weekly nursury rhyme in popular culture study.

Composition: The kids each wrote a summary about George Washington following the SWI-A guidelines. We added in a new layer and now they are editing each other after the self-edit and before the teacher edit. Wow! The kids raised their own expectations. We had a victory in this subject this week. My son, the one who used to throw tantrums over having to write one sentence, had to rewrite his final draft that took him an hour the first time because he doodled all over. He did so without any fuss!!

Penmanship: Few more pages of HWT Cursive and daily copywork.

Grammar and Spelling: SWR N-6. Worked on changing adjectives to adverbs by adding ly ending plus other derivatives and antonyms.

Latin: Finished up Latin for Children Primer A -Unit 10

Spanish: We had computer issues this week so we only got two lessons of Elementary Spanish done.

Math: Division speed drill. DS9 continued on with Singapore 5A and DD10 worked in 4B.

Logic: DD10 worked in Logic Countdown. DS9 has completed that book but redid same problems dd did for the fun of it. He also did all of Mindbenders A1. Both played chess and clue.

History: We read one chapter in This Country of Ours and five chapters in George Washington's World. Kids are reading Lion to Guard Us as a historical fiction go-along and a non-fiction book on the Sea Venture.

Geography: We read chapter 13 in Holling's book Seabird. We started a new unit on Oceans in Explore His World. Lots of mapwork as always.

Economics: We studied the dollar bill and learned some of the facts about it and learned about counterfeiting. They designed their own money while keeping in mind that it should be hard to duplicate.

Citizenship: We began a new life in our Plutarch book: Brutus to go with our Shakespeare play. This was well received and we had LONG discussions from this reading.

Science: Did 2:1-2:4 in Snap Circuit Student book along with 9 experiments.

Nature Studies: Made a nature video about maple trees in lieu of nature journal this week.

Music: Listened to Hallelujah Handel from Classical Kids; Reviewed some of Bach's works and read about Bach in our George Washington book. Also started He Shall Feed His Flock from Handel's Messiah as our monthly hymn. Reviewed several patriotic songs. DD10 worked on her song for her voice class and DS9 practiced guiar and had a lesson.

Art: Both kids worked on drawing dinosaurs and making stick puppets for a show. They worked on painting with control. They did dinosaur origami too.

Other (Both): Halloween: trick or treating, pumpkin carving.

Other (DD10): Scouts (made family fun jar); Horses (Horse show competiton -two seconds and 1 third plus class); Preteen Worship team and God Squad performances; Bible small group; Odyssey of the Mind; Co-Op (paper albums and American Girl); Drama, Voice, and Broadway Dance classes. She also brought a friend to our park playdate.

Other (DS9); Precepts; Historical Sworsmanship class; Scouts (earned Citizenship Belt Loop and worked on Athlete Badge); Guitar lessons, Lego League; Co-Op (Paper Airplane and Strategy Games); Also went to a friend's house for playdate.

Field Trip: Fort Raleigh and Lost Colony

2009-08-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, we went to Fort Raleigh in Manteo, NC. We watched a film on the Lost Colony and toured the old Earthen Fort. The kids took a class on Native American markings and got to design their own markings for themselves.

We toured the backstage area of the Lost Colony. We got to see the stage, costume area, etc. We even got to watch them making scenery for an upcoming production of Oklahoma!

We went to see a production of the Lost Colony that evening. We went a bit early and met some of the actors and interacted with them. My husband even juggled with one of the entertainers. My 8 year old son was positive that he was going to hate this show and really resisted going. However, in the end he really enjoyed himself and was probably the one who enjoyed it the most. We got seats on the last row of the producers circles which ended up being a great spot. Soldiers marched past us several times and when the Native Americans were hiding in preparation of attack, they hid right behind us!!! It made things a bit more exciting to say the least.

Field Trip: Roanoke Festival Park

2009-08-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we went to Roanoke Festival Park. It was a great field trip to go along with our history studies. We had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit also. Roanoke Festival Park is very hands on. It has an indoor museum, an outdoor settlement sight and a representation of the ship, Elizabeth II.

The indoor museum has a lot of things for kids to do. They can dress up as explorers, pirates, early colonists, turn of the century beach goers, and farmers. They can learn to use an astrolabe, pretend to be in the civil war, scrub their laundry, and climb all over a variety of boats.

Aboard Elizabeth II, they can see how a real ship looks and interact with live docents. My kids loved turning the capstan and we played a game of Nine Men's Morris while on board.

At the settlement site, the kids tried on armor and saw what it was like to live in army tents. They did a pole arms class too. However, I think their favorite thing was playing skittles, an early form of bowling.

The park is adding more exhibits to include more Native American culture. We can't wait to make another trip to see it. Meanwhile, we satisfied ourselves with playing with hoops.

Memorial Weekend Canoe and Hike

2009-05-26T06:04:00.001-07:00

We visited Umstead State Park over Memorial weekend. It was truly a lovely day. It did rain for about 15 minutes and then it was blue skies and gorgeous scenery.

We canoed around BIg Lake for a bit. I have to tell you that after years of kayaking, the canoe really felt unstable! It was still fun looking at fish and listening to the tree frogs. I couldn't get over how calm and peaceful it was, especially since it was a holiday weekend.

We also did a bit of hiking and exploring. One of the coolest things we found was a brown snake that was hiding in the rocks by the creek.

Unfortunately, the snake was musking and left Daddy smelling very stinky.

Weekly Report 5/22/09

2009-05-22T04:57:00.001-07:00

This was such a gorgeous week. We had some minor rain here and there but overall just gorgeous. Without any major field trips and outside projects, we got a lot done!!

Literature: We finished Wind and the Willows and started Shakespeare Stealer as our audio book. We read Merchant of Venice from Tales of Shakespeare. We continued Sisters Grimm and The Princess and the Goblin. We also watched the corresponding part of the movie, Princess and the Goblin, to and compared it to the book so far. We also rented Tales of Despereaux and compared it to the book (which we read a few months ago but never got around to movie).

Poetry: We read several poems about birds

Reading: Melissa is continuing Baby Island, and reading Daring Book for Girls. Harrison is reading The Two Towers again. I think that break with easy reads did the trick. He read one Beast Quest book, reread Swords, more Calvin and Hobbes, and Dangerous Book for Boys.

Writing: We managed to do copywork eveyrday!!! We also got in a couple rounds of Legends of Druidawn and they each did a lapbooking/notebooking page on a bird of their choice. Melissa did a blog entry and made an anacrostic poem/card for a friend. Harrison wrote a book report on one of the Beast Quest books.

Language Arts: They did the usual Spanish, Word Roots, and Typing. However they switched to Dance Mat Typing for some variety. We reviewed some spelling rules (strong man e, every syllable needs a vowel, dropping the e before adding suffixes that begin with an i or e, vowels are long at end of syllable). We went over lie/lay and they played Gorilla Grammar and some leapster language arts games. They did some alphabetizing activities also.

Math: Melissa and I went over adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions, mixed numbers and improper fractions. She did the exercises in 4A and we did some fraction games oneline. Despite covering this in in school, in Singapore, and in Life of Fred, she still doesn't have a good grasp of what to do. I have got to dig deeper into my bag of tricks to figure out why she is having a hard time remembering what to do. If anyone has good suggestions let me know!!! She also made a Roman numeral chart to help her remember those (I suspect that is just lack of interest lol). Harrison continued working on decimals and reviewed fractions and place value and reviewed his multiplication facts playing Timez Attack. They both did subtracting fractions chapter in Life of Fred. We all reviewed symmetry this week when they made mandalas. They both wrote out word problems and solved them and played math games on the leapster.

Logic: Melissa worked on sequencing activities in Logic Countdown

History: We read about Sir Walter Raleigh, Humphrey Gilbert, the Lost Colony and Virigina Dare. They acted out a voyage across the ocean in the backyard!! We also read more about the Spanish Inquistion and the Protestant Reformation.

Geography: We did some mapwork, concentrating on Asia. We read more about Marco Polo. We learned about Mt. Everest and the region of Tibet. We read about the current Dalai Lama and made mandalas.

Nature Studies: We read more Tales of Jasper Jay and they each did a lapbook/Notebook page on a bird of their choice. We spent some time bird watching in the backyard and looking up new birds. We went on a nature walk and drew in our journals. They really enjoyed playing with the goats, sheep, and donkeys at the horse stables. Melissa also got to visit chickens at a friend's house. They had them out of the cages and they flew to the top of the swing set. They had to put them up as a hawk flew over. Harrison watched an episode of Dino Lab.

Science: We spent the week learning about magnets, magnetic fields and the Earth's magnetic field. We had lots of hands on experiments! Harrison also made paper airplanes and conducted some experiments.

PE: Melissa had her first horseback riding lesson. She really enjoyed it and is so excited that she's talked about little else all week. She also had tumbling class. Harrison had football and Melissa joined him in baseball practice this week. They had gymnastics, went on hikes, rode the scooter, and jumped on the trampoline.

Art: We started a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci and talked about his nature journal. We will be watching an episode of Doing DaVinci tonight.

Music: Harrison practiced his guitar and went to his lesson.

Social: Melissa had a playdate and they both played with some friends at the horse stables. She also got to chat online with her buddy from Boston. We had the usual stream of neighborhood kids over every evening.

Other: We took a trip to the dump and Harrison in particular was thrilled at seeing the trash being compacted. Melissa watched It's Me or the Dog and Leader of the Pack. She worked on training our dog to "shake." He's not yet consistant. Harrison watched two episodes of The Deadliest Warrior and wrote out his comparison charts and made predictions. He did a lot of building with K'Nex, Magnetix, and Bionicles. He also helped DH find the hole in a tire, repair it and put it back on. He was extremely thrilled with that!

Wordless Wednesday: Nature Walk Discoveries

2009-05-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

Field Day

2009-05-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

Our homeschool group had it's field day last week. What fun it was. The kids participated in the following events: 100 m run, jump rope, broad jump, softball throw, potato sack, obstacle course and shoe kick.

Our group finished the 100 m race in time to do an extra race of running backwards.

Melissa won her only blue ribbon in the jump rope competition. 182 jumps

Melissa won the first heat in the potato sack race and then tied the winner of the second heat twice!!! However on the last attempt, Melissa fell and her friend won.

Weekly Report 5/15

2009-05-15T16:41:00.000-07:00

Spring came back this week! After a very hot and humid weekend, we had a wonderful week of great weather. So our slack schedule this week is due to ME. Yes, Mom had spring fever!!!

Literature: Continued Wind and the Willows and Princess and the Goblin.

Reading: Melissa read two Spiderwick Chronicles reference books, part of a horse reference book, and part of Baby Island. Harrison read two Calvin and Hobbes books, two Beast Quest books, 1 Ready Freddy book (which he pulled out the "to donate" pile as he read it years ago) and is on book two in the Lone Wolf series.

Writing: I dropped the bomb here. We did just a little copywork and M did a blog entry.

Language Arts: We did a lot of work on library skills -using card catalog, shelving, Dewey decimals, etc. We did our usual ad hoc spelling and grammar, plus our normal Spanish, Word Roots, and Typing and Boggle games. We rounded out with some word finds and scrambled word games.

Math: Melissa reviewed long division and multiple digit multiplication and adding and subtracting fractions in Singapore 4A. Harrison is working on dividing decimals in 4B. We did some graph work this week with Fitday and e-bird. They helped with shopping this week and practiced counting back change.

Logic: Melissa finished up the analogy portion of Logic Countdown.

Nature Studies: We read more of Tales of Jasper Jay. We did some bird watching at home and we went to Harris Lake County Park to monitor bluebird boxes. We got some experience collecting data and doing charts. We learned a lot about blue birds and nests in general. We continued entering data in e-bird also. Also at home, Melissa is learning about dog training. She is watching It's Me or the Dog and has ordered a couple books on obedience training from the library. She is also doing a lot of experiments with all our pets using a book called Pet Science. Harrison watched a documentary on ants and aphids and got to see some on a nature walk.

Science: They learned about arches and how they work. We also played some Elementeo.

Health: We have been learning about fitness and nutrition and how it relates to overall health and well being.. We've explored a website on the world's healthiest foods and are looking at ways to incorporate healthier choices in our menu. We are working on establishing regular exercise routines.

Geography: We did some map reading and map work. They continue to work on their Chinese opera based on the story of Mulan. They both independently read a Mongolian folk tale picture book called The Khan's Daughter.

History: This week we mostly focused on the earliest settlements in Florida (both French and English). We also discussed more on the Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Inquisition.

PE: They participated in our co-op's field day. They both went on hikes, jumped on trampoline, went to gymnastics class and played at the park three times this week. Harrison had football and baseball. Melissa had tumbling.

Music: Harrison is working on a song called Tom Dooley for guitar.

Religion: Melissa had Awanas this week. We had several discussions on different ways people interpret the scriptures and how to respect those beliefs whether we feel they are important or not.

Social: They both had playdates this week plus usual neighbors, classes, etc.

Junior Bluebird Monitors

2009-05-15T04:45:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, we went to Harris Lake for their Junior Bluebird Monitoring program. What fun. I can't believe we were the only family to do it. The ranger was fun and had a lot of interesting activities for them to do.

One of the activities she did was throw multi-colored pasta all around the ground and the kids had to fill each egg carton mouth so many pieces of pasta in a short period of time to see what it is like to feed baby birds.

We hiked around the park and monitored the bluebird boxes. Some were empty and some had old nests. The kids learned that you approach from the side and knock first so birds can fly out. We had a nuthatch fly out of our first box! Then we looked in the boxes and determined what bird had a nest there. Just because it's a bluebird box doesn't mean a bluebird will be the bird to choose it. Our boxes had bluebirds, nuthatches and wrens! The ranger said she found a snake in a box once.
We had to learn a lot about nests. Some birds make shallow nests and some deep nests. Some use mud and some don't. Because different birds have the same color and size eggs and you don't always see the parent bird, you have to know your nests.

Weekly Report 5/8/09

2009-05-09T05:20:00.000-07:00

Wet! That sums up this week! We had rain every day with thunderstorms and tornado watches all week. When we had a break in the weather, we went to Waterfest and got wet again! This week was a tiring week too. We had a lot of field trips. On the homefront, my husband came home extremely sick on Monday. It turned out that he has Rocky Mounted Spotted Fever. I have to tell you that it's not easy homeschooling at home with a sick husband who is trying to work from home (aka we had to be very, very quiet).

Literature: We finished reading Lamb's version of Midsummer Night's Dream and watched the BBC animated version. We read some more of the Princess and the Goblin. We listened to more of Wind and the Willows.

Reading: Melissa finally finished Spy for the Night Riders. She ended up liking it even though I had to assign it to get her to read it. This week, I gave her one of my childhood books, Mandy by Julia Edwards (aka Mary Poppins). It still had my name in it from when I was a child. I had her write her name under mine and told her that she could give it to her daughter one day. She read the book in one day! She also read Nixie's Song (Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles). Harrison was in a reading funk this week. He didn't want to read The Two Towers and just wanted to reread Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare. We finally found him a new book. It was a Choose Your Own Adventure type book with a Roleplaying/Fantasy slant.

Writing: We did copywork this week and played a round of Legends of Druidawn. Melissa sent off a few emails to some friends and Harrison did a comparison chart for Deadliest Warrior.

Language Arts: They did Word Roots, Rosetta Stone Spanish, and Typing on the computer. They played some Boggle. We went over some spelling and grammar rules.

Math: Melissa worked on Area and Perimeter and finished up Singapore 3B. Harrison was busy multiplying decimals this week. He did some Challenge Word Problems too. He had a lot of practicing adding and subtracting in his roleplaying book.

Logic: Melissa did some analogies from Logic Countdown. Harrison played strategy games.

Nature Studies: We learned a lot about nature this week! We read some more of Tales of Jasper Jay. We went out and observed the clouds and weather patterns and animal behavior to predict the weather. We took a class on worms and composting. We took a class on Woodpeckers and went bird watching at a county park. We saw four red-headed woodpeckers and two flickers and found evidence of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. We also saw cowbirds, robins, wrens, a bluebird and a chickadee. Great day for our E-bird account. The kids made suet for the birds too.

Science: We went to Waterfest this week. Waterfest is a yearly festival about water and it's uses held by the the local water treatment plant. We didn't get to do all the activities but we enjoyed the ones we did. The kids rode a open air bus through a bus wash and got soaking wet. That was the most favorite activity lol. They did learn things though. They split a water molecule, looked at ecoli under ultra violet light, learned how filters work, climbed all over a fire truck, pet a police dog and police horse, climbed through tunnels and dug for fossils. We also watched Before the Dinosaurs and another Dinosaur documentary that was on the History channel about how the dinosaurs may have been killed off by insects and not the meteor.

Geography: We read more in our Marco Polo book. We also learned about the Chinese New Year and Chinese Operas. We watched Mulan and ate Chinese food with chopsticks. The kids wrote their own Opera based on the legend of Mulan (lots of fighting and acrobatics). We also read about the Netherlands in regards to our Renaissance studies, including the Little Dutch boy, dikes and canals, windmills, tulips, dutch linen and herrings. We did quite a bit of mapwork this week because our studies of Balboa led us on a rabbit trail of the Panama Canal and Melissa wondered if there was a bridge that allowed you to cross over it. This led to a discussion of the Pan American Highway so we traced it's route from Alaska to Argentina. (We also brought in math skills to calculate how long it would take to drive the entire length at speed of 60 MPH and driving 10 hours a day).

History: We continue learning about various explorers. We into more depth with John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci and learned about Balboa.

Art: We looked at St. Peter's Cathedral designed by Michelangelo. We also made stained glass suncatchers. Melissa practiced photography too.

Music: We listened to Bach this week. Harrison continued practicing guitar and we listened to several versions of Worried Man Blues this week since he had just learned that song.

Religion: Harrison and I co-read Pilgrim's Progress. We all had a big discussion on evolution and creation and why it's not a conflict for me as it for many of our friends. We didn't make it to church or Awanas this week due to the thunderstorms and sickness

PE: Well, my kids ended up doing quite a bit of pushups this week. Both had some honesty issues that they needed to "work out". They also did gymanstics, trampoline play and several hikes. Melissa had tumbling and Harrison had football and baseball.

Social: I don't usually include social but since it's one that non-homeschoolers worry about....

Both kids had lots of time playing with neighborhood friends in the afternoons and over the weekend (including a sleepover). We didn't have a playdate over this week due to Daddy being sick and didn't go out to one due to the numerous field trips. However, we met several of our friends at Waterfest and did activities with them there. Melissa made a new friend at the Worm class and chatted away with the girls in her tumbling class. She was glad to find that she wasn't only girl whose mother wouldn't allow her to do the cheer program there due to the midriff revealing uniforms. Harrison didn't make a new friend but interact well with his peers in the class. I am working on him with to recognize his annoying behaviors and trying to replace them with less annoying ones. We've made a lot of progress with his table manners and we've finally gotten the use of the fork down pat!! They went to the kids night out program that our church has for families with special needs and played with quite a few of their friends there.

Other: Melissa played vet and detective games with her sleepover friends. She also volunteered at the dog park, filling water dishes, pools, and gathering toys as well as playing with the dogs while she was there. Harrison built several things with K'Nex.

Composting with worms

2009-05-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

The kids took a class on composting with worms through the Centennial Campus for Wildlife Education. What a wonderful class. The instructers were energetic and engaging. The class moved quickly and kept the attention span of all the kids. Best of all, it was free! We all learned a lot.

The kids dissected a worm in pairs. After doing the shark, my kids are "pros" at dissection and they did not get grossed out by the smell or the cutting. Each one did the actual dissecting in their pairing.

After opening up the worm and pinning, they learned about the different parts of the worm and their functions.

After dissecting worms, they went out and dug for worms in the woods. They found lots and lots of worms and a few other creepy crawlies too.

They also made their own mini compost bins. First you make a bin by drilling holes in a container. Then you tear some paper and wet it and fill the bin with it. Then you add some worms.

You then feed the worms with veggie and fruit cuttings and egg shells. Harrison insisted on carrots at dinner so he could feed his worms the shavings. They made a small bin at the class but we plan to make a bigger one for our family. Here are directions for anyone interested: http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=445#plastic

Weekly Report 5/1

2009-05-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

This week went by really quick!

Literature: We continued listening to Wind and the Willows, picked by back up our evening read aloud (Sisters Grimm) and started The Princess and the Goblin. We watched the Animated Shakespeare Tales version of The Tempest and started reading Lamb's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Harrison and I co-read his weekly chapter of Pilgrim's Progress.

Reading: Melissa read books four and five in the Spiderwick Chronicles. We did a lot of work of compare and contrast of the characters, the books, and the book against the movie and video game. She read a bit more in Spy for the Night Riders and started reading the Royal Diaries book for Elizabeth. Harrison continued The Two Towers. He started Under Drake's Flag but wasn't interested in it, He also found my stash of Calvin and Hobbes books so now I am doomed. LOL

Writing: We did copywork in our commonplace journals. We played several rounds of Legends of Druidawn with accompanying writing. Melissa worked on her Megalodon report and put up her first blog post. She also wrote her birthday list. Harrison did a compare and contrast sheet on this week's episode of The Deadliest Warrior

Language Arts: They did typing, Spanish, Word Roots. They played a few games of Boggle. We did our normal ad-hoc grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. We also played around with alliteration and abbreviations.

Math: Melissa did review work on angles, area, and perimeter. H is working on multiplying decimals. He also did challenge word problems for money. They both played Timez Attack this week to keep up their times table speed. They did a lot of hands on math with Druidawn.

Logic: Harrison worked on inferences and Melissa worked on analogies.

Nature Studies: Melissa's 4-H group went to visit a beekeeper. We learned a lot about bees and got to do some taste tests on different types of honey! We went to Prairie Ridge ecostation and did some bird banding and a tree study. We read some more of Tales of Jasper Jay and observed the birds around our yard. We saw mockingbirds fight, a Red-tail hawk soar above us and a gorgeous house finch.

Science: We read about Copernicus and reviewed our knowledge of the earth's rotation. We watched a documentary on Megalodons. We learned had some health lessons on body alignment and posture and skin care in the sun.

Geography: We practiced map reading skills with our Legends of Druidawn game. We did our weekly mapwork on the globe for a change of pace. We read more of our Marco Polo book and studied Chinese Architecture and the practice of Feng Shui. We learned about Chinese inventions and the importance of tea in Chinese Culture.

History: We read about early explorers: John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci. H also watched several Time Commander episodes and this week's episode of Deadliest Warrior on Knights vs. Pirates.

Music: Harrison is working on Worried Man Blues by Woody Guthrie. We also listened to Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky.

Art: We finished our Michelangelo Biography and used the Moses statue for our narration. Harrison worked on drawing circles.

Other Fine Arts: We went to see the Carolina Ballet perform Swan Lake. The kids wrote and performed a skit as part of their tree study. Their tree was the American Holly so they used that as Hollywood and did the tree Oscars. It very funny.

PE: Melissa had tumbling and Harrison had football and baseball. They both went to gymnastics class. At home, we went on evening hike, jumped on trampoline, and did Wii Fit.

Wordless Wednesday: The Joy of Playing Outfield

2009-04-29T03:56:00.000-07:00

Bird Banding

2009-04-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

Today we went on another field trip to Prairie Ridge Ecostation. The kids got to follow the museum's scientist around to check the bird nets. They put nets out in various places and when birds get caught in them, they take them out and attach a band to the leg.

We checked four nets and found one bird, this female summer tanager. It took awhile to loosen her from the net and I donated my water bottle to feed her. I dipped my finger in the bottle and dropped in her mouth. Once she had some water, we put her in a canvas bag, to help calm her as well as for ease of transportation. The nets were rolled up for rest of day and we took bird back to banding station. At the station, the bird was identified, weighed, measured, banded, and logged and then set free.

Weekly Report 4/24

2009-04-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed our one week of Spring here in the sunny South. Now it appears that Summer is soon to be in session. It is going to be 90 degrees for the next three days!!! I am ready for our park playdate to move to shadier park LOL.

School-wise we made some progress towards acclimating Melissa into our routine. Things went smoothly this week for most part, even with me working and two field trips!

Literature: We read The Tempest by Shakespeare from Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. Harrison and I co-read his weekly Pilgrim's Progress chapter. We listened to another chapter of The Wind and the Willows. We have not picked up our evening read-alouds in weeks though. I have to get that routine started again.

Reading: Melissa read all The Seeing Stone and most of Lucinda's Secret (Spiderwick Chronicles Book #2 and 3) and continues Spy for the Night Rider. Apparently, one chapter is so interesting that she keeps rereading it. She also started reading a book called Dolphin Song but I am not sure if that one will make it to conclusion. Harrison continues Two Towers and read all of Twenty and Ten. The bulk of his attention has been reading the background information to our Legends of Druidawn game.

Writing: The bulk of our writing this week has centered around the Legends of Druidawn game. Harrison, who normally hates anything that involves picking up a pencil, is obsessed with writing for this game. I would recommend it for reluctant writers who like to read fantasy novels. He wrote his character sketch and has written his account of the game as a story. He's also worked on copywork and has been chatting with his pen pal about the game.
Melissa worked on her Megalodon report, wrote another email to a stable, emailed with a friend about horses, did her copywork, as well as her Druidawn character sketch and story work.

Language Arts: We did Rosetta Stone Spanish, typing, and Word Roots. One of our favorite things right now is playing Babble. One of the kids will start the game and find as many words as they can and then the other takes over and finds some more and then I try to finish the game.

We also did the spelling bee last Saturday. Harrison got first place for third grade and Melissa got third place for fourth grade. Now before you think she is a great speller, I have to admit there was a huge disparity between the level she got out at and where the final two ended. On the otherhand, Melissa has made great improvements with her spelling in the short time we've been homeschooling her. I have introduced a few spelling rules and continue working with her using SWR.

Math: Melissa did the chapters on graphs and time from Singapore 3B. Harrison continued working on subtracting decimals in 4B and played Lure of the Labyrinth. They both did chapter 19 (dividing by zero) and a bridge from Life of Fred.

Nature Studies: We finished Tale of Reddy Woodpecker and started Tale of Jasper Jay, both by Arthur Scott Bailey. We compared the blue jay and the bluebird (again) and did some bird behavior observations here at home and on our nature walks while collecting data for E-bird. We also took a trip to the NC Museum of Natural Science to study their marine life and bird exhibits.
Melissa had a pen pal email her a report about a horse breed (I believe it was Friesians?) and critiqued it.

Science: Our main science project this week was our shark dissection. It fit in well with Melissa's research project on Megalodons. To follow up we visited the historic ocean life and current marine life exhibits at the Nature Museum. They also had fun this week playing Plant Tycoon and Spore.

Geography: We continued our Marco Polo book. This week we studied the three main religion/philosophies of China: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. We even tried out the practice of qigong. We also read about Mongolia, Kublai Khan and his niece Khutulun, and Musk Deer and musk perfume. We did our normal mapwork too.

History: This week was all about the reign of Queen Elizabeth. We read about her, Mary (Queen of Scotland), the Spanish Armada and Admiral Drake, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Sir Sidney Phillip, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth. Harrison watched an episode of The Deadliest Warrior on Apache vs Ninja.

Civics: We had an interesting discussion on taxes and what they pay for as we admired the new signs that have gone up in our downtown area.

Art History: We continued reading Michelangelo's biography and our picture study this week was of his painting in the Sistine Chapel called The Last Judgment.

Music: Harrison continued guitar lessons and practices. He is now on the fourth string. We all played "Find the Beat."

PE: Harrison had football and baseball games/practice this week. Melissa had tumbling and a cheer clinic. They both had gymnastics class. They also tried out for the Junior Olympics but only the winner got to move on. Melissa was 3rd and Harrison 5th. We had a lot of trampoline jumping and few after dinner walks that turned into hikes.

Another highlight was our company had a bowling outing for the employees and families. Harrison decided to play with the adults instead of the bumper lane that was set for the kids. He did surprisingly well.

Religion: Awanas, Church, memory work, devotions, etc.

Other: They both played Virtual Villagers this week. Harrison played Empire Earth with his father and Melissa's godfather but ended up killing everyone when he closed the game to go play (as the game was hosted from his computer).

Shark Dissection

2009-04-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

Today, we had our first dissection opportunity! Melissa loves ocean animals and currently aspires to be a marine biologist. So of course, we jumped at the chance to dissect a dog shark.

The kid worked in pairs. They teamed oldest kids with youngest. Melissa was middle of the pack so she got paired with same age boy.

The boy's father commented that Melissa definitely didn't approach this like a "girly" girl but jumped in with full enthusiasm.

She didn't get grossed out by the glorious guts.

or the lovely smell of formaldehyde.

Harrison didn't want to do the dissection initially and chose to observe casually. However, by the end of the session, he was excited about it and can't wait to do it again.

Which will be soon. We brought the shark home to show daddy and plan to boil the head to remove the jaw this evening. Anyone want some shark head soup?

Wordless Wednesday: Home for a Gnome

2009-04-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Weekly Report 4/17/08

2009-04-17T14:12:00.001-07:00

We really had a difficult week getting back into the groove of homeschool after a week off. For one thing, we had a guest move in on Monday that I didn't expect until Friday. Love him to death but it did throw me off guard. We are also still adjusting to having Melissa at home.

So we compensated by having what little school we had in interesting places. We had school on the trampoline one day and at the laundromat another day (thanks to dryer breaking when we are ultra-behind on laundry lol).
Literature: We finished another chapter in Wind and the Willows. I have to say these are the longest chapters. It takes days to do one. We didn't get to any of our other literature books though.

Reading: Both kids read Minstrel in the Tower. H reread parts of Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare. Melissa continued Spy for the Night Riders.

Writing: Melissa made a new outline for her megalodon report, wrote an email to one of the stables to request a tour and wrote in her journal. H wrote a paper comparing Samurais and Vikings. He also composed a multiple choice quiz on Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare.

Language Arts: Our homeschool group is having a spelling bee this week so they took the list of words and divided how many words per day to study this week (after subtracting words they studied last week) and made flash cards for words they had missed in pretesting each other. They did this own their own without any input from me! They practiced typing several times.

Spanish: Rosetta Stone

Math: Melissa worked on capacity and did some review in Singapore 3B. H worked on adding and subtracting decimals.

Logic: M did an analogy exercise from Logic Countdown. H played a strategy board game about Samurais. We seemed to on a riddle kick this week.

Science: They played a game of Elementeo. We also dug for fossils, sorted and classified them.

Nature Studies: We read a chapter from Burgess Bird Book on oven birds and red-tail hawks. We continued identifying birds from our window and on a nature walk. We went to a pond study at Prairie Ridge Eco-Station and also went there for a walk in the aroborteum with a naturalist. They pretended to be prey and predator in the tall grass. We discovered a cocoon and a crysalis too. Our most fun was noticing that there were two types of buttercups. One had more white and was slightly more open and a lot shinier than the typical buttercup. We also went to a horse show.

Geography: We read about the Mongols in our Marco Polo book. We also located San Diego and several of the West Indian Islands on our map.

History: We read about Queen Elizabeth, Bloody Mary, Anne of Askew, Columbus and the Viking presence in North America.

Art History: We read more from our biography on Michelangelo and did a good study on the Sistine Chapel.

PE: They had gymnastics this week. Melissa had tumbling and a cheer clinic. Harrison had the father son football game and a baseball game. Of course we had some trampoline time as well and a playdate at the park.

Religion: Melissa had Awanas. Harrison has decided to just read by my classroom instead. We went to Easter services. We also discussed some variations in different protestant beliefs, why different people have different tolerance levels of different things, etc.

Music: Harrison had a guitar lesson and practiced.

Other: We watched Quest for Camelot and compared it to the Arthurian legends that we read earlier in the year. We went to of DH's softball games and tonight, Melissa and I are going to see her friends perform a play. Harrison got a deck of marked cards in his Easter basket and practiced with those all week.

We also had various social experiences. Melissa's godfather is living with us temporarily while he househunts in the area and he arrived this week and his mom came with him for the drive. He just had surgury on his neck and can't eat alone. So they had plenty of time learning how to be polite with older adults that they don't know as well as those they do. We had a park playdate with multiple ages (ages 1 to 12). Melissa impressed my by playing catch with a 4 yo and a 3 yo at the softball game.

Pond Study

2009-04-16T19:57:00.001-07:00

We spent a lovely afternoon at the Prairie Ridge eco-station doing a pond study. The weather was glorious compared to last week's e-bird outing.

The kids used nets of various sizes to collect pond samples. They just loved sweeping the pond.

After gathering up the matter, it was time to study it. We sifted and sorted and looked at assorted creatures under the magnifying lens.

We found numerous tadpoles.

And several dragonfly nymphs (as well as mites and a red-eyed backswimmer).

Father-Son Football Game

2009-04-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Today was the father-son football game for our homeschool football league. What a blast! Harrison was looking forward to this game. He couldn't wait to see his father play football. Rich has been his coach for football and baseball and they play catch quite frequently. However, they had never actually played a game together. It really made a difference in Harrison's attitude. He was more attentive and more focused on the game than usual. He played harder too. He was so proud of himself after the game.

The game was fun. Our side scored the first touch down and the other side tied the game at the last minute. It looked like there was a lot of comraderie on the field and the weather was absolutely perfect!

Weekly Report 4/10

2009-04-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

We had spring break this week so not too much going on. It was truly an "unschooling" week. We spent two days at my mother's house and then started spring cleaning! Melissa has been MIA some as she had a birthday party and a sleepover during the week.

Literature: Finished disk 2 of Wind and the Willows. We read a bit of the Grimm Sisters.

Reading: Melissa read a little bit of Spy for the Night Riders. Harrison finished Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare, read all of Swords, a bit of Two Towers, and started Twenty and Ten. He and I also had a discussion on Rover Saves Christmas that he read back in December.

Writing: Melissa did a DSI chat with another kid while we waited at guitar. They both wrote in their nature journals.

Language Arts: They quizzed each other on spelling words to prepare for spelling bee. Melissa needs a lot of work in this area as her school didn't stress spelling. They learned a few new vocabulary words while studying. We played "Correct Mom's Grammar." We went to the library and worked on library skills.

Math: We read various charts and graphs in e-bird. We did a lot of impromptu word problems with milage to Grandma's house (how many more miles, estimate how long will it take to get there, etc)

Nature Studies: We went on a nature walk. We followed a naturalist and collected data for e-bird at a local eco-station. We finished up the lessons requiring a chicken from Handbook of Naure Studies. Melissa and I also went to a horse show. Harrison watched a show on great white sharks.

Science: Harrison played World of Goo this week.

Geography: We located Cincinnati on the map. (Let's Go Mets!)

History: We had living history by attending the Renaissance Faire.

Music: Harrison went to guitar lessons and practiced. We played "find the beat."

Art: Drawing in nature journals. Melissa made earrings with my sister.

PE: Football practice and baseball game. Gymnastics class. Trampoline jumping.

Other: They watched the newer parent trap movie with Lindsey Lohan and compared and contrasted it to the one with Haley Mills. They decided they like the older one best.
Harrison watched Eragon with his father and they compared it with the book.

Wordless Wednesday: Last Day with the Chicks

2009-04-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

E-Bird

2009-04-08T06:01:00.000-07:00

This semester, we are focusing on birds for our nature studies. We've been reading the Burgess Bird book and several books by Arthur Scott Bailey. We've kept chickens and studied them. We've made a bird feeder and have been keeping a list of birds we see in our nature journals. Now, we are ready to go up a notch!

Tuesday, we went to Prairie Ridge Ecostation to count birds with a naturalist. We learned some birds songs and how to identify some birds. We found new birds to add to our list. After an hour of walking around the preserve, we had identified 13 species. That's not to bad considering it was 48 degrees with 20 mph winds. Harrison was first to spot the Carolina chickadee and Melissa found the turkey vultures and mourning doves. I found a scarlet tanager and a downy woodpecker. We also saw a tufted titmouse, an American goldfinch, a white breasted nuthatch, several house finches and white throated sparrows, an eastern towhee and lots of cardinals and robins.

After our mini expedition, we entered the data into E-bird. E-bird is a citizen science project created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. Here you can input the kinds and numbers of birds you observed. It can be from a long walk at a preserve, a hike on nature trail, or just what birds you see from your window at home. Scientists then use that data to observe migration patterns, distribution patterns, etc.

In e-bird, you can pull up maps of recent sitings of various birds, look at the migration habits of birds to see when you are most likely to see a bird. We had a lot of fun exploring the various graphs and charts available.

*Photo by Thomas O'Neill

Renaissance Faire

2009-04-06T15:29:00.001-07:00

Our family loves Renaissance Faires. We go to one on the fall every year. Unfortunately, we have trouble getting to the one in the spring due to weather but we go when we can. Luckily, the weather was good this year and we could take advantage of it. After all, we are studying the Renaissance times in history.

Of course, we go in costume. Unfortunately, we couldn't find Harrison's ring mail armor that he made in the fall. It fell victim to one of my company's coming cleaning sweeps. However, we had one that he and his dad made two years ago. This scale mail shirt is easy and inexpensive to make. They traced a dog tag on old cereal boxes and cut out. Then spray painted them silver and glued them onto a black t-shirt in a scale mail pattern. My son opted not to wear matching pants lol.

Melissa is wearing a top we found at Goodwill. It has the lace up front and some nice detail up close. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures before she dripped ketchup all over it!!!

Melissa had trouble deciding what to do/get. She was going to get her face painted but decided that for about the same amount of money, she could get a henna tattoo and it would last more than a day.

Harrison took part in a class on pole arms. He was the second youngest to take it and the youngest to complete it. He really enjoyed it and even though the rest of us observed the entire class, he gave us blow by blow details. Here he is marching with his squad. He is concentrating hard on keeping that pole up!

This is the way to deal with sibling squabbles. Just kidding. They did like sparring with each other. Other things they did at the Faire: shoot crossbows (Harrison hit the dragon), ride ponies, hunt for dragon eggs, watch a magic show and a joust and then performed a show of their own with our pet griffin. We also looked at every single weapon for sale and I mean every. single. one.

Arabian Horse Show

2009-04-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

My daughter was begging for some alone time with mom. While I love to do it, outings with her can get very expensive very quickly. Fortuately, there was a free Arabian Horse Show in town this weekend. Horses are right up Melissa's alley. She's is clamoring for horseback riding lessons and one of her current homeschool projects is researching the local stables so we can make an educated decision on lessons. She is gathering lesson prices, monthly requirements, distance/approximate driving time and fuel cost, etc. and putting in an Excel spreadsheet.

After we got tired of watching shows, we wandered around the stables. We got to meet Israel, who was also in the first showing that we observed. Israel hails from one of the stables that made the first cut in her stable project.

Melissa really enjoyed talking to the trainer, the owner, and the rider. They were really friendly people. Melissa was able to give Israel a treat too!

Homeschool Easter Egg Hunt

2009-04-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

On Friday, our homeschool support group had an Easter egg hunt. It was a special treat for us. Not only was it a chance to get out and socialize with our friends but after a week of rain, it was just a blessing to be outside period! The sky was extra blue and the grass extra green and we just relished every second.

There was a contest for decorating baskets. Melissa made hers to look like a bunny. She did most of the work during read alouds. Harrison opted NOT to make one because he thought the whole concept to be "uncool." Easter just seems a bit more feminine with the pastels, bunnies chicks and flowers.

To make the basket, Melissa bought a basket at Dollar Tree and covered it with cottonballs. She made a mouth with a piece of red pipe cleaner, used a pom pom for a nose and googly eyes. She cut out felt ears and glued to the basket handles. She was going to add whiskers but we were out of white pipe cleaners.

As if finding eggs filled with candy were not enough, they enjoyed a whole bunch of yummy sweet treats!! Besides the egg hunt and basket contest, they had a egg in the spoon relay race and lots of free play with their friends at the park.

Weekly Report 4/3/09

2009-04-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

Well, this was my first week homeschooling two children. I have to admit the first couple days were quite tough. They have trouble getting along. However, as the week progressed, attitutudes improved and we are all enjoying each other. I had to lighten academics for awhile so that we can get a groove going.

Literature: We continued reading Sister's Grimm and listened to Wind and the Willows on audio.
Harrison and I continued with Pilgrim's Progress, Queen of Sorcery, and Robin Hood.

Reading: Melissa is reading Spy for the Night Riders, a Trailblazers book on Martin Luther and she read some picture books aloud to a dog at the library. Harrison is read Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare and most of Minstrel in the Tower.

Writing: Melissa made a birthday card, wrote a thank you letter, and has been working on a research report on megalodons. Harrison has been copying Iron Man lyrics for copywork.

Language Arts: We made up new sentences for favorite songs, played Boggle, and went over spelling bee words. They both practiced typing daily.

Spanish: Rosetta Stone

Math: Melissa did some problems with length and weight from Singapore 3B. H worked on 3 reviews in Singapore 4B. They both did a chapter in Life of Fred. They had a decimal hunt around the house and got a lot of fraction practice in our experiments and crafts because for some reason I never seem to have the right measuring cup ;) .

Logic: Melissa did 3 exercises in Logic Countdown on pictorial analogies. Harrison did several exercises on induction.

Computer: Melissa had some lessons in setting up a computer, created a blog (it's just a shell right now- she's working on content), and created an excel spread sheet for her horse research project.

Nature Studies: We continued reading Tale of Reddy Woodpecker. We added a few new birds to out bird list in our nature journal. We continued taking care of baby chicks, they are about 3/4 of the way feathered now. We took dog to vet and interviewed the veternarian. We had a discussion about avoiding bee stings and looked at youtube videos of people who cover themselves with bees.

Science: We made silly putty with a kit and a homemade recipe that uses borax and bought the real deal and learned about polymers. We got a new game this week called Elementeo that we've played numerous times. I will write a review soon. We watched a documentary on prehistoric sea creatures.

Geography: We found our Marco Polo book and we've gotten to China. We learned about the Great Wall of China and the Terra Cotta Warriors. We made our own Terra Cotta Army.

Melissa got caught up on the countriese that once comprised the present day United Kingdom. We located Spain, Portugal, Bahamas, Cuba, Germany, Netherlands (as Holland), and Switzerland in various lessons we had this week.

History: We focused on some of the leaders of the Reformation this week. We learned about Martin Luther and watched the Trial at Worms on video. We learned about William Tyndale and John Calvin too. We continued studying Columbus and Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane Grey, and Bloody Mary.

Harrison read a book on Medieval weapons and another book on swords around the world. We watched part of the Passion of Joan of Arc but the silent movie format was a bit too "boring" to hold their interest too long. They did like discussing how much movies have changed though.

Art: We continued reading our biography on Michelangelo (we read about the Medici family and his creation of the Pieta). Our art narration this week was the Pieta.

Craft wise, they worked together to create a bunny basket for Melissa to take to the Homeschool Easter Party. Harrison didn't want a decorated one though (too girlish). Melissa also made some tissue paper flowers.

Music: H had guitar and is practicing his duet. We focused on the hymn Our God is a Mighty Fortress by Martin Luther for music appreciation.

PE: We did a family walk and they played on the trampoline almost everyday. They both did the homeschool gymnastics class and M had tumbling too. Football and baseball were canceled due to rain.

Home-Ec: Major focus on chores.

Religion: Memory work, church history, and Awanas.

Reading to the Dogs????

2009-04-03T05:56:00.001-07:00

Have you heard of this? Are library has a "Read With Rover" program once a month where they bring in trained dogs for kids to read to.

Melissa just loves meeting new dogs and really enjoyed it.

Harrison was only boy there and decided to curl up with a good book and read to himself.

Terra Cotta Warriors

2009-04-02T19:39:00.001-07:00

We are studying the journey's Marco Polo in geography. We reached the Great Wall of China and discussed the Qin Dynasty. Of course, it's impossible to talk about the Qin Dynasty without mentioning the Terra Cotta Warriors! My kids were already familiar with the warriors from watching the Mummy 3 and were really excited to make their own warriors.

First we made our "Terra Cotta", bascially we made a salt dough and colored it with red and yellow food coloring and paprika. It took A LOT of kneading but the result was close to the terra cotta. We then made our soldiers and horses, using cheese grater, toothpicks, etc to add details. Afterwards we baked at 250 degrees for a couple of hours.

Ta Da! The fiercest warriors to ever come out of my oven! I think they may be closer to "Terra Cotta Buddhas" but we had fun.

Wordless Wednesday; Chick in Progress

2009-04-01T04:20:00.000-07:00

Science Fun!

2009-03-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

Harrison has been eyeing this kit by the Wild Goose Company in the homeschool store for quite some time. I finally relented and got it for the kids to do this week. We've made silly putty before without buying a kit but I think there is something about having ingredients labeled in a manner that looks like "real" chemicals that makes it seem more serious.

Here is a recipe for making your own silly putty without a kit:

1 parts Elmer's White Glue (not school glue)

1 parts of liquid starch.

** If you use school glue, it won't bounce or pick up images but it's still fun to play with.

I think we will try the homemade one later this week and compare it to the kit's results. We might as well buy the real deal too and see which one bounces highest and which one picks up the best.

Watch Out Robin Hood

2009-03-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

My son loves Legolas, William Tell, and Robin Hood. Therefore, it's no great surprise that he clamored to learn archery. Here he is having his first archery lesson with Dad.

Of course, big sister got a chance too!

Science on a Rainy Afternoon

2009-03-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Melissa and her friend enjoyed a rainy afternoon by putting on their pajamas, spreading out blankets on the porch, and mixing different concoctions with her spa science kit.

Saturday at the Pond, an Impromptu Adventure

2009-03-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

My husband had softball at a park that we've never visited in the nine years that we've lived in this city. We were not sure what adventures would wait us.........

The park did not have a playground but it had a frisbee golf course. None of us had ever actually seen frisbee golf before so we watched a few rounds. Harrison was able to play a few rounds. (Yes, we walked up to total strangers and asked what to do LOL)

We found a pond and the kids gathered sticks to make a shelter in case the rain came again. Harrison was testing the depth of the pond with one of the sticks. It had a deep drop off a few feet in.

They spent a good portion of the afternoon hunting for tadpoles. Melissa's friend caught one but dropped in.

We topped the afternoon off with a trip to get ice cream and ate it outside under the umbrella table in the pouring rain.

Weekly Report 3/27

2009-03-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Oh this was one of those weeks! I feel we got nothing done. We had an all day field trip on Tuesday and we had the Iowa testing for three days. Harrison was so drained from just the act of sitting still that long so we dropped a lot of our normal stuff!

On the good side, Friday marked Melissa's last day in government school. I will have to change my profile to homeschooling two kids next week!!

Literature: Harrison and I read our Chapter of Pilgrim's Progress Book Two this week. We got a little reading done in Queen of Sorcery. Boy that title really sounds evil doesn't it. It's the second book in the Belgariad series by David Eddings. For those that know me as AuntPol on the WTM boards, my user name is from a character in that series.

Both kids listened to Wind and the Willows and listened to Sisters Grimm.

Reading: Harrison read quite a bit of Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare. I think he only got a little Two Towers in.

Melissa read some more about horses and just started The Lightening Thief.

Writing: Harrison didn't have any writing assignments this week. Since writing is his least favorite subject and most likely to cause anxiety, I decided to skip due to testing. However, He did make a list of military ranks for the Army and Marine Corps.

Langauage Arts: We played some Boggle to work on word patterns. He did one round of Word Roots and he played some vocabulary games at Word Central. He had grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, etc on the test.

Math: We did manage to get all our scheduled Singaporemath lessons. We are still doing decimals and Harrison is flying through them. We didn't get to the challenge math or Life of Fred this week.

Nature Studies: We went to Museum of Natural Science and looked at arthopod exhibit, butterfly room and a tropics exhibit. We did some bird watching from our window. We weren't able to add any new birds to our list but we enjoyed the ones we saw. Both kids found a four leaf clover this week. Both kids continue to observe the chickens. It looks like Melissa's prediction that one of the chicks was a male (based on his beak) is true. We see the beginnings of a comb.

Melissa and I went to tour the place where she is going to horse camp this summer. We took my mom and sister and had a picnic by the stables. We hiked and she planted some flowers there.

Science: We discussed the properties of water. For those with a sense of humor, you should check out this video, We Will Rock You. It's quite hilarious.

History: We continued reading about Portuguese explorers. Vasco de Gama, Affonso d"Albequerque, and Columbus. He also played related sections of Age of Empires. We had a big discussion on trade monopolies. We also read about Henry VIII and watched a documentary on William the Conqueror.

Melissa went to Old Salem this week as a school field trip. She really enjoyed it and told me many things that she learned.

Civics: We had a field trip to the State Legislature. We met with several representatives and one of the state senators. We looked in on some committee meetings and looked at some of the lobbyists displays.

H is learning about military ranks and how the military is structured. He's also recreated several famous battles with his army men.

Music: H practiced guitar and had his lesson. He's working on timing and was introduced to the metronome this week.

Music Appreciation: We didn't get to Bach this week but we did enjoy hearing Ode to Joy and The Nutcracker in the movie Angels in the Infield.

PE: H had one baseball practice and one football practice. Everything else was rained out. He went to gymnastics and jumped on trampoline at home. He also went shooting (bb and pellet guns) with Dad and Grandpa.

M had tumbling and jumped on trampoline at home. We all managed to get one good walk in before the rain came.

Other: We had a clothing, toy and book swap in our homeschool group and then organized, boxed and bagged up the non-swapped things for charity. H was a good gentlemen and helped a younger friend take her heavy box to the car. My favorite moment was watching Harrison and three girls carrying this HUGE box of stuff.

Renaissance Faire

2009-03-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

Since we are testing this week, not much is happening. Therefore, I thought I would show some pictures of things we did pre-blog. We attended the Renaissance Faire in October. It's a yearly family tradition and we've only missed one year in the twelve years that my DH and I have been together. This year, it was especially fun because we were studying the Middle Ages and early Renaissance times. My husband helped Harrison make his Viking costume. There is a ring mail shirt under that "bearskin" vest. I will have to get a picture of the armor when we go to the spring Faire. Melissa and I put together a last minute costume too.

Harrison loves medieval weapons. At the Faire, he was able to use a bow and arrow, shoot a crossbow, throw an axe and "joust" with a lance.

Wordless Wednesday: A Chick on the Hand is Worth Two on the Box

2009-03-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

The Mixed Up Files of a Harried Homeschool Mom

2009-03-25T04:22:00.001-07:00

I just have to tell you about the hilarious incident that happened to me. Yesterday was CapitalFest, an event where homeschoolers come and meet with members of the state senate and legislature. I was supposed to meet my group at the NCHE sign in desk but I didn't realize until I looked at our message board right before leaving that I had no idea of where that would be since CapitalFest was going on in legislative buildings, history museum, science museum, state capitol, etc. To top it off, I was not sure what the only lady who was definitely coming looked like. My son and I arrived in the general area and I flagged down some homeschoolers and they pointed and said "we checked in over there". I thought they pointed to history museum. I went in and sure enough there was a check in desk. I went over and they didn't have my registration information but they made me up a packet of important bills to watch and a name tag. I chatted with the table voluntters and one of the gentlemen told me that he didn't like my representative at all. He really didn't like her. Then I called the other mom because it was way past meeting time and I hadn't seen anyone. There was no answer. I decided to walk over to the legislative building to see if we had just missed her since I knew we had an appointment there in ten minutes. I got there, sat through the meeting with this representative. The whole time I was wondering what that guy didn't like about her. She really seemed to be homeschool friendly, etc. Later, we walked to next appointment and while I was waiting, I looked at the bills - the first one was about school bullying and adding sexual orientation to the list of bullying. I thought to myself what do homeschoolers care and then decided well maybe, they are interested in all education problems and many do homeschool because of bully issues though the bill looked quite the waste of time to me. I didn't have time to loook at rest of bills because we were meeting with our state senator. However, after that meeting, I did look -it was bills like gay marriage rights, transgender stuff, etc. My mind flipped. What does this have to do with homeschooling? I thought most homeschoolers were rather conservative anyway and it just seemed like I was in the twilight zone. Then I happened to look at the logo. I had gone to the NCE check in desk and not the NCHE check in desk!!!! NCE is North Carolina for Equality and is a gay rights organization.

Imagine my burst of giggles when I realized the conversation I had earlier in the morning at the table: "Oh I've been doing this about a year and really enjoy it. I can' t believe more people are not doing it."

Llamas and Chickens and Goats, Oh My!

2009-03-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

In anticipation to starting homeschooling next week, my daughter joined the 4-H group within our support group. For her first meeting, we went to a local farm. They fed the animals (goats, llamas, pony, chickens) and explored the farm. One of the highlights was getting to hold a baby goat that had been born the night before! The other highlight is that we came home with three baby chickens. We will keep the chickens a week or two and then return them to the farm.

Weekly Report 3/20/09

2009-03-21T05:43:00.000-07:00

Mom, please don’t talk to me for awhile. I am going to be deep in thought.

That sums up this week! We had a lot of thinking going on. This was a week of never-ending rain. It finally cleared up enough for us to meet some friends at the park on Friday. DS took his Nerf gun and had a blast! I think the entire line of mothers spit out their lemonade when he ran across the park picking up Nerf bullets and screaming, “A bullet, a bullet, my kingdom for a bullet!”

Literature: We finished our lunchtime audio book of Frindle this week. What a great book for discussing protagonists and antagonists! We continued listening to The Wind and the Willows in the car. That story is such a delight. We did our weekly chapter of Pilgrim’s Progress Book Two. We also read several chapters in Robin Hood, Queen of Sorcery, and Grimm Sisters. The latter is supposed to be the book that I read to his sister while he bathes but he’s been listening in.

** My afterschooler listened in on Wind and the Willows and Grimm Sisters.

Reading: He’s still reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. He’s been playing a LOTR game on the computer which led to pick up his copy of Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare.

**DD is reading several non-fiction books on horses, Warriors series, and just finished Penderwicks and Inkheart. We went to the movies to see Inkheart this week. She discussed how it compared to the book and DS discussed how it had elements from LOTR.

Writing: He wrote a letter to his pen pal (and I promise I will mail it this weekend) and he created an ad for a video game contest, complete with rules and prizes.

**My afterschooler wrote a letter to one of her friends at school. Unfortunately, another child rifled through her bookbag, stole the letter and turned it into the teacher. DD ended up with silent lunch even though the letter was written at home, not out during school time, and contained nothing mean or malicious.

Language Arts: DS went through his list of trouble words and used them in his commonplace journal this week. We also had a blast playing around with alliteration this week. H played a few games of Text Twist/Word Challenge and learned about word patterns. We played a game of Scrabble too. He also played Word Roots, Rosetta Stone Spanish, and typing games on the computer.

Math: DS continues working with decimals in his Singapore workbook and did a page in his CWP book. We played a few rounds of Monopoly and he played a little bit of Lure of the Labyrinth. We did some mental math in the car.

** Both kids did one chapter of Life of Fred Fractions this week.

Logic/Critical Thinking: The game of the week on the computer has been one of the Lord of the Rings games. We also played some Lord of the Rings Risk. I forgot to pack his logic book in our Tuesday bag and he got mad at me LOL! He did manage to squeeze in an inference exercise from it later in the week

**DH kept them both entertained with numerous riddles throughout the week.

Nature Studies: He and I continued reading The Tale of Reddy Woodpecker this week. We have been studying the birds that we can see through the window and trying to identify bird calls that we can hear. We did learn the difference between a bluebird and blue jay.

**DD continued working on her horse lapbook and writing her own non-fiction horse book. She went on two small nature hikes and found a 4-leaf clover on each!

Other Science: Due to his irrational fear of vampires and zombies that have caused problems in our daily life (he is afraid to go upstairs alone –no problem walking all over the neighborhood or going downstairs alone to play video games LOL), DS and DH have been studying the science behind vampire legends: diseases that have “vampire like” symptoms and the effects of dehydration and decomposition on corpses leading to “vampire traits”.

Health: We watched a parody of Star Wars called Grocery Store Wars on Youtube. It was about eating organics. We enjoyed that and discussed food engineering and pesticides, etc.

History/Geography: Our Marco Polo book has been temporarily (I hope) misplaced. We did do some mapwork on Africa and India as we studied Prince Henry the Navigator, Bartholomew Diaz, and Vasco de Gama. We also studied Gutenberg and King Henry VII, the first of the Tudor line of Kings.

**We watched the Court Jester as a family.

Religion: DS and I had some good talks from our Pilgrim’s Progress reading. He also had a lot of thoughts about evolution and creation.

Both kids worked on memory work and went to church and Awanas.

Art History: (Both) We continue studying and reading about Michelangelo.

Art: Use of lines to draw different perspectives.

Music Appreciation: (Both) Continuing to listen to Bach.

Music: DS is practicing a duet to play with his instructor.

PE: He worked on the rings and the climbing rope in Gymnastics. At home, he continues working in on his flips on the trampoline. Both football and baseball were rained out this week but he managed to get some skills practice in with DH.

**DD also had her tumbling class and practiced on the trampoline. She is working on her back tuck right now. She and I went to the track and did a few laps.

Child's Book Review: Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings

2009-03-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

This is DS's (8) Book Review:

Fellowship of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is an interesting book of a hobbit and his friends on a journey to destroy a powerful yet dangerous ring. There is a wide variety of characters, from the brave hobbit, Frodo to the daring and honorable Aragorn and the gruff but funny dwarf, Gimli. Mr. Tolkien gives great descriptions, yet keeps the story flowing for the most part. Occasionally though, he gets long-winded. The dialogue is witty at times but sometimes it's over-long. I really enjoyed reading this book and recommend to anyone who likes a good adventure.

The Court Jester

2009-03-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

The pistol with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true...

Nobody does tongue twisters better than Danny Kaye. This movie is a true delight. It's got action without gore, romance without sex and nudity, and humor without crudeness and four letter words! The movie starts off a bit slow while the plot develops but once it gets going, the laughter rarely stops.

The movie takes place in the middle ages. Danny Kaye plays a hapless carnival worker who desires to be a hero like the Black Fox (character similar in vein to Robin Hood) who is trying to deposes the king. King Roderick seized the throne by killing all the royal family. However, a heir survived and he has the royal birthmark on his royal backside to prove it! In order to infiltrate the castle, Danny Kaye impersonates a court jester and runs into trouble when he attracts the attention of the princess (a very young Angela Langsbury).

The Court Jester is not a historically accurate movie nor is based on any incident in history. However, it does show the court intrigue that has always exhisted from ancient times to today's political climate. The comedy is slapstick, full of physical humor and wordplay. It spoofs The Adventures of Robin Hood several times and even has Basil Rathbone in a role very similar to one he played in Robin Hood.

I highly recommend this movie as a family movie. Adults will enjoy seeing Angela Langsbury before she wrote murder mysteries in Cabot Cove, Basil Rathbone being himself, and Glynis Johnson before she became Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins and Alan Napier, who later played Alfred in the Batman series. The songs are entertaining. We particularly liked "You Can't Outfox a Fox" and "The Unemployed Jester." The humor is slapstick, filled with physical humor and word play and very witty. The only thing that I can think of that someone might find objection is the character of the princess's nanny. She has a witch persona though she does no real magic -just a hypnotist trick and some poison. The hypnotism scene results in one of the funniest scenes of the movie. The movie is a classic that I am sure you will enjoy. Get it? Got it! Good!

Weekly Summary 3/13/09

2009-03-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

This week was such a light week -we had three gorgous days earlier in the week and took full advantage of them. The latter half of the week, it was rainy and dreary. I had to work those days anyway and he was in the office. I can't believe how fast this week went!

Literature: We continued Pilgrim's Progress Book Two. We also read two chapters in Robin Hood We continute listening to Wind and the Willows in the car and 2 chapters of Frindle at lunch. We're through chapter 8 in Queen of Sorcery.

Reading: He continues reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Composition: This week, he wrote a synopsis for several Cyberchase shows and let his sister pick one to watch based on the synopsis.

Penmanship: Continued copywork journal

Typing: Same old practice....

Vocabulary: Two rounds of Word Roots.

Spanish: Worked on Rosetta Stone.

Math: We started Singapore 4B and thus decimals.. We watched some Cyberchase. He also did one page in his Challenge Word Problems (CWP) book. However, the highlight of the week was playing Lure of the Labyrinth.

Logic: He did 11 pages in his Logic Countdown book. Most of these were the section on deduction. This led to him doing some level 1 logic problems from my logic problem books.

Nature Studies: We diverted from Burgess Bird Book to start The Tale of Reddy Woodpecker by Arthur Scott Bailey. We watched some youtube videos on woodpeckers and continued our nature walks -observing some birds at play.

Science: I don't think we did any science this week but play with catapults and build a lego ship....

History: Our history readings this week revolved around the War of the Roses. He also played some Crusader Stronghold.

Geography: We continue our reading about Marco Polo, concentrating on his coming into China and learning about Buddhism and I pulled out a jade buddha statue that I was given when I worked in China Town many moons ago. We also looked at a map of Italy in the Renaissance times.

Art History: We continue our unit on Michelangelo with a study of The Creation of Adam. We discussed the technique of fresco. We also began Diane Stanley's biography on Michelangelo.

Art: We used our line drawing skills to learn how to draw grass and flowers.

Music Appreciation: We continue our study on Bach. This week we focused on Air on the G-String

Music: Guitar practice and lesson. He's working on Surf Rock. He had some transcription homework.

Religious Studies: He continued his memory work and worked on several Awana lessons during the week.

PE: Gymnastics class-worked on jumping and catching. He also started football over the weekend and baseball this week!! He and his father played catch several times.

Home-Ec: He was a house cleaning slave this week -just ask him!

Lure of the Labyrinth

2009-03-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine sent me a link to Lure of the Labyrinth for my son. He loved the game Timez Attack and has been pestering me to buy the upgrade. Well, I really wasn't ready to drop $40 on an upgrade when he knows his times tables well. We checked Lure of the Labyrinth out last night and he's been playing it all morning. He loves it.

Lure of the Labyrinth is a free, online immersive game that takes place in an underground, monster-inhabited world. Students disguise themselves as a monster and then maneuver through various math missions to save their beloved pet who has gone missing. These math missions entail middle school level pre-algebra skills such as proportions, fractions, ratios, variables, equations, and numbers and operations. The math portions are cleverly done and thus doesn't feel like a "math game" that happens to be online but more like an online game that "happens" to have math. Trust me, this is important with a child who can smell anything that has a hint of schooling in it.

Weekly Report 3/6/09

2009-03-06T08:20:00.001-08:00

What an interesting week. Monday, my daughter was home from school because of snow and now today we were in shorts!!! Our schedule was disrupted with her snow day on Monday, a 2 hour delay (ice) on Tuesday. Thursday was a half day. She has an Odyssey of the Mind competition this weekend and so we've had all kinds of extra practices to fit in.

So this week:

Literature: We started Pilgrim's Progress Book Two. We did a lot of work with predictions and discussed how it amazingly follows our own spiritual journey. My son (who's still thinking of what he wants to be called online) said that we should name our scaredy cat "Timorance". This cat is scared of everthing and hides under the bed all day long.
We also read a chapter in Robin Hood
We continute listening to Wind and the Willows in the car and 6 chapters of Frindle at lunch.
We're through chapter 5 in Queen of Sorcery.
Boy it looks like we read a lot when you put it down on "paper"

Reading: He continues reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Composition: This week, he wrote advice columns to work on paragraph structure. He and his sister took turns writing letters with a problem and then answering the other's letter with advice.

Penmanship: He did a little bit in his copywork book but composition, copywork, and a lapbook ended up being "too much" writing so we lightened up here.

Typing: Same old practice....

Vocabulary: Two rounds of Word Roots. He FINALLY had his "aha" moment that he's learning something from this during the week.

Spanish: Worked on Rosetta Stone.

Math: We finished up Singapore 4A and played some fun review games. We watched Cyberchase episode on decimals to prepare us for 4B next week. He also did one page in his Challenge Word Problem (CWP) book. Played a few rounds of Timez Attack and is pestering me to get the upgrade.

Nature Studies: Three chapters of Burgess Bird Book -learned about tree swallows, swifts, purple martins, barn swallowsm crows, and meadowlarks. We watched some video clips on identifying these birds and observed birds in our neighborhood. We had a real fun nature walk and watched a squirrel hop from tree to tree. We also found a broken bird egg to take home and examine.

Science: The bulk of our science was the physics of archery. We did several experiments to learn about motion, force, speed, and gravity.
Both kids built a bridge between two trees that fallen across the creek.
He continued working with legos and built the Dwarf Mine kit and a catapult.

History:Learned about John Wycliffe, John Huss, Joan of Arc, and Prince Henry the Navigator.
Played a multi-player game of Age of Empires 2. He also added several components on archery to his lapbook on Medieval Weaponry.

Geography: We continue our reading about Marco Polo and learning about Afghanistan. We also mapped some of the areas that Prince Henry's ships navigated and learned that he never actually sailed on any of the voyages.

Art History: We begin our unit on Michelangelo with a study on "David". This was a great introduction on perspective because from the traditional side view, David looks rather like he is dreaming. However, from the front, you can see that he looks focused on where he is going to sling the rock that is in his right hand. We also discussed how he was model on the Greek ideal of man and he was not circumsized like a Jewish man would have been.

Art: We worked on the technique of line drawing.

Music Appreciation: We continue our study on Baroque composers with a unit on Bach. This week we focused on Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Music: Guitar practice and lesson. He's working on Rockin Robin.

Religious Studies: He continued his memory work and worked on several Awana lessons during the week.

PE: Gymnastics class-worked on balance beam and high jumping. (Plus the usual playing at home, trampoline, hiking, biking, etc)

Home-Ec: We made Raisin Bran muffins. I taught him how to make your own buttermilk and what it means to beat eggs.

Fun with Angles

2009-03-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

We just wrapped up Singapore 4A and have spent last week learning about angles, perpendicular lines, etc. Yesterday, I really felt that my son needed some fun and some practice with angles. He is a typical boy and loves to shoot nerf guns. I told him that in battles, your fellow fighters will often yell out things like "watch out at 2 O'clock" and how that doesn't mean the enemy will be here at 2 PM. I set up targets at different angles and let him practice shooting at each "time". We discussed that if you are facing noon then 3 and 9 o'clock are right angles and I had him figure out that each hour is 30 degrees. Then we took turns being blindfolded and trying to shoot as the other person callled out locations.

He had such a blast doing this and wants to do this afternoon for free time!

Weekly Report 2/27/09

2009-02-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

Wow. This week went by really fast. I am actually working at the office today and my husband is homeschooling.

Literature
We finished book one of Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan this week. We've really enjoyed reading and discussing this book over the year. I think we both learned a great deal about our relationship with God. Next week we will start with book two.
We read chapters 2-4 in Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. He continued comparing and contrasting three different Robin Hood movies.

Reading
He is reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers this week and we have been comparing and contrasting it to the movie and to the first book.

Composition
We are working on paragraph writing right now. This week, he made up recipes to learn how to order sentences. For most of them, we made the recipe as we wrote about it. That seemed to help him break through his usual fear of the blank paper.

Penmanship
He worked on writing various Fellowship of the Ring quotes into his copywork journal.

Typing
Daily practice. He challenged me to a type off.

Spelling
He has ten words to work on from SWR N-3 -the word criticize is throwing him for a loop for some reason lol.

Vocabulary
Worked on Word Roots and entered some new words in his personal dictionary.

Spanish
He did two Rosetta Stone lessons

Math
Singapore 4A: He did exercises 45-51 in the workbook (angles, lines, area, perimeter)
Life of Fred Fractions: Exercises 14-15 and the third bridge.

Logic
He did four exercises in his Logic Countdown book!!! This was not required but I keep the book with us for when we are out and about. (Topics -If, Then; deduction, inference)

Nature Studies
We read three chapters in Burgess Bird Book. We looked up some video clips of the different birds. He really liked the oriole. He built a bird feeder to help attract more birds. We went to the pet store and looked at various bird seed to decide which one would most suit our needs.

Science
We made a stepping stone out of plaster of paris and discussed the chemistry behind it. This was a fun one because my daughter was home to do it with us.
We did some work on leverage using a quarterstaff.
He built a raft and floated it down a creek several times this week.
He hosted a paper airplane clinic for four other boys.
He decided to reenact the Battle of Stamford Bridge and got interested in bridge building.
He continued experimenting with making a better catapult and trebuchet.

Geography
We read more in Marco Polo for Kids. We read about Persia, the Silk Road (and felt some real silk material), the Islamic religion and compared it to our religion. We watched a Time Warp Trio episode on Ghenghis Khan which we read about last week.

History
We continued reading in Our Island Story. We read about Richard II, Wat Tyler, Henry IV, and Prince Hal.
He re-enacted the Battle of Stanford Bridge with his blocks, legos, and plastic army men.
He played Crusader Stronghold and Age of Empires II.

Music
He practiced his guitar daily and nailed Rock Me Like a Hurricane at his lesson. He is now transitioning from reading tabs to reading music and is working on transcribing some music that his guitar instructer gave him.

Art
We made a stepping stone so that we can make a path to our trampoline. This one was done with a Fleur de Lis pattern.

PE
He went to his gymnastics class and really enjoyed working on the bars there. At home, he is teaching himself how to use a quarterstaff via youtube videos and my broom handle. He also has enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and playing at the creek.