Just A Typical Thursday {Vlog!}

It's been over a week since I've posted a vlog. I just really didn't know what to record. So today I just decided to record throughout the day and see what I come up with. I like the end result.

Please comment below! I'd love to hear from you! 

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School Update: Jan. 2015

We're about halfway through what the normal school year tends to be so I thought it would be a good time for an update. Over all I say things are going pretty well. Sean and Maddy are both ahead of schedule on math and language arts. They worked faster than I had thought so I think we'll slow it down a little for the second half of the year. We're unfortunately are behind with science and history. Part of it was illnesses (like me being sick most of December). We also never got into a good routine and that was my fault. This will change starting this week. One change I'm making is only concentrating on either science or history per week instead of trying to do both each week. I think this will be the key. With only one of those subjects to concentrate on, it should help me stay more organized and make weekend lesson planning easier.

Mr Skeleton from one of our science lessons

Speaking of organization, this morning while browsing pinterest I found Amongst Lovely Things' post: How I’m Using Spiral Notebooks to Simplify Homeschooling. I thought it was a great idea and since I had some notebooks lying around, I decided to give it a try. I'm hoping it helps keep us organized and on track. Sean and Maddy both seem excited about it.

 Sean and Maddy's notebooks and the basket to hold the notebooks and the day's school books. 

Self care is referring to things like brushing teeth, brushing hair and such. the first page of their notebooks has a list of what they are to do. Sean has laundry on his list b/c today is his laundry day. Maddy's was yesterday. Our laundry schedule is another new thing I'm trying out to keep myself more on track.

 

I even have a notebook of my own. Those items under self refer to things I'd like to do for myself. Today they are all some of my new year's resolutions: 30 days of yoga, crochet a granny square a day, read more, and a reminder that I'm going to go to the gym tonight and lift weights.

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History Lesson: What is History?

Today was our first lesson using Story of the World. The lesson was: What is history? and How do we know? We read the pages out of SOTW but didn't do either of the activities they suggest. Instead, I winged it. I have a lot of family history documents for my mother's side of the family so we pulled out the resources and worked on a family timeline. We had the knowledge that we know, my phone to text grandma to ask her for her birth year, the computer to access the family tree website I made awhile back, my great grandparents' passports, a family bible from the late 1800s, and a photo album of other documents such as birth, marriage, and death certificates, newspaper clippings and letters (mid 1900s). We did a second timeline to go off from our main timeline. The second timeline was for the children listed in family bible. Those children were born from 1892-shortly after 1914 (the only date we have on the last born is the day she died). Amongst these children was Sean and Maddy's Great Great Grandmother, Pearl. We learned that Pearl had 15 brothers and sisters. Sean was most interested in how many siblings Pearl had. Maddy was most interested in finding her middle name throughout our family history. We discussed how names are sometimes passed down through families and found several names that have made their way through our family tree.

© Mama Dani's Musings

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The Beginning of Our 2014-2015 School Year

Monday was the beginning of this year's school year. Even with doing a little school over the summer, the kids were excited to get back into the swing of things. I plan on getting back into the swing of blogging our schooling. However, I will not be blogging everything we do.

This year Sean and Maddy will be learning science and history together and will be doing math and language arts separately. For science, we're using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, Life level 1. For history, we're using Story of the World, Vol. 1 Ancient Times. I would have preferred to find a completely secular history curriculum but I really like everything else about SOTW. We will skip a few chapters and use other resources to expand on the other chapters. World Religions is just a resource book I wanted to get. We want the kids to be knowledgeable about all religions. The nursery rhyme cards will be used for copy work to improve handwriting. Both will be using Singapore Math this year. Sean will continue with Explode the Code and Maddy will be trying Recipe for Reading for language arts. Sean will be reading the Magic Tree House books and using the reading comprehension book: Reading With the Magic Tree House

Mondays are our light days. They work on their handwriting and do art. Tuesdays and Thursdays are science and language arts. Wednesdays and Fridays are history and math. Monday's copywork was a version of the rhyme "Rain, Rain, Go Away" They then illustrated the rhyme. Maddy says that "Hpe" spells happy. ...not bad for a kindergartener. :)

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Kiddo Update

The last time I did update posts for the kids was in May of last year. The kids have done a lot of growing since then!

I'll start with Sean. Sean's still in soccer. He loves it! He has out grown soccer shots and will be starting in soccer club this spring. He's technically a kindergartner this year per the city but he's started on first grade level work. He's our reader. He's always amazing me on what he can read and reads anything he can get his hands on. He's also the caring one of the bunch. He's always looking out for others before himself.

Maddy... She's still in dance and absolutely loving it! She tried soccer last summer and winter but has chose to stick with  dance for now. Maddy isn't an official homeschooler yet but is doing preschool work. She loves her art as much as before but she's also really getting into math. Numbers just click with her. Many times on the way to dance she will make up addition problems and figure them out. She's still always at extremes when it comes to emotions but she's getting better about controlling her anger.

Emily... Our littlest munchkin is now 2 years old. At her last check up she was21 lbs 10.5 oz, 32.5in, and right about the 3rd percentile. She may be tiny but her personality is huge! She has a huge vocabulary and talks with such emotion! She's a little sponge too. She has learned about all of the colors and has started on letters now. Her favorite phrase right now is "what is this?" so there's no wonder why she's soaking it all in.

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March 18th - April 14th in Pictures

Wow, I'm behind! This should be a month worth of pictures but I forgot to take pictures about 10 of those days. Oops!! Some of the days will just be teaser pictures b/c I took a lot of pictures that day. Be on the look out for posts about Maddy's 4th birthday, Sean starting soccer and our eggs hatching. Hopefully it won't take me long to finish those posts.

Now, on with the show!

March 18th

Someone found a lost marker...

March 19th

First time doing a word search

March 21st

Homeschooling/homework/drawing

March 24th

We live near train tracks but it's very rare for a steam engine to go by so we went to watch.

March 26th

Sleepy baby

March 27th

Sean's first time at soccer!

March 30th

First butterfly sighting of the year!!

April 1st

First over wintered butterfly to be released.

Lunch on the porch on a beautiful day!

April 4th

More soccer

April 6th

Birthday party teaser

April 7th

It's not child labor when they want to do it, right?

April 8th

Loving the beautiful weather we're having!

April 9th

A surprise litter. Cottontail turned out to be Mopsy's brother, not sister. She had 9 kits. None made it. We'll try again soon...except Peter will be the daddy.

April 10th

It's too nice out to do school inside.

April 11th

Day 20: first pip (there will be more in a later post)

April 12th

Day 21: another pip (there will be more in a later post)

April 13th

Up to 5 chicks!

April 14th

Our last chick to hatch. It had a splayed leg. This picture is after a day of having it braced to the other leg. It still needs to be braced but the fact that it's standing on it's own is a big improvement.

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