8/6/13 school update day 12

Howdy, all of you who care what we do!  Thanks for stopping by.  We haven't blogged in a very long time so I thought we would do an update today.  It's rainy here.. that's an understatement.  There is thunderstorm rolling through and I sure hope it is all the way through by the time we go to speech in a little while.  Anywho!  Today we did school. We are on day 12 of our school year.  The kids were begging to start.   Big P has a job babysitting for a family so it's been different with her not around.  I guess at some point the 16 year old has to fly might as well be sooner than later.  right?
I had all intentions to buy My Father's World this year.  It was even in the shopping cart but, we did a total 360 and are doing something different.  We are using a lot of the Easy Peasy homeschool curriculum this year.  I have looked over a lot of it and we love it!
Little P, who is 7 and a very advanced reader doing the third grade material on the site and working from her Spectrum math book.  We are also using a lot of worksheets from Enchanted Learning for her as well since she loves busy work.    I will tell you what things we have done with the other ones later.

Today we learned about tall tales.  The kids loved the story of John Henry.  Here is the video they watched that kept buffering because our internet does not like storms.

It was a perfect video to watch on a stormy day with the kids.  It was also a great intro to our opening study of African American history.  We plan to spotlight at least one African American person per week for them so they can have a better grasp on their own history and that of their ancestors.  I am not following a specific curriculum so you will have to just check back and see who we learn about next.  

Of course Little P heard James Earl Jones on the clip and instantly said is that Simba's daddy?  

baha ha ha!  I got a kick out of that one from her!

Until I blog again.

Blessings,

Toni

Friday Blog Hop

Following You Like Me!  Friday Blog Hop today and hoping for a week of blogging.  

Week in review

Last week went by way to fast.  Lots of schoop, lots of work for me.  We got a little dusting of snow which was exciting until it melted a couple of hours later.  On Sunday we participated in The community Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. program.  The kids all enjoyed the program which included a drill team performance, selections by The MLK choir, a very moving key note speech by Ms.  Juanita Gambrill Floyd, and the presentation of the drum major award to Mr. Mack Turner.  The program was followed by a brief reception, after which we went and hung out with the local SCA group and watched some fighting, tended a fire, and had a conversation with friends about racoon parts and hunting.  Hope.this week turns out not as busy but, fun.  Untl my next post, have a good one. 

Time 4 Learning Review

A while back, I had the opportunity to review Time 4 Learning.  I actually was happy to be able to review this site because I have heard good things about it from other homeschool families.  The review came at a good time because we were spending some vacation time from our normal schoolwork anyway.   I tend to not be really big on kids spending a whole lot of time on the pc for games so my kids loved to be able to have two hours each per day set aside just for the Time 4 Learning site.  

The set-up was fairly simple.  I logged in, created a profile for each student which included which grade level I wanted them to study in, and chose the amount of time they should spend on each lesson or subject.  Each child got their own login id and had to log in on their own account.  I thought this was nice because it taught them a skill that they will need as they use further internet sites later in life.  

My youngest child, who is six, studied at three different grade levels since her math is on level, her reading well above, and her other subjects I wanted to keep the same as her older brother's so we could do projects or have discussions together in relation to what they learned.  She absolutely loved it.  She even has been asking me if she can spend time on Time 4 Learning even now that our trial is over.

  

My youngest son is eight and still has some challenges as it comes to reading.  Because I am the one who sets their levels, it was good for his self-esteem to not realize he was set at a lower level than his younger sister.  He really enjoyed the games that were really learning exercises.  I was able to log-in later and see what his scores were in what section and direct him to do exercises over. 

My sixth grader enjoyed using the site as well.  I asked him what he liked best and he said that it was all fun.  

My high-schooler, who is to old for the site because it only goes through eighth grade was seen looking over the shoulder of the younger kids as they worked on their work. She said she wishes that there was something for her age.   

I spent some time looking over the preschool portion and the other grade levels that the kids were not  enrolled in.  They seemed to be equally fun to look over and even more important they were very educational.  

In conclusion  I enjoyed the review of Time 4 Learning and will probably add it into our "school time" for this semester.  I will, however, only allow the kids one hour each on the site.  I still prefer them to do most of their learning with books and paper.  I tend to be a tad bit old-school on that one.  

Have a great weekend!

Toni

Naked egg and the rest of 1/9/13

Today was a normal homeschool day for us.  We started out at 5:30am which was terribly early for me because I spent a long time visiting a friend last night .  Little P and middle P both got up and did reading, social studies, spelling, language, and writing.  Little P finished her math quickly and headed back to bed but, the boys stayed up and played a computer game.  Big P stayed in bed and finished her studies while I was at work.  I got home late because I had a postpartum visit after I left work.  By the time I got in everyone had already ate dinner but, before the kiddos went to bed we read aloud more of the Phantom Tollbooth and Little P read There's a Wocket in my Pocket and finished our science project from yesterday.

The results Of The naked egg are in!  Tre' was the winner with an hypothesis that the shell would be soft.  The shell was pretty spongy to the touch and hard to bust amazingly.  It sort of had the same consistency as a balloon.  The experiment was pretty neat! Before we busted it open we measured.   It opened up a conversation about membranes for the little ones and we watched a couple of youtube videos of other experiments with the naked egg.  Big P and Tre' and I had a conversation about diffusion and osmosis, hypertonic vs. hypotonic solutions, and permeable and semi-permeable membranes.

I used gloves on this one because I didn't want vinegary hands.  The discoloration of the liquid and the end product of the egg are brown because I used apple cider vinegar instead of regular white vinegar because it's what I had in the cabinet.  Well, I'm off to bed,  I'm so sleepy.  I hope your day was great!  I'm ready to get ready for another one tomorrow.

School and Elvis' 78th Birthday Celebration

We finished school early yesterday morning and headed to The birthplace for Elvis' 78th birthday celebration. It's just kind of hard to be in Tupelo and not catch a little Elvis craziness!  We had cake with other Elvis fans, toured the birth pace and museum for free (yay!), watched a short film and a great performance by the Tupelo Unity Choir.   I even saw myself in the local paper in one of the pictures.  (I had not the slightest clue I was in the shot)

The theater entrance at the Birthplace Museum is complete with a headliner.  

Tupelo Diversity and Unity Choir

Couldn't get everybody looking in the same direction.  I think they were thinking about cake.  :)

Until my next update, have a great day!

School Update 1/7/13

Wow, we have been out of "school" way too long.  I think it's been about a month.  Somehow right after Thanksgiving we just never got back to it.  Before I looked up it was the holidays.  Whew, it's crazy jumping back in!  Trying to get back into the groove seems to be hard for both me and the kids.  As soon as we hit the table we dove right back in.  Today was refresher day especially for Precious who is in Algebra 2.  They have all be reading and writing during our no school days so that was good.  Everybody finished three math lessons a piece today and all of their other studies.  I think it was a good day overall.  We even got an experiment started.  We are doing the naked egg experiment.  I didn't have  any regular vinegar so we ended up using apple cider vinegar instead.  Everybody made a hypothesis, even Daddy, to see what the egg would look like tomorrow.  So stay tuned to see what happens next.  We are discussing food and where we get ours from and reducing our carbon imprint and homesteading.   On netflix we have watched and discussed a lot of shows on the subject.  Today we watched No Impact Man.

It was a very good documentary.  I really enjoyed it and so did all of the kids.  We discussed what little things we could do to reduce our own impact.  The kids really like eating local.  We already get milk, eggs, and a lot of our vegetables locally.  The kids decided that we would pick a new habit once per month and see if it is something we can stick with and they will do a project to see what the impact could possibly be. What is one thing you could do to increase your impact?  

More news on the Hill front is that.  PJ got braces!  He is super excited about it and you can already see a difference in his smile.  Until next time.  Have a great one!