'13/14 Week 12 Day 4

The cold hit us like a sledgehammer with no mercy. It messed up our school schedule, our Thanksgiving preparations, slowed down everything else, and filled our counter top with plenty of bottles with colorful medicines. 

As soon as the fever relented and my voice could hold it, we started reading books and caught up with Read Alouds and Reading Comprehension. Today, we were able to catch up with the rest of the subjects as well. 

I am not happy that our Thanksgiving week has been spoiled by sickness, but I am thankful we are still on schedule. And that we are getting better and will be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with lots of family.

'13/14 Week 12 Day 3

Today will go down in the history as the Big Storybook Day. Yesterday, we brought home from the library a few audiobooks on CDs. I popped one of them in right after our Bible reading in the morning to fill the time for the kids while I was getting all the manipulatives ready for the kids' math lessons. And that was all they wanted during break times - more stories. 
One of the CDs was 'The Arabian Nights'. Although both children have heard a story or two from it before, they had never been presented with the whole proper 'package', i.e. Shahrazad as the story teller and how she saved her life. They are already asking me to borrow (or even better, to buy) the book with all of the 1001 stories. One story every night ... that makes a bit over two and a half years before the book is finished. 
The children are always looking forward to the Read Alouds and the reading comprehension stories. They themselves want to read their own reading practice books as well. One fun thing the kids (especially Saara) do whenever I am reading poetry ("The Oxford Book of Children's Poetry" at the moment), is that they make sound effects or act out the story line. An example of active listening. Literally.

History. I asked the kids to copy a mirror image of a castle. It turned out to be quite challenging.

LA. Our phonics lessons have been rather loud with Andrew and Saara sounding out various vowels. At times it is rather hilarious.

'13/14 Week 12 Day 2

The ballet and library day. Lots of hard work. Nothing spectacular. 

Andrew is learning about the Medieval times of castles and nights. One chapter we read today was about the Medieval towns. I brought out photos we took a couple of years ago when we visited one of them. Here are some, pretty awesome ones.

The side view of the town hall.

The main square/market place of the town in front of the town hall.

The cobblestone streets.

The Old Town Tallinn.

Not just a weather vane. The rooster - a symbol of constant alertness for Christians is on the steeples on many churches in Estonia.

The gate towers into town.

The protective town wall.

A narrow street called the Short Leg.

13/14 Week 12 Day 1

After an eventful week end we had a busy Monday morning. So busy, I did not have time to grab the camera. I wish, I had. 
The kids enjoyed their civics class tremendously. We moved on to learning about some important figures in the history and culture of the US. Of course, we started off with Mt Rushmore as it is also a symbol of the US. We made use of the Google Maps to figure out where it is located in South Dakota and how far it is from where we live. We read about the history and a few facts about the monument. The kids wanted to know how big are the noses of the four heads there. So, out came the rulers and we measured out 20 feet. Those are some BIG noses indeed.

2013 Field Trips: George Bush Presidential Library and Museum

We have visited the museum before a couple of times. It is one of our favorite places. Children love the Barbara Bush's children's literacy room with all the books and a mini White House. Dad, being a veteran, revisits the Desert Storm room. I look at a lot of stuff, but the section about the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War comes pretty close. 
This time, we had our sights set mainly on the things related to the White House as it was one of the US symbols we covered in our civics lessons. I believe, Andrew and Saara understood the things they were looking at a bit better as well. And, of course, there was so much more to look at and try out.

Entering the White House.

Through the windows we could peek into (and move around) the different rooms in the White House.

Andrew standing on his tiptoes barely visible.

In the Oval Office.

In the White House.

A future educator? She surely was checking something out on the screen.

2013 Field Trips: College Station: A Community History.

The town next door is turning 75 years old. To celebrate its history, an exhibition was opened at the presidential museum. It was a nicely organized room where information about the city was presented in an inviting, interesting, and friendly way. Andrew and Saara had plenty to look at and take in.

We got to the museum a little early, so Saara and I took a nice walk on the grounds before going in.

All stickered up for the admission.

There was a lot to see. The organizers had clearly thought of children and had included some exhibit-activities for them as well. Here Andrew and Saara are looking for hidden objects.

In the beginning there was the station for the college.

Andrew found this old-time school desk to be really cool.

I learned to type on one of these. For Andrew and Saara it is just an artifact. The early days of the city's newspaper.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 4

This morning, we finished reading "The Family Under the Bridge" by Natalie Savage Carlson. The last words were "The End" and I closed the book. Saara looked at me and asked: "Mom, why did you say 'the end'?" "Because the story ended." "But I do not want the story to end!" This sounded better than the prettiest music to my ears. I smiled and asked them both, what they thought happened next in the lives of the characters. This way the farewell to Armand and the Calcet family gave my kids a little comfort. It is a cute story, although the French names got my tongue in knots. :)

Saara's science. Saara moved from cells on to different categories of animals. After reading, we came outside to take a survey of the animals around our house. The reptiles were the first ones we spotted.

Andrew on the lookout for some animals.

"Mom, how do you spell 'dragonfly'?"

Just one of many insects we met during the survey.

We had to use breadcrumbs to attract the fish and bring them closer to where we were standing.

This was the most perfect ending to our survey: after spotting just a few distant crows, Andrew pointed up and yelled: "Mom, look!" Absolutely gorgeous. At first, I thought they were some sort of cranes, but afterwards Andrew brought out the bird book he had borrowed from the library and we identified them as the Snow Geese.

Back inside, we categorized all the animals we had seen.

Andrew's science. Andrew's science video was about the uniqueness of our skin. The stretchiness of it made a 'caterpillar' move.

The kids also learned how one-of-a-kind they are by comparing their fingerprints.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 3

A frosty sunrise lured us out of doors to check out the magical world of frozen grass. It does not happen every day around here.

This is as close as we get to making tracks in the snow.

 Good grief! :) The minutes dragged on like cold molasses. This is one of those days when the teacher has prepared an awesome day of studying and watching and experimenting and what not. The students, however, are acting like they partied all night and can not get their eyes nor ears focused on much. 

Well, you roll with the punches. Yes, it was a slow paced school day, but we still gnawed our way through the subjects, and not with unhappy faces. I have to review a lot tomorrow, though. Just to make sure what we covered today stuck with them.

Science. Saara started a new theme in her science class: living things. Today, we looked at the cells on video.

... and under the microscope. Our whole house smelled like onions after this experiment.

 

LA. Working through our phonics. Today: soft and hard 'g' sound. Andrew and Saara are more or less on the same level when it comes to reading. So, they do part of their LA class together.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 2

The sure signs of holidays approaching are here: dates are set for concerts and performances. There are only a few practices left of Saara's ballet and both kids' choir and hand bells. 

At home, things are going not as festive yet. It is all rather hard work. The 'painful' subtraction and addition drills are paying off in a major way - Andrew hardly ever uses his fingers now to figure out the differences or sums. It all happens in the head.

I have started to see some progress in his writing as well. All the spelling practices, phonics lessons, grammar rules, etc. we have been through, are starting to yield better writing results. Thank God.

'13/14 Week 11 Day 1

Today was Veterans Day. Dad's holiday. Him being a veteran and all. It was good to have him home while we were doing school. The civics class was extra special as Dad got to hear the kids say the Pledge and sing the national anthem. 
We have had a good time learning about some US symbols. Now, we are ready to move on. As a cherry on the cake, we concluded our symbols studies today by putting together a 3D puzzle of the White House. It was not as easy as it looked.

'13/14 Week 10 Day 4

Andrew's Language Arts class took much longer than I had expected. We took a deeper dive into spelling practice and the rules for capitalizing sentences, names, and titles. Because all of that, we postponed our Science class till Saturday. The rest of the day went as usual. 

Talking about Science. We finally got some flower bulbs for examining a bit closer and for some science experiments. We reviewed the lesson about getting new plants from old ones and started an experiment with carrots. It is going to be interesting to see it it really works.

Bible. Story about how Joshua got tricked by some Canaanites.

Science. Saara's experiment with bulbs. All they need for growing is water and sun light.

Growing plants from kitchen scraps. The new experiment with plants is sitting on top of an earlier one (the garden that does not need watering. Surprisingly, the plants we stuck in the container more than a month ago are still doing well.)

'13/14 Week 10 Day 3

Math test # 4 for Andrew today. He did much better time wise, but got a bit careless about his additions and ended up with a B. Not bad, still. 
Saara was feeling left out and wanted to know why she does not have any tests. Not in Kindergarten. Not yet. 

A fun moment from today: Saara is learning about the clothing of the people during the Medieval times and Renaissance. She was trying to explain to Andrew what a 'corset' was. It was hilarious to watch her demonstrate how the ladies sucked in their tummies and how they could not breathe. Last night I watched the first part of "Gone With the Wind" and rewound the movie back to the scene where Scarlett O'Hara was getting ready for a barbeque party.  It fit perfectly with Saara's description. 

Today, after all this rain, it finally cleared up somewhat and we took a trip to the library. I took home a number of books about Shakespeare I can not wait to share with the kids. I think, they will enjoy listening to them.

'13/14 Week 10 Day 2

This morning, Saara was still a tad too sick to go to her ballet class. We decided to stay home and have a full day (not a shortened day) of school work. It was a pleasant day - one of those when kids have great attitudes and go along with everything I have planned. Thankful.

We finished our day with an art class. Last night I lost myself surfing on the websites of different art galleries looking for paintings depicting the four seasons and various weather conditions. There is so much beauty out there.

So, this afternoon we looked at the paintings and discussed mainly the colors the artists had used to show the different weather conditions or seasons. Then, I had them draw and paint their own pictures of the four seasons. 
We also practiced using different size brushes for different painting tasks, i.e. smaller brush for details and bigger brush for covering bigger areas. The kids had fun and love their little art exhibition.

Math. Money. Telling time.

The children traced their hand on a piece of paper and used the drawing as a tree trunk. Andrew loved mixing colors. We did not have a gray color in the bunch, so we mixed dark blue and brown and a tab of white. It made a prettiest gray ever.

Andrew and Saara learned to use different size brushes to achieve the best results.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter.