'13/14 Week 40 Day 2

It was a quick and easy day. Andrew is nearing the end of his history/geography program. He has been exposed to a lot of new facts, names, and events. I could barely expect him to remember each one of them, but at least he has a reference point now. We can always revisit the lessons to refresh our memory. Many movies and books about people or events in history will make more sense, I am sure.

'13/14 Week 39 Day 1

We were slow-moving this morning, but that was OK. Andrew's focus was sharp, and he got done with his tasks in time and well. His ears were tuned in in history class, and he remembered well our lesson on WWI from yesterday. Excellent!

The other day it was rather windy. We tried to get our kites off the ground. It was fun until the wind died down suddenly.

'13/14 Week 38 Day 5

100 years ago, on June 28, 1914, "a young man who lived in Serbia shot an Austrian prince". That is what Andrew's history chapter said today. What a timing to learn about World War I. Because the war was so crucial for the Estonian nation, within the framework of the lesson, I told the story of the Estonian declaration of independence, and the war for freedom that followed. 

The fun part of the school day, was, of course, Andrew's science class where we learned why one bad bulb can spoil the whole strand of Christmas lights.

Science. Andrew building a series circuit.

Rather dim series.

After building a parallel circuit the lights brightened up, and one bulb still kept on working when the other was screwed out.

Our parallel circuit owl. Lights on ...

... lights off.

 

'13/14 Week 38 Day 4

Yesterday ended up being a day of stories. Lots of them, plus a visit to the library from where we brought home even more stories. Somewhere in between all this reading fun, we managed to fit a math lesson as well. Although we worked hard, I did not count the day as a full school day.

LA. Saara counting the grains of rice just like in the story.

Math. Andrew learned how to mark and read coordinates on a grid. This lead to another lesson: how to play the battleship. The old-fashioned way.

 Ten. This is the number of school days left after today. I can not believe we are so close to the end. Saara finished her math program today, and she is already pouting to have more math lessons. I guess, I will be printing out worksheets from education.com. 

Bible. This was completely out of the blue. Andrew's memory verse was set to a lively cha-cha tune, and I could not resist teaching the kids just a few basic steps. I am not into cha-cha nor rumba nor any other Latin dances, but it never hurts to know. Besides, even the basic steps provide a very good exercise.

Math. Saara working on her very last page of Kindergarten math.

Done!

History. Ingrid Bergman as Gladys Aylward.

'13/14 Week 38 Day 3

It rained cats and dogs today. Every dent in the ground is full of water and, from what I heard, it flooded some streets in town. There was no way I would have ventured to the library today. Not in this flash-flood weather. 

Thankfully, there was enough (school work) to do inside. And, if we happen to have enough time tonight, we might start watching "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with Ingrid Bergman. It's a film version of the life of Gladys Aylward, a missionary to China. We are almost through reading a book about her life. Totally amazing story.

Math. So, does mom drink coffee by gallons or cups?

LA. Phonics/spelling. We are sounding out and learning some tricky vowel pairs.

'13/14 Week 38 Day 1

After a week end of pure fun for the children, I was not surprised at all that they had a hard time focusing on school. At times, it was challenging, but we did not give up and completed our daily tasks. Thankfully, not without joy. 

The Field of Dreams. Saara and Andrew donned their River Cat uniforms one last time to participate in the Field of Dreams, an opportunity for children to run onto the field with the Bombers players before the game. Here's Saara # 10.

Andrew # 6.

Geography. Andrew testing his knowledge of the states. He has learned the names and locations of almost all of them.

'13/14 Week 32 Day 4

A rainy day. Finally! Part of me is very thankful for the much-needed rain. The other part is sad because Andrew's game was cancelled. 

None of the above had any effect on our school day. In math, Andrew moved on to memorizing multiplication with 4. In LA, we learned and practiced commas in compound sentences. 

Our longest class was history. We took a break from wars and conflicts. For almost an hour we read and listened to some of the greatest composes who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. The kids recognized a couple of pieces ("The Little Night Music", "The Ode to Joy"), and now they also learned who wrote this magnificent music. 

The surprise of the day: Andrew was sitting so still and listened intently to a Gregorian chant (St. John the Baptist) I played to them. I like them too. A lot.

Math. She is a shopper. She needs to learn how to count money. :)

I love this moment: chubby fingers figuring out the answers to problems.

'13/14 Week 32 Day 2

It was good to see the kids have such a blast the entire school day. In the morning, we read the story about Jesus calming the storm. Of course, we had to build a 'boat' of our own with 'real' wind and all. Later, the 'boat' became a pirate ship and even a plane.

Andrew's science lesson was about the history of hot-air and helium balloons. At the end of the class, I just had to fill some balloons with helium and let them play. They carried the balloons around their wrists till the end of the school day. And longer.

Outside, Dad was greeted back home with a demonstration of the battle of 'Watermelon'. Andrew knows the right name for last Napoleonic war, but likes to call it by the funny name. 

A good day. Now, we are getting ready for the baseball games tonight.

Bible. Our 'boat' with 'Jesus' sleeping and the disciples in dare peril.

Science. After watching a short movie on the history of hot-air balloons, Andrew was able to explain how both types of balloons (helium filled and hot-air) are able to rise.

LA. Some serious work amidst all the fun. Saara learning to classify/categorize/group.

'13/14 Week 32 Day 1

Last week was a terrible one. All four of us were sick. Schoolwork was out of the question even when the children started to feel a little better. The teacher was missing her voice and, thus, no reading or teaching could be done even with a megaphone. 
We are on the mend now. Although not completely out of the woods yet, we are well enough to continue our studies.

Bible. Andrew was feeling poorly last week, but still wanted to be a part of our Bible reading time. We were reading the story of the sower and planted seeds in three kinds of soil (I am doubtful, any of the seeds will sprout).  This was our last class and activity. It became very obvious that the kids were coming down with a cold and our school work had to be put on hold.

We got better over the week end and on Sunday ventured out to do some dewberry picking. We needed some vitamins.

History. Andrew finding out how tall Napoleon was.

We are back in the saddle. The kids were doing well. I needed some breaks because my voice is not that strong yet.

All in all, our first day after the sick days was good. We lost some time, but, again, that's why I like to homeschool - we did not lose any school days. 

'13/14 Week 31 Day 1

As the kids and I sat down with our calendars this morning, we saw that the week ahead will be very busy. Our day today was very busy. By some miracle, we managed to cover all the subjects today. The best part of it was -  we had fun doing it. 

In history, I decided to postpone learning about the French Revolution (the next chapter) until Andrew understands and is able retell the course of the American Revolutionary War. For this purpose, I drew a map with lots of stick figures and arrows, etc. on the white board. Andrew thought, it was fun and it clearly made it easier for him to remember the names and the order of events.
 

Bible. The story of Jesus resurrecting a poor widow's son.

 In science, Saara learned about how things expand in heat and how they contract in cold. Our experiment with cooling down air in the bottle worked beautifully. The opposite - heating the air in the bottle - did work, but not as well.

'13/14 Week 30 Day 5

A very busy day for a Saturday. Our main focus was on Andrew's history lesson. It was rather long and involved a lot of new names. The birth of the US was what we read about. Thanks to our civic studies, Andrew had a general idea of the Revolutionary War. It was easy to build on this foundation and add more names and facts.

Math. Andrew describing each shape.

A nice end to a busy week. A water-party at the neighbor's house.

'13/14 Week 29 Day 1

Friday of last week ended up being our catch-up day. The next day was Little League's opening day and we, as parents and coaches, had many last minute things to take care of. 

History. Andrew entered the Seven Years War. A lot was going on in many places and it was a rather big chapter to digest.

Science. Revisiting the rainbow with the help of the Magic School Bus.

LA. Somehow our journey along the yellow brick road is going rather fast. Saara retelling me today's chapter.

The Opening Day mayhem. Just a glimpse at the photo shoot in the morning.

New week has begun with lots of activities. Baseball will, of course, dominate, but we will also have Saara's ballet and the kids will finish their choir season with a concert on Friday. 

Today, for Andrew the BIG thing happened in math where he moved on to solving equation problems, i.e. finding the missing variant 'n' in an addition problem. 

Andrew also had a intense review of the Seven Years War and the French Indian Wars in America. Things get more and more exciting as we get closer to our time.

Bible. We started tracking all the 12 disciples - when and who started following Jesus.

LA. The "Oz" characters reached the field of poppies. Saara made a field of her own.

During the breaks, the kids practiced hard for a magic show that they gave at the end of the school day. It was hilarious.

'13/14 Week 27 Day 3

What an intense day! But a good one.

In science, I and Saara read about what science is and what it does and how scientists work. I asked her to name things that would not be in our house if scientists had not made it happen. Well, we pretty much 'stripped' our rooms down to the pioneer era level.

Andrew, using one of the blessings science and technology has brought to our house - the computer, was taking a closer look at the hurricanes. We watched some footage of Katrina and Andrew. But most importantly, we talked about what we should do if severe weather threatened our region. 

Another BIG subject with Andrew was Peter the Great in history. Because Peter won the Nordic War with Sweden, Estonia became part of the Russian Empire. In fact, one of the most famous battles of the war was fought at Narva, Estonia. 
In Tallinn, Peter also bought and renovated a cottage for his wife Catharine I. It is now a museum. So, besides talking about the man and his achievements in Russia, I was able to touch upon some facts in the Estonian history as well. Cool!

Science. Andrew watching how Katrina formed. The teddy bear in his lap was given to him (as a baby shower gift, for Andrew had not been born yet)  by a sweet family from Louisiana who had evacuated and lived next door at the time.

This is what Saara occupied herself with while I and Andrew were getting to know Peter I.

'13/14 Week 26 Day 3

The days are getting busier and the nights longer. Baseball season means less playtime after school. It also means that there is no time to read books in the evenings. So, today I started reading to the kids during the day and had them read their pages between classes. It worked beautifully. 

We started our day out by checking on Andrew's science experiment in the freezer. He has been learning about weather, frost, ice, etc. In the science video we watched about snow and ice, the rising ice experiment did not work. Ours did. Just barely, but it did and Andrew gave a correct explanation why the ice came out of the bottle.
Saara's science class turned into a whole morning long game the kids played during break times. I wanted to make sure Saara understood the role neurons play in our bodies. So, I set up yarn lines from all the five senses (represented by drawings) to a 'bowlbrain'. Saara had the neurons or green construction paper rings 'bring' the messages to the 'bowlbrain'. Then she randomly picked a picture card from the bowl and we discussed whether we can use all the five senses to perceive the object. The kids did not stop until the bowl was empty and all the cards gone.

History. Andrew and Saara do not remember me taking this photo at Cape Henry in Virginia, but I am still so glad I took it. The monument commemorates the people who landed at Cape Henry in 1607 and started the first permanent settlement in Jamestown. The story of captain John Smith and Pocahontas, in other words. Stuff that Andrew is learning at the moment.

Science. See, the ice crawled out of the bottle.

Andrew and Saara preparing Saara' science demonstration about neurons.

Saara bringing a neuron to the bowlbrain.

Fish was one of the few things that engaged all the senses. Note the pile of laundry in the background - the kids thought it was fun to sort it into piles. That is funny.

LA. For Saara's reading practice, I borrowed a children's poetry book. She is loving it. For her vocabulary learning and reading comprehension, we started reading "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". I found a number of Oz paper dolls on Pinterest. And there's so much more Oz stuff out there. Looks like reading the book is going to be loads of fun.

'13/14 Week 25 Day 2

Saara's math class ringed with the sound of coins today. I have been using real money instead of play one when I can, and I had been saving up coins for occasions like this. Saara laid out $1 value in all the coins except the Half Dollar one. I have never seen one myself. Do they still have them around?

Andrew is doing a superb job learning the Roman numerals. Truth be told, I am learning the latter part of the Ls and Ds and Ms together with him. 

In history, Andrew's reading was about the Elizabethan age. After our schoolwork was done, we watched another old movie set in this time period. "Sea Hawk" with Errol Flynn included a lot of the signs of the time: the Spanish colonizing the Americas, the Spanish gathering their Armada to attack England, and, of course, the Good Queen Bess with her elaborate Tudor outfits. 
We also read a midget about Shakespeare in Andrew's book. I have "Midsummer Night's Dream" recorded and ready for watching as soon as the weather turns cold and rainy as they promise it will.

Math. $1 in whichever way.

Our lunch break guest.