'13/14 Week 10 Day 1

LA. We have been busy practicing long and short vowel sounds.

A rather blue Monday. For the kids. 

I thought, it was very cheery and, full of energy, I dove into today's lessons, only to be greeted with lots of yawns. This is going to be interesting, I thought. 

Actually, everything turned out very well. By the end of the school day, both kids were so alert and attentive that during the reading comprehension lesson, they surprised me with their very accurate answers to the questions about the story I asked them.

Terrific. Blue has always been my favorite color.

'13/14 Week 9 Day 5

The morning brought a cute little duck into our pond. It messed up the kids' breakfast because all they wanted to do, was to press their foreheads against windowpanes and watch the duck. It was an adorable one, I must admit.

I should say that our Bible play we did in the morning messed up the rest of the school day. :) Andrew and Saara had so much fun, that all they wanted to do afterwards was to play and play and play. I went with the flow. That is, I turned on a bit more relaxed version of teaching. For instance, I had planned no videos to go with Saara's science class today. But after reading her book, we all gathered around the computer to find clips about the birds we had just read about. 

All these extra activities threatened to stretch our day much longer, so I decided to postpone some classes till tomorrow. In other words, no escaping from school work even on Saturdays.

Bible. The spies checking out Jericho and talking to Rahab.

The spies hiding up in Rahab's roof while the soldiers are searching her house.

The red sign that saved Rahab and her family.

Science. Did you know that the weaver bird could tie a knot?

LA. Storytelling. Using three cowboy hats, Saara is helping me retell the story of the Three Bears and Goldilocks.

'13/14 Week 9 Day 4

The rain finally stopped and we took off to check the damage of last night's storm as soon as our school day was over. 
We had not been on a nature walk in a long time. As soon as we had taken just a few steps, we heard a slithering sound in the grass and sighted the dark ribbony figure slipping into the pond (thankfully a few good yards away from us). It reminded us that nature is not hibernating yet and we need to be careful. I am so thankful for dogs who always accompany us whenever we venture out and about. 

Because of that and the rushing flood waters in the creek, we were not tempted to go far and deep. Still, even our short stroll gave us a number of pretty surprises. 

We concluded our walk by picking up fallen branches to build a bonfire later.

"Mom, look - I am Samson!"

'13/14 Week 9 Day 3

I thought, it was a quiet day. 
Well, at least, until I turned the computers over to the kids to explore the SFS Kids website on their own. The Music Appreciation was our last class. We reviewed briefly all the things we had learned so far. I read a short story from Ventura's book "Great Composers" that talked about the melody, rhythm, and harmony of music. The SFS Kids website echoed the subject and both kids had a blast experimenting with different harmonies and composing their own melodies.

Bible. The morning Bible story was about Balaam and his talking donkey.

Math. Tens and ones - making some things in math visual and tangible.

Science. Andrew continues his studies of the human body. Our brain has been the subject for the past few days. Here Andrew and Saara are checking each others' reaction speed.

The SFS Kids website is an awesome interactive place for some basic knowledge about music.

'13/14 Week 9 Day 2

This has been the most productive Tuesday ever! I am trying to always stay realistic and not expect too much from a day when we spend the better part of the morning in town for Saara's ballet class and then library. 
Today, however, there must have been more than 60 seconds in each minute because we took our time and did some extra-curricula things, and still wrapped up our day at our usual quitting time.

Andrew was very excited to be done with all of his math and have no homework.

Bible. The story of the brass serpent. The Isrealites complained again and were punished with an invasion of venomous snakes.

But everyone who was bitten by a snake was healed when they looked at the brass snake Moses erected in the middle of the camp. Our versatile stuffed viperwas not as fancy, but I do not think he minded the mop handle very much.

Science. Saara has been learning about water, how it shapes coastlines and makes caves. We looked at the photos from a month ago from our own cave tour in West Virginia. I asked Saara to give me a small summary of her trip to the cave. I wrote it down and asked her to draw a picture of her favorite part of the tour.

She said, she liked everything in the cave, but at the end of the day a pool with some fish in it won. Here's a picture of the pool, the hand rail and her wearing a helmet.

 

 I was so thankful to be able to borrow this book from the library. For weeks now, we have been reading and learning about some symbols of the US. This book fit our studies perfectly. I find it very useful, so much, that I am determined to to find a copy for our own library.

'13/14 Week 9 Day 1

The weather outside is still warm and far from being fall-like, i.e. chilly. We have barely had any reason to put on long sleeves yet. Still, fall activities are full underway. Last week end saw us carving pumpkins and baking up a storm of pumpkin goodies and - of course - our community's hayride that is always a fun one. We have so much candy to consume now!

Back in the classroom, the schoolwork was done well and efficiently, although one subject dragged itself into a homework after school hours. Andrew does not have as much hands-on math activities as he had last year. Most, if not all, of his math lessons are written tasks. He does a great job completing the lessons, but we need to speed things up a bit. Individual work we do not have time to cover during the day, Andrew has to tackle after all other schoolwork is done. That has become his homework. 

Bible. We started our morning with the story of Aaron's rod budding. Last storm shook down some big branches and one of them became handy for today's craft.

LA. Saara (and Andrew too) have been going over letter sounds, short and long vowels, and some word families. Saara finishing up words by adding a final letter.

'13/14 Week 8 Day 4

The kids and I spent the whole morning at the dentist office. I used the rest of the school day to catch up with subjects we have fallen behind a bit. And I am happy to announce - we are all caught up now!