The good

Just after I posted yesterday, I read a post from one of my face homeschool blogs...the post was about combatting end of the year blues ;)hmmmm..... Face palm! Okay so here goes. One of the suggestions was to focus on what you DID accomplish.

T finished 2 grades of science
T finished 2 grades of history
T is completely caught up on math
T aced all 4 of her oaks tests (state standards, reading, math, science & social studies)
T went from 4th grade language arts to finishing up 6th grade
T will be skipping 6th grade & starting jr high in the fall
T learned to play guitar & piano

L finished 1st & 2ng grade math, she is half way thourgh 3rd grade
L has learned a large # of site words mostly on her own
L has a huge drive to learn to reading & is practicing daily on short vowels
L has learned cursive
L has learned to use a computer & the Internet
L has learned to follow simple recipes and bake
L is taking a jr high- high school art class & doing very well

C has finished 2nd grade math & is half way through 3rd grade
C could not read @ the beginning of the year, he now read around a 6th or 7th grade level & is reading his first novel
C can spell like a madman, currently working @ 7th grade level
C is doing 5th grade vocabulary
C will be skipping 3rd grade & going to 4th in the fall
C is taking a jr high-high school drawing class & doing very well
C enjoys reading to his younger siblings

S has finished 1 grade math & is half way through 2nd grade
S is learning sight words
S has mastered short vowel sounds and some long vowel sounds
S has learned to use a computer and educational websites
S no longer cries at the thought of doing school ;)
S has taken responsibility for her chores & school work

B has finished 1st grade math & is half way through 2nd grade
B could not read in september, he is now reading chapter books. About 3rd grade level
B has started a spelling program & is doing well
B has learned to use a computer & educational websites
B is very motivated, quick and efficient with his daily school work
B will be skipping 2rd grade & starting 3rd in the fall

a down day

Today seemed like a good day for the kids to have some "down" time. They are pretty cranky as we have had a long week and an even longer weekend, with a busy day ahead tomorrow. {C being awake at 3am laying on the bathroom floor complaining of cramps helped make the decision for me....he is fine tho} Its amazing how quickly they all finished their math assignments after learning it was the only required work today :)

The school year is almost over, kinda hard to believe. We accomplished way more than I ever imagined. And of course there are things I wish we would have got to...well maybe next year. I battled through the year, trying so hard to keep from using outside help with the girls and their learning. I have finally caved, and we are working on speech therapy for both of them. S completely bombed the hearing screening at the speech eval....ah, she is 8 and I never noticed that she couldn't hear me.... complete mom fail. I talked to her about it, yep she can't hear me... but kept it to herself because "I don't want a hearing aid". Well, want one or not, we are going to the audiologist. Hopefully its an easy fix, and hopefully it will  help her understanding of phonics some, when she can really hear them :) We have been through a lot of curriculum this year, hoping to find something that works for the girls. In fact I am currently waiting for the latest to show up....Hopefully this is the one. They have changed teachers, she has great experience working with their disabilities, so lets hope she picked out a book that will help. Poor L wants to read so badly, she tries so hard. This year has given me some great insights to the girls and their personalities. Before this year I really thought S was just being stubborn and rotten most of the time (well she is pretty stubborn) but now the reasons why she behaved this way during school make so much more sense. As the year comes to an end, I am sad that the kids didn't enjoy it as much as they could have. At the beginning of the year I did a much better job keep things fun for them. But the more we got going, and the more layers we peeled off the girls problems, the more over whelmed I became. I just had time to do the necessary stuff. I am going to try and plan some fun stuff to do before the year is over. Go out on a good note, hopefully.

still here.....

It seems that life has got in the way of blogging. School has taken on a steeper slope....lots more work and much less "fun stuff". I have been focusing on moving the kids forward, and lacking in History and Science. I feel so stuck in the reading area with my two daughters. I know that they have made huge improvements, and are working hard to overcome their disabilities....but I always feel like I am just not trying hard enough and am failing them. I don't want them to hate learning, through all of the struggles. As Lizzie gets older it just breaks my heart to see other kids tease her about her reading, even close friends that shouldn't be treating her in such a way. I know that God has a plan for this, and we will get through it! Its hard to see the improvements made when working closely with them on a daily basis, I am very glad that my mom was able to see improvement in both girls.  The other 3 kids are moving forward quickly, PTL. I am so proud of all my kids and the work that they have done so far this year.

Some of their accomplishments:

L has started 3 grade math, finishing both 1st and 2nd grade since September
B is finishing 1st grade math in just over half a year and is ready to start 2nd
S is finishing 1st grade math in just over half a year and is ready to start 2nd
C is finishing 2nd grade math in just over half a year and is ready to start 3rd
T has almost finished 5th grade math, and is testing in a 6th grade math level
L and S both learned 20 sight words in a week, and could spell almost all of them
B couldn't read in September, he is now testing at almost 2nd grade level, and improving daily
C couldn't read in September and is testing now at 5th grade level....um wow!
C is also show a great aptitude for spelling
T started the school year at a 5th grade reading level and is now testing at 9th grade level :)
T is on course to finish both 5th and 6th grade this year, starting 7th grade in the fall
T is showing responsibility by rising at 5:30am to do her school work while the house is quite
B is on course to finish both 1st and 2nd grade this year, starting 3rd grade in the fall
C is on course to finish both 2nd and 3rd grade this year, starting 4th grade in the fall

I know that my kids should never be measured by their academic strides, but as their teacher some times I need to remind myself that we are indeed moving forward and that all their hard work is paying off!

give away!!!

Check out Raising Olives......they are giving away 2 copies of Large family logistics.

The main points of this book:

Problem Solving How-Tos Include:

• Fit it All in a Day
• Take Control of Clutter
• Conquer the Laundry Monster
• Homeschool a Large Family
• Manage Your Family's Expenses
• Train Older Children to Help Younger Children
• Achieve Good Physical Health
• And Much More!

Volcano Madness

We studied Venus last week with Apologia, so we created a "volcano". The point of the volcano wasn't for it to blow up, but for us to study lava flow.  

getting ready:) 

the official Lava pour-er!

and one melty volcano!

the flour made a great stand in for the dusty surface of Venus, and melted butter cut through the "dust" just like hot lava. :) 

Where happy little Bluebirds Fly...♥ and so can I ♥

Remember this book from last weeks read alouds? Well we read it but didn't get a chance to do much with it, so I kept it for this week. We re-read the book and studied the amazing illustrations. While listening to the cd of music included with the book, the kids painted rainbows. They were told to mimic the painting style used in the book, I think they did a great job! 

The Art Gallery

by S

by B

by C

by T

by L

they all picked out their favorite aspects of the illustrations to use.  Bright bold rainbows on teal skys, glittery stars, smiling moons, soaring bluebirds and wispy clouds.

the Artists hard at work:

if we have time later today we will be painting with watercolors, for our book The Odious Ogre

for the ♥ of reading

real quick, just a few of the awesome books we found at the library to read together this week

remember to read to your kids this week, even the ones that can read to themselves :) 

Asteroid Madness

My poor blog has been neglected this week, but I promise the midgets and their homeschooling has not :)

Just finished studying Mercury, and of course we needed to do an experiment.....

We recreated the craters on Mercury with pans of flours (the surface of Mercury is covered in thick dust), using rocks and balls as asteroids. Not sure what the educational value of this was......we did compare the size and shape of craters made. But anywho....they enjoyed it and hopefully it helped cement some "Mercury Facts" into their brains :) 

the Crater throwers ready to fire....

 craters made of rocks

 golf ball crater

 juggling ball crater

and marble craters. 

Cuneiform

I am back from an amazing womens retreat and feeling great! (wish I could say the same about my hubby who has a cold and my kiddos who are not listening well today...)
Today we studied Mesopotamia, the Sumerians,  and Cuneiform. Some times I wonder if the kids are really listening to me when I read our history book??? They have a hard time sitting still and never seem to be paying attention, but they can always answer my questions at the end.

So AnyWho...being  wedFUNday we had to do something fun with our history, so cuneiform tablets it was :)
I couldn't find any real cuneiform letters that were translated from us to copy, so we made our own!

a real cuneiform tablet

Our tablets:

autumn fun

After enjoying one of our read alouds on fall leaves we went on a nature walk.

 Our book talked about different shaped leaves, above the kids found "spiky" leaves 

L found a leaf made up of 5 leaflets 

Picking out the best leaves to do some leaf rubbings :) 

And the art showcase.......

I remember doing rubbings like this in school when I was a kid, always a fun break from math or english :) 

the kiddos seemed to really enjoy the time to be artistic! 

an autumn walk through the book stacks

Yesterday was our weekly walk to the local library, not the worlds best library but we always find books to love 

some of this weeks read alouds

yummy science :)

We have been studying the Sun with Apologia Science. This week is our experiment week. The Official name of the experiment is "Magnifying the Sun" but the kids call it "melty chocolate bars" hehe. Science is so much better when it is both fun and yummy! So the kids used magnifying glasses to melt candy bars with sunbeams, they had to decide whether a large sunbeam (glass far from chocolate) or a small sunbeam (glass close to chocolate) would melt the candy bar. There was of course a "control" candy bar sitting in the sun to test non-magnified melting time {I sacrificed and ate the control for them :) }

I would tell you the results...but I think you should try it for yourself.... :)

setting up the experiment

the chocolate melters

looking for a sunbeam

found one

melty success 

oh, was I supposed to melt this???

Holey candy bar

happy with her results

how to eat a melty candy bar :)

Yum yum! Love Science!