A Day In The Week Of...Friday

Co-op day!  Friday is our favorite day of them all.  This is the day we get together with friends and do something fun (and educational, of course).  This Friday was unique because Bud took the day off to spend with us!  He had to opportunity to meet our homeschool friends, which was nice for him.

Today (which, if you're looking on the date of my blog you'll notice that it's actually Monday.  I'm a few days behind on my blogging) we went to the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota.  None of us had ever been there before. 

The kids listened to a lecture about raptors, saw up close a great horned owl, red tailed hawk, and Peregrine falcon.  Afterwards we took a tour of the facility, and saw a wide variety of their educational raptors.  Super cool.  We didn't get to see the "behind the scenes" areas because they didn't want to upset the birds. 

This was one of Millies favorite field trips!  Success :)

A Week In The Life Of...Thursday

Today was another stay-at-home day.  The girls were playing so nicely, that I let the play until things got ugly.  It's really fun to hear them playing together!  I love it :)

Around 10:00 we started school with spelling, reading, grammar, and history.  We're learning about the rise of Rome.  One of the things we read about was the way the Romans fought together.  It made me think of the movie Gladiator, so I showed Millie a few snippets from the movie (the scene where they soldiers work together using their shields to protect themselves).  When Bud got home from work, she proudly told him that I let her watch a rated R movie.  D'oh!  Anyway...

12:00 we had lunch, and I put Elise down for her nap.

While she was sleeping, Millie did math.  We are done learning about Antarctica and the animals that live there, so we took the day off from science.  Tomorrow begins the next unit; raptors!

Normally I like to get out and do something in the afternoon, but Elise slept until after 4, so we ended up staying in.  It was nice to take it easy.  Tomorrow is going to be another full day!

A Week In The Life Of...Wednesday

Wednesday is normally my day to go to the office, while the girls stay home with Grandma Susie.  I use the words "stay home" lightly, because Grandma often takes them out for a day of fun.  Last quarter she took the girls to ice skating lessons every Wednesday.  They also like to go to the Children's Museum.  Today Susie wasn't feeling well, so she just stayed long enough for me to go to the dentist and come back. 

So what do we do on an unexpected day at home together?  Make up work, of course!  Millie did xtramath.com to practice her math facts, and we had read-a-palooza (we tried having read-a-palooza last night, but I fell asleep mid-story.  Oops!).  We're reading Antarctic Journal, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Story of the Olympics.

Today is a very challenging day, as I have a lot to do (get my hair cut, do some computer work for work, shop for Christmas gifts (my friends and I are having our Christmas party this weekend in Duluth), balance my checkbook, pay bills, go to Target, go to the Grocery store, and renew my very expired drivers license (it expired in November, and no one noticed  - not even me - until a few days ago when I was at the liquor store)).  The challenge is that Bud had the car.  Being a 1 car household is really starting to take its toll on me.  I think we'll have to crack and buy a new car soon...

Since I can't do my errands, I think I'll take a nap.  Zzzzzzz.

A Week In The Life Of...Tuesday

Tuesday!

We started out the day at 9ish, with spelling, piano, and grammar.  We finished up in time to have lunch and rush out the door! 





We stopped by Rice Park to see the (melting) ice scluptures before meeting friends at the Science Museum.  The whole point was to go to the Omni Theatre to see Wolves together.  I screwed up the times, though, so we ended up having to leave for piano lessons before the movie.  We were both disappointed, but I promised Millie we'd come back soon.

 

The time spent playing at the museum was super fun!  The girls got to scrape the cells off their cheeks and look at the cells under the microscope.  The had the full experience, putting on lab coats and goggles, doing the scraping, putting the cells on a slide, dying them, and looking.  It was really cool! 

We skipped math and reading, so we'll have a little make-up work to do tomorrow!

A Week In The Life Of...Monday

Recently some friends started asking what we do all day at our homeschool.  In response, I decided to put together a series to illustrate what a typical week looks like!  Here it is, enjoy!

Today we have nowhere to be!  I love days like this.  We get so much accomplished.

9:00 - We started out the day doing a daily devotional.  Today's was about honoring your mother and father.  The girls drew a picture of our family.  The picture Millie drew of me is hilarious.  I'm really "stacked".  This activity took FOREVER.

9:45 - We did piano, spelling, reading, and grammar. 

I like to do something for "recess" every day.  Today we went to the pool and swam for a while before lunch.  Elise sat in the hot tub the entire time.  Millie and I pretended to be different animals, and race each other from one side of the pool to the other.

  

After lunch I put Elise down for her nap, and Millie and I did math, history, and science.  History was really fun today!  We are learning about Ancient Greece, and worked on the Sports and Entertainment History Pocket.  I read to her about it, and then we had our own mini Olympics in the living room.  We did the long jump and penguin races (which, as you may have guessed is NOT an official Olympic sport).  Millie won all of the events!  Afterwards, she wrote a newspaper article about our mini Olympics. 

That's our day in a nutshell.  Tomorrow will be a bit more interesting...

How This Mom Pulls Herself Out Of A Slump

The trouble with being a homeschool mom is that I'm with my kids all.the.time.  Don't get me wrong, I adore being with them most days, and wouldn't trade our homeschool lifestyle for anything, but c'mon.  Even this mom gets into a slump.  Thursday was one of those "slump" days.  We did our core material (spelling, math, and grammar), but that's all I could muster up the energy to do.  The rest of the day was spend napping and being annoyed.  Soooo, this is what we did on Friday so I could snap out of it:

At 9:30 I had to pull the girls out of the top bunk.  They were busy reading about baby animals.

Our first stop was Rice Park (This was an impromptu stop.  We walked by on our way to the library, and we couldn't resist).  The girls got to see how the ice carvers work their magic.  It was so cool!

 

After that we went to the library to get some books.  Most of the books we checked out are about Antarctica and raptors.  Elise is hugging a Mama Mirabelle movie while Millie checks out.

The girls were getting hungry, so we stopped by the Science Museum of Minnesota.  We went to the collectors corner where Millie used some of her points to get a sand dollar and shark tooth, had "lunch with the dinosaurs", and watched a performance called How Animals Walk.  Millie got to go up in front and demonstrate how to walk like a gorilla.  We ran into cousins Ben and Patrick on our way out.

Then, we went to the Wells Fargo Winter Skate where we met up with friends and skated the afternoon away.  Elise was super excited when the Winter Carnival princesses showed up!  The princesses were so nice, and skated with Millie and her friends!  They had a blast. 

 Of course, we were super cold and wet, and had to swing by Dunn Bros on our way home. 

When we got home, we had 10 minutes to "relax" before heading out to piano lessons. 

Phew.  I'm officially out of my slump now!  What a fun day!  Tonight Millie will go back to the piano school for a piano recital dress rehearsal and pizza party.  I hope she makes it though intact, she's exhausted!

Mid-Year Check-In

We completed the first half of our year!  So far, so good.  In fact, I'm loving it so much that I'm already starting to plan Millies 3rd grade curriculum.  Now, I promised myself that if Millie didn't like homeschooling and wanted to go back to school, I'd be OK with it.  That's still the case, but (lucky for me) she seems to be thriving and enjoying.  A LOT.  Today we had our mid-year check-in to review where we're at, and to see if there are any changes we can make.  Here's what I found out:

Questions for Millie:

Is school fun?

"YES!" (along with enthusiastic head nodding)

What is your favorite subject?

Science (because we do lots of experiments and cool stuff) and History (because we get to go back in time)

What is your favorite outing?

Going to the pool because she loves water and it's good exercise.

What would you like to do more of?

More swimming and art

What would you like to do less of?

Math  (Ooooooooh, not gonna happen.  She really seems to enjoy math.  This answer surprised me)


Questions for me:

Are we making progress?

Yes!  The most obvious progress is her printing.  She started out the year not being able to write her letters on lined paper.  It was very sloppy.  She still needs work on it, but she's come a long way.

Is the curriculum working?

Everything seems to be working except spelling.  Her spelling needs a lot of work.  I'm not really sure how to improve that other than making her correct her spelling mistakes and having her work on weekly spelling lists.  Suggestions would be appreciated!

What is most important to her education this year?

Improving her reading out loud skills and printing.

How can I slow down and focus on each child?

I spend a lot of time with Millie and focusing on her needs.  Poor Elise seems to get left by the wayside a lot more than I'd like to admit.  The steps I'd like to take to fix this problem are 1) read a story every day before her nap time, 2) go to story time at the library every other Tuesday, and 3) let Elise pick out what we're going to do for recess once or twice per week.