Homeschool Discoveries

As I mentioned in last week’s collage post, I have my quarterly editing deadline on April 1st (or so…as close to that as possible, anyway).  While I don’t generally do much editing during the day unless I get a sitter for the kids (which I did do for two afternoons this week), I was still a bit more tired than usual from all my late nights of editing.  Between tiredness, trying to catch up with chores during the day that I might have otherwise done at night, and the purchase of a new Angry Birds game…We had more of this than usual:

At least a lot of it is educational!  Other than playing Angry Birds Space as much as I would let them, the kids enjoyed a show we just discovered on Netflix called How It’s Made, working on reading and spelling with Reading Eggs, and playing favorite educational iPad apps like ABC’s of God and the TeachMe series of apps (linked to my post about these apps).

Besides extra screen time, here are a few other highlights of our week:

1. Bowling as a family, a fun activity selected by Mr. E in honor of his birthday. (He turned 5 on Sunday!)

2. Miss M reading her “assigned reading” for the week outside — “The Minstrel in the Tower.”  I ordered it from the library what seems like months ago…but I guess they only have one copy and it took a while for our turn to come up!

3. Miss M rediscovered a number of picture books and easy readers this week in addition to her usual selections of chapter books.  She read all the books in the picture one morning before we got started with school at 9:15am!

4. All the pieces for the Horse lapbook are complete! I had hoped that I could help Miss M assemble the book today, but we didn’t quite get to it.  Maybe this weekend!

5.  Love this shot of the boys, still in their PJs, using their binoculars to watch a “working truck” dig a hole up the next block.  Too bad I couldn’t get the truck in the picture too.  We had a good time speculating as to why they were digging a hole in the grass near the road.

6. Some of the “regular stuff” we got done this week:

• I finally got to pull out my Atlas of Discovery I happily found a while back at a book sale as we read about Magellan in MOH III.
• Miss M worked on 4 digit subtraction problems with and without the abacus for math. She decided that 4 digit on paper is much easier than two digit mentally — I think I have to agree!
• Early in the week, she dictated a “newspaper article” to me about last week’s tree stump painting project, which I typed.  I then had her copy it in her own handwriting — it turned into about 7 pages of her large-ish handwriting!  After finishing that yesterday, she still wrote her cursive Bible verse for the week today.
• Mr E continues to make excellent progress in learning to read…we worked on the CH-TH-SH diagraphs in Phonics Pathways

7. Happy 5 months old today to Baby J! He’s 17 lbs now, and is learning to sit up on his own.

8 & 9.  Sometimes, a mama just needs a pastry.  Not knowing any pastry delivery services, we finished up school today in short order, and headed for a neighborhood grocery store where I could both grab a couple items I needed and treat all of us to donuts.  Aren’t the kids silly?  It was a bit chilly while we were eating outside the store – I think Baby J was a little cold!  After our treat, we went to a fundraiser rummage sale at a nearby church, then headed home for a fun afternoon…of more Angry Birds once the chores were done!

Have a wonderful weekend! I am looking forward to another weekend with a forecast in the 70s…hopefully I can get my editing done so I can get out to enjoy it!

I’m linking up with Collage Friday @ Homegrown Learners and the Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.