Yikes

So the flu hit AGAIN

A few things we have discovered in the last few weeks...   

Genevieve just finished all the free videos on brain pop, I think I will get a subscription

Genevieve has started ixl - she loves ixl

Nathan has started dreambox and is enjoying it yeah!

I had to figure out something different for math as Nathan was not engaging at all, I realized he was bored.  I needed to let him work at his grade level, but we need to work on his basic math facts.  Nathan can not answer quick enough.  So we are now using dreambox for at grade challenge and we are doing math games everyday.  This seems to be much easier and Nathan can see he does need to get better at math facts.  I will be restarting math u see soon as well.  

We have started a unit study on the lion the witch and the wardrobe.  It is from beyond the page, so far it fits well for us. Chilliwack cultural centre has the lion the witch and the wardrobe play on November 22.  I am hoping to go to this with the kids.  

We are getting used to our routine...

Genevieve is putting in a consistent effort in piano.

Nathan struggles with piano for many reasons, his small motor control in his fingers and his confidence.   He needs help at the beginning if a new song, he doesn't want to play new songs as he says he's not very good.  Once I struggle and get him to play and practice hr likes it and is definitely proud he can do it.  If course he gets 2 new songs every week :).  So each week we start over again...

I am realizing that I think unit studies work well for our family.  I need to look at our plos and figure out how to incorporate these into our learning.  

I have so much I want to teach them, but I know I have to give Nathan some time to settle into this new learning environment we are in.  Genevieve is not having a difficult adjustment.  Nathan is doing pretty good but I know I am pushing him beyond his comfort every day. 

Wednesday October 9

Today was a great day in homeschool land.  Even though Wednesday is the busiest day for us, today was the first day I actually felt like we were getting all we needed to do to get done.  Not only school wise, but home wise too.  

We started off the day late!   I woke up close to 9!  So I quickly made the kids some yoghurt with fruit, chia, and crunchy stuff :).  They ate while we watched our math u see video.  We then went upstairs to do some math worksheets.  Nathan and Genevieve worked thru them fairly quickly. Nathan had trouble on the review sheet, he said I don't remember the 8 trick, but I'm sure he did, because he was able to give me answers.  He stresses so much about math, he had only a few tears today while doing it.  

We then got ready to go to physio.  I quickly cleaned the kitchen and put dinner in the crockpot.  I did not do the dishes last night, so there were a few :)

Had a good day at physio.  Nathan absolutely loves physio, he loves Janet and he really works hard at what he's asked to do.  

We then stopped at the grocery store and grabbed some thai curry paste (only ingredient for dinner I didn't have).  Got home about 11:45, and had left over quesadilla for lunch.  Genevieve practiced piano.   I finished up dinner.  

Out the door again at 12:30 to go to hockey and skating.  Kids had a good time.  I brought linkology with me for the 45 minutes she has to wait for Nathan to finish hockey.  Ended up 6 girls played with Genevieve, and another mom and I helped out and explained things as they came up. We had discussions on warm blooded/ what mammals are etc.  it was fun!

Then we raced out at 3 to run across town to go to the taiosi choir.  They do 1 hour of singing and then 45 minutes of ukelale practice.  Kids had more fun today, then their first class last time. 

Were then went home for dinner, which was almost ready, except for making rice and thickening the sauce. 

And after dinner we cleaned up the kitchen.  That feels pretty nice. 

So even though it was a busy day, it still felt balanced.  I didn't feel rushed, I felt like we accomplished what we needed to do, and now at 7 I may go to bed :)

Tuesday

Well my cold is in full swing!  November will be flu free right?

Math worksheet this morning, then piano practice.  Off to art class we went, then to piano.  While Nathan was practicing I played the new math game with Gigi and vice versa.  

Home we went for more piano from Gigi and Nate, and some reading.  Then Nathan mentioned he saw we had an IMAX movie on china.   Perfect, I've got a cold and I'm tired, they watched the movie about china and giant pandas.  We then had a discussion on ins angered animals and the different reasons animals become endangered. 

Next the kids went outside ride their bikes around, then played some street hockey with our neighbours. 

Monday October 14

We had a fairly good homeschool day today.  

Nathan was a little hard to get to sit still in his chair, but we made it through.   

We started with a fall themed notebook.  First up fall math sheet, it was a good review.  Next up poetry, we read a few poems and then thought of fall words, we then wrote down rhyming words for them.   I really thought Nathan would enjoy this one, but he wasn't into this today.  Genevieve came up with some pretty good ones though.  I plan to get them to draft a poem tomorrow.   

We played our new math game snap it up again today.  Nathan struggles with math worksheets, but he was quickly adding and subtracting up to 3 numbers at a time to try and see if he could come up with the answer.  It really showed me how much he hates sitting in a structured place, his math anxiety, and that he hates writting.  Not sure which one influences his dislike of math worksheets, but hopefully this math game will get him over it.  It is painful for me to get him to do math worksheets, but I know he needs the practice.  The game will also benefit genevieve as, she is a little slower at the game, she is pretty fast at worksheets though!

Next up was piano.  Nathan put up a stink about piano, his neck hurt too much to play, it hurt to sit etc.  I massaged his neck for 1/2 then insisted he play.  He practiced about 20 minutes, once he gets into playing you can see he likes it. 

Genevieve practices piano pretty faithfully and really enjoys practicing, I definitely don't have to ask her to practice, she practices several times a day.  

Thanksgiving weekend

Was relieved when I realized it was thanksgiving, and happy that classes were canceled on Friday!   I got Jeff's cold and the idea of 4 days off felt great.  I spent all day Friday and Saturday in bed, well almost :).  We didn't have any sports on Saturday either!  

Well 2 days of doing nothing and the kids were bored....   They started doing there own schoolwork on Sunday.  Nathan did geo puzzles genevieve drew a fish and a shark and inside them write about their differences.   And they played lots of games.  I decided I better be a little more active so we went for a bike ride along the vedder, I sure feel that today!  We brought some hotdogs to have a Weeny roast but the vedder was busy and we couldn't find a good spot.  So we went up chilliwack lake road and found a spot on chilliwack river.  It was really busy too! The kids gathered sticks and wood for the fire, and we cut down some roasting sticks.  And lit the fire.   It was such a perfect day...

Not sure what plos occurred here but it must be something :)

Thursday October 10

We had a great day today!

We had a friend of Nathan and Genevieve's over who just started homeschooling this year too.  We were going to go on a hike today, but Nathan was not up to that.  So we had our friend over to our house.  I quickly did some teacher prep before he arrived.  

We started by watching a movie on discovery.  The movie was sadly out if date, but the content was excellent!  I could see the kids thought it was boring as soon as they saw it was made in the 80's, but 5 minutes in Nate and Gigi were engrossed.  They learned about why deciduous trees loose their leaves, and how it happens.  

We then went upstairs to the dry erase board and we did some review of the movie.  Nathan and Genevieve also explained the movie to their friend as he had missed half of the movie. 

We then got on our shoes and went for a little walk/hike in the forest beside our house.  Our object was to collect leaves and observe how the trees loose their leaves.  First thing we saw was this picture

That little bud, goes intbetween the branch and the leaf, when the leaf falls off it protects the branch.  The kids thought this was pretty cool to see!

Oh when we were leaving the house Nathan exclaims oh my goodness I'm still in my Jammie's!  We told him it's okay, no one will see ya, they are all at school, I didn't tell him, his shirt was inside out too lol

When we got back we had lunch and then we used hammers on the leaves to make some art!

Nathan's masterpiece 

Now we only had one problem with this project, the paper got stuck to the concrete, I should have had them hammer on a piece if wood.  Better luck next time, Nathan was pretty disappointed. 

Next up was contact paper and leaves.  Both Nathan and Genevieve were excited about this one. 

Nathan's

Genevieve's 

The kids then had 1 hour if free time, Nathan played video games, Genevieve watched a Jane Goodall movie. 

Gigi then went to cheer practice

I purchased a neat math game from learning resources, we played it at dinner, and I think we will try to play this one frequently.  I will take a picture tomorrow.  

Tuesday October 8

Today we started with piano practice.  Nathan and Genevieve were even trying to make up their own duet to play :)

We then went to art class with Jessica.  Today the kids did a self portrait and made some apples from clay. 

Inspecting their apples

And here is a picture of Genevieve's painting she did last class.  Hers is the one on the end, but you can see how they were supposed to work all together. In the style if Monet 

After art we went to their piano lessons. 

We came home and played a few math games.  Genevieve finished her book little woman, and Nathan read a book to finish the afternoon too.