3/23/11

Planning for Next Year

I'm a great planner!  I can plan with the best of them.  It's the implementing my plans that I always have the issues with.  So, that's why I know that all the work I've done so far on next year can only be termed "preliminary".  These are my preliminary plans for next year.  I decided that it would do me some good to have an at a glance schedule for just in case the computer goes down.  I use HST+ and I love it.  But I've had issues with the computer in the past and had to bring it in.  Then we were stuck without the lesson plans.  All of my TOG stuff is printed where I can get to it.  But everything else is always scheduled in HST+ waiting for me to print out.  This way, I have everything scheduled at a glance.  Now, printed out, this is quite small to read.  But, if something happens, I don't need to panic because I have it all in writing.  I don't have math on here, as that is always just - do the next page.  I also don't have Princess L's work on here.  That's mostly because I don't know exactly how far we'll get this year to be able to plan for next year. 

2011_2012 School 4 Princesses Calendar

3/22/11

Photo Catch Up

Last Sunday, the eldest two princesses received certificates for finishing their Awana books. Princess E has finished her fourth T&T book. She is looking forward to the trophy at the end of the year. Princess S finished her second book.

Awana awards


Next, you can see what happens in snowy states once the calendar tells us it's spring.

Snow swing


Finally, just one of Princess S "cheesing" for the camera.

Cheese!

Dad School

There's one area in our school that is left in the hands of our principal.  I took piano for many years, and I can read about any piece of music you put in front of me.  But, I am not very good at playing by ear or "jamming" as my hubby calls it.  That is his gift - and one which he shares with our two eldest girls.  After about a half hour of talking about blues rifts, they ended up with this.



You can hear the hubby on his electric guitar in the background. Princess E took the melody, which is actually a song in one of her books. Princess S is rounding out the trio with the high notes.

Princess S turns 10!

She'll never again be a single digit.  And now I have two kids in the double digits.  I'm not sure who feels older today.

Princess S turned ten today!  We celebrated as a family on Monday night though.  We all couldn't wait.  DH took several photos of her with her birthday cupcake (I didn't make cake because I'm making it for her party) and this is the best one.

Birthday girl


Princess E had purchased a gift for her a few weeks ago.  I took her to Target and she spent half an hour picking out something she thought Princess S would like.  Princess S LOVES her stuffed animals.  And she loves stuffed dogs.  So Princess E thought she would like one of the ZhuZhu dogs.  So she picked out what she thought was a cute Zhu Zhu dog and a hot dog cart.  Isn't it cute?

Hot dog cart


However, when Princess S looked a bit more closely at it, she discovered this...

Puppy sold separately


Yep - that's right - the dog wasn't included.  So, Princess S now has a small plastic hot dog cart.  We laughed so hard I thought I was going to permanently damage my lungs. 

This princess has added so much to our family.  She is a comedienne.  She is very talented at drawing.  She has a sensitive, sweet spirit.  She can be wild and crazy and spontaneous (which I have a difficult time doing - so that trait must come from dad.)  But, she also has my love of reading (we can't keep enough books in the house.)  May the LORD continue to bless you, Princess S, as He directs your path and continues to shape you into the young woman He has designed you to become.  We love you!

3/17/11

TOG Year 4 Week 29

Spring Break!  I don't know who's been looking forward to it more  - the princesses or me!  Of course, like always, I have made several goals for my time during this break.  I have scheduled every type of doctor's appointment imaginable.  And I have big plans to attempt to get about 2/3 of next year's work scheduled in HST+.  Last year I learned a lot of tips to make things go a lot faster. 

This past week we looked at Gerald Ford's presidency.  While I was alive during his presidency, I cannot honestly say I remember it at all.   I was surprised to learn that his name (at birth anyway) was not Gerald but Leslie.  Princess E was appalled that someone gave him a girl's name, until I explained that there were some famous "male" Leslies as well.  We also learned about the end of Mao's reign in China, and we talked about whether Mao's terror was outside of God's control (it was not). 

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 30
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish lesson 5 and begin lesson 6
IEW: skipped due to illness
Foundations 1:  Finish suffix -ING as a doubler and begin suffix -ER/-OR as an agent of a verb
MCT Language Arts:  This was skipped this week due to illness.
Practice Island: Sentence 65-67
McCrabbs: 71-75
Science:  skipped due to illness
TOG Yr4 Wk29: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Have Space Suit Will Travel; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; Idiot's Guide; Mao Zedong's China; Teresa of Calcutta; 10,000 Days of Thunder.  Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4, and Red Scarf Girl.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 6.9 to Chapter 6 Review
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 4
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk29: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Countries of the Middle East; The Cold War, James Herriot's Treasury for Children.  Read Aloud - same as above.
Princess S was down and out for several days with low grade fevers, constant croupy coughing and general tiredness.  She spent much time on the couch.  She did manage to finish all of her individual work, but we skipped all of our group work so that she can rest.  After two weeks of missing group work, I have determined that we will be stretching out our group work beyond our TOG work.  The princesses have no idea what schedule I have on paper, so it really won't affect them.  And we'll still be done two weeks before the local public schools.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 74-78.
Math-U-See Alpha:  Lesson 6 - counting and writing numbers from 0 to 100.  We are still having issues with number reversals.  I'm telling myself not to be concerned.  But there is no rhyme or reason to how she reverses.  She even wrote the number 33 with one three backwards.
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 4

Princess M - PreTOGger
This morning, after having her hair done, Princess M looked at herself and said, "I the cutestest!"  And she is the humblestest too!  Princess M is in what I call the jellybean people stage of drawing.  You know, where everyone looks like Larry the cucumber?  She has been giving lots more detail on her pictures now.  They tend to have eyelashes and teeth.  I wish I had one to scan and post, but she gave her recent one to Nanny who was visiting for a few days before her trip to Hawaii. 

3/13/11

TOG Year 4 Week 28

This was another best laid plans week.  Princess S was under the weather a couple of days this week, and running a fever on one of them.  So the first thing we knock off in those situations is our group work.  She was sick again today, so I don't know what this next week will bring either.

We have officially started our last unit of year four!  Wow - where did this year go?  We are coming up on the period of history that I can actually remember and provide my own memories on.  For that I am excited.  I have a few memories from childhood that I want to share with them.  I was looking through a box of stuff my mom saved and then gave to me a few years ago.  One of the things I found was a paper that I wrote for our class newspaper that was written the day after President Reagan was shot.

This week we talked about the Watergate scandal and President Nixon's resignation, and the subsequent pardon by President Ford.  There are lots of lessons in reaping what you sow, and in the power of forgiveness.


Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 9
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish lesson 4 and part of lesson 5
IEW: We finished lesson 10.
Foundations 1:  Finish suffix -ING as a noun and begin suffix -ING as a doubler.
MCT Language Arts:  This was skipped this week due to illness.
Practice Island: Sentence 60-64
McCrabbs: 66-70
Science:  Lesson 16 - Mineral identification.  We borrowed some rock and mineral samples from some friends at church, though we didn't have the ones needed for the worksheet. 
TOG Yr4 Wk28: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Have Space Suit Will Travel; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; A Dream of Freedom; Idiot's Guide; Mao Zedong's China; Teresa of Calcutta; 10,000 Days of Thunder.  Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4, and Red Scarf Girl.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 6.6 to 6.8
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 3 and begin lesson 4. 
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk28: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Countries of the Middle East, The Cold War, James Herriot's Treasury for Children.  Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 70-73.
Math-U-See Alpha:  Lesson 5 - this was the 1+ and +1 facts.  These were a cinch for her and we mostly focused on the word problems.  I'm having her read them herself out loud - double duty lessons - gotta love em!
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 3
(She got one day off this past week for her birthday.)

Princess M - PreTOGger
Princess M found a new favorite book this week.  It is one of the many, many books that my mom saved from my childhood and passed on down to us.  It is called Mimi the Merry-Go-Round Cat by Dorothy Haas.  I looked it up on BookFinder.com to see if I could find a link and was shocked to see it listed used for $38 to $52 dollars!  I have a ton of these old books - and now I'm wondering if I'm sitting on a gold mine!  CHA-CHING!  Of course, the emotional attachment to some of these books is worth at least that much.  My mom was very diligent in listing whose book it was, how old we were when we received it and what the occasion was.  So, I will have to hang on to some of them.

3/9/11

Birthday Princess

Today Princess L turns 6!  Where has the time gone?  I remember it like it was yesterday.  Perhaps most notable to me, she was born on a Wednesday.  And when her older sisters were brought to see her, Princess S just couldn't believe she was the baby she'd been talking to through my tummy for so long.  Princess S went to Cubbies at church later that night and kept exclaiming, "She really came out!  There really was a baby in Mommy's tummy!"

We did the family birthday celebration last night, because we have Awana tonight.  Princess E made a birthday cake - chocolate of course.  (Princess S wanted to help, but since she was running a fever yesterday, she was only allowed to put sprinkles on the frosting.)  We brought home Little Caesar's pizza for dinner.  Princess L took about seven breaths to blow out six candles.  Then she choose to watch an episode of The Cosby Show.  Today I am giving her the day off of school.  We will be on spring break during Princess S's birthday in two weeks, and Princess E has a summer birthday.  So I figured this was a great compromise.  

We are so blessed to have this little princess in our family.  She is naturally funny, has a giggle that is beyond compare, and her dimples just melt the heart.

Birthday Girl

3/7/11

Princess M Funnies

Most days when she wakes from her nap, I ask Princess M if she had any dreams while she was sleeping.  Most days, she tells me she dreamt about Jesus.  Today I asked her what Jesus was doing in her dream.  "Jesus was sleeping."

Later, I picked her up to carry her into the kitchen.  I figure I won't be able to carry her much longer - at least not without some serious repercussions to my back.   She said to me, "I your baby."  I said, "You'll always be my baby, even when you're as big as me."  She looked at me funny and said, "I don't want to be as big as you - I want to be as big as (Princess L)."

3/5/11

St. Stephan's Men's Shelter Meals

Every first Saturday of the month, our family goes to the Rohr's house.  They graciously open their home to a host of families who come together to prepare a meal to serve and goodie bags to distribute to the men at St. Stephan's Men's Shelter in Minneapolis.  This is such a fun way to teach our girls about serving the LORD by serving others.  And we get to have such fun doing it!  These pictures were taken by my friend, Tara.  I'm so glad she sent them to me so that I can share them all.

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Some of you might notice the girls from Our Family for His Glory.  Princess L was so glad that her friends were able to join her.  If you haven't checked out Jessica's blog, be sure to click over there. 

3/4/11

Handwriting

My three oldest princesses are right-handed.  All three of them hold a pencil in a very unique way.  (That's a nice way of saying I don't know how the heck they can write that way!)  My DH has a pencil grip very much like Princess E's grip.  Her's looks like this:

Princess E pencil grip

She can write beautifully IF she writes slowly.  You can't really flow very well with a grip like that.  I tried to correct it, but when I realized that she holds it like her Dad, I figured there was nothing I could do - that it was an inherited tendency.

Then there is Princess S.  Princess S - I believe - has some SPD issues.  She has a hard time writing anything.  She loves to draw, however, and is quite talented at it.  But her pencil grip is very ugly.  And it's no wonder that her hand gets tired after only writing one sentence.  Get a load of this:

Princess S pencil grip


She very much dislikes her writing.  It is the epitome of chicken scratch.  And I know her grip is part of the problem.  But fixing it is near impossible.  Any suggestions?

I have put a specialized pencil grip on Princess L's pencils in an effort to force her to use a correct grip.  But if left to herself, then she has a grip like Princess E's.  I'm not sure how picky to get with her during school when she goes back to her own way the rest of the day. 

Princess M is a lefty.  And she holds a pencil correctly.  Go figure.

TOG Year 4 Week 27

This was the last week of unit three!  Holy cow - we're 3/4 done with our school year!  It's going by very fast.  I've started working on plans for next year.  I was very blessed to be able to find several of the things I need for next year on some used curriculum boards.  So far I've saved at $45-$50.  I have a few more things I'd like to get.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 28 and begin lesson 29
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish lesson 3 and part of lesson 4
IEW: We continued lesson 10.
Foundations 1:  Finish suffix -ING and begin suffix -ING on a noun
MCT Language Arts:  The Music of the Hemispheres: Read pages 80-102.  We were learning about meter.  We talked about the foot - iambs, trochees, anapests and dactyls.  We talked about the length of the line with regard to the foot  monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter and so on. 
Practice Island: Sentence 56-59
McCrabbs: 61-65
Science:  Lesson 14 & 15 - Metamorphic Rocks and Minerals
TOG Yr4 Wk27: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The Lilies of the Field; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; A Dream of Freedom; Idiot's Guide; Mao Zedong's China; Brother Andrew: God's Secret Agent; 10,000 Days of Thunder.  Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 6.3 to 6.5
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 2 and begin lesson 3. 
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk27: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Martin Luther King Jr, The Cold War, Water Buffalo Days.  Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 64-69.
Math-U-See Alpha:  Finish lesson 4 - Again, this lesson was all review as she learned her +0 and 0+ facts last year.  But, I have started having her read the story problems at the bottom of the page herself.
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 2

Princess M - PreTOGger
This little one was running a fever on Tuesday.  So she spent much of the day on the couch.  After she had been sleeping for a little while, Princess E decided she looked lonely and decided to give her some stuffed animals.  And then this happened.

Sleepy princess


This was a site I hadn't seen since she was a baby.  After a while I made Princess E take them all off because she got way too warm.  When she woke up, we told her what happened and she didn't believe us.  So I had to show her this picture.  Thankfully, the low grade fever was the only symptom, and she was fine after that.