12/24/11

For Unto Us a Child is Born

Merry Christmas from School 4 Princesses!

I have to share a few quick photos.  DH's brother stopped by our house on his way into town from St. Louis.  He brought his dog, Rocky.  The girls just love him!
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We have a Santa hat that is traditionally worn by the person who gets to distribute the gifts.  However, when it was time for Princess L to put it on, she couldn't find it.  So she decided to put a Christmas stocking on her head instead.  Isn't she sweet?!

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After receiving her gift from her sister (a felt poster with markers from Dollar Tree) Princess M felt the need to give her sister a very sporadic hug.  Since it doesn't happen often, it needed to be captured on film.
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I couldn't decide which shot was better for the official shot of the kids all dressed up, so here are the best two.  I'll let you decide for yourself.

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May the LORD bless you and your family this Christmas. 

12/15/11

TOG Year 1 Week 15-16

I think that one of the most difficult times to homeschool is that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We've come off of a one week break, and are looking at a two week break. Not to mention all of the pre-Christmas business that seems to take over our lives during the month of December.  This year has been no exception.  While some things are working well, others are not at this point.  So we are looking at a few changes for our second semester.  Technically our second semester doesn't start until mid-January, but for sanity sake we are making some of these changes after Christmas.  So here is a brief synopsis of the last two weeks.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
For some reason, I can't seem to find photos for this last week.  I may have accidentally deleted them. We have been working on the letter F - for fish.  She has really been doing well identifying letters, both capital and lower case, and remembering the sounds for the letters we have already studied.  I am trying to decide what we are going to do next year.  I am waffling between doing IEW's PAL at a slow pace, or doing All About Reading.  We will start on MUS Primer next year, as I already have her book.  It will be biter sweet, as it will be the last time through the program.  I know it seems early to be contemplating, but I like to have those decisions made before the homeschool convention.  I usually take our two week spring break to make a list of everything that I hope to find used, or that I need to purchase new without paying shipping.  So really, those decisions need to be made soon.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
These last two weeks have been full of reading.  She is still working on her +9 Calculadder facts.  She has received a 9 every day this week so far.  So, if she gets another one tomorrow, I'm going to call it good and move on.  She is usually about ten seconods slow of getting a 10.  Here are the photos we took after she finished reading her books.  (For any book you see more than once it is because we read half the chapters one day and the other half the next.)




Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
SPD issues have been plaguing this princess for a long time.  Lately, she has had an even harder time than normal.  Part of that might be attributed to allergies during fall and early winter, and part of that is excitement for the holidays.  She has been holding her own in math, and has just finished up her Unit Three Test.  She will be starting on Lesson 22 after Christmas.  She is also holding her own in Latin, though she refuses to ask for help when she doesn't understand something.  I keep explaining that it will affect her grade as well as take longer doing things her way.  But what do I know, right?  She is learning a lot more from her Caesar's English than her grade would reflect, as I hear her using some of the words in conversations.  Writing, however, is definitely not her strong suit.  She is extremely creative, but following a checklist as is required in IEW is not something she is good at.  But we keep on because I am convinced that it will someday become easier.

 Princess E - 7th Grade - D
What can I say - frustration doesn't begin to cover it.  We are going to be making most of the changes we are making because of this princess.  I will be praying over the break about how to handle a few issues with her. Ultimately, it is a change of the heart and better choices that are necessary.  And those aren't my area of expertise.  Those belong to the Father above who created her with such a strong will.  He is going to have to do the work in this princess in order to change the direction she is going.  It is a spiritual battle that I feel very inadequate to fight.  So any additional prayer support is greatly appreciated.  About the only subject that she seems to do well at is IEW writing.  She is also very creative, and does a bit better with a checklist.  It comes down to attitude and choices and her attitude toward writing and her choices to work at it are the least resistant.  So I cling to the one positive we have right now.

12/14/11

Kid Funnies - Sort Of

While doing our reading time today, Princess L decided that she was too itchy in the shirt she was wearing.  (Anyone with a kid with SPD issues can understand that one.)  So she decided to change into something different.  I told her she should just take the sweater that was on the top of her drawer.  She said, "But that sweater makes me look fat."  I said, "No it doesn't.  It makes you look very warm."  To which she replied, "Your sweater makes you look really warm, mom."

12/12/11

Homeschool Classifieds

Due to some second semester changes, I have I'm going to sell in order to order some things I want.  So click on the link over there on the right and see I have for sale.  If you get this in a blog reader, you'll want to click through to my blog. 

12/2/11

TOG Year 1 Week 14

After a week off for Thanksgiving break, we hit the books again this week.  This week we returned to Greek mythology, which is a topic that both my older princesses seem to enjoy.  In fact, I think Princess S remembered almost every single Greek god and goddess that she read about from our first time through this several years ago.  The little princesses made some Greek food at the activity time with our TOG friends, and brought home some awesome spanakopita.  Everyone liked it so well, we decided we needed to make some more soon.

 Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
We finished up "d" week.  She really enjoyed the "How Do Dinosaurs . . ." series of books by Jane Yolen.  Over the past three weeks, her numbers have finally started to stick.  I give the credit to the iPad that DH's dad bought.  So far, most of the apps she uses are free ones, except for two apps from Leap Frog.  Those are the two that are helping her the most.  Here she is enjoying her iPad time.
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She also had fun with our "d" crafts - a dinosaur and a duck puppet.

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Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This little princess is really enjoying our library time.  Here are the books she read this week:
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(And no she didn't wear the same outfit two days in a row - we just forgot to take pictures one day.)   She is also in lesson three of Explode the Code 4.  I decided to wait to incorporate PAL Writing until after Christmas.  I'm going to condense some of the first several lessons of the 2nd book as she is doing the copywork portion with another program.  But we are going to focus on the story outline elements.  We'll do some practice ones, then we'll start using the chart with the books she reads during her library time.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
This princess is almost done with lesson 20 in Delta.  She also is almost done with lesson 9 in Latin for Children.  Since she had already read her Lit book for the week, she read through Princess E's book too.  

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is working on lesson 19 in Epsilon.  She is on lesson 15 in Latin.  She is continuing to assist Princess L with her piano lessons.  They even played a duet of Mary Had a Little Lamb this past week.   She is working on Module 8 in science, and then we are going to take a break.  She will be starting The Fallacy Detective for the second semester.  I have a few ideas for taking science in a different direction with my "not-so-science-minded" child.