Princess E (UG)
Bible - 1 Kings 1-11 and 1 Chronicles 28-29, Proverbs 3
Math - MUS Gamma Test 16 - then we will spend the next several weeks doing a five minute drill sheet with the multiplication facts until she can pick up speed and accuracy.
Growing With Grammar - 4.1 to 4.4
Reading - What the Bible is All About (excerpts)
Writing - this quarter both princesses will be learning about newspapers and summary writing. They will together be writing various articles on Ancient Greece for a newspaper which they will put together. We will have copies made and give them out to relatives.
And as with all TOG units we will do vocabulary on Quizlet, copywork of our Important People for the week, Student Activity Pages (SAPs), a history response page, a map for geography, and a worksheet I found on the Hebrew Kings.
Princess S (LG)
Math - MUS Beta Lesson 22 - this is introducing borrowing. I am expecting, as with her sister, that we may camp out on this lesson for a few weeks. But, she may surprise me.
Growing With Grammar - Princess S finished her last book and we will be starting this series. We will do several pages a day as we are doing the 1st and 2nd grade book. This should be all review, but these concepts don't seem to resonate with this princess. This week she will do lessons 1-10.
Everything else - pretty much the same as above.
Princess L (PreK)
We will be starting the 100 Easy Lessons book. I anticipate we won't do this every day, but more like three days a week.
Princess M
She is discovering books. Not so much the sitting still to read, but is beginning to enjoy climbing up in my lap, turning all the pages in 15 seconds, then climbing down to get another book. It's a start. She is also still taking two naps a day, but I can see that will be ending soon. Our schedule will start picking up and we will have activities on Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday mornings. This will make it hard to get the morning nap in - which usually means they start to not take it. It also means her afternoon naps will happen sooner and she won't sleep as late, which makes it harder to prepare dinner or do work with her older sisters. We'll do the best we can with the time we've got!
Blessings.
P.S. - DH taught Princess L a joke that she is finally able to say. Here it is:
Princess L: Knock, Knock.
Other person: Who's there?
Princess L: Impatient cow.
Other person: Impatient cow ...
Princess L: MOOOOOO!
She does this with perfect timing and gets a laugh every time. The thing is that I don't think she gets the joke herself, but knows that everyone else does and thinks it's funny - so she tells it.
1/18/09
Starting Second Quarter
So, I was sitting mighty pretty for second quarter. I had finished entering all assignments for the rest of the year just before Christmas and was able to enjoy most of our break. We're set to start tomorrow. Friday, I decided to upgrade HST. Went through all the steps, opened up the upgrade and it was fine, decided to delete the shortcut for the other one. But, I wasn't paying close attention and deleted the wrong file. I lost EVERYTHING! Not only all the stuff from first semester - assignments and grades and such, but all my assignments for second semester too. So, I've spent the last several nights frantically putting in all the new assignments and typing in previous math assignments so as to keep the grade up on that. I am done with all the third quarter stuff and will enter the fourth quarter stuff over the next few weeks. I learned the hard lesson of always back up your files on an external drive. Won't be making that mistake again!
Blessings.
Blessings.
1/6/09
Princess L Funnies - Again!
Well, some of this is actually not so funny - now that I think about this. My oldest Princess had a thing about cutting her own hair when she was little. She finally got it that I didn't like it when she did that, so she moved on to cutting her sister's hair. The first time she did it, Princess S was three, and didn't really know any better. She had such beautiful curls and I cried when I saw them on the floor - convinced they'd be gone forever. Much to her dismay, her curls are here to stay. The second time, though, Princess S was about six. And she let her sister cut her hair, knowing that her sister would be in trouble. So they both got consequences for that one.
Princess L is following in her big sister's footsteps. She has cut her own hair for the third time. This time, she acquired a scissors from her sister's room. Said sister was not to have the scissors in there. It was my kitchen shears, which I'd been looking for for several days, which dear, sweet Princess had taken to her room to wrap presents with. On the 24th, my BIL called and asked if he could stop by to see the girls. He lives out of state but was here for Christmas. Princess L put on one of her shows for him. Then she disappeared as I went into the kitchen to punch down my dough for Cinnamon Rolls. She came back a little later and I thought her hair looked a little funky. Sure enough, it had obviously been cut. It was almost 2pm, and we had Christmas Eve services at 6pm. I needed to have everyone fed, showered and in their Christmas outfits in order to get pictures before leaving at 5:30. Fantastic Sams was open until 3pm. Our babysitter works there. She looked at it and said there were two options, because it was so short on the one side. Either cut the other side to match and leave the back long - a mullet, or a short all over pixie. I choose the pixie. Now, I'll admit she does look cute, but we've been trying to grow her hair out since her last hair cutting experience several months ago.
Fast forward two weeks. The other morning Princess L was downstairs watching Sid the Science Kid with Princess E. All of a sudden Princess L comes racing upstairs. She runs to our craft drawer and runs back downstairs with crayons. She says to me, as she is running past, "I need these to write in my journal. I have so much things to learn!" Later that day, Princess asks me to make her a princess crown out of aluminum foil. I told her I could when I was done with what I was doing. She goes back to her room. Ten minutes later, DH comes into the room, followed by Princess L. "What's in her hair?" I hear him ask. After investigating, I discovered she has covered her hair with school glue in an attempt to glue her self-made crown to her head.
As you can see, my Princesses keep me on my toes. It's never a dull moment around here. Someone is always getting into something. And sometimes, I too am able to laugh.
Blessings.
Princess L is following in her big sister's footsteps. She has cut her own hair for the third time. This time, she acquired a scissors from her sister's room. Said sister was not to have the scissors in there. It was my kitchen shears, which I'd been looking for for several days, which dear, sweet Princess had taken to her room to wrap presents with. On the 24th, my BIL called and asked if he could stop by to see the girls. He lives out of state but was here for Christmas. Princess L put on one of her shows for him. Then she disappeared as I went into the kitchen to punch down my dough for Cinnamon Rolls. She came back a little later and I thought her hair looked a little funky. Sure enough, it had obviously been cut. It was almost 2pm, and we had Christmas Eve services at 6pm. I needed to have everyone fed, showered and in their Christmas outfits in order to get pictures before leaving at 5:30. Fantastic Sams was open until 3pm. Our babysitter works there. She looked at it and said there were two options, because it was so short on the one side. Either cut the other side to match and leave the back long - a mullet, or a short all over pixie. I choose the pixie. Now, I'll admit she does look cute, but we've been trying to grow her hair out since her last hair cutting experience several months ago.
Fast forward two weeks. The other morning Princess L was downstairs watching Sid the Science Kid with Princess E. All of a sudden Princess L comes racing upstairs. She runs to our craft drawer and runs back downstairs with crayons. She says to me, as she is running past, "I need these to write in my journal. I have so much things to learn!" Later that day, Princess asks me to make her a princess crown out of aluminum foil. I told her I could when I was done with what I was doing. She goes back to her room. Ten minutes later, DH comes into the room, followed by Princess L. "What's in her hair?" I hear him ask. After investigating, I discovered she has covered her hair with school glue in an attempt to glue her self-made crown to her head.
As you can see, my Princesses keep me on my toes. It's never a dull moment around here. Someone is always getting into something. And sometimes, I too am able to laugh.
Blessings.
12/30/08
School Break
FINALLY! It took an extra seven days, but the princesses are finally on break. Which means I am too. I checked out a bunch of books from the library today to read instead of what I usually do - correcting papers and such. Princesses E and S are going to a horse class through 4H tomorrow morning, so I get to do some shopping with only two kids instead of 4. Those of you with more kids than fit in a shopping cart will know why this is a big deal. But I'm not totally without schoolwork. I discovered when I rescheduled the school work from the week before Thanksgiving that it rescheduled everything to the end of the year instead of the end of the quarter. So, I have to go back through and reassign the due dates on the second half of the year by hand, because although I know how to do it going forward, I don't know how to do it backwards. Oh well.
Princess S has been working on a display board. This has been a six week project for her writing. This is a big deal because she is quite ADD. Pull-out-my-hair and grind-my-teeth-raw ADD. So to keep her on task with anything is a chore. I had to narrow this assignment down quite a bit. She was to make a display board featuring the various cultures she has studied thus far with TOG. I had her focus on three of her choice. She chose Ancient Greeks, Ancient Mayas, and Nez Perce. (The latter isn't totally a focus, but they did live on the western end of the Ancient Americas and this is where her Kaya the American Girl Doll is from. So I just rolled with it.) She had to come up with a list of the things that would be interesting to know about these cultures, and then research through her books and the internet to find the answers. Then she had to narrow the categories down to the most important five things so that she could write a paragraph on each. She had a lot more information, but I figured she would lose focus. She wrote her rough draft paragraphs and then I went back to help her edit them. I told her that it would work best to have her information in the same order with each paragraph.f
We still have a lot of work to do on writing in general. Princess S is very creative if I let her just go at it. She's written some wonderful books with great pictures. But left to her own, she won't use capitalization or punctuation. She'll run all her sentences together. So, to get as far as we did with this was a big improvement. I have to remind myself all the time with her that although she is an excellent reader, with a seventh or eighth grade reading level, her ability to translate that to her own communication via writing or speech is much closer to her age or grade level. I think I also have this problem because although they are 20 months apart in age, both Princess E and Princess S have been the same size physically for about three years now. (Princess S has way bigger feet.) Most people often assume they are twins. In my head, I also tend to think that what Princess E can do, Princess S should be able to do as well. My bad.
So without further ado, here is Princess S's Display Board project.
Now, to enjoy a somewhat quiet half hour before I have to get dinner started.
Blessings.
Princess S has been working on a display board. This has been a six week project for her writing. This is a big deal because she is quite ADD. Pull-out-my-hair and grind-my-teeth-raw ADD. So to keep her on task with anything is a chore. I had to narrow this assignment down quite a bit. She was to make a display board featuring the various cultures she has studied thus far with TOG. I had her focus on three of her choice. She chose Ancient Greeks, Ancient Mayas, and Nez Perce. (The latter isn't totally a focus, but they did live on the western end of the Ancient Americas and this is where her Kaya the American Girl Doll is from. So I just rolled with it.) She had to come up with a list of the things that would be interesting to know about these cultures, and then research through her books and the internet to find the answers. Then she had to narrow the categories down to the most important five things so that she could write a paragraph on each. She had a lot more information, but I figured she would lose focus. She wrote her rough draft paragraphs and then I went back to help her edit them. I told her that it would work best to have her information in the same order with each paragraph.f
We still have a lot of work to do on writing in general. Princess S is very creative if I let her just go at it. She's written some wonderful books with great pictures. But left to her own, she won't use capitalization or punctuation. She'll run all her sentences together. So, to get as far as we did with this was a big improvement. I have to remind myself all the time with her that although she is an excellent reader, with a seventh or eighth grade reading level, her ability to translate that to her own communication via writing or speech is much closer to her age or grade level. I think I also have this problem because although they are 20 months apart in age, both Princess E and Princess S have been the same size physically for about three years now. (Princess S has way bigger feet.) Most people often assume they are twins. In my head, I also tend to think that what Princess E can do, Princess S should be able to do as well. My bad.
So without further ado, here is Princess S's Display Board project.
Now, to enjoy a somewhat quiet half hour before I have to get dinner started.
Blessings.
12/29/08
CHRISTmas Traditions
Everyone usually has their own unique CHRISTmas traditions. We do too. Here are two of them.
When I was a kid, my family of four did something that, to us, was very special. Maybe it was so special because we only did it on CHRISTmas Eve. We had fondue! My brother and I used to think we were actually "cooking" our own food. We had shrimp and steak. The side dish was beef flavored Rice-A-Roni (which we didn't have any other time of the year either.) Mom would heat the oil on the stove and when it was hot she'd pour it into the pot with the sterno can under it. We each had our own skewer. I also remember she had these tiny salt and pepper shakers that she put by our plates so we each had our own. My parents usually had a glass of wine and Brother and I had sparkling grape juice. Then we'd open our one CHRISTmas Eve gift (usually a new outfit to wear to church that evening.) It's a wonderful memory.
We still try to do the fondue with my brother's family - though we don't do it on CHRISTmas Eve, but near it. We now have two pots, because there are between 9 and 11 people now. And we each use two skewers so we can cook faster. (Maybe that's why the oil cools down so fast.) Here's a photo of this year's gathering.
One year for CHRISTmas, my Aunt and Uncle sent my family an electric ice cream maker. Mom must have known we were getting it because she just happened to have the ingredients ready and on CHRISTmas Day we made homemade ice cream. We did that for many years. I told my college roommate about it and for my graduation, December of 1994, she got me an electric ice cream maker. We made it a few times when the older princesses were real little. But we've been unable to for the last three years. So it was a lot of fun making it again. We decided to make Cookies and Cream, but the Oreos were a bit too crushed, and the ice cream turned out quite chocolatey.
It was fun to do once again.
I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful CHRISTmas.
When I was a kid, my family of four did something that, to us, was very special. Maybe it was so special because we only did it on CHRISTmas Eve. We had fondue! My brother and I used to think we were actually "cooking" our own food. We had shrimp and steak. The side dish was beef flavored Rice-A-Roni (which we didn't have any other time of the year either.) Mom would heat the oil on the stove and when it was hot she'd pour it into the pot with the sterno can under it. We each had our own skewer. I also remember she had these tiny salt and pepper shakers that she put by our plates so we each had our own. My parents usually had a glass of wine and Brother and I had sparkling grape juice. Then we'd open our one CHRISTmas Eve gift (usually a new outfit to wear to church that evening.) It's a wonderful memory.
We still try to do the fondue with my brother's family - though we don't do it on CHRISTmas Eve, but near it. We now have two pots, because there are between 9 and 11 people now. And we each use two skewers so we can cook faster. (Maybe that's why the oil cools down so fast.) Here's a photo of this year's gathering.
One year for CHRISTmas, my Aunt and Uncle sent my family an electric ice cream maker. Mom must have known we were getting it because she just happened to have the ingredients ready and on CHRISTmas Day we made homemade ice cream. We did that for many years. I told my college roommate about it and for my graduation, December of 1994, she got me an electric ice cream maker. We made it a few times when the older princesses were real little. But we've been unable to for the last three years. So it was a lot of fun making it again. We decided to make Cookies and Cream, but the Oreos were a bit too crushed, and the ice cream turned out quite chocolatey.
It was fun to do once again.
I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful CHRISTmas.
12/14/08
TOG Y1r U2 W16 & W17
Okay, I realized I never listed anything for Week 16. We've been a little busy. Here's what we did:
Princess E (UG)
Bible - Judges
Math U See - Gamma Lesson 14
Growing With Grammar - 3.4 through 3.6
Reading - The Odessey, What the Bible is All About (excerpts)
Writing - first of three weeks on report writing
Hands on - none this week
Extra curricular - the girls went to a homeschool day at a local roller rink
Princess S (LG)
Bible and Extra curricular - same as above
Math U See - Beta Lesson 19 started but didn't finish
Climbing to Good English - pg 157-161
Writing - fourth of six weeks on a display board in which she will be writing about several cultures that she has read about
Reading - Old Testament Days (excerpts)
I haven't been posting this, but we have been doing maps, handwriting, vocabulary, important people, and Student Activity Pages this whole time as well.
Here is Week 17:
Princess E (UG)
Bible: 1 Samuel
Math U See: Gamma Unit Two test and start Lesson 15
Growing With Grammar: 3.7 to 3.10
Reading: What the Bible is all About (excerpts), The Odyssey (finish), Usbourne internet-linked Encyclopedia (excerpts)
Princess S (LG)
Bible: 1 Samuel
Math U See: Beta Lesson 19 test and Lesson 20
Climbing to Good English: pg 162-167
Reading: Old Testament Days (excerpts)
Princess L (PreK)
Letter M
I've discovered a new website called Quizlet and have put all the rest of our vocab words for the rest of the year into it. This site lets them go through "virtual flashcards" with the definitions and words to learn them. Then there are games they can play with those words. Then they can test on them. Finally, they will print out a list of the words and definitions for their vocabulary notebooks to look back on. I'm hoping this will be something less dry and rote for them. And that it will help them remember the words longer. I'm looking into ways to streamline how we do things. I think that's a never ending process. There are always things that can be done better. But they are still young enough that they will be going through TOG another time or two each. So if we miss things we'll catch it on the flipside. Blessings.
Princess E (UG)
Bible - Judges
Math U See - Gamma Lesson 14
Growing With Grammar - 3.4 through 3.6
Reading - The Odessey, What the Bible is All About (excerpts)
Writing - first of three weeks on report writing
Hands on - none this week
Extra curricular - the girls went to a homeschool day at a local roller rink
Princess S (LG)
Bible and Extra curricular - same as above
Math U See - Beta Lesson 19 started but didn't finish
Climbing to Good English - pg 157-161
Writing - fourth of six weeks on a display board in which she will be writing about several cultures that she has read about
Reading - Old Testament Days (excerpts)
I haven't been posting this, but we have been doing maps, handwriting, vocabulary, important people, and Student Activity Pages this whole time as well.
Here is Week 17:
Princess E (UG)
Bible: 1 Samuel
Math U See: Gamma Unit Two test and start Lesson 15
Growing With Grammar: 3.7 to 3.10
Reading: What the Bible is all About (excerpts), The Odyssey (finish), Usbourne internet-linked Encyclopedia (excerpts)
Princess S (LG)
Bible: 1 Samuel
Math U See: Beta Lesson 19 test and Lesson 20
Climbing to Good English: pg 162-167
Reading: Old Testament Days (excerpts)
Princess L (PreK)
Letter M
I've discovered a new website called Quizlet and have put all the rest of our vocab words for the rest of the year into it. This site lets them go through "virtual flashcards" with the definitions and words to learn them. Then there are games they can play with those words. Then they can test on them. Finally, they will print out a list of the words and definitions for their vocabulary notebooks to look back on. I'm hoping this will be something less dry and rote for them. And that it will help them remember the words longer. I'm looking into ways to streamline how we do things. I think that's a never ending process. There are always things that can be done better. But they are still young enough that they will be going through TOG another time or two each. So if we miss things we'll catch it on the flipside. Blessings.
12/2/08
TOG Y1r U2 W15
Princess E (UG)
Bible - Joshua and Judges (selections)
Math U See - Gamma Lesson 13
Growing With Grammar - 3.1 and 3.2
Reading - D'Aulaire's book of Greek Myths, What the Bible is All About (excerpts)
Hands on - we may do another cookie dough map it there is time
Princess S (LG)
Bible and Hands on - same as above
Math U See - Beta Lesson 18 continues - this took several weeks for her sister and I'm anticipating the same types of errors
Climbing to Good English - pg 152-156
Reading - Old Testament Days (excerpts)
Princess L (Pre-K)
review letters
cutting practice
catch up on making alphabet lapbook
We had a good week off with Nanny and Papa in town. I hadn't planned on taking that week off. So now we are looking at one of two situations: either finishing four weeks of lessons in three weeks, or cutting our vacation by one week and finishing our unit between Christmas and New Years. Both girls said they want to do the former. I explained that means they need to work ahead and do at least two things from the next days work in order for that to happen. We'll see.
We have church pictures coming up on Friday. This will be our first full family portrait since Princess M joined us. I'm hoping for several good shots of the girls that we can use as Christmas pictures.
Blessings.
Bible - Joshua and Judges (selections)
Math U See - Gamma Lesson 13
Growing With Grammar - 3.1 and 3.2
Reading - D'Aulaire's book of Greek Myths, What the Bible is All About (excerpts)
Hands on - we may do another cookie dough map it there is time
Princess S (LG)
Bible and Hands on - same as above
Math U See - Beta Lesson 18 continues - this took several weeks for her sister and I'm anticipating the same types of errors
Climbing to Good English - pg 152-156
Reading - Old Testament Days (excerpts)
Princess L (Pre-K)
review letters
cutting practice
catch up on making alphabet lapbook
We had a good week off with Nanny and Papa in town. I hadn't planned on taking that week off. So now we are looking at one of two situations: either finishing four weeks of lessons in three weeks, or cutting our vacation by one week and finishing our unit between Christmas and New Years. Both girls said they want to do the former. I explained that means they need to work ahead and do at least two things from the next days work in order for that to happen. We'll see.
We have church pictures coming up on Friday. This will be our first full family portrait since Princess M joined us. I'm hoping for several good shots of the girls that we can use as Christmas pictures.
Blessings.
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