National Doughnut Day!

Yesterday was National Doughnut Day. And super-mom/teacher thought "What a great project for the afternoon."

Photographic proof of my insanity:

J mixing the dry ingredients.

K mixing the wet ingredients.

Rolling and cutting of said doughnuts.

Did you find the hidden mickey?

The frying of the doughnuts. eeww...

The sugaring and the powdering. K set up an assembly line. She'd move fresh doughnuts to the appropriate bowls and "encourage" J to move quickly!

Happy Doughnut Day! :P

Life after "Fall Break"

Originally it was only a week, just enough time off for our vacation to St. Louis and then on to Michigan for a bit. But when we got home we were all just too tired. The kids wanted to open the boxes they brought home and I just wanted to sleep. So Fall Break became a 2 week vacation, culminating in the celebration of Halloween and Daylight Savings Time ending. What a way to go out. Extra sugar and extra sleep!

Now I'm forcing myself to get back into the thick of things. I have lots of plan rattling around in my brainbox. But I fear I may need a can opener to get them out!

With more holiday coming right around the corner, we're also preparing for more travel. This makes me nervous about keeping us on task for school. Yesterday was our "first day of school" since break. (We don't do Mondays - Dad's day off) It was a rocky start, but then K, thankfully, jumped right in. J, bless him, dragged his feet as long as he could...isn't that what little boys do? He's just too cute to scold sometimes, with those big blue eyes and lopsided smile...

So, before the day gets away from me, I should sign off and get going. Today is National Doughnut Day, so I think for Home Ec we'll make some homemade doughnuts. :D That should make 'em smile. And give me more dishes to wash :(

Kiddie Blogs!

The kids now have blogs in place. I'm hoping this will help them to hone those writing skills at the same time they are chronicling their lives and sharing experiences with family and friends. :D Isn't that why we all do this? :P

K: thedolphinrider-kpb.blogspot
J: flyingninjamonkeys-jmb.blogspot

Please follow along. And leave lots of comments to help encourage their continued blogging!

Math success!

K learned about ratios and proportions this week. It was an exciting time for me to finally see a "light" flip on. She's getting it! She is doing so well with her math! Hurray for girls loving math! Next week we begin solving for unknown numbers! eek! :D

J is finally beginning to understand fractions a little better. We've been going over how fractions work and how they can be manipulated this week. Of all the worksheets I gave him this week he answered only a couple problems incorrectly! Way to go J!

So this week went well. We're settling into a daily routine. Each week I add a little bit more to the assignment lists. We're not up to full speed yet, but it won't be long.

We've been reading poetry every day for the last two weeks. I have found some of the most wonderful books! I was so inspired by one that I had to make a scrapbook layout!

We're just getting into our art and music now. In fact, I have to go to the library as soon as I'm done posting! We're studying classical music and it's composers. I'm hoping to have a keyboard in a couple weeks so the kids can begin learning an instrument. In art, we've been reviewing the color wheel, color mixing, and learning about color values. I haven't chosen an artist to study yet, I'm still thinking about where I want to start.

As far as our other subjects, we're moving right along. They are both moving quickly through their science. K is doing well with her english, but J is struggling just a bit. It doesn't bother me, because a lot of people still struggle with using "good" or "well" in a sentence correctly. :P

It's been a good week. Hopefully, this next week will run as smoothly as I add in some more lessons :D

2 weeks

We now have 2 weeks under our collective belts. However, we're only doing half our work. The SOS I ordered came in late so I got us started with what workbooks I had to hand. I did go pick up new math books. J stayed with 6th grade math to do some review work and K moved up to 8th grade math :D

The plan is to start adding in some more lessons next week. I'm working on art and music lessons and I'm trying to put together a government course. Not having much luck with that.

It's also going to get interesting when baseball kicks in. Monday is our first game. And then it's non-stop til Dec 4!

Right around the corner

The new school year will be beginning next week. I'm excited. I don't think the kids are. Not that it surprises me. They don't like a lot of busy work.

So this year I'm going way out in left field. This year we're using the Switched-On-Schoolhouse. We picked up a science disc in the spring and tried it out. K loved it right away but J took a little longer to get used to the idea.

When I started putting together the curriculum this year I asked them if they'd like to continue using workbooks or would like to switch to the SOS format. K was all for the SOS format, J was so-so. He wasn't against it, but wasn't excited.

Thankfully, we had some extra income at just the right moment so I could order the curriculum. These programs cost wa-a-a-a-y more than if I put it all together myself. But, I'm hoping the investment will pay off: i.e. they'll enjoy doing their work!

Which now leaves me teaching Bible, Art, Music, and various Social Studies lessons. We will be using SOS for Science, Language Arts, History, Geography, and Spanish. We will continue to use our books for Math.

Using the SOS will free me up quite a bit. Plus, I'll be able to put more into our other lessons, only having those few to plan out. I'm really looking forward to expanding our art and music studies!

Another project we will be working on is blogging. I know that seems odd, but I think the kids will have fun keeping a blog of what they're are doing and feeling from their own perspective. It'll make for some interesting reading, I'm sure! Keeping a blog will also count towards credit in L.A. as well as improving their typing skills. I can't wait to read some of their entries :D

So, until next week!

Summer Break

Now it's August we are officially on summer break.

With me working this last month we may as well have been on break, though we did get some work done. We did not finish Science like I had hoped we would.

Ah well. We're getting there.