A New Student

We added a new student to our little orange classroom.  Adam in 4th grade is now back home.  We tried to do the PS thing with him but really, he just started way too advanced.  He needed to be more challenged than he was.  He had started getting in trouble for disrupting class when he would finish early.  He had gotten to have a really bad attitude about school and it was sad to see.  We decided he needed a new outlook and a reset for the fourth grade.  I am happy to say he is doing fantastic and his attitude has improved greatly.  I love having him home again and being able to witness him search for knowledge again and simply be happy again. We had to redo the classroom in order make more seating room and we love how it turned out.

We are working on reducing fractions and have begun a road trip project for his geography work.  

 

 

Football

Friday night lights flag football is nearly over.  We had playoffs last night and it was a long night at the field 5 p.m. -10 p.m. To be exact.  Isaac lost his game.  Adam won his first game but lost his second game and Kevin won their game in a crazy 30-0 game, which continues his teams legacy of being undefeated this season.  He will be moving onto the finals on December 2 where he has to play and win two more games  to win it all! Owen fell asleep during game 3 of the night and had to be lugged to the next field like a sack of potatoes where he slept through all of that game as well.  It has been a fun season a little insane with practices on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and games on Friday.  Bash has been at the field nearly every day since he was born.  I'm not sure what we will do with all of our free time in the off season. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a little of this and that

 This last week has been very eventful!  The country elected a new president and although I didn't vote for him nor did I vote for the democratic candidate (I went third party this time) I am appalled at the behavior of some of those on the losing side.  It is sad but that being said, here at our little homeschool things are ticking along and everyone is happy to be so.  Owen cracked me up with his plan for the presidency! "Cleaning his room????" The boys were excited to get a giant box in the mail even though it just had diapers and toilet paper in it and Isaac continues to grow exponentially in his reading and writing skills! 

We had Parent teacher conferences this week for the two big boys and their teachers literally hushed over them.  They are such good and extremely bright boys. We have big news that I will announce soon...(hint: it's NOT a baby) but in the meantime we are enjoying are little "crazy" routine as it is about to get a little bit crazier :) 
 

 
 
 

Brass Rubbings

Have you ever done a brass Rubbing?  Neither had I, until this week when my son's class through our charter had a field trip which consisted of doing these fantastic rubbings.  We went to St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Long Beach.  They allow walk-ins every Saturday 11-3pm in case you want to try this ($7) I love medieval history so this was right up my alley. I didn't know that these tiles with inlaid brass were created to save space in the churches because the statues were getting to be too much on the floor space, but I do now!  

Click http://www.stlukeslb.org/brass-rubbings.html for more about brass rubbings

Pokémon Crazy

Do you have a kiddo that is Gaga over Pokémon? I do! He doesn't even know Pokémon Go exists but he loves playing with and collecting the cards.  I was so excited when the ladies at www.totschooling.net put up a Pokémon freebie for matching upper and lower case letters.  It was perfect for the 4 year old and I could use the letters for fun stuff with the 6 year old.  Today we got to use them for our spelling work.  I feel like I am just now getting in a rhythm or least starting to find a rhythm .  I am hoping it becomes easier as I go, but for now at least I can see a light at the end of this tunnel of confusion and exhaustion.  I will be back to myself in a little while for now it is nice to at least remember what myself was like. 

Working with long and short vowels

This month we are focusing on long and short vowel reading.  Isaac is not a confident reader.  I am working hard to make him more confident so we are learning some fun rhymes and doing some games to hopefully make some of these phonics rules a little less scary for him. I went on Teacher's Pay teachers and found a great little unit on "when two vowels go walking...." And we will work our way through That and then do some bossy "e" work.  Also we have been working on categorizing words into short or long vowels. I am hoping that making these things that he thinks are hard a lot easier for him, he will start to enjoy reading more. 

I am using these two resources the latter is by Emily's elementary resources.  The posters I found at the dollar tree! 

First day at iLead 360

Isaac began his classes at iLead last week.  He actually loves them and it is nice having a little time to focus on my two littlest boys.  I now only do school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Isaac and I only have to focus on ELA and Math.  I still feel a little bit like I'm in the wind.  I'm hoping once I have gotten through my first month here I'll feel more grounded. I have finally ordered a math curriculum and have been putting together my ELA curriculum.  I know, I am behind but hey this summer was a little crazy, especially August! So now we are working to catch up a little. 

When life gets crazy!

Sometimes when life gets crazy it is just that, crazy,  and there is no way around it and you just have to make it through.  This was the past 10 months of my life.  We got pregnant it was an emotionally and physically strenuous pregnancy for me.  We made it through and have a beautiful baby to show for it.  He is healthy which was everything we had prayed for and he is a miracle which is what we needed.  I made it through the year with the Bigs in their 5 day a week public charter school and I homeschooled the kindergartner and tot-schooled the 3 year old.  I also took on a job as a nanny for 5 months to a newborn baby girl (that was a little crazy, but I loved it ).  But here we are on the other side with a brand new baby and the Bigs are back in school and the littles are waiting for mom to recover.  I get another week.  We decided to try a homeschooling charter this year with our now 1st grader and he will be attending classes twice a week all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I will only be teaching Math and ELA while the other subjects will be covered at school aside from projects he will be doing at home for the classes.  My preschooler will also be at preschool twice a week for his obligatory 1 year away from the mama to learn how to be friendly, sit quietly, stand in a line and listen to someone else.  He will then be homeschooled for Kindergarten next year. I have decided to keep up with my blogs this year because I fear I will not remember this year if I fail to document it while it is happening.  I am embarking on life with 5 boys, 3 will be playing sports this year and four will be in "school".  I am excited and worried, maybe terrified a little but, I'm up for the challenge! So, if you follow my blog let me know and hold me accountable to update it!  I'll need all the cheering on I can get!