First Week back to School

While I would love to do a weekly report every week of the school year to document what we did that week, I know it isn't going to happen. But I figured I can at least do this week since I have a moment now and hopefully I can get off to a good start.

 First day of school was spent going to the orthodontist. Sophie gets her braces off at the next visit. They are going to do a fake tooth on her retainer to fill the gap where the cleft is. She is very excited to get the braces off.

 So Monday didn't end up being the first day of school really, since we had to go into the Bay Area. We did run into our favorite old library to return and pick up books. We also stopped in on some friends to chat and play for a bit.  Great way to start off the school year!

Tuesday the official school work began.  Molly of course wanted to make breakfast. She insisted on Merida's Scottish Scones.

 They turned out yummy. I used craisens rather than raisens.

Then we got to work. After starting with our scripture/devotional time we jumped into History. We are doing Story of the World Volume 4 this year and it started with Queen Victoria and the crystal palace. So of course we built one out of paper.


This week we also read a bunch of books about Victoria, Charles Dickens and England. The chapter also had a section about the British in India so later in the week we watched Lagaan.

The three older kids are all doing Saxon Math and they enjoyed starting their new books because the first few lessons are all review and they could get through them quickly.  Molly started doing Math Mammoth addition. I didn't have a math book for her so printed out pages from Math Mammoth that I bought for Henry years ago. It seems to be working out fine.

Molly has also been doing her reading each day. I haven't been moving ahead yet, mostly review what she is has already done. We haven't been dilligent about reading lessons over the summer so she was a bit rusty.  We will get there!

Molly's selfie.

She is also still very excited about her cook book and we finally got around to cooking that sheepherd's pie. Ours wasn't nearly as beautiful as the picture in the book and didn't come out in a nice square piece like they displayed in the picture but everyone agreed it was tasty and that we should make it again some time.

 So far so good with the Disney Cookbook.

We did the first week's assignments in our Physics too. We did all the experiments and even made the hovercraft. I only had large yogurt tubs to make the hovercrafts out of and the boys would like to try other smaller cups or tubs but these worked and the boys had races across the table blowing their ships along.

So lets see.... Math, History, Science, Cooking, Reading.... oh yeah there was a little spelling practice that went on this week too. The kids each are still slowly making their way through their Spelling Workout books that I got them last year. I guess it won't hurt to finish off last years books before moving onto something new.

Sophie started her Williamsburg Intermediate classes on Wednesday. She loved getting back into the groove of waking up early and getting to her class. She really does love those classes. There was mostly orientation type assignments this week but she already has the checklist for assignments and readings for next week. She better get started! The list looks long.

We also found a new treet for the end of the day. Microsmores. We cover a plate with animal crackers, sprinkle on some chocolate chips, Then place some mini marshmellows on top. We microwave the lot for about 20 seconds. We take more animal crackers to "top off" the smores and then gobble up the sticky gooey mess.

 Everyone seems to enjoy these treets.

Our Audiobook for the week was Wonder by R.J. Palacio. It was great and the kids flew through the disks because they wanted to hear more and more of the story. They would listen in the car and bring it in when we got home.

We talked a lot about kindness and being different.  Great book for discussion!

Molly's favorite book this week. Falling for Rapunzel.

She loved the rhyming text and the funny things rapunzel kept throwing down. I think I read this one everyday this week and she got the other kids to read it to her too. She couldn't get enough of this one.

Peezy keeps us on our toes. She is getting big like a cat but is still very playful like a kitten. You have to watch out for her as she runs, jumps, pounces and climbs on everything.

That was pretty much our week.  I hope next week goes as well. We got done pretty much everything I had planned with a bunch of extras thrown in too. That almost never happens.

Cooking like a Princess

Yesterday at the library Sophie found a book she thought Molly might enjoy.

Molly carried it home and poured over the pages.  I thought she was just looking at the pictures of all the different princesses cooking but she was actually studying.

Later when I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. Molly pulled out her cookbook and showed me what she wanted. She had Shepherd's pie picked out but I had to turn her down. I had already decided that some left over spanish rice was going to be the main dish.  Molly quickly changed her plan and flipped to a page to show me her desired project.

I looked at the recipe and decided we could give it a try. The braided bread was really biscuts with ham and cheese thrown in. I didn't have ham but we did have some cheese and the other ingredients to make the braids. We set to work adding flour and baking poweder and even using the pastry cutter to break the butter into the batter.

Molly had a great time mixing and adding and finally getting to cut strips and braid her dough into little biscut braids.

She watched them while they cooked and then enjoyed them with our leftovers

Everyone seemed to enjoy this new recipe. I have a feeling we are going to be making them again.

This morning when I asked her what I should make for breakfast she pulled out her recipe book and showed me the pancake recipe.  She got her wish and we made pancakes this morning before church. She is still waiting for that shepherd's pie and the really wants the scones, monkey bread, magic wand cookies, and especially the bulls eye pizza.

It really is a very cute cookbook and so far the two recipes I have tried have been very easy and yummy. My little princess certainly is having fun planning meals. We may have to renew this library book as many times as they will let us or else we will just have to get a copy of it to her for Christmas.

What is the Plan?

I keep reading posts on blogs that list out and explain what their curriculum choices are for the coming year. I always feel a bit overwhelmed when I read these because they sound like they have their act together and I feel like I am winging it.  I do have a plan of sorts but if I know how I work I tend to mix things up later, add and drop things here and there and yet somehow my kids seem to know how to read, do some math and write. The rest (History and Science) just falls into place because of the environment we create in our home.

But just for the record. We do have a plan.

Sophie - 8th Grade
She is taking a full class load at Williamsburg Intermediate.
 Here is her book list. I have been trying to read the ones I hadn't read already and these are some challenging texts for me to get through. They certainly stepped up the reading for 8th grade.

This should cover all the subjects so I am more of a cheerleader in her schooling rather than the teacher. However, I am not overly excited about Williamsburg's use of Khan Academy as their Math program so we will be using it mainly as a supplement and working through Saxon Algebra 1.

Sophie will also continue to take piano lessons. We will have to fit in some Physical activity too. Once the weather cools down we should take more bike rides and trips to the tennis courts again.

Ian - 5th Grade
Ian is taking two online classes with Leadership Education Academy. I signed him up for a Writing course and the Literature class. I know these are not his favorite subjects but I figured if he wants to be ready to start Williamsburg Intermediate next year he needs to get used to the idea of taking classes like these.

This leaves me with History, Science, Math and any other electives.

Ian is doing Saxon Math 65 this year.

History and Science will be done with Henry. We should be covering Modern history. I have Story of the World on the shelf and we may use that but I really want to focus more on American history. So we will cover the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution this Fall.

Science will be Elemental Science Physics for the Grammar stage.

Ian will also have piano lessons and he is already half way through his Mod design class with Youth Digital.

Henry - 4th Grade

I signed Henry up for his first online class. He is taking the Science Explorers class with LEA. It is an experiment to see if he can handle online classes. In the past he just wanted to type in the chat box and do silly things so we will see if he is mature enough to handle classes now.

He will be doing Saxon 54 for Math.

Doing history and science with Ian. We had to do some California History again to appease the charter school we are a part of but that shouldn't be hard since we just did it last year when Ian was in 4th grade. Maybe we will take a trip up to Sacramento this time to visit Sutter's Mill and such. We have done the California Missions in the past and don't need to repeat them.

I will need to figure out what I want to do with Henry's Writing and Language arts. I know we will be doing Spelling and finish up IEW most likely but I haven't commited to anything yet.

Henry also has piano and this Fall he will be on a Soccer Team. This of course means we have two practices and a game every week for the next 12 weeks. Should be fun!

Molly - Kindergarden

I am really not planning on doing a whole lot with Molly's Kindergarden year. We will focus on learning to read mainly.  We have 2/3 of the IEW Pal Reading and Writing left to get through. We will continue with that program.

I don't have plans for anything formal for Math. I haven't started Singapore math until the kids are reading pretty well. I don't want to have to read every math problem to them and they usually jump into Singapore math 1 pretty easily sometime in Kindergarden or 1st grade.

Molly will sit in on history and science with the boys but not have the writen assignments.

Reading and writing is pretty much it for Molly. She is such a tag along kid, I feel bad sometimes.


Other
We will be doing scripture each day and have some piece of poetry we are memorizing. We were doing great with Shakespere before Summer distracted us. I would love to continue. It is just too cute to see Molly recite Shakespere and all the kids love to talk about the characters and tell the stories of Shakespere's plays.

The boys have cub scouts and Sophie has Young Women's activities.

I would love to have an artist and musician each month but haven't planned it yet.  I also have Latin sitting on the shelf which should be a part of the schedule.

We will just have to see how it all fits into our packed full days.

I may not have everything completly planned out but at least we have somewhere to start.

At the moment I need to ween my kids off of the t.v. or computer screen. I find screen time is harder and harder to keep control of. It usued to be so easy when each kid got their hour of play and a movie every once in awhile. Lately it has become an all day affair as Ian does his Mod Design class or is "programming" his Mindstorms. Sophie is "checking her email" and chatting with friends on the computer. Henry just wants to have as much screen time as everyone else is getitng and Molly is always in need of easy entertainment. It is the major dilema in our home at the moment. I wonder what would happen if we went without screens for an whole week. I can't really commit to that since I have to be in communication with people (There is always drama going on in Primary!).

Like most things we will just see how it all plays out.
I try not to stress too much about it. It always works out in the end.