I'm in charge here!

Or at least I think I am......in fact the cover of my lesson planner carries this written reminder....

I think I'll start holding it up when the kids give me attitude.

They don't tell you when you start homeschooling that there will be days your children decide that they are going test you to the utter limits of the patience God gave you.....I get especially aggravated when they tell me what they are going to do. Don't mistake me.....I am all about them expressing their likes and dislikes. I don't want to be an overlord. But at the end of the day school is non-negotiable.   So with a small amount of grumbling here's what we got done.....

Math tests went very well! I was especially pleased with Stufffie.

                                                          SUPER DUPER!!!

Not to be out done Kung-Fu knocked it out of the park! He got an 89...which is a B...not to shabby! The picture is on my ipod and I have no idea how to post it here.....sorry Kung-Fu!

We are almost done with our first Time Travelers unit.... we finished Explorers....PIRATES are next!

                                                     see ya fellas!

And we colored this nifty Mission. Because the explorers didn't just wipe out the natives with disease they also thought it would be a good idea to kill them in the name of our Lord.....

                                    What a bunch of dummies!

We also made this map that shows where each explorer explored in the New World.....

Cutting out each tiny little head and gluing them was tons of fun! no really....Kung-Fu opted NOT to color his...and that was a decision I was happy to let him make.....

We also made this cool 3D map.....we really like these. And this week they both colored with markers so it matches.....it's the little things that thrill me....

                          Love the temple and the Spaniards prancing around....

Our extremely crappy State Study continues to bore. I'm thinking this week I'll order something different. Because what we're doing it just useless. I know they aren't learning ANYTHING! 

                  

The workbook is really uninspiring....it's a shame....not just the black and whiteness of it...it's the utter YAWN factor.....

I tossed around the idea of using it to the bitter end but at the end of the day it's more important that my kids learn the geography of the US then it is for me to have more fuel to pour on the fire that is Winter Promise publications.

We skipped the 2nd assignment of Picture Studies this week because we are so sick of the 'new' picture from last week that we were ready to cry with boredom. Luckily I have some Come Look With Me books around that I'm going to supplement with. 

Kung Fu continued to enjoy the WP Language arts....color me surprised....

yes I know that some of the nouns aren't nouns and we did talk about what a noun is so relax.

Spelling tests went super...

                                           Kung Fu.

                                           Stuffie.

Here's Stuffie's letter to Jesus.....

seriously the cutest sweetest thing EVER! I can only imagine how Jesus feels.....

Mrs.Lewis the kid's music teacher is going to get the weekly Bible verse as a welcome back to music school gift.....

                           Sorry Leigh...it was music related and you like fish....except to eat.

She also drew another picture inspired by Writing With Ease.

it's Misty of Chincoteague. And according to Stuffie it looks just like her because she knows what she looked like and she wants to go see her stuffed and mounted on Chincoteage Island. We're going to go in a couple of weeks and if I find this stuffed and mounted horse I'm posting that lovely photo of death!

Kung Fu is never inspired to draw a picture after Writing With Ease.....

Apologia Astronomy is, as usual, totally awesome. We studied the Earth this week....

There were the regular pages of fascinating facts, mini-books, what do you remember? But my favorites were the pages where they can draw their own Earth...

                               Wanted earth...I'm not sure what the Earth did to cause it to be wanted but there you have it.

We did a bunch of bike riding this week because the weather is so nice.....

she scares me less and less each time we ride out....

Kung Fu got a new bike because he's to big for kids sized bikes.....

Being a man sized boy has it's perks. He already wiped out and has a nasty scrape on his elbow.  

we met up with our buddy at the AC Moore and made the last summer craft...it involved creasing....

                                        "What do you mean crease?"  Why didn't she just say FOLD???

Behold the CREASERS...it's like greasers only with FOLDING!

And that's our week in a nutshell. 

Tomorrow the public schools are back in session and we're taking the whole week off...because we can. We've got a 5 week head start and like we usually do we're going to go camping. 

I feel sorry for the kids who's mom's can't wait for them to go back to school and I feel sorry for the mom's who miss their kids while they are away. 

I'm am ever thankful that God has blessed us so we can live the homeschooling life and I hope I can be worthy of the gift he has given me in my children.

HURRICANE!!!!!

or......This is the I've used so much paper for school this week I'm afraid to go near a forest. The trees might try and get their revenge.....BLOG!

We've finished week 4 and everything has been checked! I'm feeling really good about that!

The first read aloud was awesome. The kids LOVED it. They are afraid Sign of the Beaver is going to be lame. The reasoning is that Naya Nuki was so good because they could trick us into thinking the next one will be good too....we'll see. Right now we can see that that last sentence was just.... awkward.

                                               read it! I command you!


In other Language Arts news....Stuffie was supposed to fill in the blanks of a story with her spelling words. She decided to do it "Mad Libs Style" and just put her spelling words in any spot that struck her fancy. Then she read it aloud to us and was very pleased with it's ridiculousness.

 and really...who cares as long as she's practicing her spelling words? Plus she did get an A on her test....

                                                        YAY!

And guess who the lucky recipient of the Bible verse is for the 2nd week in a row....

I'll give you a hint...it starts with 'L' and ends in 'eigh'.


Now we can get to the parts where I made trees weep. Time Traveler is the spine of our History this year and they have a huge amount of projects to reinforce what we're reading. This week we made a game called 'High and Dry' it started out like this.....

Handy thing that laminator.....did you know laminator isn't a word? It's true my spell check just told me. And I told my spell check to shut it!
Anyway the game board is super cute with spaces like this

                                           YIKES! Cannibals!
 And like this......

                                     Stuffie the non eater is afraid she's going to get The Scurvey....(spell check says that scurvey isn't a word either....stuff it spell check!)

So I was at that point when I realized I didn't color the board.....DANG IT! So I started all over again and this is what we got.....

We haven't played yet. we're saving it for when the power goes out. So I'll review it another time.

I also made an enemy of the trees by printing out 2 card stock (2 words ) Pueblo's......

It's the gun toting, disease carring Spaniards vs. the peaceful people of the Pueblo.....the kids couldn't wait to play "Pueblo Wars" after supper and I have the picture to prove it!

The Spanish kicked ass and took names...poor Puebloians (also not a word). I bet they'd give those conquistadors a run for their money if they tried that crap now. Bust a cap Pueblo....bust a cap.

We studied Venus this week in Science. They made an awesome volcano of facts about Venus. I love the blank spaces where they can really let their creative juices flow....

Caution Hot! That place is covered in LIQUID HOT MAGMA! for realz.....

I'm just about to the point where I'm going to toss not only the State Study but also the Bible.... Look at what he had to read this week....

2nd Timothy 4:9-22 you should read it and then tell me if it makes any sense on God's beautiful Earth to assign that passage...OUT OF ALL THE PASSAGES IN THE ENTIRE BIBLE.....for a 10 year old's Bible study. I had to help him with the questions.

I don't mind helping my child however I do mind that WP picked such a weird passage to emphasize "Helping Others" After all they do know they are writing for children....don't they??? Maybe  not??? I dunno?

Look at how cute the illustrations are in Stuffie's Catechism.....

 I should break out Kung Fu's catechism and let him read it again....at least he'd learn something.....

Kung Fu's getting some Bible references in Math. Thank goodness the other subjects can help pick up the slack...

He's a good mathematician that boy.... just sits down with the book and plows right through....

thank you precious child for understanding fractions....and asking Papa when you're stumped!

Thank you for gluing the figures into the Timeline book as well....

you're my new favorite son! For realz.

We also murdered a few trees to make out 3D Maps of the French Explorers....

This one is Stuffie's because she LOVES Beavers and it had a Beaver to color and she colored it red!

Kung Fu chose the smallest one with the least need for multiple colors. That's my boy!

What did't get mentioned in the above information is that we have 2 printers. One to print on card stock (2words) because our laser printer doesn't like the thick paper. SEVERAL times I printed something on regular paper that was supposed to be printed on card stock (2words) because our laser printer is the default printer and I forgot to select the other one....SEVERAL TIMES- poor poor trees...sorry trees.

So that's our week. Stuffie declared the "New School" -FUN!- today....I love the positive feed back. 4 weeks down 32 more weeks to go!

The I got an i-pod and have been too distracted to blog....MEGA BLOG!!!

It's true. I've smiled, cajoled, winked, and shimmied my way into an i-pod touch. And it's AMAZING! How did I ever do anything before?! And I'm certainly not doing anything now unless you count buying music at an alarming rate and playing Words With Friends until way past my bed time.

I am finding time to homeschool. To prove it here's what we've been up to....

Science continues to be the subject that gets skipped on busy days. I'm not sure why that keeps happening but I'm working on a solution. In the mean time we make up what we've missed on the weekends or in the evening. Here's Papa and the brats making an eclipse in our living room..... because we are just that powerful. (insert maniacal laughter)

it really worked and helped them to understand that the whole entire world doesn't get covered in darkness at the same time.

We are continuing to work on our big end of the unit project.  We're adding mini books like drunken sailors....

And Papa and I got started on the maps.

It's a pretty involved process so we decided to make them for the kids. Making 2 of everything is kind of a drag but the maps are super cool with the transparency overlays of the route the explorer took so in the end it will be worth it. I hope.....

We made a 3D interactive map of Columbus' voyages....I cut out the path he traveled and then you could put the ships in and sail them...so cute!

we continued to add pictures to the Timeline....

As you can see we're running out of room. I'm wondering what it's going to look like by the end of the week....


One of their favorite things they made last week were these Sea Monster pop-ups. I think they came out AWESOME!

                                           Stuffie's

                                           Kung Fu's


Stuffie continues to struggle at Math. I have to sit next to her and walk her through every single problem. She understands the mechanics of how to do the problems she just doesn't want to waste valuable day dreaming time actually figuring them out.....the poor dear.....

Kung Fu solved the first case in his Language Arts workbook. It was neat. I hope he continues to enjoy it.
                                           It's Amsterdam!


We squeezed in a field trip to the Mariner's Museum. They have a really awesome section just about explorers. They were totally jazzed at seeing the different navigational tools we studied. Stuffie spent a while playing the game about what you should bring on your journey to prevent your crew from getting scurvy.  It was neat to help them see that these aren't just stories I'm reading to them....

Love the models of Columbus' ships....so neat! The Santa Maria even had a mini Columbus standing on the deck!

Stuffie wrote out her verse for handwriting. The idea is for her to do her best and give it away as a gift. This week her God-Mother Leigh was the lucky winner. Because of the fish boarder.

                             I love how close Leigh and Stuffie are.

They did great on their spelling tests and paragraph writing too.....

They have also taken to writing their 'play' names on their papers. I never know who I'm going to be grading any more....it can be unsettling.... especially when I can't even say the name at the top of the page....

So that's me pretty much all caught up. Today we're going to make a Pueblo out of card stock (it's 2 words card stock) and  I bet that it going to be a blast.....no really. Almost as much fun as Kung Fu's new reader....

It's about a GIRL!!! GAG!


 I'll leave you with this.....

i-pods keep girls quiet...it works the same on boys....especially when they are playing Fruit Ninja.