Tin Foil Art

This was an art project Savannah and Molly picked to do one day while Sophie was at Tuesday school.  You draw a fish on tin foil, then rub the tin foil over some vegetable or fruit netting, paint it, ceramic paints work best, then cut it out and paste it onto a background you've designed.  Molly did a pretty good pelican I thought...I only helped her a little bit.

HOCC Talent Show

 The home school group we belong to put on a talent show for all the kids to perform in.  Sophie memorized the poem "The Three Little Kittens".  We made cut-out kitten puppets and Sophie dressed up like a mama cat.  She did a great job reciting her poem and used the different voices we practiced.

Savannah had written and published a book through Shutterfly about wild adventures she has with her cousin Nate.  For her talent she read the book to the audience.  She did really well and everyone wanted to look at her book afterwards.  She has another book soon to be published called "The Pumpkin Nights".  We can't wait to read it!

Another neat thing about the evening was Grandpa Bruce and Grandma Nancy and Elise were visiting us so they were able to attend and watch the girls perform.  Elise even got to be in the group photo.  See if you can find her.

Human Body Party!

As part of Biology this year we studied the human body for ten weeks.  Savannah was a little "sicked-out" at first about having to study it.  But at the end she said her favorite part was learning about bones.  At the end of the ten weeks, we made human body cut-outs complete with decorations...some edible, some not.  Then we had human body sundaes!

A few days later I found that someone had eaten all the intestines (fruit flavored licorice glued on).  Gross!

Building the Wall of China on a Roman Road

For one of Savannah's history projects, she chose to build the wall of China.  Most of the wall of China was made by slaves stamping earth and gravel with their feet between board frames for years and years.

Savannah built a wooden frame and then pounded with a mallet, earth and gravel until it was solid.  She then slowly pulled the wooden frame off and we had a small piece of wall.  It definitely was easier to make then the original wall, and helped us understand the concept of how it was made better. 

The Wall of China is sitting in the Roman Road Model.....another project we did where we tried to replicate the process of building a Roman road.  We put down a layer of glue (aka cement), then pebbles, then sand, then dirt, then bull-dozed it with a rolling pin.  It didn't look like the Roman roads but we figured they had several years of chariots and horses to help smooth theirs out. 

Dramatic Storytime Club

This year we participated in a little drama group.  It was a lot of the same kids we did the craft club with.  The girls loved it.  We would pick a story each week, then we'd get together and read it, followed by creating simple costumes, casting the characters, and finishing with the dramatization of the story.  It was good for our girls to get out of their shells and show off their cute personalities.  These pictures are from the story "The Princess and the Frog".  Molly was the frog, Savannah was a co-princess, and Sophie was a sister to the princess. 

Craft Club

We have been meeting with other homeschool families and doing a craft club. My girls absolutely love it. It's probably their favorite thing during the week. So far they have made everything from little pillows to braided rugs, log cabins, and knitted hats. Savannah especially loves craft club and has several girlfriends her age who attend. She is constantly wanting to try to sew things and create things. It's been a great experience for all of us.

Ancient Roman History

 Savannah Opens a Roman Popinas!

A popina was an ancient Roman wine bar, where a limited menu of simple foods (olives, bread, stews) and selection of wines of varying quality were available. The popina was a place for men of the lower classes of Roman society (slaves, freedmen, foreigners) to socialize.  Savannah opened her popina up just for one night.  We drank MonaVie and had a yummy soup, cecina (pureed garbonzo beans, olive oil, and basil), olives, pita bread, and a yogurt sauce.  Savannah had a great time creating her menu, setting up her stand, cooking with mom, and selling us her food. 

We learned about and made Roman Fasces one day.  The traditional Roman fasces consisted of a bundle of white birch rods, tied together with a red leather ribbon into a cylinder, and often including a bronze axe (or sometimes two) amongst the rods, with the blade(s) on the side, projecting from the bundle.  It was used as a symbol of the Roman Republic in many circumstances, including being carried in processions, much the way a flag might be carried today.  Ours ended up looking more like an axe because we didn't have a bundle of sticks, but you get the idea.

Paper Flowers and the "Bean" Jar

Hooray! We filled up the "Bean" Jar.

The girls get "Beans" (which are actually pink marble type things) put into their jar (glass vase) anytime I think they deserve them. If they did a great job on their lessons, or they brushed their teeth without me reminding them, or they helped one of their sisters etc. they get a handful of beans. It took us a couple months to fill up the jar. Once they filled it up, they drew a card from a set of cards they had made up earlier of activities along with a service project they'd like to do. The card they chose this time was "Go to a movie" and "make blankets for charity". So we went to see "The Princess and the Frog". The girls of course loved it. Now we need to figure out making those blankets for charity. Hmmmm.....

Paper Flowers

We decided since we now had a full bean jar, we should make something to put in it before we empty it out to start over again. So we made paper flowers out of tissue paper, sucker sticks, green crepe paper, fuzzy balls and other things. First we wrapped our sucker sticks with green crepe paper for the stems. Then we cut squares out of the tissue paper, poked a hole in the middle of three or four papers, pushed a sucker stick into the hole just a little way, twisted the paper around the top of the sucker stick, taped it with tape, glued a fuzzy ball into the center and walaah we have a flower! Then we made different insects to go in each flower. Savannah had a lady bug, Molly a bumble bee, and Sophie a butterfly.

Hard at Work

Miscellaneous pictures from a day of homeschooling. Molly decided to make herself a little bed. Savannah was deep in thought and Sophie was working on a one of her many art projects.

Sign Language

We are learning sign language. It is one of Molly's favorite times. We use the Signing For Kids book and so far it has been great.

Smarty Pants

Our cute, little, smarty pants! She sits over on the couch while the other two are doing lessons, pretending she's not listening. But every now and then she pipes up and says a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. She's my little experiment of inspire, not require. I am still too scared to try it out on my other two.....

Toilet Paper Roll Elephants

 One day for Biology we decided to learn about elephants.  For the activity party of our lesson, we found this cute elephant craft on-line and the girls each made their own elephant.  They played with them for quite a while and then ended up putting them on our little Christmas tree.

www.dltk-kids.com/animals/melephants.html

Multi-Cultural Potluck

Savannah participated in our homeschool association's Multicultural Potluck night which is where homeschoolers present about a country of their choice and bring a dish to share from that country.  She and Ryan worked together on learning about Russia.  They put together a poster with the Russian alphabet and different pictures from Russia.  Ryan taught Savannah the alphabet. I baked a Russian cake (Yablechy Peroke or something like that).   When it was their turn to present, they talked a little about Russia and then they sang a Russian song together.  They did a great job!  The night was very fun and enlightening.  It was nice to learn about other cultures and taste all the different dishes.

Doesn't homeschooling look like fun?

A Typical Week

Monday - 8:30 to Noon morning routine and lessons. At noon we clean up, have lunch and get ready to leave the house. We went over to a neighbor's home who needed help with her children. We spent the afternoon there. I cleaned and watch her six children and my three so she could get some things done.

Tuesday - 8:30 to 9:45 we did lessons. At 9:45 we loaded up and went to a nearby park for a little soccer playing with other kids. Savannah and her friend Gabby and Gabby's older brother got to play "coach" and tried to coach the younger kids. We came back home at noon and then did lessons until three, went and ran errands, came back home for dinner and bed.

Wednesday - 8:30 to 9:00 morning routine. At 9am we leave to go to Savannah's violin lesson. At 10:15 we arrive back home and work on lessons until noon. Noon we have lunch. At 12:30 we are back in the car to meet up with a couple other families to work on crafts for a couple hours. The girls learned to weave this week and each made a small pot holder. At 4:15 we head back to Savannah's violin teacher's home for a group class that lasts for an hour. Then we rush home for dinner and mom leaves for young women's.

Thursday - 8:30 to 9:50 we do our morning routine and math. 9:50 the girls leave for ice skating lessons. Ice skating ends at 11:30 then we grab a bite to eat and go to a chapter book club that meets at 1:30. This week it met at 12:30 and it was a potluck and movie of the book they just finished "Tuck Everlasting". Then back home to finish up lessons that we didn't get done earlier.

Friday - 8:30 to 9:50 Morning routine and lessons. 9:50 playgroup at park until noon. Noon we eat lunch. The girls work on chores or read. 4:30 Annual Multicultural Potluck, we meet with other homeschool families and everyone presents something on a different country and brings a dish from that country. Ryan helped Savannah learn something in Russian and Savannah and I will make a Russian cake.

This is more or less what our weeks are like.  They're busy and full, but we are spending our time together and for the most part enjoying every minute.

Our Violinist!

Savannah has been asking since she was five to learn to play the violin. She has finally started lessons.  We are all so excited!  She has been to a couple lessons so far and has diligently practiced everyday.  I am so happy someone in our family is going to learn the violin.  I hope all the girls will want to do it.  If the lessons weren't so expensive I'd do it myself.  Maybe someday.....

Math - Learning About Volume

 One of the activities in Math this week was learning about the concept of volume. We found several empty containers of different sizes and then spent time seeing how many cups of liquid fit into each container. Savannah loved doing this and would probably have done it all day if I would have let her.

What are Sophie and Molly up to?

Sophie has really been doing great with reading. She reads short books with three and four letter words in them now and is always looking at books and trying to figure out the words. Molly wants to be like Sophie so she pretends to read, which is so cute. She has some little books memorized so it almost sounds like she is really reading.

Sophie and Molly have both have been learning about different shapes. They had a fun time the other day doing this little project. I cut out different shapes and traced them onto paper, then they got to try to figure out where the shapes went and glue them on. Sophie ended up making little things out of her shapes, like a house.