The Joys of January

I can't believe we are already a whole month into 2010! I'm barely back in the saddle and we have February vacation in 2 weeks! Not that I mind of course. I can't seem to find time lately to blog more than once a month and then I have to get a marathon blog up before the month ends so I will feel that I have things in proper order. Generally I am not all that orderly, as most of you know, so I have to hang on to the few orderly things I have.

So, diving in to 2010. The kids have become rather accomplished chess players. They even go to chess club with their daddy now. It's so cute. I'm not very into the game myself. I have enough things to think about all day long, it doesn't amuse me to concentrate so hard on a game, but I am really glad that Jason and the kids are playing often. The mental gymnastics (that are too much for me) are great for the kids!

Ian is actually too young for chess club so he stays home with me and we play some cool games. We built this Jenga tower together and Ian was very proud. I think we had 37 levels!
The first week that everyone was back to school we did a fun unit on a book called "The Quilt Maker's Gift" by Jeff Brumbeau. The kids did some neat quilt projects. The girls enjoyed sewing quilt patches together to make a pillow

Everyone also made quilt patterns for art class. They chose their paper and then had to cut their pieces to size and follow the pattern. It varied in difficulty for each age. They all did a great job and we realized that quilting is not easy! I had always thought it would be a nice hobby to take up but it, like chess, definitely takes more brainpower than I am willing to lend to a hobby right now lol!




In our story, the quilt maker had a tea party and I took the opportunity to enjoy one with the kids too. We made blueberry scones and practiced our manners as we sipped our delightful tea. I think tea parties should be a much more regular occurrence.

Ian, who loves tea, thinks so too.
Bella, Lexie and Hannah designed their own cereal boxes. We didn't actually go as far as making their cereal but their ingredients sure sounded interesting...
As we began our study of Europe I realized that we needed a better understanding of history as a whole. I made a huge time line from 4000BC to the present so that the kids could see how young America really is and how much history actually passed before our country was even a country. I wanted them to see how "old" the countries in Europe are in comparison to ours. The time line made a lot of sense to them. We've pulled it out a few times this month in relation to our studies.

The first European country we are studying is France. We started with a book called "The Butterfly" by Patricia Polacco. It took place during World War II. It was a beautiful true story of a young girl and her mother hiding a Jewish family and trying to help them escape France safely. Although I hadn't planned it, it fit so perfectly with our scripture for the week which was:
Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends... The story was a beautiful picture of this scripture as the main characters risked their lives to help others.

For art that week we all made butterflies and they will be sent to the Holocaust Museum in Houston TX to be displayed with 1.4 million other butterflies to represent the 1.4 million children who lost their lives in that terrible war.

On a lighter note, Isaac and Ian worked together very nicely making their Lightening McQueen Sand Art as a sensory activity.
We had a spontaneous TLC sleep over one Thursday evening and the kids all did their Friday "homework" here.
Since Ian doesn't have Friday "homework" he is inclined to find some creative way to pass his time while the other work. This day he was particularly creative while I was folding laundry. He used his undies to make a superhero mask. He's a pretty funny kid to say the least!
Another morning recently I found him wearing my scarf as pants. He had been being pulled around the house by Isaac on a "sleigh" and when I asked if he was Santa he said "No, I'm Hermie (the dentist elf from Rudolph). I stole the sleigh!" He sure keeps me laughing!
After all that Friday work I took the kids out sledding! We had a blast. The snow on the hill was a bit sparse but everything was so frozen that it didn't matter a bit. The sleds were running at top speed and they even slid down on their bellies like penguins!





I've been trying to make it a point to get outside a little more this winter than last and I have a friend who encourages me to do it by inviting me out on little winter hikes! We took a little field trip to look for animal tracks one afternoon after some fresh snow had fallen a few days before. It was so much fun! We saw a LOT of tracks. They were hard to identify because the snow was pretty deep but the kids had so much fun using their little track guides and trying to figure them out. It felt good to be out getting some fresh air. We all came home rosy cheeked and had some homemade cocoa.



In addition to being hilarious, Ian is also a hard worker and he is cruising through his phonics books! He was very proud to finish the second in his series and move on to the last one!
We had another Pajama Day the other day. That never gets old to me. It's so cozy to be all snuggled up in our jammies on a cold winter day! It makes me feel a bit lazy though so I had the girls cook lunch! They made eggs, sausage and french toast! It was delicious. We used up the last of our maple syrup that we bought in the fall before our local orchard closed up for winter...good thing March is right around the corner and we can maybe make a little of our own again!
Isabella is still swimming! She has had quite a few swim meets and she is doing very well! I am very impressed with how much she has learned and improved since she started. Most importantly, she loves it! We thought the season was over with her last meet in January but were delightfully surprised when her coach added a few more meets into February! The only thing with swimming is how difficult it is to get good pictures of my little swimmer in action! Maybe it's time for a camera upgrade...every good swimming parent needs to be able to take good pictures...
My kids and I participate in a Music and Art group once a month on one of the off days for the TLC. The kids are learning lots of songs to sing at a performace in June and my friend Amy teaches them music lessons each time we meet. She assigned them a report to do for this past meeting. They each had to do o brief report on a composer. It was really great to hear all the hard work the kids put into their reports. I was really proud of both Bella and Isaac!


After their Music lesson I led an art lesson. I am using a free curriculum available from a local library. You can check out giant laminated posters of specific pieces of art to show the kids. I give them some history and info about the piece and then I find a way for us to do some artwork that relates to the lesson. This week we viewed a photograph of the Ohio state capital building and discussed how a building can be art. This particular building's design was chosen through a contest. The kids had to create buildings to enter into the contest. I am continually amazed by everyone's creativity! They are all wonderful artists.
All month long Bella, Hannah and Lexie have been working on a book report from a historical fiction book. They had to make a diorama of a scene from their book and do a brief report on the time period that their book took place in. They had to present their reports orally and explain their diorama. They all did an incredible job. I was more than impressed with the dioramas and the reports. They all worked very hard to include special details and I think they all learned quite a bit!

Isabella's book was called "The diary of Marie Antoinette" and her diorama is a scene in which Marie is teaching her new young husband, the Dauphin of France, Louis Auguste, how to wade in a stream at a picnic.
Lexie read the story "Addy, An American Girl" and it takes place during the Civil War. Lexie's scene portrays Addy picking cotton and the slave master making her eat a worm from his whip.
Hannah read a story called "Five Smooth Stones" that took place during the Revolutionary War. Her diorama is a scene in the house of the main character just before they all come in for a meal.
This past week we have wrapped up our study of France with a book called "Marguerite Makes a Book" by Bruce Robertson. It takes place in the Middle Ages and Marguerite helps her father "illuminate" a "Book of Hours" for his patron. The kids enjoyed their brief introduction to the Middle Ages and loved "illuminating" their own names below.

For the next two weeks we are going to be learning about the Winter Olympics, celebrating our 100th day of school and Valentines Day of course! We'll have lots of fun times to share!

December's Gone with the Wind

December ends tomorrow and I have a months worth of things to blog about, including Christmas, which makes for a long blog with lots of pictures....but if I complete it then I will have chronicled all of the highlights of homeschooling for 2009!
This December has been an amazing month. I have to say it may have been one of the best Christmases I have every had, which is ironic considering we all had the stomach flu and less money than we've ever had at Christmas. I realized as I "suffered" through some "hard times" this month that they were actually the answer to my prayer that we would keep Christ as the focus of our Christmas. When everything else was stripped away, even our health for a few short days, we were able to see the Glory of the Babe and the purpose of His coming. Our traditions are fun and giving gifts is wonderful but to truly be blessed with the understanding that all of it passes away and Jesus is more than enough, was the best Christmas gift for me this year.

So this is what we've been up to. We did manage to do a lot school work this month. We finished up a really awesome unit on plants. We did some awesome dissecting and ate the things we dissected! Isabella was a little skeptical about this but when she saw we were dissecting flowers (which we didn't eat) and fruit she warmed up to the idea.

Here is Isaac studying the petals of his flower.
Isabella is inspecting her leaves and stem.
Lexie is showing off her perfectly dissected pistil.
Ian did a wonderful job keeping the stamen all in tact for observation.


We learned a lot about fruit as we were dissecting. Did you know that strawberries and raspberries are not actually berries at all?! They are aggregates and tomatoes are berries! We also learned that every diamond shape on the outside of a pineapple is it's own individual fruit and they are all fused together by one core.



We were blessed to spend a morning outside and got some adorable pictures...perfect for Christmas cards!
We did some fun Christmas crafting. These little trees made perfect gift tags.

It snowed. We made a snowman. I tried to enjoy it...I almost did...but not quite.
Lexie had a really cool experience this month. She got to meet a celebrity named Nathan Kress. He is one of the actors from the show iCarly. I had never heard of him myself but he is certainly very popular among the younger crowd...those with cable anyway. She got to ride in a limo with him to an event at a mall and he signed her shirt! How cool is that!?

It snowed again...they played outside...I shoveled...I almost enjoyed it...but not quite.
My little man Isaac turned 6! So hard to believe that 6 years have passed since I held that little newborn in my arms!
Here he is, making his requested birthday lunch of Annie's mac and cheese, all by himself. He's so grown up.
Our gift to him was a new pet. He has been waiting to get one since we let his turtle go this summer. He chose a teddy bear hamster. He named him Harry Hamsty. Sadly, he died 3 days after we got him due to an illness that was apparently widespread through the teddy bear hamster population because Petco didn't get a new shipment until yesterday. So we finally replaced Harry Hamsty with a new hamster who looks remarkably the same. The new hamster's name is Chippy Mickey. We hope he does better.

RIP Harry....
Isaac got to celebrate his birthday a few times because so many people love him!
Not being a big fan of frosting, Isaac requested a birthday cake that looked like dirt. We made mud cake and added a few gummy worms for effect. He still didn't really eat it lol.
He was blessed to have lots of friends come to celebrate with him.
We had a TLC field trip to the grocery store this month too. It was so much fun! I gave the kids a budget and they made a list of all of the snacks and meals for the TLC for 2 weeks. They estimated their prices and then off we went.
It was pretty funny to be taking pictures in the grocery store. I think most people thought we were crazy...I certainly got a lot of looks...maybe it was having 5 kids in the grocery store in the middle of a school day...

as you can imagine, it was a bit chaotic.
But they did a great job, they even bagged the groceries themselves and they came in just under their budget! Their estimations were very close. I was impressed.
O Christmas tree O Christmas tree...why are you so expensive?

I have never had a fake tree. The frugal person in me does see this is a more economical thing to do but the true New England girl in me says NO. The tree must be real. They are so expensive though and w/ the budget being so tight we couldn't bring ourselves to spend 1/2 a weeks grocery budget on a silly tree...so we found one in our own back yard...

Despite it's "fullness" we could see it's potential to be shaped like a real Christmas tree. I cut away about 2/3 of it and we dragged it in the house!
Of all the Charlie Brown trees in the world...this may be the Charlie Brownest :)
Fully decorated it was pretty nice. It's branches were perfect for holding 6-10 ornaments...just the way little kids like to hang them. It was very special to all of us, and another reminder that we don't need a lot of money to make wonderful Christmas memories!
Jason can never wait until Christmas to give the gifts that he gets for the kids. His gift to Isabella was a chess set. We are now all playing at least once a day. It's been fun. I am amazed at how well Isaac can play. I thought the strategy portion would be tough for him but he is able to think ahead quite well! Bella gives Jay a run for his money most games. I beat Jason once and he has kicked my but 4 times since...I am plotting my revenge as we speak. We'll probably have a New Years Eve marathon and I am determined to beat him...
The week before Christmas our family got hit with the stomach flu. One by one we were all affected. Isabella got it on Christmas Eve. She was so sad because we had to miss a special breakfast with her grammy and papa but she recovered quicker than anyone else and was able to make it out for the evening to see some of the people we love!

First stop was great grammy's!

Isaac and Nico are getting so big!
Natalie got a new puppy!
Next stop...Rara and Papa's...Bella was so tired.
Aunty Kathy and Annika.
Cousins!
Everyone looked so adorable in their fancy Christmas clothes.
Crystal charmed us all with her incredible Ukelele skills...doesn't Jacob looked charmed?
At the end of the evening on Christmas Eve...the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...
and the kids were all in their new Christmas jammies!
Annika got a new hat from Auntie Missy...it's a little tall :)
Isabella got a Bitty Baby. She was so excited. Her name is Daisy Paige.
Unfortunetly Jason got the stomach flu on Christmas morning. When he was finally feeling well enough we headed back home and just relaxed. Then a day and 1/2 later the kids and I headed back to my mom's for the evening to have Christmas one more time with the Beaulieu family.

My cousin Bridget brought a funny hunting video game that the boys loved!
Here are the cousins...we missed Mona, Waylynn and Gage out in Vegas...hopefully we can get them home to be in next years picture!

So that about wraps up December...
I'm ready to move on to 2010. I have lots of planning to do and some rearranging for school. There have been and will be some changes happening, some we are looking forward to, some we are sad about but we'll make the best of all of them. We will be learning about Europe for the next few months and maybe a little dinosaur unit for the boys and some diorama book reports. I have lots of ideas churning...I just need to organize them and get them ready to execute! I'm running out of time...as usual!
See you next year :)