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BAK SAL

Posted by on January 27, 2012 Leave a Comment

All day long Emily talked about this bake sale she wanted to have and she even made a sign. After the 40th time she said something about it, I clued in and thought we’d better set up a bake sale and add some silent /e/’s to the words BAK SAL. Then we dug out some pennies and sent daddy for tim bits.

This bake sale included reading, writing and math…all unknown learning goals for two tiny tots who devoured 4 cent tim bits and 2 cent glasses of pink lemonade. Gotta love teaching practical things. I was even brave enough to let emily pour juice in the living room…what a day!

Also, you cant see it there, but Avery has been accident free for 2 days! Potty training is significantly easier with non-sensory kids…just saying…

Filed Under: Avery Faith, Blog, Emily & Avery, Emily Grace, Faith, Homeschool | Tagged:

Pointillism

Posted by on January 21, 2012 Leave a Comment

African Violet Pointillism – by Emily

Homeschooling Lesson of the week…patience! For the both of us, or should I say for ALL of us because this included Avery and Daddy too.

We had a regular week of school followed by a completely irregular weekend. Normally, I dont use words like irregular unless Im talking about the potty, but Ive been studying my spanish way too much and Im all about verbs! regular ones and irregular ones, but I got of track there.

We have been doing progressive phonics for reading. Emily is pretty much good to go with short /e/ words! We just finished the “Secret World of Og”, which was definitely one of my favorite books of all time! Math U See feels a bit boring at this point, but I think she finally starting to recognize 6 and 9. I got a couple new apps on the ipad that are helping with that sooo much too. And we started a new science unit about creation from Our Fathers World.

We finally got into the groove…then morgan got appendicitis and kablooey(technical term)…the routine was gone. Mk is recovering well. Lucky guy is now less an appendix and plus three tiny scars. We will have to wait and see what next week looks like, but I’m planning on taking it easy and starting potty training…Avery, not me…

 

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Games

Posted by on January 7, 2012 Leave a Comment

First Week back at school and we are reevaluating EVERYTHING! Kindergarten needs to be fun, so we are taking ourselves less seriously and playing more. This is one of our favorite Games: Kids of Catan. Gotta start em young!

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Winter Class

Posted by on December 2, 2011 Leave a Comment

Homeschooling in the winter is super cozy. We spend as much of our day as we can curled up with a good book, or sitting at the table, looking out the sliding doors at the snowy wonderland. We’ve been trying to get outside when the sun is shining, but this is the biggest problem we have…

Avery hates it outside! I usually bundle her up, which is a challenge, and take her outside even if she doesn’t like it. I keep hoping she’ll get over it. The last time we went out was better. She didn’t cry and scream for the whole time. Maybe she’s getting used to it. Or maybe she just realizes that no one is going to take her inside for at least a little while.

She’s only sort of smiling in this picture because I told her that if she smiled she could go inside. I know, bribe parenting…bad Courtenaymomma. Mr. Snowman nudist there is apparently named “Alina Melina”. I’m thinking that is one confused snowman. Or should we perhaps switch to snowperson…

Emily and I have been talking a lot about how snow works and the weather. “Why it melts”, has been the question of the week as it warmed up so much. First his teeth fell out, which left him looking a bit like a hockey player. Then his nose fell off. Then the mits. Now he kind of looks like a zombie snowman. His face is all messed up and his arms hang limp at his sides. He went from cheerful to creepy in one week.  Emily keeps saying we should fix his face, but to me, that seems just as morbid. “Excuse me Mr. He/She while I remove your head for repairs…” See what I mean.  Next year I’ll make a clown snowman that can melt and the creepyness will be complete.

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NaNoWriMo

Posted by on November 30, 2011 2 Comments

I did it. I dropped of the face of the blogosphere for more than a month because I took on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge. The challenge was to write a 50,000 word novel start to finish in the month of November. You can’t finish something you started already. It needs to be a fiction novel. There are a few other rules, but that’s pretty much the jist of it. So thats what I did. I did it. I finished a novel start to finish yesterday. I even had one day to spare.

Emily helped me with some ideas for the story. We used that for some cool book writing parts in homeschool last month. I would tell her the story and make it up as I went along. I started by recording me telling her the story. It changed drastically by the end of actually writing, but that was to be expected.

It’s a children’s speculative fantasy novel. Think ages 9-12. I would have preferred to write a bit edgier and have it make the young adult class, but then I couldn’t read it to emily and that just didn’t seem fair. You, my blog reads get the first snapshot of my book. You’ll also get first choice to read sample chapters, and maybe even one day own a book written by Courtenay Kasper.

The premise of the book is the steam punk adventure of two young foxes whose parents are kidnapped and the kidnappers are coming for them next because they are actually heirs to a broken kingdom. The foxes set off in their hot air balloon airship on a journey across land and sea to rescue their parents. Along the way they meet many strange and silly woodlanders that will either help or hinder their journey.

That’s the basic premise. I kind of like to think of it as a steam punk redwallian adventure. You’ll get it if you get it. So now begins the long process of editing and developing my story until it is ready to be published. I know Morgan will publish at least one copy for us to have, so that’s a start. I’d love to see it read far and wide.

So off I go to edit!

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Emily’s First Report Card

Posted by on November 23, 2011 Leave a Comment

It was a very surreal thing to get my daughters first report card. It was kind of cool to see that Im raising an over achiever who will struggle with perfection like her dad and the need to be ahead like her mom. Its weird to see something of yourself in your child’s kindergarten report card. She did wonderful all on her own. I love that we homeschool, so she doesn’t even know she gets a report card. I think I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible. I dont want her to stress about  a piece of paper that says where she is at. She is where she is. I want to know all the details, but I’d rather she just tried to do her best and keep trying new things.

Emily loves her teacher too. Not me… well she does love me, but I mean our schools teacher that meets with us before report cards. I think emily thinks a teacher is someone who comes over that you get to talk to forever and tell how great you are and thats right up her alley. She literally thinks she is the best at something if she as dont it once. She is apparently a professional ballet dancer, laundry folder, artist, singer, and well, pretty much anything she does. Its a tough balance to keep her grounded and not braggy while trying to help her soar with courage to try things. Good thing I’m up for a challenge.

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Ginger Snaps

Posted by on November 16, 2011 Leave a Comment

For school today, we put the books on the shelf and the math manipulatives in a bin and tied on our aprons.

Earlier in the day I pre-dotted the letters for a recipe in Emily’s Journey book. She traced the letters and sounded out the words for reading and writing.

Then for math, we made the recipe. She counted all the scoops and we even talked about fractions when we cut half of something.

Normally, about halfway through backing something Emily gets board or unruly and I send her off to play while I finish up. This time, she did wonderful. I think she knew what to expect because we had read the recipe and knew what we were going to do with it. It was great fun!

Filed Under: Blog, Emily Grace, Food & Recipes, Homeschool | Tagged:

Water Math

Posted by on November 9, 2011 Leave a Comment

Please excuse the pics. I only had the ipad and it really takes terrible pics, but at least I have them

We tried a new experiment this week. We were working on a unit about measurements, weight, volume, and mass.

I’m pretty sure Emily things the experiment was about mixing colours, but that’s her artist brain at work.

We filled seven jars with water and added different  food colourings. Then we guessed which would have the most and least.

Then we took small cups and measured how much was in each cup. I loved the shocked look on her face when the tall skinny cup held the same as the short fat one. It was a great experiment for our goal. She really grasped the concept.

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Books!!

Posted by on November 2, 2011 Leave a Comment

We have ben book crazy lately. We borrowed the largest bag of books from our neighbours and we are trying to work our way through them. Here’s our favorite so far!!

If you think Poo is funny, this book is for you! Emily just about giggled out of her pants while we read this!

Christmas stories are ever the favorite and Roddy Doyle is winning huge awards around our house for being down right hilarious!

The Boxcar Children (Emily calls them the Boxcart Children) have been a wonderful addition to our reading. I like the sweet stories as much as Emily does. Her and Avery play Boxcar Children all the time. We just started book three and Emily is dying to know whats inside the Yellow House! She’d read all day if my voice could hold out that long. Makes her book loving momma proud!

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Apple Stamps

Posted by on October 25, 2011 Leave a Comment

One of the projects we worked on this week was for Phonics Museum. We were working on our short “A” sound and the final part of the lesson was to make a piece of art. We did “Apple Stamps”. We cut an apple in half and dipped it in acrylic paint (Mommy needs to find the cheap tempura paint for her painting monsters to use ALL of. It’s still packed somewhere I think.) Then I helped Avery stamp it on paper. Emily did her own, but I helped Avery more after she thought we were painting the apples and then eating them…gross.

Emily’s look a bit more like apples, but either way we still had fun with it.

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