What are we learning about in school?!?!?

109 Days into the school year already!!!! Only 71 more to go this year! So what have we been doing and learning about, well here is a overview of the year so far.

As most know we are using Weaver Volume 1 as our main curriculum this year. This is a very hands-on curriculum that has the boys doing all kinds of exciting things! It's so much fun and amazing to see how much they have learned this year. Along with the Vol. 1, Logan is half way through Saxon Phonics 1 and Lifepac Math 1. Doing well in both! He has grown into a great reader and really enjoys it, which is a HUGE plus as well! I would say math isn't one of Logan's favorites subjects but he really is good at it when he trys. At the moment we are learning about final stable syllables and different digraphs and combination sounds. In math Logan is learning number words from one to ninety-nine, how to add two double digits numbers, adding 3 numbers together and word problems.

Alot of people ask how we manage our time and school days having little ones around the house at the same time. The answer is simple they join right in with us. Thankfully since we do have a classroom right off from a downstairs livingroom I can put Kate and Wylie how there playing together and still see them and do school at the same time if I have to. I do have a number of educations videos on ABCs, 123s, colors, sign language and other topics that keep Wylie busy too if we are doing a lesson that involves much attention on the older boys parts. There are days that I also wait until Wylie and Katelyn's nap time to do subjects like Phonics.

Logan has a list of things he does do completely on his own each morning as well. These things he is able to do as soon as he is done with breakfast even before I am able to go down to the classroom since I am still getting the other children ready for the day. These include, penmanship to praise (writing his Bible verse for the week), Bible books (studying the books of the Bible, fruit of the spirit and 10 commandments), dry eraser board (practicing his numbers or abc), than I have him do a study weekly flyer that is either (math, science, or social studies), lastly he can read books, practice sight word cards and sometimes he doese reader rabbit on the computer. Zachariah being only in Pre-K also has a few of these things he is able to do on his own like write his name, numbers and abcs on the chalkboards, than he has to do his dry eraser boards as well that cover his ABCs, numbers and drawing lines and shapes. Normally by the time they get done with these things the rest of us are downstairs as well. If they aren't done with these things I give them a few minutes to finish while I make sure we have everything ready for the other lessons.

The past few weeks we have been learning about the stars, sun and planets! How exciting these topics are for little boys! We got a chance to go outside in the middle of December and watch a meterior shower. We have been reading many books on the planets and the benefits of the sun and watching youtube videos. Daddy helped us make a planet moblie and at the moment we are in the process of making a planet / space lapbook. A great bonus was that this past summer we got a chance to visit a planatarium as well which was great fun.

                                                     Playing some Reader Rabbit

Our Moblie thanks daddy for helping with this!

 

Our chalkboard showing Zachariah name, numbers and ABCs he was actually being kind of messy about this today, must be because it's a Monday! haha

 

Starting 2013 Planned and Organized... I hope!

Well we are already at the end of January 2013, I haven't had much time to blog lately but have alot of stuff I have been meaning to share!

Last Nov/Dec I decided I needed to organize things around here a little bit more. I started by buying lots of storage containers and cleaning up our rooms and bathroom and putting things just where they need to go. Than I cleaned out our freezer and cabinets and reorganized and took a inventory of what we had. With a family of our size this is a MUST! Seems like I am always buying the same thing that we have 5 of already, just because I'm not sure what we have on hand.

Next thing I started a family binder.
Included in this is is 4 sections nothing to fancy just Calendar, Meals, Chores, and Budget.

 

Here is a little summary of what is in each section and how I use it.
Calendar:
This section has printed out calendar month pages this where just where I put all of our appts., meetings, date nights, special occasions and such. Helps me keep track of things so I don't forget important things in the craziness of life.
Meals: This section I have a master grocery list (I can get ideas of what I need off this, helps me remember some things I would normally forget while making my grocery list), meal ideas, pantry and freezer inventory and meal plans for a month. There is room for recipes I would like to try, coupons and the store ad if I need to get groceries.
Chores: This section just has a list of daily, weekly, and monthly chore lists that I like to "try" keeping up with. You can print these kind of charts out from the internet on many sites.  I also have my boys chore charts in this section.
Budget: This section has our complete budget for 2013. There is room in this section so I can add the reports for each month and in the back I have a zipper pouch and folder for a 3 month period. The zipper pouch is where I put any receipts we have for purchases. Once January is done I will just put them in a envelope and place them together in the pouch to get them from the other 2 months. The folder is where I have a transaction sheet for each month. This is where I put our expenses and purchases, also the bills that come in and need paid.

Nothing major but it does seem to help me keep our house a little more organized and on top of things. Between raising children, housework and homeschooling it can get a little crazy around here at times.

Lastly I have been taking some great advice from a homeschooling mother at our co-op. She shared with all of us about preparing meals ahead of time and freezing them and doing bigger qty of things to save time. I can't tell you how much this has helped me.
To start we purchase hamburger and chicken in big qtys and cook it all up. Next I either make taco meat, lasnaga, stuffed shells, meatballs, or just keep the cooked meat in freezer bags to add to a casserole or to make something else later. The chicken I normally just shred it up and divide it into zip-lock bags. I can just pull out one of these bags of cooked chicken and make BBQ chicken sandwishes, add it to a cassrole, cream chicken and biscuits, add it to soups,.... you really can do so much with it!!!! We also have been making our own pizzas and putting them in the freezer for a quick meal. There is so many ideas that I still want to try with this but haven't taken the time to do all of them yet.

So far these few simple things have helped our house a ton, hopefully it may give you some ideas for your own. If you have any great ideas yourself please feel free to share too!