Wordless Wednesday

Guess he's really tired...

Xmas Vacation Activities

We have been out of school for almost 2 weeks and my kids are bored. I am not. I have always things to do. I usually use these 2 weeks for planning and searching for options regarding improving our curriculum. I use this week reading threads from the Well Trained Mind site to learn and get pointers when it comes to new or old curriculum. And of course, I use this week to do all the chores and stuff at home that I never get to do when school is going on.
But again as I said the kids get bored. Well, I finally decided to go to the library last week and get some educational dvds for them to watch. And I am glad I did. Things went well around here. The whining started to go down and it seems more peaceful considering it's vacation time. Here are some of the dvds we borrowed, watched and enjoyed.


Basic Number Concept is a very good source for reviewing Gr.4 -6 kids in their math skills. It gives you a quick run down of topics (fraction,decimal,exponents,etc.). I sat with my kids as we listen and do exercise (5 items) in each lessons. One dvd has about 8 lessons. It is a good way to cement math information to kids.
This is below my son's level in math. But it is fun to see how he does every item quickly. That means that he really gets the concept. It is also a good way to check how well kids have learn their basic math concept.
This one we had fun watching. We haven't tried watching any of their dvd version. We only usually read the book and study the paintings. But I would definitely watch other dvds. They are fun to watch. Even the younger dc(4 & 5) enjoyed watching it. They definitely like Mary Cassatt's mother and daughter's paintings.

Reading Rainbow is one my favorite show for my kids to watch. They learn so much things. This dvd is very interesting to watch. It holds the attention of my kids. It's not just about reading the 2 books but it also has some wonderful information in it. In this one, they showed how crayons are made and how much crayons they make. It's like going in a field trip but just watching it. It also has book recommendations your kids can check out in the library that they might enjoy.

Christmas Smiles

I was only able to make 2 gingerbread houses and he wanted his own. So here it is.
This is Taylor. You can actually see in his face how excited he is. He can't wait to eat those candies.=)
I had to take so many shots for this picture because they can't stop themselves from laughing and can't just simply smile for me. I told them to picture in their heads the gifts they are asking for Christmas and these are the faces I got.
This is Alden. A very happy face!

Here are some more pictures of my 3 kids. Christmas really brings so much happiness in our household. My kids are all smiles and so excited. Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas in our house

We were busy this week baking cookies and decorating our first ever gingerbread house. It was a lot of work for me but it's all worth it. Considering how happy my kids were decorating it. Here are some of the pictures I took.

Christmas Break!

We are officially on our Christmas break(so happy!).We wish you all a Merry Christmas and very Blessed New Year. Peace and Joy to everyone.

Enjoy the Holiday Season.

Wordless Wednesday

Already posted final product of our Xmas craft this week. But here are some more pics.

Christmas craft # 2: Christmas door hangers

These are the finished product of our second Christmas craft this year.

My kindergartner's work

Here are some pictures of my son's work. He has been doing really well. He is a kindergartner this year. He has been doing well in math. He loves to draw and color. The last picture was his drawing of an alien.

Weekly Report (Dec. 7 - 11)

This week, kids are very excited about Christmas that they are a little bit distracted. A lot of our conversations are dwelling about their ever changing Xmas list. But we manage to do a little bit of work, not the usual amount of school work, but it's still good. It's not like we are running out of time. There is always time, as I have always heard it from a lot of homeschooling moms. We will probably take it slow from now and just play catch up next year.
Here is what we did this week.

Jhoshua (5th Grader)
> ordered him a new math book this week to practice from, Prealgebra - Accelerated Course by Dolciani. We'll see how he does. He has been playing around math lately, giving him some review works from Saxon and Lial's BCM. But he has been doing great that I decided to start prealgebra with him and introduce more concepts. No hurry but just trying.
> Writing using IEW, this week I focused on his writing and did a little grammar. He wrote 2 reports from Usborne History this week and sat with him while checking his paragraphs. Making sure he is able to apply dress ups and openers more easily. He loves writing which is very uncommon with boys. I see his eagerness to improve his writing skills.
> History, we did Ch. 16 of SOTW/ read a couple of chapters of History of US.He found this book at the library and borrowed it and wanted to read it. He finds it interesting. So we are now adding it to our reading supplements for American History study this year.
> We skip science this week and just read a book about birds.
> The rest of the week were spent talking and reading. I am enjoying reading Poor Richard to them. I like it better than D'Aulaire's.

Alden (kindergartner)
We did the usual things. Reading for 20 mins with me daily. Practice his writing, doing really well by the way. And did a lot of counting around the house this week. Played a lot of manipulatives with him. And he drew tons and tons this week. He loves to draw.

So that is how our days went on this week. Not too much. Just enough to finish something and spend tons of time sitting on the couch, listening to Christmas carols and reading christmas stories. Fun and easy week for us.

Christmas craft/ decorating our Chritmas tree

Weekly Report (Nov. 30 - Dec. 4)

This week, we started slow. Maybe because we just had our one week Thanksgiving break. I guess we were lazy a little bit. We did 2 experiments for our Science class this week . We did the floating egg experiment and liquid layers experiment. Both are for our density lesson for Chemistry class. We are also trying to catch up on our geography lessons, reading Minn of Mississippi and doing some mapping and drawing work.We never have enough time every week to put more effort in our geography class. But it's good we had a good solid hour of doing it this week. In arts, we are still practicing drawing the shape elements and trying to get more familiar with them. Picking items around the house easy for Jhosh to draw. I am happy where our Art curriculum is going. We discussed William Penn and Pennsylvania this week for our history. As for Language Arts, we are on schedule and doing great. Math is kind of review this year for Jhosh, so we are just trying BCM and Saxon 7/6 combination for him right now. No problem there.
As for my kindergartner, his reading has improved so much that I am trying to incorporate more sight words with his daily readings. He has been doing well with his writing and he is almost done with Primer B of Explode the code. He loves that book so much. We also did some craft this week doing snowflakes pattern and decorated them. We went to the library today to return books and borrow more and along the way they picked up some pine cones which we will try to decorate for Christmas decor this year.
So I guess I'm glad we took time doing crafts and focused on something else rather than the usual. I am happy.