Our 11th Week

This week was very exciting for us as a family. We were able to attend a filed trip to Sacramento riding a train. We always wanted to travel by train and we could not just find the right time and the save enough money; traveling by train can be very expensive and we are five in the family. So this week, Amtrak had a homeschooling field trip enabling us five to go in much cheaper expense. Here are some pictures I took from that day.








I also took some pictures for their last day of P.E. for this year. We don't do P.E. until next year because of frequent rain and wet field.





The rest of the week went well. Most of the stuff we needed to do were done. And we are of to our one week Thanksgiving vacation. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Our 10th Week

This week we had our windows replaced and the work took 3 days. It was loud with all the constructions going on and my kids, of course get distracted easily. All I heard myself saying for 3 days is "Stay in your chair and focus!" With the men, in and out of the house, I can't blame my kids trying to wonder what was going on.

So our goal this week was at least to finish the important subjects, Math and Language Arts. We were able to squeeze some history readings and Alden and I was able to do some Science stuff. We are still on mammals this week and we were able to watch Discovery Channel and found out more about whales.

Jhoshua, on the other hand, has been good with keeping up with his list this week. Every Monday I would give him a list of his work for the whole week and he had to check it off and make sure it was done. At the end of the day, he has to give it back to me and I had to check his work. For a couple of weeks , he has been struggling keeping up with his weekly assigned work, he either forget something or skip something. I keep reminding myself to be patient with him since this is his start of being accountable to his own work. And I am so happy that of all the commotion in our house this week, he was able to finish his work without complaining.

Jhoshua and I were also reading Oliver Twist and Shades of Gray this week. He wanted to read on his own this year and we would meet to discuss after. I thought this will be difficult for me keeping up with his reading so I tried scheduling my reading at night now and at least I don't have to worry the next day for our discussion. He has been asking questions now, more of the hows and whys, so I know he is starting to ponder more about what he is reading about and enjoying it more.

Alden has been picking up his reading pretty well. Finally, decoding is kicking in.
We were not able to go to our P.E. this week because of the window repair and the boys were not happy about it but there is always next week. It's starting to get cold outside so Nature walk had been moved to morning walks instead of afternoons.

So to sum it all up, I think we have done pretty good despite of the noise and distraction we had this week. Have a great weekend!

Our 8th Week

This week we started with a wonderful fieldtrip in Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was great to see the place again. My kids never get tired visiting and seeing those wonderful creatures. I am always in awe of those jelly fishes. They are so beautiful.
Tuesday... we kind of start slow and lazy. Nobody wants to do school but I had to pull them out of their bed to at least do something. Math has always been the first subject we do everyday, no matter what. Next to that is grammar or reading. We break for 30 minutes after this, eat some snack and do some stuff again, usually I read history stuff with them, my eldest then goes off and write his narration and read some more on his own. As my 1st grader do some reading and narration with me. He loves mapping the globe so we do that before lunch. I make him color maps as I prepare our lunch. Afternoons are reserve for Latin, memorizing verses and reading for fun.
Wednesday...this is our busy day. P.E. in the morning and AWANA at night. This week is Holloween week so we had to carve a pumpkin for my eldest to bring and I did holloween crafts with my 2 young ones to bring with them as well.
Thursday... Same as Tuesday but a lot faster and more focus. We were able to do all stuff in our school list in a decent time. Lately, we are having a hard time doing everything on time. It's been hard to distribute my time equally to my 3 boys. My eldest needs more discussion time, my 1st grader needs a lot of one on one and my preschooler is just on his regular clingy days.
Today...half day. We did math, writing, reading, latin and science. Then we spent our afternoon in the library and a playdate in the park with their friends. Just running around and being silly.
This has been a fun week for us. Have a nice weekend to all!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Fieldtrip

Here are some of our pictures from our recent field trip to Monterey. Every year, this time around since my eldest was 6 we take him here. He loves this place. Now, we take not just him but my first grader and my preschooler and my eldest is in 6th grade. I can't imagine how time fly fast. How kids remember that October is our Monterey Fieldtrip month. This year is the flamingo year. I haven't seen a flamingo up close but this time I did and they were beautiful.

Our 6th Week

This week has been a busy week for us. For the past 2 weeks, my kids and I have caught some kind of a cold virus that lingered for 2 weeks. It would transfer from one kid to the other and then to me. We had 2 rounds of it and finally this week we can say, "Thank God, it is over." I don't know what caused that virus to stay that long but I am just happy that we are all well again.

This week we tried to take it slow and accomplish what we could. With my eldest, we tried to just do math and reading (science and history) and we discussed "Oliver Twist" chapter by chapter. He loves this book and wants to dwell on it. So we did. It was fun actually.

With my first grader, we also did math and just read him tons of stories and let him practice his reading, which by the way is really getting better. I am so proud of him.
He is into fairy tales, and he has been asking me so many times during the day or before going to bed to read to him a fairy tale.

So this week, it's just playing catching up. Read tons of books, stayed in the couch a lot and just rested pretty much. I hope next week, we are all back to our normal selves and we can resume P.E., nature walks and park days,things we all love doing and have missed during our "sick days".

Have a Great Weekend!!!

Our 3rd Week

This week we had so much fun outside and did as much as we could in our school. We had a picture taking for the kid's school IDs and after that the PSP school we are enrolled in gave a lunch picnic for all. It was fun. That was our Monday. Tuesday, we had a regular school, pretty much did everything we needed to do. We even had a chance to do some art works, which my kids love to do, simply because they have a reason to make a big mess. Wednesday is our P.E. day held in the morning. They are usually very hungry afterwards and took them out to eat, rarely this happens but I am tired and didn't wanna do any cooking for lunch. We went home, rested and did some math, grammar and history later. AWANA night happens also every Wednesday. Thursday, we did our regular school and later I took them to our friend's house who had a swimming pool and did some swimming lessons. We have been doing this, this summer trying to teach them how to swim. And today, we had a half day school and attended our very first homeschool event, an Ice Cream Social Party. My kids are not ice cream lovers (I know, weird huh.) but they really enjoyed the camaraderie among other kids. And I really enjoyed it too. So I hope our 4th week will not be as busy but still productive.
Have a nice weekend to all.

Our Second Week

Last week was our first week of school and it went pretty smooth. Of course, first week is usually a time for getting use to a school schedule again and everyone is in a very good mood. P.E. did not start until this week so last week we had plenty of time. Usually our Wednesdays are full of outside activities that we hardly get to do school stuff.
This week we have our full schedule with all the outside activities we have. AWANA will start next week and after that we are back to our usual school year schedule. This year I have decided to join two homeschool groups that I thought will add a little bit of spice to our homeschooling. One group is a weekly park day group, that meet every Friday afternoon. Kids get to see their friends and have the chance to play and talk to other kids. The other one is a Nature outing group that meets every other week in a Recreational park for a walk. I have been looking for this kind of group for a long time now and it is surely more fun to walk in nature with other people and other kids. Plus you get to know more about plants and animals with people who really know more about nature.
Though I am still deciding whether to sign up for a field trip kind of group which I thought will help us decide for field trips we go to this year. I have to sit on this one and ponder a little bit more. I don't want to join a lot of groups and later won't be able to participate because of scheduling issues.
For now, kids are happy, they get to see their friends on weekly basis, play sports and walk in nature. I think we are of to a good start this year. And so far I am contented.
I have some pictures here from our activities this week to share. To all of you, who are also starting their year, I wish and pray for a wonderful year ahead.

One more week!

Kids have been on vacation now for more than 2 months. They can't wait to start school ,but I don't think I am ready to thread homeschooling yet. I just ordered our curriculum one week ago and still waiting for them to arrive. Hopefully the books will arrive soon. I have already planned our year and I already have the library books we need for our first week. I have also printed our weekly schedule for the 6 weeks in advance. Technically, I am ready but physically,I still think I need more days of vacation. Our plan is to start school by August 30 and my kids are eager to start which is a very good sign. Jhoshua will be in 6th grade this year and Alden will be in first grade. Time sure fly so fast. I am beginning first grade again and my youngest will be doing preschool stuff. This is just all in my mind, I am just being lazy and loving my free time. I guess I have to get out of this couch, and condition my mind for another school year.

at home during summer

Here are a few pictures I will post, telling you about our summer. We don't do much. Just hang around the house. The two play summer baseball every Thursdays and Saturdays. Jhosh does some review work in Saxon Math and Alden continues to read daily and occasional math lessons. My youngest one does all sorts of stuff. He starts to read fluently 3 letter words which is amazing how fast he gets reading. I guess all the exposures he had gotten from the 2 boys have paid off. No more worries for Mommy. I guess when they are young, you worry too much. You question yourself a lot if you can ever teach them how to read or teach them math. But eventually, the saying " children are like sponge" is very true. You expose them to reading and do a lot of math manipulative at home, and they will eventually get it. Summer is all about Mommy, as my kids say. I am so busy trying to figure out changes that should be done in our school, assessing curriculum and praying a lot that whatever decisions I make will bring good results for the kids this coming school year.


This is Taylor, trying to play checkers by himself.


Jhosh, doing some math in the morning.


Alden, doing his reading time.

We are done!!!

I can finally relax and I am so happy that school is done for this year. I also finished our School Report, Attendance Report and their Report Cards. All I have to do is send it tomorrow to our PSP. I am so happy. We can finally spend most time playing outside, going to the park, reading books we all love. I don't have to plan and think about next week's course. I am FREE for another month and off planning next school year. I am also decided what to get for my 6th and 1st graders. Kids are going to start playing baseball for Junior Giants this summer. They are so excited. I also found an indoor swimming pool around here and maybe we can go this summer and I can finally teach them how to swim, especially my ds10. My plan for this summer is to continue my ds5 reading to be read for grade 1 this year. Ds10 can do a couple of math review exercises, so not to forget what he learned this year. He requested that this summer he gets to have his own book list and I told him yes but I have to know what the book is all about first. Well things are going great here. Weather is perfect, not too hot. I know we will enjoy our summer vacation. Have a FUN VACATION EVERYONE!!!

Are we there yet?

Well, we are almost done with our school year and yet I feel like we have been dragging the days. When I'm almost happy to see the end of the school year, I get all this renewal forms from ISP, P.E group, HSLDA and all other group we have joined this year. I haven't done the kid's grades yet and I am already planning, signing and paying activities for next school year. Can you believe that! I have finally made the final decision for our curriculum next year and all I have to do is get the courage to buy them. But I don't want to do just that yet because I don't want to begin another task while we are still in school. I want to feel that I can rest for a little bit and not be bothered by school planning for next school year. I will have the time for that as soon as I end this year. Hopefully, we are right on track.

Can't decide

This is the time of the year when I start to plan for the next school year. And for the past week I have yet to decide what curriculum will I use for Science for my 6th grader. He said he want to try a textbook kind of curriculum this year and so I am trying to find what is best out there. We have been following the The Well Trained Mind method of doing science and I guess Jhosh wants to approach science differently this year. He got tired of doing one particular subject in a year. He wants to try doing Life, Earth and Physical science topics in a year. Variations is what he wants. I am looking at BJU, Science Explorer or Focus on Science. It is so hard to decide when you can only base your opinion to what you see online. It doesn't give you enough information to choose. I have read a lot of threads online about opinions on these particular books but I am still in doubt. I will continue to search and hopefully I will find the right one for us.

Wordless Wednesday

A picture of my yummy Cranberry scone :)

Too much rain...not that I'm complaining

It's been raining a lot lately here in the Bay Area and my kids and I missed spending our afternoon outside, in the park or just staying out in the garden. We missed going in our weekly P.E. every Wednesday. It's been 6 consecutive weeks that Wednesday turns out to be a rainy day. Boys do not do well coop up inside the house. They need the space to be running and playing. Our home, let's say is brimming with sighs and hums. Not a pretty sound. So lately, my kids have been napping more and we have been spending our afternoons in our couch reading. Not that we don't want to read but we just don't like the idea of being inside our house a lot. The only positive side of these is that we have been playing a lot of board games. We never did this before but we are actually enjoying this. I hope the sun will come out shining again. We hope we can actually find time this week to be out and about, enjoy the spring weather we usually have here in the sunny California.

Standardize Testing this week!

This week is my eldest SAT so we are not doing school this week. Last week, he asked me to give him the week off for him to be able to review or practice answering test questions. So for two weeks, we are on test mood. He has been going now for 2 days at his ISP school to take the exam. So far, he said, everything is going great except for science which is very heavy on Physical Science and we have been studying Zoo 1 and Chemistry this year. So most of the question regarding Physics (energy, motion, electricity) are very unfamiliar to him. He had difficulty answering them. But I reminded him ,that Science and History are the only 2 subjects that I am not concern too much about because we don't actually follow the schedule of public school when it comes to these 2 subjects. He felt bad about it and there's nothing really I can do. The last day of the test is tomorrow. I hope everything goes well for him and I am praying that he will do well on his Social Studies tomorrow. But I am happy to know that he did really well on Math and he said that it wasn't hard at all. Most of the Language Arts except Grammar were done today and he was also optimistic about that. I am very happy that he did well on subjects that we focus on, Language Arts and Math.

Wordless Wednesday

Some pictures from my garden.



My hydrangeas are finally starting to flower.



garlic shoots



our onions


squash seedlings




cute, little peaches

Weekly Report ( March 29 - April 2 )

This week was a light week for us. First, we had stayed in the house, most of the week because of rain. Second, my mother-in-law is visiting us this week for her birthday on Easter Sunday. So the kids got excited about seeing Grandmom and had no energy what so ever to do school. So we had a very relax week this Week 27. Here are some of our activities.

Jhoshua (My 5th grader)

1. Did 3 lessons in Math this week. We are in a review mode. We finished Saxon 7/6 early and we started Saxon 87. But I thought before we go further, we just have to review some lessons since he has plenty of time. Plus, Saxon 87 is pretty much Prealgebra, so I don't want him moving in that direction that quick. So this week, I had him choose lessons in Saxon 7/6 to do.

2. Language Arts: We are on Punctuations this week on grammar. For this week, I made him write sentences using proper use of commas and diagramming it after. He encountered some suffixes this week in his spelling lesson, so I ask him to look up words in the dictionary. He did 3 outlining this week, 2 summary narrations and 1 literary analysis for his book ,Johnny Tremain.

3. We did this Art lesson this week. I found it at our library and I thought it was great. It teaches you how to use watercolor and make simple art project.



4. We read and learned about Catherine the Great this week for our history. We are finishing Johnny Tremain (read aloud) and he is reading Toliver's Secret.

Alden (My Kindergartener)

1. Copy work, 2 sentences daily
2. Finished his Explode the Code Primer Book C this week.
3. Played a lot of his Math games and manipulatives.
4. Tried his very best to impress Grandmom by reading a lot this week.

Next week is Easter Break. So I am happy. Happy Easter to everyone !!!

Books to read for this week

Here are some books line up for us this week.

For my kindergartener, we are reading this:




I read a couple of pages today and he loved it. He was actually asking me to show him some real picture of George Washinton.

*** Jhoshua's reader for this week:



This is our chosen literature read aloud.



Hopefully, both my kids will love the books I have chosen for them.

Weekly Report ( March 15 - 19 )

Here is what we did this week.

Jhosh:

Math - We did a review getting areas in geometrical figures (circle, square, triangle).
Language Arts - I listened to Susan Wise Bauer's Writing lectures and I have learned so much. So this week, as Susan said, for middle schooler, 2 outline, 2 narrative summaries and 1 half page literary anaysis. I thought that was the greatest help in making sure we spend quality time in our school. I dropped our writing curriculum and just do what she advised doing. I feel that idea is a lot better, incorporating writing across other subjects.

Science - We studied compound this week. We did one experiment that worked out pretty well. In our Zoology 1, he did one level outline for 6 pages of Apologia that was assigned today. We are on social insects this week.

History - We spent time reading about the Constitution. I made him memorize the Preamble to the Constitution. And he did 2 written narrations.

Latin - He is studied the imperfect tense this week. As usual, he did the exercises and did some practice conjugating some verbs.

Reading: We finished reading The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow and we are on chapter 6 of Johnny Tremain.

Alden (Kindergartener)

Reading : Reading everday for 30 mins .
Math : We did some review of reading time by hour and half hour. We also spent time this week with fraction manipulatives (one half and one fourth). Plus, everyday addition drills.
Writing: We did 3 times a week doing copy work. We are finishing HWOT and almost done with Explode the Code primer.
Memory work: He memorized " The Caterpillar" in the FLL which we just started this week.

Our week is pretty much the same. I am glad we were able to read more and do more things. Until next week.

Here are some pictures of what they did this week.



P.E. day on Wednesday



A sample of Jhosh's outline this week



Alden's practice sheet on math

AWANA Grand Prix Pics

For those of you whose children go to AWANA, you are probably familiar with their Annual AWANA Grand Prix. Here are some of my favorite cars that I saw last Sunday. This is Jhoshua's first year at this event and I am sure he will be participating again next year. We had so much fun watching the cars made by the kids and it nice to see how excited they all are.




Here is Jhosh, his first race :)



literally the couch car...



This is my favorite. I thought it was very creative design.



a pink, shoe car...how cute!



More cars...

Weekly Report ( March 8 -12 )

Jhoshua (Grade 5)

This week we have been reading a lot. We are on Week 22 of Biblioplan and we are studying about American Revolution and the Constitution. My son had so many questions about how the government works and how it all came to place. I didn't really think he would be interested about government studies and politics but I was wrong. He sure did read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and told me how interesting it is. He loved all the books by Jean Fritz. He sure is reading on his own now and all I have to do is give some questions. I miss reading aloud to him but he likes to read on his own now.
I also started letting him do some subjects on his own. Grammar and his writing are done independently. We divide our science lectures and experiments. I do lectures with him an hour every week and he does outlining and experiments on his own. We sit down every Friday for an hour talking about the books he is reading for his history and literature. We do Math first thing in the morning, split the excercises into 2 parts. He does the practice sets with me and he does the first 15 items in the morning and the last 15 in the afternoon. We do this now because I found out that the longer he sits at the table doing all that math problems the quicker he loses focus, there by making silly mistakes. This way we eliminate dawdling and wasting time.
We are on lesson 21 of Latin course, studying imperfect tense. Our lesson went well this week. I ask him to conjugate more Latin verbs.
For our extra curricular this week. I am starting to teach my eldest how to cook. He has been interested watching me cook and it's only now that I am comfortable enough to actually let him cook. We did simple things. We started doing pancakes, eggs and bacon. And I taught him how to bake a cake using the prepared cake mix. He had so much fun this week doing all that cooking and baking.

Alden, my kindergartner

> I am so happy this week with the way our Math has been going. He has shown so much interest in practicing his addition facts. He would pull out his counters on his own and would ask me to add with him. He finally able to understand calendar, how days and months works. He has mastered his counting by 2, 5 and 10. So far, I have no problem with math with this kid and that is a blessing.
> His reading had improved so much, too. He started reading better and showing less difficulty in blending.
> He also has been practicing his handwriting a lot lately, doing his copywork. He has been enjoying writing short sentences .

Some Changes

I am always figuring out how to teach my son, Jhoshua to write more effectively. We were doing IEW for 3 years now and we used the theme based books they have. The result was good. He is now able to write better paragraphs on his own. He is able to use the dress ups and sentence openers pretty well without trouble. But I think that the books are moving fast and jumping to different Units each time. So I have decided to begin again and try to concentrate on 1 or 2 dress ups at a time and one sentence opener. We are also incorporating Writing Strand 3 in his writing class. I see it as a wonderful tool in teaching a child to write more complicated sentences. And knowing how to use dress ups will aid him in writing a much better sentence. We will also focus on free writing for now. That means we will choose topics that are common to him and into his liking. I think it gives him more words in his head, or more ideas, if he like what he writes about. For a grade 5 student, he writes pretty well, but he gets bored sometimes, thus prolonging our school hours. I hope this changes will benefit him.

Wordless Wednesday

Here is a picture of my very first homemade apple turnover puff pastry. It's a little bit of work making the pastry but worth the taste. :)

A week without school

Last week we went to Reno and had a week long vacation. Sometimes, you need to have a break in between homeschooling because it gets long and tiring that everyone gets to each others hair. I am very guilty about this. That is why every six week, I take away myself from homeschooling and just enjoy my life as a mother. And this one week gives us a breather and gives us a fresh air. Mommy is not a teacher for a week but just plain mommy. My kids miss that time when you don't tell them religiously what to do and sit around the table everyday to do school. I feel it is my responsibility to make them feel and remind them that I am their mother and I can spend time with them without talking about school. They don't worry about me grading them or asking them questions. A week of free homeschooling. So last week, after our anniversary, we decided to head to Reno to change our scenery. And boy! We had so much fun. I chose to stay in a hotel with spa and resort so we could swim in warm water and forget about the cold winter air. Kids got to spend time in the arcade for hours. This rarely happens so it is really a treat for them. We got to eat out everyday, those yummy and scrumptious food. For a week, we were spoiled by things we rarely encounter. Even our dog, Lancelot, enjoyed his stay in a hotel that allows pets. And what a blessing we had this week, that it even snowed. We never had snow here in Newark, California. So when it snowed, we were out and about and played for hours outside. And drinking hot cocoa after,gives us a new meaning to just mere drinking hot cocoa. There is something about it after a long exposure to snow. Small things like this makes you more thankful. Heading home,I know that I had given myself time and my kids pleasure to enjoys their mother. I love my job as a teacher but a week of just being a mom gave me more joy and remind me to relax and enjoy time being a Mom and enjoy time with my children.
Here are some pics.

Wordless Wednesday

Someone is wishing for snow, but sand angels are cool too!

Weekly Report (Feb. 8 - 12)

We had a very light week of homeschooling. We took Friday off since it was our anniversary and my husband took the day off. We did P.E. on Wednesday in the morning and library trip in the afternoon. So for this week we only had 3 full days of homeschooling.
Here is what we had done for this week:

Grade 5 (Jhoshua)

1. Math- It was another review this week for his Saxon Math. He did mostly fractions this week and polygons. It was an easy math week for him.
2. Language Arts
In writing, I decided to stop using IEW for a while and picked up Writing Strand. I think it's working well for him. He said he likes it and gives him more freedom to express his thought. Doesn't have to think about dress ups and sentence openers. But I was glad to read his paragraph and found some of the dress up he had learned from IEW.
3. Reading
Recently, Jhosh had requested to read most of his books independently. I trust him. He is a very good reader and even though it gives me a little bit of sadness that we won't have that huge chunk of time everyday reading to each other, I think this is part of growing up. But I will still continue to read at least one book as a read aloud. That's not bad.
4. Science - We did 2 experiments this week about mixtures for Chemistry. In Zoo 1, we are studying about insects and still doing the same thing, first 3 pages he takes notes by outlining and the last 3 pages, I dictate. This has been our strategy for science to incorporate outlining and dictation. We have done this for 2 years now and it tremendously helped him in his spelling skills and his outlining.
5. History - We read a chapter of SOTW and read 4 stories of George Washington's World. He did some mapping, timeline, coloring,and written narration.

6.Shakespeare Study - We are currently reading Macbeth for Kids.

7. As for the read aloud, readers and assigned reading:
*Little Britches - for our Read Aloud
*Gulliver's Travel - assigned reading for his Literature study
*My Brother Sam is Dead - assigned reading for historical fiction

Kindergartener (Alden)

We did the same this as always. Reading , writing and math. The only difference is I made our reading a little bit longer. He can now sit a little longer and practice his reading with me. He had master his counting by 10 and 2, adding doubles and addition with 1. We did a lot of shape patterns this week and he really enjoyed this activity. He finished book 2 of Explode the Code Primer. He has done really well on his copywork which I am surpise about, he actually looks forward doing this.

* For his read alouds:
Aesop's Fable
Dr. Seuss Beginner book
Winter Trees (for Science)
Poems by Christina Rosetti

I will end this report by posting some pictures of our P.E. day last Wednesday. Have a great weekend everyone!

Another great book suggestion

Most of you probably have read this book already but for some of you who have boys and wanting to find a book they will enjoy, this one is one of them. This is a very well written character building story about a family who moved to Colorado. A wonderful, touching story of Ralph Moody, the author of the book. This book is sure to please your children and teach them so much about life. If your studying American history, this is a great choice for a read aloud.




Have fun reading!