31st week, 8 more weeks to go

I am starting to feel tired of being pregnant. My belly is huge and my feet are starting to swell. I get tired easily and I can't walk very far without my back hurting. And to think I still have 8 more weeks to go. I guess what is making me complain is that I have always been active and actually enjoyed doing chores around the house. And I am very good at it, too. Now, I have to ask help from my eldest, whom of course doesn't like doing it very much, ending up with sloppy work, making me even more upset. But what can I do...nothing. Just have tons of time to sit and rest and complain more until the baby comes out and I can complain even more for lack of sleep. I know time fly so fast. I just have to live each day until the morning of September 2 comes when I will see Temperance for the very first time and will make me feel all of these are worth while.

Almost there...

Today, I have been counting weeks before I deliver this baby by cesarean. Ten more weeks and I get to see and hold this beautiful and most awaited baby girl in our lives. Every kick and every hiccups gives me that warm feeling of excitement I can not hold. Every night, I can't sleep, usually I complain about sleepless nights but this is actually a wonderful sleepless nights. All wiggles and light kicks just comfort me each night. Letting me know I am not alone. Knowing this will be our last bundle of joy, I wanted to live in the moment of being pregnant and enjoy the beauty of life that is growing inside me.

Just being lazy and I have a reason for it

I have been lazy lately writing something on my blog, actually for 3 months now I have not actually written anything. The reason for that is because since found out I was pregnant everything became slow. The morning sickness was bad and the school schedule was actually not helping. But I tried my best not to skip days or call it quits when it felt like it. Though we are late and slow, I know we can hang in there just enough to finish it before the baby gets here. I just need more patience and strength to actually do my job as a teacher to my kids. If I can continuously pull myself out of the bed every morning early enough to start our day, we will be fine. I'm on my 5th month now and everything is starting to get better. My moods are getting better, my diet is starting to improve and morning sickness is totally gone. So I think I am good until my final 2 mos. Hopefully, I can use the next months finishing up our lessons. I know next school year will be a little tricky and frankly I still don't know how will be able to do school with 3 kids and handle a baby at the same time. But that is another day to ponder and complain about. Just want to share why I haven't been on my blog lately. And now you know.

Books to read this week

For Jhoshua this week, he will be reading:



and



He is finishing this book this week.

For my read alouds to my 2 younger ones ( Alden and Taylor)

We are reading this classic:



And for our science books this week, I chose:



and



We are studying birds right now, so this is our supplement reading for this week.

Our 14th Week

This week is a very relaxing week for all of us. Everything went smoothly. Most of the things were done on a timely manner. No crying and complaining about work this week. The weather is a bit cold and a few showers this week so we weren't able to go nature walking and spent little time outside. P.E. was also canceled due to wet field (kids didn't like that). And the only thing we were able to do this week outside of our home was AWANA night which was on Wednesday night. Here are some pics of their art projects this week.


My first grader's work (Alden)


My 6th grader's work (Jhosh)






Here is what my 6th grader did this week:

Math: He is slowing down right now, using Life of Fred for review and fun. I also have him do some problems from BJU 6.

Grammar: He did review questions from R/S and did very well.

Writing: He is learning narrative writing on first person view right now from Writing Strand. We are also on Week 6 of Writing with Ease and he is doing great. Some of the dictation exercises are long but he is able to hold it in and write it down easily.

Science: We just started the second book of God Design for Heaven and Earth, Our Planet Earth. So far I like this curriculum. It's easy to use and not too busy, gives us time to read outside source to supplement our studies.

History: He has been doing 2 chapters of SOTW 4 every week. One chapter per day and all mapping and time lining are done on Wednesdays. He also outlines 2 pages of Children's Encyclopedia of American History. It seems to be a lot of work but he loves History and enjoys reading about it.

Reading: He picked the book for this week. He is reading The Hound of Baskervilles. He likes mystery stuff. He was talking about this book a lot so I didn't feel like making him write about it.

My first grader:

Math: We did measuring by inch this week, a lot of it. Everything he can measure, he did. We also use our balance scale this week. Alden and Taylor had fun comparing weights of everything they can put in the scale. He is doing great in his addition facts.

Reading: Getting there... He loves to read about insects so he is reading Nature Reader 1 for his daily reading practice plus other stuff he picks up around the house.

History: Finished reading Squanto, Friends of the Pilgrim this week and started reading Stories of the Pilgrims.

Science: Read about birds today, why birds have different bills and why some birds can't fly. Kids enjoyed the readings.

Writing: We are on week 6 of Writing with Ease 1. Everything is good.

These are our accomplishments this week. I am not going to complain, it has been a great week for us.

Have a great weekend!

Week 13

This week we started our school with some changes. Jhoshua is getting to the point where Saxon 8/7 is becoming confusing and he started to get frustrated. And this is my advanced child in math that have always enjoyed doing math every morning. But I think he started hitting a wall and was vocal enough to tell me. So I thought I'd give him a break and hand him something new and enjoyable to do that will recover his joy in math again. I got him the Life of Fred Fraction and Decimal books. And he can't put it down. He laughs while reading, though he thinks it is easy for him but willing to do them. I think going back and reviewing his math skills will give him more confidence when he goes back to Saxon again, which he said he will, not just now.

He had also started using Writing with Ease Level 4 combined with Writing Strand. I think we have found something that he can do that I don't get too much complaints and generate good results. His dictation skills are being developed and does help him hold his thoughts longer enough to be put in the paper. I like that he is learning to identify main points of the story and focus on those rather than narrate everything that happened just for the sake of narrating. This greatly helps him in his outlining. Writing strand helps him a lot in organizing his thoughts, writes it down and builds sentences, in a small chunks of work that it does not frustrates him. That is good. I think frustrations in kid's work hinder them greatly to develop their skills. It is not that they do not want to do the work rather it puts them to a negative vibe that stops them from trying.

The rest of their work this week were done. I am amazed how quickly we finished each day this week. I hope it carries on for the coming week.

Alden has been doing well in his reading, more fluent and less difficulty in decoding. Finally, I think he is getting there. We are almost done with Saxon 2 and I bought Math Mammoth 1 for him as a review material when we finish Saxon. We are right on track on his science schedule using Elemental Science. Finally, I found something that we can use that I don't have to tweak a lot. History is fun. Just started reading aloud Squanto, friend of the Pilgrims this week for him.

We were busy today. We went to our biweekly nature walk in a marsh area near our place this morning. It was very cold but we have seen a lot of birds around. We were also able to watch an education movie about marsh land in the visitor's area. We ended our nature walk with a lunch picnic with their friends. Wonderful day.

I know sometimes, starting school again after a long vacation is difficult. But I am grateful for the attitude that my kids have shown me this week. They have been good and cooperative this week and I hope this will continue.
Have a wonderful weekend!

School on Monday

We are almost done with our 2 weeks vacation and everyone is not so excited about it. Of course, why would you want to start school again after all that fun. Everyone had fun including me. I had spent most of my time decorating the house, baking, cleaning, reading and just hanging out with the kids. Though it rained most of the days, it did not dampen the spirit of vacation around here.Kids had so much fun playing and just being kids. And now that vacation is almost over, I can barely look at my lesson plan again and start school on Monday. Not to mention I have to submit the semester report of the kids to our PSP school and that takes me forever to do. I don't do well with deadlines and it seems I have a hard time keeping up. So for the next 2 weeks I will be busy making the kids grades.
Well I guess, I just have to stop complaining and move on. Just like what I have told the kids this morning. Vacation is over and time to do school again. One step at a time, we will get there and soon enough summer will be here.
Happy New Year to all. And welcome back to school.