Our Side of the Mountain: March 2011

Thursday, March 24, 2011

What My Child is Reading: March 20-26

J's Reading

C's Reading

S's Reading

Mom's Reading

Read Aloud Books

Kid's Picks-of-the-Week

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Weekly Wrap-up: Days 133-137 - The Countdown!

Phew! We were busy, busy, busy over the weekend. Well, at least Saturday was hectic. A drove J to his Boy Scout pancake breakfast fundraiser SUPER early in the morning. I drove C and S to "Play with your Food" at the library mid-morning. They decorated cupcakes like hedgehogs, flowers and frogs. We had a lingering lunch at Subway before C joined the Brownies to sell cookies at their booth. We left there to join A and J at J's final play-off basketball game. They won! J's team ended up in 3rd place overall. At 4:00pm, we left there and headed 50 minutes away to my ILs where we dropped off the kids, visiting for a few minutes and then drove another 40 minutes for a night out with my BIL and SIL at a wonderful restaurant near the ocean. It was 10:30pm when we arrived home! Was I glad that Sunday was Q-U-I-E-T!

Our Flooded Backyard

With our year winding down, our daily assignments have simplified to those projects, textbooks and workbooks that I'd like finished before our year is over. 38 days until Year 7 is completed!

Don't Touch my Tennis Ball! Our Constant School Distraction!

J will be concentrating on: finishing the final issue of Pond Press, completing Apologia General Science, Rowe College Business English (Grammar), Literature Study using the book "Hatchet"(Paulsen), and Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, and continue using Typing.

C will be concentrating on: completing Handwriting Without Tears Cursive, Apologia Zoology III: Land Animals, Daily Grams Grade 3, and a Florida lapbook, and continue working through lessons in Saxon Math 54 and All About Spelling Level 2.

S will be concentrating on: continuing lessons in Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read Level 1, Draw Write Now Book 1 and Math lessons from Houghton Mifflin, and complete a train lapbook and Kumon Mazes.

S Can't Pass up a Puddle

And this week?

Well, S starting working on his Train Lapbook. He was VERY excited to start this one! And, even though this is a HUGE lapbook and great for his portfolio, I'll be letting him keep this one after it's completed for his own personal book. He also started listening to his "fine tuning" CD for Listening Therapy. (For those of you who don't know, S has Sensory Processing Disorder.)

S Doing Listening Therapy

S Working on Beginning Sounds

J had to wrap up 4 different General Science experiments. It was nice getting rid of yeast-rotting bananas in baggies on my counter! Ewww!

J's Sipping Hot Cocoa and Reading the Latest Nat'l Geographic

And C started working on lesson 12 in Apologia Zoology III - amphibians, turtles and crocodilians - and step 12 in All About Spelling. Her spelling seems to be improving! I'm anxious to give her a spelling level test next month as I think she's improved at least 2 grade levels this year (which is WONDERFUL because she was 2 grade levels behind).

C Swinging

Dodgeball started again at the Rec Center. The kids LOVE LOVE Dodgeball!

That's our week and plans for the upcoming last part of our year! How did your week go? Check out other homeschool families at these links:

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cooking Up Some...Pain au Chocolat

So, I'm reading the book How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O'Neal. It's about a bakery shop owner who's pregnant daughter goes off to Germany to attend her injured soldier-husband while her step-granddaughter moves in after her Mom is taken away for drug-abuse. Its an enjoyable read (even though it might sound complicated)...and includes some recipes!

I decided to give the Easy Pain au Chocolat pastries a try, remembering them from my visit to Quebec years and years ago. And they were a BIG hit with my family and SO EASY!

Ingredients:

2 sheets of thawed frozen puff pastry

1 large egg beaten with 1 t water

12 oz of bittersweet chocolate chips

sugar for dusting

Directions:

Lightly spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray. Cut each sheet of puff pastry into 12 pieces and brush with egg wash. Sprinkle 1/2 oz of chocolate chips (or about 8) onto each piece. Roll up each piece and place edge down on the cookie sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Refrigerate remaining egg wash. Remove rolls from fridge and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush each roll with egg wash and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool 10-15 minutes. Yum!