A Peak at MY Week: Home Alone

In My Life This Week
Mountain Mama was HOME ALONE this week! White Pine ventured off to Gettysburg and Washington DC with his Boy Scout troop, and Sugar Maple and Balsam Fir visited Grandpa and Nannie Lobster on the island. It took me all of 3 hours to start missing them. :sigh: But I made plans, stayed busy and enjoyed my extended "downtime".

I also spent time outside with the flock, letting them peck at the newly green grass and dig holes under the treehouse. But the "quackers" WOULD NOT stay put! I had to keep chasing them back into our yard. THE KICKER? They would watch me walk back to our driveway, chatter to each other, then high-tail it back to the brook on the other side of the road! Anyway, here's a photo of our newest hen, Ava, who lays little white eggs. I believe she is a Wheaten Ameraucana mix. She's a bit disheveled looking as she was a favorite of a roo. :wink:

I'm Cooking
Knowing there wouldn't be much cookin' in the kitchen this week, I created some pretty layered Salads-in-a-Jar for dinners. Have you seen these are Pinterest? Each Bell jar was filled with 2T Annie's Goddess dressing, 1/3 c sliced carrots, 1/3 c sweet peas, 2 oz prepackaged roasted chicken, 1/4 c dried cranberries, 1/4 c coarsely chopped natural almonds, 1 large diced hard-boiled egg, 1/3 c sliced and peeled cucumber, and 1 cup of shredded Romaine. According to My Fitness Pal recipe counter, these were a filling 500 calories with 44g carbs, 25g fat, 27g protein, 15g iron, and 895g sodium. Next time I'm roasting boneless skinless chicken to decrease the sodium, but I'm happy with the other numbers.

In Our Homeschool This Week

I spent time catching up on the saplings portfolios, organizing papers and projects, and planned for our final 7 weeks of Year #9. White Pine will research and write his very first 10 page+ paper, continuing on with Algebra, Biology and World and US History. Sugar Maple and Balsam Fir will continue to work on Math and Story of the World with independent unit studies on Alaska and gardening. 

I put together a couple of cute little gardening journals and printed out some state study lapbook mini books from Homeschool Helper Online (free), Currclick (fee) and Primary Graffiti (free). These books will help us to learn about and record our independent studies along with a pile of books from the library and movies from Netflix.

Helpful Homeschooling Tip

And I printed out FREE mazes from KrazyDad for Balsam Fir. (Jessica Lynette shared the link on her wrap-up last week.) Mazes are a WONDERFUL way for kids with visual tracking issues to exercise their eyes. I slipped the pages into a page protector and he'll solve them with wet-erase markers so they can be solved over and over. You should check out the Super Tough Mazes. WHOA!

Photo Credit

My Favorite Thing This Week

But otherwise I watched a lot of "chick flicks" borrowed from the library, "Switched at Birth" (season 2) on Netflix, read HUNDREDS of pages of Debbie Macomber swaying in the hammock, and hardly cooked a thing. I went out to breakfast and shopped with a friend. I don't think I've done that in 10 years? SERIOUSLY! And continued on with my major household declutter which, after 2 months, is pretty much complete. Phew!

A Photo, Link, Video, or Quote to Share

As always, linking up to these WONDERFUL blog hops!

And We Erupt! A Peak at My Volcano Study Planning

Photo Credit National
Geographic Kids

My little guy has a sudden fascination with volcanoes and eruptions and destruction. So, who am I to hold him back! Botany can wait, again.

"Would you like to do a volcano study?" 

"Yes! But I get to build a volcano, right? And put that stuff in it so it'll erupt everywhere?" 

"Suuurrrre..." 

Why do I have a feeling that this unit study will be messy?

Now, I'll admit that I tend to go overboard with these unit studies. One area leads to another area leads to another area...Well, you get the picture. We end up with a study that spans multiple sciences and history periods and "over-stays its welcome". I made sure to focus on the "rocks and boulders" of volcanoes, and planned our study by hitting all my favorite free sites, emptying the library book shelves and saving videos to my Netflix instant queue.

What? You don't plan unit studies on a PAPER PLATE?! Really?! ::wink:: I just grabbed the quickest, closest "piece of paper". ::grin::

Main Studies
Homeschool Share Lapbook
Enchanted Learning: Volcanoes
Volcano Mini Book
Paper Volcano Model
Earth Layers Flipbook

Books
TBD (when we go to the library later this week)

Hands-on
How to Make a Volcano
Molten Lava Chocolate Volcano Cakes

Websites
NeoK12
Volcano Explorer
CMS Volcanos

You Tube Videos
All About Volcanoes
Magic School Bus Blows Its Top
Rock Cycle Song
Bill Nye
Rock Cycle
Krakatau

Netlfix Movies

My Saplings dislike cutting, assembling and gluing together lapbook mini books. It's a battle that takes the fun out of the whole process for us, so I do it for them. Perhaps they're missing some vital skills by not doing the "prep work" - cutting? following instructions? planning? - but I would much rather they focused on learning and recording information than complaining. I usually assemble while watching TV. "The Voice" was a perfect time to snip! ::wink::

My plan is to take 3-4 weeks for this unit study, but you know how plans go...It might be 2 weeks or 8 weeks. So, stay tuned for our volcano study...and yes, eventually an eruption! Boom!

As We Get Closer to Summer Even Though it Looks Like Winter

54 days! 

That's it! We have 54 more days before our 8th year of homeschooling can (legally) end. The end of another year of learning is "on the horizon" and it's been an interesting year.

Our Current Curriculum and Supplies
Shelves

So, I've been spending some time looking at where we are and where we need to be, and planning our next 54 days to meet these goals and start summer vacation with a bang.

White Pine

Saxon Grammar and Writing - 60 lessons left

Saxon Algebra 1/2 - 64 lessons left

Earth Science - 8 chapters left

A History of Us - 6 books left

Sugar Maple

Saxon Grammar and Writing - 24 lessons left

Draw Write Now - 11 lessons left

Spelling Power - finish level D

MCP Math - 8 chapters left

Apologia Astronomy - 3 lessons left

Health Lapbook Unit

Balsam Fir

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - 30 lessons left

Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read Level 2 - pages 51-69

Grammar and Writing Handbook - pages 90-151

Draw Write Now - 10 lessons left

Saxon Math 1 - 58 lessons left

Lakeshore Science File Folder Games - 14 files left

Health Lapbook Unit

Yeah, it looks like we have a lot of work to go, huh? We're going to get there though! And if we don't QUITE meet all these goals, well, it's OK. 

Looking Forward to Summer Sunsets Over the Lake
Where we Swim and Picnic

Snippets

Could our vacation be ending SO soon? Not that we don't miss school - my daughter has asked almost every day if it's a school day - but sometimes it's nice to have a break and do, well, whatever. The kids have been busy creating Art (after they found a roll of fax paper), playing in PILES of newly fallen snow, enjoying their new Christmas toys, games and handicrafts, watching movies, going to basketball practices and having fun at scouts activities, and, yup, playing video games and watching TV. And I've been busy making changes to our curriculum and preparing for our 2nd half of the school year.

I snagged an AWESOME deal on Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read Deluxe for S. All 5 levels with workbooks, LOTS of readers, flashcards, and audio cassettes for $22.99! (A newer USED version with CDs goes for $800+ on Amazon!) S and I tried out a borrowed Level 1 from the library this month, but it's a hot commodity and we couldn't have it for more than 3 weeks, so I'm excited to continue with it!

C will stop her The Complete Book of US History studies and begin working on History Pockets: Native Americans. Making a Trivia Game using this book hasn't been a hit with C and the information presented in the book isn't all that exciting really, so I'm having her switch to HPs again and we'll delve into it using a GAZILLION wonderful books right from the library. And the awesome part is that she's starting with the Inuits and S is doing a Snow/Winter lapbook so they can share most of the books! C can read aloud to S! (You should see the PILE of books I picked up from the library today! LOL)

I'm planning to add in Winter Wednesdays nature studies and have the kids begin Nature Journals with drawings and information. I have been gathering up books and ideas from Harmony Art Mom's Blog.

And our first Composer Study is ready and waiting: Chopin. O'keefe is next for our Artist Study.

But! no changes to J's usual curriculum.

Here are some snippets of our vacation weeks:

(l.) S flinging snow from the driveway.
(r.) A leather coin purse that J made for C from his Basic Leatherworking Kit

(l.) C listening to a book-on-tape with her new cassette player and working on her knotted fleece quilt.

(r.) The kids playing Mario Cart together on their DSi game systems.



(r.) C learned to play one of our new games - Phase 10.

(l. J playing C's new keyboard.








(l.) S and A building a Lego firetruck together.




(r.) C watching Christmas movies.

On Monday we'll be back to school! Our first week is already filled with Boy Scouts, basketball practices and games, and library storytime. I'm looking forward to our new curriculum changes and the 2nd half of our year!