Weekly Wrap Up/Tot School x2 - 11/4/16

Our neighbours had a family emergency last week, so Brianna had a short week of school while she took care of their kids so they could be at the hospital in the next city, an hour away. Add in yet ANOTHER round of snot in my house, it made for a fairly unproductive week.

I have my major show of the year this weekend, both days, so I've been spending 8-12 hours a day in my office making stock. Because I hand-make everything I sell, prepping for shows of any kind is very time consuming. I do love it, but I wish my house ran it's self while I was busy.

Because of me living in my office, school has mostly consisted of computer work (Time4Learning for Brianna, Reading Eggs/Math Seeds for Olivia) and unschooling. I haven't done set preschool with Joshua in a couple weeks, but we all know, learning continues even if there's no formal teaching! Joshua now counts to 20 and is working on dressing himself. Even my blog has suffered. I have like 13 draft posts with post ideas, but no time to write them!

While this huge show is exciting and I hope to gain loads of new contacts and customers, I can't wait for it to be over and life can slow down again!

Brianna has re-found our math help book and has been discovering how helpful it is to her schoolwork

One of the kids favorite shirts that I make is called a Candy Pocket. In our house though, it's a kitty pocket!

Cars are probably the most important thing to Joshua after food and snuggles

Sure, not the proper way to play with these monkeys, but still works on fine motor skills!

Brianna took a paint class last weekend and came home with this! I was super impressed. She is not good at drawing things or people, but is apparently quite good at landscapes!

Olivia's hand/eye coordination is amazing with this tape the tiles app. I'm amazed how fast she can go!

Halloween!

Joshua loves to watch Olivia do her schoolwork

Joshua is very determined in his independence

Brianna was was feeling particularly crappy so I told her to go take a nap. She refused and continued her schoolwork. Later, I looked over and found this. I guess I won... 

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, Practical Mom, 1+1+1=1, Homeschool Creations and Hip Homeschool Mom

Weekly Wrap Up - 10/14/16

The remnants of sickies are still hanging around our house. As I'm sure you don't want to see a pile of snotty Kleenex, this is a picture-less Wrap Up.

This week is Fire Prevention/Safety Week. We started out the week watching a video our local firefighters put together about smoke detector and battery replacements. We just checked and changed batteries in ours last week so it was a "yay we already did that!" moment.

Being that it's my busy season for my home business, the girls have had a lot of independent work. I mean, most of Brianna's already is, but Olivia too has been mostly working on Reading Eggs and Math Seeds rather than paper worksheets.

We did a nature walk. The girls insist on calling it a "nature walk" even if it's something we do often and it's right next to our house *sigh*

We started our first Country Study in over a year. Getting a subscription to Universal Yums certainly helped get the ball rolling! (check my post about Universal Yums here) Our Country Study this round is Thailand. Look for a post next week to read all about it!

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Hip Homeschool Moms

Weekly Wrap Up - 10/7/16

We had a very slow week due to illness floating through the house *again.* There was a lot of Minecraft playing and YouTube watching.

I got Olivia an abacus to help with her math. She's working on time right now and was disappointed that her abacus doesn't apply to time so she just played with it. I showed her how it works to add larger numbers (which is so much easier than her counting out a zillion math jewels).

We started doing Lego challenges. They help with fine motor skills, patience and creative thinking. And hell, they're just fun! The girls each got 100 random pieces and had to create something that used every piece. It's a lot harder than it sounds! Sadly, I didn't think to grab a pic of their completed projects, but Brianna made a giant human powered/ride on robot and Olivia made a YouTube video making lab.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Hip Homeschool Mom

Day in the Life of Waterview Homeschool

This week, the final week, on iHomeschool Network's Annual Back to School Blog Hop is a "Day in the Life of" post. I love doing these. I haven't done one in forever though!

8am - alarm goes off. I am NOT a morning person and even 8am is way too early for me. Thankfully, Lee works nights and is home before Joshua wakes up, or, if I'm extra lucky, Joshua will wake me up at like 6am *grumble* I poked Olivia, who is not surprisingly in my bed. She doesn't even flinch. I come down stairs to find that Brianna's alarm has been going off for the last half an hour. I need an earthquake bed for her or something. Pour coffee and head outside to my porch to smoke and coffee in silence. My mom, Grandma, has already left for work.

8:30am - I come inside, Brianna's alarm is not still going but she's not up here. Olivia is also not out of bed. I send Lee upstairs to wake Olivia and head to the basement to drag Brianna out of bed. She fakes being dead. Dude, there is not enough coffee flowing through me yet to think that's funny.

8:50am - Breakfast is finally happening for the girls. Joshua on the other hand has been awake 2 hours and is happily "cooking" his sippy on the stove (placing it on the cold burner and calling it hot).

9:05am - Joshua's sippy might be "hot" but his toes are like icecubes and I refuse to turn on the furnace this early in the fall. Operation find-everyone's-slippers begins.

9:15am - veg fest before school. Since it's Monday, Lee didn't work last night (he works tonight though), so the little kids pile on Daddy in the living room. Brianna and I hang out on the porch, being kitten perches and discuss what's on the agenda for the day and I fill in chore lists for the week in their agendas.

9:45am - meltdown begins over the fact that it's not snack time yet. Cue Joshua's most pitiful look. He is temporarily soothed by a blanket fort to watch Brianna play her game.

10am - let the schoolwork commence! Nope, wait... let the hang out in the bathroom for long periods of time commence....

10:25am - school actually starts. Thomas starts on Netflix for Joshua. Lee hides in our bedroom to watch non-preschooler tv.

10:40 am - I cover Brianna's eyes to enter her laptop password while she's on her phone doing DuoLingo. "She chocolate eats" is now the French phrase of the day. Olivia is excited to see seasonal (fall) worksheets in her pile.

11:30 - Laundry on the line! Joshua loves to help Brianna with the clothes pins.

11:50am - Olivia is done her paper schoolwork. Since it's almost lunch break, she just breaks early. She is loving her newly allowed privilege of cutting with a steak knife, so cut up Joshua some strawberries for lunch

12pm - lunch break! Also, mail call! Brianna got a card from the local organizer of the Terry Fox Run with this year's pin.

12:30pm - back to work. Brianna starts with a load of dishes, Olivia starts with her Reading Eggs and I get to work with Joshua's schoolwork.

1:10 pm - Joshua's (and Lee's lol) nap time means my work time. While the girls work on schoolwork and chores, I head up to my office to sew zippers and necklines into car seat ponchos. Right now is my bust season in general but also the only time of year I really sell car seat ponchos. So add prepping for Christmas sales and shows to roughly 40-50 ponchos means I'm pretty busy!

2:50pm - read aloud time. Today we are reading from our biology unit on respiration and our novel "The Family Under The Bridge".

3:20pm - reading is done so I go to wake up Joshua. I find him napping under the bed, silly boy. Under-bed napping apparently makes a grumpy boy. Brianna tried to cheer him up some by making a train track for him.

3:40pm - Olivia and I finished her apple experiment. It was her first long term science experiment so she was excited for it to finally be done.

4pm - school work and most chores are done. Electronics time for the girls. Olivia hides in a blanket for to play Minecraft and Brianna plays a bunch of games for Joshua (who wasn't terribly impressed with Brianna's track building skills and went back to being grumpy). I do some tidying up so I can get some freezer cooking done. When Joshua is finally less cranky, Brianna joins me to make Sausage Breakfast Muffins.

6pm - Brianna got ready for Pathfinders and then researched how to tie her scarf properly. She was so proud to have figured it out! She noticed that the videos she found on youtube were using the older style scarf (uniforms changed recently), so once she perfects it, she plans to make a youtube video with the current uniform.

6:30pm - Brianna is dropped off at Pathfinders. I come home and finish making the gazillion muffins (and ate about 348765 of them!). I manage to get Olivia to consume something of nutrients other than cereal (extreme picky issues here) - homemade apple honey oatmeal!

8pm - Lee and I went to Brianna's Pathfinders meeting for parent planning. They announced the current planned international trip - ENGLAND! Mommy is massively jealous. In 2019, Brianna will be able to go to England for approximately a week with the Pathfinders and Rangers to the Pax Lodge. Brianna is insanely nervous as she hates sleeping away from home, but in the next 3 years she will have a zillion opportunities to sleep away with Guides.

8:50pm - back home. Joshua and Lee have gone to snuggle to bed. Olivia cleans the living room and Brianna started her garbage and dishes chores.

8:55pm - for some reason, Brianna's alarm started randomly sounding. Why on earth it would be set for this time, who knows....

9:30pm - bedtime! I tuck Olivia in, Joshua's still awake so I snuggle with him for a few. I send Brianna downstairs to write in her Pathfinders Journal and park my butt on the computer to veg out on facebook.

10pm - Tell Brianna it's lights out.

10:10pm - kick Lee off to work and hang out on my porch with the neighbour, talking about Brianna's England trip.

10:40pm - I packed all the sausage muffins into freezer bags and found room for them in the freezer. That's a lot of freaking muffins!

10:50pm - I feel sorry for my American friends after reading the aftermath of the Presidential Debate.

11pm - I work on some online stuff for work, talking to customers, organizing coop buys.

11:30pm - Well past my bedtime...

Thanks for reading our newest Day in the Life post. I can't wait to read everyone else's on iHomeschool!

World War II and The Holocaust

Brianna got a gift card to the local book store for Christmas. She's been enjoying these Dear Canada books so got another one, Pieces of the Past, for her collection. The book is about a little girl who immigrated to Canada during the 2nd World War. It talks about her struggles with her new life and about the event of recent past that lead her to where she is now.

Once she was done reading it, not surprisingly, Brianna had a lot of questions about the Holocaust. As we do not censor real life from our kids, I answered her questions as best as I could. As usual, my answers weren't enough. She wanted more. So I found her a bunch of documentaries and based-on-fact movies (since she's a great visual learner).

A couple of favorites:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It's a fiction film based on historical fact about a young boy who's family moves as his father is commandant of a concentration camp. The boy, exploring, meets a young Jewish boy on the other side of the concentration camp's fence. A very moving story that shows a child's side of the Holocaust.

Schindler's List. Another fiction film, based on fact. This one is a little mature for most kids as it is more graphic than most. It is about a German business man who essentially turns his factory into a refugee camp for Jewish people to save them from Auschwitz. Brianna came up with lots of great questions with this one.

Auschwatz: The Nazis and The Final Solution. This one was a surprising like. I thought after a different one that she watched, she would be bored with this one also, but nope! She was full of questions and wanting to rewind to show me various clips. This one is fairly self explanatory as being about Auschwitz and The Final Solution (which Brianna was thoroughly disgusted with).

Weekly Wrap Up - April 8th

Math: Brianna finished up the last of her tests to see what she's missing. Next week she'll kinda have a week off, only doing Khan Academy a couple times (while I mark everything and see what she needs extra work on). Olivia finished up learning about halves, quarters and thirds and is now into measuring (I love that Math Mammoth uses both Imperial and Metric!).

English: Olivia has been working hard at her reading and seems to be picking out new words every day. I'm quite impressed!

Science: Due to this course requiring a lot of me reading out loud and a sudden hacking cough hitting me mid week, we did very little of our biology classes.

History/Geography: Brianna is finding her new series for WWII very interesting. While watching Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution she is actually asking questions and wanting to show me stuff, unlike the last one (World War II: In Color), where she kinda just zoned.

French: Olivia loves to listen to Brianna do her Rosetta Stone and DuoLingo and try to copy what she's saying. Of course, Brianna's speaking sentences and Olivia's just picking out words, but learning is learning, right?!

Phys Ed.: Brianna did one general workout and ran twice.

Other: Joshua did his last speech therapy until August. Because we're in a small city, our Speech Pathologists are WAY over booked (that and way over used but that's a whole 'nother post!). So his therapy stops while another group of kids are seen. We'll reassess in Aug (and since we KNOW he'll need more therapy), then re-start seeing the therapists.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom