Weekly *cough* Monthly Wrap Up - May

Ok, so this is kinda a Month of May Wrap Up, since I didn't really post much this month. It's been a little crazy around here prepping for my surgeries in June (15 teeth extractions and a hysterectomy). We've also been outside a LOT enjoying the totally awesome weather! Enjoy a boat load of pics!

The girls have found their new favorite schooly YouTuber - AsapSCIENCE. They have spent hours watching random videos. Some are silly (like Can You Actually Eat a Bus) but some are really cool (like What if You Stopped Going Outside). There ARE some mature videos that some may not want younger ones watching, so maybe preview before you set kids loose.

Olivia attempted to help Joshua learn how to peddle his bike. He is totally lost lol He never cared to learn to ride a tricycle so he has no idea what he's doing. Olivia is confused as to why he can't peddle. It's interesting to say the least! Olivia herself has some new bike learning to do as we took off her training wheels. She's really struggling with balance but I think that's because her training wheels were so crooked that she rode her bike off centered for so long, she has to learn how to ride upright.

Brianna had her first race of the year. Her training has MUCH improved since last year so here's hoping for a great season! Olivia had her first soccer game of the year too. She's on the red team this year which totally confused her (she was blue last year). We think we'll be signing Joshua up for soccer next year, speech depending.

We'll be starting summer schedule early, due to the aforementioned surgeries. I hope to be able to finish their biology course over the summer still. It was originally planned to be completed *before* summer schedule but life happens. Otherwise, they'll be slowly puttering their way through their various work in math and English (and in Brianna's case, French).

Olivia teaching Joshua to ride his bike

Lee helping Olivia learn to ride her bike without training wheels

Brianna's favorite school spot

Watching for our cat to give birth (sadly one was stillborn, the other we lost 5 days later)

Olivia planted her garden box by herself this year

Playing the "even/odd game" with Daddy

Open hydrants means loads of water fun!

Joshua helped plant the big garden this year

Soccer practice

Progress on my temperature blanket January-April 

Olivia's psoriasis is flaring up :(

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom

Loooong Awaited Update

So since I only blogged a whole *2* times last year, there's kinda been a lot missed. The somewhat condensed version...

Dylan: 19, lives with his mother. Dylan graduated high school. He took an intense 8 week course for heavy equipment operator. He is now working at his first full time job, which he loves!

Isaac: 16, lives with his grandmother. Isaac got his drivers license over the summer (which he is super proud of). He got Honours on his most current report card. He is still very geek/computer driven.

Brianna: 13, at home. Brianna had a slow start to the year. We did minimal core subjects and otherwise unschooled. My brain just wasn't having it. While this helped heal my brain, it didn't do much for Brianna. She does great unschooled learning for self taught or guided learning but anything that is required, but she doesn't particularly want to do, she NEEDS to be "sat on" to do it. Thus, she did poorly to failing miserably at several things. After a summer of normal summer schedule, we got back to business for school. She is doing great in all areas other than math. Don't get me wrong, she is actually good at math! She just doesn't like it, so she slacks off.

In November she again took part in NaNoWriMo. Last year she wrote nearly 10,000 words. This year she more than doubled it to 20,000+ words by the end of November and isn't even done her story! She took a couple month break from it and starting next month will be working on finishing it and editing it. She story is Minecraft fan fiction.

Brianna started working for our neighbour, being a regular babysitter and also doing random jobs around their house. She saved half her money all year and did really well with what she kept. She even took on a couple other babysitting jobs and is building herself a good reputation.

She finally started Rosetta Stone French and is excelling in it. The program doesn't "pass" you unless you have set grade (I believe 75 or 80%), but for most lessons this is easy as pie for her. She is struggling with the writing portion as she's a horrendous speller, even in English. And she has some issues with the grammar portion but French grammar is hard.

Brianna really didn't do all that well in her training or races last year. It's a goal she's working on for this year and thus far she's doing pretty good!

Brianna took part in a science fair with our homeschool group. She put together a project on Earth Sciences, focusing on various rocks. She did really well with the project and even did a presentation in front of the group! She is very stage fright and didn't want to do the presentation portion (not required anyway), so I was super proud of her when she chose to.

Brianna got an undercut and then a short bob in the battle of her amazingly thick and heavy hair. The undercut did a lot over the summer for heat control but the knots she was getting in the remaining length was still a lot to take care of. Once we chopped her hair to jaw level AND kept the undercut, she is both cool and able to take care of it better.

We've started looking into high school and college requirements for the course she wants to take (Environmental Technician). I am not looking forward to high level math. Or writing transcripts. Or high school in general *sigh*

Olivia: 6, at home. Olivia has been working hard at learning to read. She's got a list of 22 words she can fluently read and is excellent with sounding out phonetic words. She is confused over a lot of the English rules, but they ARE confusing.

Olivia took, and failed, swimming lessons last spring. I am very glad she failed as she didn't do well enough to pass. She practised hard over the summer though and I have no worries that she will easily pass this spring.

Olivia joined soccer last year and just loved it! Her favorite position is defence and even got a Player of the Game award for her defensive skills. She can't wait to join again this summer.

She is still excelling in math. She is flying through her Gr. 1 work and will easily be into Gr. 2 work before the school year is done. She loves doing Khan Academy like Brianna.

We chopped off all her hair last year from being almost to her butt. She wanted it "short like Daddy". We convinced her to get a cute bob with bangs. Not good enough, she still wanted it shorter. She now has a short pixie cut, which she loves.

Olivia has started learning French. Brianna's Rosetta Stone requires fluent reading so for now, we'll just be working on the basics. Brianna is doing a lot of the teaching. Olivia can't wait to use Rosetta Stone too!

While Brianna was doing her NaNoWriMo, Olivia decided to write a book as well. She drew pictures then dictated to me what to write. She's not quite done yet but she's done really well so far!

She also lost her first tooth (and now 2nd)! It had been wiggly for a while and the adult tooth was even growing in behind it, but she was very worried about pulling it out. Finally when it was barely hanging on by a thread, she let me pull it out.

Joshua: 2.5, at home. Joshua is not doing tot school yet (though he probably could!). He is mute. No particular reason for it. He checks out medically, has perfect hearing and is at average or is advanced for normal toddler development. Except in speech. Because of this, we are holding off potty training and schooling until we can get some better communication, which is our current focus.

He is excelling in sign language. He consistently uses 22 signs on his own and is learning many more. The girls are also using/learning sign language with him. We (Lee and I) are currently in a parent to child class and after that we'll be doing further speech therapy with Joshua.

Eventually we'll care about school for him. Right now, him being able to communicate is our number 1 priority. He's only 2, we're not worried about the rest.

Lee and I: As we're fairly open about, you may know that Lee has Generalized Anxiety Disorder. On average, it's well controlled. Sometimes he has bad days, some times he has really bad days. Last spring he had several bad months. He was actually so bad he was off work for 5 months. It was hard for everyone, most of all him. He was raised in a "man-up" generation and has always had a hard time dealing with feeling out of control or depressed. With a LOT of support, he made it through. He's back to work, though his first month was really rough, but now is going great.

Towards the end of his time off, we went on our long planned cross-Canada road trip for his best friend's wedding, in which he was the Best Man. It was so awesome to get away, just the 2 of us. We missed the kids like crazy, but thankfully Skype kept us in touch. I'll have a big blog post about this trip later.

I have been busy with my business. I've been trying out new fabrics and techniques in me sewing to try to get past that "beginner-novice" title. It's been surprisingly easy in some areas, and really tough in others.

My grandma died just before Christmas. She'd been struggling with various health problems for years and open heart surgery (which completely fixed her heart!) seems to have sped up some other issues. The girls, Olivia in particular, took it really hard. It makes me sad that Joshua will never really know her. It makes me sad that we don't get to see her any more. But I'm glad that she's not struggling with her health any more.

Current Curriculum July 2015

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Previous post from last Sept here.

We school year round and don't really follow grades. Brianna started Nov 15, 2010 coming from 3rd grade in public school and will go until whenever of whatever year. Olivia started "Preschool" on Feb 6, 2012. We don't follow specific grades but Brianna is anywhere from Gr. 6-10 and Olivia is mostly Gr 1, a little Kindy and some Gr. 2. 

So, since we don't have set grades or set school years, I figure every 6 mths-ish I'll post what we are currently working on. We use a mishmash of traditional homeschool curriculum, workbooks bought at teacher supply stores, stuff made up completely in my head and most subjects are supplemented by printed worksheets from various sites and of course, library books. In a nut shell, we're eclectic homeschoolers.

Olivia:

We have a subscription to ABCMouse.com and Olivia really likes it! It has all the way from Toddlers to the end of Kindergarten. This program added on a couple more levels, but only lists levels not grades, so I don't know where the program ends after Kindergarten. Olivia is still learning to control the computer so she's a little slower going here than in her paper school work.

For printables we mostly use 1+1+1=1 (there's also great tot school and preschool printables here!). Confessions of a Homeschooler also has great printables. I love 1+1+1=1 as they have a lot of themed units. They cover a wide variety of skills but under one theme (Olivia has done cats, pizza, Octonauts and more). Even though most of them are below her skill levels, she really enjoys them so we keep doing them. 1+1+1=1 now has literature units as well.

English:

We'll start dabbling in Brave Writer's "Jot it Down" program which focuses on dictation for Olivia's age group. We'll start up 1+1+1=1's You Can Read program once Olivia is more comfortable in phonics. We feel that phonetic learning is highly important over memorizing sight words so we're spending a lot of effort on letter sounds, blending sounds and sounding out short words.


Math:
Olivia has started Early Math on Khan Academy. She is super proud to be doing Khan just like Brianna. Her computer skills are still lacking, so Khan is definitely something that we do together, though she is getting better at navigating. 

Olivia loves to help take care of Joshua, cooking and household chores. We, of course, encourage her as much as possible!

Phys Ed./Health:
Olivia has started running like Brianna. This year, like last, she ran in the fun run this month and will be taking part in the Cornwall Triathlon, doing a duathlon, next month. She's also in U7 Soccer this year. The kids play weekly and Olivia seems to really enjoy it.

Brianna: 

Math: 
We really like Math Mammoth. It's almost self-teaching once a kid can read. It breaks the new concepts down into step by step instructions in a way that really gets through to Brianna. Math Mammoth goes only to Gr. 7, so once she's done that, I'll be looking for a new curriculum for Algebra and the like. We're also slowly working our way through Khan Academy. Brianna really likes the videos explaining new concepts. 

English: 
We're using Brave Writer's "Writer's Jungle" again this year. Brianna's especially enjoys their Poetry Teatimes, which we'll be starting again in the fall. For spelling, I keep track of words she has spelled wrong in her general school work and base spelling practice off of that. We'll be doing NaNoWriMo again this year. She took part last year and wrote an impressive 12,000+ words. Amazing who someone who often struggles with writing a few pages. This year, we'll be starting early with NaNoWriMo's educator's lesson plans.

French: 
We will be doing Rosetta Stone now that Brianna has her own laptop to install it on. Brianna already knows more French than I do, so thankfully Rosetta Stone is a self-teaching course! We'll be using Living Languages for extra activities. Duolingo has an app for her phone for extra, on-the-go practice. One of our neighbours has offered to test Brianna's French periodically.

Arts: 
Brianna wants to learn guitar and we have a child's guitar and a great book - The Complete Guitar Manual, hopefully we can get around to that. She also wants to get back into playing the flute (which is currently under repairs). Hopefully she can be encouraged to put in a stronger, more frequent effort this time.

She has expressed interest in learning about some Shakespeare, so we'll  learn about him and read/watch some plays. 

Phys Ed/Health: 
Brianna runs with a local MultiSport club. Her last run of the year is her Terry Fox run on Sept 14th. She actually bikes the Terry Fox run, but as she chooses to do the biggest route (10km), it's certainly nothing to laugh at! Once that is done, she's done until May. She'll spend that time doing training at least twice a week (running, yoga, strength training, cardio) and of course, we live in Canada, so there's always snow to shovel! 

Computer: 
Brianna and Olivia both have Minecraft accounts. I'm currently looking for cool educational ideas for it as I know many are out there. But for now, both girls are just working on computer skills and building. Brianna is learning to use the MinecraftWiki to research how to do or use various aspects of the game.

Civics:
This fall we're doing a study on Canadian government and our Prime Ministers from Confederation to present. We have a federal election this fall and will be tracking the candidates and their platforms. We're using various books and sites like Canada Votes, Exploring Canada and a cool Prime Ministers of Canada set that I got from the Library and Archives of Canada

Life Skills: 
Brianna has taken on babysitting and dog poop scooping jobs from our neighbours. This is teaching her a great deal about responsibility and money. Because of the sudden influx of money, she's learning about comparing prices and smart spending. She's also becoming more responsible for getting her schoolwork and chores done with less interference from us. 


Both:

History/Geography: 
Lee and I are driving across country at the end of August and the girls will be tracking us and learning about various places as we go.

We're continuing to do Country Studies. The kids have really enjoyed them so far. We read about the countries, find them on maps, watch videos about them and make a bunch of food from that country. We'll be using History of the World and Geography of the World at home and whatever oodles of books we can snag from the library. World Atlas is fantastic for maps and National Geographic Kids has a bunch of videos and articles I made both Brianna and Olivia's country reports on Microsoft Word because I couldn't find anything I liked that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. If I can figure out how to share them here, I will.

Science:
For the most part, science is done through day to day life with no set curriculum. We'll be doing a lot of interest based topics. Both girls want to do the human body. We'll have to do a refresher in a few years for Olivia, but with the random stuff she picks up on of Brianna's school work, I'm not worried about doing a joint class with them. Brianna got an ant farm for her birthday and the girls are fascinated with watching it.  

Arts:
I want to work on art some more. Brianna loves it but is fairly terrible lol So she wants to learn little ways to make her art better. Olivia on the other hand, has this idea that her drawings aren't good enough. No telling her otherwise changes her mind :( So for both girls, we'll be doing some basic art lessons, using a variety of mediums and styles.

Joshua:

He will to continue to be cute and get into stuff and steal school work *wink*


Linking up with the iHomeschool Network

Weekly Wrap-Up

Monday & Tuesday - No school on Monday due to Easter and none on Tuesday due to laziness ;)

Wednesday - Finally got to the Easter worksheets I printed out. A reading comprehension story about Easter. Brianna's used to the short stories for reading comprehension so bombed on it when she first tried. When she actually took the time to READ the story rather than skim through it, she got it.

Thursday - We started in our new Canadian Geography book today with a basic overview of the seven continents. We also watch the Blue Planet movie which was really interesting!

Friday - Today was supposed to be a homeschool soccer day, but no one remembered until about 3 hours after it was over :(  Math was rough today. Brianna's pretty good at adding and subtracting with borrowing and carrying, but keeps making it out like she can't do it *sigh*

We've linked up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Daddy Came to Soccer!

Pardon the speed-shot!

Lee had the day off today and it just so happened to be a soccer day for our homeschool group. So Lee finally got to see that we aren't the only homeschoolers in the world lol Olivia also came with us to kick around the soccer balls.

We ran late but Brianna still got to play about 1/2 the game. In goal, as she loves. Lee got to know some of the other HS parents and I got to talk to a facebook friend that's in our group who's launching an all Canadian Homeschool Magazine. I can't wait til September when the first paper copy comes out. Here's the website for now.

No More School!

It's soooo nice to not have to be walking to the school right now. It's a PA day for the school board today so I wouldn't have to anyways, but now I don't have to walk to the school on Monday! 

Yesterday was Brianna's last day. She brought home her backpack FULL of school stuff. Her French teacher even gave me a folder full of French worksheets which I thought was very nice of her since I won't be able to get a French workbook til next weekend. 


Today we have homeschool soccer and I told Brianna she's a full member of the homeschool group now cause she's not just missing a day of school. She's pretty excited about that. She was worried last night about Rebecca not being her friend anymore cause she's not in school, so I see a playdate in the near future.

GRRRRRRR!

OMG My computer/printer are pissing me off!!!!

I've got some virus or something causing pop ups all over the place. It's slow as crap. My printer hates me and freezes anytime I want it to print something with more than 2 pages. And since my printer prints backwards I keep getting the end of printing projects and not the beginning of them. I have several sites I want to print worksheets from and I can't!

And with this virus or whatever I'm having a heck of a time getting to certain pages. For example, I wanted to make a new blog post with some of my favorite free HSing links and every time I tried to get to blogger it would "re-direct" me to a page that's never found. So instead I'm blogging about this hunk of junk. I sooooo need a new computer. Unfortunately that means $$$

And to top it off, the baby is molar teething hard core, so I'm sleeping like crap and it's not making my mood towards my computer any friendlier!

Rant over. 

On a positive note, tomorrow (or today, depending on if you insist on pointing out that it's after midnight) is homeschool soccer. Hopefully we'll be able to play! I know nothing about indoor soccer domes, but I'm assuming that it wouldn't take 2 weeks to fix it after the collapse.