The second week of homeschooling officially for our year was a little more of a struggle BUT Thursday we had Zander’s first spelling quiz – 3 out of 5 right! I am very proud of my often frustrated learner. He is understanding that he has to learn five MORE words over the next week AND practice the two he got wrong. I am so proud of him, he spelled “a”, “all” and “about” correctly. The next set of 5 in our big sight word book are rather simple ones like “and” and “am” but those are GREAT for confidence boosters! Gavin is staggered in time and won’t have his first quiz until next Wednesday. He is starting at the end of the list with words like “yellow” and “would”. First steps to really writing their own sentences and stories.

First quiz

We got a VERY special package in the mail – our Wonder Box that I won from an online draw done by the site The Adventures of Supermom. We had to open it right up and look through…

Wonder box

Even with our not so motivated week I was amazed at how quickly we got through our list of to do’s. Math was conquered, reading done… Trinity started a new workbook with great joy and Emanuel was over the moon with his letter practice. I am so glad that my littles are learning as well as their brothers.

I managed my first tie in of yarn. I had to move onto my second ball of yarn for Ken’s scarf. I think I did a pretty decent job. If you want to learn how to change colours, add that next ball, there are some great left handed instructions in this video. 

Loving the colours

Our investment in beads and plastic string was a great one! As the whole group of them were huddled over the stash creating away! I definitely need to purchase some more. Though there may be an issue with the string and smaller beads. The big draw of the plastic string is that it is easier for the little ones to use and does not fray… but I am sure we will figure it out!

Beading

With results

We ended our week rather quietly. Since Ken was dealing directly with HR in regards to the test code they wanted and NOT the developers it turned out that the HR guy was using a term improperly and muddied the waters. So any plans to really go out and about were completely blown out of the waters. Thankfully we DID make it out to Target to ask questions at the optical place and do a little shopping… oh and get a free cookie. Gotta love the cookie clubs at grocery stores!

Instead they created a Lego tree full of parrots!

Trinity and I did her Wonder Box… I am going to do a separate blog entry on this wonderful amazing gift! I cannot thank Supermom enough for her draw! I have wanted to get Trinity a Wonder Box since they came out with the program and here I had the opportunity to share it with her. I have high hopes that in the new year I can get another one for our budding learner. She was so lovely about sharing it with Echo and Emanuel as well!

Sharing her project with her sister

Miss Echo even let me sit and take a few pictures of her in the sunshine. 

Pretty baby

I have a few freebies to share that I have been linked through emails!!! There is an ABC Notebooking set that is free now… you can find it on Currclick HERE. With Emanuel’s new interest in the Turtleman and the Crocodile Hunter I was so excited to see that Activity Village has added him to their famous people section now 6 years after his death. You can find print outs for him HERE. Moffatt Girls has a free fall themed math print out you can download right now as well. You can find that gem HERE. And there is a daily notebooking set you can download and print off HEREfrom Confessions of a Homeschooler. I hope to utilize these soon. I picked up sheet protectors for reusable notebooking sheets for  Trinity so I guess in my spare time this weekend it is time to make Trinity up some learning material.  

Working together (Zander)

This family, for some reason, seems to crave confusion and excitement or at least subconsciously call it to us! Yesterday I got an email from our facilitator, apparently he had NOT gotten our message about the move and the meeting which is supposed to be… today… ack! So I called his hotel AND emailed to hopefully erase the confusion. That is what I get for leaving contact up to the husband. Emails are his favourite and I swear between him and our facilitator there is more lost emails  than found! But they do enjoy talking to  each other on the phone! Of course… he WAS calling our home number… which IS on hold right now… so… joy. Thankfully we were able to connect up and plan to do a later visit when things settle down. Score another one for the flexibility of homeschooling. 

We did get some more schooling done though. The boys were workbooking and writing words, drawing pictures,  talking about money… we did tons. With SOME complaints (trust me there were some iPad minutes lost) but we did have improvement. Emanuel is fighting getting into really working on things. Right now he has a “fun” workbook and a regular workbook he is in need of finishing before the fall… after all he is registered in the fall for his first year! But he is VERY resistant to doing work. I am  going to keep pushing him though… when he DOES do his work he does a wonderful job! 

Workbook time

There was some crafting going on too yesterday! Trinity made Aunty Chris her very own bracelet! 

Purty

Oh and I have those 6 bows  to share that I completed. 

Purses

Pretty pattern

Silvery

A bit of Halloween

Made With Love

Another silver classy one

Echo had an unlucky day yesterday and not only got knocked over but also pinched her finger in a folding door. She had a rather sleepless night  as well. (and was a total crank to boot) I think it was the yellow and orange peppers she ate last night. Either way she has NOT been a joy to be around the second half of the week.

But Daddy made her giggle

The news is not good for our rental. The owner hunted down his contractor today and the 14th does not look viable. So we are supposed to move in on the 1st… this has everyone in our family completely out of sorts. We love Chris and Chris, the kids would love to visit Grandma and Grandpa Mike (if we can EVER get this darn van situation resolved) but we would really love to be back in our own place with our own stuff. We have a new plan of action, Ken has kept in contact with the owner of our (supposed) new place all along and has again emailed asking for assurances on our 1st move date but he has ALSO started the process all over again to see if we can secure a rental sooner. The hard part about all of this is that this new place would REALLY work for us. The owner is just as upset about this situation as we are, he was sure it would be ready in time for the 1st but there was an electrical issue found in renovations that HAD TO be done to bring the place up to code and be signed off on… and then again he assumed it would be ready for the 14th. Now he is out a full month on this rental. BUT on the other hand we need a home for our family… it is all a whole lot of NO FUN! 

Add this to the equation canceling the kids' run to the park with Daddy and no one was pleased!

So not the week ending that I had been hoping for. There is still a chance for saving it though… the van… and our miracle worker Sean. He went to see our first pick tonight but was way over tired after his first day back to work so we shall get the details tomorrow! Keep those fingers crossed. I will surely have some sort of news about that tomorrow.

With a lovely evening visit with Karyn who brought some of her own handmade flowers for me to peek at AND some feltie fluff since I have mine in storage and need it for TWO spontaneous projects!!! It is  time to get back to my OWN crafting and a wee bit of pouting. But not too much as it is not going to get me anywhere and I KNOW that on some level…

Baby in a headband

And then we ALL get sick to some degree or another… I just keep reminding myself better THIS week than NEXT week. Either way it slowed our schooling progress to a near halt. Though we did do some workbook stuff, chat about things and watch some educational television. 

We did a little story starter as well… well a sentence or two sort of thing. You can find it HERE. One of the twin answered yes, the other no… so it was interesting to see how they think about a question. Trinity had ANOTHER colouring page… HERE. She does love to colour, and this way she is contributing to our binder.

Again not much motivation during the first half of the week to progress but we added to our binder. With Echo’s surgery coming up right after St. Patrick’s Day I am expecting that week to be a wash. I hope the facilitator is impressed by what we DO get done in April AND the fact that we school year round!  There was some major Perler bead work going on at our little blue table! And the bulk of it (on the first day) had a St. Patrick’s Day theme! We are totally going to have to tuck some of these into our binder to share. If you want some of the patterns we used you need to check out our favourite UK site… right HERE. The rest came out of our booklets that come with the beads you buy. I love these beads, they are so versatile and even Trinity can handle them (though not the tweezers, she has broken I think around 3 pairs since we started. They DO have jumbo beads but we never purchased any). Of course all 3 days this week have been beading days! 

BEADS!

We have managed some workbook time and the kids have watched some good movies (Veggie Tales, etc) but a sick Mommy who is also the teacher does slow life down a bit. 

Movie time

Trinity and Emanuel did make their library day – with strict instructions to cover their mouths when they cough and use a paper towel to wipe their noses.

Colouring

Life has been slightly frantic here, sick kids, baby surgery coming up and another issue we are dealing with and will HOPEFULLY have dealt with by tomorrow… all pile up to making me over wrought. Add to all of that water dripping from a basement light fixture that has not yet been looked at by the owners and… yeah… fun times. 

I think we all have been feeling a little like this!