November 5-6

We started talking about Thanksgiving and being thankful so here is today’s things we are thankful for:

Zander: having a mom and dad

Gavin: having friends

Emanuel: Jesus

Trinity: that we have lots of kids in our family

I am thankful that Trinity, with Ken’s help, wrote the word CAT!!

I was feeling poorly in the morning so I left Ken in charge with some worksheets and our usual morning things. The beginnings of Thanksgiving with Pilgrims to colour and wordsearches to do. All of which you can find in my Education.com collections HERE. And of course Activity Village HERE.

Trinity’s Pilgrim

Emanuel’s contributions

We got a decent start on our pen pal responses… With pictures to draw to go with each letter it is a bit of a production! We actually FINISHED our Halloween chapter story finally and the book joined the rest of our newly acquired Halloween decorations. Time to move onto those Thanksgiving ideas. So far there have been a few from people online. We just need to start assembling the necessary supplies.

The book

We had TWO sets of instructions from Art for Kids to work on! A turkey AND an alien!!! Zander created quite the picture using BOTH and Gavin decided he would send his turkey in his letter to Gammie. This site is a wonderful wealth of ideas! 

Gavin’s Gammie Turkey

Alien by Gavin

Zander’s picture… note the turkey in the middle of it!!!

Of course there was our dinosaur of the day which this time all 3 boys participated in. Again that post will follow later. The kids did another NetGalley book review for me… this time a wonderful upbeat book called Changing the World Before Bedtime. You can find our review HERE.

Tuesday’s Thankful Things!

Gavin: That I have toys

Emanuel: All the people in the world

Zander: For having Echo as a baby sister

Trinity: For my teddies

We actually had a few errands to run so less of a consistent school focus for the day. BUT we managed our usual basics AND since we are working towards Thanksgiving some more print outs. 

I had each of the twins work on writing their own sentences and illustrating them. I am planning on doing that once a week as right now they are rather dependent on me for creating full out sentences and such. Like with our pen pal letters (another kid down 2 to go). With it being a day that starts with T we had Minecraft time, that when you run errands first really does eat up your time.

I am enjoying asking the kids each day about something they are thankful for. I figured we will continue to do this right up until Thanksgiving. 

One of the many things *I* am thankful for! Echo’s continued health!

With errands came the missing colours of yarn (love coupons and teacher’s discount!)… I am working my way through Trinity’s present and figure I may have expanded my skill set enough to attempt a joint present for her and Echo.

My girlies

I have a dinosaur to blog about and another day to prep for, hopefully Wednesday will have more interesting things  to share! And hopefully, all Americans who CAN voted today! With an EDUCATED mind!

You spin me right round baby!!!

November 1-2

The day AFTER Halloween is never an easy one… too much sugar, a late night and this time a bit of a cold going around and we have 5 kids on varying levels of miserable. Runny noses are back for some full force and I think we all just wore each other out. Thank goodness we DO homeschool as I had the option of pulling back and letting the kids relax a bit… oh and it was a day that started with “T” so – MINECRAFT! 

Teaching Echo about magnets!

Zander wrote his spelling test for the week… ANOTHER 100%! On a roll this boy is!

Well done Zander!

I really need to put together a crochet completion blog entry… I have finished a bunch and posted… none! So watch for that! I have more and more plans of things to make and do and these fingers are rarely still anymore. So completions are rather consistent!

A quiet place to read?

We made up Halloween mini books with the origami fold. These are all just pictures but it was a fun exercise in taking our time and colouring our very best work. I think Zander plans on sending his up to a friend in Canada next week! You can find them HERE.

Coloured books

I am on the hunt for multiple things to augment our schooling… Brazil for Emanuel’s monthly mailing… Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims for… well you know… and USA in general… gotta get the country down pat before those yearly tests… ugh ugh ugh. So… I AM looking for affordable suggestions! Suggest away world!

Friday morning Ken and the kids finally got the chance to do their Halloween craft. We waited too long to get our traditional foam sets so instead they all made their own spider webs out of special strings. I got to sleep in and they got time with their Dad crafting. I think we all won out on that one!

Crafting with Daddy

Trinity worked at her workbook that Gammie sent us. She somehow ended up on the perfect workpage to send in our next pen pal letters (which we also received this week) to Gammie. 

Trinity and her page

In our letters from Gammie was some money to get a Halloween treat! So when we went out to do all our errands (yarn, looking at what Ken would like to buy with his birthday money…) we stopped off at Dairy Queen for fried cheese curds and Dilly bars! We still have enough left over for a treat later that week at McDonald’s! They have their cones on for 49 cents each!! 

Thank you!

The poem which  you can watch on youTube… or below was found on this page HERE. I had the twins decorate our page as usual to go in our special art and such folder. I think they did a great job as usual! Note again that Emanuel is right there reciting along and this time… a special guest… Miss Echo! 

Decorated page

We still have a ton of candy to eat… and now the mind is turning to Thanksgiving… wish me luck!

One of our Education.com print outs

October 24-25

Wednesday marks the point where we are FINALLY in the end stretch on costumes. I am so far behind from where I usually am! The twin bought theirs, we got the last of the supplies for Echo’s and the face paint for Trinity’s Choco-cat. Ken and I have opted not to dress up this year with our short time frame and really lack of budget. I hope to do so next year though! 

We spent much of our morning out on those errands so that definitely shortened our school day. BUT Zander had his spelling test today, 7/7! Well done!

100%!

Not to be outdone by her brother… work of art

Art for Kidssaved our day with their MUMMY instructions. The boys BOTH enjoy the steps and are absolutely willing to create whatever the next picture is. We often discuss what COULD be the next picture posted…

MUMMY

Thursday was a short day for me… I had a GIRLY DATE with Bree the mommy to be once again. She announced the day before that they are expecting a GIRL! Echo is going to have a godsister. I am so excited for them, I am going to save all of Echo’s outgrows AND start the gears moving in my head as to what I can make for them. Hair things, dollies, bits and bobs… fairy wings! Oh I am excited!!! We are in the world of boys down here having left all our little girls up in Canada! 

Anyway… we have started our Halloween colouring in earnest. I love a good print out and while the printer is limping without its colour cartridge we are still making do. Trinity especially enjoyed her Education.com print out of a haunted house! You can check out my Halloween folder on their site HEREof stuff from this year and the previous. 

Trinity’s work of art

We had ANOTHER 100% on a spelling test – this time Gavin and he had tricky words – TWO and TOO!!! I am so proud!!! 

Another perfect score

We have started our Halloween book and are doing a picture a chapter into the journals. This seems to be the best way to follow up with something with the boys. Low impact but they keep on working, thinking and creating. When we finish our Judy Moody book and go onto the next one, I think I will use another format… maybe a chapter by chapter picture book… add to it a list of the characters in each chapter and the main conflict or point. 

We covered a rather unique FEATHERED dinosaur today. The Beipiaosaurus… and surprisingly Gavin joined us! There is something rather interesting about a dinosaur that is feathered, with a potential omnivore lifestyle. Once I get  the previous dinosaurs posted this one will be up as well. My agreement with the big boys is that if they want to join in on the dinosaur time they ALSO have to do something productive in regards to this dinosaur. So Gavin drew a picture of it, recorded the dinosaur’s name and 3 facts he learned about it. Which Emanuel helped him come up with. 

I am still debating what path to take beyond math and reading and writing… With Emanuel to learn about Brazil I am thinking of seeing what sort of a lapbook or mini poster we could make as a family… but I want to expand our interest. THOUGH we have had some more pen pal letters! This time from our friends in the Yukon (including Coffee Crisp chocolate bars for me!! Though Ken took one to share with his friends).

Throw in some snow in passing and wow what a couple of days!!!