First day back at it!

The 2011-2012 school year has begun!  Big D is again doing a virtual school online (so he’s got teachers he works with for all his classes, has online classes each week, etc.)  The 2 other kids are changing things up this year and we’ll be using a free curriculum, Ambleside Online, for them.  I miss being the one teaching them and I hated doing school merely to check off boxes.  This curriculum involves LOTS of reading and lots of classic literature.  I’m excited about it! My Girlie isn’t as excited as the boys are about starting school, as you can tell from her picture.  She just wants to read her book!  Heh heh!!  Don’t know where she got that from!!!!  ((rolling eyes)).

jump start

Yesterday Girlie and I walked to the store and bought a bunch of spiral notebooks (10 cents ea! so we bought 18)  When we got home Girlie immediately started decorating hers with stickers.  Little D was eager to get going in his nature notebook and ended up starting along with the next door neighbor boy.  Well, a little bit ago Girlie and Little D asked if they could make popcorn and then they "disappeared".  I found them in my garden working in their nature notebooks.  Pretty cool!!!

I think I won't tell them that school doesn't officially start for another week and a half!!!!!!!!!

it happened again!

So, my youngest Boyo was kind of struggling through phonics, some days it seemed like he was forgetting more than he was learning.  So this year, our K12 teacher suggested we sign him up for Reading Horizons program online.  It's supposed to improve their reading level, sometimes as much as 2 grades.  Well, he's been doing that and liking it BUT like his big brother before him, he found a book that was just too tempting to resist!  The other day he got 5 DK Eyewitness books out from the library.  The favorite so far has been a book about vikings.  He was enjoying looking at all the pictures and kept saying how he wished he had this or that piece of equipment.  Well, last night he plopped down on the kitchen floor while I was cooking dinner.  He had the book, a pencil and paper.  He'd say something like, "What is a 'shee-at'?"  I asked him to spell it and he said, "S-h-e-a-t-h" so I told him it was a sheath.  He was very excited about that and carefully copied down 'Leather sheath and knife' on his paper (oh yeah, also asked what was a 'kuh-niff-ee'...but I was expecting that and said, 'knife'.  And he's so excited at what he's learning too....he just asked his sister if she knew what a 'conical helmet' was.  Yay!!  How exciting!!!  He's got the reading bug now too!!!

something fishy

Today Little D got to learn about fish for science. He wasn't so sure he wanted to as he was sure he already knew all about fish....how "they swim in the water using their hands and feet." Yeah, so now he knows the terminology and such! Heh heh! He's quite happy with his fish named Silver Speed.

Our "Pet" Bubble Rock

My friend, Eleanor, came to visit us on Mother's Day weekend. She brought lots of fun things for everyone, including a spindle and book on how to spin yarn (for me) and a bag of all kinds of colorful stones, AND a bubble rock (sorry that link takes you to a spot to buy bubble rock....I couldn't find anything more specific about it). So we added white vinegar and then kids decided to add some food coloring too, so we could get colored "bubbles" (aragonite chrystals). Well, all of the vinegar has finally disappeared (and we covered the rock with it) and obviously my glass bowl has somehow got entangled in the process (yes, those are rock hard chrystals clinging to the bottom and on the sides of the bowl). But here is our fully "bloomed" rock (though wondering if it grows more if you give it more vinegar. Little D has now taken it and his magnifying glass around to everyone in the family and had them inspect the shiny chrystals (?? He was desperate to see chrystals, although I tried to explain that is what we're seeing, I think he was hoping for diamonds or something!)

Springy

Well, of course, with summer school, we also will be doing LOTS outside. We've got our garden going already and have enjoyed doing school outdoors. We've even had some fun "field trips". A friend of mine from high school stopped for a visit on Mother's Day weekend. She came in time to attend the Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire with us. We also did some hiking and checked out the local flora and fauna. Below is a yellow headed black bird....never even heard of such a thing before. He had the coolest song! :)

catching up

Well, looks like we'll be doing school through the summer as we got a tad behind with being involved in Big D's play. Here's pics of that (which I realized haven't been posted yet). Big D was Ram Dass in the play A Little Princess.