Sailing to America!!! Week two.

Every sailor needs a good pair of sunglasses... and Inchworm informs us that the sun will hurt your eyes if you are not wearing them because the sun is hot. I however like to see those big brown eyes so I prefer the glasses off.

 

 Here Captain Doodlebug is sailing our ship around the world to dock at various harbors and check out the weather in different areas across the globe.

Pollywog working on spelling. She is whizzing through her words and is a few weeks ahead now.

Doodlebug is using dictation from HOD and is speeding through the units with only one mistake so far. We also have been using Spelling Power since last school year and he is doing very well with it too. Working on spelling words much above his grade level.  

I love that he finds it fun for me to mark his work with my red pen lol .... well as long as its all "A"s I mark

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Here Doodlebug is working on english. This boy is crazy! He actually has fun diagramming sentences. He's rather good at it too. Of course that could be because of the english we are using. Rod and Staff english series is excellent.

This is a picture Pollywog drew after reading the book pictured beside it for bookbasket time

Here is her artwork to illustrate our poem for this week. I love her creativity. One verse of the poem reads "I'd rather fight some mighty wave" So her sailor has two swords and is ready to fight two mighty waves :)

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 Vocab word for the week was gale. It came from the kids history reading. Of course Doodlebug had to add something about bionicles in there. Any chance he gets... :P

Holy, Holy, Holy

Getting in some exercise during Bible memory. Toe touches and push ups. I love Doodlebug's face in the push up one. It was fun to see Inchworm getting involved too.

With pride comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. Proverbs 11:2 The kids thought of the hand motions all on their own for this one and I LOVED watching them do it.

Here the kids are learning about the lunar eclipse. Pollywog was fascinated to know that the moon doesn't actually have it's own light, it just reflects light from the sun.

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Pollywog is very good at math, but that doesn't mean she is always enthusiastic about doing it

In science this week we learned how the shape of a birds beak can help them get their food. The kids had fun using instruments to dig up goodies... especially the M&M's.

For goody bag this Friday Fun Day I had the kids work together for some team work time. They worked as mad scientists making and blowing up concoctions in the yard. ;)

Here is what Inchworm could be found doing while we were schooling this week :) He was so proud of his tower, but any good builder must be prepared to knock it down and start from scratch a time or two.... or three.

My wonderful husband walking baby America for me so I could get some school planning done. I thought it was funny that he couldn't put the book down even to do this lol You know he is reading Greg Isles again when this sort of thing happens.

First week back

Some of you may know that we had quite an eventful summer around here at the joyful homeschool :) We welcomed our newest addition to the family. Meet America ;) Nicknamed America for the obvious... he was born on July 4th!

We have also made another change around here; we have decided to take a break from My Fathers World curriculum. While on this break we will be giving Heart of Dakota a try. Heart of Dakota offers the opportunity to combine our two oldest kiddos into Bigger Hearts for His Glory. They will be doing their own Language arts and Math of course :) But will be learning together in everything else. My Fathers World offers this as well, but with more planning on my part. The history theme this year will be American history, so come along and enjoy our journey with us through time to learn all about Christopher Columbus, Pocahontas, Abe Lincoln and much much more.

Starting out slow this year because of our new student who is excelling in learning to sleep and smile. We decided to do two days the first week back and three the next. So I am finally posting our first week review. Here is our first week with HOD. Let me just say that we are LOVING the switch so far.

 Doodlebugs fourth grade year... 9yrs old

Pollywogs second grade year.... 7yrs old

ALMOST TWO!!! Inchworm is growing so fast.

Working on our ocean painting... learning how to mix colors to get lighter or darker colors.

Pollywog's The Goops poem and artwork.

Science... the moon and how it controls the high and low tide.

 Horizons math. We've been using this math since Doodlebug was in Kindergarten... we LOVE it! I crossed a bunch of problems though since it is so much review at the beginning of the year.

Science experiment day... sink or float items and experiement pages. It was neat to see how different they both portrayed their findings. They were told to draw the same thing... but they both turned out unique.

Of course Inchworm had to get in on the action. This made Mama's job of cleaning the kitchen much more fun after school ;)

Bible memory workout! I think this might be the kids favorite subject. HOD has them do a little exercise and then recite their weekly Bible verse.

 

Geography! Basketball globes :) Need I say more? They had so much fun with this.

Our poem this week was Four By the Clock to go along with our Christopher Columbus theme. This is Doodlebugs copied poem and illustration. I forgot to picture Pollywogs.

Timeline illustrations.

Love to see Doodlebug helpign Pollywog with their assignments. Here they are drawing a map to show Columubus' voyage. They were so proud they said they HAD to show Daddy when he got home.

I have been saving this project on my homeschool pinterest board  for a while now and finally got to try it out. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! The kids and I all got in on the action.

Here is what Inchworm can be found doing during school.

America is getting very good at his smiles, but is also very good at being quick to avoid the camera. Here is the best I could do.

Hope you enjoyed our week. Don't have time to elaborate too much so I hope the pictures speak for themselves :) Have a great weekend!

Weeks 23 & 24 India

I am so behind in blogging and I just started this blog. Such is life with kids I suppose.

While touring India we learned about their cultures and celebrated Brother and Sister day by making bracelets for eachother and watching The Jungle Book movie. We watched the cartoon and the old movie. The kids liked the cartoon better, but said the old movie fit the book better. Doodlebug read the unabridged version for his reader for school these weeks.

Here is a picture of the kids doing the bracelets and their cards they made for eachother.

They thought it was neat that in India family is so important they actually have a day to celebrate sisters :) Especially Pollywog!

We read these books for our studies.

On Friday Fun Day we had Indian mango dessert. They were really good, but then anything mango usually is. Here is some pics of the kids making and enjoying them.

Learning to use a spoon is an important part of school around here :) Inchworm is getting all A's of course!

Here we are playing the geography game with white chocolate morsels. YUM! Somehow I never win though. I think it may have something to do with those sneaky little hands that are so quick to grab my chocolate peices.

We got some much needed yard work in the month of May. So thankful for the nice warm days!

Daddy and Doodlebug working on the cherry limbs.

Pollywog taking pictures of one of the cherry trees. She is getting very excited for the cherries to be ripe. I can't understand how the kids can still eat them knowing they have worms in them. Blah!

Inchworm has also been learning to put shoes on. They aren't always his size ;) He's proud anyways though.

Sick day for Mr. Inchworm :( Still so cute even with a fever.

More yard work. Helping Daddy mow.

It wouldn't be a day in the life of a boy without some good old chicken chasing. Holly is more than happy to oblige in the chase.

And that sums up our India travels. Since then we have been to China and are currently visiting Russia. Those will have to wait till another day to share though. The duties of being a Mama are calling :)