Kyrie's Starry Night

The last couple of days in Art, we have been studying Vincent Van Gogh. Kyrie got to try her own attempt on The Starry Night.

Earth Day

I'm not as super green as some people I know, but I try to do my part by recycling, using the reusable shopping bags, unplugging things when I'm not using them, etc. But today I thought I would get the kids into the spirit of Earth Day. We decided that we would leave the t.v. off and unplugged today. I made a little sign and hung it on the t.v. to remind the kids not to turn it on when they woke up in the morning. Kyrie had the idea of everyone wearing green.

I didn't find it too difficult to change our usual habits a bit. We got started on Math right away and the kids had a little free time to play before we took off for Bible Study. Mark walked to the church to meet us in order for us to eat lunch at McDonalds since he was going to meet a buyer of one of his E-Bay sales there. We came home and started on school work again. Our science lessons today conveniently focused on the Earth and conservation and pollution. I reminded the kids why we have Earth Day and how we can make every day Earth Day. We went outside and planted a tree in the yard. I forget what kind of tree it is, but my friend informed me that it will help suck up some of the water that accumulates in our yard sometimes.

Late in the afternoon the kids and I went on a field trip with some other homeschoolers. We went to Ferdinand's for ice cream. We made it there right before it closed, so we didn't get to watch them make cheese or anything, but the ice cream was pretty good. We grabbed our cones and headed over to the Entomology Lab at the university. We got a quick lesson on some different bugs. Our instructor brought out the tarantula, and Isaiah was brave enough to touch it(he is usually TERRIFIED of spiders). I held a hissing cockroach(though it didn't do much hissing). It tickled my hand as it scurried across. I tried to get a good picture, but the one in the slide show is the best I got. The thing moved fast!

We did plug in the t.v. again when we got back. Mark had borrowed some movies from the library, and the kids wanted to watch one. We watched Aliens in the Attic. I guess that could count as an Earth Day activity, right? The Aliens wanted to take over our green earth. ;)

So Earth Day is officially over, but we will continue to incorporate the things that we've been practicing and continue to make everyday Earth Day.

In honor of Earth Day check out The Earth From Above:A selection of photos from the world's premier aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand There are some amazing photos!

Spelling Practice

Haven't done a Homeschooling post for a while. The kids are still cruising right along. Kyrie(1st grade) is halfway through 4th grade math and 2nd grade Language Arts. She is also doing History, Art, Science and P.E.
Isaiah is halfway through Math 2(he is officially a Kindergarten student). He is doing 1st grade Language Arts, and is excited to almost be finished with 1st grade Phonics(about 2 1/2 more weeks to go). He also has Science.

A couple of weeks ago, I found Scrabble Cheez-Its. So I picked them up for an extra fun and tasty spelling practice. The kids loved them! I was bummed tonight when we couldn't find any more in the store.

Isaiah, the Slow-Eater, Tiny Bite Taker

We've been reading this book for Isaiah's Language Arts the last couple of weeks. I just found out tonight that my husband's grandma was friends with the author of this book, by the way. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading this book, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is an eccentric lady who has all sorts of cures for childhood ailments like selfishness, kids who won't pick up toys, kids who talk back, and the category that Isaiah falls into- slow eater, tiny bite taker. I swear, the boy would graze all day if we let him. It's good to eat relatively slow and take small bites, but in our fast-paced American society, we usually like to get it done!

So after reading this chapter today, I decided to play a little joke on Isaiah. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's cure for the slow-eater, tiny bite taker was to gradually make the plates smaller. The first day the meal serving was on a plate the size of a saucer, a cup like a small after-dinner coffee cup, and they were given a small fork and a little spoon. The next meal was served on a plate like a doll plate, had a doll cup, and a very small fork and spoon. Each meal gradually got smaller until the plate was the size of a small penny, the cup would hold a small drop, and a fork like a needle, a spoon like a pin. Even with the small servings, the boy still would only eat a portion of it until he got so weak that he couldn't even sit up, and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle told him it was his turn to take the pony out for a walk, but he couldn't stay on and so he finally ate to get his strength back and was able to get back on the pony.

I actually skipped the saucer size plate and headed straight for the doll size plate- just to get a laugh out of Isaiah. He enjoyed bringing the story to life. I gave him a bigger size portion later. I think he might always be a slow eater, but he's a pretty good boy.

Homeschool Friends

At the lantern festival, Kyrie made instant friends with another girl there. They ran around together all evening, and I got talking to the girl's mom and found out that she homeschools(unschools). Even though we're not certain of our future here, I've been wanting to get to know some other homeschoolers, and the mom told me of a group that meets in Seattle parks once a week.

Yesterday we met up with them for the first time. Kyrie and Isaiah had one big recess while I got to have my own social time with other moms. It's something that Kyrie and I both crave. Isaiah isn't really very social(although he plays well with others), but he enjoyed playing on the slides and swings and merry-go-round.

I enjoy the fact that they get to play with kids of all ages, and are not necessarily limited to just the kids in their age group. One of the homeschoolers(14) was like a big buddy to all the little kids and they enjoyed having him push the whole group on the merry-go-round.

How many homeschoolers can you fit on a merry-go-round?


Kyrie and her friends went round and round a lot that day!


No matter how many friends Kyrie makes, she'll always have this friend around



When we're not enjoying the outdoors, we are learning to discover the world around us- even when we're inside:


We also got a chance to meet up with another group of homeschoolers who meet once a month to do an activity. We got to build trebuchets. The kids had fun launching balls of paper at each other using a trebuchet built out of two milk cartons, a yard stick attached to a skinny wooden dowel with a couple of rubber bands, and a counter-weight at the end. They provided some metal washers, but I found that adding more weight(my keys) helped it launch better.

Back to School Prep

Washington Virtual Academy doesn't officially start until the 9th, but I've been trying to ease the kids back into school mode since they are used to being able to do whatever they want all day long. I've been having them do Math and Reading each day. So far it's going okay. I'm starting to realize how much harder it will be to have Isaiah officially doing school this year. When I'm helping one, the other one needs help.

I got all the curriculum for both kids now. Isaiah's came the other day. I have a feeling that we're just going to have to send it back because they didn't do the testing during the enrollment process like they did with Kyrie where she was able to test into 1st grade Math and Language Arts. Isaiah is at the same place Kyrie was when she started last year, but they sent me the Kindergarten curriculum, and supposedly the teacher will give us the test to determine where he is when school starts. Which means it will be a week or so before the new curriculum comes. I still have Kyrie's workbooks from 1st grade Math(we got her curriculum late last year and mostly did on-line stuff at first), so Isaiah has been working in that for the last week.

The other day I took them to the library while Jayden was napping(one of the perks of Mark working from home) and we did school work there. Kyrie and Isaiah also received their final prize for completing 1000 hours of reading this summer. At the half-way point they got a free coupon for Pizza Hut, and this time they got an art kit with paint, markers, colored pencils, pastels, etc. They were thrilled!


Mommy got her own reading time in while Isaiah played on the computers and Kyrie cracked open her new art kit.

Isaiah worked on subtraction.

Kyrie did multi-step word problems.

Cattle Farm Fieldtrip

About a month or so ago, we were studying Farming in Science. I was really pleased when I found out that a local group of homeschoolers were going out on a field trip to a cattle ranch. It ended up being really crazy with A LOT of kids. There was talk of letting the kids ride horses, but there were over 40 kids, and I didn't want to hang out and wait forever for the kids to ride for 2 minutes. They've been on horses before. It was nice to get some real-life experience of what we had been reading about. I was hoping that we could go to a wheat or lentil farm and experience harvesting, but looks like that won't happen now. I'm sure we'll find some great places to go in Seattle for field trips, though! Kyrie was excited to wear her cowgirl boots and she got to ride up front on the hayride by the horses. A little girl's dream!

Math takes a lot out of a person...

I thought she was taking a little long to do her math today...

In science, we've been studying magnets. Last week, we used magnets taped to cars and learned about attraction and repelling. Today, Kyrie got to make a little scene with movable characters. She really enjoyed this project, and decided to make her own scene with a house the people could go in and out of.



The new scene:

Isaiah wanted to get in on the action, too, so he made a little character himself- see stick figure above. ;)