Family Schooling Summary

This week went by like a flash.  Brother M and sister A each had a date with daddy.  M went to a Nationals baseball game with daddy and his buddy Jeremy (who was in town for a training). 

Big Sis A went to see the new Disney Pixar movie Inside Out with daddy.

Baby L continues to practice her crawl and scooches around on her belly a lot too.

She tasted her first solid food this week: Avocados. She always wants to put what I am having in her mouth too, so I decided she must be ready. All the older siblings wanted to help her take her first bites of food.

We went to "block day" at one of the local libraries and met up with the cousins there.

This weekend was Heritage Days and there were supposed to be tons of free history activities for kids.  Unfortunately, there was also a huge rain storm so all of the outdoor hikes and shows were cancelled. We decided to go to an indoor activity --an art exhibit on clay at a historic site, an old grist mill.  They saw what local artists had made, then were given supplies for making their own clay projects.  Then we watched an artist use a pottery wheel to make a bowl and a pitcher. She let the kids make miniatures with her porcelain clay and said that she would fire them for us and we could pick them up at her studio.  Everyone there was really welcoming and the kids had a great time.

Family Schooling Summary

This week we learned about Piet Mondrian in our "Meet the Masters" class. The kiddos made these projects to demonstrate the principles of color and balance that we learned about:

 We also finished reading the Kaya books together:

We did our usual reading practices and letter games. And we went to the local Science Museum with the cousins.  They participated in the demo about static electricity:

 Learned about how pulleys work:

 Played with clouds:

 And studied how sound waves work:

Painting the Deck

While the kiddos were busy working like beavers, I was painting the deck. I have had to do it every other year to keep it in good shape.  This is my 3rd round.  Each time I try something new.  This year I talked to a contractor at the Sherwin Williams store around the corner. Both he and the girl at the counter recommended that I try "Super Deck" which he said is a knock off of "Deck Helmet".  It has a 5 year warranty, even on the old yucky deck surfaces like ours. I figure it can't be any worse than anything else that I have tried. I prepared the surface by sweeping it and giving it a good scrub with the tsp/bleach recipe that I used last time. I scrubbed off as much of the old flaky paint as possible and rinsed it thoroughly.  Then I let it dry for a day and swept off any remaining flakes.

Here are the before shots:

And here is the after: 

Family Schooling Summary

This week we worked like beavers. The kiddos literally were busy digging in the dirt trying to make a beaver dam at the end of the driveway. Then they tested it by turning on the hose... And inevitably ended up playing in the mud.

They picked up the storage pod on Thursday so we are almost ready for the new driveway installation. 

We had a party with the Francophone African sisters from church. The kiddos have a hard time with the food they serve (like fish with the bones in), but I still think it is a good cultural experience for them.

 Baby L is up on all fours now. She is rocking and lunging forward trying to figure out how to crawl. She also has a rash on her neck from drooling so much.

Valerie came to hang out with us and we wrangled her into working on some kid crafts with us.

Last week my lovely friend gave us this book of kid friendly craft projects.  My kiddos want to do crafts constantly, so we have been testing out a couple of the ideas already.

 Big sister A and Val made this cardboard brownstone dollhouse. We are still working on "wallpapering" the interior.

Brother M and I made this truck:

We had a big barbecue party on Sunday with some friends of hubby's visiting from Boise. They have 5 kids, plus 4 Elders joined us for dinner, so it was pretty wild. Then on Monday we went to watch their daughter at UMD in the National History Day competition for best documentary.  She had already won for Idaho, so she got to come the National event here in D.C.

After the competition we took them on a tour of the National Zoo. Even though we were just there last week, there is always so much to see. We went in the indoor elephant arena this time:

We visited the reptile house and saw the big scaries:

 And of course baby S's favorite baby light blue climbing tree frogs:

Here are some more picture of Baby L getting her crawl on today. She has had a few rough tumbles over onto her side from her new heights.

Family Schooling Summary

I have been researching new curriculum materials/approaches for homeschooling this fall. Quinn has great ideas that she shares on her blog and website Reformation Acres. She uses the Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling. Another website, Simply Charlotte Mason, has 300 pages of free manuscript practice sheets.  They are all made from hymns and famous poems. Big sister A likes them a lot better than some of the others that we have tried because the lines/spaces for writing in are nice and wide. 

I am also testing out Simply Charlotte Mason's "Delightful Reading" method on brother M. He will start homeschool kindergarten in the fall. We will spend a lot of time playing games with the alphabet to learn the sounds. Our first game was to try to find letters in the rice bucket and sing the alphabet song. Brother M spelled out his name.

We are about to finish another unit of swim lessons. Big sister A has been working on her back stroke and floats.  Brother M is just getting started. His big success has been putting his head all the way under to get the rings. Their teacher corrects them on technique, but also uses games to help them practice new skills.

 This was also the last week of dance class for the summer. I think A and M are going to switch back to gymnastics in the fall. Big sister A complained that she did not want to go before almost every dance class.

My good friend was visiting from Utah this week for a wedding. We did some of our favorite activities together -- thrift shopping, sewing, and chatting a lot.  We hung out at the temple visitor's center while she was at the wedding.
We saw the new scale model of the inside of the temple:

We got our picture taken in the photo booth:

The kiddos tried out the new games in the kids exhibit:

 And we played outside on the grounds:

Then we went out to lunch, dropped her at the metro for the reception, and headed to the Zoo for a couple of hours.  I wanted to make sure the kiddos were really tired out... not to mention myself. We saw a lot of our usual favorites: elephants, lions, wolves. The "baby light blue climbing tree frog" house (Reptile House) was closed when we got there, so baby S was disappointed. But for the very first time, we saw the prairie dogs come out.  It was worth the whole trip just for that. Their exhibit is just a little concrete island filled with dirt. The kids were able to stand so close you could almost touch them.  Of course I forgot to bring my camera in with me. They were so fun to watch. Here is someone else's picture of them:

On Saturday our neighbor, who used to babysit the kiddos every Friday, got married. We went to her wedding at a local Presbyterian church.

My friend knows how much we love to listen to educational CDs in the car and brought some for us.  We are already listening to The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis for the second time.