Photo Blog from Nacho's 14th B-day

The three girls at Roller Skating lessons Saturday morning. Bushido was cancled so after we went out to breakfast for WAFFLES!! Nacho slept at his new friends house. Slept being a lose version. ALL NIGHT ROCK BAND is more like it LOL...






Doesn't Nacho look thrilled with his Cheesecake Assortment LOL... This was after the 5 hour nap to help him catch up from the night before.




The four... Its fuzzy cause the camera sucks but if you will notice, even Nacho made a point of smiling.


Nacho and I made sushi for the party! YUM! Salmon skin and California rolls.

Again, he looks like he shall burst from the joy!

Lolas Legend Paper.

Spetember 18th

Wow it has been ten days since I last blogged. Things have been a bit crazy and I have been more than a bit lazy. We have been homeschooling, as always, but Todd installed a new video game on the computer...
Nacho will be 14 Saturday. We took him shopping for his birthday and he got sneakers, a skateboard and guitar hero for the 360... Now getting him to do anything is a constant battle/bribe.
Lola is starting to get lonely with homeschooling. I have to set up some play dates for her. Tomorrow we are going out with some other homeschoolers. I hope that helps.
Coco is doing wonderfully. She started home ec and creative writing last week with the older kids and is doing really well. She has made muffins, apple cinnamon bread and helped make pork roast with sauerkraut.
Fifi cut her hair again. She now looks a bit like Mia Farrow from Rosemary's Baby LOL. She has also gotten into a Moon Sand craze. Thats all she wants to do come school time. Todd and I came up with a few ideas for incorporating Moon Sand into her lesson plan.

Last Week until today:
I am just going to combine all 10 days of homeschooling into one blog. Then hopefully but Monday I will be motivated enough to blog semi-daily again.

Fifi:
Math, we have worked on sorting, patterns, adding and subtracting with sums under 20. I like the Carebear workbooks. We have also just made a point of counting random things to improve her counting skills. We use that bead kit Todd bought daily. The hard part is keeping the older girls off of it, they want to make necklaces LOL
Science, Fifi has decided to join the 3rd grade girls in their Earth Science. She lead the class in making the moon sand/play dough models of the Earth layers. She also wanted to plant seeds with them when we started studying soil. (We are planting mums this weekend instead)
Spelling, Fifi hates spelling words. She wants the same ones as the big girls. Instead of giving her spelling words I have been giving her words of the day. She takes the words, spells it outloud, writes it, uses it in a few sentences, draws a picture...
We are still doing the letter of the week in order and trying to keep the spelling words within the letters of the week. We are on l this week.

Coco and Mimi:
Yup, Mimi is still here. I have hemmed and hawed for weeks debating on whether or not I could handle it. I finally decided I could. Plus I like knowing I am making a difference. Most of the time I dont feel like I am teaching my own children anything. There is no dawning recognition... With Mimi, shes so far behind, I get that moment almost everyday. Plus as long as she is not on her thyroid meds, she is relearning pretty quickly.
Math- We have started rounding and estimating. We have also done our math facts through the 11's table. Its odd cause the girls can round their numbers but they dont get how to do both rounding and estimating at the same time. From conversation and white board lessons, I know they can do it, but the writing it down part confuses them. We are moving on though. I rewrote it into my lesson plan in two months.
Science- We are finishing up Earth Science lessons about the actual Earth. We have learned its distance from the sun, relationship with the moon (Coco had an extra few lessons pertaining to Wicca about the moon) We have also start talking about soil layers and the seasons. Coco and I will be planting mums this weekend and celebrating Mabon on Sunday.
Geography- Last week we finished up our booklet for Miss Jenn in Arkansas. She loved it. This week, although my sister lives in California, I have quite a few friends from California, and my mother just came back from California, I have no California information. We are using the same library book series we have used for the others. I printed out map offline, no magnet, so silly facts. We are focusing on Hollywood, San Fransisco and the gold rush. Levi Straus really interested the girls as well.
Spelling- We did all the same old same old. I have gotten it so they start their spelling before I finish my first cup of coffee. We make flash cards Monday, write sentences Tuesday, alphabetize them Wednesday, a crossword and word scramble puzzles Thursday and test on Friday. Last week was a typical Mimi forgot everything week where she got a 20 on her spelling test. Coco only got a 72. the difference is Coco actually studied and works on it everyday after class time. Shes giving an awesome effort! Mimi, not so much. Her mom doesn't encourage her to read quietly at home, study her spelling words or practice her math facts. When brought up in conversation, she claimed she didn't know she was supposed to... This is why I almost quit...
Language Arts- we are still working with Adverbs. We threw in some proper nouns and pronouns to keep interested but for the most part, they have no idea... still.
ASL- We are still working on the Signing Time DVDs, the Flodin books. Lola is learning, Coco likes it and is picking it up a bit slower, Fifi ROCKS at it. She can do almost every sign she had ever seen. Nacho could care less, or maybe he couldn't and Mimi, well she tries. We have canceled the entire idea of putting on play. The younger girls wont listen to the older girl. Oye!
Creative Writing- Coco is now doing weekend creative writing projects. Last week we started a study of legends. Over the weekend the children had to write their own legend. Coco did very well. I have enrolled her in a creative writing class for the month of October.
I also have both girls writing three complete sentences daily about a lesson or whatever. I want them to know how to write a complete sentence. I want to them to improve their spelling of simple words. I think it is working, for now.

Lola:
Math- Lola is still going back and forth between aaamath and her workbooks. She whizzes right through the aaamath and has to slow down only a bit for the workbooks. She is doing addition, rounding, estimating, computation, and divisibility. Once she gets 100 on a paper, we move on. All she seems to get are 98 and 100...
Science- We have finished the muscular system. There are little or no printables online for this system... It was rough but we mostly just read books, made up our own tests and watched some videos. I love the National Geography series Inside the Body. Plus the books my mother sent are fantastic! We have moved on to the Ingementary System. Its easier for me to find the info online, plus she had some dittos from ps she is using. They were from Health class last year explaining why we sweat.
Geography- I think Lola's favorite part is making the flags. Shes more into the state facts than the fun facts. Her creative writing project this weekend is about Levi Straus.
Language Arts- We are using the CC book. She is working with compound words, prefixes, suffixes and learning new words. We are also still studying legends. Lola's legend paper last weekend was impressive. I will be posting it by itself when I am done blogging.
Spanish- Lola wanted to take Spanish with Nacho. They are both using www.livemocha.com and Rosetta Stone. They are alternating which each day. While I speak Spanish fluently, they dont want me to teach them LOL...
Home Ec- Lola has made a ton of dishes in the past few weeks. She keep calling them home ec. LOL. Banana Bread, Curried Beef and Rice, Italian Wedding Soup...

Nacho-
Math- After a week of using www.aaamath.com Nacho and I decided to go ahead and use the Algebra books and workbooks we bought on Amazon. Right now he is doing graphing and data collection (mode, median, average, mean)
Science- Our Science book finally got here last Thursday. We started Science classes Monday. We are using the book and workbook again. This week he is doing Intro to Physical Science... Exciting huh? We did however do some experiments with balloons this weekend (We went to Chuck E Cheese LOL Free Balloons) Nacho likes hands on Science. I ordered a book of Middle School Science Projects. Hopefully when it gets here I can steal a few ideas for him.
Geography/Culture- We are still doing Greece. Last week we studies Ancient Greece, and this week we are doing modern day Greece. We did get Nachos books in the mail and Todd and I are considering just using the book to follow along instead of our original plan of a new country every two weeks. We will talk more tomorrow.
Mythology- Nacho studied the Greeks these two weeks. He focused on Apollo. He had to write a few paragraphs about Apollos life and activities. That is his creative writing project due this weekend. His project last week was a disgrace...
Herbology- Nacho made Mabon oils from researching herbs and oils associated with Mabon. He he made enough for all of his Pagan friends and family. He is doing alot of this independently.
Language Arts- We are spending these two weeks reviewing our parts of speech. His books never showed up. Amazon refunded our money and we ordered new ones. They should be here in a few days

We wont be having class tomorrow as we are going to hang out with other homeschooling friends. I didnt keep the job I started last week. It was selling and I dont do selling. I think I will be working for the Obama campain starting next week. I have an interview at 9 am tomorrow. Otherwise I will be applying at Walmart and Lowes and such for part time work.

September 8th- DUH Today!

As I blogged about last week, I totally skipped today. So I shall tell you what we are starting this week and then I probably wont blog until Wednesday or Thursday (I start my new job Thursday!)

Fifi- Today she worked on sorting like colors and shapes. Over the weekend we bought her a huge bag of assorted beads and a bead sorter. She sorted about 300 hundred beads before she decided she was bored. She also wrote her spelling words on flashcards, and helped us make our Arkansas booklets for Jenn. Her Home Ec was making lunch with Lola.

Coco-
Because I didn't feel well on Saturday and Sunday, worse on Sunday, Mimi didn't come today. With Nacho and Lola's assistance Coco still did her schoolwork.
Math- She reviewed her 7's and 8's tables. She also did a subtraction with regrouping word problem paper from CC. She also got to use her new math game her Mimi sent her last week.
Science- We read some books about the Earth and its layers while laying on the couch.
Geography- She made some pictures that we will put words to about the wild life and agriculture of Arkansas.
Spelling- She made her flashcards for her spelling words with their definitions on the back.
Language Arts-I wouldn't let them have her start pronouns with Mimi so she did some random adverb worksheet. Turns out to be a good thing. She still needs help with identifying adverbs.
Creative Writing- She started her legends project and we read a few legends on the couch.
We skipped ASL today. Lola needs a new book and Nacho accidentally returned our videos to the library.

Lola:
Math- Lola is back on www.aaamath.com for subtraction. This should be her last day with it.
Science-We used the new books my mother (Mima <-- actual name LOL) sent and another book Todd bought at the huge book sale this weekend at our library and went over the Muscular System together.
Geography- Lola drew the pictures we will put words to tomorrow for the Arkansas booklet. She is doing famous people from Arkansas, Silly Named Cities in AR and Arkansas state facts.
Language Arts- She did another page from the CC on learning new words from words you know. (By adding a suffix or a prefix)
Creative Writing- While she still hasn't finished her original project, she is also starting her legends project today.
Spelling- She put her spelling words on flashcards with the definitions.

Nacho:
Math- www.aaamath.com Since he completed the first four lessons last week, this week he is just picking up where he left off.
Science- We blew off Science today. His Science books still aren't here yet.
Geography- We started reading about Ancient Greece from one of the other books Todd found the book sale.
Spelling- He read over his list of words, looked them all up for pronunciation and definitions.
Language Arts- Since that book is not here yet either, we talked about legends and myths (Hes also taking Mythology) and he did an adjective vs adverb worksheet from Sierra's CC
Mythology- He read the introduction to his Comprehensive Classical Mythology book. He also talked about Prometheus and his role in the last book he read.
Herbology- After last Saturdays class at Spirit Apothecary www.spiritapothecary.com Nacho cant stop talking about herbs and natural medicine. Last night he helped me make Omega 3 loaded bread fro Todd and Rosemary Omelets also fro Todd. He explained that Rosemary promotes blood to the head. He also began reading his Cunningham book on herbs.
Spanish- Nacho logged onto www.livemocha.com and started Spanish 101. He also dug out one of the old books I used to use and went over some of the simpler verbs. He wants me to find him a copy of a 10 year old workbook... Sounds like fun...

September 8th

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a week. My hand has hurt more than it did when I first broke it. I had also made some new friends in the area that I was pretty excited about meeting. Turns out not so much... Either way. Last week went fairly smoothly. With Todd here on Monday, Coco sick on Wednesday and no class on Friday for a homeschooling group picnic...

Fifi:
For math we did some pattern work with Skittles, added Matchbox cars and then counted how many wheels. This is a good foundation for multiplication. "If I have 6 cars, with 4 wheels each how many wheel are there all together?" The older girls played with us too.
For Spelling we spoke out our sentences using our words, made them with our foam piece puzzle. Todd bought two more kits so we can make words like hill and have both l's LOL.
We are focusing on Eric Carle's work this month so we read The very Hungry Caterpillar and then watched the DVD. Shes so funny, she tried to read along with the movie LOL. We picked up more puzzles at the library and worked with those too.
Fifi has watched Episodes 1 through 5 of Signing Time with Alex and Leah a few hundred times in the past 6 weeks. She wants to watch them everyday and she can do all of the signs on command, YAY!

Coco:
For Math last week we learned our 7's and 8's table. We also started working on Rounding and Estimating Numbers. I let Coco play on www.aaamath.com with the rounding. I think by today she may be getting it.
For Science we worked on the Earth and its relevance to the sun and moon and other planets. Todd has been teaching after school all last week.
For Geography we have been working with Arkansas. My wonderful friend Jenn lives there and she sent us our Arkansas magnet, a booklet, and a postcard with a map on it. We filled in our own maps, did a crossword, learned about the silly named cities in Arkansas... (let me tell ya..WOW) and we learned the basics of the state. Since Jenn is my friend, we will be making her a booklet like we did for Melinda.
For Language Arts we have focused on Adverbs. We are also starting our study on types of writing. All of the children (Lola, Nacho, Fifi and Coco) are learning about Legends this month and have to do a creative writing project weekly.
For ASL, Lola has taken over the teaching. She has three or four books and she surfs the web for ideas on how to teach. Mimi has repeatedly express that she doesn't want to learn Sign Language so we are now doing it after dinner. Coco has also expressed an interest in learning about Braille so Todd (who is blind-ish) is teaching her.
For Home Ec, she made puddings and whipped cream for dessert.

Lola:
For Math, we have been doing addition and subtraction with regrouping of 6 and 7 digit numbers. That is what aaamath had set up for her so I went on www.theteacherscorner.net and made my own sheets.
For Science, we have had the worst time finding printable worksheets on the Muscular System. So we made our own together (Lola and I) She has read quite a few books on the Muscular System as well. Her Mima in Connecticut also sent us some books on Anatomy. We love them!!
For Language Arts, we are used our CC book more last week. We looked at Learning New Words , which is making compound words and exploring suffixes and prefixes. Lola is also doing legends. She also completed Geography with the younger girls.
Lola is still writing her original Creative Writing project about Homecoming and Dicey's Song. My philosophy is as long as shes writing and thinking about it, there doesn't need to be a deadline. Why rush her?
Lola also head up the art projects this week. My hand hurt alot and I had to cook and bake for two picnics and a pot luck supper. Oye. She helped the girls make Grandparents Day cards and birthday cards for my friend who turned 40 Saturday (yup I said it YOU'RE 40 LOL)
Home Ec for Lola was Sausage and Ziti Bake, but she also helped with the Orange Cranberry Coffee Cakes and the Pork Roast with Sauerkraut.

Nacho:
Nacho didn't so much have a schedule last week but he officially got bored with summer so he jumped onto aaamath and started with a few assignments from there. He also read The Fire Thief by Terry Deary and started reading the Comprehensive Guide to Classical Mythology. Hey, I take what I can get!
Nachos Home Ec was making homemade pizza and wings on Sunday for the whole family while we watched Nim's Island.

We ended up only going to one picnic and one pot luck dinner. We attended an herbology class at www.spiritapothecary.com which was FANTASTIC. Matt Stewart is a genius.

September 1st ~ Labor Day

Oh the joys of having your significant other home for the holiday! Joy upon joys I chose to have school on Labor Day. We really don't do much to celebrate it and I stupidly thought it would be fun to have Todd watch me teach. THAT MAN IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!

Fifi:
September is starting Eric Carle month. I am not big into unit themes but I love Eric Carle and our local library is doing a theme month of his work. Applebes is giving away small booklets with games and puzzles with an Eric Carle theme too! It seems like a coincidence. Oh well, Eric Carle it is. We picked up a few of his books at the library, grabbed a few booklets from Applebes and designed the month lesson plan around site words from his books.

Spelling words- mat, map, mop, me, my, mom, milk, make

Todd worked on her spelling words with her having her describe each words letters, sounds and meanings. She also made flashcards with her words.

We also started the letter M and m. We had bought her a new workbook this weekend at Walmart and she wrote about 25 Ms and 25 ms on a page.

ASL- Of course we watched the same Signing Time video we do everyday LOL...

Coco and Mimi:

Math- we started 7s table and did some more work with words problems. They remembers the steps to word problems over the weekend which helped alot.

Language Arts- We began working with adverbs did two worksheets from the CC.

Todd also decided to help by writing out who? what? and how? on the white board. We gave them random sentences and they identified the subject (without knowing it was the subject) the verb and the adverb. For the most part, they got it.

Science- We are starting Earth Science as Environmental Science wasn't holding their attention. Today's lesson was about the earths rotation and its correlation with the sun and moon. Todd taught the class while I blogged LOL. He used a globe, a softball and a flashlight. I think he did pretty well and it got him out of my face.

Geography- We started Arkansas today. We talked about the postcards from Miss Jenn, the magnets and we used our fun fact booklet.

Spelling- we made our spelling flashcards with our definitions. I have a problem with Mimi though. She knew these words Thursday. I was making the worksheets and she read the words to me. Today she cant read or sound out any of them. She cant read the definitions or write sentences that make sense. I am also getting the crying jags again. I talked to her mom, we'll see.

ASL- Lola wrote actual lines for the play that they have to learn this week.

Writing- I started a new lesson this month. We will be writing three complete sentences everyday on a different topic. Today they are writing sentences about Todd's Earth lesson.

Lola:

Math- We are beginning addition of 4 digit numbers as a refresher. We used a worksheet from CC.

Science- Beginning muscular system. I couldn't find any worksheets or printables so we made our own. I also have the poster from her doctor on the complete muscular system. All she did today was some note taking from her notes.

Geography- Lola hadn't finished her Arizona workpage last week, so today she did the last of Arizona and started Arkansas with the younger girls.

Spelling- She wrote out her flashcards and thought out her definitions from the possibilities. (http://www.aaaspell.com/ gives you like 4 to 8 definitions for each word. we break them down on Mondays so that we have more manageable definitions)

Language Arts- We have ditched the Language Arts book in favor of the CC. Today Lola learned more about compound words and looking words she doesn't know up in the dictionary.

ASL- Lola wrote actual lines for the play this weekend, now she has to teach the younger girls in time for next Monday.

Writing- Lola needs to finish up her creative writing project. It was due today but she asked for an extension until Thursday.

Nacho:

Nacho has started school!

Math- http://www.aaamath.com/ lesson 1 Introduction and lesson 2 Comparing Numbers

Geography- Beginning Greek cultures. Modern day Greece.

We ordered Nachos books online three weeks ago. They are not here yet. Nacho and I are pretty much winging it. We went online, googled Greece and spent some time looking at the map. we identified the capital, major cities, bodies of water...

Mythology- We started Greek Mythology. Nacho is reading The Fire Thief which is about Prometheus. Nacho loved Greek Mythology so this is fun for him.

Language Arts- Parts of Speech worksheet. I wanted to know where he was so I gave him a quick quiz from http://www.internet4classrooms.com/

Spanish- We enrolled him on http://www.livemocha.com/ so he can take their interactive Spanish course. We chose Spanish even though he speaks it very well, because he cannot read or write in Spanish. LOL

We are not doing a spelling lesson this week as Nacho still has classes for his video game writing and his Japanese Anime club. That and both of our picnics this weekend...

Herbology- Nacho chose this for his curriculum. He loves this stuff. We found a website that has an alphabetical listing of herbs for Wiccan use and we ordered him three of Cunningham's books. This week he is doing Sage. www.wicca.com/celtic/herbal/magickal0.htm

Also I wanted to include that each of my 4 children will be having home ec which included cooking, laundry, cleaning product making, sewing, ironing, home finances, and gardening. They love the cooking parts so this weekend, instead of going to the over crowded Stark Country Fair, we made our own fair foods and stayed home watching Supernatural (Season 3 on DVD WOO HOOO)

I included pictures of the Chocolate Covered Berries and Bananas but we also made homemade Corn Dogs, Funnels Cakes and Crab Meat Lo Mien (okay that was for me LOL) I made fresh lemonade and we missed nothing but crowds and sunburn!