Friday, April 25, 2014

"Oh No They Didn't!"

After having seen Rio 2 with the campers and Noni on Monday I simply couldn't resist using Gabi's (the "poisonous" frog) most memorable line from the movie. It sort of completely describes our week in four words. Other than the movies, tons of popcorn, and outdoor time we didn't do anything else on Monday. I mean no lessons, no crept in lessons, and very few questions from the kids that required any looking into. This made for a nice long Easter weekend for us.












Just to backtrack for a moment I'm going to share what we did on Easter Sunday with all of you. All of us woke up early (before 7 AM) and found hidden boiled eggs, found our hidden Easter baskets, and discovered what treats were on the dining table for the campers. By 7:30 AM we had the campers eating breakfast while Daddy and I got dressed for the day. As soon as the campers finished breakfast it was time for them to get dressed for the day (we'd set everything out the night before, including several items I'd packed in a small suitcase with changes of clothing, treat bags, etc.). We then headed down to Grandma and Papa's church, arriving over an hour early, for mass where Papa sang. We saw some family we don't get to often see and spent a little over an hour of faith with some of our favorite people in a church we often miss (we've moved 70+ miles away and now have a new home parish, but the other is the one my husband grew up in). After mass was time outside, brunch at Grandma's, pictures, more outside time, a stop at a local beach/park on the way home, and the children digging into their Easter baskets after we returned home that afternoon. Daddy even let YCJ paint his nails (yes, he is man enough to wear pink lol). * All of the "make up" in her basket was made specifically for children, the lip gloss Daddy put on her was clear and the nail polish is very pale and peals right off.*

Tuesday we proceeded to work on our lessons. Mainly these were review, a few new concepts, but nothing too strenuous for anyone. And when the day seemed to be "too" much lesson and not enough play with the decent weather the children went right back outside to play. YCJ did finish her first complete workbook for the year this day!!!

On Wednesday our day was super easy. Peanut had no lessons planned that she simply "had" to review that day and the Cracker Jack's simply finished what they hadn't completed from Tuesday's lessons. Then we spent the afternoon outside. By the time supper was ready we had 10 hours under our belts towards our 1000 Hours Outside Challenge with another three days left of our week to go!!


Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday ... Oops, sorry got caught up in the "Days of the week song". On Thursday we began our lessons a few hours later than normal, Mommy is suffering from some awesome spring time congestion and it took awhile to pull herself together (blasted sinus issues and allergies anyways). After noticing that I'd mixed up the times and dates of two of the library events we decided to do our lessons until 4 PM, get some outside time, and then head to the library for the even I'd thought would be on Friday (silly Mommy). We didn't finish all the lessons on the plan for Thursday, well Peanut did (and completed another one of her workbooks!!!) but the Cracker Jack's simply got through their Language Arts work. This was perfectly fine as I intended for them to work on their Math work while Peanut attends an event at the library Friday morning.

This is what our Thursday evening looked like:







Finally, we come to Friday where our morning was spent at the library so that Peanut could attend an event specifically for her age group and the Cracker Jack's worked on math together near by. This was a wonderful experience, we all worked on the letter V, heard a story and a rhyme, the instructor gave out summer sand buckets with some healthy treats in them. Unfortunately someone else will be taking over this event next month and they won't be following the alphabet plan as it's "too labor intensive". However, fortunately, the lady who led it today is getting a package together for me of all of the alphabet letters and crafts that I can pick up tomorrow and we can use them as part of our review work and add them to our alphabet book! Love that lady! Once we got home, after a snack, the children did some lessons. For the next few weeks we may be bringing school back to Saturdays, leaving Sundays for rest and faith alone. We also were able to sneak about half an hour outside between rain showers!

Here is some pictures of what Friday morning looked like:





Something we did around the house this week:

 Had to reorganize ECJ's room as he'd sneaked candy and hidden it under his dresser and in his toy box... (Yes, it is now clean and back in order again.)

Installed part of our ornamental fencing that will be part of the landscaped section of the yard. That gape with the wood laid down is for the gate that will eventually go there. The weather vane finally found it's "perfect" home as well. I really like how this is shaping up. That side of the house will eventually have a deck, handicap ramp, flower "bed" (so excited to show you how we do this later this spring/summer), and a small play area for the campers.

I felt like I had to include a TON of pictures in this one or no one would ever believe everything we had done! This was NOT a typical week for us. Some people would say that we had not enough text book time, some people would say that we had too much text book time, some people would say we did too much or too little. I think this week was one of our all time favorites because we did a little of everything and enjoyed every moment of it!!!

Random picture:
Moragon can no longer pretend she doesn't like Trixie cat, she chose to go take a nap right by him while ECJ
did some of his school work and hadn't even noticed the cat and dog nap going on behind him!!

Posts you may have missed this week:        
Egg Hunts and Outside
Faith
How I Choose Science Curriculum
Make Your Library Work for You

Things to look forward to this week: The next post in the series of "How I Choose/Pick Our .... Curriculum" will be out on Wednesday. Seven things I will never again do in our homeschool on Tuesday. Our outside post coming up tomorrow (Saturday). And so much more!!!

Who we're linking up to this week:        
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Faithful Mom of 9
Homegrown Learners


 Find us on Facebook here or subscribe to the blog for tips on homeschooling, book reviews, how to get your children helping out in the kitchen, and to see many pictures of the cute kiddos, plus much more!




8 comments:

  1. Thanks for this peek into your week - I'm so thankful you linked with Collage Friday today!

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  2. Visiting from Weekly Wrap up. What a hectic week! Sounds fun though.

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    1. :-) The funny thing is that it didn't feel so hectic until I looked back at all we did!!! Sure was fun :-)

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  3. Sounds like a good week. My son hates to do school work in public even the library is public in his book so I am impressed you were able to do school there.

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    1. Well, they didn't get a lot of their math work done this time around but I'm hoping that if we can spend a day a week up there they'll get used to it and it will give us all a change of environment for a little while. They both did finish one half of an assignment though so I'm taking that as a good sign.

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  4. I love your family photo! The house is really looking good too! It looks like you guys had lot of outdoor fun last week! Hooray for warmer weather at last! That was really nice of the library lady to set up the work for Peanut like that! I hope your allergy symptoms go away and that next week is another great one for you guys!

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    1. Thanks,Sylvia. Daddy doesn't often wear a suit and we just had to get several pictures of it. That fireplace is where Grandma does the traditional Easter and Christmas photos, I've always enjoyed posing for the camera there. She's actually decided that that's the one she's framing for her family wall (she already had her choices for my sisters-in-laws family photos). My house now feels like a home and I am really enjoying keeping it clean (OK, someone check me for a fever lol). I love that lady at our library but she won't be doing those groups any longer, I did go back on Saturday and she gave me every letter, color, and number craft set up she hadn't given me the day before! I'm glad she's not leaving the library, just cutting back on her hours ... I'd really miss her if she left. I've some better medicine for my allergies now so here's hoping that things get better and although we're supposed to have rain off and on almost all week I'm still hoping we're able to get outside a lot! I hope you and yours have a wonderful week! I love hearing from you!

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