Homeschooling: CC - Cycle 2 - Week 3

This week is not over and we have not completed everything listed here, but I thought I would post anyway. 

History

Week 3: We learned about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and the Crusades. Blaine did some coloring pages while I read and we made a sword and shield with cardboard, paper, and foil. 

Geography

Week 3: Western European countries - I made another puzzle (printable here). Blaine really seems to like these. I will probably do one every week. 

English

Week 3: Cut and paste activity

Art

Week 3: Upside down drawing activities. If you read this post, you will know that Blaine LOVED THIS drawing activity. He was so excited when he flipped the paper over and saw what he had drawn.

Math

Week 3: I have to be honest.  Blaine has a very difficult time with numbers.  We do our memory melodies and these cut and paste skip counting activities very quickly because I am still working very diligently with him trying to get him to do basic counting. He is showing some improvements, but math has always been a frustrating challenge. I'm open to suggestions.

Science

Week 3: Parts of the food chain. I googled some more random clip art and came up with this cut and paste activity. We took an unexpected trip to the aquarium and insectarium this week and seized the opportunity to learn hands-on about some consumers and decomposers.  Also, we talked again about week 2's topic of consumer types: herbivore, carnivores and omnivores.  We had fun guessing what each animal was by what we observed in their habitats. Our timing was perfect for a few exhibits, seeing the animals being fed.  Blaine will also play a food chain game that I found, available here. 

Seeming underground, in a dark room of the insectarium, I took the one and only picture of our downtown adventures. Here's Blaine on a huge worm... a decomposer!

Latin

Week 3: We are still learning verb conjugation endings - imperfect tense. Nothing fun to show. I did do a cut and paste activity and later we combined our Latin with handwriting exercises. Here are printables for both.  Our tutor came up with a cute pictorial available on C3 that Blaine enjoys and has been very helpful.

That's it! 

The Decision to Homeschool

After a lot of thinking, talking, reading, researching, and praying... We have decided to homeschool. We are drawn to it for so many reasons, but one huge reason is that it allows us to maintain a family life.  Enrolling our kids in school would mean Jason would only see the kids one day a week. Running a tattoo shop requires crazy hours, flexibility, and teamwork when balancing a business, home, and two kids. We have learned to make the most with what we have.  Some of our most fun family moments are when Jason has a sudden cancellation and we make a quick trip to the playground, to get ice cream, or just hang out at home together. So in an effort to keep our family unit strong, we decided to make the leap. 

I am so excited that the world will be our classroom.  I'm looking forward to taking the kids to experience what we are learning. I feel so blessed that I will get to see them first hand as they grow and learn. 

This decision was definitely made easier having friends from my MOPS group who homeschool. They seem to enjoy it so much and are always doing fun and creative things with their kids. I saw them participating in so many group activities and communities. Like most of them, we are joining a group called CHEF (Christian Home Educators Fellowship) that has organized activities like P.E., field trips, camping trips, and more. Blaine is enrolled in Classical Conversations (CC) for this year, which will be the largest part of our curriculum. Quite a few people have been asking me what is involved with CC, so here's an outside blog post I came across a while back briefly explaining it. In addition to CC, we will be doing additional handwriting, phonics, and math.

 Also, Vivienne will be sitting in with what Blaine is working on at home.  And Blaine will be sitting in on some of Vivienne's work (mostly Bible study) from Hands On Homeschool, a 2 year old program, which he has already done.  

At home:

A while back, I turned our short hallway into a mini school area for Hands On Homeschooling for Blaine. As a confined space, I find it an easy place to hold the attention of our two wild toddlers. And I literally mean a confined space... I lock the doors and block them from escaping by sitting on the edge of our learning space or sometimes putting a gate up. There's no temptations of TV, snacks on the counter, or the dog as a distraction. We do our writing activities at the table, but anything that just requires some conversation, visual aids, iPad, or reading a book is usually handled here on pillow piles and a bean bag chair. I have framed posters of the alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes, separate frames with all of our immediate family members, and a cork board for me to stay organized. This also give us a place to display everything the kids create without disrupting the rest of our home. I've recently cleared off a lot of their artwork from all over the doors and walls. Although, I'm sure it will soon be covered again.  I don't think this little hallway will always be able to hold everything we are working on or always be necessary, but up until now, it has been perfect for what we are doing. We will figure this out more when CC begins NEXT WEEK!

The posters are large and really nothing fancy. Shapes and colors one is 20x30. Alphabet and numbers one is 16x12. Here are the images if you are interested in printing something similar. You don't have to print that big, just shrink to fit 8.5x11.

We are looking forward to this exciting  journey and I hope to update often on what Blaine and Vivienne are learning!

Have you ever thought about homeschooling? If you do homeschool, what do you love most about it? And is there a space in your house that you designate for lessons?

A Very Merry Unbirthday!

I. Love. Birthdays! I have decided we will start celebrating half birthdays in the Becker household! I know this will be a new fun tradition our family will look forward to. Since this is a new thing, we are starting with 2.5 year old Vivienne (Becker bomb #2). 

We started our day with a healthy breakfast of..... half donuts! Is there a better way other than with a breakfast full of sugar when you have a 2.5 and (almost) 4 year old?! I think not.

We continued the half bday celebration with lunch of half grilled cheese and half a banana! And a silly face!

Vivienne received an Amazon.com gift card for her birthday and it has just been sitting on my desk ever since. So that made me think... to go along with cake, any gift cards the kids get will be spent on their half birthdays.  They get SO MANY toys for their birthdays, this should help spread them out and give the kids something new that they are into later in the year. I guess normally it would include walking around the toy store, but since it was an Amazon card, I placed an order for FIVE My Little Pony figures (her current fav).

Our kids are 18 months apart - Blaine's birthday is in August and Vivienne's birthday is in February. Blaine's half birthday is in February and Vivienne's is in August. That means (at least) twice a year, we get to eat cake TWICE in one month! 

We had a half pink vanilla half bday cake with vanilla frosting. YUM!  I made a cute cake topper to go on the cake and Vivi blew out half a candle. 

If this post has inspired you to start having a few extra celebrations in your household, my professional opinion is you start with.... cake! You can purchase and download the printable here for the pink chevron topper. Also available in blue/white chevron and grey/white chevron.  Just cut out, string up, attach with tape or hot glue to some paper straws or bamboo skewers!


Do you celebrate half birthdays? What traditions do you include?