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Good Morning Friends!

So as I'm sure you've gathered, our learning doesn't stop simply because we leave the classroom.  One of our many reasons for homeschooling was derived with all of the "extra" teaching/learning we were doing with our children in the evenings, on the weekends and during vacation times.  We were find huge voids in what was being covered in school and yes, as parents it is our jobs to fill in those voids.  However, there was so much that we wanted to do, so much we wanted them to know and to learn and we were finding that there simply were not enough hours in every day/weekend to do all that we wanted to do.  Once again, we are not anti-public school.  We feel that the schools in our town do the best with that they have available to them but their best is not THE best for our children and we wanted more for them.  I'm getting off track...our children are learning all.the.time.  After schooling ended yesterday the kids ran off to make creations with Fimo clay for about two hours.  During this I played with the baby and got dinner ready.  Once Ari was in bed the kids were chomping at the bit to show Ian our "exploding moon rock" experiment!

We'd let the moon dough that we made last week air dry until it was rock hard.  I filled up squirt bottles of vinegar with the kids (it allows them to have better control over the pour), placed the moon rocks on trays and let them have at it!  The results were definitely more impressive than they were when the moon dough was still wet.  When the children were done, they recorded their findings in their science journals and we headed off to read (and make silly faces, of course!)  

We are in the middle of collectively reading a book called The Benedict Society.  It's a fantastic book but it's long and verbose so some nights we take a break from it and the kids read aloud to me.  Last night Kendall read from a new animal encyclopedia that we have and Ty read one of my all time favorite books, The Giving Tree.  We read together for about an hour until everyone was tired (and a little googly) as you can tell by the pictures.  

snuggled up!

I love all of her Post-it notes!  Pages and pages waiting to be read!

Let the goofiness begin!! 

gets me every time!

It was a very giggly way to end the day.

This morning was BEAUTIFUL!!  It was warm and humid and AWESOME!!  I couldn't wait to get out for my walk!  Of course, it's still pitch black at 6 am when I usually go so I had to wait just a bit longer so that I didn't feel like I was walking in the middle of the night.  The birds were chattering excitedly this morning as were the crickets!  It was a symphony outside and Ari was loving it!

still dark!

Hello Moon!

and street lamps!

my walking buddy, all cozied up with his blanket, booties and snack bucket - life is good!

that face!!  oy!

The kids started their day our per usual.  Dressed, bed making, breakfast and tooth brushing.  We started the day with a bit of yoga and then the children finished their aurora projects.  I must say I LOVE how they came out!  I also love how different they are.  Truly as unique as the children who created them!

his

his close up

hers 

hers close up

We moved onto our spelling review.  Kendall always finishes first as she writes faster than Ty but she put her "free moments" to good use with the multiplication Learning Wrap Up that I talked about in my post yesterday.

heads down focused...

wrapping it up!  (ha! pun intended)

When Ty finished we did about an hour and a half of reading about Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter.  

The kids have been working hard on their note taking skills.  They are having a test this coming Friday, in addition to their weekly spelling test.  I have explained to the children that this will be an open book test but that if they don't take the proper notes they won't have the correct answers.  Let me tell you, they worked hard today!!  Their hands were sore but their brains were full!  

hers - as if you couldn't tell by all of the bubbly hearts around the word Venus..lol - she's SO my kid...

his

Ari was waking at this point and I knew the kids needed a break so I let them play a few hands of the card game War.  I love it as it's easy, fast, fun and still keeps them thinking (although they don't necessarily need to know that! ;)

It was SO incredibly beautiful out that it would have been a shame not to take another walk so off we went!

I love the toes sticking out!

such a little Mommy...

See the bright pink dot up there?  She wanted to walk at her own pace, ahead of us...and yes, I'm ok with that =)  Teaching independence one stride at a time!

When we got back the children helped me to start cleaning and clearing the deck of our summer oasis in preparation for winter.  Ari had a great time out in his diaper splashing and playing as if it were August!  

We had a great time for a couple of hours outside but now it was time to head back to the classroom for a bit more work.  Ari went down for a quick catnap which always helps.  The children are in the process of writing a research paper and today they worked on their rough drafts of their bibliographies.  I sat with them one at a time and helped them find all of the information within the books that they've used so far in order to fill in the appropriate information for the "formula".  Here is the formula that I've asked them to use:

We focused specifically on the books they've used thus far. 

Kendall has used three sources and has a couple of websites to add to this:

Tyler has only used one source so far:

While I was sitting and working with Kendall, Tyler did his keyboarding lesson.  I have them focusing specifically on the 'home row' for now.  They do this for about 15-20 minutes and I love that by the the end of the lesson they are not looking at the keys at all!  And they have fun while they're doing it so it's a win win!

always with the tongue!

Kendall did her keyboarding when Ari and I took Tyler to archery.  Ty focused on his lesson while Ari ran, 

And ran,

and ran some more!

And then he discovered his shadow for the first time!

Oh hello there!

All the while:

He simply LOVES archery and is really good at it!  We got home, had showers/baths for all, then dinner and bed for Ari!  The kids are huddled away somewhere in the house working on a children's book they want to write.  Swoon...

Till tomorrow friends!