BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

Saturday, September 4, 2010

We have been doing school kind of off and on for the past month or so, maybe getting 2-3 days per week in, and mostly just doing things like math, reading, and writing, so there hasn't been much interesting blog material to share! So, time for an update. We are plugging away in MFW 1st, with about 16 days of work to go. We are skipping a lot of the activities either because we've done similar ones in the past year or just to save time. Sweet Potato is really feeling unmotivated at this point, so I am hoping when we finish 1st and begin our new school "year," that he will have a renewed interest. He is excited to start Adventures in My Father's World and learn about the U.S.

We are finally back to using our basement school room, so I wanted to share some pictures. There are some areas that still need to be filled up and organized but here's a few:




Our old hutch, repurposed for school supplies. Lots of books, manuals and resources on top. The drawers hold many types of paper, pencils, markers, manipulatives, laminating supplies, books for next "year" and in one of the lower cabinets I keep a box of activities that the children are allowed to get out once their schoolwork is finished and put away for the day. This box holds things like small painting kits, play money, paper dolls, and other random educational things that I don't know what to do with! On the right, you can see where the children keep their backpacks.



Here is our BIG whiteboard. It is 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide. My dear husband insisted that we needed it for our school room! I have taped either to the top of the board or the duct work above it the following, from left to right: Books of the Bible chart, Months of the Year, Days of the Week, Jewish calendar, Bible Lands map, and the Reading chart. Our timeline, made on a tri-fold presentation board, sits on the marker tray of the board for now. Some close-ups:








Sweet Potato working on his Math World Problems book. I got this from the Dollar Tree, and I really like it. There is usually something to color and/or draw with each lesson.



Cupcake and her Sound Discrimination page from the MFW K program.




Sweet Potato's Bible Notebook, his summary and drawing of the story of Manna.





We recently read the section in Things Outdoors, our current science book, about Snow and Ice. One of the suggested activities was making snowflakes. I found a great site with printable snowflake patterns. http://www.papersnowflakes.com/ There are some really amazing things on there! Here are two of the snowflakes we made from their patterns.


In other news, Cupcake's Keepers at Home group had disbanded, so Dear Husband and I decided to start our own new Keepers group as well as a Contenders for the Faith group (the boys' counterpart group). We just had our first meeting and it went great! So far we have 6 girls and 7 boys. To start out, we are keeping the two groups together. There are many skills that overlap, so it is no problem to find things that appeal to both genders. This month we are earning our First Aid badge. I am going to start a separate blog for the club, so watch for the link!