Homeschool15: Friendship & Martin Luther King Jr.

Our Friendship & MLK unit is a time for us to discuss good manners and characteristics of friendship. We also spend time discussing the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and how he fought for equal rights so that we could all live peacefully as friends no matter the color of our skins. 

This unit has a focus on fractions for Degen as we discuss how we share and make things equal. He also has begun to work on map skills and comprehension skills as related to listening (which will help develop skills for reading comprehension in the future). 

Kyrie continues to use the text-mapping technique to enhance her reading comprehension. I am choosing articles "beyond" grade-level, and she has shown good understanding of the material using this method. Kyrie's unit paper was a biography about Martin Luther King Jr., which she wrote using books we read aloud, as well as, information from magazines and timelines. For her thematic project, she chose to write an acrostic poem about MLK. 

Homeschool15: Time

Welcome to a new year of homeschool! We reset in January, so it is back to the beginning, but moving on. I love starting a new year of learning with the kids and planning with all the brand new resources and activities that we get to do. 

Degen is starting Kindergarten (which will be official in the fall of this year). We started the year wrapping up our study of the alphabet with concentration on letter formation and phonics. He is keeping a 'journal' this year with a focus on vocabulary, letter recognition & formation and sight words. He feels like a big boy when he gets to write in his own notebook. He will continue to practice his numbers while incorporating more math skills such as time, fractions and measurement. He has also started French with a focus on basic conversation (eg. "Hello. How are you?") and vocabulary.

A French lesson for Degen.

Kyrie is starting third grade for homeschool (which she will begin officially this fall). This year, she will have more in-depth language arts assignments with a focus on reading & comprehension and writing. She has mastered her addition & subtraction facts and is now moving onto multiplication. She will continue practicing multi-digit addition & subtraction with regrouping/renaming skills, as well as problem solving and logic. This year instead of a daily journal, Kyrie will be responsible for working on a thematic project for each unit. She can choose from 5 different projects that include poems, posters, papers and other forms of presentation. She is wrapping up her study of the U.S. states and will review the regions before beginning a study of different countries around the world. 

From a lesson about the seasons.

Kyrie's unit paper: an opinion piece about holidays.

These are a few photos of the kids "after-school." We found a brand new fort building set at a resale shop that the kids enjoy. Darren helped them build the above fort, which they layered with blankets to make a cozy place to play and watch movies. The cats enjoyed it, too, as you can see. Degen worked on 'mining' for gems (a Christmas present from Santa... which is SO very messy and Santa should have known better, but Degen loved it). He has also been working on Lego kits, which he mostly does independently. 

Fort Rapids

We postponed a planned post-Christmas Fort Rapids trip by a week. We faced a bit more crowds than we did last year, but enjoyed our wet afternoon at the indoor water park! 

Christmas 2014

We had a lovely Christmas break during which Darren took a few days off for some extra family fun. The kids were up early on Christmas morning and eager to see what Santa had brought. There were presents and candy and stockings filled with goodies! We looked at our gifts, opened boxes and played with new toys & games, stuffing pieces of chocolate in our mouths every once in a while. That afternoon, we opened the gifts under the tree. It was a wonderful day with everyone spoiled by the generosity of our loving family.

A few pics of the kids with gifts: 

Santa brought Kyrie paperclips- she was very excited!

Degen found an ITunes gift card in his stocking. 

Darren & Degen sorting additions to Degen's rock collection.

A science kit from NanaMAC!

Doll clothes from Nana Billie & Papa Derrel!

Bentley enjoying the new cat bed Santa brought!

Hanukkah 2014

The kids love celebrating Hanukkah each year. As they have gotten older, we have tried to add to our celebration, though with our busy schedule it is hard for us to light the candles all 8 nights. This year, we paid special attention to the first and last night's of Hanukkah with special meals, dreidel games and small gifts. 

A Visit With Santa, 2014

Our Santa picture

Each year, we plan a trip to one of the local malls with our friends to have a visit with Santa. It was a lot less production when the kids were little and no one was in school, but now we wait until everyone is out of school and keep our fingers crossed the morning we drive to the mall. Usually, a queue has already formed, and if we are lucky we are just a few people back. Thankfully, this year we were about fourth in line. I brought lots of activities for the kids to do while the moms waited in line. It was a good year! As we were leaving from our visits, the line snaked around  & down with a security officer standing at the end to direct people to the second line, which went nearly back to the parking garage- yikes! We sighed in gratefulness that we had arrived early then went off to do a little window shopping and enjoy a holiday lunch. As always, it was a lovely morning with our friends. We hope to continue this tradition for years to come! 

Our darling boy tries so hard to have a nice smile for pictures, but he is at an age where it is a task that tends to be thought about too much and thus it comes across strained. He is working on it... On the drive, he kept showing us his smiles and asking, "Is this good?" And we tried to give him advice. Unfortunately, he got a bit nervous when finally sitting on Santa's lap, and the above photo was his 'best' smile. When we said something to him, we got the typical response you see below... poor Degen! I told the photographer that this happened before and told her that she should let the visit play out and try to get a more candid shot, which worked out just fine. 

We stopped to look at the mall's holiday displays and snapped a few photos before our day ended. 

New Barn, New Adventures

In October, our longtime barn enacted policy changes that made our continuation with them disadvantageous, so we made the decision to find a new barn. There was some emotions that went along with this decision, but we were happy to find a barn with lessons that fit our schedule. Kyrie's first lesson was the first week of November, and she has been riding at the new barn every week since. We enjoy the positivity of Kyrie's new instructor and that her smaller class size has allowed her to canter more and begin jumping exercises. We look forward to watching Kyrie improve her riding skills and hope that Degen can start lessons in the spring when it is warmer.