Our little "school house"

 Here's a little peek into our little "school house",

if you ever wondered where our learning takes place.

This here is learning central. Our dining room table / school room.

Most of our day takes place at or around this table. As you can see there is a nice big floor space here in the center for any activities. Sometimes Ryan likes to take his books and sprawl out on the floor instead of sitting at the table. Other time we will use the space to sit all together during group activities and experiments.

Here's a closer look at our maps and charts. The charts to the right are our English grammar helps: what is a verb; preposition list; diagramming; etc.

Here is Elizabeth's little nook. She sits here and colors, plays with playdoh, crafts, whatever will keep her occupied for a minute or two before she darts off somewhere else.

This was supposed to be our actual school room. As you can see, space does not allow for it. So now it is more of a reading/computer lab/relaxing space. The boys lounge in here to do their reading or go on the computer for their typing or math exercises. They also have a little tv to play video games on the weekends... only if they are earned!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our little schooling areas!

Final days of school

We are winding down the school year here... yay!!

 I have been a bit busy lately getting ready for our final school review with the State, among many other family activities. So, I snapped a few pictures of some of the things we had been working on the last few weeks to give you a quick update before we take a break for the summer. Don't worry, I will still be updating through the summer (or so I plan to) we have a lot of fun activities planned between now and October so stay tuned! ;)

Here are the books we used for History and Science. We had a great year learning how the United States came to be plus all of the other world events going on at the same time:

This is our wall map filled for the year. All of the states filled in are the members of the Union up to1850. (The time period we have stopped at for the year. We will pick up from there next year)

The boys (Elizabeth too) have loved filling in this map and learning about these states.

Here's a quick timeline snapshot of what we have studied about this year:

 

 

Both boys kept up notebooks for History and Science. 

Each day, after a lesson they had to write or draw a picture of the events.

(maybe we have to take a drawing class next year and try to get past the stick figure stage LOL)

In Science we learned all about Botany for the 2nd semester.

Each boy did a lapbook like below as we worked through each lesson and experiments

Some samples of Sean's art work

And Ryan's art work

Next year we are learning from 1850 until modern times.

Here are some of the books we'll be using 

(minus the Narnia series to the right, Sean is reading through those now and finishing them over the summer)

This is our new wall map for next year. 

It's huge, I just finished laminating each little section.

Happy Summer everyone!!

American Inventions

This week in history, we learned all about some famous American inventors for this time period and how they advanced growth for our country.

We also added Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Vermont to our state studies.

For science, we continued our study on Botany. This week we learned all about the roots, leaves and how important they are to the plant. Did you know, when the leaves change color in the fall, that is the real color of the leaves? The green color is just the overabundance of chlorophyll. When the plant stops making food in the fall, its true colors can be see.

We started making a lapbook for the rest of the year in science, since our Revolutionary War lapbook was such a big hit.

For Art we did some spring/Easter themed projects.

Ryan made a chalk painting. He wet the paper and used chalk to color it to give it a neat color and texture.

Sean made a pyramid that tells the story of the Resurrection.

Elizabeth made an angel. She wasn't thrilled with coloring the whole thing so I gave her a bunch of stickers to decorate it with.

We also did some inside PE this week. I planned on taking them out for basketball at the park but it has been a bit windy and brisk for Abigail to be out in that weather.

It cracks me up that Smokey has decided to make an appearance in each of these pictures - he's such a ham!

Elizabeth doing some leg lifts.

Ryan working those arms with pushups.
I think Smokey is checking his form.

Sean being tortured with leg lifts!

I had to add this picture too! hahah! He's not so happy doing these arm circles... I made him work for that lunch behind him! ;)

Abby Mae working out her little face with smiles.

" this post is linked to Homeschool Highlights in MFW
at Discover Their Gifts or 2 ladybugs and a lizard "

Back to school

Actually, we've never technically stopped doing school since Abigail was born. Some days were just "doing the basics" kind of days, while others we were able to fill in other activities. Finally, though our schedule is starting to look more like our "normal" day.... normal being used very loosely here.
I am going to try and get back into my regular blog updates.

For History:
We finished up our study on the Revolutionary War. Both boys did a lapbook project and they turned out great. I think they really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Sean actually asked if we were going to do another one. haha! Unfortunately, the plan is not in the works for this year. ;)

We've started now studying the Constitution and forming our government. We are also studying each state in order as they joined the Union and the Presidents in order up til 1850. We will pick up the states and presidents that came after 1850 next year in our continued study on US History.

So this week, we learned about Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Our President was George Washington.

Ryan's Lapbook

Ryan's Washington:

Sean's Lapbook

Sean's Washington:

Notebook pages they both made:

Science:
We are looking at flowers and seeds.
We took a close look at the flower's anatomy and pollinated a couple flowers to watch them change. Pretty interesting stuff! We also learned about the different kinds of fruit... more than just apples and oranges. ;)




Art:
Most of our art lately has been combined with our History work in the lapbook. This week we looked at how people in colonial days took "pictures" by doing silhouettes. Each boy made a silhouette.

Sorry for the bad pictures; the silhouettes:

Math:
Ryan is learning fractions and Sean is working on geometry

Language:
Sean is working with adjectives and Ryan is learning about different verbs

" this post is linked to Homeschool Highlights in MFW
at Discover Their Gifts or 2 ladybugs and a lizard "

Home school Week:12

Last week was a little hectic and I never got around to posting on the blog, but I'm getting back on track this week!


Art: the boys both did projects learning to combine primary and secondary colors to make a whole new "look" to their art.
Sean worked on these leaves layering several different colors and learning how to blend them.
Ryan did the same with his Parrot but he used watercolor. For each body part he had to use one primary and one secondary. He loved the neat colors that came out!

Bible: This week (and last week) we studied the book of Esther. A really great example how God works in our lives even when we don't see every step He is doing. And how important it is to wait on God and let Him do his wonderful Works!

History: We learned about India, its history of kings and eventually being taken over by the East India Company and England. It was really neat to learn about the Taj Mahal! We thought it was a palace, but really, it was a tomb built for a beloved Queen.

Science: We looked at Mollusks (snails, slugs,oysters, etc) and Cnidarians (pronounced ni-DARE-ee-ans) - jellyfish, anemones, coral. The boys liked all those gooey animals!

Lang Arts: Sean is working on a very large Library Research report on the Alamo. We took a trip to the library, got our library cards, and learned some library skills for everyone this week.
Ryan, on top of going to the library, began learning the rules to making nouns plural.

Reading: Ryan finished reading Chalk Box Kid this week.

And Sean began The Matchlock Gun.

P.E.: Last but not least we had our weekly PE class. The boys are continuing with their Soccer drills and games. They're really enjoying it!

Sean playing goalie:

Ryan blocking his opponent:

Elizabeth just running around, having fun!!

" this post is linked to Homeschool Highlights in MFW
at Discover Their Gifts or 2 ladybugs and a lizard "