Catching up with this school year 2013-2014

Wow, I'm really behind but to my defense it was one of those circumstances & well, the blogging fell to the way side. 

So here's a wrap up to this school year. We started in June knowing Paz would be born soon after. We took all of August off & Paz was born August 21st, she passed away 77hrs later on August 24th. We resumed school in September & have taken a few weeks off here & there we should be ending this school year in late April for Lily & the first week of June for Mathias. In NJ school goes from September to late June so I don't feel really bad. Not to mention our homeschool convention is in mid May & we wouldn't get our curriculum until at least the last week of May if not the first week in June. I'm so excited about next year's school year but for now I'll try to catch you up on this year's fun, or at least those I've remembered to photograph. 

Here goes...

 Paz Lael (translates to "peace belongs to God") was born August 21st at 1am & she passed August 24th at 3am. We had a blessed 77hrs to enjoy her & were very happy when she finally went on to Glory, as she suffered greatly. For those who don't know she had severe trisomy 13. Her life was a true miracle & her nickname became "our little evangelist" because of all the ppl she brought to Christ. We're blessed to be her parents & know we'll see her again. We do miss her, each of us in our own ways. 

I knew I had to get back into things, I'm at my best when I'm serving others so September 7th started the NJ Public Schools & I decided I'd start school too. Here's a picture of our first day of school.

 At the start of this school year 2013 Mathias is 7, Lily is 5, Jojo is 3 & Luna is 1. The kids are in PreK3, Kindergarten & 1st grade. 

They spent this first day decorating their pencil cases & having a special first day of school meal & desert. We eased back into things with lots of fun & some brownies...

The first two weeks of school Mathias wrote out the alphabet & then made a scroll with the alphabet he had written. This among other things made up our first two or three weeks of school for Mathias. It was really intended as review.

Lily did a unit on the sun & she learned that if you lined up 109 earths from end to end they'd fit into the sun. Daddy helped us to illustrate this by cutting out a huge "sun" & I put 100 pony beads on some pipe cleaners she then used these to measure out the sun. She loved this activity. 

 

Lily then did a unit on the moon ....everyone enjoyed this one, since we did the faces of the moon with Oreos. Many Oreos were harmed in the learning of this unit. :-D 

How many earths fit inside the moon? Three times as many as in the sun. That's 109x3= 327 earths fit inside the moon.  

Then came a unit on apples & one on leaves...this too was fun. We learned why leaves change colors and how plants & trees make food. At this point Lily was doing a unit on A=apples & L=leaves & Mathias did two units on plants. They sort of went together so when it was time for science they did their experiments together. They also planted plants & watched a bean sprout. Luna & Jojo joined in. 

Grampa jointed us one morning as we checked on our plants & seedlings. 

I also found some cool dices at the dollar store, they have "sight/dolce" words on them. The kids had a blast throwing these dice & reading the words on them. 

Daddy spent some time teaching the kids how to read some more sight words. 

The kids worked on their penmanship when they wrote birthday cards to another homeschooler. They learned how to address a letter & worked on other homeschool things, like the parts of plants. 

Mathias worked on a time line & wrote a sentence in Hebrew. 

On "service person appreciation day" we made cookies & yellow rice with chicken. Daddy along with Mathias & Lily took it to our local police station & firehouse. Our neighbors also got a plate of cookies. 

Lily started to sounds words out...

Jojo is never too far behind. He always demands we "do school"...

I have way too many pictures of Jojo to share them all. Sadly I don't always remember to snap pictures of his siblings...booo mom, boo.lol We use the My Father's World PreK curriculum with JoJo. 

Here's a modge podge of things I did remember to take pictures of though...

Mathias doing his "Animal Tales" student sheets, he loves these. 

Lily on her octopus unit O is for octopus...lol 

Mathias doing some penmanship work, copying his weekly Proverb verse.

Kids enjoyed their hotdog octopi & veggies for lunch. 

We then moved on to the water unit & did a science experiment that showed how clouds get heavy with water droplets & then rain down on us. They also saw water, ice & snow turn into a gas (steam).

In honor of Lily's insect unit we played "ants in the pants" & made "cooties". An insect has three body parts; a head, a thorax & an abdomen. It also has six legs that come out of its thorax. We also made insects out of pipe cleaners, play dough & googly eyes but I didn't take a picture of those...

Finally back to work after Christmas & New Years, we got to the grit of it & finished up a week's worth of school in a day. They begged me not to stop the school day & I begged them to stop...haha. I hope it's always just like this & that they never get to a point that they hate school & that I have to force them to do their school work. 

Mathias read us his first 62 page book. It was "Green Eggs & Ham". He read it all on his own. 

We were over joyed. 

That's pretty much it so far, well at least the stuff I took pictures of. Today is Tuesday, January 7th,2014. We are on day two of unit 12 for both Mathias & Lily. Mathias uses My Father's World for first grade which is also known as "Learning God's Story" & Lily is using My Father's World Kindergarten Which is also known as "God's Creation from A to Z". 

Why is Mathias doing 1st grade is a question I'm often asked. When he was 5 knew all the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, he knew most of his numbers to 100, etc...but he could barely sit still for 10-15 minutes at a time & he just couldn't concentrate, he was extremely smart but way too active.  In order to avoid him feeling agitated & aggravated & to avoid frustrations for everyone we waited a year. We didn't want him to associate school with  frustration, aggravation, negative feelings of himself, etc...When he was 6 we started K & he breezed through it. We actually only ended up doing 8 units of K & he skipped right to 1st. He's now breezing through 1st & really loving it. He begs for school & even when we've finished his school day he begs for more work, "more school". That's really the motto of My Father's World & that's why I adore this curriculum. It's Charlotte Masson inspired & Jesus centered all the way through. Every aspect turns back to God. That's it, 12weeks (give or take) of school, thus far. I hope to stay current from hence forward. Thank you for reading.