Category: Homeschool Den

LD is quite sick–hasn’t eaten for two days, is lethargic, feverish and sleeps most of the day/night.  Will update soon.  Poor guy.

Here’s the scene: Our furnace has been on the fritz!  This morning it was a chilly 59F/15C degrees in the living room area and even colder in our bedroom! (Nowhere near as cold as it is outside, though.) Everything is draped in ice. It’s actually quite beautiful. Except that EVERYTHING is covered in ice. Imagine backing out of our garage… and driving up THIS driveway!  It took nearly an hour...

LD sledding down our driveway the day after the snowfall.  Not only did the UPS truck get stuck up at the top of the driveway (because the hill continues on up even past the crest of our driveway), but the next evening hubby had to help the Fed Ex man get out as well!

The kids were all born in Australia and there was no snow in the Outback. Today was their very first snow experience!  What fun! We got about three inches; it snowed all day and we were in and out of the house until late this evening. ED loved licking the snow while LD scared me with his daring dashes down our steep driveway on the sled!  The woods sure look...

We have been enjoying holiday-themed art this past week–Christmas trees, nutcrackers, gingerbread men and more! W I went over to check out Art Projects for Kids and saw this very cute nutcracker art project.  LD and DD were keen to give it a try. DD was very excited because she is dancing in the Nutcracker.  She has done at least a half-dozen nutcracker drawings plus the drawing/painting she did last...

This time of year is particularly busy.  DD has extra dance rehearsals for her Nutcracker performance. We have little holiday parties that we’ve attended and more coming up.  Friends and family are coming to visit; even close friends from the Outback are coming to visit in a few days!  Then to top it off, LD’s gymnastics coach has asked if he wants to move up to the next level.  He’ll...

 A huge part of our homeschool routine continues to be spending time outdoors.  I feel the kids need outdoor time — and send them out to play for an hour or so every afternoon.  A lot of the time, I spend some of that time cutting wood and gathering kindling for the fire. (We use the fireplace once or twice a day. It really helps make our homeschool room cozy.)...

Our internet has been down for a week. Ugh! Hope to be up and running in the next day or so.  ED has had a horrible case of hives (from head to toe) and it turns out that she has Strep. We’re taking it easy and will just enjoy some nice weather outside since we can’t go anywhere until she’s not contagious. 

 Here’s a quick glance DD’s math work for the day (she just turned 5).  I had her set up the numbers.  She counted from 10 to 100 several times before I had her build double-digit numbers. I put a large handful of tiles in front of her and asked her to figure out whether there were an odd or even number of tiles (meanwhile, ED is making a tower!!).  Also,...

I was looking for the alphabet and number cards with certain themes — fall leaves, snowflakes, and penguins.  I stumbled across this terrific website that has all kinds of beautiful free printables: Communication 4 All.co.uk. Some of the early learning themes include space, pirates, minibeasts, animals, dinosaurs, under the sea, castles, India, months and seasons, the water cycle, and other themes. Just thought I’d share my discovery in case someone...

Someone on one of my yahoo groups shared this link to Valerie’s Slideshow of Fall Crafts. There are lots of colorful fall and Thanksgiving related craft ideas. I was impressed!

It has been a LOOooong time since I have consistently sat down with LD to listen to him read.  Instead, he has been doing independent reading primarily on his own.  This week I was pretty impressed with his intonation, rhythm and general reading ability.  Grams gave us a children’s encyclopedia set and among other things he read some articles to me on birds and fossils.  He’s also reading through a...