weekly report for week 24

This week I am going to show you our history that we worked on for the last two weeks. We studied FDR and his New Deal Policies. We did complete our outlines for our research project and they will need to do their rough drafts next week. We also enjoyed a nature day and sketched from our wonderful new yard that we are enjoying, the pictures of our sketches are a couple of posts down.

This is a picture of 16 facts about FDR, we are currently doing TOG yr.4 week 10. This was done by all the kids, and they did this while reading biographies on FDR.


We also studied Alcatraz and these are the notebook pages by Wacky Prince and the Chef. Notice the chef did a diagram on how each cell was set up(green page orange box on the bottom). The enjoyed a great website on the history of Alcatraz.


This is the Queen to Be notebook page on Alcatraz she enjoyed drawing a diagram of the island where Alcatraz was located. did you know it was a military base before it was home to the prison? Well neither did I, this is part of what I love about TOG is the attention to culture things and fads of the times, and things not normally included in history but important to people of that day and time.


The chef studied Dick Tracy comics, he had the choose of several but decided on D. Tracy. The printer broke earlier in the week so he had to draw a picture of the character. I think he enjoyed this, but was not to happy the printer broke, sadly I concur on this feeling.

We had our break from co-op last week and boy I am still tired, I think all this moving caught up to me. All in all it was a good week I even had time this week to have a history discussion with my older two on the different agencies. It was great it is what I would love to do every week but we always seem to run out of time. TOG sometimes can be very difficult when you have older ones and participate in a co-op. Our co-op is not a TOG co-op so we can't rely on it for our discussions but we can rely on for science credits :)

Well there it is a week our week in review with history pictures only all other subjects were still done but I just didn't share any pictures

Wordless Wednesday

We are calling this Groundhog's Day my dh named it :)



Nope 6 more weeks of winter!

Our nature study

We did our first nature study in about 8 years. We started simple, and just did some sketches from the year. The chef drew the tree in the front yard, he is going to find out what kind it is later and collected some bark. Queen to be drew the vine on the gate and collected a leaf. Wacky prince drew some berries from the bushes and collected a rock, that he now claims as his focusing stone. If you could be a fly on the wall you would see that is definetly not the case. Wednesday we are going to go to a nearby park and study. OHHH and a tip, remember to take your allergy medicine before the Green Hour. Here is some pictures of our drawings from today.




We are doing a nature study notebook and hope to be able to do this twice a week. If you go to this page and scroll down to nature notebook this is what we hope to do. We hope to add a bird bath to the backyard to invite more bird to visit us. We really had a good time, all but one heard the woodpecker. But there is always tomorrow! This site has some great information for all the seasons. Enjoy!

Menu Plan Monday(a day early)

This is our new frame work to work around. It helps me to plan instead of having chicken everyday for a week. Yes I did that once :(

Monday-egg pie with bacon
Tuesday-bean and cheese enchilidas
Wednesday-BBQ drumsticks
Thursday- Chicken Fajitas
Friday- Crockpot Lasagna salad and garlic bread
Saturday-leftovers
Sunday-burgers ??? or crockpot Macaroni and cheese from post below it was real good

UPDATE Trying a new recipe for the slowcooker for dinner... Crock pot mac and cheese

It is in the crockpot currently and I will give a review later tonight. I was looking for a recipe without evaporated milk. So I found this one on recipezaar. I hope it turns out good and the fact no preboiling noodles sound too good to be true. We will see!

***UPDATE*** This recipe was so good! The only suggestion we had was to double the recipe because it was gone in nothing flat, my dd ate about half the pot. IT was so yummy and we added more cheese and next time might use Velveta. The cooking time was very SHORT and so if your crockpot cooks hot it might be done in about 1.5 hours to 2 hours, next time I will set mine to warm from the start. IT was given ***** stars out of 5 by the whole family!!

Week 23 Week in Review

Well we are working on a new schedule for us to use until the end of school year. WE are doing really well considering we took off 2 weeks to move.

This is the chef's daily math review we do everyday. I love these reviews plus they are free! It brings up topics that MUS hasn't quite gotten too but can be introduced.

This is chef's logic-its a little blurry. We are using Building Thinking Skills and for the most part it is fun for him!


This is Queen to Be Decimal work for the week, she is breezing right through the Zeta book and we are thinking of switching back to Saxon for Algebra 1/2 and use with the Dive CD's. MUS has been great for her but I think she needs a program where more review is built in for her and I am not constantly trying to find it for her. We will still us MUS with the boys!

This is the wacky prince's daily math review, again free and real good for this kid. Wacky tends to forget how to do math things unless it is reviewed a lot. This is part of Wacky's LD and we just have to work with it, he is very good in math so these short reviews are all her really needs.

For language arts this week, no pictures becauase we are continuing to work on a report. They have gathered all their information and are completing their outlines. This is actually a spur of the moment thing CQLA wanted them to do a information essay but it has turned into a bigger project by them. It was like they all really wanted to sink their teeth into a subject so I am letting them. We are continuing to work through the CQLA language arts and just taking our time with composition.

For history this week we are studying FDR and the Depression. Some of the books we are reading this week:

We will continue to read these books this week, we are trying to get through WWII by the end of the year and start our history rotation back at beginning in the fall. So each TOG week is taking us 2 weeks.

Dh has one day off a week and for this spring we don't do school on his day off. It works for right now but in the new school year we will do school(light) on Saturday so we can get in everything we need to for my older kids. With only one car I need that day also to go grocery shopping and run a couple of errands per week. Honestly I don't like going out at night, my dh is my best friend and prefer to stay at home and watch TV and enjoy being with him.

Wordless Wednesday

Meet Gidget! Gidget is our 13you dauschund, we have had her 4 years and just love her spunky sometimes snippy personality!

Monday
Breakfast special

Tuesday
Chicken alfredo

Wednesday
tacos

Thursday
Bean and cheese enchilidas

Friday
Fajitas

Saturday
leftovers

Sunday dh has off
smoker meal or bbq pit

Move Update Part 2

I thought I would show you our great covered patio, it is huge!

We are going to recover the chairs with a plastic table cloth type fabric so they can withstand the weather for a little longer. Read this is a cheap option!I love that it fits the gas grill and our smoker. We are probably going to move the bar chairs and black table out of there.

In one picture you see the other back door(black) and where the smoker is, it is a great backyard! WE came from a new development that never had birds (except for the occassional hawk) and we never ever saw a squirrel. So far in the 3 weeks we have been her I have seen cardinals, lots of squirrels and several mockingbirds. It is funny how you don't miss those things until you realize they were gone!

I hope to do a small herb garden on the ledge!

The last picture is off the backyard. You can see why nature really seems to like our yard with all the vines. The dogs love it too. If you notice our garage is detached. There are numerous feral cats that wonder around also, which has led to a flea issue the love the top of garage. The love to sit up there and laugh at our little dogs while driving them crazy! We are going to have to spray some stuff in the yard, our poor dogs are being over run with them, even though they have had flea treatment. UGh we hate fleas!


We love the outdoors and so the covered patio was a huge plus for us! We hope to do school outdoors some in the spring and fall. Hopefully dh can get a good deal on an outdoor fireplace (from work) so we can utilize this area soon! We need to replace a little wood from the walkway and the deck but it will not be that much and we can take the cost off the materials off the rent.

Today my goal is to work on the dining/education room if you look down a couple of posts you will see the before I hope to post the after tomorrow! what else am I too do on a rainy stormy Saturday?

Week 22

Well we had homeschool lite this week! We are still trying to recoup from our move and so we only did the basics.

Math
Well my Wacky Prince had a little trouble remembering some division concepts but recovered nicely today. The Queen to be is doing fairly well with Zeta but we have discussed it and truly she no longer cares about the "whys" of math and just wants to know what to do next. We have looked at several math programs and she has decided that when she moves into pre-algebra she would like to go back to Saxon and the Dive Cd's (we have never used the cd's but used Saxon a long time ago). The chef is having no problems.

CQLA
They are all working on doing a essay this week. My Queen to be is doing hers on William Shakespeare, her choice not mine, she has lately discovered that Shakespeare is rather fun to read. She has been taking a class at co-op on Shakespeare and discovered that he truly can be funny! Thanks co-op. The Wacky Prince is doing his on Henre Fabri, who is that you ask, he is famous etymologist. And since Prince is considering etymology as a career choice (therefore living at home forever). he would like to research him, yep I even found a 100 year old book on an on-line reader that he is reading. The chef to be is doing a lite essay and is writing on Venus Flytrap and Eel. The chef assignment is different from the older two.

That is our week in a nutshell. We have unpacked about 10 boxes this week. Rearranged some here and there and it is starting to come together. The boys are getting use to sharing a room together again. I am still working on the diningroom/education room and hope to get it together in the next couple of weeks. The kitchen is almost completely done we just have a couple of curtains to hang up and will get these things done as finances allow.

We will be rained in all weekend so I am sure I will be able to get some things unpacked and put in their new home. The master bedroom is where I mainly want to focus and then the education room. Hope everyone has a great weekend, we have co-op tomorrow!

Menu Plan Monday

Monday
Breakfast

Tuesday
Spaghetti
garlic bread
salad

Wednesday
leftovers or baked potato

Thursday
hot dogs

Friday for a cold cold day
beans (crockpot) and cornbread

Saturday
mexican yummy that I have yet determined

Move Update with pictures part 1

Well we have moved and are settling in, and boy was it a move. WE have taken 2 weeks off from school and are suppose to start back tomorrow but I really don't want too. But the kids are driving each other crazy so we must bit the bullet and start back. So I start out tour with the kitchen

On the left you will see a door opening to the laundry room/water heater/furnace we are loving refering to at as the cave. We were hopefully get a curtain up to allow the room to ventilate and allow us to not have to look in there all the time. WE are putting up some seafoam colored curtains that we already own. We still have a lot of work in there to do and still some unpacking and some space to store things. The pantry will need to be tackled soon to find more space.

Our next stop is our dining room/education room.
The small table and chair up against the wall will be finding a new home somewhere else in the house. The table will probably end up upstairs. Up against the wall I am standing by (out of the picture) is our white board and white cubes which hold lots of reference materials. There are two chrome shelves that will hold lots of books.

Next on the tour is our living room, it is still in need of lots of work but has come a long long way, already!

The blue chair will be moved up stairs and will eventually have a slip cover on it. The dog will stay also :) Up against the wall you can't see is the computer desk and family files. The desk up against the window will also stay, it will be a planning/grading area since that is taking more and more time. Notice the covered deck out back, I will show pictures of it next time.

This move has been a very difficult one why? I don't know we had great help but it has just been a hard adjustment. It seems everything has taken so much time, more than normal. The washer and dryer took us two hours to hook up, why well we had to find a way to fit it in there so everything was able to open. I will post more picture later in the week.