Our plans for the next 5 weeks ...

It's that time again.  This is our week off of school while I plan out our next 5 weeks.  We will continue working on the goals from the earlier 5 weeks.  You can read them here.

The little ones really enjoyed FIAR the last 5 weeks and learned much more than I expected.  We will continue with FIAR and do four books over the next 5 weeks.  We will do Harold and The Purple Crayon, The little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, Three Names, and How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.  I am especially looking forward to the last book, because I have a bushel of apples to make into wonderful things.  Of course, a few apple pies is at the top of the list.

In addition to FIAR, we will continue reading lessons.  Tom Sawyer is thriving with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and Goldilocks is plugging along with the Bob Books series.  She just could not handle the 100 lessons book.  Both are also doing very well with Miquon math.  I am so pleased that it is working for both of them.  Little Red Ridinghood is really doing well with Starfall.com and her letter cards.  Tom Sawyer and Little Red Ridinghood will be making ABC books that they can customize to their liking.

We have been slipping in science and music, so I am going to put more effort into this area for the little ones.  They will be working on the seasons and do some fun activities around fall, although I still have to research what those fun activities will be.  We will make clouds in a jar and leaf identification books.  For music we will be trying to be more consistent with the piano lessons and listening to more selected pieces of music.  During these past weeks, I've also discovered that listening to audio books at lunch time is a great way to keep mouths eating instead of flapping.  They are enjoying the classical kids series and spending a week listening to each tape.  They just finished Tchaikovsky Discovers America.

Behavior has improved a great deal in the past 5 weeks, but as always there is lots of room for improvement!  We will keep plugging away.

The big teen is doing well in his studies.  He is really enjoying his Ancient World History class, and it is nice to have one less thing to teach him myself.  We are staying on track everywhere but with creative writing, so I will really have to concentrate on making sure he does that every day.  We will be dissecting a cow's heart and starfish in the next 5 weeks.  It will be nice to get those out of my cupboard!  LOL  We also have to decide which books he will be reading for English/American lit these next weeks. Hopefully, he can get through two in addition to his other studies.

One thing is for sure.  I don't need to worry about helping him get any stronger.  Below is proof that his muscles work just fine.



This is the man-made geyser we went and saw last week.  Below is the big teen making the geyser bend to his will!  His hands were numb for a while afterwards.  It would be interesting to know how fast and how much pressure that water was coming out of the geyser.  One thing is for sure, it was very powerful and the water hurt when you walked under it.



It constantly amazes me how this young man that stands before me came from a tiny cardiac baby that few thought would even live to see a year.  God grants miracles every day!