School Starts

Tracy went to a Bible camp in Gilbert, MN during the split week of July and August so was able to miss our first day of school.  I bought the video school for Jason this year so decided to start school earlier than normal, in hopes of not losing too many days during soccer season.  There are some excellent teachers on it!  I started with a core segment of classes, and we are on day 42 today so have done quite well, in my opinion  We should be able to finish those four classes earlier in the coming year and will hopefully be able to double up on some of the others as we sit during the cool winter months waiting for spring to arrive.  I only have three of legal school age this year; that is different.

We had our annual soccer meeting that evening and decided to start soccer practices early this year as well.  Some of the "Juniors" were involved in a soccer-based vacation Bible school that first week in August so got a head start on some of the other kids.  The kids have really enjoyed that specific VBS.  The "Seniors" were involved in a hard-core workout that week but came home "pumped" each night.  They also ran a mile each night or practice and have continued to do that each night of practice as far as I know.

Aaron left to go on a camping trip with a group of boys just south of International Falls on August 1.  I have asked him every year since he was 12 if he would like to go, and this year he finally decided to make the plunge.  He enjoyed it but came home with sore arms from a lot of rowing in the canoe.  I, not knowing this, had left him a list of stuff to do when he got home which included "sweeping the ceilings."  I guess that did not feel very well with his sore muscles!!!

Art Around the World

Back in July, three of the kids went to some art classes. They studied three different countries and then did projects. They also discussed a bit of poetry.

Here are Jason's projects:


After the art classes, we went up to the depot where they were doing steam-roller printing. Here is Melissa's printing getting ready to be inked.



Here she is watching the steam roller.

Her projects:


Emily's projects:

Laura was too young to attend the classes, but she was able to take part in the steam roller printing.

Imaginary Numbers

We are pretending to have numbers in our house. I am glad they do not run up our food and gas bills. :)

Norwegian Geometry Test

Frustrum
Euclid
Medians
Polyhedral
Coincide
Cosine
Closure
Isosceles
Convex
Dimension
Geometry
Hypotenuse
Multiple
Per Cent
Number
Trapezoid
Symmetric
Postulate
Polyhedron
Tangent
Polygon
Prism
Pyramid
Rectangle
Triangle
Vertex
Distinct
Rhombus
Space
Square Root


All right...those are your answers. Here are the questions. Have fun!


1. Describe the odor of a pocketbook.
2. A dead parrot is a(n)
3. A twisted foot is a(n)
4. If you don't check the time schedule you may catch the
5. The lower part of an out-of-it tree is a(n)
6. What do acorns say when they grow up?
7. Where do people go for writing things like this?
8. When boiling water on top of a high mountain you have a(n)
9. If you don't know the union of two rays with a common endpoint
10. In order to see the Rose Parade you must
11. A man on the beach is a(n)
12. Not being able to catch one, you should try to
13. Taffy which could be pulled many times has
14. You're much too confident, don't act
15. You shouldn't freeze champagne glasses--you should
16. When it rains, you should
17. You saw Celeste, he saw Celeste, and
18. Take your report card home and have your parents _____ it.
19. There are skinny ones and there are
20. If this isn't fer Wild Bill, and it isn't fer Marshall Dillon, it may be
21. We had two pet skunks, 'Dis' and 'Dat.' 'Dat' was deperfumed but
22. Private First Class Post was somewhat tardy, and the drill sergeant shouted
23. The cover to a ukulele case is a
24. His dog obeys Ral, but will
25. You broke it, and you _____ it.
26. When Aaron Burr was 'lost in a blizzard,' he was a
27. When the parrot was frightened,
28. When I said, "Thank you," she said, "_____ it."
29. Tric was a pretty nice guy, then
30. If you could get these in a hurry, you probably have _____ between your ears.

School

School starts today at our house. I posted a trial schedule on the wall and got various disgusted comments and complaints. I didn't think it was too bad, especially since I'm going very easy for the next few months. For Jason and Emily, all I'm doing is Bible, math, and language arts. Aaron has spelling, history, language, and math. We'll put on the steam when the new year rolls around to get the other subjects caught up.

Soccer starts tonight as well. I'll have to get my act together and have a snack ready for when we come home. I'm planning to stay at the field for a bit and then take the three little girls to the pool. The indoor pool opens today--Hooray!

Saturday the older three girls and I went to Bemidji to a funeral. We stopped at Wal-Mart and got Mike a pair of shoes and some gas and then went to Putt 'n Go. They went down the waterslide with some money they made picking blueberries for a friend. (The boys went to Valleyfair in June.) It started raining while we were there, and I joked that I should have just gone down the slide for as wet as I got. I think that was one of the coldest rides home I've had for a while. My mom offered me a sweater, but it was tight and long-sleeved. I would have "died" I think.

Yesterday Mike wanted to go out blueberry picking, but it rained and rained and rained. Around 6, the sun came out, but by then it was too late. A friend is planning to come Tuesday evening to pick so we'll see how that turns out.

Flat Stanley Came to Visit Us

In the book, Flat Stanley, by Jeff Brown, Stanley goes on vacation by being mailed like a letter to his friend in California. Mike's niece mailed a Flat Stanley to us so he got to do things with us yesterday.

Laura got a birthday box and birthday card in the mail yesterday so he got to "help" her open that.

Here he is "farming" with Tracy on Facebook.


Here he is helping Melissa make cookies for her friends.


We took him to our small town where he went ice skating with the kids.



After supper he got to go to our other small town and go to Awana with us. I didn't quite get him into the light, but he's there by the sign. :)

(Ugh...red eye. I'll have to fix that later.)

Here he is asleep with Laura after a busy day.




I sure hope he enjoyed his stay! :)

...now to mail him back...

My Next Project

This is what I will work on until it's time to wake the children. We have several discs that don't get used, but for the most part, the majority of these discs are used within a month's time. Now to teach Laura how to put them away...(It's great fun pulling them out of the slots.) :)



Today we have a home school class in town about Old Fort Niagara. Here's the run-down:

This is the Oldest fort in the Great Lake Basin and where the Battle of 1812 was fought. With the original structures still standing from the 1700's, this Fort has been held by three different countries. It also has on display one of the oldest US flags in existence, measuring 24 feet by 28 feet. From the construction of the buildings, to the battle plans, Niagara has many unique qualities that we think you will find very interesting and worth your time.

We have a short documentary to watch at the class, which is well made and gives you a good idea of what life was like during that time. We will also be giving out information packets to each of the families to take home, that will incude "Old Fort Niagara, an Illustrated History", a replica of both the "United States Constitution" and the "Declaration of Independence", on parchment paper. There will also be some prizes for "good listeners" and for the quiz, as well as doorprizes including the books; "A History and Guide to Old Fort Niagara", "Sailors of 1812 - Memoirs and Letters of Naval Officers on Lake Ontario", "Soldiers of 1814 - American Enlisted Memiors of the Niagara Campaign, and a couple Fort Niagara T-Shirts.

Pencil Paradise

I've been getting tired of not being able to find a sharp pencil for school work so decided to start out my Thursday with a "pencil sharpening party." Every-so-often Tracy and I will do this. Pencils seem to disappear around our house, and I usually find a lot of them when I go through Aaron's and Jason's room. Here's my "loot;" we'll see how long they last. :)

AWANA

Tonight at Awana Emily not only said the books of the Old Testament, she went on to say Psalm 23. I did not even know she was working on that. For "years and years" I've been teaching the kids the books of the Bible for part of their schooling (we review them every fall,) and the picture below shows how I've always tried to make it interesting. This past time I made the things it was just with brown, but I usually make them colorful and have colored the letters in. I also teach how they are divided into the 5-12-5-5-12 pattern for the Old Testament. It works for us. Several have fallen or have been taken down because I need the pins for Melissa's school letters we're hanging on the wall.

Done Enough

We got some math, Bible drills, Bible verses, spelling, and some phonics games done. We finished up our lunch of cheeseburgers, carrots, and pink lemonade. Today was one of those days where I didn't make enough. Oh well. :) I'm not sure what plans we have for the afternoon, but tonight is a soccer practice for all the kids. I have a home school meeting too. A friend is letting me borrow her applesauce maker and possibly has more apples for me so I'll get that done tonight also. I've been working on organizing the bookshelves (looking for a specific library book,) but I keep getting farther behind because of a certain little girl. I won't mention any names, but it starts with L and ends with a. :)

Trying Again

Our school week got messed up last week because of hitting the deer. It's like that at our house...one small thing can mess up everything.

Anyway, the kids are enjoying cinnamon rolls, applesauce, and milk for breakfast. Mike just walked out; I would guess the smell of the cinnamon rolls drove him batty. :)

We'll get our jobs done then get started with our school work. We have math, spelling, and phonics fun in the pile to start.

Math

I asked my first grader today if she could figure out some ways to make 8 expecting the typical answers like 8+0, 7+1, 6+2, 5+3, and 4+4. Well, the first one rattled off was 4+4. She then answered 6+2. I pried out 7+1. Then with a glint in her eyes, she said 20-12. I was surprised by that but even more so when she started rattling off other subtraction ways all the way from the 20-12 up to 200-192.

Spelling

Wow, spelling is going well this year! Tracy tested well on her spelling placement test a couple weeks ago, and Aaron placed well on his today. We are not the best family of spellers in the world--usually getting between 5% and 50% on the standardized tests. That's why I'm so excited. :)

Jason has been plugging away in his 4th grade math book, and Emily's been working on both the 1st and 2nd grade books. Jason and Emily are doing reading together this year, and that seems to be going well. I'll probably get out the phonics lessons after our soccer season is over.

Other than that things are going well; we are getting ready to eat lunch.

Tentative Meal Plans for the Beginning of School

August 18 sloppy joe
19 chicken nuggets
20 pizza
21 spaghetti
22 tacos
sandwiches
23 chili dogs
breakfast
___________________________________________________________________________________
24 roast
BBQ sandwiches
25 cheesy sloppy joe
grilled cheese and soup
26 chicken gravy over potatoes
soup
27 pizza
28 lasagna
29 chicken sandwiches
30 meatloaf
corn dogs

Breakfast Menu for School

Payday Week

Monday
toast with peanut butter
applesauce
milk

Tuesday
pancakes and sausage
orange juice
milk

Wednesday
sugar cereal
grapes
yogurt
milk

Thursday
waffles
applesauce
milk

Friday
scrambled eggs or English muffins
fruit
milk

Other Week

Monday
cinnamon roll
applesauce
milk

Tuesday
French toast and sausage
orange juice
milk

Wednesday
berry muffins
yogurt
milk

Thursday
pigs in blankets
applesauce
milk

Friday
Caramel rolls or sticky buns
fruit
milk

Sonlight Science

We've slowly been working our way through our science curriculum. This picture shows just some of the books we use. Today we did a bunch of experiments with water.

We learned about floating/sinking, underwater floating, pushing power, changing shapes, the way they load cargo ships, the Plimsoll line in fresh vs. salt water, and we made a submarine out of a bottle and a tube.

If you're interested: http://www.sonlight.com.

Baby Birthday Party

We have no phone, in case you have been trying to call us. We're not sure what the problem is at the moment, but with the amount of calls we (don't) get, we're not missing it.

Today our midwife hosted a party for her "babies." If I heard the count correctly, 18 of them were there. It was a very windy and cool day so I'm glad I packed jackets. It was a "bring your own meat and a dish to share" meal and was a lot of fun. It's always fun to get to visit with everyone. Thanks, Rebekah!

I've been working through this FIAR book with Emily (and Melissa when she'll listen) and have been enjoying it. I had heard about it when Tracy was young but never spent the $ on it. A friend loaned me this. We have about six books left to do of those I can locate through the library.

Here are a couple pictures of Laura and Melissa playing in the water from last night's storm. It was dripping off the roof. I love the way you can see the individual droplets!

Art Projects

Emily took pictures of Melissa who's displaying the art they worked on today.

Test Results

We got our standardized test results in the mail today. I have one brilliant child (except spelling) and two average children (except spelling.) Do you see a pattern here? I never did well in spelling either; I'm of a mind to think that it'll come as they get older so we just do the minimum and move along with life. Actually, I never did well on any of my tests.

We did it!

Last month I cut this twig off a bush outside to see if we could get it to blossom, and here's the result.