Unit on Space!

We are down to out last six weeks in Core E of our Sonlight Curriculum!  In addition to Core E, we also have 6 weeks left of Core E Language Arts for Megan and 1st grade Language Arts for Courtney.  We have also been doing Sonlight First Grade Science and since I have kept these four subjects all aligned, we are down to six weeks left of that too!  I am pretty excited to finish this because we have been working on this curriculum since the end of September 2013.  We started this when we got back from our 5 week trip to the east coast last year. I am planning to wrap it up about the end of January!

But until then, we still have a lot of learning to do! We are up to the end of World War II in history and we will go until current times.  Megan and Courtney have both improved tremendously in their writing and are ready to go onto the next level.  In science, we are going to finish the last six weeks with a unit on space.  We finally finished our unit on the human body and this will round out our study.  I have learned soooo much in science this year and hopefully, my girls have too!

We are going to be using this book for the last six weeks.



I am pretty excited! To go with each lesson, I will continue to supplement what they want us to learn. 

Our first couple pages are general thoughts about space and what we find up there.

They also get into lack of sound in space.  Why is that?? I didn't know myself, so I had to do some more research.

http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/space-environment/1-is-there-sound-in-space.html

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=8

I will try my best to explain to two girls that there is no "air" in space.  It's kind of hard to understand, but hopefully they will get it!

We are also going to talk about how light travels through space.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-does-light-travel.html

I totally did not understand this whole article, but I think the part that I can understand will be good enough!!

Lastly, how do we see light as humans?

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5025645_see-light.html

Now this all might be over my girls' heads, but it always helps me to study in pretty in-depth before teaching it, so I can understand it fully. I have to be ready for any questions!

Need to go shopping!

Now that Thanksgiving is done, I should start to get ready for Christmas.  But this year, there is something more added to the holiday season.  We have a wedding on January 3rd and I am thinking I should get busy.

Here's what I have to buy yet:

1.  Matt needs a suit. He either has to buy one or rent one, he hasn't decided yet.

2.  Christian is a ring bearer, so he needs an outfit.  The bride does not want him to wear a tux, which is fine, so I think we can get him a little outfit with pants, shirt, sweater vest, and a tie from Kohls/ Penneys, etc.  He will also need little black shoes.

3.  Megan is reading Bible verses and she already has a dress. She needs nice tights and shoes.

4.  Courtney is a flower girl.  She also has a dress, but will need tights and shoes.

5.  As for myself, I should probably get a new dress too!

Which should I buy first? Christmas presents or clothes for the wedding?? What a crazy (and expensive!) time of year!!!

Ready for a break!

I am ready for a break from school.  I decided that we are going to take tomorrow afternoon and Friday off, I am ready for it and I think the kids are too!  We are trying to finish some things up this afternoon and then we won't open our books up again until Monday! It will be nice! I don't quite know what we are doing on Friday yet, but even if it is just putting up the Christmas decorations, that will be just fine with me!

More virus trouble!

We just cannot get rid of this virus at our house. It has been here since September and it needs to go back where it came from!!  We just keep passing it around!

Last week, I had it again, so I went to my doctor and asked if she had anything that could help boost my immune system. Since she is a chiropractor, she cannot give a prescription, which I didn't want anyway!  She gave me some great stuff that had lots of vitamin C and A and some other vitamins and herbs in it. I took quite a bit the first day and by day 2 or 3, my voice was back to normal and I was feeling better!

Right when I was starting to feel better, Christian started getting the sniffles.  If you know him, you know that sniffles usually equals bronchitis. I couldn't give him the pills my doctor had given me, but I had some elderberry extract that she had suggested earlier.  This is also an immune booster and has antiviral properties.  I started giving him this stuff and it did not turn into bronchitis!! He has a runny nose, the sniffles, and we were up overnight giving him albuterol, but I didn't hear him wheezing! Today, he was actually full of energy and seemed kind of wired! So odd! He's supposed to be sick!

Now to get us 100% better and get the virus gone for the rest of winter!! At least I know what works now!

PE Class

This semester, a couple of friends and I decided to start a PE coop for our kids to get out, play some games, and exercise.  It is so much fun!! The kids have a great time and so do I!

Lately, we have been meeting in a meeting room in the local library, so we have been limited on what we can play, but we still make it work. Today we played "animal" games. We played leap frog, walked like a crab and a bear, hopped like a rabbit, and waddled like a duck.  We had 8 kids there today, so we played relay games with four on each team. 

After we did our animal games, we played wheelbarrow the same way! That was hilarious!

A friend of mine also has a big rope, so we have been ending our time with some jump rope. I LOVED jumping rope when I was in elementary school and these kids seem to love it too! Every single kid wants to take a turn over and over! It's fun to see the kids so eager to play. Even though we just have one big jump rope, every kid waits patiently for their turn and it works out well. My girls have figured out how to jump rope in just one week. I want to go buy a big rope now!

I am kind of sad that PE is over until next year. We decided to take a break over the holidays, but we still might get together and play on Thursday afternoons.  The kids look forward to seeing each other and so do us moms!

Now, we need to start planning for next semester!

Teaching me right from wrong!

I took my kids shopping today because we needed some warmer clothes for winter and apparently, my kids have been listening to me lately!

1.  We were in the dressing rooms and the kids were trying on clothes.  We were done and we had a pile of clothes that we were not going to get.  I said to Megan, "Just leave them in the dressing room."  She looked at me and said, "No, we are supposed to put them on the rack at the front of the dressing room." So we picked up our piles of clothes and returned them to the rack, just like we are supposed to! 

2.  We were walking out and there was a cart right in the middle of the entry way. Without even being prompted, Megan took the cart and put it away! What a way to take the initiative and put it away without even being told!

These two examples show that our kids are watching and listening to what we are doing! Sometimes I don't do the "right" thing and am just lazy about putting clothes away after trying them or even not returning a cart to a cart corral at a store. My kids are watching and if we want them to do the right thing, then we have to do it too! And it's pretty humbling when they catch you not doing the "right" thing!

Allergy Problems Solved!

I took Courtney back to her doctor yesterday after her four different reactions last week (anaphylaxis, headaches, uncontrollable coughing, and an upset stomach).  I showed the doctor Courtney's food journal from that weekend and she said, "I see your problem. You overdid wheat, milk, and eggs! No wonder she reacted like she did!" Courtney went from having wheat, milk, and eggs every four days to having it four days in a row! Yikes!

I kind of knew she was overdoing it that weekend, but I just wasn't strict with her as much as I should have been. I knew she had a piece of cake here and there at Megan's parties, but I didn't think it was too much. I tried to serve other food besides wheat and milk just so she wouldn't overdo it. She also had a birthday party last weekend (a friend of Megan's) where pizza and cupcakes from a bakery were served. That alone was probably too much for her! We also went out to Spaghetti Works for Megan's birthday and that just added to the overdose!  Way too much within four days!

Her doctor told me to not give her any wheat, dairy, or eggs for at least a week to let her stomach calm back down.  I mentioned that we have a wedding shower and a birthday party this weekend and she looked at Courtney and said, "You can have a little piece of cake at each party, but you really need to stay away from it for a little bit." I am glad that our doctor understands that "life" happens!

Along with rotating foods every four days, I have greatly reduced any processed sugar, artificial food dyes, and any other "non-whole foods."  Can you imagine if my kids would overdue artificial food dyes or processed sugars? Actually I know what happens, they will be sick the next day!

With many holiday parties coming up, I need to keep an eye on my kids and what they are putting in their mouths. You can call it "fussing" over my children or even micro-managing what they are eating, but you know what? I don't want them sick the next day! Why would I want them sick?? So they can lay on the couch all day and feel terrible? So life can stop for a day as we get them back to health? Why would I do this?? Even if our hosts make a lot of "junk," it doesn't mean we have to eat it.  A little bit is fine, but they cannot overdo it.  I don't want another anaphylaxis reaction in my house!!

My children have been told "no" many time to things they cannot eat and they are really good about it. I do not believe they need to eat everything that is served or that others should tell them what they can or cannot eat. Nobody else knows their diets as well as I do, and it probably looks like I am always the bad one when I tell them "no." They are just fine and will survive without that artificially dyed jello or the drink made completely out of artificial sugars.

I would like them to get to the point where they can make decisions for themselves and I don't need to monitor them. We have talked about nutrition A LOT and I want to be able to trust that they are making wise decisions when it comes to food.  Megan and Courtney both know about what food is good for them and what is bad for them, but when temptation is staring right at you, it's hard to turn it down! Especially Courtney! She just craves wheat and milk!!

Everything is a work in progress and I believe that is what food is to us. We are not perfect in what we eat and we will fail, but we can try our best to feed our bodies what is best.  Obviously, we know what happens when we don't!!!

Allergies are Back!

Courtney was doing so well when it came to her food allergies. She has been back on everything for awhile except peanuts.  We try our best to rotate foods every four days and she has not gotten sick.

This all changed last Sunday.  We were already staying home from church Sunday morning because Christian and I were sick on Saturday.  Courtney had some eggs and some peaches for breakfast and after awhile, us girls went upstairs and I showed them some of my old scrapbooks. When I did this, I stirred up some dust and had gotten some on her clothes and around where she was sitting.

About a half hour later, Courtney started complaining that her cheeks hurt.  We thought this was kind of odd, so we asked her whether it was her teeth and she just kept saying it was her cheeks.  After a couple of minutes, she started crying because her cheeks hurt so bad! I felt them and they were definitely swollen!

 It was lunch time, so we sat down to lunch, but Courtney just sat and the more we looked at her and listened to her say what hurt, we figured out it was an allergic reaction.  Within an hour, her cheeks, nose, and eyes were swollen and she was taking deep breaths. I was scared her throat was going to swell and we were going to have to run to the ER!

Matt and I gave her some ibuprofen for pain and then Matt ran to Baker's to get her some Benadryl.  We gave her that and she collapsed on the couch for the afternoon.  She got a bunch of blankets and just hung out there while the rest of us cleaned for Megan's birthday party that afternoon. 

By 4 pm, she was still swollen and pale, but the pain had gone away.  She ran around at the party and by the time the party was over, she looked a lot better. She also had a headache with this reaction.

She slept great that night and Monday, she also had a small reaction.  We were at the kitchen table doing phonics and within 10 minutes, her whole demeanor changed from happy go lucky Courtney to "I have no idea what you are talking about." She was trying to do phonics, but had no idea what she was reading. She had brain fog and a huge headache!! Again, I gave her some ibuprofen and she laid down for a couple of hours.

I called her doctor later that day and she thought it was a combination of the eggs, dust, and maybe some peanut cross-contamination from some store-bought cupcakes she had the night before. She said it definitely sounded like an anaphylaxis reaction, which Courtney has never had before!! She told me to keep an eye on her and call her next week. She wanted me to expose Courtney to these things one at a time to see if she would react again.

Things have been well until today. Today she woke up and complained of a stomach ache.  She went to the bathroom a couple of times and told me things were not good. She laid on the couch all morning and finally about noon, she got up to take a shower. Now she says she feels a lot better!

Now that she is better, she gets to go to school this afternoon. :)

I did call her doctor back this morning and I am going to take her in next week. We may need to do another food allergy test to see what is bothering her.

100 Ways to Honor a Veteran

I was looking tonight for something for us to do for Veteran's Day tomorrow. Last year, we wrote letters to an uncle to thank him for his service and I wanted to do something similar this year. I came across these articles and we might steal a few ideas tomorrow!

http://nowurthinking.com/100-ways-to-honor-a-veteran/

http://www.operationgratitude.com/get-involved/write-letters/

My children give me JOY!!!

Last night, we had a homeschooling/ church friend party for Megan.  We had school in the morning and then used all afternoon to get ready for the party.  We had a Halloween party here last week, so a lot of cleaning was done, but there was some to do yet.

Here are some phrases I heard throughout the day:

1.  (this one took place at 7:30 am) Megan: "Mom, what can I do to help?" Me: "Hmmm. The playroom needs to be picked up." Megan: "Ok" and she ran off to clean the playroom at 7:30 am!!!

In the afternoon, I heard much of the same.

2.  Megan: "What needs to be done yet?" Me: "Your bedroom needs to be picked up." Megan: "Ok" and off she goes.  She and Courtney both picked up their bedroom, made their beds, and finished cleaning the playroom.

3.  Courtney :"Can we decorate? Please?" I gave them a roll of streamers and told them to decorate whatever they wanted, but they had to work together! They put streamers in every doorway, around the banister, and even around the chandelier in the dining room!

4.  Megan and Courtney both helped clean up their perler beads off the dining room table and Christian got on the floor and picked those all up.

5.  They also cleaned up the lego mess in the living room.

6.  Later I heard, "What else can we do?"  "You can put all the plates, forks, cups, and napkins out."  They knew exactly what to do, and they got the job done!

7.  You know how Christian helped? He was Chef Christian!  I noticed that he kept wanting to "help" the girls, but was really only getting in their way, so he put on his apron and helped me make cupcakes! He's a great helper! He also helped by cleaning out the bowl after I made the cupcakes!

8. Once everything was done, they continued to ask what they could do. Seriously, are these MY children??  I felt bad that there was nothing left to do!!

At the end of the day, I was very proud of my girls (and boy).  If I was 8 and almost 11 and I knew my mom was cleaning the house for a party, I would've tried every trick in the book to get out of helping. But not my children- they WANTED to help!! I was so proud of their attitudes and their eagerness at the end of the day!

We had a lesson last week at church during D6 about our attitudes on  parenting. They had notecards on the tables and we were supposed to write down one word that described parenting to us.  My first thought was to write down a negative word, such as tiring, challenging, and hard, but I decided against it.  Honestly, yes, parenting is challenging and hard sometimes, but in in the end, it gives me joy. I wrote down "joyful" because that's what I think it is to me and yesterday, my girls (and boy) gave me lots of JOY!!!! 

Long Night and Big Day!

Anybody else up last night from 3-5 am?? I was woke up at 3:15 am thanks to a kid who had to go potty and get a drink.  I got him back to bed and about a half hour later, he was coughing pretty hard, so I went into the girls' room and got the vaporizer we had been using for Courtney and put it in Christian's room. Ok, back to bed again.  Fifteen minutes later, the boy is still coughing and I am tired, so I decide to pull out the albuterol. I know I shouldn't use this, but we all needed sleep! Two puffs and about five minutes later, he stopped coughing and was back to sleep.

Not so for myself, I was awake.  About 45 minutes later, I heard this unusual metal grinding noise and I turned to matt and said, "What was that??" He also heard it.  He got up and headed downstairs to inspect. It was the backflow preventer on the sprinklers! He had turned them on to run so they wouldn't freeze up, Matt hasn't winterized them yet, so he wanted them to run. I'm not sure how the backflow preventer is part of this, but apparently it is!  Everybody back to bed again. By the time this was over, it was about 4:30 am.

At 4:52 am, Matt got up. Apparently he couldn't get back to sleep and just got up for the day. Not me!! Once he got up, I eventually got back to sleep! When my alarm when off at 7:15 am, I was out! I am glad I set it!

I have to get up and get going because today is a big day! We're having school this morning and then Megan is having a church/ homeschooling friends party tonight, so we need to get ready for that!

It should be fun! It's birthday weekend, so the parties will continue until the big birthday on Monday!

Election Day

Have you ever thought about what you need to do to be able to vote in this country? I am going to make a lesson out of it tomorrow!!

http://www.ehow.com/list_5929466_qualifications-voting-rights.html

We're also going to talk about the history of election day. Fun, fun!!

Food Around the World

We are getting very close to finishing our unit on the human body in science and we are doing our last lesson on food tomorrow.  It is on food around the world, usual food, and different ways to eat.

I thought this site would be fun to see food in specific countries.

http://whatfoodlookslike.com/

This is an article that describes "food staples" and what the main staples are around the world.

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/food-staple/?ar_a=1

An easy intro to staple foods.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5414533_main-staple-foods.html

Update on the pets in our house

Things have changed in regards to our pets lately and it hasn't been a happy change. :(

1.  Last week, our pet fish, James, died.  He was a red beta and Courtney had him a couple of years. She took such good care of him!! She was really, REALLY upset when she realized he had died.  He had floated to the bottom of his tank and his gills were not moving. It was pretty sad.

Matt came home at lunch that day and we had a funeral for him in the backyard. He is now buried under our lilac bush.  Courtney wants to get another fish real soon!

2.  Our praying mantis has also died.  We knew this was coming though because she laid her egg case about two weeks ago.  We knew she was getting close to dying when she would just kill the boxelder bugs we gave her and not eat them. She stopped moving little by little and by yesterday, we could take her out of her terrarium and she wouldn't go anywhere. Right now, she is just laying on our counter.  We took her eggs, put them in a paper sack, and put them in the freezer.  We will pull them out again next April and hopefully have baby praying mantises.

3.  The grasshoppers are still alive! There is one though that is slowing down, but really, he only has four legs! The other two are still moving and eating! Courtney also loves these things and takes very good care of them! She was even bringing them to do the table to have school today, but I said they needed to go back to the counter.

I still think Courtney might be an entomologist some day or work in conservation, she does have a heart for animals!

Resistance in World War II

This is for school tomorrow. :)

We are continuing to make our way through American history and we are in the middle of World War II.  We are going to be talking about the resistance to the Germans tomorrow and I wanted to look at this topic a little bit more in-depth.

I want to stop on this topic because there is this place in Paris, France called the Catacombs. These are underground burial spots, but during World War II, the French Resistance set up headquarters there.  Matt and I visited the Catacombs when we were in Paris on our honeymoon, so I want to pull out my pictures tomorrow and show the girls.  Here is also an article about them.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20121025-exploring-the-history-of-catacombs
.
http://www.davidbarber.org/france/catacombs/index.html

Even though resistance took place all over Europe, there was another pocket in Munich that was also significant.  A young college girl named Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans distributed leaflets at the University of Munich and were eventually killed for their actions.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html

a short video https://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv1-yie9&p=sophie%20scholl%20and%20the%20white%20rose&type=