Home School Summary - Spring 2013

READING
Scout:  Phonics Pathways (pgs 100-180)
            The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (lessons 70-170)

Independent Readers:  Too many to count thanks to Book Adventures!  The most memorable this semester were Hour of the Olympics and The Tales From The Odyssey books by Mary Pope Osborne
                       

Read Alouds:  The Saturdays, Mary Poppins, Greek Myths, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Toys Dance Party, My Father's Dragon trilogy, Roman Myths and Toys Come Home

                    

River:  Teach your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons (lessons 40-60)

Independent Readers:  BOBs books, Levels 1 - 5 from Carrie Lane's "book boost" list

Read Alouds:  Eric Carle Books, Nursery Rhymes, Alfie books, Tall Tales, My Father's Dragon Trilogy and most of Scout's read-alouds

PHONICS
Scout:  Explode the Code (3, 4)
River:  Get Set Ready for the Code and Go for the Code

All About Spelling - Level 1 - completed    Level 2 - steps 1-6 

                                                                        
HANDWRITING
Scout: Writing With Ease - level 1
            Printing Power
River: My First School Book






LANGUAGE
Scout:  First Language Lessons - level 1 (lessons 39-100) finished! 


MATH
Scout - MathUsee Beta (lessons 1-19)
River - MathUsee Primer (lessons 1-18)

         

HISTORY
The Story of the World - Ancients  (chapters 12 - 29)


Read Alouds: too many too count! Some of our favorites were:
The Legend of the Persian Carpet, The Hero and the Minotaur, Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children, The Librarian who Measured the Earth, King Midas and the Golden Touch, The Persian Cinderella, Mr. Semolina-Semolinas, Cupid and Psyche, Is my Friend Home? Pueblo Fireside Tales


Independent Readers:  Monster in the Maze, Tales from the Odyssey, The Trojan Horse, Hour of the Olympics, The Flying Horse, Romulus and Remus
 

SCIENCE
R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey - Space
Volcanoes, the Earth's Surface, Rocks and Minerals  

FINE ARTS:
Music: The Orchestra, Bach, Mozart, Hadyn
Art: Edgar Degas, George Sueratt, Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh   

Elitch Gardens

Scout has been asking to go to Elitch Gardens for the last 2 years because every time we go to the Children's Museum, she sees the roller coasters across the street.  This year we gave her the Option of having an official birthday "party" or having a family day at Elitch Gardens and she quickly chose the later : )  This was all before we found out the Mary Poppins on Broadway would be in town on her actual birthday.  We surprised her with the Mary Poppins tickets but we still wanted to honor her Elitches request.  We picked Friday May 10th hoping to avoid the weekend crowd and Tony and my parents took the day off.  When I went to purchase the tickets online, I was bummed to see that the park was actually closed that day for a private event.  After some googling, I realized the "private event"  was a homeschoolers day.  What are the odds?!!  Turns, out we were all able to purchase super discounted tickets for this particular day and even earned a free ticket to be used anytime this summer, so Tony and Scout can come back for a daddy daughter roller coaster date : )  We had such a great day!  The weather was beautiful (except for a short rain shower right before we left) and there were hardly any lines at all for the kids.  We spent most of the day in one area of the park near the "kiddie" rides but  since this was their first time being there, Scout and River were thrilled with all of it.  Ryder hung in there until the very end : ) My parents were super helpful taking turns holding Ryder and riding with the kids.  We will definitely plan on attending this homeschool event every year and I'm glad that Scout and Tony will get another chance to enjoy the bigger roller coasters together this summer : ) Just one more reason we love living here! Love. Our. Life. 

AmyLee Scout turns 7!

Oh my goodness!  Can my baby girl really be seven years old?  God has truly blessed and challenged me : ) with my creative, adventurous, full-of-life AmyLee Scout.   She is definitely not a little girl anymore, but is growing into a beautiful and talented young lady.  I feel completely and totally honored and blessed to be her mom.  I had Scout when I was just 22 so I was just a kid myself and I feel like we have sort of grown up together in a lot of ways.  I had to figure out parenting with her, figure out preschool, holidays, family traditions, homeschooling etc. with her.  (hopefully she will forgive me for my many mistakes!) 
I call her my "curve ball" because she seems to surprise me just when I think I have things figured out.  Scout is truly incredibly helpful to me with taking care of the house and watching her little brothers.  I honestly don't know what I would do without her and I firmly believe that one of the reasons we are able to have a big family is because of how helpful and responsible Scout is.  She absolutely loves life and it is so thrilling to watch her drink up all of the wonder and magic that each day brings.  She LOVES to learn, learn learn about anything and everything.  She's at this fantastic age where she just soaks up everything.  She loves fairy tales and ancient myths. Coloring, coloring, coloring.  She would live outside if she could.  She has more energy then I can wrap my mind around.  She has always loved being read to, but in the last 6 months her own reading has really started to take off and it brings such joy to my heart to see her falling in love with reading.  This has been such an exciting and fun year filled with snuggles and love and laughter and I'm loving every minute of watching my little fairy princess fly!  So blessed.
My prayer for Scout has always been: "Live honestly, Love deeply."

Scout's Favs -  This is what she said : )

Book:   Mary Poppins
Place to be:  Nana and Poppa's house
Toy:  Katamino
Activity:  playing piano
Season: Fall
Restaurant: Red Robin
Color:  pink and purple
Movie:  Brave
Song:  In Christ Alone
Composer: Vivaldi
Artist: Claude Monet
Food: pizza
Subject: piano and reading
Place to go:  the reservoir


  

This year, we decided to celebrate Scout's birthday a little differently than we have in past years.  Instead of a "birthday party" we surprised Scout with tickets to see Mary Poppins on Broadway the day after her birthday.  On her actually birthday we celebrated her all day with special little things present for her to unwrap throughout the day, she got to make all the choices for the day, we met daddy for lunch at Chickfila and ended the day by sharing a cookie cake with our Bible study group.  I was a little nervous about her missing the whole party thing, but it turned out the be the best birthday yet.  Because it was mellow and relaxed, we were able to really savor all the little things throughout the day and enjoy it.  It was also and entire day of celebrating instead of just a couple of hours and if was much less stressful and chaotic.  I am looking forward to many more birthday like this as the kids get older.  Here are some of the highlights of the day : ) 

Scout hugging River after reading the card that he made for her : ) Everyone enjoyed playing with the balloons.
  piano books she waited patiently for...
  River gave sissy a Brave figurine set.  Scout and River colored for an hour after breakfast.  It's funny to see how fun the little things like coloring are when we aren't on our typical "school day" routine... makes my heart happy to see them coloring like it's the most fun thing in the world : )

Scout wanted a cookie cake this year.  Here she is blowing out all 7 candles as our Bible study group helped us celebrate.  Perfect end to a fantastic day.