01:21/09: Can I start this day over?

Today was one of those days that I wish I could have started over and tried again. It seemed the the forces of not doing mom school were after me today! Our morning routine was total messed with for a number of reason and this afternoon we had various things going on. One thing was accomplished though: my suburban is out of the shop as of 5pm, thanks to my dad. So now I can actually drive somewhere and I don't have to schedule rides...sigh...

No Mom School Today! Alex was home this morning.
Idaho History: We filled out our packets for our "Day on the Hill" this Friday.

Olivia
Religion: Read a chapter in the Book of Mormon.
Family History: Read another biography of Olive Ward.
Math: Lesson 87
Language Arts: Prepositions
Typing: Typing an old biography of Olive Ward (her ggrandma and namesake for her grandma)
Government: Read in a Government book about how governments run.
Life Skills: She prepared several recipes today out of a Boxcar Children Cookbook. She made pancakes, corn bread, chocolate pudding and macaroni and cheese.
Had Activity Days.

Jared
Religion: Read one chapter in his Old Testament Reader.
Music: Practiced the piano.
Math: Lesson 78
Spelling: 1 spell drill
Handwriting: Did a cursive writing lesson.
Free Reading: Read 3 chapters of Eragon.
PE: 30 min of Wii boxing.
Science: Watched a science video about dinosaurs.
He had scouts.

Luke
Music: Practiced his piano lesson.
Science: Watched a science video about dinosaurs.
Math: Did one Saxon Math 2 lesson.
Spelling: 1 spell drill
Phonics/Handwriting: Did 5 pages of Explode the Code.
Free Reading: Read for over an hour in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
PE: 30 min of Wii sports.
He had scouts.

Caleb
Math: Did one math work book page.
Spelling: 1 spell drill.
Phonics/Handwriting: Did 7 pages of Explode the Code.
Science: Watched a science video about dinasaurs.
PE: 30 min of Wii sports.

To Show Parent Core/Love of Learner/Scholar here are some things we modeled to the children today...
Deanna: Scriptures, journal, went to a book club, help at Cub Scouts, laundry, packed, read A Tale of Two Cities for an hour in the evening, and overall resisted loosing my mind since my day was NOT in my control. (My dad was even teasing me about it when he drove me the 20 miles to get my vehicle).
Alex: Scriptures, read a chapter in the book Leadership 101 by Maxwell, scheduled a trip in March, went to work conference in Pocatello, listened to old recordings from the national radio archives.

Creative Writing Ideas

You may think from all my huge entries everyday that I make my kids do stuff all day. That's not true. (I do make them do Math, Grammar and Spelling though-but most of the time they do that willingly and the rest of the time they just do because they know they need to. They understand the big picture). We spent half our day just reading books together. I especially don't "make" my kids write. I try to inspire them and I provide outlets for them though. Olivia is old enough now that she can read and write beyond fluently so we've allowed her to have a blog. It is a great way for to her to write/journal/create! Once your children get a certain level and if they would like it I recommend it highly. I've also found that reports on Good Reads (or other online bookshelves) is another great place they will naturally want to write. All of this comes with the added bonus of typing and computer skills! Both blogging and good reads allows for private accounts if you feel safer with that. It's also a good teaching oppourtunity about what information to share and not share on line.

Here's a recent blog post she made that I copied. She was "tagged" and had to tell 8 things about herself. She's experimenting with parenthesis, quotation marks, and humor. Another thing I find interesting is that she seems to always take the opportunity to bear her testimony. The rising generation truly is great. Anyhow.. here's a great activity that she CHOOSE to do... (Also I don't edit her posts. We talk about them some times.)

1. I love horses(bet ya didn't know that!) I love riding, I've ridden in snow and rain it doesn't keep me away!

2. I love computers and being on them. It's so fun. I enjoy every minute with them, unless of course I'm "mad" at them.

3. My dream vacation is a cruise on the Mediterranean, I want to go on a cruise sooooooo bad!

4. I'm at work today with my dad! I love the time here. Just to be on computers is a day of dreams to me (really it is)!

5. I love goodreads and to add books to my "to read" shelf. Most of them I don't know if I'll even read but it's fun to add them.

6. We went to T*** today and went shopping, I got some new "fake" nails (I'm running out of idea's).

7. I'm a total Conservative, I just can't stand Obama. To tell you the truth I almost puked when I found out he won! I just can't stand for him. As I would say to my parents, "my father has taught me well" just so all of you know my dad is the vice chair district 25 Republican party. I love it, stand for truth and right.

8. My favorite place to be is Southern Idaho, in small towns like D****** and R****** I just can't stand big cities, sometimes even Twin can be a little to big for me. I have seen quite a bit of the US compared to most people my age, and I choose here (of course I have been here the longest). I do like SLC (Salt Lake City) but just temple square. Always having to drive slow, it's just not fun! And most of all there isn't any horses! Well there are but not western style (western style riding) horses.

As you can see I can have big opinions and they matter to me. I stand for truth and right. I don't let evil get in my way. It's hard I can tell you, it's not like there aren't trials. Last but not least and once again, I stand for truth and right.

Luke's latest story

Luke loves to write. That is one of the things he enjoys doing in his free time. He maintains he will grown up and be an author and an illustrator. When Luke starts working on a new story he is very focused and can't do anything else until he gets it all written and down. Maybe it's just in his head and he can't rest until he gets it out and written down. I don't know, but writing is very important to him. Here's his latest story.

Pithia: Legend of the horses

Written by and Illustrated by:Luke Sutter

Chapter one: Annie and Mike

One morning Annie and Mike were with their horse Lea. "Hi, Dad," said Mike. "Hi, Children," said dad. "Don't forget to feed the horses tonight." Mike groaned. "Do we have to?" asked Mike. "How can we run a farm without feeding the animals?" said dad.

Chapter two: School

The next morning it was school. Annie and Mike's teacher was Ms. Scott. She was a kind teacher, with blue eyes and black hair. When school was over they fed the animals. While they fed the animals they found a cave with shinning diamonds. "What's that?" said Mike. "I don't know" said Annie. "I think it's a lamp" said Mike. Mike picked the lamp up. Crack and the cave shook. "Ahhh" said Annie. "Let's get out of here" said Mike. "That was close" said Annie.

Chapter three: The flying horse

The next morning they poured the stuff from the lamp on Lea. Then wings grew out of her sides. "Wow" said Annie. They were flying on their horse! They lived happily ever after.

The End.

Daily Schedule for 9/30/08

Note: Our Younger Boys, who are in the Public School System this year, had a half of a day off for Parent Teacher Conference. We did not take this half day off at home.

This is actually Luke's pattern block creation, but I thought I'd put his in anyway.

Both
Pray/Pledge
Theology: Preach My Gospel, Lesson 3: Key Definitions and we studied the "10 Commandments"
Bible History: David and Abigail
Friend Article: Read 3 stories
Biography/American History: 2 Chapters of The Young George Washington
Read-a-loud: Read 1 Chapter from Prince Caspian
Music: Practiced the song "The Books of the Book of Mormon"
Science: Read the book, Science Close-Up: Crystals, by Robert A. Bell
Logic: Played with Pattern Blocks for 1 hour
Life Skills: Learned about Goal Setting and they each set a goal
PE: Lots of trampoline jumping
Reading: We take turns reading all of the above material everyday.
Science/Pet Care: Jared and Olivia each have a hamster that they are responsible for. They also take turns caring for our dog, cat and sea monkeys.

Jared
Music: Practiced his piano lesson
Math: Lesson 26
Logic: Did a Sudoku puzzle
Spelling: 1 Spell Drill
Handwriting: Cursive O's
Typing/Computers: Updated all his books on Good Reads by himself (much to my slight panic attacks, since it was on MY computer)
Free Reading: 1 1/2 hours Read Magic Tree House #9
Reading: 30 Min in his McGuffy Reader w/ me
Life Skills: Sorting Laundry

Jared's Pattern Block creation.

Olivia
Music: Practiced her voice lesson
American History: Read the book Welcome to Felicity's World 1774: Growing Up in Colonial America by American Girl
Math: Lesson 26
Spelling: 1 Spell Drill
Language Arts: Nouns and Verbs
Typing: Typed Luke's book onto the computer
Free Reading: 2 hours
Life Skills: Rice a Roni

And Olivia's...

Daily Schedule for 9/25/08

Both
Pray/Pledge
Theology: Preach My Gospel, Lesson 3: Holy Ghost
Bible History: Saul is jealous
Friend Article: Read 2 stories
Biography/American History: Read 4 1/2 chapters and finished The Young Tom Jefferson
Read-a-loud: Read 30 pages of Dinotopia
Geography: Learned how to use Bible maps and located Galatia, Phillipi, Ephesus, Thesselonica, and Corinth to name a few
Language Arts: Learned about poetry and read 8 poems in What Your 4th Grader Needs to Know, pgs. 42-47
Social/PE: Played at a homeschooling family's house for 2 hours outside
Science/Pet Care: Jared and Olivia each have a hamster that they are responsible for. They also take turns caring for our dog, cat and sea monkeys.

Jared
Music: Practiced his piano lesson
Math: Lesson 23
Math Drill: Addition Wrap ups: 7's and 8's
Spelling: 1 Spell Drill
Handwriting: Cursive I's
Logic/Small Motor Skills: Played with Legos for 1 hour

Olivia
Music: Practiced her voice lesson
Math: Lesson 23
Math Drill: Multiplication Wrap-up's: 5's and 6's
Spelling: 1 Spell Drill
Language Arts: Plural nouns
Typing: Typed a new life skills paper for Jared
Free Reading: Over 2 hours of The Work and the Glory #2

Dr. Aardsma's Spelling Drills

I've had numerous search hits to my site about Dr. Aardsma's Spell Drill in the short time I've had my homeschooling blog. So I thought I'd do a specific post on them.

I love them! For our family it's a great alternate medium to break up repetitious book work. They are a "computer game."

Here's how it works: You enter your name, grade and desired spelling list. (Abeka, Bob Jones, etc. It has about 7 lists). Once you've signed in it stores your name, "grade", spelling list and how you do each time. If you are in 4th grade you will receive 20 questions. The narrator gives you the word, then he repeats it in a sentence. You have two chances to spell it correctly. After that it will then show you the correct spelling and then you have to try to do it again until you get it correct. After several times of correctly spelling the same word from various spell drills that word is dropped. Each time you do a spell drill new words are added. But if you are a 4th grader you only ever get 20 words per session.

I enjoy it because the child is not endlessly quizzed on words they know and new words are given as they progress. Therefore, they can go through as quickly as they are able. They love the challenge to get a word they haven't been getting right. And like I mentioned early it just breaks the learning up into different mediums. A bonus for elementary children!

There is nothing flashy about this program. It rather boring appearance wise. It's simple and straight to the point. This is not an arcade game at all.

I hope this helps. Please ask questions in the comment box if you have them and I'll be happy to answer them!

Daily Schedule for 9/15/08

Both
Pray/Pledge
Theology: Preach My Gospel, Lesson 2: Resurrection and Judgement
Bible History: Samson and Delilah
Friend Article: 4 stories
Biography/American History: Finished Ben and Me, a children's bio of Benjamin Franklin
Read-a-loud: 1 chapter of A Horse and His Boy
Geography: Paris, France and the Palace of Versailles
Science: Watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy video on the Human Body
PE: Walked to the school and back to get the boys
Science/Pet Care: Jared and Olivia each have a hamster that they are responsible for. They also take turns caring for our dog, cat and sea monkeys.

Jared
Music: Piano lesson and piano practice
Science: Watched another Billy Nye video after "school" with the boys.
Math: Lesson 16
Math Drill: Multiplication Wrap-ups: 4's and 5's
Spelling: 1 spell drill
Handwriting/Phonics: 5 pages of Explode the Code
Phonics: Played a phonics game
Creative Writing: Wrote a hamster report
Typing: Typed a hamster report
Free Reading: Read 30 minutes of his Second McGuffy Reader with me
Life Skills: Made macaroni and cheese all by himself, passed it off his skills list
Scouts: Worked for 30 minutes on his scouting requirements

Olivia
Music: Practiced her voice lesson
Math: Lesson 16
Math Drill: Division wrap-ups: 3's and 5's
Spelling: 1 spell drill
Language Arts: More nouns and verbs
Creative Writing: Wrote a report on hamsters
Computers: Studied two Microsoft Office/Word books to help her on her computer. They were recommended to her by Debra her aunt. She looked at them for about 30 minutes and got some good ideas.
Typing: Typed her hamster report. She typed a recipe for the family recipe blog.
Free Reading: Finished The Dark Hills Divide #1 and started The Work and the Glory #2
Life Skills: Made Key Lime pie and Egg rolls
PE: Went on a bike ride early this AM while Alex walked the dog.

Olivia's Hamster Report

My Hamster Report
By Olivia Sutter

Hamsters are unique. They are small, but mighty chewers. They can climb surprisingly well, and are cute and soft. I have logged about the way I want to take feed, and care for my hamster.

I want to feed my hamster, hamster mix with an occasional bite of fruit or two.
I will also give my hamster fresh water to drink. I know that, that will help it live longer and be healthier. I won’t let my cat or dog get her.
I will name it Heidi probably, because I bought my cage from a person named Heidi. I am very exited to have a hamster because I will have personal responsibility to take care of it. I won’t get a dwarf hamster because, my cage isn’t big enough. I can’t wait…

Here is a funny story about a hamster…

Katie Greenie woke up to the sound of the ocean outside her home. her twelve children were still in bed and were sound asleep snuggling together.
She went out of her home and started going on her morning walk, past the “big tree” and past the beach house until, she came to the dock.
The fishermen were bringing home the morning catch. If she could hurry she could get her children up and fed, and get some fish before the fishermen were gone. It was a good idea because, as she thought she realized that today was, food hunting day.
She hurried home to her children. As she came home she called, “Up Veronica, up Willy, up Martha, up Tomas, up Deanna up Joyce, up Abigail, up Heidi, up Taylor, up Brandon, Hallie and Hannah.” Then she screamed as she went into the bedroom “WAKE UP.” Then there was some action, a lot of action. Everyone jumped up, ran to the breakfast table and gulped the food down as fast as they could, then ran to exactly five feet away from her and halted! Then they evened themselves out the eight girls on the left and the four boys on the right.
“What do you have to tell us mother?” asked Willy, the oldest of the children.
Katie replied “I have seen the fisherman bringing home their morning catch. If we hurry we can get there before they take it all to the market.”
“So let’s___? I can’t here you,” she said. “So let’s, GO!” all her children said.
So away they went. They went past the “big tree, past the beach house and to the dock. The fisherman were still there. “Hurray!” her children cried. While the sailors were arguing about what market to take the fish to they slipped into the boat. Katie and her family got five medium sized fish.
The end

Jared's hamster paper

This is a paper that Jared typed today...

A hamster in the wild does not have fun. Oh, how I will watch it run. Oh, how I will watch her run in her ball. Her name will be Erica. I want a white one. I will giver my hamster a block of wood. I will feed it hamster food. I will exercise it all night. I will let it sleep all day. A hamster in a cage has fun. THE END