12/12 - 12/19

12/12 - Read aloud - I have had some random books from the library that I have been wanting to read to the kids, so we read those today.
Math - Sierra is working on long division and is getting it easily now. I first introduced it when it showed up in her 3rd grade math book and she was not at all ready for it. One more point for homeschooling, we can wait until our kid is ready for concepts and they come easily instead of forcing them to struggle with ideas earlier.
Instruments
Independent Reading - I am having Sierra read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I read it aloud 2 years ago, but I thought it would be a great December book. Chalk another one up for homeschooling, my kid can read a book with religious ideas for school without the separation of church and state police hunting me down...

12/15 - Read Aloud - We finally got all of our Charlemagne books that I had put on hold at the library, so we did Chapter 13 of SOTW2. We have only been working on SOTW2 for a year and a half...
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading

12/16 - Read aloud - more random stuff
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading
Copywork

12/17 - Read aloud -random
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading
Freewriting

12/18 - first day of Christmas Break!


I love that I can decide when our break starts. I did struggle to keep doing school that last week and a half. It was especially difficult since my parents had been visiting the first week of December, but I pushed myself to get back into (sort of) school mode for 5 more days before finally gave in and proclaimed it "Christmas Break."

A couple of schooly moments to share. My oldest has been begging me to let her write at bedtime. The girls are allowed to read in their beds for 45 minutes at bedtime. For a while I would also let them write, but then my oldest would just end up drawing and she would never read. She doesn't read on her own during the day unless I make her for school, so bedtime is her reading for pleasure time. We ended up having to make the rule that the 45 minutes before lights out had to be used for reading. It is exciting to see her so motivated to write. We don't do a lot of writing for school at least compared to public school, so it is encouraging to see her have a desire to write.

My youngest is a trip. She would be in kindergarten this year. Some days, I feel guilty that I don't do enough school with her and other days I think, "Hey, it's only kindergarten." It's just that the public schools have started doing more and more academic stuff earlier and earlier. It is hard not to feel like she is somehow behind if she is not reading fluently and doing multiplication by the end of kindergarten... Anyway, the other day she was playing with these magnets that she had gotten for her birthday. She was going around the house finding things that were magnetic. I was like, science, check! I mean I have set up that experiment with my older girls and here she is doing it on her own. Also, she got a science kit for her birthday that she and her sisters have been begging me to do with them. Man, homeschooled kids are such nerds :)
Then on another day we were having read aloud time and Arwen gets out her math book and starts working on it. Just for fun. alright I think I will stop feeling guilty about my poor educationally neglected kindergartner.

So now we are on break. I plan to start back with school on January 5th. We'll see though. Who knows? We're homeschoolers we can start back up whenever we want. And we don't really stop learning during the break. We have been making goodies, doubling recipes, and reading aloud a Christmas book (The Family Under the Bridge). The girls are planning Christmas Eve festivities including a play, a parade, and stories. All of the activities are on schedule that is hanging on our wall. And I snuck some educational toys into the Christmas gifts. I will post any exciting educational moment we have during the break or I will post when we start back January 5th or whenever. We can do whatever we want. We're homeschoolers!

The Last Three Weeks

When I last posted it was the week before Thanksgiving.

11/24 - Choir rehearsal all afternoon.
11/25 - I think we did school this day... a short day - read aloud, math, worked on books the older 2 are writing for Christmas presents.
11/26 - Arwen's birthday

12/1 -read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/2 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/3 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments... Picked up grandma and grandpa from airport
12/4 - choir
12/5 - choir performance at Festival of the Trees

12/9 - visited museums on campus - earth science, life science, and peoples and cultures
12/10 - art class
12/11 - math club

Played with state and capitals cards with grandma and grandpa were visiting.