September- Start of Fall Term

We are loving school and things are going so well!! 

From fb:

All aboard the Hogwarts Express! Today is the first day of Fall Term smile emoticon 14 weeks until the Christmas Holidays!

My uncle commented:

Question? I know that homeschool is better for you guys but what are you going to do to make sure that they learn to socialize and interact with regular kids? I think that's half the reason to send your kid to regular school because then they don't have any social kinks which tend to get worked out by strangers and a constant flow of a variety of interactions from different people all the time! Just wondering but I still think you're very courageous and brave to take on such a task!

I replied:

Good question! Actually, that is the first question most people have when they learn that we homeschool. We have studied and pondered about the socialization issue a lot! I guess my question to you is, what does "regular" mean to you? If you mean, "like everyone else" than my answer is I don't want them to be like everyone else, I want them to be their best selves! If you mean that they can make friends easily, be respectful to people who are different from them, and enjoy a wide variety of personalities than I would say they would definitely be NOT normal children! Or humans even! Because "regular" people aren't like that. =o] I am grateful for your question, and I hope I can answer it adequately by saying that we are being intentional about making sure our kids will not turn out to be awkward hermits. We have co-ops and sports teams and play groups and church groups and neighborhood friends and extended family that we see and spend quality time with almost every day! Our written social goals for our home education are that our children will be able to make friends wherever they go, and create meaningful, mutually beneficial life long relationships with friends and family members. Maybe I am biased, but I think we are reaching these goals with flying colors! They play with children of all ages and backgrounds every time we go to the library or the park or any activity really. They have friends that we no longer live near that they keep in contact with and we make an effort to see them whenever they are here or we are near them. Again, I know I am biased but I feel strongly that this type of socialization is just as valuable and valid as sitting in a room with the same 25 other children every day only getting to play for a 20 minute recess and maybe talk a bit throughout the rest of the day. As they grow older we will continue to reevaluate as needed but for now we feel good about the situation. Ha Ha you weren't expecting such an earful, eh? Sorry! But you did ask =o]

Here is our Fall daily schedule.

We love checking out all the different libraries in Salt Lake county and experiencing the different flavor of each one!

One of our learning to read tools will be BoB Books. 

Natalie started her 3rd grade list of chapter books...

From fb:

Our literature comprehension curriculum from the summer of studying author/illustrators is continuing into the fall, but we are taking it up a notch with the accompanying assignments/activities. The next couple weeks will be a unit on Mo Willems. Talk about a prolific writer we can all appreciate!! Me and Seth are just as excited even though we aren't pictured smile emoticon

One of the library books had an audio cd to go with it that had Mo himself at the mic! It was hilarious! In an interview after the story he said it is super important to him for every kid to have the opportunity to write their own book, so we decided that would be our project for this unit!

They both started their tech classes with Caleb in Lego Robotics and loving it!

And Natalie trying her hand at electricity circuits and learning a ton!

We are doing k12 math again so the kids can gain the common core math skills they need. Despite what others may say, I understand why the way math is being taught now makes sense if you start out with it. I really do feel bad for the older kids who got thrown into a completely different system than they were used to, but I can see how the techniques build on each other and give kids the chance to find the strategy that works best for them. I was not good at math growing up, but now I find myself using strategies I am teaching to Natalie because they MAKE SENSE in a way math never has for me before! I do not agree with the Language Arts or History curriculum I have researched and experienced personally with common core, but I am grateful for the new math. 

We read this book and then for our project in true oral traditions style told stories about our teeth. 

For example, Caleb has an extra tooth that is turned sideways! 

We went to the aquarium of course.  

We went to book club. 

Caleb presented on a book he wrote about Star Wars.

We even read from one of the Star Wars learning to read books my mom let us borrow. 

More Tech class projects. 

Another day at the library. Does it seem monotonous? It isn't. At least it isn't YET. 

We did our book project of making books like Mo Willems. It was adorable to hear their stories and see their illustrations!

Uncle Jonathan was visiting and he participated like a champ!

We went to a Provo eSchool picnic. 

We watched a Mo Willems movie from the library that was HILARIOUS!

We made chocolate chip cookies like the dinosaur in one of his books and the movie we watched. 

Here is our social studies map where we mark the location of the non-fiction stories we read. 

We learned about static electricity.  

Here is Natalie working on her spelling notebook.

We went to the jungle in the museum of curiosity. So AWESOME!! Thanksgiving Point is basically our Disneyland replacement. =o]

We even got to check out their cool entomology lab!

There is a new exhibit about sight!

Ah the water works! They get so wet in so little time!

The theater!

The train station!

The playgrounds!

The discovery gardens!

We did a food, supplies, and clothing drive for the Syrian refugees by going door to door in our neighborhood and collaborating with a local group who was shipping it out to an island where people are literally washing up on shore. We are so blessed to live here, I just had to do something!!

We had a great response and I hope our work will make a difference somewhere!

Natalie read a chapter book about a gorilla that could paint so we finger painted just like Ivan for a project one week. 

I was super nervous about teaching Caleb to read before we started the Fall term, but things are going well! I'm so grateful for this chance I have to strengthen our relationship in this way!

One week we "quilted" a patch of felt with the theme of apples. It was amazing to see their creativity!

Caleb has the dexterity to embroider like a grandma and the ambition to try anything at least once, so after a few technique examples and helping him position his pieces he was off!

Sometimes I feel bad for Natalie because the other kids NEED my help so much that I expect too much of her. She had the cutest plan to make a "show way" quilt to the apple orchard we would be visiting for our field trip, but she got so frustrated because this was her first real stitching project and she couldn't do it perfectly so it wasn't good enough for her. She is so smart and wants to do it just right that sometimes she gives up when it isn't easy or perfect. I need to pray about how to help her with this, because it is a life skill she needs to master now when it is only pieces of felt on the floor.

Caleb's "Farmer under an apple tree holding an apple and an apple growing book".

Jenna wanted to do a pink tree so we made this apple blossom tree together. She is getting so big! She could probably do more than she does if I pushed her harder. The problem is that in my mind I have two groups of kids: the big kids and the little kids. I need to shift my perspective to me having four kinds of kids because I have four kids!!

This is as far as she got when I could finally concentrate on her once the others were done but because they were done she wanted to be done. I decided this wasn't the battle to pick. Her apple was super cute and so were the corner patches! It would have been awesome I'm sure. *Sigh*

We also love the museum of ancient life!

Hooray for apple picking in the Fall!

This farm had delicious apple cider!

(My friend took this picture with me in it. Is it lame that sometimes I feel sad that I'm never in the pictures? Apparently it's a good thing I wasn't born in the selfie generation lol! =o])

We made applesauce!

For a book project Natalie looked through Kent's baseball cards with him.

It was so cute hearing him tell her all kinds of stories and seeing them so interested and mutually engaged! Some of his cards are actually worth money, like this stack of SIGNED Micheal Jordan cards he won at some random event when he was a kid!

One of our neighbors is a ballet teacher so one morning we went over and did a music and movement class with her. I didn't take pictures because I was participating, but here are the kids playing outside afterwards. It was fun!

Here are the kids doing a writing project- a newspaper article!

I love our little green table!

We had a great time studying about lunar eclipses! Except for the part where we went up to the planetarium and it was closed for repairs. LAME!!

We made a mobile replicating the phases the moon will go through to become a "blood moon".

We got to go on a field trip to a homestead! My friend from high school Davido and his family have their very own working farm. They eat their rabbits and drink their goat milk and it was AMAZING to see it all!! Plus, it was our biggest turnout yet for the Friday Friends group!

Rebecca came since this place is only like 10 minutes from her house. Seth and Jenna were so excited to see Owen and Maris on one of our field trips! 

She taught us about all the different kind of bird eggs they have and can eat.

They got to hold a lot of different animals! Right after I took this picture this chick pooped all over Natalie's hand and Jenna never touched another animal while we were there lol!

We brought my homeschooled cousin Elizabeth along with us. She and Natalie have a great time together!

We got to try goat milk and she told us each goat's milk tastes different! I like the second one better than the first, but they were both good!

Then we went to Salem Pond after and had a "picnic" with friends except the kids just ate in the car on the way there and on the way home so they could play the whole time!

That weekend was the Blood Moon! I didn't get any good pictures with my camera or phone. They just don't do it justice! We got the kids up to see it. Caleb thought it was cool but Natalie didn't like it and she told me the next morning that she kept checking out her window to be sure it changed back to normal. 

It did! =o]

The next author we studied was David Shannon. We love his books too! We made books like his "No David!" by taking pictures of the kids breaking family rules and making wrong choices and then printing them out and letting them annotate them. It was hilarious! 

Caleb had a bit of a hard time with his book for reasons that shall remain a mystery to history...

But Natalie laughed hysterically the entire time she was writing!

And Jenna drew the cutest pictures ever and wrote her name on the cover which you can kind of see on the top. 

The month flew by! I'm sure they will keep doing that!!