Thanksgiving in Sunriver

Going to Sunriver for Thanksgiving was a favorite family tradition for us when I was in high school and college, so this trip was extra-special for us this year. My parents and Phuong's brother Quoc and his wife Chau also joined us. We rented a big house with ping-pong, fuse-ball, air hockey, lots of movies and toys for the kids.



We went to the Teddy Bear Tea at the Lodge...here's Olivia trying to hold her pinky up and drink tea at the same time...takes a lot of concentration.



We went on a VERY short sleigh ride in the freezing cold


Gramma entertained all the children at once...she's good at that.


Miss Miriam enjoying a puzzle.

Homeschooling Week 16

Homeschooling Week 16

I've gotta catch up with this since I'm using this blog also as our personal records of the school year. We have been having a fun time doing school and are in a pretty good routine. It normally takes us about 2 or 2 1/2 hours a day and we try to get this done in the morning.

Bible We studied the stories about Noah, the Tower of Babel and Abram. Olivia reads the story in her Bible Reader and then illustrates the story in her notebook. Our Bible verse was Proverbs 30:5 "Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him." We discussed how Noah and his family were kept safe during the flood because they believed in God. Olivia gets to illustrate the Bible stories in her Bible notebook
Here's her tall tower

And our attempt at making a tall tower...mmm i think we were missing something here.

Reading We learned that "ew" says "oo" as in spoon and short vowel "e" spelled "ea"
The reading from her Bible reader is the main reading that we do. I also have her read other first readers such as Dr. Seuss and Little Bear.

Math We spent the week looking at different types of graphs. We do this every day in our weather graph so this was an easy concept. One of the suggested activities was graphing all the types of animals included in a box of animal crackers. I figured math that included cookies couldn't go wrong.


Science: We studies rainbows to go along with the promise that God made to Noah to never flood the earth again. We learned Roy G. Biv and did this fun little craft.

First, a bunch of little squares of tissue paper



Then glue them on



Ta Da...finshed product.



And one of our little rocker


That was week 16 - And I want to say we might have done this one in two weeks due to few things that were going on - one being Thanksgiving which will be my next post.

Autumnal Park

The word "autumnal" is written at least twice in "A Wrinkle in Time." It's appropriate here too, i suppose.
Sara and I met at the park for some fresh air when the sun was out last week. Good times.





I just have to say that I LOVE babies with their pacifiers... one of the cutest things to me.

Homeschooling Weeks 15-16

Well, I missed last weeks' highlights, so I'm hitting
both weeks now. We are having such a fun year so far...
what with volcanoes and planets, it's hard not to have
a good time.

Let's see...Drew finished up his unit on the letter A
and Apples; we made this fun little craft which included
dipping his finger in paint.


In Bible we are continuing to learn the books of the OT in order and have memorized
them through Nehemiah. We are also going through specific
stories from Genesis and have covered the First Sin and Cain
and Abel. Our memory verse was Provers 13:13 - "He who
scorns instruction will pay for it, but he who respects a
command is rewarded." Cain paid a consequence for his sin
by being unable to farm again and no longer having a place
to call home.

Here's a photo of our Sabbath Day meal that we celebrated
when we covered Day 7 of creation. God commanded his people
to also rest on the seventh day of each week. As a family,
we could definitely use some work on keeping a special day
of the week for rest. Sundays are certainly fun-filled days
for us, but they are not necessarily restful.


In math
we finished place value and moved onto measuring...thought i had
a photo of this, but can't find it now. Here's a couple of the
daily math worksheet using money to count out the number of the day.


In Science we blitzed through volcanoes and and moved onto planets. here's a picture of our erupting volcano.

As a special treat and to conclude our planet unit, i took
the kids to OMSIto watch a film in the planetarium. They were
thoroughly impressed with the rounded screen and the incredible
look of outer-space.
Olivia in a space capsule

Drew working a generator - a 4-year old boys' dream playing with electrical wires!!


Whew! That's our two weeks in a nutshell...we are truly
having a ball with school right now - hope it stays that way.
I'm participating in weekly highlights with Mishmash Maggie

October Highlights

Well, i can't let October slip by without
including some photos from our fun at multiple
pumpkin patches. Here are a few of my favorites
from the month.






I am actually working on getting photos with me in them.
i am really working on it, but it's hard to find photos
of myself that i actually like - let along worthy of
blogging. So, there's just the cutie kids for now.

Homeschooling Week 14

In Bible we learned Proverbs 14:30 "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones." This was a cool verse for us because Olivia's name means "peace." We talked about how God wants us to be content with what we have and not to always be wishing or craving other people's things or talents. A good lesson for everybody.

In Math we finished our unit on subtraction and moved on to place value.

Reading: we are working on memorizing the books of the Bible in order and have made it to I Samuel. Drew and Olivia both amaze me how quickly they memorize things. They rattle it off like they've always known them. Funny!

We are also talking about the days of Creation and working on illustrating our own Bible notebook.



Science: I am a lesson behind, but hope to catch up this week. We did the drawing and projects for our Under the Sea lesson. The first was putting a spoon in a glass of water and looking at how the spoon looks bent because of the light reflected from the spoon bends when it leaves the water to go into the air and to you eye.

The Second project was looking how pressure increases in deeper water.


We have been reallying enjoying the Art part of the curriculum.
Here is Olivia's Leo the Lion rendition.

This was the extent of our week - we did a fun field trip to a pumpkin patch with some friends on Tuesday and a Halloween party on Friday. It was a short week academically speaking, but hey, that's what it's about sometimes especially when you are in kindergarten.

Homeschooling Week 12

Last week was such a fun week for us. We started off going to see a theater production of Winnie-the-Pooh downtown Portland with some friends. We have been enjoying the chapter book Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne so this was perfect! We weren't allowed to take photos inside the theater so here is one of our little group in the lobby.


In Bible we are studying Proverbs 13:1 A wise son heeds his father's instruction, but a mocker does not listen to rebuke. Olivia also started memorizing the books of the Old Testament - Genesis and Exodus.

For Reading Olivia is learning that the letter "y" makes the long i and long e sounds as in fly or baby. She is also really enjoying reading aloud from the Bible Reader.

Science is my area of weakness as far as staying on top of library books and experiments. We studied Beaches, Waves, Sea, Seashore, and Shells. Thankfully we spend a lot of time at the beach as a family so it definitely wasn't a new topic. These were are two favorite books from our library basket.



And here is Olivia creating waves with a rope. We noticed that the rope doesn't move forward when there is a wave only up and down. When waves are near the shore, they drag on the ocean floor and that moves the water forward.


We are slowing meanering through MFW K with Drew as he spends 2 days a week at preschool. We are on Lesson 4 Apple: If I stay in Jesus I will have much fruit. Here are a few of Drew making his own applesauce. He LOVES to help me in the kitchen. If I'm cooking, he definitely wants to help. I really let him do the majority of this project himself.




And that's our week!
I'm participating in Weekly Highlights from my friend Lainie at Mishmash Maggie