This is my last post at this blog, I've got a new one. It has a better Latin name then this one. I wasn't happy with this one, but it was the best I could do at the time.

So here's the link: www.cogitationisliberae.blogspot.com . This one will still be here, I'm not going to delete it, but please note the new address, and come visit us there!

Thanks.

We are on week three of the "new school year" now. It will be mid-Sept before I have everything worked into the schedule, but for now we're doing math, science, history, Latin, medieval lit read alouds, classic lit read alouds, memory work and handwriting as a group. Kyden is also doing spelling, Aralia is also doing reading lessons, and Zaith is also doing phonics lessons. We're concentrating on Earth and space science, and on the medieval period for history.

Next month, we'll add art once a week. Kyden will also start doing writing four times a week and grammar three times a week. Zaith will also start doing math.

One of the projects we did for history was to make a pocket. In the time period we're studying right now (the end of the Roman Empire) pockets had yet to be invented. Instead, people had sort of portable pockets which they hung on their belts.

This pocket actually fit right in with the outfit Aralia had chosen to wear that day. DH and the kids are fans of the cartoon Samarai Jack. Its really a pretty neat cartoon, not many words, and different from other cartoons. Its about a samarai transported in time to the future, he's trying to get back to his own time and along his journey in a very strange land he battles his arch nemesis Aku the shapeshifter. To emulate Jack, who is a character worth emulating, my kids take white tee-shirts and convert them into Jack-style clothes. They wear one tee shirt the correct way, and the other one, the one that goes on the bottom, they stick their legs through the arm holes and that leaves the rest of the shirt hanging down something like a kimono. Sometimes they wear this outfit to bed even.

For Latin, we've been learning the words for family members. Mater for mother, pater for father, frater for brother, soror for sister. Basic stuff. :) We had a workbook page that called for the kids to draw a picture of their family members and label them. Kyden did the artwork while the other two looked on. This is what he came up with.

Zaith is under the table, which oddly enough, he often is during meals. I don't think that was intentional on Kyden's part but it's realistic. Kyden also drew Aralia in her glasses.

Thats Kyden working out of his Zaner Bloser handwriting workbook. Tomorrow is his LAST page in the workbook. Woo hoo! We do the Finished Workbook Dance everytime we finish a workbook, have a treat of some kind. Next week he'll start the Zaner Bloser book that teaches cursive. We've worked on cursive a little bit already. We're going to start this next book in the middle, the first half of the book is devoted to more manuscript writing. Which Kyden has down so no need to waste time there. Just going to jump in to the cursive. He reads it pretty well, gets a little confused with all the loops when he tries to write bigger words.

To be fair, here is where Aralia is on her handwriting. She does these type of worksheets from donnayoung.org combined with the ZB level K workbook, where the writing is a little smaller. We also do copywork of short sentences once or twice a week.

And this is what Zaith is doing, printing readiness worksheets.

Unless he gets bored with those, then he starts drawing. No, that is not his artwork, thats Kyden's. DO NOT tell Kyden that Zaith drew on his art.


Zaith is working on his vowel sounds, the short vowel sounds. We did A last week, one activity we did was to make an anteater. He cut out the shapes and we put brads in it so it moved.

Later on that day, someone put the anteater in a wet spot on the counter, and the anteater was no more.

Kyden's been working on adding 4-digit numbers. We started out working them on the abacus, where he could see the trading (carrying), the place values, and to visually experience what happens when you add.

Now he's at the point where he doesn't use the abacus to do the worksheets. He's doing just fine with it, but math is just not something he's very interested in. Last week he earned the privilege of playing PS2 over the weekend, this week he has not. Not unless he can earn 5 mathitude marks in one half hour math session tomorrow. Not very likely.

Oh, and I gotta tell about this. Yesterday Kyden just had a bad day. He got upset with some of his schoolwork and the dog got ahold of one of his toys and chewed it to pieces, through no fault of Kyden's own. He was very angry. He came to me with this picture

This, he said, was what he wanted to do to get rid of his anger. So I blew up a balloon for him, and he went to town on it.

I usually discourage the word "stupid". I tell them they can't use the word stupid until they're grown up enough to use it wisely. :P Ya know, cause its okay to call things or situations stupid some of the time, but not people and not in a way that hurts people. The distinction can be hard for younger kids, so they have to wait. But in this case, I decided to let it go, and you notice the balloon says "stupidness" so he IS mindful of the rule, even if he is bending it.

Horrid! Don't you love it?

Then he took a yarn needle and popped it. Said he felt better.

Here's our doggy.

And here's miss Aralia in a dress that I made for her.

Yes I sewed that. I actually sewed that last summer, but it turned out too big, so she's wearing it this summer. Sewing is not my forte. I never get sewing projects right. Once I made a pair of shorts out of fabric with a one-way whale pattern. I was very careful not get the pattern upside down. But I got the pattern upside down anyway. And of course I didn't notice til the whole thing was finished.

And this? This is the most perfect loaf of bread to come out of my bread machine ever. Yeah, I thought it was worth a picture. Indulge me.

Ok, there's a couple of pics to prove that we have been doing lessons, despite lack of documentation. :P Thats Aralia working on a Happy Phonics game, and Kyden doing math at the kitchen table.

In other news, we got a new car. This is the old one, it was an Aztec and we loved it. We just got too big for it. The kids were jam packed into the back seat. So we got a minivan. I don't have a picture of it to post yet because I still have not come to terms with the fact that I'm driving a minivan. I will need some time to adjust.

After we left the Boring Center (as the kids called the dealership), Aralia was so upset that we left the Aztec behind that she cried all the way home. :(

In yard news, it was a very good year for the roses. We have three wild roses in the yard. This one was barely growing in the shade between two dead trees and a fence until last fall when we cut down the trees and the fence and provided a trellis for support. Now it looks great.

This is one of the other rose bushes, the biggest one. Its a little more "wild" then the other one.
It also goes up really really high into the tree.
We also have a catalpa tree. Here's a pic of Aralia with a leaf so you can see how big they get. I've seen catalpas with bigger leaves then this though.

Zaith, Kyden and I went to the "carnival" at the library to start off the summer reading program. Kyden played skee ball.

And got his arm painted.


One thing I've been wondering how to address is the way Aralia holds her pencil.


I can't decide if it matters if she doesn't hold it "properly". I hold my pencil a couple of different ways, and I know others who hold it oddly too. So maybe its just not that big of a deal. I guess if it works for her......

We've been studying plants for science. One of the labs we did was to identify parts of a flower. They all did a worksheet.
Kyden

Zaith (doesn't he color neatly for a 3 year old?)
and Aralia

For history, studying Ancient Rome, we made some puppets out of the History Pockets.









We also found a couple of cool looking caterpillars out in the yard. We've brought them in and put them in the "Butterfly Garden."

This one is the caterpillar for the American Dagger Moth. It made its cocoon the very same day we put it in the Garden.

This one will be a WhiteMarked Tussock Moth. Its a really neat looking caterpillar, this picture isn't all that great.

Kyden made lego models of our caterpillars.

As interesting as these caterpillars are, with their spikes and tussocks (?), they both turn into very ugly moths.

American Dagger Moth

Whitemarked Tussock Moth

Pretty common, eh?

Ok, now to address the garden.

A couple of entries ago, we couldn't find the garden.

But I'm proud to announce, that we have made giant steps towards reclamation of this area. And this is how we did it.



Yeah, thats right, we (mainly me) literally pulled out every.single.weed. in that garden. See the progress? So far, I've worked a total of 10 hours over two weekends, and I've almost got it licked. I figure 4 more hours this weekend and it will look like its supposed to.

This first weekend, I was the only one who weeded. This past weekend, though, everyone pitched in for a couple of hours. It went so much faster.

It was really hot, so afterwards, we cooled off with the sprinkler.

Ooooo, I had a new visitor to the birdfeeder recently. I didn't get a pic, I was afraid I'd move and scare him away. I haven't seen him since, but he was an indigo bunting. Very pretty.

Well we've had this week off from lessons as Aralia had a day camp that she and I went to every day. But next week we'll be back to cracking the books. And swimming, it is still summertime afterall.

Wordless Wednesday