We've moved into our house. Well, we've moved our stuff into our garage, and some of our stuff is kind of where we want it or maybe where we know where it is. Hey, I was at least able to decorate for Christmas!
We did EVERYTHING on our charts that I had wanted to do:
This includes spelling, reading, typing, writing, math (for those who were supposed to do it that day) and BARTON!!! You heard that right, I'm teaching Barton again.
I've always had Hyrum and Daniel read "Stand Alone" books to me, but I as for actual Barton lessons for them, I've left it up to tutors for the past year. Amalie was their first tutor in Sidney BC, then Joshua tried for a couple of weeks, and then Analaea (and sometimes Eliza) tutored them in Vanuatu.
They went through the whole book 4. (The hardest book in the Barton series.) But Analaea was burnt out by the end, and I seriously have no idea about the adherence to the system. So I'm reviewing the whole book and slowing down when we get to the Schwa lesson. On Tuesday we got through three lessons each!
Also, another thing that made Tuesday perfect, is that after they went to Westwind classes, we went SWIMMING!!
We went to the hotel here. I've got it set up so we can go everyday if we want to and have our whole family go (I paid for November and only went ONCE!) But now we'll go a lot because I've arranged an actual swim instructor to come Monday, Tues, and Wen. I need the accountability of an external person. I want Maxwell to have some aerobic activity and for my babies to learn to swim enough that they won't die when we go back to Vanuatu.
So yes, Tuesday was perfect. But that was the only perfect day in the past fortnight.
Last week Dustin was still gone. Enough said. Things are changing with his school there, and it looks like he will have shorter (one week to ten day) trips more frequent. That's the only way they think they can be effective.
I'm not very effective when he's gone, especially when I have a silly goal of getting all of my scrapbooking done by the end of Blurb.com's sales. But hey, I've gotten more scrapbooking done, and ALMOST caught up with my three oldest.
We did accomplish SOME things. We went to the Cardston's festival of lights:
Maxwell continued on his Write into Winter. He won quite a few things which made his day:
We also had the FIRST science club in this house!!! We focused mostly on constellations. I thought we had some pretty magical moments. We went into my dark storage area and brought out Maxwell's constellation globe. They passed it around while I read greek myths about the constellations.
They also made their own constellations and we talked about how constellations are completely dependent on your viewing perspective. The kids had a good question: How far away from earth would you need to be before the constellations don't look familiar? I have no idea. Good science fair question.
Also, they did go to all their scheduled school things, including Robotics where Maxwell made an epic robot he's very proud of:
This week was way more effective at school work, but it still was hijacked by things.
Monday we slept in so we missed the morning routine.
Tuesday was perfect.
Wednesday was Dustin's birthday and Blurb's deadline.
Thursday Naomi's family came over for a visit during school hours
Friday I needed to take Dustin's cracked phone into Lethbridge and went shopping for moving into our house.
This is homeschool. Things happen.
Thankfully, the optometrist's appointments were after school hours.
The boys all went in for their yearly checkup....that I never usually do... I had been worried about Abraham's one eye, but he's fine and William is the one who might need glasses in a year.
Also, on Dustin's birthday, I had the boys write to him for their writing assignments. Dustin thought they were so cute, and they really were:
Dustin got an aquarium for his birthday. A big aquarium. A really big aquarium. Even though we've just moved in and there a million honey does, Dustin has been spending his time with his new aquarium like a cute little boy on Christmas.
Now that I'm on track, William will get on track. He's usually the one to get put on the back burner, but not anymore. This week he's mastered his Magic "C"s in handwriting without tears.
For science this week we studied our solar system. Did I tell you we do science twice a week? (Well we're SUPPOSED to, and this week we did.) Well, I figured that since I was in Vanuatu for half this semester and who knows about next semester, we need to do double duty to get through the content.
The first lesson we talked mostly about planets' rotation around the sun and how gravity and the laws of physics (mostly inertia and centripetal force) effect all that. We also talked more about the sun.
As part of this we talked about how a spinning planet works like a gyroscope and gives it stability.
Friday's lesson (which I moved an hour later because I was late getting back from Lethbridge...I love the moms who are so easy going with me!) We talked a little more about the entire solar system, but then focused on the inner rocky planets. We'll need to talk more about Mars because we didn't get to some things.
And by the way, those books that were "lost" in the mail ended up being at Babb after all! So now I am definitely ready for teaching!
And that's it! yep. I know that I can do this! But don't ask about social studies. Oh bother, I need to figure that out now that I'm figuring out everything else! I've thought "oh bother, we travel as a family, they learn geography through osmosis." Not true I know. I made the next video in my geography songs series:
We'll get there.
