The week of 8/23

    So we have had an eventful week this week.

Kayla giving me the stinkeye

1. We finished up our first 6 weeks of school!!! Last week I wrote a post about how we were going to try schooling 6 weeks on then 1 off. I was going to wait for the bigger kids to finish up 6 weeks, but I started Brie 6 weeks ago and this mama could use a little break :)
 I also decided to break up Noah and Kayla from doing school together. Kayla, who is in 3rd grade, hasn't been getting too much out of school, so I am starting Sonlight Core 1 with her and that has been going great so far. I am trying to make a list of links to give her some extras because she loves hands on activities. If you have any suggestions please share :)

2. We had TaeKwonDo testing this week for both Noah & Brie. Noah has been taking lessons for the last 4 years and tested for his recomended black belt. In about 6 months he will be testing for his 1st Degree Black Belt!!! So proud of my little man.  Brianna tested for her yellow belt. She started taking lessons about 2 months ago since she is finally 5 :) She has been tagging along to classes since she was about 9 months old so she is happy to be doing this now. Her joy in this is now she can spar...watch out!!!

Noah drawing Fred

 3. Noah is almost done with Teaching Textbooks 5 and I am letting him try out Life of Fred Fractions. He loves Fred and so do I. If anything they are fun to read :) Here he is drawing Fred.


4. Nicholas is working on how many pacifiers he can put in his mouth at one time. I think his record is 3 :)

5. We have a new addition to the family. We have been talking about getting chickens for a long time and hopefully we will eventually, but as we were driving around we thought we would stop by the pound and look at puppies :) They didn't have any smaller dogs so we stopped by a pet store to look and fell in love. So, here is the newest member of the Stefko Crew, her name is Daisy-Mae and she was born on 6/23/15, 2 days before Nicholas turned 1. She's a beautiful dachshund.  We couldn't resist ;) We are calling her my early birthday present.

BOX DAY!!!

 So we had a fun day today!!! Didn't get much school done, but organizing our new Core took me almost all day :)
Yesterday I got a package and it was about 6p.m. so I didn't think my Sonlight box would get here too early, but it arrived at 10 a.m. just when we were about to start school, ironic right lol.

Since Brie and the baby are usually at my hip they are the first ones to get a look at the box, Brie likes pictures so she got the first one with the box :)

 So I brought the box in, a whopping 42.3 lbs!!! Noah wanted to pose with the pic and then he ripped into it. Yes, I was carefully observing him as he ripped into it and no one was injured except the box :)

So next we check off everything on the list to make sure it was all there and thankfully it was and then to assembly the IG's. History C, Science C, and LA 4/5. Here is the finished product on the bottom after organizing them.

...And since there were so many books they got their own shelf. So since we went through all this trouble I decided to nicely arrange the rest of my Cores so Here is what my finished product looks like for Core A (top shelf), Core B(in the middle), and Core C(bottom). I didn't purchase Sci B last year to go along with Core B so I have some extra readers and some Life of Fred books hanging out there too :) We love Fred!!!                                                                                       

Almost forgot, to keep the kids occupied while I did that work I let them watch the new Discover & Do DVD and then they got into the science kit box so here's Kayla shooting a straw across a string with a balloon :)
I LOVE BOX DAYS!!!

Week of Oct 9-12

Tuesday
    So I have been pretty busy the last few weeks and have neglected my blog :( So this is what we have been up too.

I found a Bowflex in the basement. My cousin had purchased it and then my aunt got it from her and my dad traded a pool table for it and then left it in the basement here. We rent their old house so since they decided they didn't want to move it we now are the proud owners of it. So...after it sitting in our basement for 2 years it is now on the porch and I am going to move the treadmill out there and hopefully get a TV to put out there and have a little exercise room for myself. I have used it and do sometimes use my treadmill so hopefully it will be a room that gets used and not wishful thinking :)

 Here is Kayla. We are working on week 3 in Sonlight A. We were learning about Ancient Greece some and so I found this little print off here to personalize a vase like the Greeks did. For science we are on weather right now learning about hurricanes and tornadoes and how weather effects animals.

My pretty little Brie Brie

loves to have her picture taken so since she saw me taking pics she had to be a part of the fun :)

 Next, Noah is working on week 11 of HOD Beyond. Thomas in our history reading shot an arrow through a paper window that had just been oiled so for our art activity we oiled some paper. I only had some white construction paper, but in the pic below you can see how the oiled paper lets in more light than just the regular paper (and our nicely covered pool in the back).

Kayla's first poem

This week Kayla is working through week 25 in LA K. Our creative writing assignment was to write an Imagery Poem! I am not a poem person, so the model said to do
Title
a noun and verb
a simile to describe the sub/vb combo
a final thought that further describes the action so here is what she came up with


Dog
The dog barks
Like a seal
at the dad.

Noah's first poem

Noah wrote his first poem today. We are in week 12 of LA 2 and he was suppose to make a funny poem up about an orange...well orange doesn't have any real good rhyming words so I changed it to lime. I figured this would be a little easier since it is his first real poem so this is what he came up with...

Oh lime, Oh lime,
I'd eat you if it weren't a crime.
You're green and sour,
I'd eat you in an hour.
Oh lime, Oh lime,
You take all my time.

Not too bad for his first one :)

BLHFHG 5/Sonlight week 23

     So, we have finally wrapped up our school week. I don't know why but I was just plain excited about school today :) Noah is doing pretty good with TT right now. I am so thankful for this program. He isn't a big writer so it is nice he can do it on the computer himself. I am always close by just in case he needs something explained, but he really hasn't needed me yet :)
   LA is going well. I do love us some Shurley English. I really like this program I think because I am a very analytical thinker and I like the question answer flow they have in the program. If the word answers the question then it is an adverb, or adjective...I always would get confused when I was little because in a sentence like The bird flew yesterday...yesterday never seemed like it was discribing flew, but with SE I know if it answers the question How, When, or where it is an adj :) I have a tendency to over think things too so it is good for now.

   Reading is going well also. Noah just finished the book Helen Keller. He really liked reading a biography. I never would of thought to give him a Non-fiction book on my own at this age. THank you HOD.
    We are really loving history too. I have American history going in BLHFHG. We learned about canals today in Holland. Afterward we went online and looked at real pictures of the area and loved it. We finished up week 23 of SOnlight also. So in Sonlight we are working on World history and I think we are still around ROme and Greece. I can't remember off the top of my head though and I don't feel like looking right now either.

     Kayla is doing well and enjoying her K year. We are on lesson 62 in Horizons K math and she does well as long as I am near her. She likes math, but she will get distracted and start drawing on her paper if I have to go help Noah :) I am really like SL LA K also. I have one of the older programs, but since Kayla is a strong writer it doesn't really matter that it has her writing more. She just finished up book 9. She loves being able to read a whole book herself. I am working on writing letters more with her too. I didn't work so well with Noah on how to form his letters so I am working harder with her so she doesn't pick up bad habbits. We also just finished week 27 i nP4/5 too. I can't believe we are almost done. Only 8 weeks left and then we will be done with P4/5 and move on to her next program. 

   Finally, for "art" the kids decided they wanted to make playdough models and me bake them. Noah is real into angry birds right now so he made an angry bird and kayla made a bird, well at least that is what she says it is, i think it kinda looks like a trutle though :)

LA K week 18

So today Kayla's assignment was to write a thank you note...well to dictate it and then she decorated it. I thought it was really sweet so I wanted to share it. It was to her big brother Noah :)

BLHFHG Unit 5/Sonlight week 22

     So, I may be overdoing it, but I really want to finish up my core B that I have and do BLHFHG. I always tend to over do it when it comes to curriculum. There is just so much good stuff out there :) So, this is week 5 of schooling. I love BLHFHG history readings and science is nice and gentle. I really don't like science personally, so this works out good that it isn't too much. Today we were learning about how light moves in waves so we watched a video off of YOUTUBE :) Gotta love having that at your fingertips most the time. In history the Pilgrims have finally made it to Holland, and spelling is going well too. I think ds misses doing AAS since there were the letter tiles, but he is doing fine with HOD spelling so we are sticking to that for now :)

Here is Noah working on his spelling cards, don't ask why his shirt is like that, but hey I guess when you homeschool you don't have to worry about peer pressure. Kayla is also working on her LA and coloring her letter O. You can't tell but she has her gymnastics outfit on :)

    We also finished up week 22 in Sonlight's core. I am ahead in the RA so we are reading Little Pear right now. I love this book. It is like reading Curious George but with a little Chinese Boy as the main character.
    Oh yes, I decided to go back to using Shurley English also for LA with Noah. I don't know exactly why but I just love this program. I will probably still throw in R&S sometimes, but I think I will probably stick with SE. I can say I am very content with math. Teaching Textbooks is great and as long as the kids don't have any problems with that they will be using that for good :)