Happy Holidays!

We are starting our winter break today! The next 2 weeks will be spent learning how to use our new Waffle Iron and lesson prep for mom.

I will admit I do not know all the December Holidays so We wish you and your families a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Good Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus Fortherestivus, Happy/Merry/insert Holiday of your family celebration.

Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Cooking Class

This morning we had cooking class. I forgot the camera-so no pictures. I will do my best to describe the class. The kids were super excited to be wearing their new aprons and to be using their new knives. They are now the proud owners of their own 7" Santoku style knives. We spent a fair amount of time talking about and practicing knife safety. Today they made a breakfast burrito and a bean and cheese burrito. For the breakfast burrito they chopped potatoes, cracked eggs, took turns stirring the onions and learned how to make folded eggs as opposed to scrambled. Add some cheddar cheese and wrap. They used kidney beans for the bean burrito. They mashed them with a fork and added cheddar cheese and wrapped them up. While the burritos warmed in the oven they chopped some tomatoes for a fresh salsa.

M loved both kinds of burritos. B only liked the breakfast one. I thought they were both delicious.

Getting things done

These last couple of days we have been chugging along with our studies.

B continues mastering double digit long division along with reviewing finding the area of a trapezoid, triangle, and rectangle. Language Arts he is working on finding the object of a preposition. History-we are still hanging in Ancient Egypt.

M is starting her multiplication facts. You have got to love the 0 and 1 times tables. Language Arts -studying pronouns and their proper use. History-Ancient Egypt.

This week they have been helping me bake what feels like a gazillion chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies.

Trip to Philadelphia

We decided to go to Philadelphia for the week-end. Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, so much to do and see. But like all good trips, this one started in NYC because dad had to stop by a client before
we left.
Here we are having some hot chocolate in Starbucks. This is when we believed dad was only going to be 20 minutes or so.

It soon became obvious that we were in for a longer wait than anticipated so off we went for a dirty water dog. The quintessential NYC experience.

A hot dog will only get you so far in terms of waiting. So I looked around and noticed we were not too far from where I went to college. "Hey, who wants to see where mommy went to college. It's not too far, lets go." We get to the Lobby of SVA only to see that we can't go any further than the lobby. But, there was an exhibit to look at. Yeah! That bought me another 20 minutes. "Okay, who wants to see the windows at Macy's. Woohoo, let's go. It is only a few blocks (Okay 11 city blocks, plus a few long avenue ones-but they didn't know).

We hoof it uptown. That was exciting for 10 minutes when the cries of "We're tired. We're cold. We want to stop" began. Hey, we are almost to the Empire State Building. Let's go there. "Hooray!" Really long line to go up to observation deck. We won't have time for that. Let's just enjoy the beautiful lobby for a few minutes and then continue onto Macy's. We are only a couple of blocks away.
Here they are, collapsed on the floor of the Empire State Building.

Here is a photo in front of the tree in the lobby of The Empire State Building.

We finally get to Macy's and enjoy their interactive Christmas windows. I will admit, I found the windows to be ehh, however, the kids enjoyed them. While we were there, dad called for us to head back downtown he was done. All right! We are off to Philly!

With all the wonderful things to do in Philly I think the kids were most excited about the pool in the hotel. They won't say that is so but that is what got the biggest sparkle in their eyes.

We found a counter service only place for breakfast on our first day. One must start off the day with a good breakfast when there is a lot of walking ahead of you in the freezing cold.

Waiting for our tour of Independence Hall. It was cold so we went into the Essential Documents room to pass some time. There we were, looking at a draft of the Constitution and the most exciting object in there-the inkstand that they believe was used in the signing. You just never know what will catch their fancy.

First stop on the tour, The Supreme Court. You can almost see the cage behind us where you had to Stand Trial. Who knew that meant you really had to stand for the whole thing? Not us.

Here it is, part of the room where it happened. The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Drafting and Signing of our Constitution. You can see part of the chair where George Washington sat in the back.

After Independence Hall, off to the Liberty Bell


After the Liberty Bell we headed off to lunch. You can't go to Philly and not get a cheese steak. We decided to try Jim's instead of Pat's or Geno's. The kids loved it.

Sunday we went to the Mutter Museum (http://www.collphyphil.org/mutter.asp). It is, as their slogan says, disturbingly informative. The kids really enjoyed it. What is not to love about enlarged, diseased organs and body parts in jars? Interesting skeletons and skulls, information on conjoined twins, I could go on but I am sure you have the idea.
You are not allowed to take photos in the museum but you can take a photo in their beautiful lobby.

Cooking Class

Today the kids took the first of 6 cooking classes. They are being taught by Chef Pam of the True Foods Cafe in Chestnut Ridge, NY. They made chicken pot pie and actually ate what they cooked. They had so much fun that they now want me to get them their own aprons and chef's knives.

Here they are cutting yellow squash.

Slicing Zucchini and peeling a carrot

Getting ready to roll out the crust. Butter and flour, you won't
go wrong.

Pressing the bottom crust into the pan. Real pot pie will have a bottom and a
top crust.

Adding the cream sauce. More butter! Yum!

McFaul Environmental Centre

Today after our morning school work we went to the McFaul Environmental Centre (http://www.co.bergen.nj.us/parks/parks/mcfaul.htm) for a class on Endangered Species and what kids can do to help. It was very informative. We learned about the success story of the Bald Eagle -no longer endangered but still threatened. The excitement of the return of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. A bird thought to be extinct. The increase in the deer population and the dangers of building where the bears live. The bears know when it is garbage day and have been coming into town to eat. What causes an animal or plant to be on the endangered species list. Natural disasters, pollution destroying the food supply, people taking their habitat-deforestation, malls, etc. What kids can do: Don't litter. Organize your friends, don rubber gloves and clean up the litter on your property, beaches, rivers. Educate your friends and family on the dangers of pollution, litter, and over building. Don't buy products made from endangered animals. Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle.

Here are some pics the kids took before the class started:

Here they are waiting for the class to start:

Petting a corn snake.

The Face of Happy Children

This is the face you get when you finally grasp that pesky long division. That's right, mom was correct that B would get the concept and be able to do the problems on his own. Yeah, mom! He was so proud of himself for doing the page by himself in a reasonable amount of time that he did a happy dance.

When asked if he would listen to mom when she says "Relax, this is a new concept and you will get it." he said "Probably not." You have got to love the honesty of children.

This is M doing her happy dance because today she completed her MUS Beta book! She has mastered her facts-addition, subtraction, telling time, reading gauges, counting money, skip counting, sequencing, and an assortment of other facts! Tomorrow we start Gamma!

The Monster that is Long Division

I have spent the last 2 days working with B on double digit long division. It has not been pretty. He is improving but he hates it. He is frustrated by the amount of time it takes him to do the problem. This makes him careless when checking his work and then he is fit to be tied. I have told him we don't have to finish the page we can do a couple of problems and finish it the next day. No. He insists on doing the page. I have no doubt that he will master this in the next few days and then he will be feeling the love but it sure is frustrating getting there. I understand his pain. Double digit long division is time consuming and a pain but it is necessary to know.

M has had a good week with her math assignments. Gauge reading, graph reading, solving problems using the graphs. She is in a good math place.

Their science experiments on plants are going well. B is amazed that all of his leaves are still alive. Some are closer to death than others but all are hanging in there. He thought for sure the unattached, no water, no light leaf would be brown and dead by now. It is still hanging on. M is enjoying drawing her plant and in the light and plant in the dark each week and observing the changes.

Catching Up

Finally, a pic of our Thankful leaves.
(If you are wondering, that is a map of the ancient world behind them)

There is not much going on in our homeschool these past days. We took off last Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving. Which was a good plan since I was sick. This week we have been more review oriented because I gave my illness to everyone else in the house. I am a believer in sharing the good and the bad.

We have been using the glut of Holiday Commercials to talk about why companies use commercials and how they make the toys look awesome but they are usually not quality items. We love seeing the decorations go up around town this time of year. Meanwhile, I still have our Halloween Pumpkin lights up. Perhaps we will work on that this week.

Typical Monday

Today was a typical Monday for us. We started the day with math and then moved on to our Thanksgiving project. We made leaves from construction paper and wrote what we are thankful for on them. Then we strung them up and hung them in the dining room for decoration. Picture to come tomorrow. They had a lot of fun thinking of things to write. After we were done with the leaves we started reading
Thanksgiving: The True Story by Penny Colman. It talks about various states claims to have hosted the first Thanksgiving not just the one in 1621 that we all learned about in school.

After lunch we headed out for swimming lessons and gym class. I have 2 tired kiddos.

Science Program

Today we returned to the Newark Museum (http://www.newarkmuseum.org/) for another Science Program. This time we learned about Fossils and Microworld. The one thing they really remember is that New Jersey was once connected to Africa. We know this because of the rocks and fossils found. The instructor was very good at engaging the kids. She had them looking for Dinosaur footprints, a bug as long as your arm, a log made from something other than wood, and other assorted items.

Here we are looking at different skulls.

Look at this.

Learning about the Continents and how they are still moving.

Learning about the Polar Bear and its shrinking environment.

Observing and touching REAL Fossils! Very Exciting. Until they were told that one of the fossils they were looking at was dinosaur poop! Ewww! They loved the teeth and learning why it is difficult to find the bones of the sea creatures (because they are made of cartilage (in case you were wondering)

The second part of the program involved the micro world. We learned the composition of water H20. 2 parts Hydrogen, 1 part oxygen. The molecule is refered to as the Mickey Mouse Molecule because when you draw it, well, it looks like Mickey Mouse. We got to use magnets that represented water to create ice, see which takes up more room-liquid, solid, or gas? After that we got to look through the microscope to see what was living in the sample of dirty fresh water. The kids got to make their own slides and were able to see the paramecium swimming around. Very cool.

Busy Busy Busy

It is so cold here. Old man winter is letting us know he is on the way. The beautiful sunshine was making it look all pretty and warm but it is a lie. Since the weather was so cold we decided to have Pajama Day. Yeah, Pajama Day! Who doesn't love a cold day spent snugly in warm pajamas?

Do you know what goes great with pajama day? Pancakes. What makes pancakes even better is children who know how to make their own pancakes. All those Practical Life Skills lessons are paying off. While I was upstairs making copies of what we need to work on our Ancient Egypt History pockets the kids made themselves a batch of pancakes. Mean mommy that I am, I said "No, you can not add chocolate chips."

Once we got breakfast out of the way we sat down to work. Money addition and subtraction for M. Long division, review of measurements, review of how to find the area of various shapes for B. Language Arts: Nouns for both of them. M-Singular Possessive. B-Count nouns, non-count nouns, common nouns. Science-observe the current experiment on photosynthesis. History-in case you forgot-Ancient Egypt for both. I discovered this morning that even though I know where the Sahara is (Africa) I was unable to locate it on our globe. A total Senior moment. Fortunately M likes using the Atlas and found it in there. Honest, it was not on the globe this morning even though it is clearly there now.

Some independent reading on mummies ended the day.

Monday, Monday

Mondays are always interesting. The fun over the week-end to the reality of back to work. Over the week-end we went to the Ford Mansion. It served as George Washington's Winter Headquarters during the revolutionary war (http://www.nps.gov/archive/morr/morr1.htm). Knowing that we were standing on the same ground as George Washington was very exciting. The mansion was stunning Georgian style home. Learning what the Ford family did to help us win our freedom from England was fascinating and makes one wonder if you would be willing to do the same today.

Today we started our experiment on photosynthesis. We have a positive control and a negative control. We will be observing our leaves over the next 10 days. What happens if the leaf is still attached to the plant but is covered? What happens if it is unattached in water? Unattached in water but covered? Unattached, covered, and no water? Unattached, uncovered, but no water, etc.

Swimming and Phys Ed rounded out the day. They are really enjoying the gym class. Today involved warm-up exercises and a few games involving those fun little scooters. They scooted around, played a little basketball and just had fun.

Warming up on a giant ball. What could be better?

Streeeeeettttch.....You can reach those toes!

Taking a break.

Field Trip to the Dentist

Today we returned to the Dentist to have B's cavity filled. The kids got to see all the equipment used and ask some questions. B opted for the Novocaine (which would have been my choice). He liked the Strawberry flavor of the stuff they put on your gums before they give you the Novocaine. Then they both looked at the giant shot. Which they calmed down about when they realized most of it is so the dentist can hold it. Afterwards B found it very funny that he could not feel his cheek and that he could only flare one nostril. That was half an hours entertainment.

We stopped at the Library on the way home so M could complete her work on Atlas' and Encyclopedias. She had to find 4 bodies of water in the Atlas. Once she chose her water she had to look them up in the Encyclopedia and write one interesting fact for each. She really had fun reading about the water. She chose the Atlantic Ocean, The Caribbean Sea, Lake Erie, & Lake Ontario for her 4.

When we returned home the kids were excited to see a package. They were even more excited when I told them what was in it. The next levels for their math curriculum. They have been doing really well with math this year. M has 4 lessons left and B has 8 in the levels they are in. We are using Math-U-See. I love this program. Math Dunce that I am I love that it comes with an instructional DVD that we can watch together. I love that they are really understanding what they are learning and that they actually like doing math. A very foreign concept to me.

Seeing your kids enjoy a subject you struggled with is truly rewarding.

The Dentist

We all had to go to "The Dentist" today for our check-ups. We were totally overdue for cleanings. Our primary lesson today was how not to treat your teeth. I showed the kids my x-rays and what will happen if you do not brush at least 2x a day and floss daily. They were properly repulsed by my mouth full of silver. Yes, I said silver. My fillings are that old. I know, silver fillings are bad and full of mercury but they are in fine shape and I am not going to break what isn't broken. I will replace them as the need arises.

Back to the children. B. has a cavity. We are going back on Friday to have it filled. Gone are the days when they would find a cavity and fill it right then and there. Have to get that second office visit for the insurance payment. I sound jaded, don't I? Fortunately, it is in a baby tooth but since that tooth is not going to fall out for a couple of years yet it is recommended that it be filled to prevent damage to the permanent tooth. The Dentist also recommended putting a sealant on his 6 year molars. I am not sure if I want to do that. I have lots of research to do between now and Friday.

The children also learned about the tools that are used to clean the teeth and that our dentist thinks it is fun to be a dentist.

Phys Ed kind of day

Our day started off slow today. I woke up a few minutes after eight this morning to the sound of absolute silence. No one was awake. An unheard of occurrence in our home. I took advantage of this silence to start my day, alone. All alone. No one asking when, where, what, how or why. Just me. Yippee!

The silence did not last long. Once everyone was up we started our day. Long division and upside down multiplication for B. Triple digit subtraction, review of money and analog clock reading for M. For language arts M is working on library and dictionary skills. How to read a Table of Contents, The Index, and the Glossary. Where they are located and what they do. For B, we are working on how-to articles, proper and common pronouns.

We then headed to the library to pick up some books on Ancient Egypt and the Sumerians. Nothing says fun like mummies.

Once our trip to the library was complete we headed off to the Y for swimming lessons. They are doing wonderful. Today we added a Gym class right after the lessons. We observed the class last week and they loved it and wanted to participate. After being assured they would not be too tired after 45 minutes in the pool I signed them up. They had a blast. Some running exercises to get the heart rate going. Then an interesting game involving soccer balls and trying to knock a ball off and get back to your team. I was confused but all the kids were having fun. The final game involved those little scooter things (http://www.gymsupply.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2734). First they had to sit on them and kick the ball with their feet. Then they had to lay on their stomachs and use their hands. The kids were definitely feeling it by this time and were starting to look tired. When class was over they wanted me to get the car and pick them up at the front door. We were parked all of 10ft from the front door. I made them walk to the car.

I am hopeful that they will sleep well tonight.

Native American Instruments

Today we went to the Montclair Art Museum (http://www.montclairartmuseum.org/) for a class on Native American Instruments. We got to see the museums collection of Native American Instruments. We learned how they are made from items found in their environment: Reeds, wood, beans, etc. We also learned how they adapted the fiddle from European settlers.

After the class the kids got to make an instrument. They were able to choose between a drum, a dancing stick, and a rattle. B chose to make a drum and M chose a dancing stick.

Here they are showing off their instruments.

Newark Museum

Today we did a science program at the Newark Museum (http://www.newarkmuseum.org/). They learned about different animal habitats and animal traits.

Lined up waiting to go into the mini zoo.

Observing Puffer Fish

Touching different kinds of animal skins, sea turtle shell, and coral.

Dwarf Mongoose. We all thought he was adorable.


After the mini zoo (so named because the animals in it are mini.) they did a lab portion. They observed meal worms. Did you know they were really insects? They conducted an experiment to see if the meal worms preferred hot or cold or indifferent to temperature change. After the lovely meal worms-which were most interested in eating the oatmeal- they did an experiment with Siamese fighting fish from Thailand. First they observed the fish. Then they drew a picture-including all the fins, where the mouth is, etc. Then they put two fish bowls together to observe what happens. They noted color change, gills expanding, and if one fish was more determined than the other. After that came a discussion on how you would not pick a fight with a fish larger than you so they held up mirrors to the fish bowls to see what would happen. These are not the brightest fish. They all started picking a fight with their reflections.

A good time was had by all.

Exercise in Frustration

Today we had a lesson in waiting around to have new tires put on the mini-van. A short lesson for the kids as their dad was with them at home for most of the wait. I was able to have engaging conversations with the other people waiting about the election and vaccines. The garage had Fox News on and they were showing Palin speaking in Ohio. Why anyone thinks this woman is qualified is beyond me. Then dad dropped them off with me about 10 minutes before the van was ready. That 10 minutes was an exercise in frustration. I'm thirsty. I'm hungry. When will it be time to leave. Then it was time to leave and they did not want to leave because there were 5 more minutes to the cartoon they were watching.

Settling in to do our school work for the day was challenging. They were not in the mood after a morning of play This is why I normally start the day with lessons. Everything was like pulling teeth. There was a major meltdown over having to think up conclusions as to how cells are alike, different, and similar. At least math was done without too much complaining.

We will be off to swimming lessons soon. I know that will put them in a better frame of mind. We are also going to see if we can observe the homeschool gym class after swimming so we can decide to sign up.

Surviving Halloween

Halloween was a whirlwind of activity. Some Halloween school activities in the morning. A party in the afternoon. Trick or Treating when we got home. The sugar crash that evening.

I love and hate Halloween. I love the costumes. The kids have a ball dressing up. I love carving the pumpkins (I just wish the squirrels would leave them alone until after Halloween). I hate the candy. We limit sugar in the house and Halloween just opens the floodgates wide. They go sugar crazy. Obsessed with candy. Counting their candy. Sorting their candy. It shows in their behavior. They are most unpleasant to everyone. This next week will be a challenge as they detox and get back to normal.

Carving the Pumpkins

Today everyone is feeling better. I still don't have much of a voice but I am feeling okay. Since it is a couple of days before Halloween the kids were ready to carve their pumpkins. Everyone had a great time. I never realized what serious business this can be.

Cutting off the top.

Success

The right face is very important.

The Finished Pumpkin!