Today a good day

Today was a good day.

Didn't exactly go homeschooling wise as I thought it might.

On Wednesday mornings I have bible study so hubby dear usually gets the lad busy with book work. but this morning hubby's brain was fried so that didn't go over.

Over lunch therefore, we did our normal reading.

10 minute stories

He liked today's story. I shortened it here and there as it was quite wordy and that NEVER goes over well with the lad. But it was a good story about a firebird, a grey wolf and a boy who had to learn how to listen well.

World History

We are into Roman history now. We are learning about gladiators.

I had gotten the lad onto reflexmath before I headed out to bible study. The lad enjoys this program.

So after I got back from my stuff I got the lad busy with Studyladder. We did math, music, and something else that right now I can't remember.

This afternoon we played a game with dad. Catopoly
We had a lot of fun playing it. So much nicer playing games with a lad who is willing to follow the rules of the game.

oh..I'm trying to work home-making skills into our week... today it was cleaning the upstairs bathroom. I set the boy at the task of cleaning the bathtub. He did a decent job for a six year old doing a job for the first time. he did an EXCELLENT job of having a bath so he could clean his toys up really really well. :)

Then peter rabbit videos were the thing to watch, followed by supper and children's club at the baptist church. They are learning the fruits of the spirit there. What I know most is how much the lad enjoys attending. :)

Sites I want to explore more

Housing a Forest linky page.

K5 Learning.

that worked well

went to the Stratford library to do our schooling before heading off to swimming.

I think I shall do that more often. Getting out work done at the library means less distractions.

means I have to be better organized, but better organized, and having better schooling done over a shorter period of time sounds like an excellent idea to me. :)

We did art and science today at the library. A good thing that! We first did some book work though, then played art and language skills on a computer, and some science as well on the computer. Then we started doing our Christmas cards... excellent way to practice our spelling!

He has watched the rescuers a fair bit lately so the golden eagle and the boy riding the figure prominently. :)

building Christmas cards... stickers, drawing and writing. It's all good.

Then off to lunch at boston pizza, and then over to the YMCA for swimming lessons.

the lad in the blue head band. :)

Then home again.

Played a game before bed (connect four) and played a construction game as well.

Today we....

We started off with our normal daily readings out of

10 minute stories

The lad didn't appear to be impressed... was off playing and chatting while he listened. Some stories keep him glued to the chair.

World History

We are into Roman history now. It's just fascinating reading tidbits about ancient history. Today we learned what good builders and architects they were.

Then we went with reflexmath. The lad enjoys this program.

Then upstairs to do a snowman search and find. This gives us a chance to talk and read a page in a large floor puzzle book. We talk about different ways to hold a pencil crayon to get different effects, and the lad has fun searching out the hidden objects.

A fellow homeschooler over at Learning To Homeschool gave me this idea. To have a daily word to learn. I asked her how she came up with them and she said just words they come across as they read or talk. Since that's too "iffy" for me I decided to use this

Children's Illustrated Dictionary.

Today's word was Abacus: a frame with beads that slide along wires, used for counting.

I read another chapter out of First Language Lessons, Levels 1&2

We read a few poems out of a book until we found one that made us both think of a picture in our heads, so we drew. This also gave us an opportunity to talk about the different ways one can hold a drawing implement in order to achieve different effects.

I'll try to post pics of what we did later today.

now off to swimming lessons, and then the library afterwards if it's still open upon our return. :)

Hands of a Child black friday sale

I used to have a super membership with these fine folks. Funds prevented that this year. Must say their sale is looking tempting.

anyways, go here. :)

HOAC is having a huge sale of up to 45% off their own products.

On cyber Monday they are offering up to 30% off products made by other folks that they happen to carry.

And this year they are participating in Small Business Saturday. Saturday, November 26th is the 2nd annual Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday is a day that is dedicated to supporting small businesses. Please take time out of the busiest shopping weekend of the year to support small businesses! And on that day you can save on Super memberships. They are offering 1-year Super Memberships for $50.00 (retail $75.00). Purchase a Super Membership on Small Business Saturday and not only do you save $25.00, but you make a HUGE impact on their business.

Tangents and more

One of the things I enjoy about homeschooling is some of the interesting tangents one can take.

For instance this morning we added studying at least one or two animals every week. We don't go indepth, we just read a bit, find a location of where the animal lives, it's animal track if we can get and draw a picture of it and one fact that is interesting.

today we did caribou. We read about them in this book.


Then I searched for a nature study page we could use a base, and found this one I got as part of the teacher's toolbox from the old schoolhouse.

I asked the lad to draw a picture of a caribou while I found a picture of where the caribou lives (up north) and caribou tracks.

He did that. and then it evolved as pictures in this house are apt to do. To "J is capturing the caribou" (he was tranquilizing them which he's learned about from watching nature shows on TV.


From that evolved this story.
"The caribou are escaping from the zoo and a tree root grew really fast and there were eagles who escaped from the zoo. The angry birds came to help the bunny town Justin recapture all the animals that got out of the zoo. They are tranquilizing the eagle and the caribou." I read what I recalled to the lad and he added the following "The zoo man ran after the guinea pigs and ben said don't attack them, they are trying to help".

This was a just a fun way to learn and think and talk out what is happening.

We also did some work out of this book.

Listening Skills for grades 2-3. This book was interesting because it had a dot-to-dot with all mixed up numbers and letters and I told the lad where to draw and what type of line to draw. At the end of it we were surprised to find a bunny on a swing. The book below is similar to the one we have but ours is an older version of it. :)


A fellow homeschooler over at Learning To Homeschool gave me this idea. To have a daily word to learn. I asked her how she came up with them and she said just words they come across as they read or talk. Since that's too "iffy" for me I decided to use this

Children's Illustrated Dictionary.


Today's word was Aardvark.

I read another chapter out of First Language Lessons, Levels 1&2



We did our normal daily readings out of


10 minute stories

some of the stories in this book are quite good, others leave something to be desired. Today's story left the lad confused.

World History

We are into Roman history now. It's just fascinating reading tidbits about ancient history. Gives us a good framework for study in the future. :)

We repotted a couple of plants, the lad learned what it means that a plant is rootbound and that we have to help the plant by loosening up the roots.

We played a couple of games "pirates" - this is a board game we got at the local dollar store, it is a HUGE favourite of the lad and 9 times out of 10 he beats me handily. And bingo link which is a fun game that we win 50% of the time.

And then he worked on building a spider web on our stair way and helped dad play a computer game. Problem solving skills at work!

Today a busy day

Shopping with extended family in the morning.

Rabbit deliveries and Playing at the london's Children's museum in the afternoon. We played, we laughed, we hid, we crawled, we rolled.

Rabbit delivery went well.. sold a harlequin doe.
Rabbit "medical" went well. A young flemmish buck stomped hard and broke a foot. He'll recover just fine, but just needs to have limited room to just settle and heal. Good to help out a rescue, good to offer advice, good to teach a boy what a broken bone feels like.
Rabbit hay run done. Good also to help a young owner stuck between a rock and a hard place to keep her rabbit longer. Unexpected bills sometimes play havoc with people.

We got frustrated with traffic and snafus in life.

We got food, we felt better.

We enjoyed each other, we talked, we got tired, and we went home.

This week

Has gone somewhat differently than expected BUT... we've done some good homeschooling.

Each day we read from

10 minute stories

World History

And we've added some new routines.

Scripture memory. This week John 14:6

And we read from First Language Lessons, Levels 1&2

though this cover looks different than mine. :) It's been good to add a bit more routine.

We continue to work on phonics by going through the alphabet.

We also do Studyladder at least twice a week...Did I tell you that I won a year's subscription to it courtesy of The Old Schoolhouse.. they were doing giveaways during their birthday bash and I lucked out! :) Pretty cool eh? Today the lad did some art, math, English, and some French. (he was totally unimpressed doing the French).

And the lad continues to thoroughly enjoy doing ReflexMath.

Otherwise what have we filled our time with?

Monday is Gymnastics.

Tuesdays the lad goes swimming with our HOPE group. It's a lot of fun. We do stuff in the morning at home, mostly just our standard fair, plus reflexmath and chores.

On Wednesday he does book work with his dad since I attend bible study Wednesday mornings. This week he did Three pages in each book.

My heavenly Helper

The Complete book of Numbers and Counting

Complete Canadian Curriculum 1

My Book of Numbers 1-120.

When I got home I said Come on buddy, let's get out of the house (it was such a lovely day) so we headed off to the dam to collect leaves and do some tree rubbings. We used chalk and hair spray to stabilize the chalk. Collected samples and once we did five trees we went bug hunting. When you are six.. bug hunting is important. We brought home one spider, one black bug, and one leaf with a nest on it. We talked about birch trees and how the wood was once used for writing on.

Then off to the dentist where we received the news that due to some odd fluke one of the lad's teeth had no roots to it, which led to a lad going back to the dentist today to get that tooth removed and infection out. The lad was super scared but the dentist was marvellous with him and talked him through everything. So today we mostly played lego this afternoon and watched a video on rehabilitating orangutangs. It was quite interesting.

Anyways, we needed to do some problem solving for Wednesday night as I needed to be out of town, hubby had a meeting and the lad had kid's club which he definitively did NOT want to miss. We managed to find an acquaintance that he would accept picking him up and taking him to his dad's meeting and then I picked him up at the meeting when I got back. Meant a late night for one six year old but everything worked out well for all concerned.

We've read books, listened to books, talked and laughed and kept busy. Thus far a good week.

Tomorrow is Friday and we are shopping in the a.m. with family, having lunch out, and then heading to the London Children's Museum for the afternoon.