A New School Year

We are starting our new school year, and I am so excited. Benjamin is going into 3rd grade and Carter is starting 1st. I started using Ambleside Online last year and have really fallen in love with it. We will be using it again this year.

Here is a condensed plan for each boy for this year.

Benjamin

History:

He is finishing up the middle ages and starting the renaissance which includes the discovery of America. He will be reading biographies on Joan of arc, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Shakespeare. He will also be reading about Marco Polo's journey.

Literature:

His main lit. books are The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, Children of the New Forest by Marryat, and American Tall Tales.

Science:

He is using Pagoo by Holling Clancy Holling to learn about the life of a hermit crab and Exploring His Creating through Astronomy.

Math:

He is using Rightstart Level D which continues mastering multiplication and introduces division.

Carter:

History:

He is reading short stories about important people in American history in Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans.

Literature:

His main books are Stories by Beatrix Potter, Among the Pond People, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Fairy Tales.

Science:

His main focus is different bugs that he read books about and then make lapbooks for.

Math:

He is in Rightstart Level B. He is learning about addition, money and time.

Life Changes

Isaiah and I are very interested in healthy eating and living. We have slowly made changes in our lives to improve our health and well being. I make almost everything from scratch. We have cut out all sugars, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, and the list goes on. Even with all these changes, we still didn't feel good a lot of the time. There were many evening Isaiah would come home from work and find me laying on the couch trying to survive from a headache or brain fog.

Isaiah started doing some research and started reading about celiac disease. Celiac disease is when a person eats gluten (found in wheat, barley and rye) their body kills off all the villi in their small intestine causing decreased absorption of nutrients and inflammation. The signs and symptoms included what we had been having problems with, so we went and got tested. Well, we are both positive.

What does that mean for us? It means a whole new adventure in cooking. I am learning to make breads, pizza crust, pancakes, and cookies with different grains then wheat. It may be surprising to know that there are lots of grains that don't have gluten in them like: millet, corn, rice, amaranth, quinoa, and soy. So lots of new flavors and experimenting for me in the kitchen.

We have been gluten-free for over a month and feel so much better.

Zoo Fun

We buy a zoo pass every year and go to the zoo all the time, so I thought I would include some fun pictures from our last trip since it is so much a part of our lives.

This trip I actually took all four kids by myself. We had so much fun. I let Benjamin have the camera most of the time and he took pictures of all the animals. I included his two best.

It was really cold that day and Amita ended up being sick. She was a really trooper through. She didn't fuss or whine about not feeling good.

We ate our lunch at a park near by and the kids played for a few minutes, but by then it was so cold we were freezing. So we packed up and headed home.

Ring Princess

Isaiah's brother, Helaman, got married and Amita was the ring bearer or ring princess, as we called her. She was very brave about it till she realized she was walking along down the aisle and then she got a little scared. It was really cute to watch her play her part.

Her she is with Helaman and his bride, Royceanne.

All of Isaiah's brothers and sisters were able to make it out for the wedding, so here is a picture of them with their mom, Mary.

It's A Girl!!

That is right, we are expecting our third girl in a row.

The kids were all hoping for a boy, so when we got home from the ultrasound and told them the baby is a girl we got some funny reponses.

Amita asked if we could trade her for a boy.

When I asked Ben how he felt about having three little sisters he said, "Poor me!"

Had to laugh at that one. I am sure by the time she comes they will all be excited.

The ultrasound pictures are as follows:

Top left is her fingers

Top right is her arm and hand

Bottom left is her foot

Bottom right is her profile

Fighting snowmen in just shorts

What We Are Learning

Here is an update on what we are doing in our Little Homeschool. We are just finishing our second term, and I am hoping to be done by the end of April.



Benjamin is in 2nd grade this year and doing great. Here is a list of what he is learning in each subject.



History: Studying the Middle Ages with a focus on England's history during that time.

Resources: Our Island Story, A child's History of the World and The Little Duke



Science: Studying the different mammals of North America and making an animal notebook.

Resources: The Burgess Animal Book



Geography: Focusing on the countries of North America and the Santa Fe Trail

Resource: The Tree in the Trail



Shakespeare: Plays I read to him are Romeo & Juliet, and All's Well that Ends Well

Resource: Tales from Shakespeare



Literature Reading list:

Wind in the Willows,

Understood Betsy,

Pilgrims Progress,

Parable of Nature



Poetry: read poems from Walter de la Marc and Eugene Field.
Learned to recite The Window and The Duel



Composer Study: He listens to music selections from the composer for that term.

Composers studied are Maurice Ravel, Beethoven & Antonio Vivaldi



Artist Study: He observes painting by the artist for that term.

Artist studied are Monet, Durer, Carivaggio



Writing: Benjamin has been improving his printing and now he is starting to learn cursive.

Resource: Handwriting without Tears



Math: He is mastering subtraction and starting to work on multiplication through skip counting.

Resource: Rightstart



Carter is in Kindergarten this year. He is focusing on the 3 r's and doing great.



Writing: He has learned all his letters and has moved on to copywork.

Resources: Handwriting without Tear and Draw Write Now



Reading: Carter is working on learning his phonograms and has started reading simple books

Resource: Teach America to Read and Spelling



Math: He is learning simple addition, grouping numbers to make ten and odd & even.

Resource: Rightstart.



Family Subjects: These are ones we all do together



Bible Study: We read a the story from a child bible, then the next day out of the KJ bible

Old Testament: Reading about David and Saul

New Testament: Jesus getting Baptised

Book of Mormon: The start of Nephi's journey



Verses: We are working on memorizing Psalm 23



Nature Study: Focusing on Flowers, mammals, and birds. We spend a hour outside and then making a journal entry on what we observed.