Week 3

   So Week 3 has come and gone. Its been a good week. We took a field trip to the pond, we learned about the letter C, we made and ate cherries, and we added some fruit onto our Fruit of the Spirit Tree.
   Jr Bug has learned about the letter C this week. We have worked on letter writing and letter placement. He also worked on counting and number writing.
   Tater worked on double digit addition. She is moving very quickly through Alpha and Omega Lifepac. I'm happy with this math series and we may stick with this series for a while. Tater is also working through sentence structure. Since we are only in the 3rd week of school we are starting brand new at the beginning of writing. We are still learning about the Nez Perce tribe by reading the American Girl series. We have 3 more books to read and learn about.
   Both kids went on a field trip this week. They learned about wetlands from the Magic School Bus and we took a trip to the pond to really put a hands on feel to learning about the wetlands. We are still learning about love from the Fruit of the Spirit. This week the kids made cherries to hang on our Tree and they made a fruit vase and placed our first fruit cherries in there. I also let the kids taste cherries. I figured since we were learning about them, we could also eat and taste the fruit.
   So below are some pictures that capture our week.

Jr Bug and I working on his letter C. 

Reviewing Language Arts before her test. 

Tater taking her Language Arts test.

Writing Love on their cherry. 

The kids with their "fruit": LOVE

Since we are learning about love, I figured I would have Jr Bug trace the letters God is Love and have Tater write God is Love. Then they colored their stained glass windows. 

Tater adding to her Nez Perce Kaya book.

Jr Bug working on writing skills.

Math work. 

The letter C and black beans. 

Reading. One of the many joys of homeschooling. Reading class on a comfy couch. 

Field trip to the ponds to learn about the Wetlands Biome. 

Letter C and Oatmeal: Sensory Play.

Serious learning going on. 

So Jr Bug was having trouble with letter placement. So I decided to write the dots to mark where he began and ended each letter. As you can see he was able to correctly write the letter C. Very proud of my son, and proud of me for being able to come up with a way to he reach him. 

Eating our  fruit and watching a video on love. 

Well a busy week for sure. Up next Week 4. Two more weeks of school and then we will be taking a much needed break and our first quarter of school will be finished. 

Week 2

So this week we celebrated a birthday and had Saturday School. Saturday school is just regular school but on Saturdays. We use Saturday school as a makeup day, a day of review, or a day to just have school if we need an extra day or if we were lazy during the week.

Tater turned 7 on Tuesday and you can read about my 7 things post here. So with my daughter turning 7 we took the day off and played and had fun. Then we got back to school

So this week in Bible Studies we continued diving into the Fruit of the Spirit and we spent some time learning about love as an action word. We talked about putting love into action and read the story of the Good Samaritan.
In Social Studies Tater and I finished book 2 of our study on Kaya and the Nez Perce. She is really enjoying learning about the Nez Perce Native Americans and reading about Kaya. I love to watch her excitement grow.
In Science the kids are learning about frogs. They've learned about the life cycle of frogs and about the characteristics of frogs.
In Language Arts, both kids are really progressing. Jr Bug is reviewing the letter B and Tater is reviewing sentences and the requirements fr writing a good sentence.
In Math, both kids are still in review since we are still in the early weeks of school.

A great week. Here's a glimpse of the goings on at The Vine Academy.

Spelling Bingo

Jr Bug working on the letter B

The letter B sound.

A habitat worksheet. 

Matching Frogs

Students hard at work. 

One of the things I try to teach my kiddos is to clean up after themselves. I try to teach them that we can have fun, but we must clean up our work. 

Learning to write the number 7. 

Working on her writing journal. 

Practicing writing the letter B and YouTube videos of the letter B.

Tater showing off her Kaya and Two Hawks paper dolls. 

Even my youngest can get on in learning. He made the frog life cycle and was very proud of himself. 

Tater working on her life cycle worksheet. 

So in Bible Studiees, I decided to compare real fruit to the fFruit of the Spirit. Our first fruit is cherries, because they usually come in pairs of twos or threes. So in our picture we wrote what was needed for love...God, themselves, and the Holy Spirit. Then I let them paint with cherry jell-o.

The best part of painting with jell-o is getting to eat your paint!!!!

Sensory activity with the letter B. 

Love requires action. So we came up with some action words that describe love. I let the kids color their pictures. 

Tater's frog life cycle poster.

See how much fun you can have while you are learning. Well that's it for week 2. Next week is up and week 4 is not far behind. Our break is in only 3 more weeks.