Happy All-Saints Day!

Happy All-Saints Day!!


The fun began with trick-or-treating on All-Hallows Eve last night...

Here are the kids dressed up. Maria was the Blessed Mother, Cati was an angel, Matteo was a pumpkin, and Chiara was a princess.




This was Chiara's first year trick-or-treating, and she really enjoyed it! She said that she only saw one monster :)


Dany always takes them out while I stay home to give out candy. Here are the kids returning home and showing me their loot!

This afternoon we went to and All-Saint Day party at our parish with some local homeschoolers. Elena and Chiara were napping, so they stayed home with Dany.

The kids made bracelets...

...and played All Saints Bingo...

Matteo did very well, winning at least 4 times!

...and they played "Pin the Halo on the Saint."

They decorated cookies.

We enjoyed a potluck supper and the kids had fun just running around and playing. The kids had lots of fun and asked if we can do it again next year!

Piano

I don't have time for a big homeschool post, but I did want to share a video of Maria playing the piano. She's really improving, and the most amazing part is that she's doing it all herself. Dany's supposed to oversee their piano lessons, but he's super-busy this semester. So, Maria's just been going through her instruction book and teaching herself. And, I think she's doing a pretty good job of it!

Elena is 6-months-old!!

Happy half-Birthday, Elena!!

Here are a few pictures of Elena from this week. If you're looking for pictures of the other kids at 6-months, see this post. I've finally been blogging long enough to reuse some of these posts :)
You can also click on "Elena" under the Labels on the side of the blog to look back over her past 6 months!



Here are Elena and Chiara. Chiara declared this week that Elena is her best friend :)

Look how much she's grown!! Here she is in her carseat coming home from the hospital.

And here she is today in the same carseat!

Dressed like her big sister!

She is getting some hair :)

Elena still doesn't have enough balance to sit alone, so she still uses the Bumbo chair. She loves reaching and grabbing anything close by and manages to get a lot of it in her mouth. She hasn't started solids yet, but she really doesn't seem interested yet and is definitely not in need of any. She loves to blow raspberries, and she smiles and laughs constantly at all of us. I can't tell you what a joy she is!

Elena will have her 6-month well-child check-up on Monday and her 6-month orthopedic check-up for her hips on Tuesday. Maybe I'll post an update after these appointments later in the week.

Here is a video of Elena that I took today. I used the movie editor to brighten it some, but it's still a little dark.

This is what Elena thinks...

... of college football!


She fell asleep on the couch while we were cheering for Arkansas in the last few minutes of their game against Florida. I guess she could sense that this was a hopeless cause.

Brace-free!

Maria got her braces off this morning!

Maria is free of her night brace (head gear) and braces in time for enjoying some sticky goodies on Halloween! She wore the night brace for a little more than a year. She wore the braces for 8 months. (Click on the links to see the blog posts that marked those events.) She now has a retainer that fits on those front 4 teeth that she has to wear whenever we're home during the day.

Now, we wait to see what orthodontic work, if any, that she'll need in the future. From the beginning, her orthodontist said that she would need 2 sets of braces. Now, he says that we'll just wait and see. We will see how the rest of her permanent teeth come in.

Homeschool week #7: 10/5 - 10/9

I spent my free time (a.k.a. Elena's naptime) this weekend sewing an angel costume for Cati for Halloween. So, I didn't get to scan any of the kids' work from last week or do a blogpost. Scanning in their schoolwork I do mostly for me, I know. At the end of the year, I print copies of some of their work to make the portfolio that I have to turn into the school district. I did take some pictures with the camera, which is the part I'm sure you enjoy more anyway :)



Here is one of Cati's science experiments for the week. She was still learning about air - that it is "something" even if it is invisible. She learned in this experiment that air has mass, that it weighs something.



First, we hung empty balloons at either end of a yard stick and hung it from a string so that it was balanced.





After we blew up the balloons on one end, we saw that that end of the yardstick went down because that end was heavier.

Here's Chiara enjoying a little outside time. Occasionally, we have decent weather around here! Chiara insisted on the bike helmet :) And, that morning I did put a dress on top of this ensemble, but I'm not sure what happened to it :)

Here's Cati doing some math. She was learning about fractional parts of a group.

Here's Matteo doing a little math.

Every morning, he puts up the date for the day on his calendar with a shape that follows that pattern for the month.

And, he adds to his graph of the weather each morning.

Here are pictures of Cati's other science project for the week. She was learning about how much water compared to land is on the earth. She and Matteo threw an inflatable globe back and forth to each other and then noted where the tip if their right index finger pointed, to land or water. Then, we compared our numbers to the actual ratio of land to water on earth.

Here's Maria working on art. I will scan in her drawings from last week eventually. I thought she did a good job.

Here is Chiara doing what she does best during school time - making a mess! I think she was playing in Cati's glass of water with a fork and a toy. You can see that the front of her dress is wet.

Here is Cati's history project for the week. It's a snake to go along with a story from the middle east called "Sinbad and the Valley of the Snakes."

When I don't scan in any work, I don't have much to show for Maria. She doesn't have history projects - just reading and writing. We are reading the book "Johnny Tremain" together, which we are both enjoying. She did a couple of simple science demonstrations as we continued talking about friction, motion, speed, and acceleration. One such demostration involved dropping play-doh balls off the stairs. Of course, Chiara and Matteo had to join in on this one. Dany came home (early), and walked in on this activity - oops! We usually try to complete all messy or "wild" school activities before he gets home :)

Homeschool week #6: 9/28 - 10/2

The weather really turned on us this week! All of a sudden it became quite cool and wet here in PA.

We had a good school week. It goes by so fast, at least for me! We have 3 full days on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thursday, we school in the mornings, go to Swim & Gym at the YMCA, and then do a little more school work when we get home. On Friday, we have a normal morning and then go to their classes at St. Vincent in the afternoon. This week, the kids will begin their religion education classes (The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd).

Here's a look of some things we did last week...

Maria had a review week in Latin, which was good since our schooling thus far has been on and off with visitors :)



In history, we've been learning about colonial America. I've been enjoying studying this with her so much! I'm learning a lot of things that I don't remember from my own school days. And, we get into good discussions at times. I also really like one of her history spines, Landmark's American History. It tells a lot of the stories that you don't hear in your typical textbook.

Maria writes a page about what we read 3 days each week. Here's a page about the beginning of the colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Here's a page about what children did during colonial times.

In art this week, Maria learned about value, the lightness or darkness of the drawing. She was supposed to draw a picture with 3 different values, light, medium, and dark.

Here is Maria's spelling test for this week. She learned words with the /er/ sound spelled with "or" after a "w" (a.k.a. "the /er/ of works).

For the last section of the test, I dictate several words to her that she must then use to write her own sentences.



In physics this week, Maria learned about friction. To demonstrate this idea, she pulled books on the floor and then pulled them after placing them on some pencils.

Here's the page she wrote with her notes from our reading and with pictures of some examples we discussed.

There is a short video at the end of this post of the demonstration.



Here is Cati's science lesson for the week. She was learning about air, more specifically, that air is made of something that takes up space.

One day she played with a balloon, observing it empty and after blowing it up.

(I love how I always have at least one picture with Chiara involved in a lesson!!)



Here's the lab sheet she wrote about this.

On another day, she played with air in a glass in water. For a better explanation, watch the videos at the end of the post.

Here's the labsheet about this experiment. She concluded that air is made of something that takes up space.

In art, Cati was supposed to arrange her own still life to draw with pastels.

Here's her arrangement...

Here's her drawing... (we'll work on her spelling of "favorite"!)

Here's a fact practice sheet that Cati did this week: 100 addition facts.

And here's a lesson practice sheet.

In history, we talked about the beginnings of Islam.

Here's some cursive copywork.

Cati is preparing to make her 1st Confession in December and to receive her 1st Communion in the spring. So, we're doing lots of different things to prepare. She studies the catechism, of course. She's also started doing some more hands-on things from Catholic Heritage Curriculum. This week, we talked about the parts of the church. She knew where everything was in our church, except for the confessional - pretty important when you're going to start using it in 2 months. Our priest let us tour it at our leisure after Mass one morning this week.

Here's a cut and paste project she did about the parts of the church.

Here's Cati's spelling test from this week. She learned about when to double the final consonant of a word before adding a vowel suffix.

The only thing I have to show for Matteo this week is a Math page. We've been working, though! He reads to me everyday. He reads short-vowel words with consonant blends and diagraphs. He started reading long vowel silent "e" words a few weeks ago, and he's doing very well with it. He also practices phonograms everyday. He knows almost all of the single letter phonograms, many of which have several different sounds, and he's been working on the different /er/ phonograms: er, ir, ur, wor, and ear. I also read to him at the end of our lessons. This week he's been choosing Dr. Seuss stories, mainly "The Grinch who Stole Christmas."