Maria's Spelling Assignment

On Fridays for spelling, Maria blindly chooses phrases from a group and puts them together to make a sentence that becomes a writing assignment in which she is supposed to use as many spelling words from this week as possible.  Today she turned it into a poem, and I like it so much that I have to share!

 

Assignment:  Write a silly short story about a bossy burglar who lives in a tree fort.

 

Once there was a burglar who lived in seclusion

When he saw a tree fort, he reached a conclusion

He would live there

 

Even when the trees laid siege to conquer him

And their cannons made such a din

He would live there

 

Even on the occasion

That it was nearly impossible to stop their invasion

He would live there.

 

Even when the trees reached a decision

That they should make trouble without supervision

He would live there

 

Even when there was an explosion

That made a huge erosion

He would live there.

 

So he defeated the trees in a fight

And bossed them around all day and all night

 

And that is my version

Of the decision

Of the burglar that lived in seclusion

 

By Maria E Arcara

Happy Birthday!!

Maria celebrated her 12th birthday today!!

Another zoo trip

The kids' Friday afternoon classes at St. Vincent don't begin until next week, so we took the opportunity to visit the zoo again this past Friday. It was almost deserted there since schools are in session now and we didn't get there until 2pm. It was nice go around without the crowds!

How's school going?

School is going well around here! I'm pleasantly surprised! I spent A LOT of time this summer planning and entering lessons on Homeschool Tracker Online (HST Online) and I'm happy to see that it was worth it! I print out assignment sheets daily for the 3 older kids with all of their work listed, corrections to be made on previous work, chores, and exercises. The kids really like knowing exactly what they need to do each day. We do follow a schedule, but if they finish a subject early, then they can move on to other work and get ahead of schedule. I love that's it has freed me answering, "What do I do now?" dozens of times a day so that I can actually spend time teaching. I've even had time to read and cut and glue and color with the little ones! I also like how HST lists all the assignments for me to check-off as graded. I can't tell you how many times I've had to apologize to one of the kids for forgetting to grade things because I didn't have a list of what needed to be graded.

I'm glad things are going smoothly so far and that all of our curricula seem to be working out well. I'll try to post some of the work the kids have done soon so you can have a peek into our homeschool days.

Getting ready for the new school year: Cati

I continued back-to-school preparations today.  I cleaned out a closet that I store a lot of homeschooling things that we are not currently using.  It had gotten REALLY bad.  It looks so much better now.  But, of course, the room that the closet it in is a gigantic mess.  I hope to finish it up tomorrow.

Today, I'll show you Cati's responses to my back-to-school questionaire. 

Cati is 9 years old and it starting 4th grade.  If you are interested in seeing her curricula, then click on the link on the right side of the blog.

Favorite color:  black (news to me!)
Favorite season:  winter..."snow=I like to play in it."
Favorite saint: St. Catherine of Siena because "I was named after her."
Favorite song/hymn:  Lord of the Dance (This is a hymn that she learned during the Lent & Easter season.)
Favorite subject:  science
Least favorite subject:  grammar
Most looking forward to learning:  Italian
She drew a picture of her feeding a mallard duck.  She says that she loves their green heads :)

Getting ready for the new school year: Maria

Guest post here from Momma!  We're busy getting ready to begin school next Monday.  I've done a lot of planning this summer, but there is still some organizing and other preparations to take care of this week.  I have to put away old books, organize new ones, plan activities for the little ones during school time, put up some bulletin boards, print some papers, pick up library books, prepare notebooks, find the top of my desk...I'm sure I'm forgetting something.



Today I gave the kids this quick activity to do to give us something to remember about their likes and dislikes, handwriting, and drawing abilities at this age.  I'll post one each day for a different child. 

Here is Maria.  She will be in 7th grade this year.  You can click on the link on the right side of the blog to see her curricula for this year if you are interested.

Since you won't be able to read this little picture (maybe you can click on it to see it larger), I'll type out her answers below.

Maria says that she's 12 years old, but she's a few weeks ahead of herself.  She will celebrate her birthday in less than 3 weeks!

Her favorite color:  Blue

Her favorite season:  Summer because "it's not cold and our flowers bloom."

Her favorite saint:  Mary because "I was named after her and she was closest to Jesus."

Her favorite song/hymn:  "Sing of Mary"

Her favorite subject:  math, science, and history

Her least favorite subject:  "don't know"

What are you most looking forward to learning this year:  history

Her hobbies:  "sewing, writing poems, drawing, learning things that Mom doesn't teach, reading...(maybe there's something I'm forgetting)"

I asked them to draw their favorite things in nature.  She drew a cat and said, "animals" and a flower and said, "flowers."  You'll have to squint really hard (or try clicking on the picture) to actually see her drawing :)

Giuseppe

Now that Giuseppe is thirteen months old he's starting to do several new things. Giuseppe is walking almost all the time and has added new words to his vocabulary. He has started saying Mommy instead of Mama, says Cati's name, and calls me Ra Ra.  He also knows cracker, cup, yogurt, bear, and baby.  He also learned that if he "asks" for things he'll usually get them.  The picture below was taken at Dave and Busters where he tried to play a couple of games.

These two pictures was taken at the Tellus Museum where Giuseppe tried a few activities.

Now Giuseppe's trying out swinging like the rest of us.  I think he liked it.

Giuseppe also tries to play Wii like his brother.