Baby #5 - 1st Ultrasound Pictures

We had our 1st ultrasound for this baby today. Everything looked great, and it confirmed the exact gestational age that I have on my pregnancy ticker. We're looking at a due date around May 8th. We saw arms and legs, hands and feet, even the hemispheres of the brain. She (I can't call a baby "it") was even moving. We'll have the midpregnancy ultrasound around Christmas, and hopefully, we'll find out the sex of the baby then.

(Homeschool) Week-in-Review 10/13 - 10/18

Here is my (late) posting about our past week. I put "homeschool" in parentheses because there's a lot more to this post than homeschooling :) My parents have been here over the past 5 days, so we had a relaxed end to the week.



Monday through Wednesday, we did our usual full-time homeschooling.



Maria:


Math- The usual this week...Still review lessons with a test on Friday. She's onto multiplication and division fact practice now. She took a test on Friday and made an A. She'll begin some new things soon, which will be fun (hopefully!).

This is the 1st year that I have to report our homeschooling for Maria to the school district. One of the requirements is civics. So, this past week she started a lapbook on U.S. Presidential Elections. Lapbooks are a fun break from the usual, while learning a certain topic and covering many subject areas. This counted for reading, writing, history, and art this week. I love the lapbooks from http://www.handsofachild.com/ ! I hope she'll finish it over the next week, so that I'll be able to show it off on the blog next week.


Grammar: Continued with nouns. This week covered rules on making nouns plural. For instance, when a word ends with an "o," when do you add "s" and when do you add "es"? I can never remember! This week was really more of a spelling lesson.


Spelling: Completed a lesson on words with the phonograms "au" and "aw". This week, she'll finish the last lesson in this level and review all the words from this level.



Cati:


As terrible as it sounds, I can't remember what she covered in her skill subjects this week! Her exciting school work of the week was her panda bear lapbook for science. I found some great FREE animal lapbooks (http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ ), so you'll be seeing a lot of these during the school year! This past week, we studied bears and read many library books on brown bears and polar bears and then worked on the panda bear lapbook. We learned a lot about panda habitat, diet, infant development, endangerment, and other things! We finished the study with a quick look at the "Panda Cam" on Zoo Atlanta's website.

On Thursday and Friday, Cati took the days off, and Maria did a little work, finishing things from the week and continuing the Election Lapbook. Grandma and Pipa got a 1st hand look at Swim and Gym on Thursday afternoon. We took the kids to St. Vincent for their classes on Friday afternoon, while the rest of us went grocery shopping (exciting, I know!).

Saturday was my birthday! Mom, Maria, and I went to the Mall to try to find a decent winter Sunday dress for Maria without luck. However, over the past few weeks Maria's been asking about getting her ears pierced. While we were at the mall, she decided to go for it! You can see one of the earrings in this picture. I couldn't get an angle where you could see both in the same shot.

Maria also started wearing her orthodontic brace overnight this week. She's doing very well!

That evening, Grandma cooked my favorite meal for my birthday: country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, peas, biscuits, and gravy!! It was so good! Followed by...cheesecake! That's always been my favorite cake. In the picture below, you will see Matteo and I blowing out candles on a regular cake that I made for the kids. Cheesecake doesn't count as birthday cake for them :)

Once you turn 31, not only do you need help blowing out birthday candles, but you also need help opening presents :)

It was a great birthday!

Homeschool Week-in-Review: Week 7

This was a busy week with my 1st prenatal appointment (see post below) and Chiara's 18-month check-up and my 1st trimester labwork on Friday. We'll be happy to take a break from all these outside appointments. The upcoming week will be a short one (3 days!) as we await a visit from the grandparents beginning Wednesday afternoon!


Here's is what we managed to accomplish this week:




Together:


History - This subject suffered this week. We did get to begin a chapter on Ancient India that we will continue this week. Here is Cati's narration on what we read. Sometimes she insists on writing her own narration. She obviously needs much work on her writing mechanics, but it's so great that she likes to write! This narration was about why ancient civilizations built their cities next to rivers:

Art - Another subject that suffered this week. We still haven't finished our shading pictures :) Here is another bird picture that Cati completed a few weeks ago. There is a bird for each person in the family, including the munchkin in my tummy, all complete with hair :) Some of us even got things to eat!

Swimming Lessons - See the post below for recent pictures and videos of the kids at swimming lesssons.

Maria:

Math - Let me preface this story with a basic fact about Maria: She can't do anything quickly :) That includes getting ready in the morning or for bed at night, using the bathroom, eating, school work, etc. It's just not the way she is! On with the story...Everyday, math begins with a 5 minute fact practice. She's supposed to work towards completing 100 problems in this time. She worked on addition for the 1st few weeks and got up to 90+ in 5:00. Then, came subtraction, which proved much more difficult. Despite practicing for several weeks, she was only completing 50 - 60 in this time. She was supposed to move on to multiplication, but I couldn't let her do this since she was still struggling with subtraction. So, I told her on Tuesday that she was going to starting doing 2 of these timed fact sheets each day until she was able to complete at least 80 in 5 minutes because she needed the extra practice. So, she started on that one that morning, and guess what?! She completed ALL 100 problems in 5:00!!! I guess she just needed a little motivation :) Now we move on to multiplication :)

Literature - She ALMOST finished with "Fr. Marquette and the Great River." She will begin "Black Beauty" this week.

Spelling - Maria completed 2 more lessons this week, including one on the correct use of "oi" or "oy" in words. She has 2 more lessons left in this level!

Grammar - She began the chapter on nouns this week - all review.

Writing - The 1st 2 days of writing this week was dedicated to writing Thank You notes for her birthday gifts from last month! Now, I just have to mail them... She took dication to complete writing this week.

Science - This week she charged a balloon on a wool sock and 'bent' a stream of water towards it since water is a polar molecule. She repeated the experiment with oil, which is not polar and not attracted to the charged balloon. She wrote up her experiment.

Latin - She started a new lesson this week on nouns and began the Doxology (Glory Be...).

Cati:

Math - She learned some new subtraction facts this week: subtracting zero from a number and subtracting a number from itself.

Literature - She completed the 3rd second grade reader this week. Now she's onto the readers that Maria used last year. I'm having trouble keeping up with her!

Grammar - She learned about the 2nd kind of sentence: questions.

Spelling - She worked on making vowel-consonant-Silent E words plural.

Writing - She gave narrations and did copywork from "Peter Rabbit."

Science - We read about monkeys and apes. Here is a zebra drawing that she did a few weeks ago when we read about them. Cati is an individual :) She thought that a black and white zebra was just too boring, so she added orange! The green smiley face on the top right was a sun before she colored over it in blue. And she told me that the red part of the picture isn't anything - she just wanted to use some red!

Matteo:

Nothing much to report this week. See him below in the swimming lesson post.

Chiara:

Results of her check-up: She's very healthy and didn't need any vaccines!! She weighed 28 lbs [12.7 kg] (90th percentile) and was 33" tall [84cm] (75th - 90th percentile). She'll have another check-up when she's 2-years-old!

Swimming Update

I finally remembered the camera for swimming lessons!



Here's a picture of Cati during Matteo's swimming lessons. The instructor lets the girls in for freetime. Cati loves bouncing around the pool on the noodles :) Matteo's instructor is the same one as Cati's, and she's always trying to convince her to practice some during this freetime. It doesn't happen much :)

Here's a video of Cati "swimming" during her lessons. You can see that she's now in the 'big' pool. It's taken a few weeks for her to get used to. She can touch the bottom of the pool everywhere in the smaller pool, but, of course, not in this one.

Here is Cati jumping into the deep end for the 1st time.

Here's a video of Cati jumping in any pool voluntarily, without someone pulling her in, for the 1st time!!! She's our very cautious child, so these are all big steps for her!

Here's a video of Matteo jumping in the pool. He's been doing very well lately. He was very excited about me bringing the camera to record him!

This video is of Maria. She's swimming well now and can swim the length of the pool. Her favorite thing to do during lessons comes at the end. The instructor throws several rings that sink to the bottom of the pool, and she has to swim down and retrieve them.

18-Months!

Chiara is 18-months-old today! Happy 1 and a half birthday!!

Here are pictures of all the kids around the same age:

1st Prenatal Appointment!

I had my 1st prenatal appointment this afternoon! We got to hear the baby's heartbeat!!! That's always amazing to hear. The baby is only about 1/2" long and it's heart is probably only the size of a pinhead (I'm just guessing on that). But, you can hear it beating so fast and so strong! We will have an ultrasound in 3 weeks to verify the due date and another check-up in 4 weeks.

Truly you have formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works.
Ps 139: 13-14

Homeschool Week-in-Review: Week 6

This week was busy as usual. We added Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to their outside programs this week. Cati and Matteo go on Tuesday morning, which presents a new scheduling challenge! Maria goes on Tuesday evenings. The program is a great complement to our catechism study at home. It focuses on liturgy and the Bible.

Maria also got her orthodontic night brace this week, which included yet another orthodontic appointment, of course, and the addition of break-in bracing-wearing time to our schedule, as she works towards wearing it at night. The good news is that she doesn't have another check-up for 5 weeks!! We've been going to the orthodontist every 1-2 weeks for more than a month now. But, this week I will have my 1st prenatal appointment (always exciting!), and Chiara will have her 18-month check-up. We're never at a loss for places to go!

Onto the school work we managed to accomplish:

Together:

In history, we studied the beginning of Assyria and read the story of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest fairy tales.

In art, they started on their 1st shading project. They only completed half of it. This is the 1st time that it's taken them more than one session to finish a project. Hopefully, they'll finish this week, and I can post them next week.

Poetry - You can see their recitations from this week in the post below this one. They began new poems this week, too.

Maria:

In math, we continued working through these beginning review lessons. We've switched from addition drills to subtraction drills, which are proving to be a challenge! On Friday, she made a huge leap in these, though!

In spelling, she completed a couple more lessons, including words spelled with the soft "g" sound, especially ones needing a "silent e" at the end of a word. Only 4 more lessons until she's done with this level!

In reading, she continued reading "Fr. Marquette and the Great River" and wrote a narration of one chapter. We're enjoying this book. I try to read ahead of her so that we can talk about it. On Fridays, she works though Seton's Reading Comprehension and Thinking Skills books. She enjoys these. They have great saint stories and also good vocabulary exercises. I like them because it gives me a good idea about how well she's reading and comprehending on grade level.

In writing, she gave narrations and took dication from "Farmer Boy" by Laura I. Wilder. I love using a different book each week to practice these skills. It gets the girls interested in many different books and makes them want to read the whole book. In these writing exercises, we focus only on a couple of brief passages.

Latin was a review week.

Grammar was a review/test week. She did very well!

In science, she did the classic vinegar and baking soda experiment. Here's a video of her explaining her experiment:

Cati:

In math, she focus on adding 2 to an even or odd number, noticing that this is really counting by 2s. I love how her math program teaches math facts. During the week or 2 before this, there was a lot of time spent on counting by 2s and identifying even and odd numbers. Now, adding 2 to a number is nothing! She does her fact practice so easily! She also filled a large triangle with pattern blocks 4 different times, sorted and recorded the number of different shapes she used. Activities like this are the reason SHE loves the program! They frequently have fun, yet useful, activies to break up the tedious memorization of math facts.

In spelling, she continued working on "silent e" words. She should know these well once she's through the lessons! She's such a good speller for her age!

In reading, she continued working through the Faith and Freedom reader, and she read to me from her religion book. We also started "The Blue Fairy Book." These stories are rather long, so we take turns reading paragraphs, but she enjoys them much more than the reader.

In writing, she gave narrations and did copywork from the book "Mary Poppins." It's always fun to read from a book that you know so well as a movie.

In Grammar, we started talking about different kids of sentences. This week was about statements. She loves grammar so much! I'm not sure what the appeal is, but I'm glad. She even asks me on weekends if she can do it, but I'm keeping her on schedule. The study of words and sentences can be rather abstract and can take time to really GET. It's not just about completing pages. She could probably complete grades 1 and 2 easily this year, but I just don't think she would developmentally ready for 3rd grade next year!

Science took a backseat this week with our schedule. We did manage to start talking about monkeys and apes at the orthodontist's office while Maria was back with the doctor :) We'll read about these more this week.

Matteo:

Well, I forgot the camera (AGAIN!) for his swimming lessons. Maybe next week! You can see his poetry recitation below. It's really funny! I discovered this week that he's learned to play the 1st piano piece that the girls' learned. Go figure!

Chiara:

People often ask what I do with Chiara while we school. Well, she makes messes! I've learned not to let it bother me. So long as she's safe and happy, I can clean it up later!