Week 2!

It's been another great week (overall) at Clay Academy! I say "overall" because the week started out pretty rough. It didn't take long on Monday morning to realize that no one was really feeling like doing school. Annlee had been to the doctor on Friday with a sinus infection and two ear infections. The doctor looked in the ears of everyone else at that time and all were fine. By Monday, though, it was apparent that they weren't still fine. Elianna had her Meet The Teacher day for 3 year old preschool and then we headed down to the pediatrician again. Kaylin had pink eye (and later in the week developed an ear infection), Maryella had an ear infection, and Elianna had an ear infection and bronchitis with wheezing. We got antibiotics all around plus medicine for Elianna to have breathing treatments. Elianna missed her first day of preschool the next day, which made us pretty sad. But she did very well with her breathing treatments in the meantime.

School rolled right along and the antibiotics seemed to perk everyone up. By Wednesday, Elianna was able to start school and she was so excited!

Her teachers are all SO sweet! We love them dearly and are so excited that they get to have one more of our babies in their class!

The rest of the week, we learned some tricky things in science by looking at some fun posters about photosynthesis, the oxygen cycle, and the water cycle. Much better than the boring book!

We also did a search for leaves in our backyard and did rubbings of bark to discover what kind of trees are in our yard.

We continued to learn about maps and the world in geography (garage-aphy, as Elianna likes to call it). Here we made a paper doll chain of children from around the world to decorate our world map.

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We learned about how small we are compared to how big the world is by starting with our house and getting bigger and bigger (city, state, country, continent, planet). But God loves ALL of us!

We made vocabulary cards for "ocean".

We ended our week with a fun treat - making cupcakes look like the world! That activity was a hit!

Lessons From Week 1

One week down! Overall, it was a wonderful experience! The girls all said they loved it. We had lots of fun, did crafts, and even enjoyed English and Math! Our favorite subject by far has been geography! We all agree on that! My Father's World is amazing! There are several things I learned this week, though... 1. I love Elianna so much, but I'm really glad that she'll be starting preschool next week. 2. I need to find plenty of things for 2 of the girls to be doing together while I'm working with the third. 3. Maryella never stops moving. (I knew this already, but it was just reinforced this week! Whew! That child is part monkey, I'm almost positive!) 4. The helping verbs are... am, is, are, was, were, be , been, being, have, has, had, may, might, must, do, does, did, can, could, shall, should, will, would. I'm sure I learned that list at some point, but our English curriculum had a clever way to remember it. I don't think Kaylin or I will ever forget those now! 5. Laundry is even harder to get done now. 6. Homeschool kids still get sick. (About to head to the doctor as we speak with Annlee) 7. These girls really catch on fast! (Annlee with English and Maryella with Math - wow! It's amazing watching light bulbs go on! And Kaylin is loving math! Did I really just type that?!?!) 8. A week passes by really fast! 9. I CAN do this! (As long I remember to take lots of deep breaths!) 10. I LOVE my girls!!! Some pictures of the highlights of our week... Discovering our backyard habitat

Making an earthworm niche

Learning about the world by making an apple pie (Read How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World by Marjorie Priceman) It wasn't much to look at but it was mighty tasty!

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John 3:16 Posters

Our Geography vocabulary cards for the word continent (Kaylin drew South America, Annlee drew Antarctica, Maryella colored North and South America after I drew them)

Oranges and the World

We had lots of fun today learning about maps and why certain countries are distorted on a flat map verses a globe. To better understand how hard it is to get the round world on a flat map, we did a project with oranges that I had drawn on to look like little globes. The girls loved it so much and had a ball!

After we played with our oranges and were unsuccessful in making perfectly flat maps from our round "worlds", we used our Bible verse for the week (John 3:16) to make an art project. They made posters with pictures and characters of people from all over the world. I'm glad we saved this for last because they spent tons of time playing with those little foam people!

First Day Jitters and Successes!

After months and months of anticipation, planning, and lots of stress as well as excitement the day has finally arrived!!!!!! I've been trying to put aside my nerves all weekend. Our friends spent last Thursday and Friday finding out who their teachers were and meeting them, getting school supplies, packing backpacks, and picking out first day outfits. I felt a little bit lost to tell the truth. It seemed like I was cheating somehow... breaking some sort of rule. And to be totally honest, I was a teeny bit jealous and sad that we weren't meeting some sweet new teachers. (Especially one for Maryella! You know who you are!!) But at some point over the weekend, Maryella looked at me and said, "Mama, you know what is great? I already know my teacher! It's you!" And Kaylin said, "It's really cool that we met our teacher the day we were born!" Seeing their excitement for homeschooling helped me find mine again. But then last night, I really started feeling the pressure! This is real! There's no turning back! Ahh! As I was taking deep breaths and getting things layed out for the morning, I told Jeff that I kinda wished I could just send them off to school this morning and be done with it. Talk about first day jitters! I was having some serious cold feet! But I got everything as ready as I could and had a few pep talks from Jeff (I love you, hon!) and decided to try and get a good night's sleep. This morning I woke up ready to go. Jeff got the girls started on breakfast while I spent my shower time in some heavy prayers for the day. I came into the kitchen and greeted my sweet students with a smile on face, even though I was feeling like a bowl of jello on the inside. They ate, got dressed, and then we took our own first day pictures.

1st Grade!

3rd Grade!

5th Grade!

Sweet 3 year preschooler!

Jeff started the day off with our Bible lesson. The girls will be memorizing John 3:16 this week as well as starting to get an idea of what it means to have a Biblical world view.

We moved into our Language Arts time and things went very smoothly. I started Kaylin and Annlee on some independent work while I worked with Maryella on phonics and reading. Then it was Kaylin's turn. That's where we hit our only slight bump. Kaylin loves English, but the curriculum we chose is pretty advanced compared to what she's been doing in school the last few years. She's got a good bit of catching up to do and it was sort of discouraging to her. But we can work it out. We finished up with Annlee's turn with me.

Then it was time for Math. All 3 girls really enjoyed watching the dvd and playing with the blocks that come with Math U See. Maryella especially had a good time learning about decimal street and place value.

I had laid out lots of fun things for Elianna to play with and she had a ball doing her school! She'll actually be going to our church preschool starting next week, but she was very excited to be a part of our fun today.

We finished all of that by 11 or so and then the girls got some playtime while I did puppy duty and got lunch ready. We ate, Elianna went down for her nap, then we started our Geography and Science. We all sat together at the dining room table and it was lots of fun! We filled out passport applications to get ready for our upcoming trip around the world, we learned about maps (even read a map to find a little snack), learned about ecosystems, and just had a great time together.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and it did wonders for my nerves! I'm ready for another day now! Day one at Clay Academy was a success!