archery!

Haye LOVES archery...I was really excited to be able to get him in last minute to one of the homeschooling meetups for archery class where he had a blast. Definitely one of the highlights of his year so far! I'm really glad we got to go as he was sick and we were borderline cancelling the fieldtrip. 

a few examples of some work

Haye is writing a book...

This was completely 100% unprompted...I fell asleep one afternoon with Zao and when I woke up Haye had written out the beginning of this book. It is so cute, and even though there are spelling errors and the writing gets messier with each page I really, really love this.

Bullies.

Haye has been experiencing a bit of bullying on the playground at our co-op. There is a 12 year old boy there that Haye likes to play with, but he is pretty aggressive and hands-on...and he weighs more than I do and is as tall as me. He has been holding kids hands behind their backs, pretending to choke kids, and then laughing at them when they cry.

Needless to say, we have been attempting to curb his behaviour and the next step will be talking to his Grandma who he lives with. Haye isn't allowed to play outside with him anymore unless there is a specific group of kids playing along with them. In the meantime we are teaching Haye about what it means to be bullied, different forms of bullying, and what to do when you feel threatened. (Yes, I told him he could punch him in the face if we aren't around and he feels like he is in danger...)

We have found some great books though (hooray for public libraries!) that Haye has read to me and then we have had some good discussions about bullies and how to deal with them. He is a pretty insightful little guy!

Myrtle is a book about a little mouse named Myrtle who has a great life until a bully named Frances moves in next door. Myrtle eventually stops playing outside because she is scared of Frances taunting her. Myrtle's Aunt Tizzy comes home from Africa to help her decide how to confront her fears. Myrtle stops giving Frances any power over her by ignoring her words and in turn Frances is defeated.

Gator Gumbo is a book about Monsieur Gator who is teased by all the younger animals in the swamp because he moves slowly and can't catch anything for dinner. He eventually ends up tricking them and they fall into his gumbo and he eats them for dinner. Haye really enjoyed this book because it was funny, but also pointed out that it isn't okay to make fun of people just because they are different than you are, or because they are older or younger etc.

Still waiting on some books on physical bullying to come in for us to study.

GRADE 3!!!!!!!!!

Wait, what? How is my teeny baby in grade 3?
INSANE.

BIBLE

This year we are going back through The Action Bible paired up with The Action Bible Devotional. (We haven't started this yet as it hasn't come in yet but I am hoping it will be here this week).

SOCIALS

We have Outlooks 3: Our Communities  on order and have started Canada Map Book 2. We also picked up a giant map of Canada for Haye and he has been studying it in his room every night before bed.

MATH

We changed from Jump Math to Horizons Math Book 1 and Horizons Math Book 2. It is more expensive but Haye wasn't interested in doing Jump Math anymore. I have heard it doesn't cover Statistics or Probability very well, so we
picked up Deca Dice to supplement Math.

LANGUAGE ARTS 

We have the Farmer Boy Study Guide on order (Haye likes the Little House books a lot). Haye is also listening to many audiobooks and reading tons of novels. We did the grade 2 workbook last year and picked up Grammar & Punctuation 3 last week. Haye did really well this curriculum last year. We haven't started Spectrum Spelling Grade 3 yet but I have picked it up along with Just Write Book 2. Haye has a few lessons left in Just Write Book 1 that we are finishing before we move on.

SCIENCE

We are breaking up Science into 3 parts this year which we will cover in Fall, Winter, and Spring. In Fall we are going to be using Minecraft and K'NEX Intro to Structures: Bridges along with library books to cover Structures and Materials. In the Winter we will cover The Solar System, and in Spring we will learn about plants.

ART

We have no set curriculum for Art this year, but we will continue doing Visual Art. A friend of mine will be covering the key components to grade 3 Art with Haye once a week and we will be doing lots of painting and modelling etc. We will also be learning about artists and techniques through various library books.

GYM

Haye will go into Swimming lessons this fall and will continue to skateboard etc. He is extremely active.

HEALTH AND CAREER

We haven't decided what we are doing here yet, but we will have more information available by the end of the week.

Grade 2 Term 3

We are definitely not finished school yet, and I suspect we will probably be working until the end of June on it, but we are getting there. Haye has definitely improved this year on a multitude of things, including small yet important tasks such as neater writing, but he also has improved on bigger tasks such as being able to follow directions. Often I will be putting Zao to sleep so I will hand him a couple workbooks and tell him what to do in each and he will get them done quickly, whereas before he would be daydreaming when I talked to him and would forget, or would get frustrated that he had to do a minimal amount of work for 10 minutes at a time. I would say this has been our greatest accomplishment this year - finding a good balance. I am still learning to follow Haye's cues as far as schooling goes. We have had the privilege to go on quite a few field trips and have had a lot of learning experiences outside of the classroom kitchen. We have also solidified some great friendships in the local homeschool community and have an awesome support group :)

BIBLE 

We are not finished our curriculum for the year still but we plan on getting it finished this month. We have been focusing on Math, Socials, and Writing. I think that for grade 3 I am going to set up specific days of the week for different subjects as it is completely unrealistic for us to get all of our subjects done in one day. I will update this in early June when we get back from Alberta! 

MATH

Finished! Haye has learned so much this year. He did Jump Math 2.1 and 2.2 entirely and even went back through his books and worked on all the pages he had trouble with without being asked. I really like the cost and layout of Jump Math but Haye is bored of it and claims he hates Math (even though he is ridiculously good at it), so we are going to try Horizons for grade 3. It always blows my mind how quickly Haye can pick up a Math concept, I usually only have to explain something once or twice to him before it clicks. He still does a lot of Math problems verbally on his own and likes to give quizzes to people. :)

GYM

Haye is a self-proclaimed "outdoors kid" and spends a lot of his time outside. This year he got a BMX and learned how to ride a bike within minutes of picking it up, and he has barely put it down since. I would say he spends at least 2 hours a day running around outside, climbing on the playground, and riding his bike...and 2 hours is the bare minimum. Sometimes he is outside 4, 5, 6 hours a day. He is also still skateboarding with Derek and they are starting a homeschool meetup on Saturday mornings at 7 at the local skatepark where Derek will give lessons to homeschoolers. Haye is pretty excited about this.

FINE ARTS

Honestly...I find it hard to implement a Fine Arts curriculum. We are pretty child-led learning as homeschoolers and Haye isn't always into colouring or drawing or art lessons. I have gotten some curriculum for next year already that we are going to work with, but this year we have been pretty lax. If he wants to colour or draw or paint then he knows where the supplies are and is free to use them whenever. He has started drawing pictures from tutorials however, and he really loves to draw Star Wars scenes. One thing that he is extremely into is music, and he often sets up and plays DJ with our turntables. He likes to play on his keyboard and create songs. We recently went to a jamboree/potluck at a farm and Haye had a blast with all the different instruments. 

SOCIALS

We have mostly covered grade 2 socials already last year and throughout the summer. He knows how to read maps, how to label maps, and has worked on recognizing countries and oceans. We have focused a lot on identity and on what makes people unique, including strengths and weaknesses we all have. We also have worked on money with him and saving up for large purchases which he has been successful at. He understands that everyone needs to contribute to the household to keep it running and is good about his responsibilities (cleaning up after the dog, taking him outside and feeding him, putting the toys and books away in the living room once a day, keeping his room tidy, helping with laundry etc.) Because we had already done all of this, this year we focused largely on the First Peoples of Canada, specifically the Salish. Haye read quite a few books that we had put on hold at the library that went through all the different First Peoples of Canada and I would quiz him orally on them after. One highlight for Haye this year in Social Studies would be the field trip we took to the Museum to learn all about the Salish. He was so excited to be able to sit inside the pit house and listen to traditional music. They also were given beads to exchange with each other and make arrowhead necklaces.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Haye has recently discovered the joy of audiobooks, and listens to at least 2 a week. Usually they are of stories he has already read. Right now he is listening to Little House on the Prairie (which he owns but hasn't read yet) and he just finished book 3 in the Origami Yoda series. He reads a TON. Tons and tons and tons. He is into Magic Treehouse currently. He often is found just reading. He is definitely our kid! He has also finished his grammar and punctuation workbook and is working through Just Write. It took him quite awhile to get into it, but he is doing a few pages a day right now. He also finished his Read and Understand With Leveled Texts workbook. We have quite a few other workbooks for him to dabble in and if he is bored or needs something to do for a few minutes I will give him one of them. My favourite is a vintage About Me book that is pretty much the most adorable thing in the world.

SCIENCE

Well...we had good intentions to finish our curriculum...but I feel like we barely dented it. I really loved it, but I just don't have the time right now with a toddler to sit and do Science daily for an hour or two. I talked to Cynthia at Cornerstone and she suggested that I shelve it and do butterflies, so that is what we currently have in our kitchen cupboard (away from the sunlight). Today was a big day for the caterpillars as they started entering their chrysalis'! Haye is super excited about them. We also are incubating chicks! They are on day 6 and the 21st of June is their hatch day. We currently have 7 incubating but I am fairly sure one of them isn't going to make it. We are having a really fun time learning about the life cycle of chickens and butterflies! We are actually going to build a coop up at Quality Farms and keep our chickens there, and Haye is SO excited about it. He thanks us multiple times a day. I will update this with photos and put another blog post up with the butterflies and chickens!

Grade 2 Term 2

Well, here we are again. :)

BIBLE!

Haye has finished the Action Bible...I mean he completely and totally read the entire graphic novel (over 700 pages) on his own. It took him a few weeks but he did it, and I am so stoked on him! Here's a few pictures to give you an idea of what the contents are and what the pages look like. (Please remember you can click any picture to make it fullscreen!) 

Recently we stapled a map of the holy land (from an old National Geographic) to the underside of the top bunk of Haye's bunkbeds and he lays in bed at night studying it. We play a game nearly every night where we each get 5 turns to stump the other person with a location. He is definitely better than I am at the game! The map also has interesting information on it like where the sermon on the mount is expected to have been and where Jesus fed the 5000. It is really interesting and Haye is totally captivated by it.He also is still working through his Finding God's Promises workbook. At the end of the last term he had done up to Lesson 10 and he is finished Level 17 now. He was so taken up with reading the Action Bible that we didn't push him to do a ton of lessons until he was finished. Here's a couple examples of pages he has done.

Here is an updated list of where we are in the Bible curriculum and even though we are only halfway through it I am confident that we could finish it in a few weeks so I have no worries that Haye will get it done.

Unit One • God Gives Us Promises

Lesson 1 Trusting God’s Promises 7

Lesson 2 The Promise Of Heaven 9

Unit Two • God Creates The World

Lesson 3 God Makes All Things 15

Lesson 4 God Makes Man 19

Lesson 5 The Garden Of Eden 23

Lesson 6 The First Sin 25

Lesson 7 God Promises A Savior 29

Unit Three • God Prepares A Leader

Lesson 8 Slaves In Egypt 33

Lesson 9 God’s Plan For His People 37

Lesson 10 God’s Plan For Moses 41

Lesson 11 Moses Leaves Egypt 47

Lesson 12 God Speaks To Moses 51

Lesson 13 Moses Is Afraid 53

Lesson 14 God Gives Moses A Sign 57

Unit Four • God Delivers His People

Lesson 15 Moses Speaks To Pharaoh 63

Lesson 16 Moses’ Great Responsibility 67

Lesson 17 God Shows His Great Power 73

Lesson 18 The First Four Plagues 75

Lesson 19 Plagues On Animals And Men 79

Lesson 20 Three More Plagues 81

Lesson 21 Why God Sent The Plagues 85

Lesson 22 The Passover 89

Lesson 23 The Passover: A Picture Of Jesus 93

Unit Five • God Guides His People

Lesson 24 Time To Leave Egypt 99

Lesson 25 Pharaoh Changes His Mind 103

Lesson 26 Pharaoh’s Armies Are Destroyed 107

Lesson 27 Remembering What God Has Done 109

Lesson 28 More Grumbling 113

Lesson 29 God Shows His Holiness 117

Lesson 30 God Gives The Law 121

Lesson 31 The Golden Calf 125

Lesson 32 A Place For Worship 129

Lesson 33 More Complaining 133

Lesson 34 The Death Of Moses 137

Lesson 35 Let’s Review 14

MATH! 

Haye is doing really well with his Math. He has finished Jump Math 2.1 and is working through Jump Math 2.2 currently. He is on page 34.

Here is Book 1 of what he has completed:

Here is the table of contents for book 2:

Currently Haye is doing about 5 pages a day of Math. Here are some of the pages he has worked on in it so far:

Here is a couple pages from another book Haye is doing on measurement. 

GYM!

Haye finished his Gymnastics program just before Christmas and also his swimming lessons. He had a good time in both but we didn't re-enroll him in anything yet. I am not sure that the Gymnastics was super worth it as the homeschool class was GIGANTIC (like...50 kids in one room...). Instead, we have been doing a lot of Just Dance 4! Haye is a dancing addict and is super amazing at this game. There is a Just Sweat session that  is a pretty hard workout and he enjoys doing it a few times a week. We have also been going for walks, going swimming at H20 and Parkinson Rec Center, doing yoga, rurnning around outside with friends, and playing at the park. I'm thinking about enrolling Haye in baseball this year.

FINE ARTS!

I don't actually have a ton of photos of art Haye has made on my computer but he really likes to draw and make mazes on a daily basis. Unfortunately we never ended up joining the Drama club that we intended to start last month. Haye has taken up photography however and is loving it. I will post some photos sometime that he has taken. :)

This is a record he planned and painted for a friend for Christmas:

And here are some of the pages from a project he made randomly about a month ago along with translations because he didn't ask how to spell anything.

"Things That Can Go"

"A truck is big and good and climbing and Jeeps. Some have more than  4 to 18 wheels. it is real!"

"Helicopters are fast. AHHHH!"

"Jeeps are crushers"

"Limousine is a truck" (this one makes me laugh)

"Motorcycle, it has 2 wheels"

"Another truck is this kind."

"A boat is a water powered machine"

"A race car is a fast car it can go 200 miles per hour"

"A dump truck is a boulder eater"

He has also joined an online Lego Quest club where he does a lego challenge each time they are posted of a sculpture, tool, or a 2D item etc. I will have to take some photos of his creations and put them up.

LANGUAGE ARTS!

Haye has really taken up reading like crazy over the past couple months and is flying through books. Since Christmas, some of the books he has read are:

James and the Giant Peach

Haye made an adorable book report about James but I can't seem to find it...

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlotte's Web (this is my well-loved copy from when I was a little kid!)

Today he started Arthur and the Minimoys and is already on page 150 or something?! I can't even fathom how fast he is reading...although I was the same at his age it is still a little mind-blowing to me. We have to pick up some new chapter books asap! I think I will start reading him The Chronicles of Narnia maybe next month after the reading challenge is over. He is determined to win it and spends all of his free time reading these days.

Here's the table of contents from Haye's Read and Understand With Leveled Texts which he is doing really well in. He has done the first 15 stories.

Haye is doing extremely well in his Grammar and Punctuation workbook! He is flying through it. 

It is pretty fascinating to watch, because he easily picks up concepts and remembers them. He will read the instructions and immediately grasp them and do the lesson. The kid is brilliant! I think he has done 18 lessons so far.

Zao got her dirty little blueberry hands all over this book

SCIENCE!

We still haven't really done a ton of science this year. The curriculum is great, but just so hard to get into because it takes us soooo long to get it done, and with Zao being 20 months old and into everything, it is just that much harder. That being said, we are mostly just letting him learn about birds and go birdwatching. We teach him random things every now and then, such as the states of matter, but right now we are not worrying about science. I'll figure out the PLOs for this year and make sure he learns them for the most part but we might just do most of our science over the summer. 

Derek and Haye go birding at the bird sanctuary near our house quite often.

SOCIALS!

Here is the chapter list for the Story of the World Volume I that we are reading. We have finished 11 of 42 chapters which, when writing it out, doesn't seem like a lot, but Haye has so many other books on the go that I am just happy that he is reading! Sometimes I read it to him or he will read to me when I am making dinner.

The curriculum we have for Social Studies is for grades 1-3 and we are just picking and choosing what to do from it recently.

Haye has been drafting up a letter for his penpals that I have recently acquired for him that will be sent out hopefully by next week. We are going to photocopy it and send it out and then send personalized letters after that. Basically I wanted him to find other kids to discuss community with (an idea in the curriculum actually) so we have 2 kids in Edmonton that he knew when he was a baby, an adult in Edmonton that also wants to participate, a friends son in my hometown, and another friends daughter in Australia! I think it will be a really interesting project and I hope to get him to make a Flat Stanley to send out to them as well. 

Haye also finished his Geography book a couple weeks ago with flying colours. 

HEALTH AND CAREER

I think we have mostly already covered Health and Career this year, but we decided with Haye to make a goal to save money that was a smaller goal than saving for turntables (because that is a little bit difficult and not as rewarding, so even though we are still doing that this was encouraging). He told us he wanted a camera for Christmas, but we had already chosen his presents, so we told him that he should save his money to buy one. He found a (crappy) camera in the Sears Wish Book that he wanted and it was $30. He saved his money ($40) for 2 months and at the end of the 2 months I searched Castanet and found a really good camera for $35! It is a Canon Powershot and retails for around $200 so we got a really great deal. And he learned a valuable lesson about saving money. Win-win!