Goodbye Summer- Hello New School Year!

We are saying goodbye to another summer. Last summer of my son’s tweens, as he’s turning 13 tomorrow. Last school year was incredibly busy, and quite stressful for us with intense extra curricular activities. But the summer was sweet (but short).
We hiked,played with friends and visited new places in our state. We made lovely memories.

 

 

Colorado National Monument

 

Rocky Mountain National Park

Golden Gate Canyon State Park

This week we have started school at home and at the homeschool program my kids attended for many years now. D. started grade 8 and C. started grade 5.

This school year at home will be different for us as D. will take all of his core subjects at the program and I will support and supplement at home, which is completely new, as it used to be the other way around. He wanted to take Algebra and Physical Science and I wanted to make sure that he gets the best possible instruction. I don’t mind these, but they are not my favorites. He also takes English there, US History and STEAM. His classes are twice a week.

C. still goes once a week to the program taking English, Colorado History, Science and Coding there, most of her school is done at home.

Both kids continue to sing with Young Voices of Colorado, D. is now in advanced male choir and considers Music Theory Exam in the end of the school year. C. is in second level of training choirs.

Both are still doing karate with D. being a junior black belt and C.- solid green.

At home my goal for this year is taking a calm approach (1st week was a failure in that term) . We are trying out Book Shark Curriculum for Language Arts and Science/History. Singapore math for C., D. is doing Saxon for the first time in the program (we used to do Singapore with him). We continue doing our Russian lessons, and D. is taking Spanish in addition to that. He is very excited.

My plate is full with my illustration work  and the commitments I made for volunteering at children’s choir.

It will be a very very busy year. I do miss the early grades and the lovely slow days we had.  But I also welcome the challenge of having a full schedule and measure our time to do both work and play. I hope we can spend enough time in nature, will have more read-alouds as a family.

 

Here’s to 2018-2019 school year, out 10th year of homeschooling.

It’s been a while…

May is almost done, and last time I talked about how we’re doing was the beginning of March. Where did the time go?

Seriously, though, we had a rather intense spring–  field trips and museum visits, kids participated in Roots and Shoots program focusing on cleaning up local water ways. Both kids had their concerts with choir and ballet. Both had their testing and although I am still waiting for the final numbers, I am fairly sure they did well. D. got silver at karate tournament and got promoted into next level at his choir, C. joins his choir next year as well.

great horned owl- mama

baby horned owl

 

 

 

Looking back at our school year, I can say that it was probably the toughest one we had in 7+ years of homeschooling. There were too many activities, and although I scaled back a little in the very beginning of the school year, it still was a lot. There were positive changes in kids’ learning- C. especially made a huge leap with her spelling and story telling skills. She is fantastic with math too, she really loves it. C. also took some Spanish classes and enjoyed it immensely. D. focused on basics and out of all extra subjects he enjoyed science the most. We are a little bit behind on our history studies, the last month was just so crazy, but we will catch up during the summer.

I already know kids’ schedules in co-op for the following school year. I am more or less certain what our extra curricular activities will look like. It was a tough decision for me to choose what stays and what goes, especially because kids wanted to do it all and they are good at what they want to do. But we will take a break from some things and hope it will be a little bit slower.

My things- I have a positive change in my life as I am able at last to make a little bit of money with my art.  It’s not something huge (yet), but the response is positive and I am looking forward to expanding in the future. I am also painting walls in C’s room, replacing stickers with drawings. Husband changed jobs and still has some school left for the fall semester. Summer is for resting.

 

What I hope we’ll do this summer?  TAKE IT SLOW please. I am looking forward to lazy mornings, to books, and paint and yoga, but most of all outings in nature. Slowing down. Reconnecting. I am not sure if we will be able to take any far away trips this summer and I don’t have anything planned as of right now (although I would love to see ocean again)

Week in Review : March 1- March 6, 2016 (and what were we up to in February)

Spring is here! (not on calendar yet, I know, I know, but I don’t care, IT IS HERE!) Birds outside are going crazy, and even though I know that Colorado weather might bring us more snow yet, the leaves on the bush near our door are coming out and the general feel is that the worst is over. The winter was quite mild this year, I can’t really complain I guess, but we were so sick this winter..

Seriously most of our February was miserable because of pink-eyes, coughs and sniffles. Not much happened otherwise. We joined Roots and Shoots  project with a local homeschool group, D. had choir events during February, other than that not much outside of our regular school days. We did a unit on Ancient India for history, and learned about India for geography/cultural studies. For me personally February brought a very good news of finding a spot to sell cards with my artwork. It went pretty well, around 75% of cards were sold and I just put in second batch with new designs. I joined Society6 and I still consider whether I should open and etsy store, but it will depend on if  I can actually maintain it. I made myself a workspace and hopefully it will help me stay productive.

March started well and I must say the fact that days are longer made a huge difference for us. We still manage to get sick a little, but the first week quite intense:

-Meeting friends.

-Roots and Shoots meeting, kids discussed their project and it was fascinating to see the wide range of ideas that kids brought to the meeting

-A visit to Butterfly Pavillion.

-A solo hike for me, how nice it was to be outside in the sun BY MYSELF. I felt re-energized.

-D’s dojo performed at Hina Matsuri Japanese Doll Festival again this year, and once again it was a treat to see wonderful art work at the festival and to watch the performances

 

In the kitchen:

I am doing 21  days of salads challenge, trying to make a different salad every day. So far it’s been pretty good, but it starts to get repetitive.

We got hooked on Cheese-Herb Popovers (the recipe came from “The Perfect Egg” Cookbook, which I reviewed on this blog before)

Makes 6:

Pre-heat oven to 450 F, butter muffin cups

beat together 2 eggs, pinch of salt, 1 cup of milk, 2 tbsp of melted butter. Add 1 cup of flour, do not overmix. In a separate bowl combine your favorite cheese with your favorite herb.  Pour batter into the muffin cups filling them up about halfway and reserving about 1 tbs of batter for each cup. Add cheese mixture, pour the remaining tablespoon of batter over cheese. Bake at 450F for about 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350 F for the next 15 minutes or until golden. Serve warm.

What are we reading:

In addition to many re-reads,in February and first week of March D. read

-Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

-The Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater

-The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

-The Children of Odin by Padraic Colum

C.’s favorite chapter books in February and first week of March are

-The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles De Lint

-The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

-The Story of Diva and Flea by Mo Willems and Tony DiTerlizzi

 

So here’s our end of winter/beginning of Spring in a nutshell, this week is supposed to be relatively calm, looking forward to enjoying it!

 

 

 

Goodbye January- Month’s Roundup

January truly flew by, but at the same time seemed so long and crazy…

Overall it was an ok month, we had a bit of rough start easing back into doing school routine, there was some friction between me and kids regarding progression of our days and expectations from both sides. But I honestly hope we worked it out.

First week was a mix of rough and quiet, some outings, some fun at home. I am glad kids got to play in a couple of different ways and they also let me join in. We made Marble universes and little walnut shells boats. Week 2 was busy and chaotic but we made it through.

The final two weeks of January were a little bit calmer. Still some medical things that we had to do (all is more or less well), C. got a little bit sick. We went to a wonderful Youth Concert with Colorado Symphony, children and I both enjoyed it immensely. Nothing beats the excitement of hearing your favorite pieces live!

The weather was so gorgeous just before the snow storm came in and we got to go for a lovely walk:

The day was so clear…

 

the delicate beauty of last year’s leaves..

 

children enjoyed playing with the thinnest ice on the creek the most

 

Kids read some wonderful books in January  . I drew...and somebody bought what I drew, that was probably the highlight of my month, personally. I am not yet sure where this journey will take me, but I hope somewhere good. In the meantime we are ready to welcome February and then it won’t be long until SPRING.

Week’s Roundup: Jan. 11- Jan 17, 2016

A quick roundup on what we’ve been up to this past week.

-We said goodbye to our holiday tree, it is always bittersweet to take down the decorations, and seeing the room empty and treeless again. But since our tree was so huge and took up a big part of our living room we were also anxious to get our space back

-We created tiny universes with marbles and phone light

-we had doctors visits, mostly good news, hopefully more health issues will be taken care of next week

-school at home went well, much better than last week. For history kids learned about European megalithic structures, D. watched a documentary about Stonehenge and read about Newgrange from Frank Delaney’s Ireland. It was all about human body at co-op, lots of info about blood. For geography D. is following adventurers from Jules Verne’s “In Search of Castaways” which he reads in Russian. The book took him across South America already 🙂

-all extracurricular activities went well, choir is still on a break, but karate, ballet and chess club are all back and kids seem to be having lots of fun with these

-at home: D’s room re-painting is in progress, and, hopefully a new bookcase and curtains are coming soon

-no special outings this week, but lots planned in the weeks to come

Favorite thing:

We read about amazing matte oil paintings setting the scenery for original Star Wars  and kids set to create their own playscape backgrounds. D.’s drawings quickly transformed into a Star Wars poster (which he is still working on), but C. made a jungle scenery for her little animals, I especially loved how she used oil pastels as a part of the landscape and moved them around…

 

Not many pictures, not that many events, yet we had a better week overall.

 

Week’s Round Up : First 10 days of January

Hello, and Happy New Year to everyone who reads me 🙂 It’s been a while, but we’re back again.

Photo of the week:

 

 

New Year met us with nice biting frost, such beauty!

What we were up to until now:

Weekly Round up: Nov. 2- Nov 8, 2015

Closer and closer to winter, first week of November flew by.

We were blessed with a wonderful weather the first half of the week, we saw some snowflakes (which melted before reaching the ground, so they hardly count), the night temperatures are below zero and less and less leaves on the trees.

Picture of the week:

brilliant colors are still mostly there

What were we up to this week:

Weekly and Monthly Roundup: Goodbye, October

It’s been a long, crazy, busy busy busy October. I am glad it’s over at last.

A quick roundup:

• October was busy with tons of commitements that couldn’t have been avoided. Some popped up unexpectedly too.
• We managed to do most of the school work that I have planned. Not many projects though.
• Kids read a lot in October too
• Not many trips, all the usual activities and some extra here and there.
• The fall is gorgeous. Seriously. I am glad we got to absorb all these reds and golds. We are paying attention. I think the fact that I am drawing so much helps with that, I notice more things and kids notice that I notice too.
• October ended with a wonderful Halloween– dear friends stopped by and we all went trick o treating together

lots of our moments are now in form of drawings and sketches, I find I remember them better this way

We are welcoming November, and even though our week is full again, I sincerely hope that there will be more, many many more quiet, slow moments of peace and togetherness.

October Reads

What my children read in October:

D., 10 y.o., Grade 5

In English:

• Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

• The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

• Tales of Ancient Egypt

• Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver

• Toys!: Amazing Stories Behind Some Great Inventions by Don Wulffson

In Russian:

• Павел Бажов: Малахитовая Шкатулка, Медной Горы Хозяйка, Каменный Цветок
• Лучано Мальмузи: Неандертальский мальчик– все три книги

Plus tons and tons of re-reads. And everything Star Wars.

C., 6 y.o., Grade 1-2:

In English:

• If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Gogliano, ill. by Erin G. Stead
• The Mischevians by William Joyce

• Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood

• Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur

In Russian:

• Борис Заходер: Серая Звёздочка
• Евгений Шварц: Новые Приключения Кота в Сапогах
• Маури Куннас: Викинги Идут!
• А. Куприн: Слон

And again, lots of re-reads.

Once again, a pretty good month. Children read a lot and most importatly shared what they’ve read with each other. Love to see them getting each other excited for new books.

September Reads

September is over, more than 10% of our school year is done (am I not the optimist :D). Today I just want to write down what children read throughout the month, to keep track mostly.

D.:

In English:

• Rudyard Kipling “The Jungle Book”
• Wonder by R.J. Palacio
• Skelling by David Almond
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• Wildwood Imperium by Colin Meloy
• How to Break a Dragon’s Heart by Cressida Cowell

In Russian:

• Галина Демыкина “Мой капитан”
• Э. Сеттон-Томпсон “Винипегский волк”, “Мустанг-иноходец”
• Ж. Реми-мл. “Битва за огонь. Пещерный Лев”

Plus re-reads that I couldn’t possibly keep track of

C. read

In English:

• Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo
• Captain Cat by Inga Moore
• Arrietty (from Studio Ghibli Picture Book series)
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore by William Joyce
• Room on Broom by Julia Donaldson
• Whale Shines: An Artistic Tale by Fiona Robinson
• Together we are reading (taking turns) Appleblossom the Possum by Holly Goldberg Sloan

In Russian

• “Минус и Большой Мир” Свен Нурдквист
• “Серая Шейка” Д.Н. Мамин-Сибиряк
• сборник “Волшебное Слово”
• Басни Крылова
• Аля, Кляксич и Буква “А” Ирина Токмакова
• Вместе : “Мы живем в каменном веке” (Пешком в историю)

And again, lots of re-reads I didn’t write down

also we read Haiku Books

What have I noticed this month:

D. absolutely insists we wait for him for read-alouds, no picture book is too simple or too childish. I am really glad he cares still. I have made a resolution to have D. read at least one “classic” and one “award” book per month, but still let him have his way with series that he enjoys. All of these work out. The most re-read book for him was Harry Potter, that is his nightstand series of choice. There doesn’t seem to be a non-fiction in my records, but I am sure he read something…will ask him tomorrow morning.

C. is a confident and independent reader, she likes comic books a lot, much more than D. I do wish we had more time for read-alouds. This will be next month’s goal.