I'm trying so hard to keep caught up with the kid's school work posts on here. I am about 2 weeks behind, but hoping to get caught up this week. I've decided to do a 6 weeks on, 1 week off school schedule, year round, except for a 2 week break for Christmas, 2 week break in May, and a 3 week break in July, before we start the new school year again! I've also worked out our weeks off around the holidays. So, that being said, we have been in school for 6 weeks now, therefore it is time for a 1 week break, which just happened to fall on labor day weekend/ week!! Yay! We get to spend some extra time with daddy on his days off!! We ended up working on our next Five in a Row story, Madeline, for 2 weeks instead of 1. Daddy was gone for one of the weeks on a missions trip to Oregon, so we didn't get as much done as we would've liked the week he was gone. I actually kinda liked the 2 weeks per book thing, so we may continue with that! It seemed to allow us to be able to go deeper into the story, and do more extra activities without having to feel rushed! So here goes..... "Madeline"!! Madeline lives at an all girl's school and is not afraid of anything. One night Miss Clavel fears something is not right. Poor little Madeline has a pain in her stomach and must go to hospital, where she has her appendix out. The other girls come to visit her and see that she is feeling better with many presents surrounding her. That night Miss Clavel is awakened feeling that something else is not right. She hurries upstairs to find all the other little girls crying that they want their appendix out too. - Happily Ever After Tales Social Studies- Geography- We found France on the map, and colored our story disk to stick on the map. We also colored the flag of France for a mini book for his lapbook. We made a mini book of a map of the world and colored France on it too! Language Arts- Vocabulary- We talked about a few new words- appendix, solemn, and disaster. I found some cut outs of the girls from the story on Homeschool Share, and Jackson used them to act out his own "Madeline" story! Here is the video of his story! : ) Here are just some random pictures of Jackson and Alexis working on other things besides Five in a Row. In these pics Jack is working on Math U See and Lex is working on a preschool workbook! Art- Architecture- I didn't get any pictures of us completing this, but we did the "Tour de France" minibook found here. It showed all of the famous buildings and places in Paris! It was a very cute activity! Draw Write Now- Jackson learned how to draw a Tiger out of one of his Draw Write Now books also! Math- Grouping and Dividing skills- Jackson also used the cut outs that I showed above to do several story problems. He learned some basic division! Size and Degree- Jackson was already familiar with these concepts, but we just briefly touched on "large, medium, small" and " biggest, bigger, big". Symmetry- We also looked through the book and looked for pics that were symmetrical and asymmetrical. One day while D was gone on his mission trip, the kiddos were bouncing off the walls with energy and not wanting to have anything to do with school. They asked if they could go outside and play, and just as they were about to walk out the door it started to sprinkle rain. I just let them go for it, and play in the rain. Here are some cute pics I got of that day! After they soaked their real clothes, they ended up changing into their swimming clothes, rain boots, and rain jacket! : ) Field Trip Day- Earlier in the week, we had talked about how Paris was located along the Seine River. We talked about how throughout history many large cities were based along rivers so that they could use the river for boat transportation of supplies. For our field trip we decided to drive to Clinton, Tn. A small city right outside of Knoxville that is set on the Clinch River. After doing some exploring online, I found that at the turn of the century Clinton was a major pearling city in the U.S. The pearls found in the Clinch River were actually sent to the Paris Exposition, which also tied in very well with our emphasis on Paris and France! Here are some pictures of our field trip! Explains a little about pearling in Clinton. Running down the sidewalk in "downtown" Clinton! Grammy came over another day too, and helped us with a few other projects. First, Jackson had learned how to read "Madeline" all by himself, so he read the story aloud to Grammy! She also helped us make these cute Madeline figures out of TP tubes and some printable that I found on Homeschool Share. Science- Health and Anatomy- We colored a sheet with the major human organs on it. Then we made a wearable human body out of brown paper grocery bags, pasta, plastic bags, yarn, straws, and other things!! Found this idea, once again, on Homeschool Share! The lungs really inflate when you blow them up through the straw! Aunt Holly also came for a visit to see us! And last but not least, Daddy helped Jackson build his very own Eiffel Tower out of Legos!