Kiddo updates

Sean is growing like a weed. Adam thinks he's me when he walks by, he's about 5'2" and I think this is just the beginning. He finally has some friends thanks to our new (this school year) homeschool group. None live on base but we see them at least once a week for HOURS on Friday. He's started working with a metronome (and not because I told him to!) consistently with his violin practice-that's a sign of maturity for sure, working on something slow until it naturally becomes easier to go faster. He told me late last year that I finally found the right materials for his home education and finally picked out a checklist that works for him. 😂 I recorded him saying it for posterity. :) He still balks here and there but in general, we have a well-established routine. We do those subjects (plus a bevy of others) TOGETHER at the dining room table. We eat snacks and work our way through religion, singing hymns, Homer/Ancient Greece, poetry, Shakespeare, grammar, World and American history, geography, memorization of important American speeches/documents, and folk songs! Sounds like a lot but we cover a small amount during our 4-day school week, takes about 1-1.5 hrs a day. The singing has been glorious! None of the kids really took to singing before this year but now that we sing Mon-Thurs, they are really improving. We even have some harmony going on! This month we are learning our first Gregorian Chant and that has been fun for all. Even Finn joins in for the last part if you ask him. Grammar-after memorizing all the definitions of the parts of speech for YEARS, Sean still barely knew them (which was a surprise to me). Now I write a sentence on the board (our back porch window!) and they analyze it for parts of speech and parts of sentence. And they really have learned it. Both he and Cathleen are doing so well with Latin. They can conjugate a few verbs and I think that is going to help them immensely with learning a foreign language. Actually it has-Cathleen is learning vey basic French and I can see how the Latin is helping her there. Sean's always happy to see how the Latin words are interspersed throughout the English language. My mom would be so happy they're learning Latin!

The kids weren't big fans of the chemistry program so we are learning about the beginnings of the periodic table from a book. We stopped with the memorization of speeches/documents for the past couple months due to time constraints but we'll get back to it eventually though it may be the next school year.

Cathleen is quite the independent learner. She and Sean both work on their checklist and call me when they need help. I would like to sit with them during math and writing but life just doesn't work out like that so they are learning to learn on their own! Sometimes this backfires when Cathleen doesn't ask for help soon enough and gets frustrated and falls apart-seems to come and go in phases. Despite this, she's doing great with math. I love her math program (same as Sean's and Kieran's) especially because it teaches practical math and there are lots of word problems with practical applications. She really holds her own with the Latin and grammar, no need to tailor it for her younger age. Both she and Sean have a selection of great books to read a chapter from each week, then come to me to tell me what they read. She's working hard on piano still with me as her teacher. Unfortunately she doesn't get many performance opportunities here in Montgomery. Sean either. Our homeschool talent show is coming up so all three will perform then. She's grown so she's still taller than Kieran but she's still small. Someone asked me if she and Kieran were twins last week!

We do "Kieran school" most days. It's like Sean's and Cathleen's, lots of good books that I read a chapter from to him each week. Plus math (which he's good at) and a reading primer, same one that Cathleen learned from. His reading is improving a lot. And he is doing so well with violin! It was really slow going for the first 4-5 months. I wasn't sure we were going to get past the first song. And since January (not sure what caused this) he doesn't ask to watch tv or play a computer game incessantly (and then cry when the answer was no) like he used to. Soooooo thankful for this change, now the tv stays off except for Friday movie night. He really wants to do more BMX practice but we haven't gone in forever, due to our schedule not meshing with the track's schedule and rain canceling events.

Finn is talking like a 4yo unless he doesn't know you and then he's mute. :) He loves hanging out with other kids, usually the ones that are older than him. He finally let someone other than Mommy and Daddy (who were butchering his hair) cut his hair. It's much shorter over all but still long layers. A good compromise now that his curls are gone. :( He screams like a banshee when he doesn't get extra treats. He'll eat dessert and then expect more and isn't happy when the answer is no.

Atlanta Field Trip

How do three months pass by so quickly now?! My biggest hurdle with keeping up the blog is that getting photos from my phone to blogger is not easy. Still going to update when I can!

We arrived home yesterday from a fun 3 day trip to Atlanta with 2 other homeschool families. It was full of field trips and play!

Smiles all around

One of my favorite moments. We were done with all of our field trips but weren't ready to go home so we had snacks at a train depot coffee station. The kids from 2-15 all played together and had a blast. 

Our last place to visit was this fantastic museum on the campus of Emory University.

We have been studying ancient Greece and there were quite a few Greek antiques with names that were familiar to the kids.

Sean listens to the audio companion at the museum. Those items on the bottom row are earspools, for stretching out earring holes VERY wide.

I was pushing around an empty stroller at the museum!

We can now check off watching our ice cream be frozen in front of us with liquid nitrogen! It was very interesting and expensive!

The older kids fought to get Finn to themselves. After the coffee shop we all went to IKEA together before finally driving home.

Holding hands in IKEA 😍

Sean got everyone excited about buying a jackfruit while we were at the huge international market in Dekalb. This beast was 14 pounds and took forever for them to get the fruit out of, then it was unripe, but they still liked it and had fun.

It was extremely sticky and left a sap-like residue on everything. We had to google a solution to getting it off the knives!

A visit to the Governor's Mansion in Georgia.

The State dining room

This is the most valuable piece in the mansion.

This painting of George Washington by Peale is worth looking up. His head is too small for his body!

Game and puzzle time at the house we rented.

Snuggling up next to a friend watching America's funniest videos.

Post-breakfast at the local doughnut shop!

Our first stop was a Civil War railroad museum, complete with a homeschool workshop!

Crazy kids-not quite sure what was going on here!

This was a true railroad town (Kennesaw) and Finn was captivated by the many trains that went by.

We spent a whole evening at a planetarium and observatory. Cathleen went in with normal brushed hair and came out like this. It was a MESS!

The International Market in Dekalb was a lot of fun-lots of exotic food and live seafood!

At the international market. Sean REALLY wanted a crawfish to take home as a pet.

Thanksgiving 2017 Florida

After months of zero posts, I'm just gonna start up with the present time and pray that I get to backtrack and post older events. 😞

We returned yesterday from a busy trip to Florida (is there any other kind of vacation?!).

First up was a visit to Busch Gardens sandwiched by time with Papa. No pictures from Papa's house for some reason.

Finn got comfortable on a picnic table outside a ride. 

We went through a photo op Rudolph

Next up was thanksgiving at in Cedar Key! 

Caryn and the beginnings of a fantastically huge chocolate angel pie. The only dessert that was completely gone by the end of the day!

Papa and his mad potato peeling skillz

Starting the big meal! Caryn and I cooked everything from scratch (except the pie dough) starting at 8am that morning. Dinner was served around 3!

The dessert bar

After a quick bout of unhappy stomach 🤢 (Me) William, Caryn, Shawn, and I spent the day in Gainesville at the UF/FSU football game. It was a blast! 

At the game. It was a GORGEOUS day and I loved being back on campus to watch the game and the bands.

Caryn and me

Next up was LegoLand!

Legoland for $78 total! Homeschool price for the win.

The Taj Majal is discontinued and is thousands of dollars on Amazon but only $369 here!

Finn liked this pink turtle. The green one underneath was a parting gift from Aunt Caryn.

Mr. Ninjago

This plumber man was funny.

On the top of a double decker carousel. 

Waiting for the boys' ride to be over.

Caught!

Sean loved his little white seal beanie thing so much that he asked to pose with it the whole day.

Look what Pea won!

Nap time

We loved all the characters!

Finally, we left when the park closed at 5 and drove 3 hours to Chiefland to stay the night with Caryn, got up before dark and left to get home to have Pea's tooth looked at. A busy and successful trip!