Weekly Report: Mar 5-9 12

Great week!  It was a busy one outside of the home but we still managed to get a lot done.

Monday-
The day started off a little rocky with my oldest {grumpy} two children who I woke up a little earlier than usual.  BUT we jumped into our bible lesson after breakfast and things picked up.  Btw, I am LOVING Apologia's Who is God? book!!  The boys are enjoying it as well and we are having some great conversations.  I'm going to have the hubs stop by Mardel on the way home this week and pick up the notebook that goes along with it. 

Gabriel is my boy who surprised me the most that morning.  We experienced a first and I hope it's the beginning of a great habit.  He sat for the first time through all of his individual lessons...one sitting! I was shocked but he just kept sitting so nicely and working hard as we progressed through his phonics and math lessons.  So he got a LOT of free time while waiting on his brothers for group work in the afternoon!!
The highlight of my day was a 3.5 hour lunch with a friend! Neither of us could believe we sat there for so long but I definitely needed the girl time. :)

Tuesday-
Started even earlier.  I'm loving the early morning times....which is weird for this night owl.  I was struggling with waking up even at our usual time for a couple of weeks now, not getting to sleep until 2, 3 or sometimes 4 in the morning.  Waking on time was extremely hard for me.  The hubs suggested I stop taking my allergy meds at night and guess what.....I've been sleeping like a baby through the night! 

Again another great day! We jumped right into our studies after an early breakfast with still a little grumbling from the olders but at least it was less than yesterday.  {I didn't even mention that I woke them up even earlier!}

Gabriel, once again, did great and finished early.  He is loving his extra free time!  He surprised me with his math lesson, and I just have to share.  Take a look at this picture of a section in his math workbook:

The instructions say to connect two numbers if they add up to 10. After we did a couple together, he flew through it.  I told him if needed, he could mark out the numbers that eventally didn't have a match so it would be easier to stay on track.  Well he finished matching and then brought it back to me. He asked "hey mom, can I circle this 2, this 2, and this 2, and match them up with this 4? Or, wait a minute, I can match up this 3 with this 3 and this 4 to make 10 too!"  My little kindergartener blew me away! I asked him how he knew to do that and he said "well these three 2's make 6 and 6 + 4 is 10."  Simple multiplication! I love it!

The younger three and I also had a field trip to a local greenhouse that afternoon.  They enjoyed it and learned about how the greenhouse people mix the dirt and get it into the little pots, seed the pots {which was actaully pretty cool with their machinery...I wish *I* had paid better attention but I was entertaining the 3 yr old who was a little tired and bored.}, water the plants, and move them from the *back* greenhouse to the *front* greenhouse {via conveyor belt....which grabbed Drake's attention since he thought it was a "train of pretty flowers" moving from one greenhouse to another"}.  Then each of the children received a potted flower to bring home!  So sweet! 

{I have a cute picture but it won't load properly onto the computer from my phone....bummer.)

Wednesday-
We managed to get a good amount of schoolwork done in the morning.  Gabriel is still working hard at his schoolwork!  I love it!!  We met my friend at church to do a little work.  Between the two of us and her husband, we manage to only get my desk put together....after a couple of hours! Ha! The boys zoned out on a movie while we worked.  I took the {starving} boys to a local pizza place for dinner and then we headed home to do a little history mapwork {which we haven't done in FOREVER}. The two littles wanted in on the fun so they colored some coloring sheets from SOTW. 

After getting all the kiddos tucked into bed, I dug out my copy of The Well-Trained Mind book, crawled into my bed with a notebook and pen, and started searching for answers to some problems we're having in our homeschool.  Just three short hours later, I found what I was looking for.....a WTM homeschool. :)  We are going to make some quick and easy changes to our science curriculum {drop Apologia's Elementary series...which I love but can't seem to get done} and finish out this school year with geology ala WTM. Then we're changing a few more things to align with the WTM for next year.  I really think this will help us out a LOT.
Thursday-
Woke up suuuuuper early to a sweet little 5 yr old smiling at me and whispering "hi" before crawling under the covers to snuggle with me. :)  He was fast asleep in no time but I wasn't.  It was a nice quiet rainy morning.  Later in the day we went to a local consignment sale and scored some seriously cute stuff for the baby and then did a little more baby shopping. No schoolwork was accomplished but the boys enjoyed some time with their nana.

Friday-COOP FUN!!! We'll have co-op classes this morning and then maybe squeeze in a little schoolwork this afternoon.  Gabriel is SUPER excited about co-op since he'll be getting his WORMS to care for during the next 7 weeks.  He's had the necessary supplies to take back in a little bucket since we got home last Friday.  Now to convince him to leave the little guys in the container......

I have TWO FUN SURPRISES in store for the boys next week!!!  They are going to LOVE both of them!! And since I found my little camera, I'll get to take some REAL pictures. :)  Maybe one day I'll get my Nikon to the store to be fix.....one day before the baby gets here for sure.