France

I might have gone a little over board, with France but then I get on pinterest and see what real over board people do then I feel better about myself. 

One day this week we had Crepes I love then so do the kids so we had to have them.

I have NEVER made croissants before. I really wanted to do it, but you know I do the whole healthy thing, so I found some good you tube videos and gave it a go. Even with whole wheat. The kids LOVED IT!

I figured this is a must because FOOD is ART if France!

For Aaron's project this week he created a menu for a French High end Cafe. I was inspired by his work and decided to make that the theme for the end of the week party. I did create all the signs and the Eiffel Tower I pained after tracing the image projected on the huge screen. (came with the house we are renting) We also decorated it with Monte's Art work, since we studies him this week. I happened to pick a calendar of his works new it would come in handy.

Funny Story: as we were setting things up Aaron said he was the owner, he said I was the Head Chef (so honored) Ethan Sous Chef, and Ryan the waiter. Dallin said "what about me what can I be?" I said "You can be the food critic." He looked at me with a puzzled look on his face and said "A food cricket?" HA HA HA! so I tried to explain and he was happy that meant he got to eat the food, and he got to decide if it was good or not. He took his job seriously, and made sure to eat everything.

For Dinner we started with a light French  Salad with eggs, tomatoes, bacon (I used ham) and blue cheese. with a honey Dijon mustard, with that french whole wheat bread and a cheese platter. With Brie herbed cheese, blue cheese, we also had another smoked French Cheese I can't remember the name but it was heavenly and I have never paid so much money for a little wedge of cheese but it was amazing and I am go glad the commissary carries ethnic stuff like cheese from France! 

Next course was our sea food Bisque with french bread, it was yummy.

last but not least at all was our dessert fresh fruit and then Croissants, I thought they were pretty good for a first time at making them, everyone was super happy with them, they ask for more, but I say nope. To much time, and to much butter. But oh-so good!

The other activity they wanted to do was bike rides, and races this is in honor of the largest bike race in the world that happens in France, and our kids are little obsessed with bike ridding, even little Dallin holds his own really well begged for his training wheels to come off when we moved here and learned in day how to do it. He has crashed but it has not slowed that boy down one bid.

Ethan requested we wear mustaches and when I found these at hobby lobby I knew they would be perfect. Such a wonderful bunch of handsome men.

Such a FUN night! "au revoir"

now more then ever we all want to do to France someday. For movie night the next Night we watched Ratatouille the LOVED IT!!!

Spain

Spain was a lot of fun, we learned about Picasso and he did weird art, (well in his latter years, the more he aged the more wired it seemed to get) so we did weird art with melted crayons kids thought this was a lot of fun. 

They would hold the crayon over the cancel and then it would heat up then they would draw with it. The wax did drip and would put it out so I was always pouring out the melted wax but it was fun.

For our Spanish Fiesta we had a Tomato Fight since they have a Tomato Fight festival every year. I was not going to do this, but when we talked about what we wanted to do, they kept asking, never thinking I would say yes. But I bought cans of whole tomatoes so they could throw them at each other and it was a blast. The first Tomato Fight was in 1945 and was an accident but not it is planed every year and a big deal to read the history click HERE

The Spanish culture when it comes to food is super good taste but not great on the eye, if you want pretty food to to France. The Spanish love seafood  and we had one of the most common meals Pealla There are about a million different ways to make it but usually all have shrimp and muscles. I was nervous I have never had muscles, and I was not sure if the kids would eat it but they said they wanted to try and, and everyone liked them, but was not super excited to eat them again. Texture was just weird. But the rice mixture was super good.

Ethan for his report he did a diagram telling a story (that he wrote) about life in Spain.

Then afterwards we did Bull Fighting. This was another "must" activity planed by the boys.

For dessert we had a sweet Almond cake, called Tarta de Santiago they do not put fruit on it but I had to, because I love it that way.

It was been almost a month and the kids still talk about bull fighting and tomato flights, I think they had fun. Note: we always do the festivals Friday night when dad is home.

Switzerland & the Netherlands

Next Stop was Switzerland! and the Netherlands. I did not get many pictures this week but as always we are flooding in books of interesting things. We learned that the Swiss love Cheese, no surprise there right! they have there own kind! They actually make tons of kinds of cheese there. We also learned about many great artist like Rembrandt, and Vermeer I think I found it all more fascinating then the kids. 

did some fun crafts projects (not really related but it was fun technique to try.

For our party at the end of the week, we had a Swiss Cheese fondue Night, and if you are thinking it is from France you are wrong, well it is both, but we chose to do to it this week because the Swiss people love cheese oh so much! I do not blame them their cheese is awesome. We also had Gouda cheese and saw a video on how they make this (in the Netherlands) And of course Swiss chocolate. YUM! 

Ireland

Our Next stop was Ireland and then Scotland. Each week when we study a place the kids pick some sort of project here, Ethan is working on his North and South Ireland report 

Aaron decided to do a cartoon strip about the people there, telling the story of the Potato Famine.

At the end of each week we have a celebration from the area we are learning about, this week we had a traditional Irish- Jig :) We made Irish Soda Bread.

Had it with some awesome Irish Beef Stew, and some super yummy cheese.

We listen to the boys give there reports, danced the river dance, then listened to Irish music and played hot potato.

it was super fun.

after it all we had a Irish sweet apple cake it was sooooo good! Will ended up wanting it again for his birthday the very next week, so we had it again then too.

We also read lots of books, did some geography and watched a little video about Ireland.

England

Our first stop was England. These pictures are not very exciting, but I like having proof that I did something, makes me feel better. I am not sure if the Good Lord was trying to give us the FULL England experence or just accident but we woke up to SNOW this week, and yes just the beginning of September, my friends. BUT thankfully it did get warm weeks later. But that is why we are all huddles under blankets, reading about ENGLAND! 

We make Scones and had hot herbal tea - fitting for the weather.

we read lot of Beatrix Potter, also read some Charles Dickens, and watched a short moving about the Stone Hedge, Big Ben and other wonderful things about England.

Our kids NOW understand why we are always saying "I hope we get stationed in Europe some day!"

What we are learning about in 2015

I am beyond excited for this year… really…. I am not sure who is more excited, me or the boys :)

back in 2010 when I was researching all about Homeschooling Curriculum I found Winter Promise Children around the World, and I fell in love with it. I wanted to do it that year but it is for grades 2nd-6th. So I waited, and this year we finally get to do it! The kids are really excited too. We are going to travel the world through books, activities and food. I hope we can travel for real one day, but this will have to do for now. Here is a link to their site, but they have really updated the program I have the old set. It has a lot more books the new one is more ebooks.

 Since we are learning about cultures and people all over the world, for science we are studying anatomy and the human body! The boys are soooo excited. They have been asking for a while now, and I am finally getting my act together and doing it! I used a wonderful blog HERE I used her plan as a skeleton for my plans I created. I also got some of the books she used too. There are a few more but these are the main ones. I am using these plus activities and short videos I found on pinterest.

 For our "Main" focus this year is on world geography and cultures. Here are some of the books we will be using. As we "visit" each place we go to the Library and get extra books just to read and look at to get more info on that place. In this program we will cover some world history, art, music, there is also a study of child labor and more.

 Here are some more books many of these tell history of how things are made, and also our geography books (well some of them)

 Here are some of the read a loud books we will be reading.

 For Language Arts….
K/1st - I am trying Queens Homeschooling program this year instead of Well Trained mind.
K/1st Delightful Reading Program, (from simply Charlotte mason) + reading tons of books : )
3rd Grade - Primary Language Lessons.
5th Intermediate Language Lessons
3rd/5th Drawing into the Heart of Reading program.
3rd/5th Writing - Story starters. - We will use this a little here and there as Ethan wants to be challenged in his creative writing.
Winston grammar - and Grammar tales books
Spelling we use - Modern Speller (free on line) or we also use Spelling Wisdom (not pictured)

 ART! - we have some art build in but I love it so we try to do more if we have time. No schedule we just read and Study what we want to from these books.

 Nature Study- the kids to do this on their own I do not schedule it, they have nature journals and they read these books on there own, and of course we go on nature walks too.

 For Math we continue on with Math-U-See I am totally happy with it.
K/1st -Alpha
3rd - Gamma
5th Epsilon
We also do fun games and activities from pinterest, and I LOVE reading books on the subject I am addicted to these fun math start books they can add up in price though, so I love when I can pick them up at used books sales for a steal! We are also enjoying Life of Fred books

Preschool-
I have no pictures for that but we are just playing games, doing puzzles and activities that I am finding on Pinterest. For the Ryan I did an alphabet Tree and activities to go along with that and I will be starting that sometime this year with him as well.

Other things….

Spanish- The boys really want to learn Spanish, and Will is wanting to head that up this year, and I am excited. We are also going to try to pick up sign language again this year. It fell to the side last year.


Habit Training- Laying Down the Rails and other CM books and activities on Pinterest
We also have some fun charts, and calendars to help keep us organized and developing good habits. More to come later on that.

Stress Free for Kids program HERE is a link- we have done only two lessons so far and I LOVE it!
my kids really enjoy the stores and activities and it is really really important Skill to learn to deal with stress, controlling anger, and other emotional things. I also add my own things to it too. I would LOVE to teach this in a co-op someday, and I called and asked the company if I could and they said yes!

For PE we have a home school group we are playing with. I also got this really fun Yoga game- kids love it Dallin is super cute, and loves doing Yoga, though out the say he will just Strike a pose and say "Mom look I am doing Yoga!" HERE is a link I also got a FREE down load of a home school at home PE program.

We have a whole closet full of there games, activities, poetry books games and more that the kids do as well. But this is our Learning Curriculum for this year.