April Homeschool

We've had a great month of homeschooling. After our (two-week) spring break, I felt rejuvenated and ready to make the most of our spring homeschooling months. I typed out exactly what lessons we needed to do to finish the workbooks I wanted to finish by summer and outlined what we need to do for each day to keep us on track. This has been helpful for both me AND the kids. I love homeschool for the flexibility and don't usually use a planner - we just spend the time that we need on each lesson and then move to the next making sure that we are participating in deep learning along the way. I don't love rushing through a certain number of lessons - but I really want to finish a few things this spring and this is working for us right now. 

Even with our structured schedule we have plenty of time for doing math while snuggling in bed and making a 144 cube rectangular prism after learning about calculating volume in a lesson. 




We've been doing our rotations - the kids LOVE the cooking rotation, the girls have dropped their science rotation and are doing our Final Projects for Utah History, including "Plan your own field trip", and County Study project. We are also still doing swimming lessons and it is made more fun by having the Youngs do swimming lessons with us, too. 



For our sewing class, I set up a field trip to Sister Roxanne Becker's house across the street. Roxanne and her daughter-in-law Robin are AMAZING seamstresses. They are especially talented at sewing costumes and they costume whole theatre productions regularly. They just finished the University of Utah's production of Sweeny Todd (Lydia asked if we could go see it after I helped Roxanne with some final details for the costuming and I was like... well ... no. Ha. But sometime it would be fun to go see one of their productions that wasn't so dark.) and already Roxanne was showing us some things that she's working on for their next production about a Chinese princess. After showing the girls around her amazing workroom she taught them about her sergers and the girls made a serving sample and then serged the outside of the pocket for their quillow blankets. It was an awesome field trip. The girls are making quillows right now (blankets that fold up into a pillow), but they also just finished making banners for their junior ranger pins and that was a super fun project! 

The other kids didn't get left out of the sewing adventures, I let Austin. Caleb, and Lucy pick out fabric and we made them quillows, too. 

Lydia did her state RISE testing in Math, Language Arts, and Science. We didn't do much prep this year, but it was a great experience for her to practice test taking skills and be able to go and sit and take the tests. I'm so proud of her. She also just started on a softball team and even though she's never played before - she's working hard to learn and improve her skills and she just does everything with such a happy attitude. I'm so grateful for her! 





We had some great field trips this month, too. 

We went to the zoo. 





Lucy was watching this snake and it slithered over and brought its head right up to the glass. The two of them were just starting at each other and when Lucy moved her head to the side, the snake would move it's head that way too. They were both touching the glass, so that only that thin pane was separating them. I have to wonder if Lucy is a parseltounge! 



We went to the tulip festival with our big homeschool group and we also went to Highland glen to scooter around the pond and feed the ducks with some other friends. 

Lydia and Iris teamed up and they planned a field trip together for one of their final Utah History projects. They decided to go to Mrs. Cavenaughs Chocolate Factory, then go to a nearby park for lunch and lawn games. It was one of the best field trips of the whole year. The tour was excellent and the kids had SO much fun playing games together at the park. I have prayed for a long time to find a group of homeschoolers that we could connect with and build relationships with and I feel like this group is an answer to my prayer. The group will look different next year, but for this year, I'm grateful for them. 






We went to the free day for Arbor Day at The Red Butte Garden. It was a beautiful outdoor area and the kids had fun jumping from rock to rock in the pond. We are so glad for good friends to explore with in this beautiful place that we live! 

April Wrap Up: Lucy Edition

 This is the monthly wrap up post (usually written by David), but when we went to select the pictures - we realized that all of the pictures were about Lucy! Ha. It makes sense, I guess, because the pictures of the other kids usually fit into a different blogging category - homeschool, or holiday, or whatnot. But these pictures of Lucy were too good to pass up, and so, we give you the April Wrap Up - Lucy Style. 

Lucy is just learning that she can have her own friends that are her own size and whenever we spend time with kids that are her own age she has started calling them "My _____". It started when we spent several days with cousin Juniper and she spent the whole time calling her "My Juniper." That has grown to "My Amelia" and "My Ronan" and it's just so cute that she realizes that these younger children are meant to be HER friends. 

Amelia had a birthday party, hosted by her incredible mom Amy Perkins who completely outdid herself in making the most wonderful 3-year old birthday party that I've ever been to (read: the most wonderful birthday party I've ever been to of ANY age). There were party games, and incredible food and the most magnificent elephant cake you've ever seen! Lucy followed Amelia around calling her "My Amelia" and it was darling. I especially loved spending time with my dear friend Karli and her daughter Grace at the party.










I went in to check on Lucy during her nap one day and this is what I found. Her - playing with her babies (in a different outfit than she was in when I put her down), wearing a necklace and bunny ears. The nap thing is NOT going well for us these days. 

Separately, look at this hair. It's so thin and constantly in her eyes if it's not pulled back in a piggy and I love it. She loves watching Marco Polos (especially of Jenna) on my phone and will occasionally send Marco Polos of her forehead like this picture. 




I just really love her. 

And this last picture is really of me and Melissa, although Lucy tagged along, but we had to document that we FINALLY SUBMITTED OUR PAPERWORK FOR OUR PASSPORTS! We are planning a big trip for Melissa's 30th birthday and we're so excited. We started our passport paperwork when we were in Boise for my Grandpa in August, and it's taken us this long to actually complete the process - but we finally finished the paperwork, gathered the documents, arranged for the appointment, and submitted the paperwork! We're so happy and looking forward to our big trip this fall.