Homeschool Week 10: Love for Lungs and Cali Not So Much For Spiders

Louie

Language Arts: The sentence of the week was "Bubbas Blasts Beastie Boys Before Bedtime". Bb is for Beastie Boys. We started this week with a little "Fight For Your Right to Party" video watching. We did our usual video watching and worksheets. Louie has been really great with her letter recognition. I have her review her flashcards twice a day. This week we also worked on worksheets on identifying the beginning sound of a word. She did really well. 

Reading: It is still all about sequence and order of a story. We did some worksheets and also read some books and talked about the order of the story. We read "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle. Our favorite was Miss Spider's Tea Party. Such a sweet story and it went very well with our science lessons. 

Writing: This was a fun week. We looked at drawing things from a different angle. We did this twice. She drew her place setting from her perspective at the dinner table. And then she drew her feet from her view! Super cute. The last day of writing was about speech bubbles. This was fun because Louie's favorite books are the Piggie and Elephant series by Mo Willems and they are filled with speech bubbles. 

We talked about what speech bubbles tell us and how we can tell who is talking. She drew her own Piggie and Elephant drawing complete with speech bubbles. So cute!

Math: Engine Engine #9. We worked on 9 as well as continued working on counting to 20. She loves counting how many Shopkins she has so maybe I need to get her enough to have 20.  Yes she still cannot count to 20. We also started working on greater than and less than. Lots of worksheets comparing items. She did really well with this.

Social Studies: We have moved on from US Symbols to California symbols. We talked about the bear flag, the quail, the desert tortoise, the poppy, the redwood and the state seal. We traced words through a little book and then Louie and Poppa made a California mobile. She wants to give it to Tia Elaine for the baby's room. 

I knew that our lesson had stuck when we were offroading through Joshua Tree and she said "Momma LOOK! The California bear." 

Science: EEKK! This week was about spiders. We talked about some facts about spiders, like they are not insects. Insects have 6 legs, spiders have 8. We had to watch a few videos and every time we watched one she was like this....

Of course Louie made her own spider. Her's was pretty cute! 

Phi

Language Arts: This was a disappointing week. We did the grammar worksheets. We have been trying to give Phi more independence when it comes to work. This is for 2 reasons, because she needs to learn how to work on her own and because we don't have the time to work so one-on-one with her. Combine this a family emergency and we had a project get away from us. She read chapters 13-15 in Sign of the Beaver and answered comprehension questions. She also was suppose to make a setting display. I gave her 3 morning sessions to work on this and all she did was draw a picture. This was not the assignment and was not something she could turn in. So we used a homework pass (she earns these throughout the school year for good work and behavior in class). We had to talk about this and we came up with the decision that from now on any assignments not completed is going to cost her $5.00.

Math: 2 digit division. When Joey came home with the assignments he mentioned that Phi's teacher mentioned that to earn a 4 on this assignment we would have to do the model drawings. Without these she would only earn a 3. My mind thought "damn common core". I was worried that this was going to be hard to understand. Her teacher taught them 2 ways to do this kind of math. The first was by educated guessing (YES!!!) and with the model/drawing concept. For the homework we did both. So you are probably wondering what this model/drawing is? Well here you go...

Every time I teach her this way I feel that she is not really getting it. I even texted the teacher to see if we were on the right track. We were.

Social Studies: We studied the Plains Native Americans. For her tribe this week she choose the Cheyenne. We looked at their shelters (wigwams), food (buffalo) and clothes (deer skin dresses). She also made a really cool field guide for the area. She did some really great watercolor drawings for deer, buffalo, fish, berries and corn. We found some pretty I am guessing that we are going to be doing another area.

Science: We are moving on from the cardiovascular to the respiratory system. We looked at how the lungs work and the different parts of the body that are used to make the lungs work. She labeled some diagrams and we had to make a project showing how the respiratory system works. Check out the little experiment she made to show how the diaphragm helps lungs work

Moving on to Week 11!

Pumpkin Patch Scavenger Hunt 2015

I love taking the girls to the pumpkin patch every year. The problem is that over the years our local patch has become quite popular. So much that on weekends they now charge admission and it is so packed that it's just not fun. To avoid the crowds we take the girls during the week. Usually we are still able to do the usual pumpkin patch-y type things without the crowds.

Over the years the pumpkin patch also has expanded their "rides" section. Ugh. As a way to avoid this and still let the girls have some fun we give them each a Pumpkin Patch Scavenger Hunt. This is a great way for the kids to have some fun. At the end they each get to pick a mini-pumpkin as a prize.

We gave them each a list and a pen and sent them off...

Here they are when found the ugliest pumpkin...

 
and the weirdest pumpkin.....

.

They found the corn stalks....

The tallest stem was no contest!

They were all weirded out by the gourds...

 
Last was the search for the perfect pumpkin. They searched and searched each table looking for the right color, shape, and size. They finally came to an agreement. Here is the winner....

I love this game. It is such a fun alternative to the overpriced bouncy houses and much more festive! 

Homeschool Week 9: Foo Fighters, Hooting Owls, Pumping Hearts

Louie

Language Arts: This week we worked on the letter Ff. Now I don't know why we didn't think of this sooner but we decided to us some good ol' rock and roll. Basically we watched a lot of Foo Fighters videos.

Besides the worksheets and the videos about the letter F we sent a lot of time making up funny F sentences. Our favorite was "Felix Fights Foo Fighters". Alliteration for the win.  Louie is still doing great with blending. The issue now is she is memorizing the books we are reading so she is not really trying. I am going to chalk this up to word recognition.

Reading: This week we on sequence of events. There are a bunch of great books that we got to listen to and read some really cute and silly books like "We're Going on a Bear Hunt", "The Napping House" and "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Leaf". We used cut out pictures to help Louie recall the sequence of events of each story. She did really great with this.

Writing: We continued on with the writing program the teacher has sent home. I am completely lost on this. I hope I am not the only parent completely lost. Basically I have her write a sentence to a story 3 times a week. This week was all about her hamster Persimmon. She also draws a picture to go with each sentence.

Math: I need to get better at spreading out the number of the week. Usually we get those worksheets done the first few days and by the last day when we review she doesn't remember it. This week was about 8. We also worked on ordinal numbers and did a lot of cut and paste worksheets.

Social Studies: American Symbols. Heck ya! We looked at things like the Statue of Liberty, the American flag, the bald eagle and buildings like the White House. While working with Louie about this I learned that Uncle Sam was named after the U.S. Mind Blown.

Science: This week we moved from one nocturnal animal to another. From bats to owls. Louie and Poppa read all about owls and did a really cute project where they made a lunch box for an owl. She filled it with bugs, snakes and rats. So cute.

Phi

Language Arts: Phi read chapters 7-12 of The Sign of the Beaver. The story is getting really interesting. Matt had a run in with a bee hive and was saved by a Native American man and his grandson. As a thank you a deal is made and Matt agrees to teach Attean (the grandson) how to read. A friendship is starting to blossom. Phi had some comprehension questions to answer and some worksheets about how Attean and Matt are learning from each other. We also had a grammar worksheet to do.

Social Studies: We continued learning about Native American tribes this time we looked at the South West. Phi choose the Navajo tribe. We looked at who they ate, wear and where they lived. She put together a little book about them. She also had a project where she had to make a satchel. Her's turned out super cute!

Math: We have moved from decimals and worked on double digit multiplication. This year her teacher is using her one on one sessions to concentrate on math which I like. I can tell that it is helping because she came with the procedure down. She also came home with a note from her teacher saying that Phi needed to memorize her multiplication tables. Amen sister. I have been trying for 2 years to get her to memorize those. We added flashcards to her daily school routine this week.


Science:  We are studying the cardiovascular system. We looked at how the heart works to take oxygenated blood cells all over the body. As part of the lesson she had to do something to demonstrate the cardiovascular system. She went with something that demonstrated how a heart beats and moves blood. We used a small mason jar about ha;f way filled with water. She cut of the bottom of a balloon and stretch is over the top. Poke to holes and add to 2 straws on each end. Tape the part of the balloon you cut to one straw to make a valve. Then when you push on the center of the balloon water will be pushed out of one straw. Just like how blood moves through the heart and and body.

Can't believe we are 9 week in! 

Roots

Okay this will be the last post about my reunion. But a week later and I am still on a high from the weekend. And I am not alone. All week, classmates have been posting photos and even trying to convince the committee to plan a reunion every year! But I think my friend Jackie said it best when she posted...

"Roots. Now I understand when people say "roots". The class of 1995 are my roots. What a great celebration we had last week! I'm still laughing and smiling."

What I love about this is that she totally nailed it. Being there made us feel grounded and like we are each an important part of something big. And the best part is knowing that I am not the only one feeling like this.

Getting back to the everyday was not too bad. In fact it was pretty good. The reunion gave me an extra boost of confidence knowing that I was a part of something really really amazing. Like being part of a super exclusive club that other people can only dream of being a part of. 

Homeschool Week 8: Bottles, Bats and Beavers

We had a fun week filled with art projects. This week Phi started a new book and Louie started to read! Isn't it unreal how one week they don't know the letter D and the next week they are reading. Kids be crazy.

Louie

Language Arts: We worked on the letter Gg this week. We talked about geckos, grandmas and of course gangstas. Something clicked with Louie this week. She is flying through all her flashcards and blending sounds all just make sense to her. She is now reading book #1 and #2 of the Bob book series. It's amazing. She is working on the -ap and -at work families and is doing so awesome. I was really getting worried that maybe homeschooling from kinder was going to be too much for us. I mean we would be in charge of teaching her the basics, but I am much more confidant that we got this.

Reading: We worked on breaking up a story into 3 parts, a beginning, a middle and an end. My go-to story for all these projects is Lilo and Stitch. Throughout the week after each story we talked about what happened in the beginning, the middle and the end. We talked about how the beginning introduces us to the characters and the setting, how the middle is the exciting part and the end summarizes and pulls everything together.

Writing: Louie finished writing her story. One assignment this week was to make a cover for her story. She decided to call it "The Best Off-Road".

Math: Number 7 this week. We are still working on counting to 20 and she still consistently misses a few numbers. We also worked on positional words like above, below, beside, between, etc. There were a lot of fun worksheets for this project and Louie did fantastic with this.

Social Studies: Because Columbus Day landed this week social studies was about Christopher Columbus. When I saw the topic for this week I almost emailed the teacher to see if I could switch it out for something else. I do not believe that Christopher Columbus should be celebrated, he did not "discover" America. This is offensive for 2 reasons. First he never actually made it to America and second you cannot discover something that is already populated. It devalues the Native Americans who were living here long before any Europeans. And I can almost guarantee there will be no Cesar Chavez assignment come March. (Stepping off my soapbox). Instead of being that parent I decided to just downplay this section and go about it like a historical fact and not something or someone to celebrate. Here is Louie's ship in a bottle project.

Science: Louie is learning about bats and apparently she is an expert now. Her and Poppa talked a lot about bats this week. When she got to me we did a Venn Diagram all about bats vs birds. Louie was able to do this with no problem. She also had to complete a project of her (my) choice about bats. None of the projects on the school website appealed to us so off to Pinterest I went. I found this really cute bat watercolor project and knew Louie would love it. So Louie and Poppa worked together to make this adorable art piece. On the back Louie listed some "Bat Facts"

Phi

Language Arts: Phi started a new book this week. A classic that most 5th graders read, "The Sign of the Beaver". I do not think I have ever read this. She read chapters 1-6 and had some comprehension questions and other worksheets. Phi is working so much more independently but I still look over all her work at the end of the week. Looking over her answers I could tell that she was not really comprehending the story so we sat down and read it together out loud. This story has a lot of old-time slang and the Native American 'accent' in this book is a little bit difficult to understand. I am looking forward to reading more with her.

Math: We are continuing working with decimals this week. This time we looked at rounding. This was easy and we are still taking math really slow and working on math almost everyday.

Social Studies: And on the complete opposite end of what her sister learned this week, Phi focused on Native Americans of the Northwest. She picked a tribe from the area and did some research on the tribe. She choose the Chinook Tribe from the Washington/Oregon area. She made a small book about the tribe, the shelters they made, the food they ate and the clothing they wore.

She also made a toilet paper totem pole that represented our family. (I didn't get a photo!). She looked at what the animals represents and choose one for each of us. It was very cute! She also wrote a short paragraph explaining why she choose each animal.

Science: We dove into plants. We started looking at the parts of plants and the teacher assigned this great website . It is all about a detective trying to solve mysteries about plants. Phi went through 3 different cases and learned about the female and male parts of the plant and how pollination is important for plants to reproduce.

We are 2 months in!

The Reunion

We survived the 20th Reunion weekend. 

One night out filled with lots of booze, food, music, dancing and the best people I know. 

I was one of those kids who loved high school. My school, our class, there was just nothing like it. And 20 years later we proved to still have the love and the pride that we had when we graduated in 1995. 

It was just like a homecoming dance, (but with a lot more alcohol and hotel rooms!) On Saturday I headed over to Sam's house to hang out and get ready. Let me say that she made me a believer in the curling wand! We did our hair, our make-up, and got into the dresses that we spent hours shopping for. There were many text messages sent back and forth before dresses were finalized. 

Then we jumped in the car and headed to the hotel. But first we took a selfie....

We made it the the hotel and met up with Ami (my Boo) and Kim and we started it all off with a bottle of wine. Then it was party time. I admit it, I was a bit nervous about it all.

We met up with the rest of the squad, Angela, Nikki and Amy and walked into the reunion, all together, and all felt right in the world.

There was an open bar and good food. We were able to reconnect with the people who made high school a truly amazing time.

Papi Chulo. 

 And spend some time with people that I love.

And be back with this beauty. It's hard for me to really put into words with it's like being back with the 'girls'. When you grow-up with people there is no need to hide because they know you. That deep down core you. And there is a freedom in that that feels fantastic.

Serious love for my Boo Boo

 Of course social media has allowed a lot of us to stay connected and follow along with each others lives. I have loved watching Marc C. become the amazing man that he is today. We go back to like yearbook camp days. I went to the reunion determined to get a selfie with him. Mission accomplished.

The entire event was put on by a small committee with this man as the leader. If it wasn't for the dedication and commitment that Quan and Angela have for the Class of 95 the reunion would have never happened.

I asked him to take a group shot. He took this selfie instead because of course he did. 

Catching up.  

 Sam and I even got to spend some time with our college roommate Malia. See back at UCSB Malia lived with us. One weekend our high school friend Mike Bingham came to visit. And today Mike and Malia have been married for a long time and have 2 beautiful girls. We made sure that they remembered that it was all because of us. We are still a bit upset that their daughters are not named Cristina and Elissa.

During dinner Sam had an "issue" using a fork and knife and asked me to cut her asparagus. Now for years this BFF of mine would make me amazing meals. So through a whole lot of laughter I cut her veggies for her because that's what best friends do for each other. I am so glad Roscelle captured this moment. It is a great image that represents our relationship.

People talk about #squadgoals and I am pretty sure they are talking about mine. This group of ladies are as different and the same as 6 people can get. There is so much love, brutal honesty and support from them. I am so happy to have these women in my life.

  And everyone looked so amazing.

After the actual reunion we headed to a night club there on the hotel property and when that ended we were not ready to call it a night. Boo, Quan, Thomas, Juan and I partied until 4 am. It was fantastic.

Still raging. 

This was a night for the record books. We had so much fun and it was a fabulous reminder at how amazing my friends are and how much I love to be around them. Even sitting around a table at a cafe at 9 am very very hungover. 

20 years. Really?

Tomorrow is my
20th High School reunion.

TWENTY!!!

Sometimes when I think about it, it seems like my high school days just happened. I can remember lunch in the quad, sketching in art history class, MEChA meeting (of course), pep rallies, football games and yearbook deadlines. But if I really think about it and all the things that have happened since June 1995 and October 2015 it seems like it was a lifetime ago.

Over the last week, reunion fever has hit a high. My 'girls' and I have been chatting on social media all about dresses, hair and nails. It has been so fun connecting with these girls again. It feels like Homecoming all over but without the stress of a high school guy as a date. As a group we made the decision to go to the reunion without our significant others. Ladies Night!

High school may have only been 4 years of my life but for those 4 years these girls were there everyday. For the boring things to the exciting things. I thoroughly enjoyed being around them and I cannot wait to spend an evening catching up and just talking and laughing together.

I am excited and even a little bit nervous for the big shin-dig.

20 years. Damn. 

Homeschool Week 7: Plants Make Their Own Food Like This

It was a pretty mellow week this time around. No real big projects or videos to do but as always still a lot of work to do.

Louie

Language Arts: This week we dove into the letter "Ii". We added the ice cream flashcard to the pile and we worked on the the sound and writing the letter. We did a ton of worksheets. The exciting part of the week was that we have started blending letters to make words. We started with the -at family. As usually Louie is having a hard time with the concept of blending but we need to stick with it. She did read her first word on her own this week. It was 'rat'. Not sure what that implies.... We also got to bust out the Bob books that Tia Mary bought when Phi was starting school.

These are great book. Super simple. We are working on book 1 called "Mat". It's a slow progress and I am looking into other ways to help get her to understand blending.

Reading: We talked a lot about the setting and characters of a story. Phi and Poppa read a few books and they looked at the characters and the setting. Louie and I also played a game where I would give her a setting and a character and she had to guess the story or the movie. It was a lot of fun and I caught her playing it with her sister.

Writing: We started a new story this week. We are looking at what a narrative is. We brainstormed a idea of a story about a real adventure Louie has taken. She decided to write a story about an off-roading adventure. Of course she did. So far her story starts with packing the cooler, then the guys check the cars and then we see a squirrel.

Math: We moved on to the number 6 this week and we have continued working on some graphs. Louie had to count pictures and color in a graph for each. We also have been practicing counting to 20. She is great up to 11. We are still working on it.

Social Studies: I loved the topic this week. We talked about leaders. We talked about what a mayor does, a governor does and what the president does. We talked about the qualities that a good leader has. We talked about some of the things she is learning in girl scouts that are helping her become a leader. She drew the most awesome picture of Obama. We also did a lot of talking about how a man or a woman can be all these things.

Science: We looked at the differences between living and non-living things. Louie had a checklist and her and Poppa went outside and looked for different items. She found leaves, flowers, a rock and was able to classify them.

Phi

Language Arts: More tall tales this week! The weekend before we had gone to see the play Annie Get Your Gun so we asked if she could do Annie Oakley as her tall tale. We looked at the setting and the characters of the story. We also looked at the exaggerated  features of her story. We also compared and contrasted her story with last weeks story about Paul Bunyan. She made a cool fact wheel all about Annie Oakley. She also wrote a poem all about her.

Math: We looked at comparing 2 decimals. We worked on converting decimals into fractions and those fractions into common fractions to compare numbers. Step-by step math like this are fun for me. For Phi not so much, but she is doing a really great with it. We are taking math really really slow this year. Like 2 problems a day. This is really helping in limiting her frustration levels. And mine too.

Social Studies: Phi had to do a cultural bag project. She had to pick a culture in our community that is different than ours. We had to think a but about this one but we thought about our friends the Ugapo family, they are from Samoa. So we looked into the some food, traditions and holidays. The assignment was to write about traditions and holidays on one side of the bag. She wrote about the dance, clothes, tattoos and the White Sunday holiday, which is all about celebrating kids. The other side of the bag was a traditional recipe. We asked our friend Carrie Ugapo for her favorite traditional dish and she told us about Half Moon Pies. A pineapple filled pastry.  She filled the bag with pictures of lots of samoan items,

Science: This week was all about Photosynthesis. We watched this fun video (You've been warned the song WILL get stuck in your head) and talked all about it and wrote our own photosynthesis recipe. We also did our own little experiment with a plant. We took the plant in the living room and noticed that because of photosynthesis all the leaves were facing toward the window. So we rotated the pot and will be keeping an eye on it to see how quickly the leaves move.

Week 7... over and out.,

Happy 88th Birthday Nana!

See that look my Nana is giving the camera.

 Us grandkids know that look. It's the look she gave us when we tried to sneak the phone in the other room, or when we even thought about leaving the fence. It is her "Don't even think about it" look. Growing up my Nana was the stricter of the Nana and Tata duo and now that I am the stricter of the parenting duo in my house I totally understand it. She would never want anything bad to happen to us, she wanted us to make good decisions in life and be the best people we could possible become and she was going to do everything in her power to help us get there. Because she loves us all more than we could even imagine.

And now that all her grandchildren are adults it is safe to say that she did a damn good job.

This is not even close to all of us. 

 And now she gets to sit back and enjoy her great-grandbabies. She gets to spoil them and love on them now that her children and grandchildren get the tough job of raising them up right.

Happy 88th Birthday Nana.

Thank you for always taking care of me and for never letting me go past the fence. 

I love you so much.