Weeks 35 & 36 In Review

August 22 to September 3rd in pictures: 

School has officially started!  

(Thanks to Angel for taking this picture on our first day of school!)

I've always wanted to have uniforms for our home school "Sancta Familia Academy" and this year it worked out to have them. I'm so excited. I have to admit I just love seeing kids in uniforms. 

 We enjoyed a morning at our local Fairfax Falls with the Gebeau's while they were here.

I was able to attend one of Phil's presentations - it was great to be able to hear his presentation - at least as much of it as John allowed.

 Soccer is in full swing - this was Luke's first evening practice.

 While William was at soccer, Miriam and Luke got to participate in a "spy night" at our local library- they had to break a secret code, make a disguise and get through this tricky obstacle course without setting off the alarms.

Here are some classroom in action shots.  Above is our daily school week schedule.

 Luke and Thomas in their school desks.

The older two hard at work.

Even John has his space in the school room. 

Here is some science in action.  William found a monarch butterfly caterpillar on the milkweed near our home and we dug out our butterfly container to watch the transformation.

Sure enough, within a couple days it formed this chrysalis

We then got to witness the butterfly emerge!

Here's a  picture just before we set if free.   

We've had some beautiful weather - here's a picture of in the woods.  Can you find Luke?

 Here are the youngest two just hanging out in the wagon.

 We have a sunflower in our garden that is 11 feet tall!

William caught a fish while fishing with dad on Saturday.

These little saints are now at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help ready for Mother's Teresa Canonization today. St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!!

What we're up to: 

Our first 2 weeks of school have gone well! We have settled into our new routine - as much as this is possible with 5 small children - and are enjoying the challenges and joys of homeschooling. Now if I can just get the toddler to play quietly all day....

We'll be attending a conference in New York on Sept. 25th - Inspire Called to Love. It's completely free including child care and lunch. I'm really excited because they have some pretty amazing speakers Bishop Robert Barron and George Wiegel and our own Bishop Coyne.  

Just a few short weeks until our trip to San Diego! We are so excited to see family in San Diego in October! 

And the big news: We again stand in awe at God's plan for our family as He guides each step of our way. As many of you know, Phil felt called to discern the diaconate about 6 years ago and entered into formation in La Crosse Diocese.  God then called us out of central Wisconsin and has led us an unexpected but joyful journey which has taught us to surrender completely to His plan and see the beauty of trusting completely in His loving care. Again, in Green Bay, Phil entered into formation just before God called us to move to Vermont where Phil as part of his interview process mentioned to Bishop Coyne that he felt called to the diaconate and asked about formation here. Bishop Coyne, to our surprise, joy, and awe at God's plan, has decided to ordain Phil to the diaconate on February 11, 2017 - the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. He will be receiving the rite of candidacy on September 15th (Our Lady of Sorrows) and then continue with preparations for this holy sacrament which will join the graces of ordination to the ministry God has called him to through his work in the diocese for the Church and her work of evangelization. Praise the Lord for His many blessings! Please pray for our family as we continue this journey of service under Our Lady's guidance. You are each in our daily prayers!  

Weeks 33 & 34 In Review

August 10- August 21st in Pictures: 

We were able to have our shrine blessed this weekend!  Our Pastor Fr. Henry Furman came over to bless it and friends Jean and Fern Rainville were also present for the blessing since most of the rocks Phil used to build the shrine came from their home.  

 A travelling exhibit/ movie about the red tail squadron was at our local Air Force base - so we were able to go on base to watch the movie and see the exhibit.

 A few of the kids made it into our local paper in pictures of the mini-renaissane faire at the library.

 Fun with magnets

 Luke's Lego creations have been getting more detailed.  Here's a super hero play ground.

 Hanging out in the tent with Dad.  Luke made a tent "academy" for Thomas where he taught Thomas to write and sword fight with Dad's help.

 John's been having a rough couple of weeks due to teething.  Mass isn't his favorite part of the day.

 Marshmallow creations

 Some of our gladiolas bloomed this week!

 A picture of the completed shrine.  Phil built the shrine, I added the rock rosary. 

We had a fun summer play date/ picnic with some of the local homeschooling families on Friday.  

I preserved some of our harvest of zucchini in baked goods and shredded for the freezer.  

Our friends the Gebeaus arrived for a visit!  They traveled all the way from WI with a 5 week old and now we have 10 children in our home all having a great time!

 A group shot of all 10 children.   Angel teaches 6th grade religious ed at the parish Phil worked at for 11 years in Steven Point and began around the same time Phil started as DRE/youth minister.  

 We are ready for school to begin this week - the classroom is ready.  

The lesson plans are done.  Watch for 1st day of pictures in our next update!

Praise the Lord for His many blessings!  Our prayers are with you, please remember us in yours!

Our Curriculum this year - Languange Arts

This year for Language Arts, we have 4 separate components: Handwriting, Phonics, Oral Reading (both that the children read to me from simple readers and that they listen to good literature that I read aloud to them), and the Riggs Program (which includes memorizing phonograms, spelling rules and spelling words).  Since reading and writing are foundational skills to master for learning and neither of my children are proficient yet, working toward independent reading and writing is one of our primary goals for the year.  For this reason, we begin and end our school day with Language arts.

After our opening Calendar activities, we begin with Handwriting. We chose to use Handwriting without Tears for William last year and I was really happy with the program so we continued with the 2nd grade book this year.  I also ordered the kindergarten text for Miriam.  She is speeding through the text so next year, and maybe even later this year, I'll be exploring other options for her.  We ordered the wood blocks and letter cards for Luke and he is doing great as well.  He loves their wet, dry try chalk board practice and does amazingly well at writing his letters for a three year old. 

I help Luke and Miriam learn to form their letter of the Day while William works on his writing. Then Miriam works in their Phonics book (MCP Book A), while William reads to me and then works in his Phonics book.  I chose MCP phonics simply because I was already familiar with it from when I taught kindergarten.  I find it helpful to reinforce phonics practice with William since he really struggles in this area and the book has a variety of fun activities to practice phonics.  I bought one for Miriam because she enjoys doing the pages.  There are other options out there but I feel this is a helpful resource though neither of my children can complete the activities without help at this time.

 
This is a video of William reading last year - he's reading much better now but I haven't video taped him lately ;-)

At some point, I listen to Miriam read a "Bob book" and read with Luke as well.  William and Miriam are working their way through the Bob books, Luke just has to do everything that his siblings do :-).  We originally would check these simple readers out of our Library and the kids enjoyed them well enough that I decided to order them for daily reading practice.  I really like that the books are phonetic readers that gradually build in difficulty and both children have enjoyed mastering the various books.

In the afternoon, we have a story time where I read aloud to them.  Right now we are reading The Swiss Family Robinson (Illustrated Family Classics).  There are many suggested books that tie in with our curriculum and I use the Well Trained Mind and Laura Berquist's books to choose read alouds throughout the year.  I also often just go through and request books online from our library so it's quick and easy to pick them up when we go to the library.  We finish the day with a phonogram/spelling lesson from the Riggs Writing and Spelling Road to Reading Program.  I use this program because I was trained in it as a kindergarten teacher and find it a very helpful tool for teaching reading and phonics and English grammar/spelling rules.  It does take a bit of time to learn how to teach this method so it may not be the best fit for many homeschoolers, but if you really want a strong foundation in Language arts it's worth looking into.  However, if you just want to teach your child to read, there are plenty of other highly recommended user-friendly programs out there. 

We work on the Riggs at the end of our school day because it is nap time so the house is quieter for William's sake. William's most challenging subject is Phonics. He is a very strong visual/spacial learner and has no problem memorizing words and the isolated phonograms but it is very hard for him to blend sounds together to decode a new word and to break a word into sounds. To avoid as much frustration as possible for him, we have focused more on learning words (whole language) while still plugging away at the phonics and we are making headway but he is just beginning to gain proficiency in reading.  Miriam, a strong auditory learner, is well advanced for her just beginning kindergarten stage and does quite well with Phonics and reading the simple "Bob books.".

Calendar Activities

Each morning we always begin our school day together with a Prayer, Pledge, Saint of the Day reading and then Calendar Activities. For our first two years, I had the Calendar Activities posted on the wall and the second year I read about and added a Calendar notebook to our routine.

This year, due to our temporary circumstances, we are just using our Calendar binders. Each child has a Binder with a Calendar page where they mark the day's date.  I also call it a "quiet work" binder because I intend to put activities they can work on quietly and independently in the binder while I'm working with another child.

William also has a page to write the date so he can get practice with writing the full date and "code date."

William and Miriam then "Make the Date" with money. I printed and laminated the coins from here (scroll down the page).

They then write (or put a sticker on) the number of days in school,

mark the day with tally marks and check and graph the weather.

I also added a Liturgical calendar page to encourage them to look at the color at Mass. I love that the Calendar Binder is an easy way to practice necessary skills on a daily basis and the kids enjoy this predictable and somewhat independent activity.