Almost done! The race is on!!

This week we begin our final scheduled week of school. There is however a race between the last day of school and when the baby will actually make an appearance... as I type this I am wishing to wake up tomorrow morning in labour! I am 8 days from my due date so we will see!

Before that happens I wanted to briefly reflect on our year... We made it and we are all still alive :) Some days I didn't know if I was coming or going, other days I felt like a homeschooling pro.. we had ups and downs but we have all learned and grown. Mostly I learned that this role of a homeschooling mom takes perseverance, commitment, prayer, support from others and unconditional love for my children. It is not an easy road and some days I'll admit I HATED my job but there were those moments that made it all worth it.

We will continue to work on some things during the summer. I don't want them to completely forget about what they have learned both academically and discipline/ structure wise. We have not completed Kai Kai's math curriculum so my aim is to work on it a couple times a week so we can finish that before we begin his grade 2 work. We will also continue with spelling since he is really enjoying SpellingCity . I will continue LiLi's reading lessons since he is really getting the hang of reading... he is sounding out words and gaining more and more sight words each day. Most of all he wants to read so I don't want to quench that in any way. Buttercup will have lots of time to play and learn how to be a big sister... which shouldn't be too hard. She's been turning any inanimate object into a baby...it is hilarious to watch her carry a broom or a trash can like it is her child (yes she does have dolls but if you have kids you know they go for the everyday objects before the real toys.)

Before I end I'll fill you in on some things we have been doing over the past couple of weeks...

We continued to work on our Ocean Animals Lapbook which we should complete this week. The kids have enjoyed learning about jellyfish, crabs, sharks, whales, wahoo, marlin and other sea life. I am looking forward to doing more lapbooks with them next year as they are very engaging. The boys really got into this one and remember lots of facts about the animals they studied.

We did some cooking science... a cake experiment. We baked 4 mini cakes. The first one we made together, the second one Buttercup made and left out the oil, the third one LiLi made and left out the eggs, and the 4th one KaiKai made and left out the baking powder. We wanted to see what the end result would be for each. All LiLi wanted to know was if we would be able to eat the cake when we were done!

Once baked we cut each in half and observed the texture first and then we tasted each. None of the cakes turned out stellar taste wise- even the one we all made- but as expected that one was the most edible and had great texture. Needless to say LiLi was quite disappointed that it wasn't yummy cake! Buttercup on the other hand didn't seem to care, even asking for more!

The cake without oil was dry, the one with out eggs took much longer to bake and was quite stodgy and the one without baking powder was drier than the one without eggs, but was very heavy.

Of course I couldn't pass on the opportunity for some character building. I explained to the kids that we all have a role to play and when we don't work together we won't get the best result. It was a good object lesson in spite of the disappointment of not being able to eat cake!

LiLi and Butercup have been taking swim lessons this month. We have been spending as much time as possible in the pool which is where we will be for most of the sumer!!

Last week we met up with my friend Mari-Ann and her son for a play date. She is a true inspiration to me with all her ideas she uses to teach her little one (check out her blog it is awesome!). She is the crafting queen and was kind enough to make us a spinny speller which she featured on her blog not long ago (you can find the tutorial there to make one yourself if you so desire.) Thank you so much Mari-Ann!! LiLi is loving his new "toy!"

picture by Mari-Ann

And finally, like most of the world, we have turned our attention to the FIFA World Cup 2010. I decided to structure school around the World cup fever. KaiKai is loving it as he is so much into sports. We started by printing out blank flags for each country playing and KaiKai coloured them in using a coloured printout of flags as a guide. It is amazing how many flags he now recognizes... many more than I do! We have been tracking the scores of each game and will continue to track which teams make it to the next round. We then printed out a world map and began shading in the countries that are participating. This week we will finish the map work and then choose one or two countries to study in a little more depth. It has been exciting to follow along and has been one of those "reasons I love homeschooling".

Hopefully next time I update I will have baby news!