September

For as long as the sun held out we worked on swimming lessons and water safety.

Both of our female dogs had a litter of puppies so we spent hours snuggling and playing with them to ensure they were well socialized for their new families.

There’s been a lot of construction happening around here, at both the professional

and amateur level. (It’s so fun to hear them talking about 12:12 trusses, joists, chicken boards, and everything else they pick up by watching.)

M & E are also getting the chance to do more electrical work with Jeremy.

E kept himself very busy building all kinds of things.

M & A started a cat business. They found a video tutorial on how spreadsheets work and used that knowledge to create financial records as well as records for each cat. They wanted to go all in with a website and email address so I helped them find the BC business registry page where they filled out everything required to register their business name. Then they registered for a domain name and email address.

They are now working on building themselves a website. Their goal is to earn enough money selling kittens and cat toys to be able to start a cat boarding facility.

V wants her own business too, she’s going to be making jewelry. Here she’s writing a letter to her friend and sending her a sample necklace as well as a perler bead ornament.

My kids are getting quite proficient in the kitchen. This apple pie was made without me having to help at all (not even with the clean up after)

It’s probably not the best planning strategy to read an inspirational, outside-the-box story right before starting a new school year. I thought I had everything planned out for the year until Laura Sandefer showed me how they took everything I’ve been trying to do with my kids, added some new ideas that I’ve never heard of before and created an absolutely amazing sounding school. So, we’re going Acton style this year. I’m not quite sure how well we will be able to imitate their quests idea with only five kids, but we’ve definitely got the mixed age class part down pat.

I set everyone up with a variety of online learning programs for core skills time.

Core skills (Reading, Writing, Rithmetic, and computer skills) are now mostly learner driven.

Our Montessori materials

combined with the benefit of adaptive software and games help each kid to keep going at their own pace with very little input from me.

Core skills happens every morning for 1-3 hours, depending on how the day goes.

Our afternoons are mostly reserved for project time. This month’s project was hosting and participating in a cardboard boat building contest.

I borrowed the idea from Skills Canada, it sure helped that they have all that info freely available online.

Each team of kids was given two 4×8’ sheets of cardboard, one roll each of packing tape and duct tape, some string, paper, pencils, and sharp knives. They had the morning to design, plan, and build their boat.

After a lunch break we tested the boats for speed and ability to hold weight.

June

Got A an email address so her brother promptly taught her how to use chat.

She made a little doll out of a tiny stick, some fabric, and tape. If you look carefully you can see the face she drew on it with a Sharpie.

I think it might just be time to quit for the year, everything reading/spelling/phonics related is bringing E to tears.

Another one of our read aloud books.

Watching this adds a whole lot of contextual understanding to our Bible reading.

Feeding the Venus fly trap. I thinks their fascination with this is a little morbid, but cute. I thought the fly would mostly disappear after being trapped, don’t they eat flies? Maybe it just doesn’t like the kind that keep invading our house (farm perk)

Cooking up a batch of play dough.

I tried playing Speed! with two different kids at once, while having one snuggled on my lap. It didn’t go very well.

E made this knife for his little brother. After admitting it and letting them parade it around I “may” have disappeared it the second they left it laying around.

Finishing up with the microscope before sending it back to the school library. They looked at blood, skin, hair, slough water, dead bugs, bits of plants, and anything else that fit under there.

May

M was working with Google earth in his CC classes so he shared that knowledge with his siblings and they all had fun spying around the neighbourhood.

He wanted to see how a tape measure works so he took it apart. Unfortunately, putting it back together was a little too much of a challenge even after watching a few YouTube videos on how tape measures work and how they’re made.

We got some bee comb trimmings from a friend who keeps bees. She also brought over a drone and some comb that had larvae at different stages of development for the kids to see. After touching it all and tasting the honeycomb we melted it down to harvest the wax for some craft projects.

School work is always so much more enjoyable in the sunshine.

Hide and seek

Rat a Tat Cat. A fun way to work on memory, strategy, planning, and addition skills.

E has set his focus on learning to read. So his official school work for now is TTRS and his phonics book. I’m also reading Life of Fred to him and Victoria as part of our read aloud time, and we play plenty of math games so he’s still getting math in even though he doesn’t really think so.

M and A picked a bunch of buttercups and tried making paint out of them.

Here is the recipe he wrote for her to follow when he went off to work.

She lost her first tooth. Tied in nicely to where we are reading in Life of Fred which mentioned deciduous trees and called baby teeth deciduous teeth.

A family hike. It was colder than expected so the emergency blanket got hauled out of the truck to double as a ghost, or jacket (depends on how you want to look at it)

He’s making a chemistry lab

using this book from the school library.

Learning about the periodic table with Periodic. It took a bit to figure out this game, but is definitely fun enough we’ll be playing it many more times.

While M and I played Periodic these four figured out Sum Swamp.

She sculpted this face out of a lump of mud.

V was also playing with mud and made these pressed flowers for me.

A’s cat had kittens.

V wrote a letter to the minister of education.

Picwits

V built a house with an outdoor couch, a swing set, and a slide with the Spielgaben set.

She also built this tower after completing the house challenge card laying there on the desk.

Writing her verse of the day. (Still have a bunch of construction stuff cluttering up our space)

E had to replace the body on his R/C, here’s its maiden voyage.

More baking.

Our 4H club had a training night outside in a parking lot so everyone and their dog could participate while social distancing.

Life of Fred + sunshine = eager students.

M working hard on math, his goal is to finish this first book by June 12.

Jr. is so eager for blueberry season he picked a bunch into this basket and started eating them. Apparently they’re yummy, I’m not brave enough to try them that green.

April

They built a zoo with recycling, Calico Critters, and handmade pom pom pets. It used LOTS of tape and hot glue. I should probably start buying them by the carton or crate.

Dinner wasn’t ready fast enough so they made themselves an appetizer. I was impressed with their relatively healthy choice.

M and E dug a giant hole and then built it into an R/C racecourse after they were warned about the dangers of a cave in and decided it would be wise to fill it back in a bit.

Hoot Owl Hoot, a co-operative game for younger kids where everyone has to work together to get all the owls back into their nest before the sun comes up. Even the older kids enjoy playing it, though it doesn’t challenge them much at all.

More baking. Usually I’m “mean” and hide a measuring cup or spoon so they have to do a bit more fraction work.

We did Five in a Row back when M was in grade one and really enjoyed it. It’s been sitting on our shelf for a few years and now it’s almost like new again (and just as enjoyable) Ping had us talking about different family arrangements, China, loneliness, obedience, the Silk Road, boats, and of course ducks.

Drawing lessons from Art for Kids Hub on YouTube.

V started working on addition with the Montessori snake game.

These two wanted to play Speed, but their skip counting just isn’t quite good enough yet.

Shut the Box is a much better game for starting with. We usually add in some house rules to even the playing field for players who are much better at math (they must combine the value of the two dice in some way while the younger players are allowed to use the numbers shown or do a math operation with them)

One of my absolute favourite parts of homeschooling is the togetherness. Second to that is how each kid is free to develop in their own special way at the speed that is best for them.

I originally bought Spot It! to help work on some visual processing challenges, it has quickly morphed into a family favourite.

This was a Christmas gift that E set back on the shelf for a few months because it was just too challenging. Now he really enjoyed it. It is so neat to see the progress and development happening here everyday. Sometimes it’s so gradual that moments like these are extra encouraging.

V didn’t appreciate my decision to go out for a walk while she was in the middle of “reading” this book. Books fascinate her, and she voluntarily spends hours pouring over them. I can only imagine what she’ll be like when she can read the words as well as she reads the pictures.

Meet Ham and Bacon. Or should I say “meat”?

A fun game the kids learned from watching Mully. Hopefully that isn’t the only thing they learned from such an inspiring story.

Bloom where you’re planted!!

Studying Morse code

Chemistry Fluxx

Code Master

Read aloud time.

Seemed like a very appropriate read aloud for schooling during a pandemic.

Cashflow is a great combination of career prep and math.

They made a couple of teeter totters.

I found an old engine advertised online as a “good candidate for exploratory surgery” so E used his birthday money to buy himself a socket set and satisfied a bit of his urge to study engines.

Drawing castles.

She wanted to write me a play for Mother’s Day but her siblings wouldn’t play the parts she wanted them to so she made shadow puppets. (Inspired by watching the Silk Road documentary on Curiosity Stream that we watched for our Five in a Row lessons on Ping)

When you make a big long chunk of finger knit rope and don’t quite know what to do with it. She did eventually turn it into a pillow for Grandma who is slowly recovering from being hit by a car while walking.

Inspired by everything they’ve been learning about aboriginal people and Native Americans they made bannock,

sewed some “skins” together,

painted their faces,

and set off with their travois to make camp.

9 Speed

March

Canadian geography with Professor Noggins.

TTRS and painting.

Following his passion for electronics. (It would be so much easier if there were resources written at his level so he could do it without me)

During long games like Cashflow with M, I sometimes try to multitask. This time I’m working on place value for E with Rack-o.

Start them young.

LEGO, LEGO, lots of fun with LEGO.

M, A, & E attended 4H to the Extreme. It was a day filled with all kinds of activities and seminars for the kids and their parents. We learned more about the 4H program, agricultural safety, outdoor survival, and line dancing. We also made beeswax wraps and paracord dog leashes.

We took a first aid course.

We also learned about the dangers and effects of impairment by trying different activities and a relay race while wearing impairment goggles.

Long division with racks and tubes, and toes.

Golden bead addition

TTRS has a math unit so M tried it out, but was disappointed to discover that it doesn’t actually teach any math, just how to type math words.

E is always building, fixing, or taking something apart. Here he’s trying to fix his old RC truck for his little bro.

New games showed up. So much eagerness and excitement!

Logic and programming with Codemaster.

Castle Panic is a big hit.

It also inspired some castle building and a whole bunch of role playing imaginative games.

We started our veggie garden.

Working on her 4H record book.

Sometimes new games are frustrating.

Due to not being allowed to play with her friends, A has been writing letters to them.

There has also been a whole lot more baking around here.

Multiplication with Kingdomino

Not quite pictured, all the hours of reading that we all enjoy.

February

We went on a field trip to the Reptile Room where the kids got to touch, see, and learn about a bunch of cool animals. 

Sleeping Queens

V found the Draw Write Now books and after almost giving up because her first drawing didn’t go the way she wanted it she persevered and spent a few days drawing all kinds of pictures. 

Got the Spielgaben set out and it was being very carefully used

until

one drawer was too heavy for J. 

Speech night at 4H. First time doing public speaking for M, who did quite well, and A, who’s nerves got the best of her. The Leader and judges were amazing though, giving her the chance to do her speech for them in private. 

One of M’s favorite games is Risk so he taught A and I how to play. 

E made a card stock pulley. 

A doesn’t always share my appreciation for games, but this one is definitely helping her overcome her place value struggles. 

January

Finally got our school room useable and this young lady was super excited to see these materials come out of storage. In her eagerness she forgot the “clean up what you finished before taking a new material out” rule.

E is building electronic gizmos again, or more accurately, still, since he never actually quit.

With all the rain our “woods” got flooded and the kids wanted to go boating so they took out the new sleds they got for Christmas and had fun. 

It snowed for gameschool day and since we so rarely get a good dump of snow for playing in we let the kids spend the whole day in the yard. They built quite an elaborate set of forts before launching into a snowball war. 

E built a lemon juice and baking Sosa volcano,

a little motorized vehicle,

and all the roads for a city.
He tried a dinosaur that walks by getting his motor to turn a large cardboard wheel between its legs but gave up when he couldn’t figure out how to attach the motor and keep the dinosaur balanced. M is much happier being able to do more of his schoolwork on his computer. I’m not sure how I feel about the increase in screen time but he is actually interested in doing his work and much more eager to learn so …  I guess it balances out?

I just listened to a podcast about schooling in the waiting room and so we took our books to the orthodontist. 

Because we sometimes have weeks where we get so busy living and enjoying life that we don’t really get around to doing “school work,” or when we do it we don’t have anything to show for it I designed day sheets for the kids to record their work on. The theory is that come portfolio time they will have an organized stack of papers to show for all the work they’ve been doing. I have also been feeling convicted that I need to do a better job of following Deuteronomy 6:7 so the first thing on the day sheet is some copywork in the form of the verse of the week. This week we started with a short one. 

M and A are doing 4H with our dogs, it’s quite an impressive program for them and they are really enjoying it. 

After making tin can phones at CC E wanted to try making fancier ones. They didn’t exactly work. 

Gameschool Day sure works much nicer with being able to spread out in the basement. I am so thankful for the community of friends we have been able to build, and it is awesome to see all the skills the kids are learning while having fun together playing games like Spot It,  Catan, 

Pandemic, Sushi Go,

Battleship,

Don’t Break the Ice,


Monopoly Deal, and Lost Cities. 

December

Frosty the Snow Chicken joined our farm for a few cold hours. 
Just about done reading “Carry on Mr. Bowditch.” (and French toast for breakfast)

Tried adding a bit more fun to M’s second language studies with Pureflix. 

E decided it was high time we get some holiday decorations up so he made us some Christmas trees; one out of wire,

and one by screwing together a wooden stand and tying tree branches to it. 

I had heard of Khan Academy years ago but always thought it was just for math until a friend mentioned how much her son liked watching their videos on YouTube and that she had used them for science help when working on her degree. We checked it out and now M is doing their coding course and E started an electrical engineering one. 

She can’t really read yet, but she’ll spend hours studying books. I feel like I’m looking at myself 30 years ago. 

We tried Cashflow together, but even with help it’s definitely too hard for E and V. 

M loved it. 

E and J created their own version of Life. 

I feel Ike everyone is always building something around here. 

Most of their projects don’t work out the way they wanted or get abandoned part way through, but these little pompom critters A made were too cute to toss. 

E has now made hovercraft version…I lost count. 

A little bit of geography and a whole lot of mess. 

I’m debating screens, it’s hard, but maybe the pros would at least balance out the cons? 

Battleship

Everyone is working together to try get the basement done ASAP.

November

I thinks it’s so adorable how studious she is. My first kid to request more school work. 

Introducing the ‘Wacking Beatles (as in short for Chilliwack, no dogs got hit in the production of this backyard band)

Writing lyrics for their songs. 

The camera caught an off moment, but they were so sweetly reading together I just had to keep the memory. 

Learning about cars and dogs at Science World. This exhibit let them experience how a cat and/or dog senses their world. 

All together we weigh as much as a lion. 

Tinkering with “spin art.”

E tried teaching himself to play the ukulele. Both the apps we tried were a disappointment. 

He requested a book on how gas engines work, unfortunately the closest I could find at the public library was this one on simple machines. This boy must be more inquisitive than average because I can not find any age appropriate books to satisfy his interests. 

The book did give him some inspiration for this rocket launcher. 

October

Shut the Box works wonderfully for basic number recognition and all four operations in math. 
The girls enjoy Art Hub for Kids on YouTube. Might have to look into getting a subscription for it so I don’t have to worry about all the YouTube ads. M has been putting some long hours in trying to get TTRS finished. I promised him a Chromebook for his own school work as soon as he finished it. 

V had outgrown her hockey skates so I got her these new ones that also double as rollerblades. Made her day as she cried bitterly when her rollerblade broke a few weeks ago. 


Another read-aloud, picked this one from a list of living math books and it’s actually impressively interesting while still fitting enough math in to get you thinking. There’s a whole bunch of interesting history in it too. Win-win

I found some math assessments online to see where the kids were and what we need to focus on. V had so much fun she begged me for more tests to do. I’ll be doing everything I can to protect and nourish her love of learning. 

All my Montessori materials are packed away for the basement reno which is unfortunately taking much longer than we had hoped. We couldn’t quite not do any math for that long and the tests I had the kids do showed exactly what I expected. They’re “behind” because my health struggles over the last few years have made it nearly impossible for me to do what I had planned and wanted with them. I found Rays Arithmetic while researching a quote I once read that claimed a child who is developmentally read can learn all the math in 20 hours. All the math programs I’m familiar with are so repetitive there’s no way anyone could get through all the grades that quickly, except maybe this old fashioned way of bare bones math.  I’m not sure how or if it will really work, but it seems worth the experiment. Especially since we can’t do our regular math right now anyway. 

A likes sewing clothes for her dolls, I wonder if there are any sewing patterns available in their size. 

It is quite interesting to see the math books that were used (I think) back when Laura Ingalls Wilder was a girl. 

E would like to know what this number is.

He was planning on building a go-cart. 

The dirt hill of fox holes and tunnels is now being re-built into a mini castle.  

Quiet reading time with our Sonlight book order,

and reading together.

V is still really enjoying her worksheets. These ones are impressively interactive; starting sound I Spy games, tongue twister “gymnastics,” ASL, and your average matching, circling, and letter writing practice. 

I think she also wants to start TTRS, or she just likes wearing the headphones while doing her own work. 

Math on his computer. Might need to get him an eye exam…

A haircut for Dad. 

All the kids came to help me vote. 

Because J is supposed to go swimming 3-4 times a week and because I know how easy it is to bump something like that out of a busy day We signed the oldest three kids up for Spartan Swim Club. They go two nights a week for an hour of coaching each night. It makes for an exhausting schedule and demands that I be very organized with a dinner ready to eat when we get home. Soup is becoming very popular and I’m thankful for all these helpers who are willing to roll meatballs. 

We planted cover crop in the garden. 

E bought himself a street hockey stick, stood in line, talked to the cashier, and paid for it, all while I waited and watched from a few feet away.