Homeschooling update & stuff

We are in week 7 of the Kolbe Academy (close to finishing first quarter already!) syllabus and I think they are doing well. We average about 4 days of school a week. Olivia was being defiant about writing her name correctly (she was drawing huge circles as the 'dots' above her "i's") but has since fixed that. Lucas does really well when he is motivated. His spelling and reading has been amazing to me! I am so proud that we started last year. I really was unsure that what I was 'freestyling' with was sufficient, but now that I see him as a 5 yr old starting to read, spelling and doing math easily, I am sure it was the right thing to do. He wants to impress daddy so much :) He takes pride in his writing and all his work. Even though 8 'subjects' seemed like a lot, they are all different and therefore keep things exciting for him. Especially science. I'd say the only thing he has a little trouble with is religion, but that's a more complex topic, and it's not so important for him to memorize answers, as it is to for me to be helping shape his conscience and faith.

In Science, we are learning about life cycles. I bought these lima beans, soaked them in water and we did an experiment. We put a few in a bag with a wet cotton pad in the sun, some in a bag without wet cotton in the sun, and some with wet cotton in a closet without light. It was interesting how fast some grew roots! The ones in the sun with water obviously did best, but it was surprising that the ones without light grew roots too! I guess water is more important than sun:

Just a few days later, I took the 3 that grew the best roots and planted them. The next day, the seed pod opened and already started sprouting leaves!

By the next night it looked like this: 

 Pretty cool to watch, since it was so fast that it sprouted.
I want to do school with them as often as possible now, since baby #4's arrival will complicate things more. In other news, Frankie now has 4 teeth and is eating more 'adult' foods :) He is pulling up to stand all the time, and therefore falling a lot as well...
    Oh and I put up this shelf in the downstairs bath. Many walls in this house are still bare, and we need more places to put things that are not within Frankie's reach!

 We also used to use a wooden bench to put all our shoes on downstairs, which became Frankie's favorite place to go. So I bought these shoe holder things at Ikea to get our shoes off the floor--very convenient. We didn't have room for the kids' soccer cleats so we just put them on top. I also took apart the bed in the downstairs room, so Susan can use it as her workout room (and she uses the old shoe bench too!)

 I also turned 30 yrs old this month--Johnny surprised me and bought me this microkorg synth I've wanted for over a decade :) It's just ironic that I have it now and don't have the time to really use it. I've played with it and will upload bits of it soon. I need another keyboard to get a good beat going though! With all my equipment, I miss being able to play live music and make some $$ on the side, but i'd much rather be homeschooling and making memories anyway. At some point, I might be able to find that balance and play at NYLO again, or try new venues.

 Thanks for spoiling me John :)