Home School Reflections, August

August has been over for a few days now but my calendar has not yet been changed.  It can't be September already.  This month of homeschooling and life has flown by.  We have had extremely productive weeks and some not so productive weeks. 

In our History/Geography we studied about Delaware and Maine and we learned about how children lived in colonial times.  We found some really neat movies on the Visit Maine website about the wildlife in Maine and history of it's lighthouses.  A highlight for the kids was making blueberry muffins (blueberries are Maine's state berry and grow wild on the cliffs by the ocean).
Science has included the study of birds.  We are becoming birders and watching and identifying birds that come and go from our yard.  We also learned that God made birds to keep the insects under control.  When there are more insects around birds actually lay more eggs and we have more birds to control them.  Unfortunately science has been the one subject that has suffered the most from our busyness this month.  We are looking forward to learning, watching and identifying more next month and hopefully catching up a bit.
Math has included strengthening addition skills and introducing subtraction for our first grader, Conner.  Our third grader, Payton, has worked with rounding and estimating, subtracting large numbers, money, and time.  Our Fifth Grader, Bentley, is working on multiplying whole numbers and decimals and multiplying by powers of ten.  Luckily everyone excels in math.  I originally thought that they all might struggle as I wasn't sure where to begin and what they had mastered in school but they all seem to be at or above grade level.  Bentley has also been my helper while shopping this month and is learning that the lowest price is not always the best value.  She is using her rounding and estimating skills to figure out what we should purchase.  She makes this frugal mama proud.
Bentley is in the process of completing her first book report on Little Women, which she read over the summer.  Payton also completed a third grade (much shorter version) book report on his book Toliver's Secret.  Payton is following in Bentley's footsteps with his love of reading and I often find him reading somewhere in the afternoons rather than playing.  I have tried to challenge him with chapter books that will keep his interest and it seems to be working.  Conner's reading has also greatly improved in the last few months and he is beginning to gain confidence and enjoy it more and more.
Character building has covered obedience which I will share about soon in another post.  Bible reading has covered the book of Luke.

The babies are learning along side of us.  On this particular day they were mesmerized by the rain since we had not seen any in so long.  Gracen is going through a phase where if he can see me he wants to be held so that has been challenging while trying to help the older children but I cherish the moments with him.  Vaeh's vocabulary has quadrupled in the last month and it is a hoot to hear what she has to share, even if she is yelling it in the middle of math.
Our goals in the coming months are to add in some music and art appreciation and to spend more time on science. We are ahead of schedule on math so we may need to let that slide some days and change our priorities a bit.  Some days we may have to shift more of our mommy lead subjects to the afternoon during nap time so that we can accomplish more. Surprisingly the flexible schedule does not bother me as much as I thought that it might.
I continue to love our decision to homeschool and the kids do too.  I still don't have an abundent amount of patience but I am learning.  When things get rough it seems that God sends me little reminders that my children are a blessing and that's what keeps me going.