Goodbye Fairbanks Fall, Hello Winter!

Fall weather in Fairbanks is from the middle of August through September and maybe a week of October, so we are saying Goodbye to Fall and Hello to Winter right now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had our first snowfall on September 30th and although it was what I call a Texas snow, there was still a snowball or two made :)

John was home the last two weeks and so we spent almost every day working hard to prepare for winter. He got the last piece of roofing on the shop at our property on Chena Hot Springs Road (about 10 miles out-of-town) and also finished our chicken coop so we can "winter" our chickens! They seem happy in their new home and I am anticipating some fresh eggs very soon!

 

The coop...

 

 

 

Cleaning up our summer things and storing them, cleaning the garage and cars, harvesting what was left of the garden and sweeping and raking leaves gave us abundant time outside to enjoy the Fall weather. We had to dress warmer, as it is in the 40's and even 30's now, but the crisp days are very beautiful.

John also did some work on our downstairs bathroom. It had some water damage and needed painting. We put up new towelbars and I am updating the cabinet above the toilet. It needed updating and since this is the bathroom that our out-of-town company uses, I am happy to have it looking prettier.

The kids....

Justin got his passport in the mail this week. He is VERY proud of it and super excited about his trip to Europe after Christmas. His best friend, Aaron, is stationed with the Army in Germany and so Justin and their mutual friend, Bill, will be meeting Aaron in Germany to travel around Europe for 2 weeks. Sounds wonderful to me!

 

 

JohnJohn got his driving permit! He has been driving us all around town!

 

 

Jessica and Jack are always busy doing different things. They are big "Ice Road Trucker" fans (especially because their big brother works for Carlile) and so they spent a couple of days playing Ice Road Truckers... notice the "loads" they are hauling are upside-down plastic stools with stuff inside.

 

 

They are both taking gymnastics. It is a challenge, but are learning some basics. Here is Jack doing a handstand.

 

 

 

 

 

We took a field trip to the Fairbanks City Hall last week. Wow! Talk about an exciting building. It has so much history to  offer. Being that the building was the first (K-12) and only (high) school in Fairbanks from 1934-1976, we were able to step back into the past and learn some things about Fairbanks. It is a huge building and they are doing a wonderful job of restoring it to look like it did back then, with many, many original details and furnishings. There were original blackboards, wrestling mats, trophies, sinks, and more. They even took us into the basement room where there were the original (huge) coal boilers that heated the school. It was truly a treat and I am so glad we didn't skip out on this fieldtrip! Oh, and our city mayor gave tour and was fabulous!

I made the mistake of not bringing my camera into the building, but captured the kids out front afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

Our Second Week of School

Our second week went so well! We started a whole new Science curriculum - Apologia Science - Astronomy. Using a textbook curriculum is not our thing, so I was really wondering how it would all go. I just really love Apologia (JohnJohn did it when he homeschooled in 8th grade) so I really wanted to  work this into our days.

It's sideways! Hello to the new blogger! :)
 

I use the textbook, but not the student journal that I bought with it. I'm finding that using our Waldorf technique of creating Main Lesson Books fits us way better than pre-printed workbooks/journals. So we read a little of the material in the textbook and then draw and/or write about what we have learned into our own created Lesson Books.

 

 

The second day was fun learning different constellations and drawing them.

 

 

 

Waldorf education is all about learning holistically and the teaching methods

are designed to meet a child where they are developmentally based on their age and abilities. There are definite reasons for doing certain things - like having lessons from a chalkboard done by the teacher (mom!) and then using this visual to copy or create their own work in thier books.

 

Using color and making each page your very best beautiful work is stressed.

Jessica and Jack are very proud of their books. They are their own work and memories of what they have learned and what is important to them.

 

 

These are the Math books the kids have been working

in this week. I REALLY like the Evan-Moor books.

I plan on getting Jack one, but for now he is using

Jessica's Math In Focus (Singapore Math) from a previous year.

 

The Math Drills and Place Value Books were found at Barnes and Noble and the kids seem to like to take them in the car and work on them while were running around town.

 

 

 

 

Sponge painting happened one afternoon. I helped the kids cut shapes from

regular kitchen sponges and they created lots of pictures... and helped Daddy add some color to those plain white T's of his :)

 

 

Our First Week of School...

 

This week John-John started school as a sophomore at West Valley High School. He said his summer was short, but he seemed like he was ready to see friends and see where another year in high school takes him.

                                 
At home, Jessica and Jack and I started our school year off with a FIVE IN A ROW book- THE GLORIOUS FLIGHT: Across the English Channel with Louis Bleriot. We had a lot of fun learning about how Louis Bleriot made ten attempts at constructing his own aeroplane, before he got it right and flew his eleventh plane over the English Channel to make history.

With Five In A Row, the idea is to read the book five times during the week and each time discover more and more about the story and illustrations. We then go into a deeper study of the things in the book that intrigue us. Most of the time we find ourselves submerged into a particular subject and the learning is endless!

There are so many good things about this book - the story is interesting and the Jessica and Jack listened intently each time we read it. We learned more about France, discovered England, the English Channel, explored the Roman Numerals, watched airplane videos, made paper airplanes, and ate a French bagguette and drank hot tea! We also made memory lapbooks to pull everything together and help us remember Bleriot's adventure.

                                

 

Our look at England brought us to the nursery rhyme "Pussy

Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been?"

and

we also remembered the British Redcoats by dressing

these paperdoll guys.

 

 

 

This is my second attempt to keep a blog, mostly about homeschooling, but also of some of our family activities. Blogging is not something I'm particularly drawn to, but I feel like we would benefit from logging our adventures of life learning.


I hope it will grow on me! I feel really strange, taking pictures of so many things, and then spending the time to log it all, but I'm stretching myself to try this and hopefully make it successful! In the end, (if I can keep it going), I know I will be glad I tried it.