Pinewood Derby

#2 participated in his pack's Pinewood Derby last week. Mr. Wiedz and #2 had worked on the car all of January. They learned a lot last year and used some books and tips and supplies that a graduating family passed down to us. They were quite excited about the whole thing this year.

The planning process. #2 and Mr. Wiedz consulted some books and drew out the design of the car and discussed their plan. It was a really great dad/#2 process to watch.

Standing nervously in line to weigh in and turn in his car. We were all hoping that it would make weight, that they hadn't done something wrong, that they would get the thumbs up to race.

Thumbs up!!!!

#2 named his car the "Dark Knight" and it joined all the other cars waiting to race.

All the boys sit around the track and cheer for their car and their friends cars. Each car get to race 8 races randomly choosen by the computer. They've got quite a great set-up and some really awesome dads who volunteer to run the whole thing!

Our whole family doesn't regularly attend the pack meetings. Of course, the Pinewood Derby is an exception as it is so fun to cheer on all the boys. But the meeting goes on so long that the little guys really start to wear out by the end. In a great turn of events, #5 had taken a weird 15 nap before lunch and so I was able to lay him down for his "afternoon" nap even later, like 3:00, and that helped him make it into the longer evening. Mr. Wiedz did have to provide some distraction as the evening wore down.

#2's car did great! He won a trophy for being the fastest Wolf! It was a great evening.

Moments to Remember :: Pinewood Derby

Joining Jolanthe to remember a moment from this week.

I'm going to post all about the Pinewood Derby this coming week but looking back through pictures this one really jumped out to me. I loved watching him interact with his friends. And watching his siblings cheer for him.

Linking up ::

Rowing :: Papa Piccolo

"The lion is the emblem of Venice, but the common cat rules its narrow streets and alleyways. A prince among these feline rulers is Piccolo, and what a fine life he leads! Especially after dark- when the streets are full of possibilities!

Then one night, Piccolo makes a discovery that threatens his carefree life and his independence and starts him on a new and special kind of adventure." From the book description on Amazon.

We took two weeks to row Papa Piccolo and we loved the book. I did worry it would get a little old reading it each day for two weeks, and while the boys quit sitting in rapt attention, they very much enjoyed the book and have started retelling parts of the story before I can read it...sign of a good book around here!

It seems like I'm trying to fit a lot more into the little boy's school time, which I am but it is going really smoothly and other than a couple of complaints about math I think everything I've added is going well.

FIAR Activities ::

We still start each day of our school time with reading our FIAR book. This year we started out reading around our school table but I wasn't liking that and was really missing the "cuddle" aspect of reading together so I moved our operation to the floor. We really need some bean bag chairs to make this part of the day even more comfortable.

I made a little fill-in-the-blanks "poem" about cats.

The book is illustrated in watercolors and the boys ask everyday to paint so we pulled out the watercolors one day and let them have at it. #3's actually looks like a picture. It's a tree with a cat in it.

A measuring lesson for #3.

At the beginning of the first week the boys had all the legos and a pattern to make gondolas which I used the second week to decorate the cake we made. #2 helped me with this little activity. I showed him a picture from creekside learning's (link below) site of a lego gondola. He recreated it with legos we had available then took pictures of each step, just like a lego instruction book. We then bagged up the pieces they would need to make the gondolas with his instructions. I formatted the pictures #2 took into a two page "booklet" that we laid out with the bags during centers.

We also talked a little about nocturnal animals since, "When nighttime came to the canals and narrow streets of Venice and almost everyone went inside and turned on the lights, Piccolo went out." I found a nice set of mini-books at homeschool share (link below) and we learned a little about the nocturnal animal habits and senses and advantages.

We also did our flag and map work, finding Italy on the world map and hanging our flag with the others to show our travels with FIAR.

All About Reading ::

I started All About Reading Level Pre-1 with both of the boys a couple of weeks ago. I am loving the program and can see them both learning a lot with it. We concentrated on letter B this week and rhyming words.

Each week there is a letter craft to complete that coincides with the story from "Zig Zag Zebra". The boys used an eraser to make blueberries on their letter B pages. I think another part of the program that is really helping is the repetition of each day. We go over the poster of capitol letters singing the ABC's each day. Now, this is probably something I should have been doing anyway but, I don't know, having a program telling me to means it's actually getting done.

Animal ABC

One new thing I added was Carisa's ABC Animals to go-along with our AAR letter of the week. This fun letter B will get bears cut out and pasted on top. There are other parts to her program that the boys like; tracers, story observations, etc. Fun stuff and helps spread the letter through the week. Baby even joined us for gluing buttons on paper, he thought he was so cool! Amazing little finger pinching the buttons and so proud of himself for getting them in the glue.

You Can Read ::

I also added Carisa's You Can Read program to work on sight words with #3 to our daily routine. There are a lot of activities that we rotate through. Parts #3 likes, parts he doesn't but he has started recognizing sight words in other things we're reading which is making this mama proud and he really feels like he's learning to read, just the confidence builder he was needing to move forward down this path.

Links ::

Creekside Learning :: inspiration and lego gondola idea
Homeschool Share :: nocturnal animals and other printables
1+1+1=1 :: Animal ABC and You Can Read

Linking Up ::

:: Yarn Along ::

I wasn't going to post today. My picture is practically the same and I figured there wasn't much to say. And there might not be but I love these posts and I love having them to look back on. So here I am. Joining Ginny and the other yarn along-ers.

On the needles :: I had to go sit at the lab and have a 3-hour glucose test this week so I was able to get some knitting done. At home since, though, I've been more in a sewing and digital scrapbooking mood so the needles have sat, neglected since then. Still working on #3's sweater. I'm almost to the underarms so that's exciting and will probably use the remaining yarn on the sleeves...must order more yarn before I loose momentum. At the lab I was also able to get the first leg of the tiny trousers done and start the second leg. I'm loving the knit picks swish dk, it is so soft and I really love the color.

On the nightstand :: Still reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but I'm almost to the end and I picked up a book at the church library last week which should get me through until our next library visit. Library visits are getting more and more difficult to do by myself and (shockingly) no one likes to go with me so they have been moved further and further apart. We've got to try and go in the next week or so...everyone is getting dangerously low on books.

Moments to Remember :: When Math Goes Well

Joining Carisa, and many others, remembering a moment this week.
Holding it close and keeping track of it.

Miraclously one day this week #2 woke up with an interest in just doing school. No fights. No tears. No whining. Just get it done. It was a delightful morning. Then, he took it a step further and insisted on helping #3 with his math. I sat with them, of course, so that #2 wouldn't just do the math for #3 and so I could make sure that the information was shared correctly but they really did just talk through it and read instructions and got #3's math done without any issue.

Best school day of the week. Followed by the second-best school day of the week the very next day!!!!

Linking up ::

:: Yarn Along ::

Another week with Ginny, over at Small Things, to yarn along and share what I'm knitting and reading. Leave a comment so I can visit and get inspired for new projects or new reads.

On the needles :: I got my order from Knit Picks and I immediately cast on the sweater I've been promising #3. The yarn is Wool of the Andes in grass and I'm just doing a percentage raglan with instructions from here. Part of what drew me to the Knit Picks yarn was the very affordable price on 100% wool. I'm seeing that part of the reason the price was so awesome was that the skeins are so small...I've already used one skein so I'm thinking I'll have to put in another order. I also cast on a pair of baby pants in Knit Picks Swish DK yarn and I'm getting to use my new book! Both projects are going quickly and give me plenty to work on in my sit-the-afternoon-away-end-of-pregnancy-ways.
Ravelry links, here and here.

On the nightstand :: I finished Fablehaven (#2 :: 8year old :: has also finished it now and we both loved it!) and all my other books were due at the library so I pulled out my trusty Harry Potter to give me something to read before I fall asleep at night.

Linking up ::

Vacay!!!!

Last week found the house of Wiedz on the road. A year and a half ago we spent an amazing few days in Sunriver right after Labor Day weekend. This year we'd planned on visiting Mr. Wiedz's parents in Arizona so didn't plan our fall vacation. A fact that really upset the children (#1 particularly). So when we didn't take a trip to Arizona this fall Mr. Wiedz started making plans to make up our Sunriver vacation. In order to get a good deal on the condo we need to pick out of season dates so mid-January sounded just right.

We played board games and built puzzles. We took walks in the almost snowing, really snowing, and really melting paths. Went on a treasure hunt with Cousin B and her friend J :: geocaching for the first time for the Wiedz family. Everyone but the pregnant mama donned ice-skates for the first time :: amazing by the way, so much fun to watch each of their personalities come across in skates! We built snow forts. Played in the hot tub :: isn't Mr. Wiedz wonderful, took the kids to the hot tub everyday while mama sat back at the house with #5 in the quiet and relaxed. Vacation knitting :: I heart vacation knitting. And just spent an amazing week together.