As we close another year I thought it would be a great time to do a recap on our year.  Earlier this year Wachs Academy celebrated five years of educating. We have learned and grown so much. 

This meme seems so fitting for us as I'm typing this all up.  I put their "technial" grade, which is what they'd be in if they were in public school, but both the boys cover a few different grades! It's not really complicated though because I just work to their level, constantly feeding them more as their interests pique!!

9yrs old - Technically in 4th grade. He's mostly been doing 5th grade since September, he had one subject (phonics) of 4th grade that he just wrapped up this month. He's been doing a lot of writing assignments, essays, book reports, letters, research projects, fiction stories, poems, etc. He's really enjoying writing stories. His favorite subject is spelling (yes, you are as shocked as me, he's made leaps and bounds this year!). He enjoys reading for down time, his favorite books this year were Aru Shah and the end of time, Holes and Harry Potter Goblet of Fire Illustrated Edition. Hobbies include running, reading, making things.

Swim wise turning 9 meant jumping up a group at practice and getting to go to the big kid swim meets. If you're fast enough you make qualifying time categories that are graded by letters B, BB, A, AA, AAA (lowest to highest). He has made BB in almost all events and A in two events. He also qualified for the state wide champs meet in March. His favorite stroke is butterfly. His favorite practices are sprints, it's made him stronger with even more endurance on distance events (which is what he has A qualified in). He has dreams to make it to the 2028 Olympics!

​Goals for the New Year: To help others, to publish a book, to beat an ODAC team record, beat a national record.

6yrs old - Technically 1st grade. He had his co-op Kindergarten graduation this past May as a 1st grader because they bumped him up at the start of the year (Sept 2018).  He completed first grade, started second in September, has been cruising through our montessori curriculums, and tested well above grade level.  Kris is really great at spelling, and loves reading adventure books to his sister! Giranamo Stilton is their favorite. Krissy's favorite subject is reading. His favorite hobbies include playing and trading Pokemon, Beyblades and Bakugon, drawing and building legos.

Swim - Krissy's been doing great with swim, he has a couple team mates who have become some of his best friends, he enjoys spending time with them in the pool and after practice while Karter's swimming.  Krissy scored a sweet trophy at a swim meet in September for having the 3rd highest points in the 6U boys, earned quite a few placing ribbons and more importantly some PR's (Personal Records). Krissy's favorite stroke is Freestyle but he say butterfly is turning into his new favorite.  His favorite practices are Friday practices when they get a treat.

​Goals for the New Year: Go more places, get a first place ribbon.

2 yrs old - Kandy can count to 14, sing her ABC's, and trace a heart.  She loves to dance, sing, and color.  She really enjoys coloring with a variety of mediums (pencils, crayons, markers, dobbers, paint, etc).  Kandy is really good at puzzles and other problem solving skill.  Sometimes she's a little too good at problem solving and it gets her into trouble.  Kandy LOVES imaginative play with dress up and babies, but she's also a toughy beacuse she has two big brothers!!

Swim wise Kandy learned how to swim independently this summer, she is a water fanatic, it's December and she still wears her bathing suit!  She has great breath control, and loves big jumps off the diving board!!  Daddy really won her over by setting her slide up next to the pool this summer as well.  We haven't been swimming as often as I prefer in the off season to keep her fresh on her skills so that will be a goal for her and I going into the new year!

​Goals for the New Year: Swim More with momma, and maybe stop messing with all the buttons on the dishwasher!

Last week the kids were given the opportunity to check out our local fire station. Our library, Suffolk Public Library, has a homeschool hub that meets regularly at the library for activities like chess club, art, and writing workshops. This year they planned some extra field trips within our community as well like the water treatment plant, the nuclear power plant, and the fire department.

The Suffolk fire fighters were so very welcoming to us, letting the kids touch all the buttons, feel what it’s like to be in the drivers seat, hear the bells and sirens and even try on their gear. They fielded questions which you know with a group of homeschoolers was plentiful!! One of my favorite remarks I heard:

“So is that your winter gear?” (-Karter)

We also got a demo of how they gear up

​Apparently 2:24 isn’t a good time for getting geared up. Not sure what is though!? #QuestionWeShouldHaveAsked

Kids favorites:
Krissy- The firepole - fun fact station 1 is one of very few left in Virginia that still has and uses a fire pole!
Karter - The War Wagon, Engine #2 (That favorite might have been prompted by one of the fire fighters)
Kandy- The bell

Thank you Suffolk Public Library for organizing these trips and thank you Suffolk Fire Sttion 1 for hosting us!

#SuffolkPublicLibrary #SuffolkVA #HomeschoolHub #FieldTrips

Looking for a non-high tech gift for kids?  It's tough when every commerial, ad and christmas list is filled with nintindo switches, ipads, phones, and computers.  Here's a great gift guide for those looking to say no to the screens this Christmas.  There's a list of about a dozen items per age group, theses gift ideas are inspired by my kids, they're either already loved in this home or wanted in this home!

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Toddlers are really into dress up, imaginative play, building, problem solving, music, movement and lots of books (especially the kind that can be read to them or interactive).  

Kids this age are into a lot of the classics that we grew up on.  Pokemon, Beyblades and Bakugon are a big hit, they're really into trading, so don't get your feelings hurt if they come home from the park/school/co-op with different pieces or cards than what you bought them. 

Journals, science, and anything compettive or chanllenging are right up this age groups alley.  They are learning to express themselves in different formats.  My son insisted the Kindle be included, it's one of his most loved gifts from last year. We have the paperwhite (not the fire) which we don't consider it a "screen".  The Kindle Unlimited subscription is definitely worth it, there's a great variety of books for this age range and it comes out much cheaper than buying them all!!

I skipped babies because they're easier to avoid high tech gifts but if you need some ideas check out my blog post on baby registry essentials. Teens are a little out of my range of scope since I'm not there yet.  Do you have some great low-tech gift ideas?  I'd love to hear yours as well.

We went to the Library the week before Thanksgiving and they had a dobber craft going, Kandy loved it so much the instructor let her take home the leftover printouts.  Literally all week she did dobbing!

She starts out by really focusing on the dots and dobbing them individually, sometimes counting them, then she likes to change up colors, and then she usually ends up scribbling all over it. Lots of dexterity, hand-eye coordination, counting, and learning colors.  It usually holds her over for 10-15 minutes, and cleans up easily.

Since Thanksgiving is over and she burned through all of those worksheets, I went to the blog who made them and sure enough she makes christmas ones too! Kandy has been going at those all this week, I figure they'll be cute add ins for of our Christmas Cards to family this year!  Check out these free printables:

​ Resourceful Mama's Dobbing Christmas Printables

The printables are free but a couple supplies you'll need at home to make these projects are bingo dobbers and cardstock.

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Have you ever seen a bird fly with uneven arms? I’m pretty sure if you have they’re wounded, right!?

Karter is my oldest son, he’s 9 and has been swimming competitively since he was 5. His favorite strokes is Butterfly. It’s a a neat stroke where your feet kick together like a mermaid tail and your arms fly out like a bird. It’s Michael Phelps strong suit!​ Karter has struggled more recently and even been disqualified during swim meets due to his arms being uneven.

I have nearly every event he’s ever done recorded on video, unless I was volunteering or that one time I recorded the wrong kid! Don’t judge, they all look the same! Here in the past few months he has taken interest in watching his videos, he has started breaking down splits and analyzing where he can shave time. Being such a visual learner it has helped him see things that his coach has been trying to fix for a few months now! Then he takes that and applies it at practice. The biggest thing he saw that he was trying and couldn’t figure out was his arms were uneven. He said he felt like they were even but he could see from the videos that they weren’t. The coach said it could just be muscle development, one side being stronger than the other. The only odd part to that was that he’s a righty and it was was his right side that was dragging.

Here’s where it really gets interesting, when he was setting his goals for the next meet he needed to look at older footage so we went back and looked at videos from February, he was in sync. So we know he is capable but don’t know what happened between February and November.

I finally decided to take him to the chiropractor to get an assessment and possible alignment. What could it hurt!? We took him to the Spinal Source in Suffolk, VA to see Dr. Chase Bollig. Sure enough he was very much out of alignment, the chiro showed me how far off his posture was- his right upper half was off and his left lower half hips were all out of whack. He also said his traps were knotted up. The Dr asked Karter if he was dealing with any other pains anywhere and Karter mentioned his ears. The Dr started with his upper body, he adjusted his neck and shoulder area then did a machine on his traps. He assessed and then did more of the machine. The Dr assessed again and he realized that by just adjusting the top half it brought his hips back in line. Dr. Bollig said he may be sore for a day or so and might even need another touch up because it’s hard to tell if he’ll be lined up till he’s in the water.

​Karter was so excited all day to get in the pool and try it out. Not only was it effective his coaches were surprised and impressed. His coach asked me after...”so, where did you take him!?” He still has a slight imbalance underwater, but not likely to be DQ’d over it and hopefully now that he’s aligned he can improve on it.

It’s been a couple weeks since his adjustment and he didn’t seem to need the readjust, he also said there was no pain/soreness after, he felt more range of motion and flexibility, it was a relief. Our bird was wounded but now he flies again! This weekend he will really put it to the test at his first travel swim meet!!

#OlympianInTraining #GoingForGold #KarterFlies

Over the years we've progressed through them and we now own all three of the maths.  So our day consists of about 20 minutes of math, often times it's just one lesson, sometimes it's 2-3 lessons, other days maybe half a lesson. If they struggle with it we may repeat it again the next day.  It's considered mastery in the fact that you want them to master it before moving on but the curriculum spirals over time, so you stay fresh and continue to build on their knowledge.  It works out well because Karter enjoys helping Krissy learn too, occasionally their spirals line up and they're both working on the same topic... say probability - which is one of their favorite lessons!

Today's math lesson was about learning asending and desending order, Krissy had fun with it and wanted to keep "playing" so we did it with roman numerals and then while we were cleaning up also did it in spanish! Then we counted the steps while asending the stairs and desending the stairs.  I love how our lessons are reinforced through other subjects or just throughout our day!

​We’ve enjoyed Shiller Math so much that when they decided to branch into Language Arts, I bought that curriculum sight unseen and we love it too!!  The new curriculum brought on a new name for them as well - Schiller Learning.  We’re looking forward to many more years of using Schiller Learning in our homeschool.