Waterfront Learning Academy

Looking ahead (for a change!)

2011-11-30T07:22:00.002-05:00

Honestly, I was once one of the most prepared people....over the last year though, my personal life (meaning: the grown up stuff) has fallen apart around me, and as I've been trying to piece it back together others areas of my life have most definitely suffered. I'm trying to get THOSE parts back on track.

My plan for December consists mainly of a countdown to Christmas. We will only do "real" school through the 16th. The week leading up to Christmas has a birthday for our family (Two is turning 12....*sigh*) as well as Yule, and the week after we need to recover. ;) Plus, I think MIL is coming in for at least some of that time. We'll do a study of Winter in January (even though it starts this month.) For December, we're going to countdown and discuss some of the symbols of Christmas.

I found this link that gives some background to the different symbols of Christmas. There are Bible verses and biblical reference. I'm good at taking the parts of things that work for me, and leaving the rest...I recommend you do the same. *wink*

http://www.achristmastestimony.kingdomdesignministry.com/christmas-symbols-and-their-meanings

Our Christmas Countdown, which will start on the 1st, includes these activities:

1. Open new ornaments for the tree (Each year the kids get new ornaments for the tree, I try to find something representative of their year, and I'm SUPER excited about this years ornaments.)

2. Take Christmas Pictures!

3. Attend a Christmas parade.

4. Write letters to Santa.

5. Discuss St. Nicholas Day and leave out shoes!

6. Shop for a gift for Birthday Buddy (this is a birth board gift exchange.)

7. Shop for a gift to donate to Toys for Tots.

8. Train ride

9. Make Christmas Cookies!

10. Make a handmade ornament.

11. Make and leave gifts for neighbors on their doorsteps.

12. Drive around to see Christmas lights.

13. Buy presents for siblings.

14. Choose a special treat.

15. String popcorn for the birds.

16. Have a family christmas movie night, with special goodies.

17. Make Chex Mix and Muddy Buddies.

18. Make chocolate covered pretzels

19. Learn a French Christmas tradition

20. Make Christmas presents for family.

21. Visit the bookstore and choose a new Christmas book.

22. Christmas lights hayride and visit Santa.

23. Make a craft with Mom.

24. Make reindeer food, and Santa's cookies. :)

Random Fall Activities

2011-11-13T08:15:00.004-05:00

This year we joined a preschool co-op with our homeschool group. We meet once a week, and so far it's been great. Three enjoys it, and Four....well, he likes the playing after. :) This is a picture from co-op where we did "nature painting." Here is Three painting a leaf, and a stick with a feather.

I used the boys hand/arm to make the tree trunk by painting them brown. I put out "fall" colored paint--red/yellow/orange/green--and they dipped fingers in and made leaves using their fingertips. You can see (the top one) where Three made "falling leaves" in a line. :)

I added some fall items to our "oatmeal box." I put in a few leaves that are bright fall colors, some pine straw, some acorns and a small pinecone. The oatmeal box is a small box I bought at $Tree with a flip top lid. I filled it with dry oats, and try to switch out the small objects inside it. The boys will take a spoon (or their hands) and dig through the oatmeal to find the "prizes." It's usually a messy activity...but the clean up only involves a vacuum, and the large thing of generic oats is a buck.

I wrote out some "simple story problems" for Three to work on. Things like:

The squirrels are getting ready for winter. Brown squirrel collected 4 acorns. Grey squirrel collected 2 acorns. How many acorns do the squirrels have?

We'll work on learning what the "+" and "=" signs mean, as well as simple addition.

I printed these onto cardstock: http://scrapbooking.about.com/od/layouts/ig/Rebecca-s-Fall-Leaf-Layout/Fall-Leaf-Pattern.htm and let the boys finger paint on them with brown/orange/red/yellow...then I let them dry and cut the shapes out and hung them in the window.

Three did a leaf craft that I ordered from Oriental Trading (a couple years ago actually) that could be easily replicated. Cut out a leaf shape, and you would paint it with glue, and add small pieces of tissue paper crumpled up in fall colors. It's hanging in our window, but I don't have a picture.

In the spirit of thanksgiving, I'm putting up a tree trunk in the window, and from now until thanksgiving we will be adding one leaf a day with something we are thankful for written on it. I've been doing it since the girls were Three's age (sigh...8 years ago.) I used the same leaf templates from above to cut out leaves in orange/yellow/red to write our gratitude on.

Thanksgiving is coming!

2011-11-13T07:54:00.002-05:00

I'm spending the next 2 weeks doing a thanksgiving unit that I downloaded from Homeschool Creations.

I'm also printing the "Roll a Turkey" game from A Lemon Squeezy Home.

And this: Thanksgiving Activity Sheet

As well as the corn maze, and color by letter sheets from Reading With Kids.

We also are collecting leaves and drying/pressing them for an activity with our co-op after thanksgiving.

Random Picture Catch Up Post

2011-11-13T07:28:00.007-05:00

I know that I have severely neglected the blog...again. It was one of my "new year goals" to keep the blog updated regularly. Fail. Oh, well...there is always 2012. *wink wink*

My BFF and I took all our kids (minus Four, making a total of 6 kids) to a corn maze. Three worked on directions (left/right) and the big kids worked on working together.

After making his "mama snake" he counted "babies" and put them all in the nest.

He's rolling out a playdough snake. (I'm so glad I have a table cover on my gorgeous wooden table...look at what they've done to it.)

Do-A-Dot snake.

Three and Four painted a paper plate to make a snake...we hung them from the ceiling.

Finished snake.
Making his bead "mama snake."

Four making a "mama snake" out of beads as well....so serious.

This is probably one of Four's FAVORITE activities. It is wooden shapes (from a puzzle that had it's board broken, and a couple wooden shapes I picked up at the craft store) and an outline of the shape on index cards. Easy peasy, and he will do it three or four times in a row!

Frog paper bag puppet.

Going over a printable of the frog life cycle.

Putting the frog life cycle cards in order.

Painting a lily pad.

Finished lily pads.

Snakes

2011-09-04T07:06:00.003-05:00

I'm currently doing units that Three is requesting, because well, he doesn't like what I pick. And, with public school recently starting back here, and the neighbor kids talking about all the fun things they were going to learn Three started talking about what he could learn when he goes to school...he seemed a little surprised that *I* could teach him those things NOW if he wanted. Seriously, who taught you all the things you already know, dude? Yeah, that would be ME! So, he asked to learn about animals....but then asked to learn about frogs. And, now, snakes. Uh huh, amphibians and reptiles. I got ya.

Snake Letter Craft I think I will adapt this to have "our" snake make a W...or some other letter, that would be easily made by a snake (I'm still in the planning phase, so I'm not sure what we'll end up with) as Three already knows S.

Counting Snakes

Snake Life Cycle Printable

Snake Craft I Love!

Snake Maze

Geared more for Four, but Three almost always wants to do whatever activity I have for his brother, we'll make a color snake. http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/msnake-colors.htm Four has a good grasp on colors, but almost always gets brown and black confused. So, our snake will probably have more than one black/brown segment. :)

We will visit the science museum and look at some native snakes.

For gross motor we'll slither on our bellies like snakes. :)

For fine motor, we'll make a bead snake on a pipe cleaner.

We also have our first preschool co-op meeting this week, and a park day. This should be more than enough activities to keep us busy.

Muffin Tin Monday

2011-08-29T15:15:00.002-05:00

We did Muffin Tin Monday today, but I was pressed for time and didn't get a picture before letting them chow down. Today was our first "back to school" day (which means I had my rear in gear) and I took the boys to the park this morning....meaning that I had to get lunch together quick when we came home, and they were starving. Seriously, my boys are always starving.

Anyway...I got LOTS OF LOVE for this particular muffin tin collection because of something SO simple. I cut the pb&j into the shape of a HEART! You'd have thought it was made of gold. Three was SUPER excited, and said "I love, love, love, love, LOVE you!"

Other items in our tin: pretzels, applesauce, green peas, peaches and marshmallows. If I had thought about it before last night...I would have tried to put together an all green theme in honor of our frog week, but alas...sometimes I'm just flying by the seat of my pants!

Frogs

2011-08-28T15:16:00.005-05:00

Frog paper bag puppets, because Three has thrown it down that "We *never* make puppets." Oh yeah...take that.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/puppets/paperbag/

I printed out frog coloring pages (you can google it.) Look at google images and noted the wide variety of colors frogs can come in, and then color the pic.

Discuss where you would find frogs, and where you find those beautiful colored frogs we find on google images. Map printouts are your friend.

Print out the life cycle of a frog, and go over it. Print out a 2nd one, and cut it into separate cards to be placed in the correct order.

Focus on the letter F....seriously, Three has a mental block about this letter, so we keep visiting it. Someday.

You could do color mixing here as well: blue/yellow to make green frogs.

Rhyme: Five Speckled Frogs! (I love this rhyme...shhh don't tell.)

Lily Pad craft: I cut out a green circle, used a coffee filter and let them paint the middle (or all of it in Three's case) yellow. After the coffee filter dries, glue the flower onto the lily pad. These turned out cute.

And, we may do the tadpole craft from notimeforflashcards (one of my FAVORITE sites): http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/category/frogs There are other good ideas, you should check it out. :)

Community Helpers

2011-05-01T06:40:00.003-05:00

Firefighters, Police, Construction worker, Mail Carrier, Veterinarian

Nursery Rhyme: Ladybug, Ladybug Fly Away Home

Police Craft: Cut out badge shape from cardboard. Cover with aluminum foil. Use the handle part of the paintbrush to "draw" on the badge.

Discuss what police do--speed limit signs, stop signs, litter laws, etc.

Construction worker craft: make a safety vest out of paper bag;

Build with blocks in the "construction zone"

Firefighter craft: Paint a fire-red/orange/yellow paint, add a cut out of a house.

Draw flames with sidewalk chalk, use hose (or spray bottles) to put out the flames.

Tour the local firestation

Mail carrier craft: http://familycrafts.about.com/od/potatochipandpeanutcans/a/Pringles-Can-Mailbox-Craft.htm

Cut out mailbox shapes put a letter/number/shape on each mailbox. Make an envelope and put the matching/corresponding item on the envelope. Have child match them up.

Mail something!

Veterinarian:

Pretend play "vet" with stuffed animals.

Community Helpers Puzzle: Create this (if you don't have one) by printing a coloring page, color it, and then cut it into pieces for your child to put back together. If you have a laminator, or access to one, laminate the page prior to cutting it.

Math Skills: We'll use the blocks on our building day to make some patterns. We'll also make towers and count the blocks (we are working on higher numbers.)

Four will be learning the color red, and we'll work on matching. I'm going to make a "color red box." A color box is a school supply box (like a stiff cardboard pencil box) and I will put various RED things from around the house in it for him to discover. We'll look at the box each day.

Another project I'd like to complete this week is a color match wheel. You cut out a cardboard circle, paint sections of the circle in different colors. Paint clothespins to match. Have child pinch the clothespin to clip it on to the matching spot on the circle. I plan on doing this 2 times. One with just 4 colors (for Four) and one with more colors (for Three.)

Planning

2011-04-30T12:10:00.002-05:00

Today my goal is to go over my preschool skills checklists to see where we are. I'm trying to decide if Three will be ready for Kindergarten level work by fall, or if we'll just continue on with preschool. He wouldn't go to Kindy this fall, because of his Jan birthday, but homeschooling allows him to do school at a different level than his social skills set....which wouldn't be at all ready for K. Two started Kindy when she was still 4, she has a late Dec. birthday and would not have gone that year, but she was academically ready.

I'm using two skills checklists:

http://www.worldbook.com/typical-course-of-study-preschool-curriculum-guide.html

http://www.reocities.com/Heartland/Forest/2468/skillslistage4.html (this list is often considered advanced, and I'll bear that in mind as well.)

This weeks theme, which will be put up tomorrow, will be Firefighters, and other community helpers. :)

March Week 5--Spring

2011-03-27T07:10:00.002-05:00

I have been in a funk since the beginning of the month. My apologies. Three and Four have done very little "organized" school because of my funk. I'm snapping out of it (I can feel it...) and have planned this coming weeks unit. We'll be talking about spring. I know in many parts of the country, it's not really feeling like spring so maybe they can use these acitvities to help them feel "springy!"

Counting--flower stickers; Make a field of flowers, counting as you go.

Science: Make a birdfeeder--using paper towel/tp rolls and pb and birdseed. Here is a link: http://www.kinderart.com/crafts/easybirdfeeder.shtml

Science/Craft: Make a birds nest--go on a scavenger hunt and glue the nature items to the inside of a coffee filter making a nest. Talk about how birds look for things for their nest.

Craft: Stained glass eggs; Discussion of eggs being new life that occurs in spring. Observe the nest building in our yard (we have a bird box, and a ledge on our porch where there is current nest building going on, YAY!) Cut out the outline of an egg (2), have child pick 2 or 3 colors of tissue paper then cut it or rip it into small pieces, stick it to clear contact paper then cover with another piece of contact paper. Hang in a window and let the sun shine in!

Science/Craft: March is windy-discuss how wind moves the clouds (and observe it!) Make a cloud out of cotton balls.

Plant seeds. Water them (this is my boys favorite activity.)

Fly a kite.

Craft: Make a kite out of construction paper.

Importance of Honeybee's discussion and a bee handprint craft: http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/insects/mhandprintbee.htm

Splashing in the Puddles (gross motor activity from www.brighthub.com)

Set small mats, such as those used for naptime or activities, around the room to make a disjointed path. Then have each child stand on one mat and jump up and down, singing the following song (to the tune of “We’re Following the Leader”):

We’re splashing in the puddles,

The puddles, the puddles,

We’re splashing in the puddles,

One, two, THREE!

When they reach the last line, children should jump forward three mats. You may want to instruct children to remove their shoes before starting this activity. If you’d like, you can tie this activity into the book that you’ve read by discussing how it might feel to splash in real puddles.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/education/early-childhood/articles/63311.aspx#ixzz1HndQzD9h

March Week 2: The Big Red Barn

2011-03-06T19:11:00.003-05:00

Math skills: Estimation...use a farm related item (dried beans, unpopped popcorn kernels, toy farm animals, etc.) place some in a jar and have the child guess how much the jar contains. For this, I think I'll show him groupings of 10, 25, 50 before hand and then let him estimate as I don't think he has ANY grasp of this concept. He could prove me wrong though, woudln't be the first time.

Play "The Farmer in the Dell."

Sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

Craft: Milk Carton Barn.

Science: Food from the farm. What foods do we eat that grew on the farm? Another discussion about healthy eating.

Science: Duck feathers repel water. We have a local pond that has lots of ducks. I'll go collecting some feathers from shore, and we'll spray some water on them to demonstrate how they repel water.

Craft: Stick Horse http://www.everythingpreschool.com/lessonplans/farmanimals/art/art1.htm

Science: Make butter! It's really simple. Put some whipping cream in a jar, add a marble, and shake shake shake! Enjoy it on some bread. Mmm. Mmm. Good.

Craft: http://stepbystepcc.com/farm.html Pig of Many Pinks (I will see if I can find some other shades of pink tissue paper at the store, all I have is HOT pink. If I can, we'll do this, it sounds cute!)

Craft: Alternate for the above, but I may do both! MUDDY PIGS- Cut large pig shapes out of pink butcher paper. Give each child a pig shape with a small amount of brown fingerpaint in the center of it. Let the children cover their pig shapes with the brown fingerpaint "mud." (MUDDY PIGS- Cut large pig shapes out of pink butcher paper. Give each child a pig shape with a small amount of brown fingerpaint in the center of it. Let the children cover their pig shapes with the brown fingerpaint "mud.")

F is for Farm. For some reason Three cannot remember this letter to save his life. Ok, I take that back, recently (since it's the beginning letter in "Get Ready For the Code" he's been doing better. He knows several letters, and we've already covered F, but for some reason he always forgets it.)

Math skills: Counting a dozen objects, and using the word dozen. :) We'll use plastic easter eggs in a carton, and maybe these flashcards: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/printables/flash-cards/numbers-shapes.htm

Reading: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/fables/farmer-and-his-sons.htm

Cooking: Make haystacks with chowmein noodles, peanut butter and butterscotch chips

We'll also be doing "Food From the Farm" for Muffin Tin Monday!

Sensory: Coffeee grounds make great dirt for tractors to plow! (Awesome idea from http://www.angelfire.com/fl/preschoolfunzone/farm.html)

Sensory/Science: Different forms of corn. Corn starch, corn meal, corn kernels, popped corn.

I also have a game that I got from a GamesForLearning yahoogroup that is called "Farmer Farmer What Do You See?" it covers both colors and counting so I'll use it for both boys (colors for Four, counting for Three."

Lastly, I printed a game AGES ago...seriously, One was a toddler that is a big red barn and several small animals. You have to match the animals to the farm, since some of them are not farm animals. We'll defineatly play that as well. Three has played it before, but it's been awhile. I googled and couldn't really find anything similar to what I have, but you could EASILY make your own version of this.

Week in Review

2011-03-06T17:14:00.015-05:00

This is how you make a Venn Diagram interactive.

It's hard to see the ribbon outline in this shot, the original idea was to use hula hoops, but alas, I didn't have 2 hula hoops on hand. So, ya do what ya gotta do to make it work.

Helping me make the cupcakes.

Watching some newly emerged butterflies dry their wings. Sadly, one butterfly did not fully emerge before his wings dried. But, it was a good lesson in life.

Painting his coffee filter with watercolors.

Three's finished product.

And, after assembly.

Three painting his egg carton caterpillar.

Adding eyes.

Adding some of the food the caterpillar ate.

Sequencing.

We did the life cycle cards, he enjoyed them, somehow I didn't get pictures. This weeks theme is "The Big Red Barn." We are visiting a farm next week, so we are preparing for that. Plans to come shortly.

March Week 1: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2011-02-27T13:02:00.004-05:00

This weeks unit is going to be based around The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We currently have 5 caterpillars in chrysalis preparing to emerge as Painted Lady Butterflies.

--Memory: Butterfly match game. We have a beautiful one that I ordered from Eeboo a couple years ago. But, before I remembered that (yes, I sometimes forget about great materials that I ordered, shut it ok) I was going to make a simple butterfly matching game. You could cut out different color butterflies from construction paper, use stamps to make patterns, etc. and play a memory game with those just as easily.

--Gross Motor: Move like caterpillars, and then move like butterflies

--Craft: Egg carton caterpillars: paint an egg carton, punch 2 holes in the first cup, thread a pipe cleaner through to make antennae, add googly eyes and you have a cute caterpillar.

--Craft: Coffee filter butterflies: Use an old fashioned clothes pin (the non-pinch ones) and wrap pipe cleaner around the top for antennae. Paint a coffee filter (you could also use colored tissue paper if you don't want to paint) and after it dries fold it and slide it into the opening at the bottom of the clothespin and spread out the wings.

--Math: arranging caterpillars from smallest to largest. I'm using these: http://lapbooksbycarisa.homestead.com/TheVeryHungryCaterpillar.html (There are MANY awesome things for this book on this site, you might find something else you think your kid would like there...check her out!)

--Math: addition Ex: on Monday the caterpillar ate one apple, and on Tuesday he ate two pears...how much food did he eat on those days? And so on, you get the picture.) I printed this: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9DbWcozSA54/S8vlZpkCSZI/AAAAAAAABCY/ePukoAGOPPk/s1600/Caterpillar+Food.png to use as counters for the math problems.

--Math: Count how much food the butterfly ate ALL week.

--Cooking: Make cupcakes, and form them into a caterpillar. Enjoy!

--Lunch: Butterfly sandwiches--cut the sandwich into triangle pieces, and arrange them points in to look like butterfly wings, use a pretzel rod, carrot stick or pickle (or anything you think of!) as the butterfly's body

--Science: Life Cycle of a butterfly (We've been watching this first hand, as we ordered caterpillars from insectlore.com) Print out sequencing cards and put them in order. I used these: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/sequencingpl/

--Science: Did the caterpillar eat healthy foods? Which ones weren't healthy? The caterpillar got a stomach ache, what might give you a stomach ache?

--Science: Sort the food the caterpillar ate into food groups-meat/veggies/fruit/grains. Brief discussion of how much of these foods boys/girls should eat.

--Science: Purpose of butterflies (2ND largest pollinators next to honey bees,) found everywhere on the planet except Antarctica

--Science: Sense of taste. Butterflies taste with their antennae.

--Language: Before/After--"What did he eat BEFORE the oranges?" "What did he eat AFTER the plums?" (I will use story sequencing cards from http://www.dltk-teach.com/books/hungrycaterpillar/sequencing.htm for this)

--Language: Days of the Week

--Muffin Tin Monday: I'll be using foods from the book to create Monday's Lunch! :) We'll be out all morning on Monday, so I'll make it ahead of time so it's ready and waiting when we arrive back home at lunch.

Best Laid Plans....

2011-02-25T07:03:00.006-05:00

**I apologize for the formatting of this, but I've edited it 4 times and it just won't stay.**

Sometimes Three just blows my plans out of the water. LOL We started on the President's Day ideas, and well....he wasn't really feeling mama's best laid plans. He does like money, so he liked sorting the money, talking about the names of the money, and arranging it by size.

Doing crayon rubbings of the coins, not so much his thing. He absolutely refused to do the wig craft. BOOOOOO. I was most excited about that one. He had no interest. Oh well!

One and Two recently got their own laptops. I have been pretty adamantly against this for sometime. About a month ago, their bio-dad asked if he could get them their own computers. Hmmmm, let me think. I decided yes. And, now, I can't figure out WHY I fought this so hard! It has been GREAT. They are doing more of their work ON the computer-increasing their typing skills/speed. It is easier for them to get the things done (at least for Two who has writing...issues.) They don't have to wait for each other, or me, or Three to be done with the computer in order to do their work. They can share their google docs with me, so I can check them easily.

Why was I so against this? Live and learn. Live and learn.

Over the weekend, I will post another week's lesson plans. We've been so sick this month, that we've really not done much. Seriously we had the flu, then a stomach bug and have been sick non-stop since Feb 1. Is it March yet? Our next unit will be based on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book, because we have 5 caterpillars in chrysalis right now! Three is OVER THE MOON excited. I imagine they'll emerge next week sometime, so we'll be doing a unit on caterpillars and butterflies.

2nd Catch Up Picture Post

2011-02-24T15:35:00.003-05:00

Three pouring water. This activity began because I brought out a pouring activity for Four, who is currently VERY interested in pouring things.

Four pouring colored pasta.

N is for Noodle (during The Napping House week.) This is a foam letter N I cut out, and Three glued on dry colored noodles.

Finished porduct.

Letters that Three made (spontaneously) out of his pretzel sticks.

One at a 4H competition, she made fruit bars. You can see some of her fab fashion sense in this photo as well. :)

Two at the 4H competition.

Playing Mitten Match

Warehouse club shopping is solely for the benefit of my boys, who ALWAYS get to paint the large boxes.

Happy President's Day!

2011-02-21T07:48:00.002-05:00

Here is what One and Two will be doing today:

http://www.education.com/activity/article/write-letter-president-president-day/

and

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2888

And for Three:

We'll look at pictures of the first presidents and then do this craft.

Presidential Wig (from www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/presidentsday/art.htm)

What You Need:
Paper Bags
Packing Peanuts or Cotton
Glue
What You Do:
Talk to your children about how the president's uses to wear white wigs then have them make a wig. They do this by simply cutting one side off of a small lunch bag and then gluing packing peanuts or cotton all over it. When it dries your children can look quite presidential!

Also from everything preschool:

Do You Know? (Sung To: "Mary Had a Little Lamb")

Do you know who's on the penny? On the penny? On the penny?
Do you know who's on the penny? Abraham Lincoln.
Do you know who's on the quarter? On the quarter? On the quarter?
Do you know who's on the quarter?George Washington.

Note: Continue with other coins if you wish

We'll also look at the presidents on the coins (talk about the names of the coins too) and do coin rubbings. We'll put the coins in order from smallest to largest.

We'll locate the capital on a map.

We'll talk about the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, and do a coloring page of that.

The catch up picture post....

2011-02-18T10:57:00.013-05:00

When I plugged my camera in, there were 179 photos. Yikes. That actually didn't include any of these. I'm a little behind. So this is the "catch up" post, which will probably come in 3 parts. This is "The Snowy Day" unit we did, with the exception of 3 pictures (2 of Two doing some neat projects I managed to work in in January) and the very last one that has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that my kids are awesome and love each other to pieces. :D

Two is making a cell model from play-doh.

This is instant mashed potato flakes. Three played in them dry (practicing the letter S.)

Then he added the water:

And dove into them wet.

Did you know that if you lick things they will stick to marshmallows? Three built a marshmallow, chocolate chip snowman.

A project to go along with a quick lesson the printing press, I wrote out a code and Two had to use stampers to stamp out the hidden message.

Number matching game.

After gluing the snoman together, Three practiced writing the letter S.

He LOVED this game. This is the "It is Snowing..." song from the lesson plan for The Snowy Day. He asked to do it OVER AND OVER AND OVER. It was a HUGE hit. Here he is all dressed at the end of the song.

Three is making 3 different sized snowballs, to see which one will melt the fastest. We hypothesized about it, and Three's guess was the middle sized snowball.

Maybe that was his guess because the sun was shining on it? LOL I actually moved them, so it wasn't the case.

Four playing with some of the snow.

One made this super-hero costume for Three out of some fabric scraps. Cute, huh?

February Week 2

2011-02-09T07:17:00.002-05:00

The Napping House is the book basis for this week's unit.

http://www.brighthub.com/education/early-childhood/articles/61207.aspx

http://www.kizclub.com/stories3.htm

Put the characters on index cards. Sequence the story using these cards—also use left to right progression. As a 2nd activity with the cards, have child arrange them from smallest to largest.

Make a rain stick. (music/art)

Paint a picture of your house. (art)

Build a house from paper bags. (Gross motor/problem solving)

“Ten in the Bed” song (Music)

Discuss all the different words for sleeping in this book. (Vocab)

After you've read the story once or twice, go back to the first illustration and ask your student if he can spy the other animals. They are there! It may take a little bit to find the mouse and flea, but they were in the room from the beginning of the nap.

Discuss: Nocturnal animals (science)

Life Skill: Making the bed.

N is for NAP!

Have pajama day! (Thanks to the flu, we've had lots of these!)

N is for Noodle--three glued colored noodles to a foam letter N

Other stories: Time for Bed; Goodnight Gorilla.

Valentines Craft Links (sharing a friends blog!)

2011-02-07T06:27:00.003-05:00

My friend over at grahamcrackerbabykisses shared several Valentines Craft links on her blog, and I want to linky to that. :)

http://grahamcrackerbabykisses.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/craft-time-valentines-ideas/#comment-15

Our flu situation will determine how much fun stuff we can do this week leading up to V-day....the boys are on Tamiflu, so I'm hoping that will shorten/lighten their flu experience and allow them to still get to do some fun stuff.

Enjoy!

Slacker, that's me.

2011-02-07T06:17:00.002-05:00

I've not been posting, because well, we haven't done much worthy of posting. We've veered from our lesson plans, and have only been squeezing in work book pages and unrelated crafts here and there. I've been focusing more on Three's social needs, by getting him out and about in group situations more often, but that leaves less time for "school." I am fine with that, as I did sporatic units with the girls until they were around 3rd grade level, and they have turned out just fine. We did a TON of social activities (lots of which were learning activities as well) when they were small, and that is an area that has been more difficult for me because of Four needing to nap. The girls were so close in age that their schedules were almost always exactly the same.

I do have another weekly plan to share, AND I have a ton of pictures to share, and I may get to those in the next couple days. Three and Four have the flu, I think hubby has the beginnings of it, Two went to bed last night complaining of the same symptoms One had in the beginning. It all started with One, 6 days ago, so she's on the good end of it now. This may give me extra napping time from the kiddo's and I may have a few extra minutes for blogger.....or not. We'll have to see how that plays out.

January Week 3

2011-01-17T06:36:00.002-05:00

I'm so late in getting this up! However, this unit, doesn't take much prep. Tihs unit is built around the folk tale, Stone Soup. We did this unit last week, and will be doing The Mitten unit this week.

First things first, plan a playdate. Invite some friends and make your own Stone Soup following the outline in the story. We did this (and I totally forgot to take pictures.) Each child brought something to add to the soup, and they REALLY enjoyed the process. As I read the story, they came up and added the indredient they had brought. The kids were not fans of the soup, so as an add-on I'm going to have Three create a recipe for a soup that he thinks he actually WILL like.

We put up our map of the world, and identified where we are on the map in relation to where France is (the story originates in France.) We talked about the ocean between us. As a result, Three became super interested in the names of places on the map and can now identify 3 of the continents.

We talked about folk tales, and what that means. That the story did originate in truth, but the details have changed over years of it being retold.

Create a recipe: We'll look at recipes in cookbooks, and then talk about what kinds of things he'd like in our soup. Then we'll make a trip to the store and buy the items, and see if that soup is yummier. :)

Discuss where the vegetables in the story come from. Potatoes and Carrots come from the garden and they grow UNDER the ground. Cabbage also comes from the garden, but it grows in a head ON the ground. Barley grows in large fields (we actually sustituted orzo for barley.) Beef and milk both come from cows. Etc.

Print out pictures of different vegetables/fruits and have the child sort them based on where they grow (under ground, on the ground, on a tree, etc.)

This leads to a discussion about healthy eating...how many vegetables we need each day, and why.

Crafts:

Paint a stone! This was a hit at the playdate.

Cut out a large "iron pot" from paper. Cut out different food items from a grocery store circular. Have the child add ingredients to their soup pot.

We revisited the letter S, but didn't do any new crafts related to it. :(

January Week 2

2011-01-05T06:22:00.002-05:00

Read “The Mitten”

Play “mitten match” with all the mittens in your home. There are 6 of us, so we have LOTS. If you don’t have many (or any) mittens you could always create them from paper—plain construction paper or patterned scrapbook type paper.

Discuss what a “pair” is.

Arrange the mittens by size (Four’s mittens are smallest, Daddy’s mittens are the biggest. Etc.)

Look at pictures of the animals in the book. Discuss whether or not those animals could really fit in a mitten.

Sequencing: print/cut out pictures of the animals from the story; cut out a large mitten shape from poster board. Add the animals to the mitten in the order of the story. This would be a great felt board activity as well. Also, good for a discussion of ordinal numbers: The mouse is FIRST, the fox is SECOND, etc.

Place a small object into an adult sized mitten. Have child feel it from the outside and try to guess what it is.

Fingerpaint with mitten on! Luckily, we have a few mismatched mittens around that we will use for this, but if you aren’t that lucky…use washable paint and you’ll be fine!

This rhyme, with matching colored mitten cut-outs is mostly for Four (since Three has known his colors for what seems like forever) but knowing Three, after Four does it he’ll want to do it as well.

My poor little kitten lost her mitten
And started to cry, boo-hoo.
So I helped my kitten to look for her mitten.
Her beautiful mitten of BLUE.

I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under my mother’s bed.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored RED.

I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under my father’s pillow.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored YELLOW.

I found a mitten just right for a kitten
On the hand of my brother’s toy clown.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored BROWN.

I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under the laundry so clean.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored GREEN.

I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Inside a grocery bag.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored BLACK.

I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under the kitchen sink.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored PINK.

I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Inside my favorite shoe.
And this time the mitten was just the right mitten,
For it was colored BLUE!

Read “The Three Little Kittens”

Discuss Rhyming words (kitten, mitten) and make a self correcting game.

Pictures of rhyming words, different colors on the back so that the child can check it themselves.

Discuss animals in winter (check out books from the library on this subject) and some of the modifications these animals have to help them when it’s cold. Discuss hibernation, and build an indoor “bear cave” to hibernate in.

Read “Bear Stays Up.”

Play in “snow” with polar animals (Arctic Animals Toob). The snow will be shaving cream, that I may add glitter into. Three LOVES to play with shaving cream, so I’m 100% sure this will be a HUGE hit.

Practice drawing the letters of Three’s name in the “snow” as well.

Make play dough snowmen. I’m going to use homemade play dough, since it’s seems to be softer. Three is still really working on building up those muscles.

Giving credit where credit is due, a lot of these SUPER ideas came from a unit prepared by someone else--I've only highlighted here the ideas I think MY kids will like, you should check ou the source: http://momofmonkeys.wordpress.com/kindergarten-curriculum/unit-on-the-mitten-by-jan-brett/

January Week 1

2010-12-29T07:17:00.003-05:00

I've been getting planning done in our "off time." And, now have the preschool month of January planned out. I'm going to share these plans with the blog world. Some of you can follow along, or just pick and choose an activity that looks good to you! Also, there is no telling if we will actually get to all of these activities....school is hit or miss with Three. Some day's he is SO into it, and will sit and do EVERYTHING I suggest. Other day's I'm lucky if he's interested for 5 minutes. The plan is a working draft of sorts. This is what I'd *LIKE* to do this week. I'll post a post-week picture entry and let you know how much we ACTUALLY get done. I throw that out there so you don't look at this plan and feel intimidated, and not give it a try. Just do what your kid is interested in, and what you think will be fun, and forget the rest!

This week's theme will revolve around the book "The Snowy Day"

Read “The Snowy Day”

Make a prediction about why the snowball did not last.

Since we had Christmas snow (and lots of it) I'm going to put away different sized snowballs (freezer) to take out and compare melt times based on size during this unit. If you don't have snow....you could freeze varying amounts of water in paper cups, and then see how long it takes different amounts of water to melt.

Sensory ideas: Instant potato flakes, vanilla pudding, ice cubes, white pom-poms, cotton balls

I love this idea, but I'm afraid I didn't prepare early enough for this. I will start now though, and since my week 2 plans also have to do with cold weather, I can use it then. Collect empty clean milk cartons paint them white and use them as ice blocks to build an ice fort. I can see Three and Four totally loving playing in an indoor ice fort. I can also see my big girls really enjoying building different forts for them to play in.

Make some paper snowflakes. Discuss how every snowflake is different. Look at snowflakes through a microscope on this site: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/gallery/2009/jan/07/1

Use snowflake stampers to make a snowflake scene.

Use doll sized shoes to make “drag marks” in shaving cream snow.

For snack:

http://mama-jenn.blogspot.com/2010/01/edible-tortilla-snowflakes.html

Snowman pancakes: different sized pancakes, raisin eyes, fruit buttons, orange slice for a mouth, sprinkle with powdered sugar "snow"

Make marshmallow snowmen! (if you get them damp they stick together!)

Powdered sugar doughnut holes--edible snowballs!

Have an indoor “snow ball” fight. Either with cotton balls, or balled up newspaper.

Sequencing: Building a snowman cards.

Make snowflake from pipe cleaners and beads…use it as a patterning exercise.

Rhyming words (or whatever skill you are working on: item/numeral match, upper/lower case letter match, etc.) snowmen: a different rhyming word on each part of the snowman, make self correcting with a different color on the back of each.

Talk about all the types of clothes we wear in the snow.

Glue together this snowman: http://www.eslkidstuff.com/Worksheets/snowmancraft.gif

Snowflake stickers counting book. Make a book and put the numerals that you are working on (1-10, or skip counting, whatever!) at the bottom of each page. Have the child peel and stick the right number of snowflake stickers to each sheet. (I have yet to get snowflake stickers, but I do have snowflake stampers, and I may just use that. I do have to make a trip to the store....so I may get snowflake stickers if I can find them.)

Song: (sung to tune of "Are You Sleeping"
"It is snowing, it is snowing,
On my head, on my head
I need a hat, I need a hat,
On my head, on my head"

Vocabulary: As you sing name the body part in the above song, let the children pick out the correct article of clothing to finish the verse. For example, if you say feet...they would pick boots.

Glittering Snowballs (I'm going to be honest...I like this idea in theory...but I'm honestly not sure I'm going to make these. But I share in case you in the blog world are braver than I.)

What You Need:
Balloon
Glue
Yarn
Glitter

What You Do:
Blow up a small balloon for each child.
Have them dip yarn pieces into a mixture of glue and water.
Then have them put the yarn over the balloon. Have them do this until the balloon is mostly covered. Finally,pour glitter over the balloon and let dry. When it is dry you can pop the balloon and remove it. These are fabulous snowballs for a winter theme.

We'll be talking about letter S, as well. We will have a scavenger hunt around the house for S items and add them to our alphabet book. We'll learn about snakes, and where snakes are in the winter. We'll make a S-snake craft, and visit the museum to look at some snake skin.

Practice finger writing letter S in shaving cream, instant potatoes, or other sensory medium.

Another Christmas Craft and Random Cuteness

2010-12-13T06:32:00.005-05:00

This craft is one I modified from this link: http://yellowmums.blogspot.com/2010/12/must-be-santa.html

Instead of doing it on tile, I used green construction paper. Green card stock would have worked better, but all I had was red and white.

Step 1: Paint child's hand white (or have them paint it themselves...Three painted his own, I painted Four's for him.)

Step 2: Press hand onto paper/cardstock/tile. Sorry the pic is blurry, I was trying to press his hand AND take the shot...and he was probably moving to boot!

Step 3: We used the red cardstock instead of red sticky backed felt. Cut out a santa hat shape, and glue it on.

Step 4/5: We used beans for eyes because I couldn't find our googly eyes...I'm not sure if we used them all or I just misplaced them. Either way...the beans worked ok. They were hard to stick though because they were small. Larger beans would have rocked. Then we added cotton "fur" trim to the hat, and a ball on the end.

Three's finished project:

Random cuteness abounds!

Three's first experience with hot chocolate, after the first snow fall of the season (which was only about an inch, and didn't stick but was still SO exciting!) Luck of the draw managed to capture this priceless face!

We had snow last year, but Four was only 6 months old, so it was still a whole new experience for him. I <3 snowflakes on eyelashes (yes, these are a few of my favorite things.)

The same day as the snow, was the day of our town's Christmas parade. One danced in the parade with her dance company. Here are Two, Three and Four waiting on the curb for the parade to begin.

And, here is One in the parade!

Christmastime Crafts AND Baby "School"

2010-12-04T06:28:00.003-05:00

Santa craft. One did this project with Three while I was at a doctor visit with Four. It's a piece of white printer paper, a piece of red construction paper and cotton balls. :)

I picked up this reindeer mask for Three at the craft store (for $1,) they had reindeer and snowmen, he picked the reindeer and was SO excited to paint it.

Baby "school":

Four has begun really wanted to do things when Three and I are doing school. So, I've had to break out his own school things.

This is poker chips (picked up from Dollar Tree) and an empty wipe container with the slot in the top. Four takes the chips and slides them through the slot that you pull the wipes through.

Three wanted to play with this too when I broke it out this week (it's been awhile since he's done this activity,) so when he was done with his own stuff he sorted the chips by color and then put them in the container.

Transferring with a spoon: Two bowls, a large spoon and whatever medium you would like to transfer. We chose pom poms. Put the poms in one bowl and demonstrate how to move them to the other with the spoon. In this picture the spoon was in use, and blurry, my apologies. But you get the gist!

For this activity, he has a crunchies container that I cut a square hole in the lid of, and a bowl of poms. He takes the poms from the bowl and pushes them through the hole in the lid.

This is a great activity. This is the first time he's done this one, and he really liked it. You need an empty spice container (the kind with the "sprinkle" holes in the lid,) and toothpicks. I had to lay the toothpicks out one by one, because he doesn't have the motor skills yet to pick up just one from the pile. But, working on this type of thing will help build those. He took one toothpick and pushed it through one of the wholes in the lid of the spice container. He tried it two different ways, in his lap and flat on the table. In his lap was much easier.

Oh What Fun...

2010-12-02T14:23:00.005-05:00

I made this first item because Three asks EVERY DAY how many more "night nights" until Christmas??? This will be something he can do every day, and see how much longer he has. I picked up some Xmas stickers at A.C. Moore (a craft store) for .75. I got out a piece of red construction paper, and used one of the stickers as my guide. I then traced the sticker 24 times, and added a Merry Christmas for Christmas day.

Countdown chart:

December 1 kicks off the season of giving! The first gifts are always new ornaments for the tree.

Three helps Daddy put up the tree!

Seriously, if Four were any cuter, his life would be in constant danger because I could just eat him! This is the first time he's helped me in the kitchen, and he was "sneaking" a taste!

Our elf, Rudolph, arrived the day after Thanksgiving!

3rd location where Rudolph was found!

A pinecone craft, Four wanted in on the action.

Painting the pinecone with white paint, to give it a snow affect:

Adding glitter:

One sparkly pine cone!

Big Kid Links

2010-11-19T07:07:00.003-05:00

Gravity:

http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/fallingwater.pdf

http://homeschooling.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=homeschooling&cdn=education&tm=220&gps=487_199_1276_569&f=20&tt=13&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.spartechsoftware.com/reeko/Experiments/gravity.htm

http://classroom.jc-schools.net/coleytech/webquest/Save%20our%20Gravity/gravitywebquest.html

Ancient Greece:

http://greece.mrdonn.org/persianwars.html

http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/htmlver/characters/f_pericles.html

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/history/peloponnesian.htm

Maya, Inca, and Aztecs:

http://www.projectpages.org/Audenried_Projects/Aztec,_Mayan,_and_Incan_Webquest.html

Recipes we love!

2010-11-12T14:13:00.002-05:00

I love to cook. My girls both love to be in the kitchen. Three is also very into "helping." :)

So in this blog post I'm going to share some of the recipes we love!

Rice Pudding--this is an EXCELLENT way to use up leftover rice!

1 cup rice
2 cups milk (soymilk works well too)
2 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
Optional: Raisins/Craisins/Dried banana's

Add rice to milk, heat to scalding. Beat egg yolks, add the hot rice/milk mixture. Place mixture back into saucepan, cook until thickened. Fold in dried fruit. Three loves this on cold mornings (he likes it better than oatmeal!)

Bacon Cheeseburger Chicken--from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/bacon-cheeseburger-chicken.html

I'll summarize here though, you should check out Kevin and Amanda though, it's a cute blog!

Make bacon bits--just fry the bacon, let it cool for a minute and then chop. Trust me it's worth the few extra minutes!
Brown the chicken tenderloins. Place in a casserole dish.
Add Teriyaki sauce (to be honest, I've never made it with the teriyaki sauce...because I just didn't have it. I've mixed soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce and used that), just enough to cover the chicken.
Put on a coating of ranch dressing (get the ranch with bacon if possible...it makes it extra yummy, although it's good with regular ranch as well.)
Top that with cheese, and then bacon bits.
Bake @350 for about a 1/2 hour.

YUM-O! This is One's favorite meal. Fav.Or.Ite.

This next recipe is from http://www.food.com/recipe/bourbon-chicken-45809 and is a recent find. It was such a big hit, that the fam has requested I make a double batch next time, as they all wanted more!

2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 -2 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/4 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup apple juice
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar (I didn't have this, and left it out.)
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce

Cook your chicken. Remove it from the pan. Add ALL the other ingredients to the pan, heat over medium heat until well mixed and dissolved. Add chicken back to the sauce, bring to a hard boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. The website recommends serving with rice, but *I* prefer it with mashed potatoes (when I eat it at a restaurant) so that's what I made at home. It was delish, I kid you not, and done in 30 minutes!

I hope you'll try some of these, and ENJOY!

Fall crafts

2010-11-10T06:41:00.004-05:00

Three is 100% obsessed with all things Toy Story 3, and really, who can blame him? Here he is dressed as Woody:

This craft is one I ordered from Oriental Trading Company. It has the feathers, turkey body, beak, eyes, hats and boots (which Three thought was so silly!) and the child just sticks them together. Easy, and cute.

Finished turkey:

He was proud and wanted to hold it up for the picture...but you couldn't really see it that way so I took the other shot (above) but wanted to show his "proud" picture as well.

This is a simple craft, I cut the tree trunk from a brown paper grocery bag. Three glued it on the blue paper (it's the sky dontchaknow) and added leaf stickers. In the bottom left hand corner you see a "big pile of leaves because the leaves are falling off the trees now that it's faaaaaaaaaaallllllllllll." Three always says fall with this huge drawl. It's sort of adorable, but I could be partial. There are no pictures of the process as he did this craft with One while I was at a dr. appt earlier in the week.

Another OTC craft (and I'm pretty sure those leaf stickers are from there too), in this one you take the yellow tissue paper squares and ball them up and add them to a leaf cutout. The leaf cut out comes with a peel-off cover, revealing a sticky side. No glue involved. My kind of crafting!

Three's finished leaf:

Four is a ham, and was YELLING at me while I was snapping pictures of Three doing his work the other day, because he wanted HIS picture taken TOO! So, here you have it. He's "cheesing" so hard you can't even see his eyes! Stinker.

An OTC tip: Everything comes in quantity of 12. What we do is get a group of us, everyone picks a couple crafts (depending on how many you want to order total,) then we divide the lot up. So, each family might get 2 or 3 of the craft. That turkey craft you see, Three did that last year as well...because I had 2 of them. So, get some friends together and order from OTC, their crafts are usually pretty good.

Upcoming blog: One and Two's school projects! Recipes that our family loves! And, New Holiday Traditions.

Fall Fun!

2010-11-03T13:39:00.002-05:00

Making some jack-o-lanterns for the window.

Two and One helping carve our AWESOME pumpkin!

And, here is the pumpkin....

Awesomesauce.

Pics

2010-10-28T16:46:00.002-05:00

So, we've been doing school, but not things that are really "picture worthy." Anyway, pictures of real school stuff coming soon, I promise. To hold you over (because I know you've been waiting for a new post from me) here are some pics of my kids from this week--Monday we went to the park, and then there was a rainstorm.

Four loves a slide.

Three LOVES the new rainboots mommy and daddy brought him from Vegas (I swear, it's the only place he thinks we went! LOL)

Three peeking at me!

Isn't this a FANTASTIC picture. Loooook at it! The leaves behind them, some of which are changing from our great fall weather, they are all LOOKING AT ME AND SMILING...it was a freakish moment in time I tell ya.

L to R: One, Four, Two, Three. :D My loves.

First Day of School--October 18, 2010

2010-10-19T06:12:00.002-05:00

We started our new school year yesterday. It was a good start, even though it had a rocky beginning. I was in a horrible, no good, bad mood. There really was no one to blame for my bad mood...I was just feeling bitchy. Once we got in our groove though, I began to settle. Which makes me think maybe my bitchy-ness was from lack of routine (we've been having our break, then we were on vacation, then I was trying to readjust to east coast time....) and maybe it will be better now. The day went well. The girls seemed excited for their new books. We finished relatively quickly, and then we had bowling league. This week we have lots of activities going on. Bowling league yesterday, seeing grandma today, 4H tomorrow, and the state fair on Thursday!

Our final activity of the school day occurred after we got home from bowling. The kids put on the pumpkin faces! We will carve the big one next week, but for now we'll change his "Mr. Pumpkin Head" features daily.

Here is One, all ready for the first day. She is 12. This is her 7th grade year, how did that happen I ask you??? She looks so grown. She is very excited about dance this year as she moved up to a more competitive class. This means more opportunities to perform, and a real dance competition in the spring. She is the only girl in her class who hasn't had tap before (although, she did take tap 3 years ago, it was just that one time, and most of the other girls have taken much more tap) but she is keeping up pretty well.

Here is Two. She is 10 (11 in December) and this is her 6th grade year. Technically, she would be in 5th grade because of her late birthday, but since we homeschool we didn't have to wait for her to start Kindy. She is really enjoying her competitive soccer team, and has scored 3 goals this season!

Here is Three. Three is 3. :) He is currently very into Cars and Toy Story. He is still working on learning the alphabet. He really likes the crafts, and he actually really enjoys workbook pages as well.

Here is Four. When the other kids were all standing there, he was pretty sure he needed to have his turn. :D Four is almost 1 and 1/2. You can see where he recently fell off the steps and scraped his nose. :( He is FINALLY using some words, purposefully. Before the last 2 weeks he could say enough things that I wasn't worried, BUT he didn't really use them regularly. Now, he's using words in context. His receptive language though, is through the roof! I swear, he understands 98% of what is said to him, and I know his receptive language skills are way ahead of where any of his siblings were at this age. On top of all that, he's so stinking cute.

Week in Review

2010-09-03T19:25:00.002-05:00

Here is Three working on his firetruck craft. He LOVES it.

This is Three working on an activity I made. There are numbers and stamps on each plate, and he has to match them.

One painting a "buffalo hide" for a project to go along with her Native American studies.

Three cutting out the first of his wish list items for Christmas.

Four putting poker chips in a slot. :)

We didn't quite get everything done, BUT I lost all of Monday, and most of Tuesday due to some personal issues. Then today DH took the day off for us to have a family fun day, so we didn't do school today either. That's OK.

One is ALMOST finished with her final unit in History, and we are only doing History/Math/Reading right now, so we should be done by mid-week next week, which is PERFECT since my SIL is coming in late next week.

Three started his "class" again this week, through our local parks and rec. He was SUPER excited to be there, and really participated (which he didn't do at all the last time we were there.) When he was telling Daddy about the class, he kept calling "Mrs. Michelle" "that girl teacher," for some reason I thought this was hilarious. LOL

So, the plan for this week is to finish up school for One prior to family visit. Have a lot of fun with family. Then we are on a break until Mid-October. Yahoooooooooo.

I'm going away for 10 days at the beginning of October, just DH and I. For. Ten. Whole. Days.

Posts between now and October will be sparse, and mostly fluff. :)

Week in Review

2010-08-28T13:39:00.003-05:00

Sooo, Four came down with a cold on Monday which put a kink in goals. I only got a couple of things done with Three. Such is life. So last weeks goals for him, are the same for this coming week. However, One met all of the goals I had set, and Two did her review work and reading. We did no school on Friday because One and Four had ped appts (well checks) and it was the day I felt the WORST this week--because of course, I caught Four's cold (Three has it as well, but so far it looks like hubby, One and Two have managed to escape it.)

Now for the best part of our week, we took a trip today to an actual Civil War battlefield. These pics are out of order, but I'm trying to just get it posted. They did a musket and artillery fire demonstration and we got to tour the house which was used as a hospital during the battle.

This is one of the operating rooms:

One and Two on the steps of the house/hospital.

They were doing a bayonet charge.

Firing their weapons:

Marching:

Goals for the week

2010-08-22T17:23:00.002-05:00

With Three, I hope to do the following:

Reading skills:

1. Sorting activities:
a.) vocab cards
b.) buttons
c.) shaped noodles

2. Letter F activities
a.) workbook page letter F identification
b.) workbook page letter F sound
c.) build a wooden firetruck (it's a kit from a hardware store)
d.) this fireman craft: http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/miscellaneous/mfireman.html
e.) Starfall.com letter Ff

Math skills:

1. Counting 7 objects (Three seems to be having a block after 6.)
2. Workbook page on written #2.
3. Patterns!

Fine Motor skills:

1. Beads
2. Pegs
3. Tongs

For Two, I plan to do the following:

Two has already finished her school year (hallelujah!) She will be doing reading each day, as we still have some books that were on my "list" for this year that she didn't get to. And, she'll be doing a math review sheet each day.

For One, I plan to do the following:

History:

1. Re-test on the Wild West (yes, she did get a D on Friday....ugh.)
2. Move on to unit on the battles with native american's over the land in the west
3. Historical field trip to a Civil War battlefield (I'm CRAZY excited about this.)

Math:

1. Finish chapter on decimal multiplication, if there is a God...we will finish this up. But, she is struggling, so we'll see.

Reading:
1. Finish abridged version of Little Women

We've completed all of our science and grammar for the year!

Letter D

2010-08-18T17:48:00.004-05:00

Dragon craft from notimeforflashcards.com (which ROCKS.)

Tracing Letter D felt letters (I made felt letters, instead of typical montessori sandpaper letters.)

Writing Letter D in oatmeal

Coloring his "dinosaur costume:"

Working on scissor skills by cutting out the spikes for his dino

The back of the dinosaur costume:

We did a dino craft....from dltk-kids.com....but I apparently didn't take pictures. :(

It's a Wrap.

2010-08-07T19:39:00.002-05:00

Random stuff from the last week or so....

One and Two built a skyscraper city during Three and Four's nap...and then I unleashed the Jabberwocky. Look at that gleam in his eye...tiny terror.

Yes, they are couch-cushion surfing.

Three and Four playing.

Muffin Tin Monday

2010-08-02T12:53:00.002-05:00

This if my first time participating in Muffin Tin Monday! I was so excited to see this idea yesterday while blog cruising. It made me really think about lunch....and we've really been in a rut. It was SUPER. It got Three to try zucchini (which he swears he doesn't like.... ;))

This is Four's plate (yeah, I know, not a muffin tin...WhAtEvEr!) It has pears, carrots, broiled zucchini, and then some broiled zucchini with melted rice cheese shreds. He ate EVERY BIT, but then he eats every bit of every meal...man can this kid eat! :)

For Three's tin, we had a dinosaur theme because we've been working on letter D and had done a dinosaur craft this morning. So, moving clockwise we have: Boulders (chicken nuggets,) Dino blood (ketchup,) leaves-dino food (zucchini,) pears-dino food, sticks (graham cracker sticks,) and dino-eggs (grapes.)

This was SO fun....and I can't wait to do it again! Here is the original blog that it came from: http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/

Genius.

Toddlers and Teens

2010-07-31T19:33:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about this post for a few days. I had a dinner this week with a friend, and I mentioned-briefly-some of these thoughts. I live in a crazy world. A world of both Toddlers and Teens. For those of you who may not know the specifics, my children are 12, 10 1/2, 3 1/2 and 1. Yeah. See, it's a little nuts. :-)

This world though offers me some interesting perspectives. First and foremost, it has shown me just how fast the time really does fly. It has given me the opportunity to really cherish my boys, as I know far to well how quicly they'll be my pre-teens, and by then, my girls will be women.

Just recently, I've been thinking about my big girls. They are old enough now that every so often I catch a glimpse of the people they are becoming. This is a new phenomenon for me. It's a beautiful thing though. I have come to find that I really like the people they are becoming! I guess I did a few things right.

A very dear friend of mine once told me that her wise father told her that you are done raising your kids by the time they are 12. After that, all you can do is guide. I think this is true, and now having seen some glimpses of the people my children are becoming, I am pleased. There is still work. There are some lessons I need to impart to One, and I'm hopeful her judgment will improve with maturity (she's way on the immature side, and I'm thankful for that--most of the time.) But, overall, I didn't totally screw up. :)

Big Kid Stuff!

2010-07-25T10:15:00.002-05:00

A lot of my posts lately have been about what I'm doing with my preschooler, and I'm leaving out the big kid stuff. I think this is mostly because I like posts with pictures, and well, I'm not so sure those of you who read this blog are interested in seeing pictures of my big kids sitting there with their books, or with the computer, and working. Basically, middle school projects are much less exciting than crafts. :) (My girls would agree.)

So, I thought I would write a "boring" picture-less post about what the big kids are doing.

They are studying the Civil War and the making of a constitutional government. One is studying the civil war, and Two is studying the constitution and how it came to be. They recently watched Glory (they watched together even though it really wasn't what Two was studying.) And, both were quite moved. I did preface the film with it being about WAR, and how war is hell and they needed to be prepared for all the violence and the misery that they were going to see. They handled in stride, and I think got a lot out of it, or at least as much as they can at 5th and 6th grade levels. I look forward to watching it again a few years from now, when they can take even more from it. It feels wrong to say it is one of my favorite movies, so I will say it is one of the most moving films I've ever watched. It moved me to tears again this time, and I've seen it several times.

As I am planning this week, One will be beginning a Civil War lapbook. I am printing and cutting and prepping today and tomorrow (we have 2 Monday's a month where we don't school, this will be one of them.) We won't be doing ALL of the booklets shown there, I am picking and choosing the ones that go with what is in the books we have. One loves a word search, so I found this. We live in NC, and have a major battlefield near us, so we plan to visit there during this unit as well (pictures to come!!)

Two will be doing a Constitution Webquest as a wrap up of the constitution unit, before we move on to the next part of our study.

More from our week!

2010-07-24T06:27:00.002-05:00

Three did a worksheet about letter C words from www.kidzone.ws

Then, he made a C is for Cookie (Monster) craft:

I LOVE this shot. Who knew it was so hard to get the paper to stick to the TP tube! LOL

And, here is Four reading at my feet while I work with Three. Sweet baby.

Our Week in Review

2010-07-23T10:08:00.004-05:00

For fine motor skills, we worked on beading. I put some beads on a pipe cleaner, put a knot in both ends, and then gave Three and handful of beads (making sure all the colors were represented) and a pipe cleaner piece with only one knot. He then had to duplicate the first pipe cleaner. Later we will work on patterns with this activity.

This is the original one I gave him.

We have been working on letter C this week, and we used Coconut Candies (M&M's) for this activity. I dumped out the package, and put out the bowls, then Three had to sort them by color. There were only 2 green ones in this package, which presented a great opportunity to discuss which had the least, and which had the most (since the difference was easy to spot.) After sorting, and our discussion, I laid out 6 on the table in a line and he counted them, and then his FAVORITE part, he got to eat them. :) As soon as I said "Let's do school." today, he said "Let's do the M&A's!!!!" (you know what he meant!) I had a 2nd package, so we did. :)

C is also for Colors! We did a mixing colors experiment as well this week. I put a glob of blue, yellow and red paint on a paper plate. Then I asked Three to put some of the red in between the red and the yellow, then asked what he thought would happen if he added some yellow. After his guess (which I think was purple,) he mixed some yellow to the red to make orange. We then repeated with red/blue, and yellow/blue. He was still talking about this yesterday, when I gave him some green paint for a candle craft and he remembered mixing yellow and blue together to make green. He also very proudly showed it to a neighbor when they came over to play.

After all the mixing, he painted a very colorful picture, which when finished he titled "Red moon, Blue star." I somehow didn't get a picture of the finished product (but here you can see the beginnings of the red moon) but it is on my fridge, I'll try to snap a shot of it before it goes to Grandma (because EVERYTHING goes to Grandma....*eye roll*)
This is a Candle Craft (see the C theme?)
Finished product, served as our centerpiece...for an "mock" candle light dinner.

Will it ever end?

2010-07-22T13:10:00.002-05:00

Ohhh, will it ever end!! We've been TRYING to finish up this school year. We missed a lot at the beginning of the year, and therefore, we are behind. I was HOPING we'd be done by August but, we're no where near close to being finished. UGH.

Now, I'm trying to change my plans. I'm hoping now that we'll be done by the end of August and can take 6 weeks off. We are going on a vacation (without kids!) and we'll begin our new school year after that.

What's on tap??

Well, we'll be doing the next level of "What Your ___ grader Needs to Know." We are going to do Spanish (WE ARE....do you hear me??) We'll be doing 4H, which focuses on life skills. The girls will be doing bowling league, Two joined a competitive soccer team, and One will take dance and is interested in drama classes. I'm hoping to find a class for Three and Four as well. We'll see. We will be doing library story time when it starts back up in August, and I'm hoping to start MOPS too.

Camp and File Folder Games

2010-07-16T18:23:00.004-05:00

Two went to "Zoo Camp" this week. It is a farm that has lots of interesting animals. Two's current aspiration is to be a vetranarian for a zoo, and this is her 3rd summer attending this camp. She also volunteer's with them throughout the year.

Two and Three checking out the lemurs.

Tree porcupine. (I love this shot!)

A close up of one of the lemurs. Isn't he sitting AWESOME??

Two and Three.

File Folder games....I had forgotten all about them! How??? LOL I was blog surfing and found this site: filefolderfun.com I printed some new stuff, and am about to cut them out tonight. These shots are games that I've had since One and Two were preschoolers, and I dug them out for Three. He really enjoyed them.

And this has nothing to do with anything, except the pure joy of a lollipop. :) I found some organic lolli's that actually don't have anything that Four is allergic to in them! Woot. Here he is having his first licks of a lolli.

MIA

2010-07-12T11:15:00.005-05:00

I've been MIA because we've been in the throws of softball tournament! Two made the All-Star team for our local parks and rec, and had practice 4 days a week. They ended up taking 2nd in the division, which isn't bad, but I totally think they could have won. It was a hard loss for all the girls (and their parents lol.) Our coaches were awesome (2 of them were our reg season coaches, for the last 2 years) and there are few things in life that I enjoy more than watching a ball game. :)

One and Two had a special afternoon with grandma, the 3 of them went to see Eclipse.

I've started taking some vitamins, which are helping with my energy--which I need!

I've also been wrapping up the preparations for the big consignment sale here. It happens twice a year, and this time of year it is Fall/Winter stuff. I've been tagging One and Two's outgrown winter clothes. I've discovered One and Two have NO pants for this fall...so that is what I'll hopefully find a ton of in their size at the sale. I've also been tagging all our baby things (bouncy seat, play mat, etc.) I have to admit this makes me a LITTLE sad. Consigning things allows me to shop a day early, and then I'll go on the last day as well, because it is 1/2 off day. :)

A moment on being done with babies....this makes me a LITTLE sad. Only a little, because while I will never hold an infant of my own again, I know all the fun that NOT having a baby in the house offers too. All the freedom that comes with not having to live around a sleep schedule. So, I look forward to the fun, freedom in the future, and a take a pause to feel the sorrow of having had my very last baby.

Three's First Bike

2010-07-02T19:10:00.002-05:00

Three got his first real bike! He has had a trike for a year, but recently started riding the neighbor's "big girl" bike. We had been kicking around the idea of getting him a ride on power wheel type of thing for the summer, but with his new interest (and skill) at riding the bike we decided that we should get a bike instead.

Apparently, riding ability increases with the sticking out of one's tongue.

He was "fixing" it.

To Infinity and Beyond!

More Baby Birds

2010-07-02T18:55:00.002-05:00

These are ONE day old baby Mockingbirds. You can see there are still 2 eggs to hatch. This was 2 days ago, and one more egg has hatched since then.

Here are the baby Barn Swallows. You can see all 5 little heads in this one! They were very ominous looking perched up there above us looking down, but cute at the same time. This picture was taken on the 17th, which is exactly 2 weeks after their hatch date.

This was taken on the 20th, and they were capable of flying. They hopped around in our front bushes for a few hours, but then we could see them flying in and out.

This is a shot of 4 of the babies, the 5th one was over in the corner and I couldn't get it in the shot!

I *think* House Sparrows may be laying a 3rd set of eggs in our bluebird box as well! It's been a great year for birds here!

Summer Fun

2010-07-01T06:12:00.004-05:00

My hope is to turn dinner over to One and Two one night a week in the fall, giving me 2 nights that I don't have to cook, plus, until it gets COLD Hubby cooks on the grill usually once a week. So, I've been doing "cooking camp" and teaching the girls how to cook some things that we have pretty often.

Two mixing meatloaf.

After my rainy day fun post yesterday, I set up some bowls for Four. He was very excited!

This week we tye-dyed some towels for the kids to use after they swim (or shower, etc). This first one belongs to Two.

This one belongs to Three, he wanted it to look like "fireworks."

I'm not posting One's towel because she chose to tie-dye her first name across the towel (which turned out super cute) but I don't call them by thier real names here, so I won't post it.

Here is Three, very excited about his discovery box yesterday afternoon!

Pool fun. :) Seriously this is the best I could do of all 4.

One turns twelve!

2010-06-30T15:12:00.005-05:00

One celebrated her 12th birthday this month. On your birthday, in our home, you get to choose breakfast. One chose ice cream, and boy did her siblings appreciate it! LOL

Three asked her to add the brocolli to her bowl...a nice touch

Yum.

Hubby picked up these MAC DADDY cupcakes from Whole Foods....man were they decadent. It took 4 of us, 3 days to eat 4 of them! LOL They were YUMMYLICIOUS, but they were so super rich that you could only eat about 1/4 of one at a time!

She wanted to eat it with no hands....it's your birthday, go for it.

She requested a "Queen of Hearts" party (which was 10 days after her actual birth date), since seeing Alice In Wonderland she's been pretty obsessed with the red queen. :)

Decorations (this was by far the cheapest party we've ever thrown....the decorations cost me less than $10):

I made these for each of the 4 suits, they all had a picture of her as the "queen" in the middle, and were surrounded by all the other cards of that suit.

The wreath...I got this from another blog, and LOVED it. It turned out great. One helped make it.

Her cake.

And, my very own red queen. :)

PRESCHOOL: An oldie but a goodie, rainy day fun

2010-06-30T10:48:00.003-05:00

While the temperature has dropped outside, it is raining. BLAH. So, in an effort to keep Three and Four busy this afternoon I'm digging out some oldies.

Three loved the Discovery Box I made (from Totally Tots blog.) For this afternoon, I have loaded it with some new small things for him to find. :) He also has a fire truck craft from Home Depot (it's a wooden truck that you assemble, my MIL found this at Goodwill) that we may attempt.

Four is into everything today, and after looking at 1+1+1=1 blog, I think I have some ideas for him too. Wooden spoon, metal mixing bowl, and play wooden food. Happy camper? Probably! Also after reading the blog, I think I'm going to let him play with the rocks. We have rocks that Three uses for school, but I haven't let Four play with them yet. He still REALLY puts everything in his mouth, so we'll see how that goes. For later this week, I'm hoping to get a paper towel tube from my neighbor, and give him some objects to drop down it. We don't use paper towels, so I don't have any of my own, but I know my neighbor will share. :)

I've also been going through my The Toddlers BUSY BOOK for some "Rainy Day Play." I came across "Blanket Riding" which we've done before, but I hadn't thought of it for today. Another fun thing for my brain!

I may also make a squishy bag. It is a ziploc bag with any sort of squishy substance in it, the book suggests: corn starch and water, mustard, ketchup (maybe the 2 together to work on color mixing for Three?,) hair gel, shaving cream....I have an excess of really cheap hair gel (because of One's dance recital, and her super short hair in the back that needed to be slicked UP for her high pig tails) so I may use that.

Recipe: Pepperonata with Penne and sausage

2010-06-22T14:16:00.000-05:00

OK, this is a homeschooling blog, so you're saying "Why is she posting a recipe?" WELL....for one thing, homeschoolers (or at least the ones I know....) often find themselves at 4 in the afternoon saying "Oh, what am I going to make for dinner?" And this, 4pm thought, is the FIRST time they've thought of it all day. D'oh.

So, this recipe is GREAT for homeschoolers, because it seriously takes 20 minutes.

Seriously.

I have made this recipe a half dozen times in the last year, and I LOVE it. Yesterday, I was excited ALL day knowing that this was what's for dinner. Another bonus? It's got peppers in it. My kids don't like peppers...or so they would tell you, but they eat this up like there is no tomorrow. Another tip? When I make it, I dice up twice as much peppers as a I need, and freeze half. Next time I make it, I won't have to dice peppers at all.

This is from a book, I can't take any credit for the inception of this phenomena. My fabulous mother-in-law gave me a book called "Desperation Dinners: Home Cooked Meals for Frantic Families in 20 Minutes Flat"....she brought this to me when she came just before Four was born. Think she had an idea of what life would be like "after?" She is a mother of 5 after all.

Anyway, on to the recipe:
2 cups penne (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon olive oil
4 links Italian sausage (3/4-1lb total)
1 large onion
1 medium green, red, and yellow pepper
1 can diced or whole tomatoes (I've only ever used diced)
2 tbls light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 tbls balsalmic or red wine vinegar (I've only ever used balsalmic)
4 bay leaves (I've made it with and w/out, I would say these are optional)
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Salt and black pepper to taste
Grated parm cheese (optional)

1. Place the penne in 2 1/2 quarts of already boiling unsalted water, cook until tender (11-13 minutes)
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil over medium heat in an extra-deep 12 inch nonstick skillet that has a lid. Pierce the sausages several times with a fork and add them to the skillet. (I personally cut the links up into large pieces instead of leaving them whole..but that's personal preference.) Let brown, turning the links occasionally while peeling and slicing the onion. Add the onion to the pan as you slice, seperating it into strips. (Again, out of personal preference, I dice the onion, and also the peppers....the smaller the pieces the less likely my kids are to ask questions LOL.)
3. Seed the peppers and cut into long strips about 1/2 inch wide. Add them to the skillet, stir, cover the skillet and raise the heat to high. Keeping the skillet covered as much as possible, add the tomatoes with their juice, the brown sugar, vinegar, bay leaves and basil. Stir well. Bring mixture to a boil.
4. Lower the heat to medium-high and boil until the sausage is no longer pink in the middle and the veges are tender but not mush, about 7 minutes, uncovering to stir occasionally.
5. Drain the penne and place some of each on each serving plate. Season the sausage mixture with salt and black pepper and top each pasta portion with some of the sauce, making sure to discared the bay leaves. (Another variation, I drain the penne and then add it to the skillet with the sauce.)

Enjoy!

PRESCHOOL: Field Trip to the Mill

2010-06-17T12:18:00.005-05:00

Storytime @ the mill was the story of The Little Red Hen, then the kids made a headband.

Then they went outside to "plant" (they really just dug up the dirt, but they enjoyed it!)

They ground some wheat:

Then we toured the actual mill, which is over 300 years old. I took a picture in there, but it was blurry. After that they did a second craft, which I didn't get a pic of because by this time Four was pretty sure he no longer wanted to be in the wrap and I couldn't do anything but chase him around the room. After the craft, we went out to the lobby where there was a dress up center. Here is Farmer Three. :) (You see Four in the background trying to destroy the mirror...wonder why we call him the jabberwocky?)

I got to snap a picture before Four ripped the hat off his head (but you can see him reaching for it already!)

Sisters getting in on the dress up action, One.

And, Two.

PRESCHOOL: Spring crafts and Field Trips

2010-06-16T06:04:00.006-05:00

Field Trip to the Farm:

Planting a watermelon (FAVORITE FOOD) seed! He was so excited when Farmer Fred offered this option.

Farmer Fred cranking the tractor to take us on a hayride through the fields. We got to try squash and brocolli straight from the field!

Feeding some picky goats!

Brushing a horse, who was funnily enough named "Bubba" (which is what we call Four.)

Another planting, this one is a flower planted with our neighbors.

These are foam flower stickers. We are working on counting objects to 5 (you could alter for whatever number or color you are working on.) There are 5 flowers, we counted them as we stuck them. Then we counted them again (and worked on pre-writing skills) as we added stems.

A is for Ant craft: Cardboard egg carton segment, paint, pipe cleaners.

Field trip to the fire station (Three has serious hero worship.)

Tractor (we weren't working on anything specific here, he just wanted to make a tractor!

Baby Birds

2010-06-12T17:39:00.003-05:00

(I'm typing this fast....Four is cutting molars, and he's actually playing happily so I thought I'd try to get these up! Please excuse any grammatical, spelling or capitalization errors made in my haste.)

We have been so fortunate this year that a set (or maybe it's been 2 sets) of Sparrows have given us 2 clutches in our bluebird box (that'll show those bluebirds who is boss!) AND, a barn swallow has nested in an existing nest on our front porch above a pillar. This has been SO MUCH fun.

Baby house sparrow's!

This is a barn swallow egg, found on our porch on 6-3, the same day we could hear them cheeping!

AND, how SWEET is this shot!! There are 4 baby barn swallow heads appearing over the edge of the nest. They were waiting for mama to come feed them. I'm pretty sure there are 5 babies up there...but only see 4 heads here.

The sparrow babies are now flying and we get to watch them come in and out of the box and watch mama and daddy hover close by. Amazing.

Pictures

2010-06-12T06:33:00.003-05:00

I found my camera charger, and now have lots of pics to share:

Two at bat. This was the last game of the season.

One being consumed by a T-Rex.

One, Two and Three inside a tree trunk at the science museum (if you look up while in the tree trunk, you see a family of bats.)

Two recieving her bowling certificate as bowling league wraps up for the year.

One and Two attempting to catch a crayfish, I eventually did catch him. :)

Two caught a nice bass.

We are still working to finish up our school year, but I feel confident we should be able to take some time off in August (I don't know if I want to take the whole month off....the natives get restless when there is no structured time in their day.)

Two finished her yearly testing this week, and I hope to be able to start One's testing soon. I'm trying to wait until we have wrapped up the current 9 week period...somehow she got "behind" where Two is, as Two was finished with her 9 week period.

Dance is over, softball season just ended (although, All-Stars may take us through mid-July), my own dance class just started and I LOVED it! Two made the competitive soccer team, so that will be a big commitment for us come August. She is really looking forward to it though. Four turned one, and that makes me sad. He is also cutting molars, and has turned into quite a miserable beast.

I would promise to do better, but I always fail at that, so maybe I'll just say, I HOPE to be back soon!

What's Going On?

2010-05-13T05:57:00.002-05:00

Life. *shrug* I know...there are lots of, tons of even, blogging mama's out there who have MORE kids than me, and I'd venture to bet crazier lives than myself...and yet THEY manage to blog on a regular basis. I'm a blog fail.

Oh well. I do love this blog. I love being able to share with my family what the kids are doing as well as sharing with other homeschoolers and hopefully giving them ideas. :-) I could say, once again, I'm going to try to be better at it.

Softball season is in full swing. Dance class is wrapping up with the year end recital next week. Then, I am taking a summer dance class (yay!) and Two will be trying out for a travel soccer league at the end of the month. Four will turn ONE this month as well. Crazy stuff. My MIL may or may not be coming to stay with us around the time of Four's birthday (I LOVE being up in the air....)

Pictures....I know I have some to share. My camera battery is beyond dead, and I misplaced the charger during our time in FL after FIL's passing.

We attended a homeschool group "Field Day" this month, and it was FUN. The kids all had a blast with activities like tug o war, 50 yr dash, sack races, obstacle course run, water balloon fight (they especially loved this one--since they got to get ME wet), face painting, and bubbles and parachute play for Three. Not to mention it was a kick-butt playground.

We are trying to finish up our school year. We took a TON of time off at the beginning of the year--2 months to be exact--because SOMEONE was ALWAYS sick. I'm hopeful after doing some examining yesterday that we can still be done by the end of June/mid July. Allowing for a brief break before starting back up again. Normally, we school on a more year round schedule. But with the break at the beginning, we've had to cut back on all other breaks. And, we just spent nearly 2 weeks in FL with family....and I did allow for a 3 day "spring break."

Our state requires yearly testing, and we'll be doing that this month as well.

I've bought what I think we'll need for next year, well, almost all of it. We'll be continuing with all the things we've been using. Core Knowledge, Learning Language Arts Through Literature, and Math Advantage. We need to put some more focus on grammar--but I have a resource I bought last year and didn't implement, so we'll use that. We need to continue with creative writing, and will continue to use Just Write for that. We'll also continue learning Spanish, hopefully. Two gets easily frustrated with this, whereas One seems to have gotten my ability to learn language quickly.

Time to make the pancakes (some of which will be dairy and egg free...I love you my allergy laden baby). Love to all!

American Revolution

2010-04-01T06:07:00.004-05:00

Two is currently studying the American Revolution. I've been looking for hands-on learning ideas for her, as this is her learning style. Here is what we have underway so far.

American Revolution ABC's. As we study, she is writing an entry for every letter of the alphabet. Some of the entries include: Q is for....Quebec--The Treaty of Quebec, B is for....Boston Massacre (which wasn't really a massacre at all!), S is for...Sons of Liberty. You get the idea.

This is one section of a lapbook we're putting together.

We are also working on a powerpoint presentation...that I will hopefully be able to upload to the blog and share when it is complete.

Updates!

2010-03-23T11:37:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I've fallen behind AGAIN. GRR.

Here are some quick updates:

Two at a nearby animal rescue place where she volunteers:

Early March snow event:

Spontaneous smiles in lunch:

Two with a stray who called our family his own for a week before we found a rescue that could take him. She was so sad to see him leave.

I have a couple school projects, but apparently, they are still on my media card. More soon. Promise.

Nothing new to share.

2010-02-28T15:36:00.002-05:00

This was a very slow week. Monday would normally have been an 'off' day, but One and Two stayed with their dad an extra day, pushing our 'off' day to Tuesday (they need a day to recoup from being there, always. on these weeks we do Saturday School instead.) Two was in a bball tourny that started Monday. They made it to the championship game, but alas, did not prevail. Then after the final game (and only one school day this week) Two started running a fever and complaining of sore throat. :( One did school on Thursday, but not Friday. And, in the one/two day school week there just weren't very many interesting projects going on.

Oh well, tomorrow starts another week. :-) 4H is on first aid skills tomorrow, and we have bowling league as well. Monday's are always chaos here. Monday's alternate with 4H, bowling, and MOPS. We almost ALWAYS have 2 activities on Monday, it makes for a longgggggg day.

Respiratory System

2010-02-18T08:48:00.004-05:00

In an effort to honor Two's tactile learning style, I've been working on coming up with more hands-on projects that correspond with her units. I WISH I had taken some pictures of the "blood soup" we made, as it was a BIG hit.

Here is a project we did for the Respiratory system:

She had to construct and identify: throat, trachea, larynx, lungs, brochioles, alveoli, and diaphragm.

Yeah, Yeah, I know

2010-02-14T14:17:00.006-05:00

So, I know I SAID I was going to blog once a week, but Hey, life happens (and no, it is not a cereal...a little wink wink nudge nudge to my blogger-real-life-friend over at Life is not a cereal blog, cause I heart her.)

I really WANT to blog. I enjoy it, I enjoy the sharing of ideas, and I enjoy gleaning ideas from other people's blogs. SO, once again, I set a goal to come here more often!

So, this post will be a quick, mostly pic recap of the last several months. Here we go, enjoy the randomness, as these are in no paticular order:

One and Two working on a "Roman Roadway project." Here they are pressing the dough into the box lid:

Skipping a few steps, here they are putting on the smooth paving stones:

Finished project:

Here is One, dressed for her dance class....my girl has a striking fashion sense.

This winter has been the coldest I remember in my 17 years living here, so the kids have spent a lot of time indoors (luckily, I still have some hair left). One is showing quite the play-doh skills as evidenced here:

Speaking of our cold weather, we've had more snow "events" this year than I can recall either, MUCH to the delight of Three, here is a shot of One, Two, and Three outside in the snow.

Here is Two, making a snow angel and being attacked by our dog (who loves the snow ALMOST as much as Three.):

Three celebrated his third birthday last month, and had a firefighter themed birthday party (for more pics/projects of Three check out my other blog sometime this week: blogger.waterfrontpreschool.com):

Two is also playing basketball now, here's an action shot (notice it almost looks like she's floating *insert twilight zone music*):

With our Girl Scout troop we had a "winter fashion show" after learning about winter safety, and participating in some winter fun (we went ice skating....Mama doesn't ice skate, but did don some skates with Three who REALLY wanted to try, but only skated MAYBE 50 feet before he was done.) Here is Two, who isn't at all into fashion, so she was on the "tech team" working the strobe light and fog machine (yes, we are a high tech group!).

Somehow the only picture I got of One during the fashion show is of her BACK....blah. I know my friend Jemma took some, if I get one of those, I'll post it here. She was mighty cute.

I had a baby 8 1/2 months ago, a baby that was allergic to MANY MANY things, even AFTER my body processed it. He cried for the majority of his first 4 months. I weaned him, and it was like the heavens dropped me a new baby, we are all much happier. And, he's the best. He's got a gleam in his eye that honestly makes me fearful, and well, as the mother of 4...two who I would consider "highly spirited"...that's saying a lot.

Here is a recent pic of Four.

That's a wrap.

Week of September 14

2009-09-20T06:42:00.007-05:00

We had a week of mostly independant/book work type stuff and no really fun projects to share here. The highlight of our week by far was our 4H club field trip to the landfill. Here is Two holding the flag for our ceremony time.

A shot of the work at the landfill...

And this is Duke, "the landfill dog"...

I took a trip to the school supply store over the weekend. The last time I was at my friend Jemma's (of Life is Not a Cereal super-blog-dom) she had the poster you see pictured on the right. I loved it, and was so happy to get one. I've been doing something similar, just writing them down on paper and giving the girls options after they are done. Mostly it's Two that needs suggestions....One can typically entertain herself with Barbie and Littlest Pet Shop pretty well. The poster on the left is for our Vocabulary work. They'll take turns and then we'll review all of the words they both did on Friday's.

Two helped Three with a puppet project this week. This is from a kit I found on clearance at Walmart. It had 4 fabric puppet sets in it, with directions to make the puppet. I need to go back and see if they have the other set. They had wild animals, and farm animals. I got the wild animal pack (containing a bear, tiger, elephant, and a monkey.)

It was a good week for bugs at our house....unfortuneatly this butterfly was gravely injured when Two found him, but holding a butterfly is exciting nonetheless.

And this guy spent a lot of time hanging around our porch, so One snapped a shot of him.
I'm currently providing after school care a couple days a week for a dear friend, and the kids have been playing with Wedgits, A LOT. Here is one of their creations.

My 15 Favorite Blogs and The Lovely Blog Award

2009-09-18T12:18:00.005-05:00

I appreciate Jemma over at Life is Not a Cereal for nominating me for this award. Jemma knows not how wonderful she is, and how lucky I feel to have the priveledge to have her in my life (yes Jemma and I are REAL friends, like in the real world! LOL).

Now, I'll share my 15 favorite blogs:

Homeschooling:

1. Life is Not a Cereal (this is Jemma's blog, and I'm not just putting this one in there because she nominated me...it really is one of my very favorites. She's so creative, and has such brilliant ideas.

2. No Time for Flash Cards is probably my current favorite haunt on the web. I'm there at LEAST once a day.

3. Making of a Montessori Mum has lots of cute stuff (for my littles anyway...)

4. Mariposa the site that brought me "Smart but Scattered" a book that shall forever be given credit for changing how I think of my eldest child.

5. The Wonder Years

6. BookWorms Book Nook

7. Totally Tots

8. SCHOOL-N-SUCH I've had the pleasure of knowing this author for years via an online group.

9. Art Projects for Kids, I think I may have shared this blog on my own blog before, but it's worth repeating.

(Just for me)

Multi-slacking Mamalicious is a lot of fun to read....I enjoy it, she cracks me up!

To the Moon and Back again, just something I enjoy!

Frugal Upstate a frugal living website.

A Year of Slow Cooking can be a life saver!

Parenting (but not homeschooling):

Milk Allergy Mom as the mom of two milk allergic children (one of them also being egg allergic) I appreciate this site so much!

Best Parent Ever is a very tongue in cheek parenting site. I <3 sarcasm, so I love every minute of it. Enjoy!

Back from Hiatus

2009-09-14T17:10:00.003-05:00

I did NOT fall of the blogwagon again, really I didn't. We had company, and took a full 2 weeks off (they came in mid-week, and left mid-week...the days before and after were spent cleaning up). So, I have had no school things to share with any of you.

But, today we climbed back into a normal routine. I have a blog award I need to answer (that's on my to-do list for this week), and a "typical day" post I want to share after reading Jemma's (Life Is Not a Cereal) post about her typcial day...I'm afraid mine will pale in comparison, but I'm going to share anyway. Tomorrow Four has a specialist appt that will eat up most of my day, so we'll probably do mostly independant work in the afternoon (I hate morning appts as they mess up the whole flow of my day but this particular doctor only does Tuesday and Thursday 9-1...and we need at least 2 1/2 hours for the appt).

Today....

We had a 4H field trip to the local landfill where we all got to stand atop 80 ft of garbage! We got to see the dozers working on spreading and covering the trash, we got to see huge piles of mulch from the yard waste that people have brought in, and they gave us these great recycled newspaper pencils.

Music Education

2009-08-23T12:05:00.003-05:00

This week we worked on rounds. Two was also learning about mountain ranges of the world, as well as how mountains are formed, so the selection was appropriate. Two is the one with her fingers in her ears...it helped her keep track of what line she was on! :) You will also notice that One hurries her ending...she was over it. Tween!

Better than a Book Report

2009-08-20T14:03:00.002-05:00

Here is a link with 50 alternatives to a standard book report:

http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/EJ/0871-jan98/EJ0871Ideas.PDF

One has just finished reading The Trumpet of the Swan (which she LOVED, by the way). And, as an alternative to a book report, I had her write an acrostic of the main character's name (an adaptation of an idea I got from the above link). If you're looking to change things up, you may want to check it out.

And, here is One's finished product:

Louis is dumb.
One hundred dollars was the first money he earned.
In Philadelphia, he played at a nightclub.
Under a bush was where Louis kept his things.
Serena was the most beautiful swan Louis knew.

Group Project: Relief Map of South America

2009-08-16T12:33:00.002-05:00

One and Two had a group project assignment this week. They were both learning about South America in their Core Knowledge books, and a teaching idea that was listed in my book for One was to create your own relief map of the continent showing the Andes Mountains and the Amazon River. Well, Two was learning about South America as well, the Andes Mountains, and relief maps....so I included her in the project. They struggle some times to get along (what sisters don't I ask you??) and I think it will be good throughout the year for them to work together on things. They did come to me more than once asking what they should do when they had reached a disagreement about how they should do something, and I refused to intervene. I told them they had to work TOGETHER, and that how they handled the disagreements would play a big part in their grade. Overall, they did well in that area.

Rolling out play-doh to make the Andes.

Painting:

Thier finished work:

It's not the neatest project in the world. But, I don't know that they've ever had to do something of this nature, especially together, so I think it was good first effort. I expect later projects in the year will be done with more care for details.

That care for details is something I've been discussing with One this week anyway, she told me she didn't know she was supposed to put 100% effort into ALL her work. *eye roll* She's such a tween!

Volcano

2009-08-12T15:28:00.004-05:00

This is a VERY simplified volcano model. We could have jazzed it up, and actually BUILT a volcano of clay around the jar, but we've had a busy week and didn't get to that but I still wanted to do the 'hands on' part of the unit.

*I wanted to add: Two was very unsure of herself, and didn't like that I was video taping her. But, in the end, decided I could use it here anyway.*

Our New Look

2009-08-12T06:49:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to point out our new banner! WOO HOO. A friend from a message board made it for me (and 2 others to choose from, so I may change them up every now and then!), and I'm thrilled. :)

A Beginning Taxonomy Project

2009-08-11T09:54:00.004-05:00

(As a reminder: all children will be referred to as a number, their birth order from here on out)

One is learning about taxonomy. As a beginning project, she went out and collected several different types of plants. This is a teaching idea from the Core Knowledge Teacher Handbook (which I LOVE). Here she is examining her choices, to select how they will be grouped.

Now, she has sorted them according to leaf shape (her choice), and is affixing them to a small poster board.

Now, she is trying to decide which describing word to use for that last group.

And, her completed work:

Two is working on cooking, and learning her way around the kitchen. Last week she assisted me in making bbq chicken sandwiches from leftover roasted chicken. Last night she helped me make smoked sausage with pasta. She insisted I take a picture, since I was taking pictures of what her sister was doing. Here she is cutting celery (and while I was blogging this...she asked if she could help with tonight's dinner!):

New Year

2009-08-09T18:39:00.002-05:00

Last Monday we started our new school year. The first day was ROUGH...Four was not a happy camper most of the day making it difficult for me to get what I needed to get done, done. After that first day, I was frazzled. I was hopeful though too. I hoped day 2 would go better, and it was a little better. Four seemed to have a rough few days, but we managed to get a lot accomplished anyway. We actually got everything finished that I had scheduled, except one project. We started the project, but it didn't go smootly. The project dried slowly and ended up a mess! Overall, I give us a grade of B+ for the week. Not a bad start.

My personal goal is to blog at least once a week. I thought I would do once a day, but then I realized I was more likely to meet my goal if I set if for once a week. So, I will strive to do more, I'll be happy with once a week.

To simplify my life, I ordered all the materials available from Core Knowledge this year. In years past, I've used the student book and did all the legwork myself. I have to say, I love having the Teacher Handbook and Day by Day planner! We are using Math Advantage for math again this year (this textbook works well for both girls, so I plan on sticking with it). I just bought a new curriculum for spelling, as both girls tested poorly in spelling on their end of the year evals. It is Recipe for Spelling, and so far so good. It has games, and those are always a hit around here.

Four is screaming. More to come (including pics).

Earth Day

2009-04-21T08:29:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is Earth Day. This morning I'm going to share just a couple things we'll be doing.

Yesterday we had our 4H club meeting, and the topic was weather. Two (from here on out all children will be referred to as a number, based on birth order :)) was VERY interested in this meeting, and learned a lot, as well as really sparked her interest. She decided upon coming home that she wanted to do her first 4H project on weather because she really wanted to learn more. So...I'm going to tie that into our Earth Day study.

Today we're going to make a rain gauge. There are many good links if you simply google make a rain gauge. Here is the one we are specifically doing: http://www.ciese.org/curriculum/weatherproj2/en/docs/raingauge.shtml
We'll make this gauge and place it on our back porch for one month to monitor the rain fall, then she will present it at our next 4H club meeting for show and tell. So, since we'll be learning about and monitoring rain fall...we're going to talk about acid rain. I have a book I picked up somewhere called Looking at the Environment by David Suzuki. It has some good info about acid rain in it. We'll be reading about that, and then talking about filtering water. There is a great project in the book where you filter dirty water. We live on a pond, so finding some muddy water will be an easy task. You simply filter it through a coffee filter (I knew there was a reason I ALWAYS have those on hand...even though no on in my house drinks coffee!). You add a layer of sand, crushed charcoal, sand to the filter, and slowly filter the water through. You should be able to see a big difference in the cleanliness of the water.

We'll also be talking about pH, and testing some common things as well as our pond water, and later our rain sample. Here is a link I'm using: http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/education/experiments.html

We'll also cover the water cycle. I'm using this page to make a matching game/activity. I'll cut off the paper where it has the "answers" to what the letters are and make it so that the girls have to match the appropriate term with the appropriate picture, using velcro dots. :) http://www.kidzone.ws/water/cactivity1.htm

On each individual page there is an activity. We will do those as well. We've done this set of activities repeatedly over the years....from back when I was doing science classes here in our house (so...Two wasn't even 5 yet, and she's 9 now). But, I think kids learn a little more each time, even from the same activity.

We have a great book titled You Can Save the Planet: 50 Ways You Can Make a Difference. I'm going to have the girls look through the book and see what they can find that we already do to make a difference, and find some new things we can do to make a difference. I'll keep you posted on what they decide.

Acrostic poem, we'll do another acrostic poem on Earth Day as well, because I enjoyed them so much last year. :) I'm not sure the kids did...but hey, part of the perks of being the teacher is they do some of the things *I* want, right???

A new post...hold on to your hat! LOL

2009-04-21T08:27:00.002-05:00

I had no clue it had been since October that I had not blogged here. And, I thought I was neglecting the preschool blog. This is beyond neglect. I'm sorry all....I am nearing the end of my 4th (and final) pregnancy, and I've been trying to make sure school is all caught up, projects are completed, etc. So, I've been neglecting my computer...much to the delight of my husband, as our house has never looked better! :) In addition to a lot of housework, I've instituted a new schedule that is keeping our house running very smoothly. Now, in 4 weeks when Four (the nickname of the baby) arrives, I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune.

Now, I'm going to post some stuff we are currently doing....enjoy!

State Capitals Matching Game

2009-02-24T12:56:00.002-05:00

I made a very simple game for the kids today. We have some Montessori 3 part cards, but they had a little too much info on them for my younger DD. She is struggling with remembering the capitals, and I didn't want to overwhelm her with more info. So, I made a very simple version.

I pulled out index cards. I took a sharpie and wrote the capital on half the card and the state name on the lower half of the card. I wrote them in the same color, but in hindsight probably should have written them in differing colors. After having written them in the same color I needed some way for it to be easy for the kids to differentiate between which group was which in order to sort the cards before playing. I put a large star on the back of the capital cards (tie in to how capitals are represented on most maps), as well as a small star next to the name of each capital on the front of the card. This way as they pull them out of the container they can sort them quickly.

Then it's just a matching game. Match the capital card with the state card. Again, I have some great montessori 3 part cards that we will use later, but for my younger DD these are great for right now.

Art: Tissue paper mosaics

2008-10-15T11:50:00.003-05:00

After learning about mosaics, and making some glass mosaics for 4H (my oldest's mosaic even won a blue ribbon), we decided to make tissue paper ones yesterday.

Hands On Types of Sentences

2008-10-15T11:10:00.003-05:00

I created this hands on activity for my daughter to sort out the types of sentences. It's simple to do. You simply write the types of sentences on the top of the peices of paper, and then I typed up some different examples of the sentences. I cut the sentences apart (because I'm neurotic...if crooked lines don't bother you, let the child to cut them apart) and then she read them and glued them to the appropriate sheet of paper.

She really enjoyed it.

Surgery

2008-10-15T11:04:00.002-05:00

So we all underwent surgery this morning. Some of the dialog was so comical that I decided to share it here. They operated on me, and then we took turns operating on each of the girls (the baby was not so cooperative as to lay down for his surgery).

DD: "Lets remove her stretchmarks." (A procedure performed with a vacuum attachment...oh if only it were so easy.)

DD: "Lets soak her organs in vinegar before we put them back." NICE. It is also important to note that the "vinegar" was an empty bottle of caffeine free coke. LOL

DD: "Stitch her up." (A procedure performed with a staple remover, strangely enough)

DD to DS: "Baby, do you want to cut sissy open?" DS: "UH HUHHHH" (I think this falls under things I never thought I'd hear my children say.)

DD1"Oh nooo, her liver flew out." DD2"I'll catch it in this bucket." DD1"Fry it up, medium rare please." Ewwww. That's all I can say.

DD1 (said after scooping out all of her sisters internal organs)"Let's stitch her up." ME: "Did you put her organs back in?" DD1"Oops." This last one provoked such fits of laughter....because it just rolled off her tongue...oops like that fixed it all!

Discovering Great Artists

2008-09-10T06:52:00.003-05:00

Project #1: We made egg tempura paint, and painted with it. My girls thought the process was GREAT! They were suprised to be able to make their own paint so easily, and that the color (the pink specifically) was so vibrant.

Crushing Chalk:

Mixing it up:

Painting with the paint they made:
Finished Projects:

Rating: 9 out of 10

Back to School!

2008-09-10T06:35:00.003-05:00

So, we officially started our "new" year on Monday. We didn't really take a break over the summer, we took a 2 week break the last two weeks, but that was really it. So, it seems strange to call it new, when we didn't really stop. But, we're working in all our new curriculum, so that makes it new. We've really been struggling. I'm not sure if it's just too much work, or if it's just new and going to take some time to get in the groove. I'm going to give it until the end of next week or so, and then reevaluate. Currently, it's taking us almost twice as long as usual to finish our daily work, and that's just TOO long! We've yet to finish before 4 in the afternoon. Now, granted we haven't been starting until nearly 11, and actually Monday we didn't start until closer to noon (DD#2 slept until almost 11 that day). I guess now that I think about it that way that's only 5 hours, including lunch in there....for 5th grade work, I guess that's not THAT much. I also must admit that we've veered off some, and we've had some great discussions going on while working on our election lapbook. See, blogging is therapeutic...I feel much better about it now. I'm sure we'll get in our groove, and it'll get a little shorter...and if we could get moving earlier (at least my oldest DD...she's an early riser) it'd be even better. We could still be done around lunch. There, crisis solved. Thanks for reading my ramble!

Now, on to what this post is really about. Aside from it taking way longer than I'd like (I hate feeling like ALL we did was school...ugh), it's going well. Here are some first day pictures, the girls coloring Cyrus the Great as I read to them from Story of the World.

A Final Look at Summer

2008-09-08T09:12:00.006-05:00

Our Family's Footprints in the Sand

For our final week of summer we spent it in Florida, visiting family. A couple years ago when we visited the beach, I took a picture of my girls standing and facing the ocean. Last year, on the babies first visit to the ocean, I took a pic of all 3 of them looking out at the water. We have an ocean themed bathroom, and the pictures have been framed on the wall, in frames that I covered in shells that we collected on that first trip, since. So, OF COURSE, I had to take a new shot to update the wall. Here it is.

Here the girls are VERY excited to be going out on Pop's john boat.

Sitting in the boat:

"Bye mom!"

The baby was VERY excited to play in this little "beach" (actually a small inlet off the Gulf of Mexico). And, yes, it was raining (we were going to get wet anyway, right? So why let a little shower ruin our fun!).

A few weeks back we went to this fantastic park near us. There is a HUGE rock by the river, and then a beautiful overlook you can hike up to from the river. Here are my girls in front of the rock (you can't see anywhere close to ALL of the rock, and they look TINY).

This is the view from the overlook:

The girls up on the overlook:

Random shots of the hike:

A really cool piece of bark:
Baby checking out the "fairy house":
A ginormous mushroom my oldest dd wanted me to snap a shot of:

Art

2008-09-07T11:00:00.004-05:00

So, one of my BIGGEST goals for this year is to incorporate more art. My oldest is an artist, in every sense of the word. She loves all things artistic (dance, theater, music, painting, drawing...etc, etc, etc). I have signed up for an art class, and she seems to really enjoy learning the more technical side. She is clearly a visual learner, and after reading "the way they learn" by Cynthia Tobias, I realize that I need to incorporate more artistic things across our curriculum for her. I also got a great art "curriculum" called Great Artists.

To tie into our unit on China, she was reading in "What Your 4th Grader Needs to Know" about Chinese art (calligraphy, and painting on silk specifically). So, for art one day we broke out a "Paint Your Own Silk Scarves" kit she had gotten last Christmas (she had done one or two, but I knew we had one more...I'm really glad that worked out, unfortuneatly I can't take credit for planning it that way). And, she painted on silk....

In DD#2's "What Your Third Grader Needs to Know" book, she was reading about Mary Cassatt, so I looked up Cassatt in our Great Artists book, and we did this "Monoprint" project. She painted her painting on a cookie sheet, then she pressed a piece of white cardstock onto it, and then lifted to get a print.

The print is now framed on our wall. This is an idea I got from somewhere in cyberspace.....I can't remember the resource! Each of the kids have a frame and I periodically change out our art work. When they do a new project that they really like (or I really like), I put it into the frame. They really enjoy having their artwork displayed in this way, and that people comment when they come into our house (the frames actually flank our hallway, one on each side...so they are hard to miss).

I also used this Artists Coloring Pages website, which was shared with me on my Homepreschool group. She colored the Cassatt page, but they have MANY to choose from!

Throwing themselves into their learning.....

2008-08-09T05:37:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, while my toddler napped, my big girls worked on their lapbooks. They are working on a lapbook about China and the 2008 Summer Olympics. Technically, we've completed the China part now, that is what they finished up yesterday. Here is a pic:

Quite the sprawl, huh? Scissors, glue, papers, folders, encyclopedia, laptop, stapler....check!

They are really enjoying this project, and soon we're going to start our election lapbook, which I hope they'll enjoy equally!

Less Stress, More FUN.

2008-07-14T06:01:00.003-05:00

I've adopted a new personal motto.

It's been going well actually. I'm trying to bring back into focus the really important things in life. Often times, I get too caught up in what "needs" to get done, and why it isn't getting done. This robs me of the fun. I've decided to take it back!

Something else we've been working on as a family is "honor." Not only honoring your mom and dad, but also honoring your siblings, and honoring your friends. What does honoring mean? In our house, it means these things:

1. Make the other person feel SPECIAL.
2. Do MORE than what they expect from you.
3. Have a positive attitude even in negative situations.

In the spirit of honoring, my oldest DD (who is 10) suprised me last Monday with this:

It was an effort to make me feel SPECIAL, but it also played into my less stress, more fun goal. There isn't a ton of stuff you can do at home, with 3 kids, on a Monday morning that is more fun than a bubble bath. Thanks baby.

A typing program my kids actually like! (ps...it's FREE!)

2008-07-07T12:36:00.001-05:00

So, I've been on a quest to find a typing program, for free, that my kids actually enjoy doing.

All the free one's I've found so far are geared more towards adults, and are pretty boring.

I finally managed to google the right keywords apparently (I'm not the best googler!), and found this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

There are songs, and silly charachters, and my kids actually ASK to do typing!

I'm one of those people that is big on penmanship, and believe me my girls work on that too....but typing is one of those must have skills, and the earlier they learn the easier life is. And, it's free...fun...and they ask to do it. Win, Win, WIN!

Enjoy.

Race Day

2008-06-16T13:16:00.002-05:00

I SOOO wish I had taken my camera. Next year, I will for SURE!

Saturday DD#2 and I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. We participated in the Family Fun 1 mile walk last year, and it was a good time but my very athletic DD wasn't satisfied. She requested that we do the 5K this year, and I decided it was something I could commit to.

Well, I am SO very proud of her. I knew I would hold her back (because I'm not in fantastic shape...while I did my very best, and am proud of myself too!) so I told her she could go ahead of me, just to stay with the crowd along the race route and when she crossed the finish line to move to the side and wait for me. After about 1/2 mile, I completley lost site of her.

She finished in the top 10! She did the 5K in 30 minutes!! She's my hero. I wanted to share my pride with all of you. Thanks for reading!

Looking Ahead

2008-06-08T08:57:00.006-05:00

**Adding that I've been working on this post since 6/8, and it may not be looking very far ahead by the time I finish!** Since the homeschool conference, I've been looking ahead at next years goals. We finished our state required testing just before I left, and we plan on filling in any gaps over the summer before officially starting the new year in late August/early September.

I'm using Home Learning Year by Year by Rupp as my guide, and went through it for each current grade level and found some things that we hadn't covered. So, that's my summer lesson plan. I, of course, true to my nature..completly nerded it up! I created a spreadsheet, broken down by subject area. You know, a list of what needs to be completed for Language Arts and Reading, Math, Science, etc. THEN in my further nerdom, I highlighted the things that are covered in our Core Knowldege books, or other text books that I know we have around the house. Therefore, I know what things I need to find stuff for on the internet or at the library.

This should really make covering the things that I need to get through over the summer much easier.

I'm one of "those" people, you know the kind who need to check things off a list to make myself feel like I've accomplished things. I also do this with housework btw, it's not solely a homeschooling thing!

Now, I just wanted to list some of the things we're looking forward to using next year!

We'll be using the Core Knowledge books. I'm torn with my youngest DD. She is very excited about being in "4th grade" (Don't ask me where this sort of thing comes from!), but in all reality she would only be in 3rd grade if she were in public school. So, I think I may slow her down a tad, and do the entire CK book for 3rd grade. Now, if she really wants to, we could push through it faster. Or maybe I'll combine some things....CK builds pretty methodically. So, for each subject we could start in the 3rd grade book, then move on to the same subject matter in the 4th grade book if she seems ready. That sounds good. See, you just read my thought process. As I typed that it became clear that that is a good plan for us. We'll move as quickly or as slowly as she needs/wants, and if we cover all of 4th grade by next summer, great. If not, great. I just have to sell her on the deal. :-)

My oldest DD will continue working in her 4th grade book over the summer, and then move into 5th grade in the fall. She's doing the Core Knowledge series.

Now, we'll be starting a Spanish curriculum called Learn Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day. It's a nice book, and is set up to cover as much or as little as you can comfortably do in 10 minutes. I like that it's short and sweet, so it won't be overwhelming. It came with a CD so you can hear the correct pronunciations of things, which is my favorite part I think. I have a French ancestry, and as such French comes much easier for me (I've had several years, and while I'm not fluent, I get by). So, some of you are asking...why then didn't I buy Learn French in 10 Minutes a Day? While, I wanted to, I really did. I would LOVE my girls to speak french! BUT, we live in the south, and while I don't know how it is everywhere else, but we have a large population of Spanish speaking citizens in our area. It is a HUGE plus on your resume if you can speak Spanish. So, I'm thinking of their lives down the road, and the fact that while French would be fun for me, it wouldnt' be as useful as learning Spanish (for them, or me). I know, we could learn French now and work on Spanish later, but I just feel like it would be great to start now and continue on through middle and high school levels, giving them a lot of competency as they enter college.

Currently, DD#2 uses Math Advantage which is a public school math text book. It is full of color pictures and I find it pretty thorough, with just enough repetition for her. So, I recently purchased the next level book for her. She is almost finished (will be before the end of summer) with her current book. I have recieved the new one in the mail, and it looks just as wonderful as the first one! It's a great book for visual and hands on kids, as it has a lot of color and pictures, but also uses a lot of maniupulatives. DD#1 is using Miquon Math, and will use the Key To series in the fall. Maybe. She really struggles with math (simple things like addition are difficult for her). So, we are going at a slow pace. Introducing concepts with Miquon, and then practice, practice, practice. So, if I feel like she's ready we'll start the Key To books, or if she shows more interest in decimals and fractions. Right now, I just want her to be able to add 3 digit numbers without it taking 10 minutes a problem, and her banging her head against the wall.

We'll continue using Story of the World. I love this book. The girls like the stories, and the activities are pretty good too. My goal for next year is to do MORE of the projects. Of course, with two babies (no, I'm not pregnant, but we do plan on trying for another baby soon), I can HOPE to do more projects. The girls really have liked the projects we've managed to do, but I haven't been super about planning for the projects or we could have done many more. It just always seems I forget and then I don't have time to get the supplies (which usually aren't that hard to come by) together in time, and I feel like we need to keep moving forward. One of my goals for the entire year (in every subject) is to do more hands on learning and more artistic things (as I have a kinesthetic child and an artistic/visual child) to go along with the material we are covering at any given time, so maybe that will help me be more motivated.

For writing, we need some real help. My kids aren't writers. That's entirely my fault. Now, they like to write in their journals (just nonsense sort of stuff), but the mechanics of writing and the varied types of writing, I've failed them on. So, after reading at Little Acorns Treehouse (you should all be jealous that I know Jenny in real life!!) I decided to order Just Write. I recieved it and have briefly looked it over, it looks very good. I would expect nothing less though from a recommendation from Jenny. I've now had a chance to look it over more in depth, and I think it's going to work well for us. I've already started using it with my oldest, as she didn't like the idea of working from the same book as her sister (she's older, wiser, smarter, more mature, etc...) so I let her start earlier than I had anticipated starting, I was going to start them both together in Book 1 in the fall. But, now I'm hoping to move through Book 1 very quickly with DD#1, and maybe start Book 2 in late fall with her and Book 1 with her sister in the early fall.

For art, we'll be using a great book I found at the conference called Discovering Great Artists. It struck me as a great book because not only does it give good information about the artists, but it gives good info about technique and style. It also invites you to "copy" the style and tecniques used by each artists (something suggested by Heather in the past, and something my kids really enjoyed). I must admit, I'll be learning a lot from this curriculum as well!

For music, I picked up a CD-Rom called Music Games (from Rainbow Resource). The girls are excited to start this one (I'll be using it too, as I know NOTHING about music), and it really looks like A WHOLE LOT OF FUN!

You might have noticed that I'll be learning a lot WITH the children this year. The beauty of homeschooling, and a position that I have long held is that I don't need to know everything to adequately educate my children. I love learning alongside them.

I also want to note that my laptop is the ONLY reason I have finished the post, almost a month after it's inception (today is July 7, even though it posts to June 8). As I type this, I am sitting on my back step watching my children play in their pools. Ahhh, technology.

Summer fun pictures to follow.

Responsibility Lottery!

2008-06-04T11:52:00.003-05:00

My new responsibility system, I decided to share it with the world. Aren't you lucky?

So, I wrote out all the chores the girls are responsible for. Including detailed directions on what exactly that chore means. I put this in a page protector and hung it on the fridge for reference.

I wrote out the chores themselves on slips of paper, and folded them up. I placed them inside a bag and each morning the girls must draw slips of paper. Whatever they pull is what they are assigned for that day. This ended the "I wanted to do that!" and "She always gets the good chores" that we had before (because one of them would undoubetdly finish the morning routine first and therefore was able to pick which chores she wanted to do off the list and get the "fun" chores first). This eliminates that, and it pretty well ensures that you won't have the same set of jobs each day or week.

My kids are 8 1/2 and 10. So your chores would vary according to your kids ages obviously, but to get your juices flowing here is our list:

Set table
Clear table
Unload dishwasher
Laundry Helper
Empty trash (this is a Monday only chore)
Erase Chalk/Dry Erase boards
Water and Weed flower beds (every few days)
Clean dog bowls
Brother's Keeper (this is a favorite chore actually! What this means in our house is that when I need to get something done NOW--meaning I can't put it off until he is happier/asleep--they are in charge of playing with him. It also means that during errands they in charge of keeping him happy while I do what needs to be done.)
Shopping Helper (holds the list, makes sure we got everything on the list, keeps track of extra's--helping to keep us on our budget--and is responsible for making sure the bags get taken into the store, and put back in the car after we've unloaded the groceries at home)
Change the sheets (Wednesday only)
Refridgerator Clean Out (Thursday only)
Cooking Helper

As for my baby, well he's in charge of helping to put away the messes he creates throughout the day, as well as he's a great laundry helper! He absolutely loves to put things IN the baskets and to hlep put things in the dryer. He also has just started helping with unloading the dishwasher (for the things in the low cabinets), and putting away the groceries (which actually consists of unloading the bag, and occasionally bringing things to me).

Homeschool Conference

2008-05-24T05:34:00.002-05:00

For the past two days I have had the great opportunity to be attending our states homeschool conference. First and foremost, the very nice benefit of this conference is seeing SO MANY homeschoolers in one place. If you ever have had that "I'm alone in this venture." feeling....this is the cure. It's nice to see all the adults, but I've really enjoyed also seeing the children! I didn't personally bring my children, although I think next year (if I come again, which I hope to), I will bring my oldest, possibly both of the older kids. But defineatly my oldest.

Secondly, the book fair. Oh, the book fair. I am a lover of books. My husband is going to be very dismayed when I get home later today. I packed my suitcase back up this morning, as I will be checking out of the hotel early today, and HALF of it is now full of books! Good, solid, eductaional books. I got my Core Knowledge book for my oldest for next year (5th grade, I ask you HOW is that possible??), I also got the 3rd grade book to recap with my younger one and prepare her better for the Grade 4 book her sister is currently using. We'll most likely skip around though, and not cover everything in the 3rd grade book, and then she'll start the 4th grade book in the fall.

Thirdly, the workshops. I've had both good and not so good experiences with the workshops. Some of them have been great, exactly what I needed and had hoped for, very informative and noteworthy. BUT, some of them have been less than up to par in my opinion, not really covering the issues laid forth in the outline, not giving the information *I* was looking for (not that I am the center of the universe, but I am the center of this blog so I can be perfectly honest), and not at all helpful. Nonetheless, I've enjoyed them.

My favorite workshops were the one on learning styles (I also bought the book "The Way They Learn" by Cynthia Tobias), and a vendor workshop on lapbooks. I really enjoy lapbooks, and want to do more of them in the coming year as I see them as such a valuable tool...in additon to just being plain fun! I also purchased a lapbook kit on the election, which I'm REALLY excited about getting into with the girls. They've been very interested in the election this year, so I'm going to capitalize on that interest. I'm also defineatly planning on buying more of the books that make it so much simpler to make the books. Hands of a Child has a quartley freebie, and currently it's an Amelia Earhart lapbook. I got that today as well! :-)

Today is the last day of the conference, and I'm looking forward to the last 3 seminars. One of them is on frustration...yeah, I have those days. One of them is on raising kids who make a difference. This is one of my big goals for my children's lives, raising children who go out in the world no afraid to do the important things (not that their important things will necessarily match mine). I want them to help others, and be of service to others. Then I head home! I'm excited to get home as this was my first time being away from my itty-bitty. I'm away from the girls for a few days at a time on a normal basis (because they spend weekends with their father pretty often), so while I still miss them (I miss them when I'm home and they're gone as well though), missing the baby is worse.

Earth Day Acrostic Poems

2008-04-23T08:21:00.002-05:00

In honor of Earth Day (which we are celebrating all week) my girls wrote these:

Recycle
Electricity, save it!
Conserve
You can collect buckets of rain water and use it to wash your car!
Carry cans and plastic bags to a recycling center.
Less watering!
Eat less beef!

Recycle
Energy, use less of it!
Conserve
You can save water by putting a bucket under the faucet when waiting for the water to get warm.
Consider volunteering to pick up trash around your neighborhood or local park.
Littering, don't do it!
Electricity, use less of it by taking the challenge to not use the lights during the day!! :) !! (that was the punctuation on her paper lol)

Hoping you're all inspired now!

Live long and Be green!

Going Green for Earth Day

2008-04-21T08:40:00.003-05:00

If you visit often, you may have noticed I changed my blog color scheme to a "greener" me.

In honor of tomorrow being earth day, I've been thinking of ways I can be more green! I am pretty green...we cloth diaper, we dont' have any paper towels in our house, we compost, we conserve water, we make sure unused appliances are unplugged, we use cloth grocery bags.

I challenge myself to not turn on the lights during the day (this will be a big challenge for my kids!) as it seems to just be habit to switch on a light. I challenge myself to line dry anything possible. I challenge myself to use the fans to help cut down on the air conditioner running as the weather warms up.

I challenge ALL of you to find even just a small way that you can challenge yourself to be even just a little greener. I read someone else's blog recently and she mentioned that she uses A LOT of paper towels, so she was challenging herself to use only one roll a week. That's a big change, and one that does effect the planet, even though it may seem like something small!

Leave me a comment letting me know what you're challenging yourself to do to save our planet.

States Coloring Pages--FREE!

2008-04-17T06:58:00.002-05:00

These are nice, free states coloring pages. I just discovered them....

http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/learn/states/

Enjoy.

Projects

2008-04-07T09:34:00.003-05:00

Last week, I completed my "Sandpaper" letters (actually felt). I got the information on how to make them from an email group that I'm in. Here is the photo and info from the source. Mine look just like these, because I made them the same way. They were actually suprisingly simple!

http://family.webshots.com/photo/2062535970100452258UfKYqh

This weeks project is to make the moveable alphabet. I've already printed the ones I chose to use, you can find different templates online. Now, I just have to cut them apart and laminate them. Originally, I was going to make them from dough, but I just couldn't get it right. So, for now, these printed ones will do. Eventually, I'd like to make some from a thick foam type board or maybe even just fun foam.

I also got caught up on my flags for the states.

Twister! and why EVERY home should have this game

2008-04-07T06:24:00.001-05:00

(For those of you who read both blogs, this is a repeat...but I had to share it here for those who only view this one!)

Twister is such an EXCELLENT learning tool!

You can use it to teach colors (blue, red, green, yellow).

It teaches right and left!

It teaches body parts--hand and foot anyway. (this is the way in which we'll be using it with my toddler this week).

You can tape letters/numbers onto the dots and then call things like "Put your left foot on a red R."

You can use it to teach ordinals. "Put your right hand on the third blue dot."

You can use it to teach addition/multiplication, tape the numbers into place. Spin the spinner twice. Have child do the math operation. "Add your left foot and your right hand."

You can use it for geography! Tape the names of states, countries, capitals, continents, etc to the dots. Spin the spinner. Have the child name the capital of the state/country they are on, have them identify the bordering countries, or bodies of water, etc.

Don't let your own imagination stop here! I'm telling you Twister can be used for just about anything!

I knew this day would come....

2008-04-02T17:30:00.004-05:00

I knew the day would come when my children would refer to Tomato Soup, as just that, Tomato Soup. So, why you ask did this event make me want to cry?

This was one of the LAST 'baby' things they had left. So, it was a sad sad day. All their lives they have called tomato soup "cracker soup". Honestly, I don't remember a time since they could talk that they didn't refer to it as such. So when the words "tomato soup" came out of her mouth (my oldest that is), it nearly brought my world crashing to the ground.

I know I should be happy, she's growing, she's beautiful, she's talented, she's amazing.....

I'm writing this to remind you ALL that they are growing. Far too fast. And no matter how firmly you plant your feet, and drag them behind you, they just keep moving forward. Hug them, hold them close, these days are fleeting.

Egg-citing Science

2008-03-20T20:00:00.002-05:00

Tommorrow we'll be doing some Egg-citing Science. It will have a lot to do with colors, and color blending and light. But, I'll also be throwing in some animal science, and a "rubber egg" experiment.

We'll be dying Easter eggs the old fashioned way, with food coloring. This will allow for coloring mixing, as opposed to just dropping in the prepared tablets. Now, my big kids know what colors mixed together make what, but we've invited our preschool student over, and this should be a lot of fun for him. We'll be doing an "inquiry approach"..."What do you think will happen if we mix the red and the blue?"

I made a painted color wheel, and we'll be spinning it to see what happens when the colors spin around (it looks REALLY cool).

We'll be playing with our prism, and talking about how all colors are present in light.

We'll look at red liquid in a bottle with a light shining through it from the front, and a bottle of green liquid with a light shining through it from the back (it makes a difference!).

We'll have free exploration with our color paddles, and color window clings (examing tints and shades).

We'll also probably paint a spring themed picture, using only primary colors in our color palatte.

Lastly, we'll be talking about animals that are hatched from eggs (we'll start with T-Rex, as our preschool student is VERY into dinosaurs).

Rubber egg experiment: put an egg in a jar w/a lid. Cover with vinegar. Leave for 3 days, examine the differences in the eggs shell.

Flat Zeke goes Around the World!

2008-03-18T07:35:00.004-05:00

Over the weekend, we attended a Girl Scout International Festival with our Girl Scout troop. We took this opportunity to take Flat Zeke to something fun! So far his time with us has been pretty boring, as we are having a very sick winter for some reason, and haven't done much at all.

With A, ready to tour the globe!

At our troops booth, learning about Puerto Rico!

Close up with a coqui

Learning about Russia

With a Brasilian fox

Learning about Mexico (IN the sombrero)

Learning about China
Learning about Canada

Cuisenaire Rod Sites

2008-03-18T07:20:00.002-05:00

Here are a few sites I've found with some good ideas using Cuisenaire Rods. We just started using Miquon Math (since my oldest is really struggling, and I'm hopeful this approach will help). Enjoy playing!

Cuisenaire Rods: Space, Color, and Mathe

Cooking with Cuisenaire Rods

Introduction to Fractions (5th grade lesson plan)

Play with the Rods online

Cuisenaire Fractions Lesson

Math Perimeter Problem Solving

Math Game

2008-03-12T09:10:00.003-05:00

As I type my kids are playing this game, and I wish you could hear them squealing and shouting.

I found this idea in an old Mailbox magazine I picked up at a thrift store, its from Feb/March of 1990! :-) I am a Mailbox subscriber, and so when I saw this one, for .25 I couldn't pass it up. And it has proven worth it's quarter, already!

It's similar to War, but it is titled "Porky" (Pigging Out on Place Value is the section it's in.)

It makes a great center if you have more than one child (they can play together like mine are) or as a family game if you have an only, or kids in to wide of an age range to play this together. I also can think of some different variations.

You take a deck of cards, and remove all the tens (and jokers or wild cards). Aces=1, and face cards=0. Deal out all of the cards, then you flip over the top two. The first card is your ones place, and the second card is your tens place. The child then 'reads' the number ("I have a 7 in my tens place, and a 4 in my ones place, I have 74." kind of thing). Then they compare with the other player(s) to see who has the highest number. Whomever has the highest number gets all 4 cards. If there is a tie, the first person to yell "PORKY!" wins the cards. First person to get ALL the cards, wins.

Simple. Fun!

A couple Variations:

You could easily make it three cards or more to include higher place values as they move up (we are playing a higher place value version).
You could also do a variation where you added or multiplied the numbers, instead of doing place value.
You could have the child BUILD the number they draw with cuisenaire rods (or other math manipulatives).

Enjoy!

2008-03-09T17:01:00.002-05:00

The girls have been sick. My middle has had a fever since Wednesday! Seriously, 5 days so far. She's still feverish, but the two days in the middle (Thurs and Fri) she was HOT HOT HOT. Today it's pretty mild. Friday the oldest got the fever as well. Yesterday was her HOT HOT HOT day, today is better. We went to the ped on Wed morning because I was afraid it was strep (again), and it wasn't strep or the flu (the other thing I was concerned about). So, it's just a really nasty cold. Hopefully, the rest of the house will be spared.

Having them lay around on the couch for hours and hours staring at various screens that required no mental or physical effort on their part did allow for me to clean the house up some....it needed it. Have you ever noticed that once it gets a teensy weensy bit out of hand, it's a fast, out of control, down hill spiral? Or is that just the vortex that is my house? Hmm. Either way, we had a stomach bug (I mentioned that) on Valentines Day (fortuneatly, only affecting the three oldest members of our house). And, I swear, it's been 3 weeks and my house STILL hasn't recovered from the 3 days I didn't clean. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? Currently, the kitchen looks really great, as does the living room. The babe's room is also fantastic (He recently got some new storage solutions in there), and our bedroom isn't the pit it was a month ago, so I'll take it.

Another day of laying around will give me time to plan out a bit further ahead in our curriculum as well. So, we'll be having another 'sick' day tomorrow. Hopefully, that will be the last of it though as running a fever for this long simply can't be good.

It's Girl Scout cookie time, that'll throw a kink in your plans to lose 20 lbs by May! LOL Especially, when you have 2 scouts IN your house. It's ok though, the weather is starting to warm and I'll be able to run again soon. Afterall, I have to train for that 5k in June! Yikes. What have I gotten myself in to?

Recently, I've been thinking about priorities. I wish this blog was higher on my list. I do wish I documented more of what we do on here, for the world to see. I enjoy our homeschooling so much, and I spend so much time reading more and learning more and growing more, I wish I made it more of a priority to share with the homeschooling (and non homeschoolers who may find their way here somehow) community. I'll try. That's the best I can do.

Currently, I am reading Essential Montessori, and Montessori in the Home: The School Years. I'm working on making the materials. Recently I completed the grammar symbols. I've fallen behind on my flags of the US though, as a result of working on other projects (including preschool/toddler things). I also made a big batch of colored pasta for sorting, patterning, counting, etc. The girls helped with that, and thought it was fun. I'm attempting to make a moveable alphabet this week....I already attempted it once but made my letters too thick and when I baked them to harden them, they plumped WAY up. I could just let them harden on the counter I suppose, I'm just in a rush to get them done (for no particular reason except that I think the kids will have a great time playing with them). I'd also like to make a set of sandpaper letters. That may be the next project, oh and finishing my flags!

I recently ordered Miquon math. My oldest really struggles with math, and after many approaches, and knowing that she is a visual learner, I hope Miquon will be a good fit and will help it "click". It's the only area she's 'behind' in. We'll start with it this week, provided she recovers soon. I really like how visual and hands on it is. I'd also like to create some of the Montessori bead material for her to use.

I also recently ordered some Weekly Reader books on the election process. They wont' be here until August, but I'm already excited. I have one book on the process of elections and voting called Woodrow for President (also from Weekly Reader) that the kids liked and learned quite a bit from. With it being EVERYWHERE these days, it's such a great chance to really show the kids the democratic process in action, and share with them the things I'd like to see changed!

My kids are in bed (well 2/3 of them are...the bigger two even!), my wee one is playing outside with my husband--man do I love him....that could fill another whole blog, how much I love the man I get to share my life with. And, now, I am off to read, plan, and make materials.

Much love, and happy homeschooling to you all!

New blog: Preschool

2008-02-24T07:42:00.003-05:00

I started a second blog, specifically for preschool and toddler activities.

Waterfront Preschool

I'm still going to blog here about the older kids, and their many activities, and our family life in general, but the second blog allows me to keep track of all my preschool lesson plans (something I was unable to do the last time through) so that I can use them in the future, and also might give some others ideas.

We had a nasty stomach bug last week, right after I had spent a week getting my house in SUCH good shape it was amazing. Of course, it all fell apart when we were throwing up! LOL

I agreed to teach my neighbor preschool stuff, and I was feeling overwhelmed! LOL I guess I'm over that notion now. It must have been a bad week.

We exchanged flat travelers with our friend Heather's family, and my daughter loved seeing the pictures on their blog! We just got our traveler, and we're very excited to start taking him to do fun things.

School is going fine, after we recovered anyway.

More later!