Saturday, March 28, 2009

Three weeks' worth of review!!! Tons of pictures!!!

Backwards! I loaded these pics wrong but don't have enough time to change them!! Our three weeks in reverse!

March 30 week.



Baseball practice started this week. Nathan and Kaleb are both playing. This is Kaleb's first year of t-ball and I am his COACH!!! lol I'm so excited and he is too.



Here is a picture of Kaleb entertaining the crowd of parents with his air guitar while patiently waiting his turn at batting practice.






Gabriel had a hard time coming to terms that he wasn't old enough this year so Daddy took him to the little park in front of the fields. A lady told him how cute he was and asked his name. He told her, and she said "JD?" Gabriel said, "NO! Gabriel! G-A-B-R-I-E-L! Gabriel!" lol

After two short weeks, we're ready to get back at it. Nathan started the TLP's Cricket in Times Square. Finally! A language arts program that is actually challenging him! I love it and he "kind of likes it." lol

We took the whole two weeks off of math because he was just so stressed. We are slowly getting back into it this week. He struggles with fractions and right now he is learning how to add/subtract unlike fractions. Not fun. We'll just work slowly through and make sure he gets it before moving on.

I think I mentioned that we dropped our history program. I didn't enjoy it, Nathan couldn't stand it, and Kaleb wasn't interested in it. I finished typing out the schedule for the ancients and we'll start that next week. I am very excited about it! I have many, many hands-on activities planned for the boys that I know they'll love. Plus I LOVE our new history spine-MOH. I've been reading it for the past few weeks!

We're putting off the rest of our human anatomy study until after Easter. I have the lapbook ready for when we jump back in there.

I also put together two lapbooks for Easter. They are here and here. We're working on the second link right now. The boys LOVED doing the St. Patrick's Day lapbook (I'll share that later).

Tot School update-

We started week one of the LOTW two weeks ago, but didn't finish due to our short week. We finished up A and moved on to B. We'll finish up B this weekend so we can being C next week. I'll admit, it has been fun and I will soon have pics to show off what the littles have done.

Kaleb has been working on reading cvc words lately and just struggling to blend those sounds together. He'll get one every now and then, but I decided to just work on spelling the words which he loves. I've been letting him watch the LeapFrog dvd's about once a day and we've recently been checking out the starfall.com website.


March 23 week.

Chuck E Cheese on Wednesday with friends.







Waving bye-bye to daddy.





Isn't he too cute for words????






Birthday dinner at our favorite seafood restaurant.
















We left Monday morning for the Little Rock Zoo. We spent the day there and had a great time. Then we went to Searcy where Daddy is working and spent the night with him in the hotel. We swam in the pool which was still a little too cold for my liking! lol Then we left mid-morning on Tuesday to get home in time for a quick rest before Drake's first birthday dinner. We took the rest of the week off since all of the boys' friends were out of school for spring , Chuck E Cheese time with some friends, and we were getting ready for Drake's birthday party on Saturday.








Kaleb and Gabriel are feeding a bird.




Nathan feeding the birds.







Isn't it pretty?










A picture with Daddy. lol Just kidding!!





The Little Rock zoo was under construction so a lot of the exhibits were closed. We still had a wonderful time. This giraffe was so fun!! He wanted his picture taken!!




It was lunchtime for the tortoises. The boys loved watching these big guys eat!






This elephant is retired from her cirus career, but she still loves to perform! We loved watching her do some tricks.





Gabriel made a friend.....









Two beautiful bald eagles. This one was ignoring me. =)






March 16 week We had a very easy week. We mostly worked on our St. Patrick's crafts and lapbook (I'll share that later). On Tuesday the boys and I left for Kansas City to visit some family. We went to the Science City and at lunch at Fritz's on Friday. We discovered Kaleb is severely allergic to the dog in my bil's house so we spent Friday night in a hotel and headed home a few days early.

Little conductor hats at Fritz's.








Lunch at Fritz's where a train overhead served us our food. So cool!!





Kaleb playing a little golf.





Gabriel trying out one of the space center activities.





Gabriel and Kaleb playing in the tot area with some bubbles.









Nathan in one of the optical illusion rooms.






Gabriel loved making music!!






Trinity shamrocks. I love this little craft!! St. Patrick asked the Irish people if the shamrock was one leave or three, and a man replied, "it is both." St. Patrick's response was "and so it is with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." My boys totally got that!!!!










Snakes.











Shamrock wands.











Looking forward to a few *normal* weeks now! lol

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Week Report

The last two weeks were very, very chaotic. We had so many things going on and not near enough time in the day.

Nathan is two lessons behind on math. We'll catch those up this weekend. I'm not worried too much. He has flown through these last two or three chapters.

He is several more lessons behind on language arts. We will work on getting caught back up next week.

Because things were so crazy here, we didn't start the ABC unit. We have, however, continued on with the human anatomy unit. We finished up all the books we checked out of the library this past weekend. Now we are going to look a little more in depth into each system of the body and work on a lapbook as we go.

I have to share this cute little funny about my 4 yr old son. Daddy has been working out of town here lately and came home Tuesday afternoon. All four boys were so excited to see him! After dinner, he sat down and both my 4 yr old and 2 yr old boys jumped up into his lap. As my 2 yr old was giving Daddy one of his super special loving but suffocating hugs, Daddy laughed a little and said "Gabriel! I can't breathe." Kaleb, 4 yr old, yelled at Gabriel "get off of Daddy!! Get off!!" Daddy told Kaleb that it was ok, but Kaleb said " no it isn't. We learned that if you have to breathe to live and I don't want you to die!" He was right. We had just talked about how the lungs work and why we need to breathe. Now we apparently need to teach him about figurative speech. lol

I'm also putting together a St Patrick's Day lapbook. There are so many cute ideas online! The boys will LOVE it!

I have also been working on next year's history schedule. I am almost finished with the first quarter. I finally decided on Mystery of History 1, SOTW 1, and Usborne's Encyclopedia of World History. I'm working on tying it all together with the bible, getting a list of readers for Nathan and read alouds, and putting together some little art projects to make it fun.

All suggestions for ancient history readers are more than welcome!!!

So that's our week. Next week will be boring again (I think I prefer boring...we accomplish so much more), and then the following week will be short. The boys and I are planning a trip up north to visit with some family. Hopefully we'll leave here on Thursday and come back on Monday.

March 26 is my baby boy's first birthday! Busy end of the month!! We need to get much accomplished next week.

Hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

St Patrick's Day lapbook and other holiday activities.

Resources:
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/st_patricks_day.htm

http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/article11.htm


Irish blessing for the back of our lapbook:

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand
Book list: (there are many, many more books...these are the ones I found online that my library also has)
Crafts for St. Patrick's Day
Jeremy Bean's St. Patrick's Day
Happy St. Patrick's Day
Hooray for St. Patrick's Day
A Leprechaun's St. Patrick's Day
Shamrocks, harps, and shillelaghs : the story of the St. Patrick's Day symbols
St. Patrick's Day: A Day of Irish Pride
St. Patrick's Day in the Morning
S. Patrick's Day by Gail Gibbons
The curse of Rafferty McGill / Dianne M. MacMillan
Jack and the leprechaun / by Ivan Robertson ; illustrated by Katy Bratun
The leprechaun's gold / by Pamela Duncan Edwards ; illustrated by Henry Cole
Leprechauns never lie / by Lorna & Lecia Balian
That's what leprechauns do / by Eve Bunting ; illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully
I will be reading St. Patrick of Ireland : a biography / Philip Freeman
****
Will list more later.