Week 6: Full of pictures AND videos!

We had a pretty good week!!

Read aloud: Trumpeter Swan. Gabriel was sure that he wouldn't like this book for some reason, but only a few chapters in and he was hooked!  They've asked that I not only read at bedtime but during lunch as well. :) I knew they all would LOVE it!

Monday--

• I recorded all three boys reciting last week's bible verse. They did SO well!
• New memory verse: 1 Timothy 4:12. When I introduced the verse to the boys, they mentioned how long it was.  Then I played the song for them, and they decided it wasn't so bad. :)  We searched YouTube and found the video. LOVE!  {more info and a giveaway HERE}
• We talked about how Abraham was told by God to sacrifice his son, Issac, and because Abraham was obedient, God spared Isaac's life. We also talked about how Abraham found a wife for Isaac.  The boys (who know a little bit about how Daddy and I met) made up their own stories of how we met and how Daddy proposed.  We made a video and sent it to Daddy so he could hear their stories too.  FUNNY stuff! We asked Daddy to send a video back to us, telling us his side of the story, and I shared my side.  Then we compared the differences between Isaac and Rebekah vs Bo and Christie. :) 
• Pretty boring day of school. We completed almost everything on our list and I didn't take any pictures.
• Kaleb had a game. They (3rd & 4th graders) played against another school's 5th and 6th graders...who were BIG! Kaleb's team lost but they played well against those bigger boys!!

Tuesday--Great day!!

• Answered the question: Is God a Person? in Apologia's Who is God? book. "Although He is a spirit and has no body, God is a person." Of course the difference between us and God is His perfection.  Where we fail with the following, he does not which is why while He is a person, we are not the same as Him because we are imperfect. I love how much we are learning from this series!!
• God has thoughts.
• God has emotions.
• God knows right from wrong. 
• God makes choices.
• God is a spiritual being.
• We read about Jacob and Esau in Scripture Adventures.  The boys made a diamante poem.  After showing them the example, they came up with this one for Jacob and Esau.

Kaleb's faith journal entry. I like how he added the bowl of stew in the middle to symbolize Esau trading his birthright for a bowl of stew.

• Kaleb started diagramming in R&S English. He likes it! I'm excited...I like diagramming too! Can't wait to see how he feels about it when it gets more complicated.  He likes to see how things go together so he may still enjoy it.
• Gabriel finished another lesson in ETC. He's cruising through the book!
• Gabriel is also doing well with OPG. I've noticed that his confidence is grown. I *caught* him reading something outloud the other day and was sure to tell him how awesome he was doing.
• FUN LUNCH!!

• I brought out the salt box for Drake to start working on letters.  We did Aa, Bb, and Drake. He did GREAT!!  We'll definitely be getting out the salt box more often! Gabriel wants to use it too. :)

• NO practice or games or other obligations this night!!! We took it easy and I got to run outside instead of on the treadmill.

Wednesday--Daddy was too busy Monday and Tuesday to send us a video about how he and I met and he proposed.  BUT at lunch on Wednesday, we got a BIG surprise!! Daddy sent us two videos! I LOVE these videos! So sweet and special to me.  I asked his permission before sharing. :)





I'll share the video we made of Kaleb, giving us his story of how he thought we met. :)  Gabriel and Drake's were a similar to Kaleb's.



The rest of our day:

• Read about Jacob's ladder in SA. The boys each added a drawing to their faith journals.

Drake's ladder. Not sure what those spider looking things are. Angels? We talked about how the angels went up and down the ladder in Jacob's dream.

Kaleb's picture. He said to point out tht the long grey thing is God's super long beard. :)

Looks like Jacob is jamming to some tunes in Gabriel's picture. :)

• Still working on our paper mache Earth. We just haven't had the time to dedicate to this project but slowly and surely we're getting there. We painted the whole thing blue. Waited for it to dry. Painted it blue again to get good coverage.

• Gabriel started silent e words (cane, plane, made, etc) in OPG. This was very exciting for him!!  I guess he had been waiting for this day.  He spent a little time on the Starfall  long a, silent e games and story.  I need to dig out the LeapFrog videos so he can watch the one on long vowels!
• Kaleb covered ordinal numbers and Roman numerals as a review in MM.
• Drake played with the salt box some more.
• Read a chapter in SOTW while the boys did a few coloring pages from the activity book. Hoping to do some of the activities next week!

Thursday--

• Most of the day was spent cleaning, purging, cleaning, purging...you get the idea. TOTALLY cleaned out the school closet!!  Re-organized a lot of it. Hope to do more next week. 
• While cleaning, Kaleb and Gabriel took turns doing some skip counting, math facts drill, and some other fun math activities. 
• Packed up a big storage tub of books we don't need for co-op. SO glad to come home Friday afternoon with just a few of those books left in the tub. 

Friday--CO-OP DAY!!

• Kaleb and Gabriel both did a lesson in math.
• Gabriel read more silent e words in OPG.
• Had a WONDERFUL afternoon at co-op.

I've decided to go back to school part time and finish my degree.  I'm excited for a new challenge. In a few weeks, I'm going to start working on making sure I am completely ready for the spring semester in our homeschool so hopefully not much will change.  We love the crafts and extra activities we're getting to do this year and definitely don't want to lose those.

Don't forget to check out my little bitty giveaway!! Have a great week!!

A Recent Discovery and a Giveaway!

I made a recent {re}discovery and had to share!!

I went to the D6 conference last year, and was given a few Seeds Family Worship sample CDs.  I took most of them to church to give away but I ended up keeping two. I put them in a desk drawer and forgot about them....until two weeks ago.

I was reading a blog that went on and on about the Seeds Family Worship CDs and how it made bible verse memory work SO much easier.  I wish I could remember the blog because it was AWESOME!

...and then I remembered those two CDs.

Since I already had the CD sampler, I decided to start with those verses and see how things went for my boys before buying the full CDs.

Also another great find....I did quick search and I found our first memory verse on You Tube.

You guys...after only THREE days of the YouTube video, my boys are singing (and reciting) 1 Timothy 4:12...on their own...throughout the day. The tune is short, sweet, and catchy...and they LOVE it! We have listened to the CD at least two or three times a day.



I added in these printables, and it's made for a FUN week of memory work.

So now I have this exra CD sampler and I'd love to bless another family!!  There is one song from each of the six available full CDs on the sampler:
1. Put on Love. Colossians 3:12 & 14
2. Servant of All. Mark 9:35
3. Whatever You Do. 1 Corinthians 10:31
4. Amen. Revelation 7:10 & 12
5. The Word of the Lord. 1 Peter 1:24-25
6. Young. 1Timothy 4:12.

Three ways to enter a chance to win:
1. Comment below.
2. Follow or subscribe to my blog. {and comment a 2nd time saying "I'm a follower."}
3. Share this post. {comment a 3rd time, saying "I shared."}

Be sure to leave an email so I can contact you! I'll draw a winner on October 12th!!  YAY! Fun!

A terrible picture taken with my phone but here is the CD!

Week 5 Report: the one where Daddy hung around.

Week 5 was a short one...but for a GREAT reason. Daddy stayed home Monday AND Tuesday!  We knew he would be here on Monday but he surprised us by not leaving Tuesday morning!!

 

He hunted Monday morning. The boys and I had just started our morning time when Daddy called and said he needed some help so I dropped everyone off at Grandma's and spent the rest of the morning helping him.  We got home in time to get a little bit of work done before football practice.

 

Gabriel is the little guy 2nd from the left with the light blue shirt.

Tuesday was spent hanging out with Daddy.  When he's home, we take advantage!  Then we all went to Kaleb's first football game.  They lost but Kaleb had a lot of fun!

I LOVE candy corn SO much...it's a fall weakness. I had been waiting to try the candy corn Oreos so we made a quick
trip to Target and snagged some. Between the Oreos and candy corn M&M's,
I've learned an important lesson: If I want candy corn, I should just buy candy corn. Ha!

Daddy left Tuesday night so we got up early Wednesday to have plenty of time to make up some work missed on Tuesday.  No pictures...just a lot of good hard work. :)

• Kaleb is diving into multiplication. He's done a little in the past but NOW we're really getting into it. We have some fun games waiting for us this next week.
• Gabriel and I are enjoying math a lot more now that I'm helping him with some of the writing. He's moving along at a much better pace and we aren't fighting over it anymore.
• Drake loves loves loves the preschool activity bags! I'm excited to find a few new ones to put together for him.

Thursday was a little more fun.

 

• We did get a lot of work done but we also worked on our paper mache Earth. We'll be ready to paint it this next week.
• We also did a fun seasons craft from Elemental Science. I'm frustrated with science right now because weeks ago I purchased the book with all of the experiments from a lady who hasn't yet mailed the book.  So we have been waiting and slowly working on science since we started school.  I had planned to be so much further ahead and really enjoying our new science program. If we don't get the book by the middle of this next week, I'm buying another one. We just can't keep waiting on it! I suppose if she ever does mail it, I can just resale it. So back to the seasons book. We did ours a little different than suggested. We brainstormed some reminders or clues for each season on the whiteboard. Then the boys made a seaons book out of construction paper.  On each season's page, they glue a picture cut from a magazine that reminded them of that particular season. Then I asked Kaleb and Gabriel to write two things from our brainstorming session on each season's page. It was a fun little project.
• I recorded each child saying the memory verse.  They did very well and we are ready to move on to the next verse!
• Had a fun lunch. Kind of late in the week but at least it wasn't left out!

 

 



 

Friday morning was spent house and car cleaning. Then we met up with our homeschool friends for co-op. 

• Drake went to all three of his classes with NO fuss!!!  I was amazed! 
• Boys had a great time of course and so did I. 
• They got their yearbook pictures taken. I'm hoping they are good ones so I can order *school pictures*.
• A sweet, sweet girl hung out with me during our 3rd hour so she could help me with the baby. She did such an awesome job! Sweet little mama. She loved on him, fed him, held him, played with him....and gave my arms a much needed rest. I love it. She loved it. And Joshua loved it.

One of my faves from the week. Joshua LOVES being outdoors...even if his allergies bother him. He is so sweet and peaceful when we are outside.  He's sweet and peaceful when we're inside too most of the time but the outdoors are special to him I guess. Like father, like son. :)

Little Man hanging out at a football practice.

Pinned It, Made It!

  I LOVE finding yummolicious-looking recipes on Pinterest, and giving them a try. I've tried a few, and had some successes...and not-so-successes.

Saturday night's meal was a definite success!




Chili Rubbed Pork Chops with a Pineapple Salsa.
{click on pic for link}

 

 The salsa was ok. Kind of seemed like it could use another flavor or two.  Maybe next time I'll throw in some cilantro.  BUT the rub was FABULOUS!!  Loved it!

I am not fond of bone-in meats, so I used boneless pork chops. So tender and juicy. My boys loved it {minus the salsa...it was SPICY!}. The hubs loved it.



My version.

 

12 thumbs up from our house!!

Week 4 report: the lazy week

Week 4 was L-A-Z-Y!  I think partly because we had a HUGE change in our schedule....three football practices times two....SIX practices! With the hubs being out of town, these crazy busy weeks can wear.me.out.  I choose it though for my boys, and we always seem to make it through the season with a little sanity left. ;)

Monday was great. We didn't get everything done but it was probably our best day this week.

• The boys are SO in love with singing that weekday song like the Adams Family song. Everyday we must sing our days of the week. :)  I love it too though! And bright side: they aaaallll know the days of the week....even if they do have to sing it to remember sometimes.
 

 

 

• Did some faith journaling. Can you guess what these are? The Tower of Babel. The lower left pic shows the tower paperclipped at the bottom of the page so they can *build* the tower as they retell the story.  Behind the tower on the paper is a fun morse code activity that we did. 1st picture is Kaleb's, then Drake, and last but not least Gabriel. The 4th pic is Kaleb's.

 

Tuesday was non-productive.  We did manage to have a FUN lunch!  Unfortunately that's about it. Allergies and football practice (on freshly mowed grass) is making life difficult right now. Kaleb squeezed in some math and we read some. The end. Ha!

 

Tuna fish sandwiches, mini open-face cheese and almond butter sandwiches, salad, raisins, and nectarine.

Joshua is having a terrible time with seasonal allergies right now. :(

This little tiny cut scared us!!  Gabriel was using my scissors when they slipped and the tip when right into his hand. You could SEE the vessel that he cut...after I got the bleeding to stop. I've never seen SO much blood! Scared Gabriel when it happened...he said he knew something was wrong when it started pouring blood. Scared me when he came to get me and I saw it SPRAYING out! Still gives me chills to think about it. Thankfully we got it to stop and the swelling actually pushed the cut together. Too small for stitches though.

Gabriel still wanted to go to football practice so we bandaged it up. Thankfully it only bled a little during practice but not through the gauze and tape.

 

Wednesday was even worse.  We did NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING.  Things quickly went down hill after breakfast. Attitudes were terrible (including mine). There were arguments. There were tears.  I declared it a school-free day, and we all went back to bed for a little bit. We all had hard time all day.  As soon as the teen got home from school, I left him in charge to run an errand with the baby (and get away from the house to get ahold of my own attitude...with a little chocolate help).  Came home with a much better attitude. Cleaned the house. Fix dinner. Put the kids to bed an hour early. And then watched a chick flick. :)

 

We regained ground on Thursday.  Maybe everyone just needed some extra rest.  Two of my middles woke up early. One got into my bed, noticed the baby was also wake (but one his way back to sleep as was I), and began talking to him which of course fully woke him up. :)  It was ok though because I was pretty well rested and ready to begin the day anyway.

• Jumped right into a fun craft after breakfast to hopefully keep the early morning cheery-ness going. (it worked!) We're FINALLY working on our paper mache Earth.

 

• Ran into town to grab some groceries.
• Had to run by the jr high to drop off a pair of forgotten basketball shoes for the teen.
• Got home and hit the books!  Finally had a good day of school!! Whew!
• Drake enjoyed some preschool activity bags.

Co-op starts today so not much work will be accomplished at home but a LOT of fun learning with friends this afternoon!!  Hopefully I'll have some of those pictures next time!

 

I'll leave you with my favorite pic of the week. :)

 

 

It's that time of year! Kaleb went duck hunting with Daddy and a friend on Saturday. Can you tell how he felt about it? :)

Muffin Tin Monday

  

 

This is my favorite fun lunch yet! :)  I don't know how long I'll keep it up with so many activities beginning now but I love surprising the boys with these once a week.

 

Still no muffin tins BUT at least I have remember to add new ones to my grocery list.  I guess I probably used the old ones for their intended purpose and then forgot them where ever I took them. Ha!

 

Aaaaaand unfortunately one of the boys dropped one of our fish plates on the floor when trying to help me clean so we're down to just two. :)

 

Today's lunch: *Tuna fish* sandwiches (if you know what those really are, don't tell my boys...they won't be very happy with me but where in the world would one find a tuna fish cookie cutter anyway?), open-faced cheese and almond butter sandwiches with left-over *tuna* bread, salad, raisins, and nectarines. Not pictured: juice and Go-gurt.

 

 

Today kind of stunk....or maybe it didn't.

Couldn't get anything going in the right direction today.

One problem after another.

Cranky baby.  Cranky mom.

Running here, running there.

Some groceries forgotten in the car. In the garage. In the heat.

Just worn out.

Ready to put this day to bed.

Then a little blonde-headed boy says "Mom, we haven't prayed tonight, you know."

Ok. Let's pray. YOU pray.

 

"Thanks for all you've given us, all we have. Thank you for this day. Thank you for not letting my mom forget to sign me up for football because I love it."

 

 

So simple. So sweet.

 

I giggled. He giggled.

 

Hugs, kisses, goodnights, and I love yous passed all around.

 

Makes me think today wasn't so bad.

 

Made some fun memories in between the problems.

 

Spent the day together. 

Ate together.  Played together. Sang songs together.

 

Spent time outside on a beautiful day.

 

Watched them love on their baby brother.

 

Watched them play together with nothing but pinecones.

 

Little simple things that mean more than the problems of the day.

 

 

 

Perspective.

Week 3: Loving Elemental Science

Well I planned for school to happen on Monday without realizing it was a holiday.....and Daddy would be HOME!  AND Nathan was out of school!! {we happily took the day off}

We had a great weekend with out-of-state (and in-state) family. Then on Monday after Daddy and Nathan did a little goose hunting, we took off to visit a brand new Cabelas close to our area. Daddy was thrilled!!

Waiting on Nathan and Daddy to get home...minus Gabriel who was busy playing.

 


In the car about to head to Cabelas. Love this man!

A great little break and, by Monday night, I was rested and ready to get on with some school!

Tuesday was the most FABULOUS school day!! These are the kind of days that make me SO thankful we can homeschool, and help keep me going through the not-so-fab days.

• We began Elemental Science. LOVE IT! We already know SO much about our earth, thanks to Apologia Astronomy, but we still managed to learn a thing or two today.  We learned that the earth is surrounded by the atmosphere that protects us from the extreme cold in space and a lot of the sun's heat and light.  We created the first page of our Science Journal.  This wasn't an activity in ES but I wanted them to have a visual of the atmosphere. 

Drake's Earth. He said he put our home and the pond on his earth. :)

Kaleb's Earth. We chose yellow to highlight the atmosphere.

Gabriel's Earth. It's taking Gabriel a little bit of self-disipline but he's getting into the journaling. :)

 



• We had another fun (kind of MTM) lunch. The boys had forgotten about all of the picks a sweet lady made for us a couple of years ago. 
• We completed EVERYTHING I had planned!!  YES! Kaleb is loving measurements in math...just like I knew he would. Gabriel did a great job with his phonics lesson. Drake had fun with some ETC pages (his absolutely FAVE right now).

Wednesday was a full day of schoolwork, an unplanned errand, me constantly reminding the boys to do their chores, and numerous emails to and from members of our homeschool group about co-op.  It was exhausting....but productive. We didn't get to start the craft project I had planned which was disappointing but it happens. :)  Really felt like we're getting into an easy morning groove with schoolwork.  The morning flowed nicely and we had very little problems.  Drake and I are both learning patience, and Joshua so far has been great.

• Scripture Adventures: Began learning about Noah. I asked the boys to write or draw what they knew about Noah in their faith journals before we got started. All of them talked and talked about the ark, the flood, and the animals.  I was surprised that nobody mentioned the rainbow, but when I read that particular part of the story, Kaleb smiled and said "oh yeah the rainbow!"  We talked about all of the different animals and how it might have been like to live on the ark for so many days.

Kaleb's page. Noah is on the right upper side with birds flying around him. The little bit of yellow in the window is a giraffe. :)

Drake's page. The ark floating in the water with birds flying all around. I think that is Noah at the very top with the birds. :)

Gabriel's page. This is the ark. He admittedly got a little sloppy. :)  We're working on slowing down and doing our best work. The little bit of blue on top of the ark is a peacock.

• LA is going very well except that I've misplaced Kaleb's R&S English book.  I have NO idea what I did with it!!  Hopefully we'll find it soon!  Drake loves loves loves ETC primers! He asked to do 3-4 pages a day. He just wants to "do school" with his brothers!  As we get into a routine, I'll add more for him. Gabriel struggled with his OPG lesson....it was LONG. We decided to break it up into to smaller portions.  He reads well but doesn't believe it.

Oops! Got this one turned the wrong way. :)

Page TWO of Wednesday's lesson. YIKES!

• Signed up Kaleb and Drake for Little League football!!  They are SO excited!  I missed the deadline so I met the guy running the program in a Walmart parking lot. He was SO kind and I'm very thankful...otherwise I would have had two very upset boys.
• Realized at bedtime that we did NO math! Who forgets MATH?! Ha! Oh well, I didn't hear anyone complain. :)

Thursday was another good day. We got in our morning time, decided to go to a local kids consignment sale, decided against that idea on the way there, detoured to one of our fave pizza places, and had a good lunch before going home to finish school work.

• We talked about Noah, the flood, and God's covenant in SA. The boys added to their faith journals.  Kaleb pretened to be Noah's grandson and wrote a letter to his children about the covenant.  Gabriel and Drake drew a picture.

Kaleb's page. He always has to add a little humor to the story. :)

Gabriel's page. Love the backward S. We're correcting this in handwriting but faith journals are not for correction.

Drake's page. I added the words for him.

• Kaleb did two lessons in Wordly Wise so he would finish Lesson 3 on Friday. He had more fun with measurements in math.  He used a pair of Nathan's size 12 shoes to measure the "feet" of different things around the kitchen, himself, and his brothers which he then converted to inches. He also used a ruler to measure small objects in inches and centimeters.  Fun! Since we lost two days of math between a holiday and my forgetfulness, we'll continue with measurements next week. He is doing very well with cursive although he admits that its a lot harder than he thought it would be.
• Gabriel gets so frustrated with all of the writing in math so he and I decided to team up. He answered the questions and I wrote them done.  This worked a lot better. We'll do it this way for a little while and then share in the writing later on. Whether he believes it or not, he is totally rocking OPG!! 
• Joshua entertained us with his new skill....bubble blowing.

It's amazing that anything gets done with all of the playing and staring at this little guy that we do.

 

Friday is a short day. We slept in a little bit. Did our morning wall actvities. Tackled the last bit of Lesson 3 in Kaleb's WW...a crossword puzzle. Reviewed much in Gabriel's OPG. Colored many pages in Drake's coloring book. Worked on our weekly bible verse which proved to be a bit of a tongue twister for the boys so it will carry over into next week. Going to town for a bit and then we'll do some math, science, and history this afternoon. 

Memory Work

Celebrated 11 days of school.

Any week that consists of a lot of Bible and the three R's with a generous sprinkling of everything else and a ton of fun is a GREAT week in my book.  This was definitely a GREAT week!!

Next week will be FULL of the activities and crafts that didn't get done this week. LOTS of cool history projects, a restart on GtG by baking an apple pie, a paper mache Earth, and a couple science experiments....along with our usual studies. Also......CO-OP begins next FRIDAY!!!! K and G start little league football practice so should be a fun busy week!

Have an AWESOME weekend!