20 Days of School

It is hard to believe that we have had 20 days of school.  It is going well.  I am learning how to balance it all.  Sugar Plum continues to love it. She asks to do school on Saturdays sometimes too.  I have been trying to come up with a way to keep things organized and moving along as we do school each day. I have read a lot about Sue Patrick's Workbox System.  I purchased her book from Amazon today and anxious to read it.  I think it is the exact thing I am looking for.

Learning Games

I spent some time this week working on learning games for the kids. I am hoping to add them into our daily schedule to make sure the learning time is fun for both of them.

I made a salt box for practicing writing in.  I also made a car cut out to lace with yarn.  I created my own counting blocks file folder game and I made two games I found online.

The kids love the salt box and the animal sorting is a big hit already. We will be using the others in the near future and I hope they like them too.

Apple Orchard

On Tuesday we went to the apple orchard with our friends.  We got to have a tour of the orchard, eat apples and donuts, and drink fresh apple cider.  It was a fun day.  The kids both had a good time learning and playing.

Playing on the playground.

Eating donuts and drinking apple cider.

This was at the end and they were both tired.

Egypt & Apples

Today we read the story about Joseph and how he was a slave in Egypt.  We read how God used him to save the people and his own family from starvation.  Then we made collars to look like Egyptian kings and queens.

Later we talked about apples.  We are going to an apple orchard tomorrow with our newly formed homeschool group.  I am so excited about it. So today we made apple trees.  

First we traced our hands on green paper to make the leaves.  Then we glued them onto a paper plate and them we painted on the apples.  I cut slits into paper towel tubes for the plates to slide into for the trunk.

The kids had a lot of fun today with all the art things we did.  I am hoping to have more apple themed things the rest of the week too.

Tiger Boy & Sugar Plum

The Tooth

We had a nice relaxing day at home today.  Everything was nice and calm until right before supper.  Tiger Boy was playing on the couch and decided to bite one of the pillows.  His bottom front tooth somehow managed to get stuck in the fabric.  He yanked the pillow out of his mouth and his tooth came with it.  The whole tooth came out root and all.  It was bleeding pretty badly as I carried him to the sink to clean him up.

You can kind of see the gap.

My husband found the tooth and I called the doctor to see what we should to.  The doctor said that since it was a baby tooth there is not much they would do if we took him to the ER.  She said to use pressure and cold to stop the bleeding.  Once we got the bleeding under control he enjoyed a popsicle.  He seems fine and even ate a great supper.  Later he told me that we should not bite pillows.  It is rather funny that biting a pillow made his tooth come out.

My boy with his tooth.

Traveling School

Today I needed to be at the church to help my husband with some things.  Since we only have one car and he did not want to make two trips to wait for us to finish school we took school with us.  I packed everything up in our tub and off to the church we went.  Sugar Plum and Tiger Boy had fun having school somewhere new.  They also liked that they got to watch a movie (usually only a weekend thing) and run around the fellowship hall while I helped Daddy.

Five Question Friday 9/10

I am participating in Five Question Friday blog hop over at Mama M's blog.  Enjoy!

1. Do you feel guilty spending money on yourself?

Sometimes. I like to spend money on my kids more than myself. I can usually justify what I spend on them.  I don't think I need anything.

2. How well do you know your neighbors?

Not well at all.  We know our downstairs neighbors names and a few things about them, but that is all.

3. What age are you looking forward to being?

Um.  I don't know about that.  I am still dealing with being in my 30's.  I suppose it would be when I am a grandmother. I can't wait to snuggle tiny babies and then send them home.

4. Do you get excited when the mail comes? Why?

I do if I am expecting something.  I am waiting on several things right now to come and I eagerly look forward to the mail each day.  Although, even when I am not waiting on something I still look forward to the mail in hopes that something fun or good will come.

Foil Boats

Today we made aluminum foil boats to see if they would float.  They did.  The kids each made one and I made two so they could each have a second one.  After filling up a tub with water, I put it on the table and they set their boats to floating.  I then had them estimate how many pennies their boats could hold before sinking.  Sugar Plum guessed 10 so of course Tiger Boy guessed 10 too.

They started counting pennies as they filled their boats.  Sugar Plum's boat held 27 pennies before it sank.  Tiger boy piled on the pennies and sunk his boat on purpose so I don't know how many his would have held.  He just liked playing in the water.

Next they used the boats I made. They were both a little bigger and had deeper sides.  Sugar Plum estimated the second boat would hold 27 pennies like the first one.  She lost count as she was adding pennies so we counted them when she was done.  I had her put the pennies in piles of 10 to help her count them easier. Her boat ended up holding 79 pennies before it sank.  She was so excited that it held so many.

I think we may have to do this activity again in the future.  They both loved it.

Phonics

Sugar Plum is not liking phonics.  She knows all the letter sounds, but struggles in putting them together. I know it is early and she is young, but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought it would be easier.  I guess I was hoping she would be one of those kids who would just get it.  I know it will take time and practice. It is super overwhelming thinking about her learning to read because I taught her.

I taught third and first grades at a Christian school, but I never taught kids to read.  All of my first graders were reading when the school year started and of course by third grade most were reading well.

So, for now I guess I will keep chugging along and keep working with her and one day she will be reading all on her own.

Starting Week 2

We started week 2 of kindergarten today.  It is going well. Sugar Plum likes doing things in her workbooks.  I am amazed at how much she is grasping and learning.  She did great learning last week's Bible verse and almost has this week's verse learned already.

Tiger Boy is another story.  He is not excited about schoolwork, so I am not making him do much.  We talk about letters and he listens while do things with Sugar Plum.  I was surprised this weekend when he could say most of the Bible verse from last week.  I had not been working on it with him much, but he learned it just by listening to his big sister.  It is so precious to hear the kids quote scripture.

Tomorrow we have our library day and I know they both are looking forward to it. They love going last week and were talking about it all day today.

Five Question Friday 9/3/10

1. What do you do when you have time to yourself?

Oh, time to myself. What is that.  I actually had 45 minutes to myself this week while both my kids were at story time at the library.  It was nice, it was quiet. I liked it.  When (If) I get time to myself I like to read or go get coffee. YUM!  Caribou Mocha all the way.

2. When you look out your kitchen window, what do you see?

I can see my landlord's garden and his big shop garage thing where he spends all hours tinkering on who knows what. Beyond that I see a busy state route with many cars and trucks driving on it.

3. Who/What would you want to be reincarnated as?

Hum, This is a tricky one.  I guess I would say a horse. I have always loved horses and think they are beautiful creatures. 

4. What is your biggest pet peeve about other people's kids?

Attitude and mouthiness.  I hate when kids demand things or speak rudely to anyone.

5. Regular or Diet soda?

REGULAR all the way.  Only I have a small problem with caffeine.  It does not like me.  Ugh.  So when I do have a pop.  I most always get a killer headache.  It is worth it some days.

Busy Week

Wow.  I just realized that I have not written a blog all week.  We have been busy with life and school.  Sugar Plum is eager and excited every morning to do school.  I think her major accomplishment this week was finally getting the short e sound.  She was struggling with this and now can say it quickly. She loves drawing in her journal and I have her write the word for what she draws.  We are getting our school time done right in the morning so she can have lots of play time and we have been doing and art or reading activity in the afternoon.

Tiger Boy is not so thrilled with preschool. I am not pushing him much. Most of the time he just wants to color on his marker board and that is fine with me.  He does know his letters already so there is not much else I really need to work on with him right now.  We have done some counting and coloring too. I think his favorite time of the day is reading together on the couch before his nap.

My husband is amazed at how quick we can do school.  We take about an hour to an hour and a half for school time each day.  His nephew just started kindergarten too and goes all day to basically learn the same things we are learning at home.  He wishes he could have been homeschooled, because he did not like school at all.

So that was our week. I am looking forward to more fun next week.