time flies!!

ok. i didn't realize that it had been so long since i posted something!

we have been schooling. honest!

just not doing too much blog documentation (insert sheepish grin)

life is definitely on fast forward.

tic tac is turning 8 in a week

bonobo is just as crazy as ever

stinkerbell has way too much attitude!

and jd has learned to crawl, sit up , and this morning we noted two (!) new teeth popping through

work is keeping me super busy with new training and getting up to speed on the darn computer charting

hubby's business has 2 (yipee!!) paying clients (insert happy dance here)

all in all, a good few months. but this little blog has been neglected. *gulp*

i want to do better, really, i do. i long to be one of those mommies who can put it all together and still look awesome if you just pop in for a visit...

alas, i am not one of them (and really, i think they might only exist on the internet, anyway!)

i am messy and less than organized, and lose my temper and all that jazz. oh, well. God loves me, my hubby loves me, and my kids... well, they like me most of the time ;-)

here are some pics from the last several weeks. maybe, just maybe, i will get it together and tell you about what we have been doing :)

science lesson: how to get a big enough pile to jump in. we used all sorts of different tools to gather leaves... hands, dustpans, shovels, etc.

forming our letters with homemade playdough :)

another science lesson combined with a little life lesson. do not suction cup your forehead whilst sitting on the toilet.

cooking 101: how to clean off the beaters properly!


catching and releasing a ginormous grasshopper!

C is for Centennial

alright, i know the image is small. but if you go here, you can see it a bit larger on amazon and look at some sample pages.

this is what we are going through for school right now. these books are put out by Sleeping Bear Press, and they go through each of the 50 states using the alphabet to explore different historical, geographical and just neat facts about the state. since we are 'loosely' schooling in prep for our move, i thought it would be fun to learn about our new state! i have a list of them saved on my library account (they had over 70 books published available on their shelves) so that when i want something specific, i can request them without having to search for them myself :) a nifty resource that most libraries provide. i LOVE it!!

in addition to the states, they also had A is for America, Z is for Zookeeper, P is for Passport, and lots of others. the Sleeping Bear Press page also has a link to the Teacher's Guides PDF which is a neat resource.

we are planning on getting the C is for Centennial book and visiting some of the places mentioned. it would be neat to put together a scrapbook for all of the field trips that the book inspires!!

happy exploring!

lesson on the fly...

...ing bird, that is!

as we are preparing to move, i am emptying out our freezer. we had a 10 lb turkey hanging around from last Christmas just waiting for a good time to be roasted, and yesterday was the day!

after dinner, tic tac hung around the table, begging scraps of dark meat and watching me clean the meat off the bones. i usually loathe this task, even though it is so necessary to get all the really sweet meat off the bones. but on this night, it turned into school!

we dissected the bones, from legs, to wings, to breast bone and talked about tendons, ligaments and the (ick) veins running through everything. tic tacs favorite find though was the ...

spinal cord!

yep. we found several lengths of the spinal cord sticking out of the vertebrae, and he was entranced by them! we were able to get one segment about 3 inches long out of the neck, and it still had the nerves attached!!!

i thought it was pretty cool, too (must be the RN in me).

daddy...

well, let's just say, he stayed in the other room! he wouldn't come in to take pics for me, either... bummer. my hands were way too greasy to go near the camera!

life is going to get crazy

well, we are embarking on a new journey. one i never thought i would take again during these tender years of our children's lives.

as we experience the economy in its full fury, we are having to adjust our lives a bit.

i am going back to work full-time.

*gulp*

i had just gotten really content with being a full-time Stay At Home Mom. i was enjoying this role, and no longer had a desire to have my identity in being an RN. finally.

i really don't know how this is going to work.

God has been gracious to me in providing a job very quickly. i will be returning to a previous employer in a full-time capacity. 3- 12 hour shifts per/week, from 3pm-3am. every other weekend is required (fri-sat-sun). the other 3 days are of my choosing, and dependent on the other RN working the 3-3 shift. then 2 days will be up for grabs (and overtime).

this is the exact shift we wanted. at least i won't have to miss out on my children's entire day like i would during day shift. or chunks of time spanning 2- 3 days if i were on nights. the 3-3 shift will actually allow me to participate in their day, and to continue homeschooling with relatively few hiccoughs. and hopefully enough sleep.

i hope.

this blog may take on a whole new meaning as i try to juggle being a wife, mom and RN as well as maintaining a home and homeschooling my children. my husband will certainly help, he always does. but he has to spend the majority of his time building his CFO business.

do you work full-time outside the home and homeschool? i would love to hear your thoughts and how you organize things if you do. maybe there are a lot of us who need encouraging along the way.

Determination...

i am struggling right now with all that is going on in our lives. so many changes afoot, and i have yet to process through them. we went to our small group the other night and i got some fresh perspective on the whole "move." our pastor has been leading our group and he said some very encouraging things. one of which was (paraphrased, of course):

now that the decision has been made to move, embrace it fully and look forward to what God is going to do with you in your next season.

hmmm. good advice.

i have been wallowing in the loss. the loss of friendships that have taken time to forge. the loss of a phenomenal church body who has rallied around us like nobodies business. the loss of job. the loss of my SAHM status (i was really beginning to love that status!). just, the loss.

what i need to do is refocus on what HE has in store for us. new jobs, new (old) home, new (old) friendships, new schedules, new (old) bible studies.

renewed strength. renewed faith.

i am still at a loss for how i am going to manage homeschooling and a full-time job. three nights a week, sleep time, and managing a home are pretty much going to wipe me out. my KISA is awesome at helping out, but he has to work, too. this juggling act is going to feel like i am tossing up too many torches and if i drop one it is going to burn like the dickens.

but, i am determined.

determined that i will meet this season head-on. that we will continue homeschooling because it is our only choice. public school is NOT an option for us. it may not always be pretty. and we may not get out to do all the fun field trips that we wanted to do. and we may not get to do all the crafts and hands-on stuff we want to do. but we will do it. because i can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

it doesn't say 'some' things. it says all things. and i believe our family has been called to be a home-educated family. so He will help me do this.

i am determined.

i just don't know what it is going to look like.

half-schedule still in effect

with the upcoming move, our school schedule has had to stay at half-time. we are still working through our Story of the World, and are FINALLY out of Egypt! i feel like i have been there forever. first with Sonlight two years ago, and then last year with Tapestry of Grace. i know a LOT about mummies and pyramids. more than i cared to know! and tic tac now has the aspiration to become the "guy who pulls out the brains with that long hook." lovely.

we are progressing through Math U See pretty quickly. although i know that the boys will be more challenged as we finish up the next couple of sections.

rowing this week and next is to be Three Names. i really like this story. my kids have a grandpa who likes to exaggerate his stories, too! i love the artwork and may have to dig out the craft supplies from their packing box so that we can do some prairie scenes.

HWT will have to wait a while to start. my MIL is here and i don't feel comfortable breaking out in song around her. call me crazy.

Galloping the Globe will also be on hold til we get settled. i just cannot wrap my head around it right now. too much grey matter is being used on getting ready to leave and on being sad.

as the move gets closer (tic tac has a countdown: 41 days to go) the schooling will probably get shorter or even nonexistent. then who knows how long it will take us to get started on the other end.

i hate packing.

i hate unpacking even more.

at least i will have a school room there :) one with lots of light, right off the kitchen :)

school has started!!

well, we started school! albeit only a half-schedule, but we started :)

we have been reading from our Story of the World Vol 1 and are exploring Egypt in lots of fun ways! the boys really enjoy doing their map work. i have taken to letting them color their coloring pages while i am reading/reviewing the chapter to them. i really like the way the material is broken down into manageable chunks, so if we want to bunny trail, we can do so without compromising too much of the day. some of our read-a-longs were Croco'nile, Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile, One Small Blue Bead, and (tic tac's fave) It's Gross and We Ate It. my favorite was One Small Blue Bead. the kids picked right up on the rhyming and we got to talk about what it would be like to not have any neighbors and wonder if you were the only people in the world. there were some crazy ideas tossed around with that one, and lots of pretending/play acting!

tic tac finally finished his Horizons math workbook. man, was it a loooonnnnggggg road with it. we had to take several breaks along the way when he would get bored or frustrated with it. i will be getting his new Math U See curriculum this weekend. i introduced him to the manipulatives that go along with it just yesterday, and he had loads of fun playing with them. when i told him we were going to use them for his new math books, he was super excited!

bonobo has kept up with tic tac in all the activities and narration. he is more into coloring and being precise with his crafts than tic tac is, which surprises me. it also causes a LOT of frustrated moments for him when it doesn't go as planned. we started Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons, but just yesterday he told me it is too hard and he doesn't want to keep going. we were only at lesson 8! but the last few lessons have been difficult: he doesn't want to sit through them, he doesn't want to rhyme or put his finger on the dot, etc. so i told him we would put it on the shelf for a month or so and then see how he feels about it.

stinkerbell is mostly in the way during school time, so i am trying to get creative with her before we start school, or just move school to when she is lying down in the afternoon. it has meant a LOT of playdoh time, but that will only last so long.

we also rowed The Giraffe Who Walked to Paris, which we got through our ILL system. what an awesome book! and it fit right in with our Egyptian week. the kids really loved doing the math to see just how far she traveled. we read Zarafa, the Giraffe who Walked to the King as a go along for a different perspective, and the kids like the illustrations in that one better.

all in all, i like the way our schedule has been working. and, of course, since i like it, something has to come along and mess with it, right? of course.

i will leave that one hanging for now. but we are making some pretty significant decisions in the next two weeks, so i would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and peace :)

Polishing a Cornerstone

www.raisinghomemakers.com

i am going to be posting this to both my blogs, so i apologize if you follow them both. i felt it appropriate since i was going to be reaping benefits from this study as well as my daughter. definitely manna for the spirit and soul.


i just received my Polished Cornerstones book, and since i didn't want to just jump in and start without some thought, preparation and prayer, my first link-up post is going to be more about what i hope to gain by this study and my very tentative plan of action. consider it an introduction to me as a mom and to my daughter.

i am ginny. a 35 year old woman who has been a christian for 15 years, a wife for 10 and a mom for 7. you can read about the other 3 kiddos in the sidebar, but for this study, i am going to be focusing on my daughter. i call her stinkerbell for the sake of the blogs. she will be 3 in july (yikes!) and is quite a handful. i see a lot of my own character traits (good and bad) in her. we clash a LOT. i think it is because we are so alike.

i was never taught how to be a 'homemaker' in the traditional sense. my upbringing consisted of learning how to do my own laundry, cleaning the house every two weeks, and tidying up here and there. i learned how to cook basics like spaghetti and mac and cheese. but that is about it. hospitality was NEVER modeled in our home. we rarely had people over for dinner or holidays. there also weren't a whole lot of traditions in our home, either. as i came to my marriage i really had no idea what a wife was except a woman who worked full time outside the home and came home to make dinner clean up then sit in front of the TV til bedtime.

i know my mom did more than that... she just never shared any of it with me. i know she managed our home, did the bills, produced meal plans and shopping lists, kept it all running smoothly. i just never, ever had a part in it. i am hoping... no , i am INTENTIONALLY going to include my daughter in those aspects of our home.

so, here the book sits. open to page 11... the Purpose of Polished Cornerstones. i love the idea of raising my daughter with the purpose of growing a godly woman, and hopefully a godly wife and mother. i do not know what God has in store for my rough gem, but i know He knows, and it will be just right for her. i can only pray that i can come alongside her and help her to realize who she is in Christ.

the book says that the 'beginner' projects are for girls ages 4-9, but after browsing through some of the activities, i think we can get started, even though she is 3. i know that i have a lot to learn as a 'homemaker' and i will benefit from doing some of the more advanced projects myself.

our first chapter will be "A Woman Who Memorizes God's Word. " i struggle with memorization and i am hoping to be encouraged and challenged by her ability to memorize chunks of scripture. just this morning she told me "my bible tells me not to complain" :) i love it!

i need to dig a little more into the book before i do any more planning/implementing. i am looking forward to linking with Raising Homemakers in this journey and reading about other mom's and daughters as they pursue godliness.

blessings to you in your day!!

stinkerbell curriculum

stinkerbell will be 3 in july, so it is high time we got started. she is much more 'cerebral' than either of my boys were at this age, so i feel like i really need to spend some focused time with her in mommy-directed play time so that she isn't bored stiff and into too much mischief!

i will be working through some of the book Polished Cornerstones with her from Doorposts. i will be getting it in the mail soon and i am really excited to start it. i think it will mostly be a training tool for me in the next few years, rather than for her, esp as i wasn't raised to be a homemaker. i will be linking up through Raising Homemakers, also, starting june 30th about our adventures as we work through the book one activity at a time.

i also got these really neat activities called "Take It To Your Seat Centers" from evan moore publishing at a recent curriculum resale, and i think stinkerbell will love them! they are going to be independent work for her once we go through them once or twice, and they cover the basics without being overwhelming. it should be fun!

i have also been trying to purchase manipulative toys for her to work with. curriculum sales are proving to have great finds!! i got a melissa and doug word puzzle set for 2 bucks (it retails for 20) and it was practically brand new!! i love stuff like that.

tic tac curriculum

here is the planned curriculum for tic tac this school year. he keeps asking if he is in second grade, and i really don't know what to tell him! we have been loosely schooling these past two years, so i don't know if he really qualifies as second grade. in different subjects, he is in different areas, so, i guess we will just go with second year!

Bible: Acts study with CBS

Math: Math-U-See, Beta

Science: FIAR

History: Story of the World Vol 1

Writing: Handwriting Without Tears: Printing Power

Co-Op FIAR as the major focus

i don't really have a 'spine' per se... is that going to totally mess me up? i also don't have his schedule nailed down, either. some of the things overlap with his brother, so we will do school together for those subjects. it should be interesting!

bonobo school

so here is the planned curriculum for bonobo (age 5) this year.

we need to finish our Rod and Staff A-G preschool books.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Primer Math from Math-U-See

FIAR Volume 1 with our co-op

Day by Day Bible Devotional for Kids

i am hoping it is not too overwhelming for him (or for me!) as we go through our days. i have yet to figure out how to schedule everything, with the other 3 kiddos. augh. any pointers?

while the boys are away...

...stinkerbell will play!

after i dropped off the boys at their VBS class, i came home to find stinkerbell outside with daddy. moments outside are getting fewer and further between as the heat reaches the level of "oh my goodness, i am going to suffocate if i have to breathe that hot air." our back porch stays shaded til around 10:30, so we let her hang out in the shade. i got out the water and paintbrush and she had a blast! i love open-ended toys like this :)

a treasure for tuedsday

bonobo is 5 years old, and wants to be so much older! his level of frustration at what he cannot do as compared to his older brother is growing steadily! everything has become a competition. we are trying to deal with this as best we can, but honestly, it can be infuriating for me as a mom to deal with his explosion of emotion...usually voiced as anger. he is even creating curse words to spit out through clenched teeth. (hmmm, wonder where he picked up that talent?)

so yesterday, i was extremely grateful to have a truly gentle moment with him as they are few and far between lately.

bonobo takes his bath second most nights (unless he has 'earned' himself an early bedtime). after bath is teeth brushing and then the older sib takes his shower and brushes his teeth. while tic tac was brushing, he noticed something stuck between the drain stop and the drain:

bonobo's 2nd lost tooth!!

it had apparently come out in the 'wash,' so to speak!

tic tac was overjoyed to present the tooth to bonobo, who hadn't even realized it was missing :)

bonobo had already prepared a drawing for the tooth fairy sealed in a legal sized envelope and addressed! we taped said tooth to the front and he literally flew in joy to his room to put it under his pillow.

the best part?

he prayed with me for the first time in several weeks! he thanked God for saving his tooth for his brother to find. not earth-moving praying, i know, but for a little boy who is so angry most of the time that he walks around with his fists balled, this was HUGE!!

and as i prayed on my knees next to his bed (he was on his knees, too...another first!) i was able to express my gratitude to a God who takes care of every detail of our lives, no matter how big or small! out loud!! so bonobo was able to see that God loves him so much that He would keep that tooth for him because God knew just how much it meant to him.

how awesome is our God! He cares for every single aspect of my life! i am so glad He revealed Himself to my son last night...

and to me!

library pick of the week

we finally made it to the library! all 5 of us :) it was a tad tricky, to say the least. dad had an appointment at the doctor's office and he wasn't able to drive home, so i took all the kids to the library to kill time. everyone behaved. at first. stinkerbell has been displaced from the stroller, so she is learning where she needs to be. my desire is that the middle two hold on to the stroller bar, and the oldest walks beside his sister in case she tries to wander and i have my eyes elsewhere.

i never thought i would count to three tracking heads so many times in one hour.

we made it into the library after several reminders of where to return to, and i think the child that had the hardest time was the oldest! he is so used to being next to me with his hand on the stroller that he kept displacing his sister! we will get it i am sure...

after we got in, we had to stop and look at the immense doll house in the lobby area. then on to the books. each child randomly picks 2 books to look at while at a table while i browse the audio titles and grab a few readers and picture books off the shelf. as i was reading one of the selections to the kids, the baby decided to wake up early for his noontime feeding and screamed his head off until we reached the van, where he promptly fell asleep. nothing like trying to make a quick exit from the library while checking out books (did i mention i had forgotten my library card and had to go to the counter to do this?), counting heads, pushing a stroller, holding a screaming one-month old and dodging the looks from other patrons that clearly say "you have too many children...are they all yours?"

(note to self: check out the library books as soon as they are picked out, before attempting to read to the children, just in case someone explodes and you need to make a fast departure.)

on to the purpose of this post...

this time, surprisingly, my daughter picked out an amazing living book that we are going to develop a unit study around this summer. i may even purchase this one for my own shelves, it was so good!!

That Book Woman is a great introduction to the Pack Horse Library Project that was founded in the 1930's as part of the Works Progress Administration. Unit study ideas were flowing through my head as daddy read the story to bonobo. pack horse librarians, the Appalachians, the Depression, seasons, love for reading, selfless service, concept of bartering, so many themes run throughout this book. the illustrations composed of pastel chalk, watercolor, and ink are beautiful! and the story line had me wiping a few tears at the end.

truly a living book!

Bin day!

today was bin day!

every 4-6 weeks we break out a new toy bin from the garage. we have 4 rather large rubbermaid type storage bins that we have sorted out our toys into. that way, we don't get too tired of toys. they are all numbered, and i mark on the calendar which bin i get out when.

the bins also allow me to sort through our toys on a regular basis and get rid of ones that are broken or missing pieces.

some things never get put into a bin, and those are the educational toys that we use during mommy-directed activities (i.e. puzzles, lacing blocks, stacking toys).

the lego toys and trains don't get put away, either, as they are up in the loft, and there are just too many of them :)

there is usually a LOT of chaos for the first hour or so after the bin comes out, as you can see from the picture. then we get to organizing them into our fabric boxes and stash them into a wire cube unit we purchased at target.

Bin Day ranks up there with Christmas in our house!!

February in Review

ha! i thought once a month would be about right...i do still have a few weeks left for february 2010, and i might actually get another post in, but i am not too optimistic. the farther along i get in my pregnancy, the less i am inclined to school as so many other things seem to be pressing.

for instance...we don't have a car seat yet. let alone any of those newborn diapers. oh, yeah...and where exactly is the little guy gonna sleep??? hmmm..details, shmetails!

anyway. school has been a bit weird around here as of late. daddy has been home from work for the last 3 weeks (the whole job thing is up in the air right now). we don't know how long he will be home for, so we have just been taking full advantage of his presence. i figure we will catch up later, right? we have managed to get some workbook math in , and have done a bit of our FIAR curriculum, but it hasn't been too gung-ho.

know what i mean?

at least Tic Tac is doing his math pages without complaining. finally!

he even completed 3 of them this morning, on his own, without any pleading on my behalf! woot!

tomorrow we have our Read and Share group. the theme is the letter "B" and i have to admit, i just went to the library today to pick out a bunch of books with animals, themes, what-have-you that have something to do with the letter "B."

i came home with a stack of about 6 of them, and sat on the couch with all 3 kiddos and read for quite a while so the boys could each pick one.

Tic Tac's pick was a Paddington Bear book (the title eludes me right now) and there was a major focus on the letter "B." i really didn't know this when i picked up the book, i just liked that the title had a bear and a bee in it.

what was really awesome was when Tic Tac grabbed a sheet of paper and started to write down every word he could find in the book that started with the letter "b" and then those he could think of on his own. Bonobo even joined in! he has been working on the letter "S" and he grabbed his Moncure book ("My S Book") and started copying words out of the book. he was dreadfully disappointed when it was time for bed, and he left it on the table so he could come back to it tomorrow.

thank goodness my kids are teaching themselves right now...i am just not up to the task!

other things we have managed to do this month:

Babar. To Duet or Not to Duet. some FIAR concepts were learned with this book, and we had co-op at a local park where each child brought something that reminded them of the book (Tic Tac brought a star because of Cornelius; Bonobo brought a car because Babar drove a car to avoid practicing piano); we listened to Haydn's Surprise Symphony and then the kids made piano key snacks from graham crackers, frosting, and chocolate chips. it was quite fun. i was able to reinforce the concept of truth and persistence through some go-alongs. we also have some books on ears/hearing we have yet to delve into. i had grand plans to do a lapbook, but that didn't happen.

President's Day. we read a couple of books that explained the holiday, and then read some go-alongs that were specific to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington to introduce the kids to these two historic figures.

Luke Bible Study. Tic Tac has been pretty faithful to do his study, esp with daddy around to help him. nothing warms my heart more than to see the two of them together bent over the Bible and taking in God's Word. Truly.

so i guess the month hasn't been totally wasted :)

Christmas Shopping

so our christmas shopping for the grandparents is already done!

don't hate me :)

here is the plan.

i went to this site www.barebooks.com

never been there? you are missing something.

they sell a variety of blank books, blank puzzles, even blank gameboards that just beg to be creatively enhanced by your children! from the website:

"These hard covered, fully-bound books contain 28 blank pages (14 sheets). All books are constructed with quality white paper and are suitable for crayons, watercolor markers, colored pencils and other writing and coloring materials.

Books in the 2700 series are bound in a portrait orientation and measure 8 and 1/8 inches high by 6 and 3/8 inches wide."

so. i purchased 4 books for each child. each week of the month the kids will journal, draw, take a goofy pic, or whatever, in one of the books. there are 3 sets of grandparents, and the fourth set is for me! i also purchased a line guide to draw lines into the blank pages if they want to write in them instead of draw.

Tic Tac and Bonobo won't have any problem drawing or writing mini stories. Stinkerbell will just have to pose regularly for photos (not a difficult task for her!) and the new little one will also have books to give as gifts filled with the first 7 or 8 months of life!

want to know what it cost me?

$1.75 per book (purchased 16 books)
3.00 flat rate shipping

and no struggles in november about what to get grandmas and grandpas for christmas!

woot! woot!

in between week :)

we had school 3 days last week. we didn't row anything as we are waiting for our Babar book to arrive from our Inter Library Loan program.

Tic Tac did several pages in his Horizons Math workbook. i think he gets whinier and whinier every time! i told him we have to finish this workbook before we get anything else, though. he is also progressing s.l.o.w.l.y. through his HWT handbook. anything that has to do with copywork or printing has him writhing in his chair. i am tempted to give up on it altogether for a while, but his printing really needs help. suggestions anyone?

Bonobo, on the other hand, is thriving in his workbooks. i never thought that he would sit still for workbook activities, as he is such a kinetic kid. but he loves getting stickers for being teachable! i need to increase his workload a bit to challenge him more.

Stinkerbell is just having a lot of fun playing and torturing her siblings. i want to get more purposeful with her, but my energy is pretty well sapped as i only have a few more weeks to go in this pregnancy. we are hoping the little guy stays put until the beginning of April, but i might not be so lucky.

this week we have our Read and Share group. we are focusing on the letter "A" and the boys have their books picked out and are ready to go. we had to cancel last week as two of the families were home-bound with illness. i love this group we have, and i love seeing how the kids have developed their communication skills (even the 3 year olds!!). it is wonderful group of families!! i am grateful to be part of it :)

Follow the Drinking Gourd

today, we finished up our two week row of the book "Follow the Drinking Gourd" by Jeanette Winter. This was a fabulous book, easy to find in our library, and had great themes throughout that we could rabbit trail!

our first day we introduced slavery as a general topic, discussing the Israelites as slaves in Egypt as a tie in. Bonobo jumped right on it and said he wanted to run really fast to Egypt and free any slaves still there! we also looked at a map of the Underground Railroad and talked about the virtual railroad stops and conductors and passengers along the way.

next we focused on language arts and compound words. we had a great resource from homeschoolshare.com and both boys had fun mixing and matching words to see what made sense and what didn't. we also found a snowman compound word file folder game at filefolderfun.com and TicTac was able to complete all of them, whereas Bonobo (since he couldn't read) was a bit more frustrated but really wanted to play the game. i made some goofs while making the folder game (like using contact paper on both sides of the snowman bodies and then trying to glue them into the folder...just left me frustrated and got lots of wrinkles in the folder). but, live and learn!

next we read a go along book called "The Drinking Gourd" by F.N.Monjo. also readily available at the library. we broke out the dry erase board and focused on the similarities between the stories with the dangers and modes of transportation used to escape the plantations.

the 18th was MLK, Jr day, and daddy joined in the schooling fun to talk with them about his role in history. it was neat getting daddy involved!

i was hoping to delve into cotton plantations, but we never got time for that.

co-op was at our house, and first we read the story. then we all gathered in the kitchen to make 8.5 x 11 replicas of the Big Dipper and talked about some very interesting facts about the constellation. then we gathered in the living room to work on a timeline of Harriet Tubman's life in correlation with happenings in the US. all the moms had lots of good information to contribute about the book as well as Harriet Tubman's life. what an amazing woman she was!

i would love to provide links for all the games, etc we found on-line to give credit where it is due, but those links are saved on the other computer, and it is having issues as of late. when i can access them, i will edit this post.

this book was a wonderful study of slavery and history.

as for school these last two weeks, Tic Tac has been doing his math workbook with a less than exuberant attitude, but it is getting done. whoever knew that counting by 2's was torture?

his writing is being put to the test with his CBS bible study through Luke. and he continues to work in his HWT book.

Bonobo has been super excited about his Explode the Code books! he begs me to do pages every day!! what a switch from the beginning of our year. he is even getting excited about his Kinder-Math book that we started at the beginning of january. we are spending the off days reinforcing his letters and phonics with programs like Starfall online and a few other preschool workbooks we had around.

Stinkerbell is even getting her own schooling done in the mornings. we have lots of fun working with lacing blocks and buttons. i am trying to get her to focus on sorting by color, shape, etc, but she is more into the sheer mechanics of lacing. we are also working on her word/picture recognition.

all in all, a good two weeks! i hope to post more regularly so it isn't such a long summary at the end of the unit :)

happy schooling!