Playing Catch up...yet again.

When you homeschool everyday and don't post about it there is a lot to catch up on. But don't worry...I won't share every little detail. :-) At least I don't think so. Anyway, last week we discussed the four seasons and instead of drawing examples on paper we decided to branch out into a different medium. What better canvas than our large glass front door? Perfect! We divided it into four sections for the seasons and Big T and Sweet E each drew a picture that they felt depicted that season. I think they did a wonderful job. Here is a picture of Sweet E drawing a pink (of course!) flower for spring.

It's not easy to take a picture of drawings on glass though, but hopefully here you can at least see the sun that Big T drew to show the hot days of summer. You can't see it but Sweet E drew a beach as well.

If you remember we talked about how the Bible used to be written on scrolls. Well, the children finally finished all of the copywork for the alphabet and we turned it into a scroll. They did a really great job and are so proud of their work. They love to show it to anyone that comes by the house. :-)

Here the children are doing copywork of their new Bible verse they are learning to memorize. I used the program I purchased from StartWrite. For now they are both tracing over the memory verse to practice the handwriting. Next week Big T won't have that and he will have to start copying on his own to get used to it, but since Sweet E is still working on her motor skills I will have her trace it a little while longer.

Oh...I almost forgot....we are using Math-U-See for our math curriculum this year. We were flying through the primer until we got to talking about place value. Which is fine...that is the beauty of homeschooling. You can go as fast or as slow as you need to for your child. Well, they have a neat way of teaching place value using "Decimal Street." They suggest making a poster, but that is too big for us and I remember seeing on a blog somewhere another mother made a lapbook. So that is what I decided to do. Here is the front of the lapbook.

When you open it up you see decimal street, the units house, the tens house, and.......

once unfolded the building for the hundreds. Each one only holds up to 9 (units, tens, or hundreds) I then made numbers (outlined in each color) to use as well. The only drawback is that I only have 4 hundred blocks. I need to get the completer set to help out with this, but it will be a while. Anyway...the children can now practice and it seems to be helping. I can put the numbers down and they have to build it with the blocks or I put the blocks down and they find the numbers to go with it. They then have to say the number. I think that is the trickiest part for them, but they are getting better.

Oh yeah, here is the back of the lapbook where we keep the numbers for the children to use. So, except for the blocks (which are kept in a plastic shoebox) it is self contained and doesn't take up hardly any space. :-)

Okay, so I think I am caught up until today. It was exploration day today and we are talking about how flowers and other plants grow. First up was to make flower petal "juice" to get the color. Sadly I don't have much in the way of flowers in my yard right now, but there were a few blossoms from the Rose of Sharon bush left.

We then placed them in a plastic bag with a little bit of water so the children could mush them up. :-)

Pay no attention to the little boy in his underwear. LOL We are in the middle of potty training right now. :-)

Then we took a coffee filter and soaked up some of the juice. It turned it a little bit purple, but it would have been better with flowers that had more intense colors. Oh well..... We then picked some flowers and are pressing/drying them between some books and we have some beans that we are watching. We placed them in between paper towels (wet paper towels) and we will be watching them over the next week or so to see how they sprout and such. :-) Okay...I better get my little guy to the potty before we have an accident, but I wanted to share a video of the last bible verse they memorized. I pray you are all having a blessed week in school!

Schedule charts and Memorization

I found this great website called Mrs. Riley. Here is a link about who they are. I have signed up for a 4 month subscription to make chore/schedule charts for the children. And I have to say....Big T and Sweet E love them! We have only used them for a couple of days, but it is already a big help! Here is a picture of all the pages I printed off...and it was a lot!

I then proceeded to cut all the cards out and laminate them. I use something similar to this clear shelf paper to laminate things like this and our school ID cards. I think I finished this whole process at like 2 in the morning. Don't ask...I started very late, but at least it's done. Except for the new cards I made. LOL This is what the charts look like.

This was the set up that the children saw first thing in the morning. I forgot to put a card up for breakfast (but I have made one since then). It's great because I can pull each card off.....

and change it when I need to. Because I put velcro strips on the "board" and squares on the back of each card.

Now I just need to find out the best way to store the cards so I don't have to go through all of them each time looking for one in particular. Any ideas for me? Maybe a index card holder with dividers? Hmmm...I will have to think about it.

Oh..and I should add that I got my notification "packet" sent off to the local school district and have received my receipt back that they did get it. :-) So, that is one less thing to worry about for now.

Oh...why not. I think I will show our School ID's as well...minus the personal information. I even made one for Little E. Last years cards came in handy at places like JoAnns, IMAX and museums. So I wanted to make sure we had some this year as well.

Oh...I guess I have 2 more things to post. Our Bible memorization. First up is the complete Proverbs 9:10 that they worked on last week.

And this next verse is just the first half of Proverbs 10:5. We will work on the rest of it the last half of this week.

Just another school day

It was so hot today that it was hard to get the children to "get moving" on their school lessons. But we did manage to finish. :-) First thing today we made scrolls to go inside the pottery jars the children made. They just thought it was one of the neatest things. They were so proud they said, "Take a picture Mama!" :-)

And here is a short video of their memory verse for the week.

Once we had our Bible lesson and craft done we went on to writing/reading. This was the hardest to get done today just because it is so hot and humid in the house. But I told them, "The sooner you get it done and do it right...the sooner you can cool down. So once they finished it we promptly took our math work upstairs to the bedroom with the window air conditioner. It was so much more comfortable up there. :-) Math went by very quickly.

Once math was finished I brought up the video and worksheets for the children's piano lesson. Gotta love KinderBach. Did the sheets upstairs and will practice the exercises on the piano when it is cooler. :-) Now I just need to get somethings ready for tomorrow. :-)

Day 1 of First Grade .....

...is done! So happy to have the first day done. It always takes a few days to get into the routine of the curriculum and I think we will be just fine. Big T loves the Math-U-See curriculum. He flew through today's lessons, but the great thing is...if he keeps going fast through the primer we can just jump to Alpha. Gotta love homeschooling! So the first day of Pilgrim Pathway School of Discovery was definitely a success. Here are a few pics of the day.

The children were so excited to get new school supplies. Gotta love brand new crayons and markers. :-) LOL

Although Little E was pretty mad at me because I didn't get him any markers. I know better than to do that. LOL ;-)

First up was a short Bible lesson (more in depth tomorrow.) We talked about how the Bible was originally written on scrolls and stored in jars. They found it fascinating actually. :-) Then it was on to a little bit of review over the letters A, B, and C (which included writing and sounds).

Then it was on to math. Big T loves this Math-U-See stuff. I am so happy for him. it makes it more enjoyable for everyone.

Sweet E got a little frustrated because she wasn't able to go as fast as her big brother. (but she did fine)

After math we had some reading time (They loved the book called Two Bad Ants) and then our sign language lesson. We used disc 1 of Signing Time volume 1. They love watching Alex and Leah. After Signing time they got their treat from E-pa (that is what Little E calls Grandpa Snow) and some popcorn. Now I need to go finish my chores and do some preschool with Little E this afternoon. (I should add that Beloved is doing art with the children this evening.)

Can't wait for tomorrow, but for now I have about 2 more loads of laundry to do.

**Just wanted to add a picture of the children's art time with Papa. They had so much fun. :-)**