Weekly wrap-up: Last of the Thanksgiving fun

We took the week of Thanksgiving off, so this is the wrap up from the week before.  We did lots of Thanksgiving related crafts, stories, and school work. 

Thanksgiving fun
Okay, this picture shows how bad I really am at folding laundry, but it also shows my little students nicely coloring their thankful trees.

Then, in the blink of an eye it turns into this, sigh!  I think Miss April was planning her attack in the picture above. 

Well, they did eventually finish their thankful trees.  Here are Aaron's and April's...

Here are Aric's and mine.

They also made fingerprint turkeys...

Aaron

April

Aric's turned into a hand print turkey...








They made pilgrim hats from toilet paper rolls...

Kindergarden

 Aaron is moving along nicely in his Kindergarden.  He has really been loving legos this year too.  Here he is trying to build his tanker truck set, but this one was a bit too big and complicated for him.  He ended up needing Daddy's help.



He worked on you can read unit 5.  He came up with the idea to put the words on popsicle sticks this time.  He and I loved this idea.

He really likes this activity, finding the words...

Sometimes kids make the funniest faces.  He is always working on his Kindergarden handwriting book.  He worked on the letter q this day.  His handwriting is improving everyday, I love it!  Although this picture is not the best example as it looks like he didn't even do his q right at the beginning of quail.  He had a hard time not making them into g's.

Aaron has loved playing with my nook.  Here he is playing a abc/123 connect the dots game.  I love this app, it is really helping Aric to learn the order of abc's too.  They both like to see the picture that comes up at the end.

5th grade 
 I have a few shots from April's week.  She sure is a good worker.  She gets all her work done most of the time, and can do a lot on her own.  


She is finally done with Chapter 1!  She finished off with her glider experiment.  She made 2 gliders, 1 with long skinny wings, and the other with short fat wings.  She was supposed to fly them several times and learn that the long skinny wings will move through the air better and carry the glider farther.  She did exactly that.  They were 2 very well constructed gliders!

A picture of the 2 gliders...

April was the first to decide to make a Charlie Brown diorama.  She did hers with a Thanksgiving Charlie Brown scene.  It turned out pretty cute.  Then, her little brother wanted to make one too, he decided to make a Christmas one.  You can see the picture of his here.

A moment to treasure
This is a shot from one morning that they had free choice time to do whatever they wanted to start.  It was a hodgepodge of things, but the best part was that they were all sitting quietly enjoying what they were working on.  Even baby Alexander is over there watching everyone while he was enjoying his bottle.  These moments make it all worth it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I am thankful for...

1. family that is coming to visit

2.  A nicely mopped floor

3.  The long weekend ahead

4.  Getting the living room ready for a Christmas tree, so exciting

Happy Thanksgiving!

Peanuts Snoopy & Woodstock Pilgrim Thanksgiving Cartoon Clipart Images... (clipped to polyvore.com)

something fun

I don't really like music videos because they are usually not made with the best images and scenes, and I don't usually get over excited about pop stars.  I thought this video was amazing though, and the song was actually pleasant to listen to.  It was done using 288,000 jelly beans!  It took 2 years to do.  I was impressed and thought I would share if you haven't seen it.  It's very creative, and the scenes created with the jelly beans are pretty neat.

Tot school: Letter H

Aric is currently 40 months old

It has been a while since I've done a tot school post and I'm excited because we actually got through most of the letter H printables in about a 2 week time frame instead of a month (like for the letter G).  I don't know why we got stuck on the letter G, probably because he was a not as interested in doing "school" as he usually is.  But, he loved H!  Probably because it involved hammers and tools.  We have also done a lot of Thanksgiving and turkey stuff over the last 2 weeks too.  Note:  These pictures are from over the last 2 weeks

Let the fun begin!

Thanksgiving fun:

I pulled this turkey kit craft out and immediately he wanted to do it, so I let him.  He loved putting all the stickers on.  It was quite the cute little craft for a dollar (from Target).

He made a turkey feather pattern, and proceeded to be grumpy when I took his picture.

He worked on a "Thankful tree".  He chose to dot paint his.  Then we cut it out and put it together on a piece of construction paper.  He told me something he was thankful for for each leaf so I could write it down.

Letter H printables:

He loves to use my stamping rollers, so he rolled over his letter Hh.

He colored his hammers.  Okay, he colored about half of his hammers, and then got tired.  He had me do the rest.

This was the funnest game.  I was trying to figure out how to make the sequence cards more interesting so I put tape on the back of each hammer and put them on me.  I put the 1, 2, 3, on the window and made it a race for him to figure out which order they should go in.  Then his brother, Aaron, saw how much fun we were having and wanted to do it too.  So, we put the sequence cards on Aric, and Aaron matched them up.

He made a "tool train".  He loves making trains out of his tot school stuff.

We made playdoh.  This one turned out to be such a pretty color.  I was experimenting with the Jell-o to make it smell better.

He's using his dry erase center to draw on his letter Hh.

Mom's Favorite:

He moved up to his brother's big boy bike.  I can't believe how big he looks on that bike.  He feels so big too, and is so excited to be able to go faster.

My boys love playing nerf, especially when Daddy plays because they can really get into it.

Aric has suddenly taken a huge liking to Charlie Brown since we bought the holiday DVD pack from Costco.  He loved making this Charlie Brown Christmas diorama, and still adds to it.  It has more Christmas trees, and Christmas lights all over it.  Everything here is how he wanted it.

To see what others are doing for tot school visit 1+1+1=1.

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: first time

In my life this week…I have decided it is time to start really working on Aric's potty training.  I think if there is one part of parenting I really dislike, it's potty training.  I can take the melt downs, and long days, but I would really love to just skip over the potty training.  Which is why I have been lazy about doing it.  So, this week I have been pushing it more.  I've put underwear on him as much as possible, but mostly only when I really want to deal with the mess.


In our homeschool this week…We are finally getting to a point where we are working for a good amount of time everyday.  I am really liking how the workboxes are working for us this year too.  I've gotten the process of loading them each night very simple because a lot of stuff just repeats the next day.  I've finally learned to not take a long time trying to make things interesting, they just need to keep plugging along in their work, and the interesting stuff really comes from them when they think of creative things they'd like to do with their work.     


I realized this week that we haven't been doing any science.  My kids beg me to do science all the time, so I made up for it today by doing 3 different science experiments.  I think we'll have to work on spreading those out better :-)  April also finally finished her first chapter in zoology today with the glider experiment!  She had a lot of fun making the gliders, and is excited to move onto birds now.


We also started Story of the world this week!  I decided that All American History was not working for us, and I wasn't sure how we were going to get through it.  I started seeing Story of the World all over homeschool blogs, and wondered if it was a better fit for us.  Then, I saw a copy of it at a new homeschool friends' house, and looked over it.  I decided it looked way more interesting, and we might actually make it through History if we made the change.  So, I took our pretty much unused All American History books to Exodus books (a local homeschooling store that buys back old curriculum), and pretty much got just enough to cover the Story of the World book and activity guide.  What a blessing! 

We also learned a lot about Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Indians, and Turkeys this week (2 teaching Mommies unit).  I'll post pictures of all that eventually.

 Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…Put homeschool first in your daily happenings and great things will come.  At least that's what I have learned after 4 years.  I am finally getting it, and I think this is one of the biggest reasons why...among others. 

I am inspired by…These questions.  I actually filled this one in close to last because it took me a while to figure out what inspired me this week.  Well, these questions are inspiring me to do better in all these areas.  Find a good book.  Cook more good things.  Go somewhere for a great field trip.  At least so I can have something better to write about!

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…We didn't go many places this week unless Costco and grocery shopping counts.  I realized today that we haven't really had any good field trips lately, so I'm going to have to remedy that real soon.  April did go play at her long time homeschool friends house this week, that's always nice for her.

My favorite thing this week was…Going Christmas shopping with my family on Saturday followed by dinner at Red Robin.  It was a lovely day, and can you believed that my kids were actually complaining that we spent TOO much time in the toy store??  We didn't leave with anything, but the kids gave us a pretty good idea of what they wanted for Christmas. 

What’s working/not working for us…Well, I guess the workbox comments would fit better here, but oh well it's done.  What's not working for us is reading.  I cannot get Aaron to sit down long enough and read.  He won't do his reading lessons, and when we do he gets frustrated.  I've tried a few different programs, but they just don't seem to help him.  I'm being patient, but I'd love for him to be reading by the time he's through with Kindergarden.  I can't push it too much with him because I don't want him to hate reading.  He does love that he gets a "book it" Pizza Hut coupon for reading each month, and that has been a motivator (a little bit).  He'll read the required # of books to get his coupon.

Questions/thoughts I have…What should we do for nature study this month?  How can I make nature study a more regular part of our homeschool?

Things I’m working on…Well, I'm forever working on being a better Mom, but maybe I should think of this in more of a physical way.  I'm working on finding a book to read.  I'm working on getting my house ready for a Christmas tree in the next couple weeks (which means a little rearranging).  I'm working on my Thanksgiving menu.

I’m reading…No books currently.  I need to start into a good book, but reading is something that I don't make enough time for so it doesn't often happen (at least for books anyway).  I read lots of articles, blogs, stories, Church material (conference talks), and random things. 

I’m cooking…This has been a pretty good week for cooking for me.  I made a really yummy taco casserole tonight for the first time.  That was my biggest dinner venture this week. 

I’m grateful for…The good days we have (like today), it sure makes the hard ones more do-able.

I’m praying for…lots of things, nothing in particular right now.  I'll work on this.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…This is a glimpse of one of the pictures I got from our Christmas card photo session with the kids.  It sure was a challenge to get them at least looking normal in one picture let alone smiling and looking at the camera! 

Today I am thankful for...

1.  Finished Christmas cards.  They are ordered and on their way to me so I can get them ready to mail after Thanksgiving.

2.  Hearing Aaron sing a church primary song today at home, on his own.  He doesn't usually like singing, and especially singing in primary.

3.  Finally finishing reading Little House in the Big Woods.  It has a very nice ending.

4.  Finding this game called "what's your favorite blessing" to play for family night tomorrow night that is all about blessings, and which blessings you would choose over others.

5.  All that I have

story and art: Franklin's Thanksgiving

I'm so excited to be doing things for Thanksgiving now!  For our story and art project we read Franklin's Thanksgiving.  This is a really cute story about how Franklin's family ended up having a lot of guests over for Thanksgiving dinner because each member in Franklin's family decided to invite someone else over to surprise the rest of the family.  That got me to thinking, who are we inviting over for our dinner?



So for the art part of story and art, we made Thanksgiving dinner invitations to send to our family!  They turned out pretty cute.  I loved using these thanksgiving stickers, so did the kids!

Here's Aaron's card on the inside...



April's card...(I love how she wrote "and there's pie too!"


Inside of April's card...

We will be sending these out soon!  Really, the guests are already invited, this is just for fun.
For more story and art fun go here: