Stacking dixie cups

We are still looking for creative ways to help Aaron get interested in reading.  He loves stacking cups, and this idea has come across several times.  First it was mentioned to me by my sister-in-law, and then I saw it on pinterest and a few blogs.  So, we finally gave it a try.  It's so simple to put together.  I still had to help him with a lot of the words, but he got a few.  The idea is you stack the cups as they say the right words.  I wrote all the sight words he has been learning up 'til now to see what he remembered. 


He really enjoyed this tower building activity.  He is all about building after all!

And, do you see that front top tooth almost ready to come out??  A homeschool blog friend mentioned to me in her comment that for some reason when those two top teeth come out that seems to be when a child picks up on their reading.  Could be an old teachers tale, but I'm hoping there may be some truth to that.  We shall see!

homeschool favorites--lapbooks

Aaron learned how to write China this week in his "PING" lapbook for FIAR.

Our homeschool favorite for this week is lapbooks.  I made a lapbook for The Story of Ping this week (from Homeschool share), and Aaron was super excited when I showed him.  It was then that I realized that he really enjoys learning with lapbooks.  He loved his very first pumpkin lapbook, and he has enjoyed every lapbook since!  So, I have come to the realization that this is something I need to do more of again, especially for him.  He enjoys all the flaps, and tiny bits of information found in each element.  He enjoys them most when I have made them for him, and have it all layed out though.  Maybe someday he'll like to make one himself.

All the kids really like lapbooks, I have made several with April.  Some of the favorites were the Madeline, all about girls, and a few American girl lapbooks.  We have many unfinished ones too that were started, but soon lost interest.  The kids love going through the box of old lapbooks, and it's so fun to see what they have created, and to see how much they have grown.  They also learn and review some of the old facts that they wrote.

So, that's our homeschool favorite this week.  I really love thinking about some of our favorite things that we use each day in our home for school!

What was a favorite for your homeschool this week?

Little celebration for a little guy

We finally had Alexander's 1st birthday celebration!  It didn't happen on his birthday, but I don't mind with his birthday being so close to Christmas.  We may do this every year, wait until mid-January to have his party.

He had a little party with just a few close friends and family.

It was Winnie the Pooh themed...


His first cake all to himself... a twinkie.  I tried to make him a nice little cake, but it flopped and we ran out of time.  That's okay, he hardly touched it.  It seems to fit him anyway.



My odd cake creation for the rest of the party.  It tasted good though.  I really am no good at making cakes.

His first birthday present from Mommy and Daddy.  Everyone loved pushing him around.

He loved it!

We had a game of pin the tail on Eeyore too.  That was a big hit, and the kids wanted to do it over and over again.  I didn't get any pictures at the party, but Aric was very willing to re-enact the whole thing so I could get pictures :-)

Alex didn't really play it, but he loved watching everyone else.

Some of the kids made a puppet craft too.  These are the ones I made for examples.


Aric loved making these, he wanted to do all of them.


It was so fun to celebrate his birthday! 

Almost 100 days

I was looking at our 100 day counting tree and realized that we are almost there!

We may be getting done a little earlier than most, I don't know, but we did start this mid-summer.  So, we'll be having a counting to 100 school day soon. 

One great book we found at the library with some fun ideas was:

Such a fun book.  We need to check it out again for some ideas!

I also promised the kids that we would go somewhere fun after school, we shall see where that ends up being.