Wordless Wednesday: beautiful tulips

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: April 28

In my life this week...My hubby and I are trying to figure out how to protect the garden from the chickens.  We can't plant anything until we do.  They'll just dig it up and eat it, so that's been the challenge this week.  We have decided to either build a screen to go directly over the garden,  or a fence to block off that area of the yard, or perhaps a bigger area for the chickens that's not the whole yard.  I think I am leaning towards either a fence, or a screen over the garden.  Also I left one of my pepper starters out back where the chickens could get to it and they already attacked it.  Ate every single leaf off of it.  So, all my tomatoes and peppers are out front for now until we get the garden figured out.  This is our first year with chickens and a garden, so it's a learning process! 


In our homeschool this week...the funnest thing we did this week was read The Magical Garden of Claude Monet by Laurence Anholt, and did a fun art project called Monet's waterlillies that I found at Deep Space Sparkle. Pictures below of the finished art work.  Oh, and ha ha, I just realized you can see my poor pepper plant right there in that picture of the book.  April took that picture and I guess she decided to add the plant since it was out there.

Aaron's waterlily

Aric's waterlily

Mom's waterlillies

Since the craft/art project was a bit easy for April she opted to paint hers.  This is April's waterlily.

Helpful homeschool tips or advice...don't underestimate to power of a project or lesson that takes a long time.  It's easy to say "that takes too long" lets just skip it.  But, I have found that some of the greatest learning comes from the dedication it takes to stick to long projects and lessons.

Some of the cool things we saw at the tide pools.  This is a purple sea urchin.  We had an awesome little card they gave us while we were down there.  We identified 11 out of the 17 or so things they had listed.  Love learning on the coast!

Yes, we even enjoy a rainy/stormy day at the Oregon coast.  Although the first part of the day turned out to be mostly dry.  This was right before we were heading home.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...last Friday we headed over to the coast and spent a wonderful day there checking out the tide pools, going to the coast aquarium, and playing a little on the beach.  Monday we had Monday school co-op.  Tuesday we went on a walk with some homeschool friends at a state park.  It was beautiful.  Thursday we went up to Silver Falls to visit Grandma and Grandpa who were camping there.  It made us so excited to go camping!  On Thursday evening we also went to a baptism of 3 children from the same family at our church. 

My favorite thing this week was...reading a chapter of Pagoo to the children on the way over to the coast then finding a real life hermit crab that the kids could hold, in the tide pools when we got there.  Watching the hermit crabs walk around was pretty fun.  Little Alex figured out pretty quickly if he set the hermit crab down on the rocks he'd come out and crawl back to the water.  He wanted to do that over and over again.

My kiddos favorite thing this week was...hanging out up at the campground I'm sure.  They didn't want to leave both times we went up to visit.  I think they enjoyed the many walks we took this week.  It was beautiful, and so nice to get out and explore!  My kids love that.

What's working/not working for us...being in the car and driving to and fro so much is not working for us.  We spent a lot of time driving over the past week, and I can tell it's wearing on my boys a lot because they are fighting a lot more this week as well.  That's also not working for us, the fighting.  I'm hoping it's because of the car riding.  We have a quieter week coming up, and I think we are all going to be happier.  It'll be nice when my boys can read on their own in the car like April does. 

Things I'm working on...planning Aaron's birthday party.  He picked a fun theme of rocks/gems/geology so it's going to be fun to get creative with.  My hubby already has plans for making rock digging kits for each kid.  He's pretty excited about it too.

I'm cooking...Taco soup with pulled pork instead of the usual ground beef.  It was pretty good.  I also made banana chocolate chip bread.

I'm grateful for...being the mother of 3 little boys and 1 daughter.

I'm praying for...homeschool decisions for next year.  What curriculum, who needs what changes, etc.

I'm reading...Eat & Run by Scott Jurek.  Actually Hubby is reading this to me in the evenings.  He thought it a good book for me as I am contemplating training for a triathlon this summer.  I have never been a runner, but I am pretty excited about giving this a try.  This book is very interesting, and inspiring.

The kids are reading...April is reading the first and second book in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Oh, she is also reading Black Beauty.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...I have a photo of a quote I saw at the Oregon coast aquarium...

"Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere."
~Albert Einstein


 
 To see other homeschool journal entries visit:  ihomeschool network.

Desiree

Tot school with Alex: letter Rr

Tot school has been pretty slow around here lately.  It took us a while to finish the letter R, but he's finally finished!  The theme was R is for rabbit, but we just pretty much did whatever.  Actually it started out with R is for rainbow, but ended with rabbit because we started our Peter Rabbit five in a row unit while he was still stuck on the letter R.  I guess it worked out.

So, to go with the rainbow theme, he had some rainbow sorting...

And, this fun stacking/nesting block activity:

some tot school printables for the letter Rr:

 

It was around Easter time so I got our fun egg activity out...

Letter Rr basket with rainbow transportation vehicles, and R letters to play with.

Having fun with the basket

Some other printables from Homeschool share for his alphabet notebook:  R for rocket that he decorated with glitter, a mini book with r words, little red riding hood story, animals that start with r, and a few nursery rhymes.

His R rabbit craft, which will also go in his alphabet notebook.

 

His letter Rr wall of fame.  It really is fun for him to see all of this up on the wall.  He walks by and he looks at it, and remembers what we talked about while doing each thing.

We have been working on Peter Rabbit five in a row for a few weeks, so that is one of the reasons it took so long for the letter Rr stuff to get done.  As we wrap up Peter Rabbit hopefully we'll get to the letter Bb next week!

Desiree

E is for Easter

I almost wasn't going to post anything about Easter, but it fits perfectly for the letter E (which I missed last week, so I'm catching up :-).  Anyway, I wasn't going to post about it because it nearly didn't happen.  Meaning, my kids barely got an Easter basket, we didn't even color Easter eggs, I didn't get the box of Easter decorations down, I failed to get any egg hunting in order, and for reasons beyond my control we even had to miss church on Easter Sunday!  I felt like a failure, big time.  You might have even heard me sobbing on Saturday night because I realized that I hadn't even gotten anything for their Easter baskets.  I won't go into exactly why.  In a way, I'm not really sure why.  The last few months have been a little hard for me personally, and I might have been just plain old worn out on the holidays.  I'll leave it at that.  But, thankfully, my wonderful Mother-in-law put together a little egg hunt in her backyard on Saturday per the kids request.  I was able to scrounge some things up to put into their baskets on Sunday morning (which I didn't get a picture of).  Just a few little toys, and some candy.  They were still excited to get them.

Anyway, Here they are waiting for the signal to go hunt for eggs.  I guess they waited all morning for us to come back (we were buying a boat) before they did their hunt, but gave up and just did it without us.



 We did get to watch Alex hunt for his eggs because he was napping while the big kids hunted for their eggs.
  

 Looking back on this I learned how important family traditions are even when you are feeling tired and worn out.  Over all things turned out okay, I wish I could go back and make some fun memories with my kids over Easter time.  I guess there's always next year.


 

Wordless Wednesday: sleepy iPad time

 I guess playing the "pad" just wears you out :-)!

 

General conference: April 2013

It was our church's General conference last weekend.  I love conference, and watching it on our tv in our own home.  I love the great feeling it brings into our home while we are watching.  The talks, the music, the time spent listening with my family is always so uplifting.  I can't say that I have any great notes to share with you yet because I wasn't able to sit and studiously take notes.  Instead I was spending my time keeping my little ones focused, and sitting as quietly as little people can do.  We colored, we snacked, we snuggled, and we {tried} to listen as much as we could.  But, even though I couldn't always hear every single word, I sure could feel the spirit bearing witness of the truth of the things that were being spoken, and of the peace and happiness my family was feeling as we sat and listened.  Someday it will be my season to sit and be able to hear every word, but for now my conference time will be spent doing this...

...coloring with the 2 year old

 

telling them about the speakers, who they are, what their names are, etc...

...making fun little buckets for each child filled with a packet of fun activities, snacks, crayons, a dry erase board, and whatever else I can scrounge up real fast...

helping them with fun crafts like these (it was fun to put this together while listening!...

watching them have fun filling in the pages of their conference packet...

We only did the 2-two hour sessions on Sunday as a family.  I have a lot of catching up to do, but I always look forward to reading all the talks on my own for the few months after conference.  I can't wait to read again some of the great things I heard last Sunday. 

 

D is for dream

Or, in this case, a dream come true.  We finally took the plunge and bought a (new to us) boat.  I have dreamed of having a boat to take the kids out on.  They've never been out on a tube, or water skiiing, or my favorite knee boarding.  I'm looking forward to the many adventures we'll be going on with this (and so are they).  The boys will even be doing some fishing on it.  Michele got  the boat bug a few months ago.  At first he was just looking at getting a little fishing boat, but with some convincing he came around to my side and we got a more dual purpose boat.  We've taken it out once since we got it a week ago down at Dexter lake near Michele's parents house, and let me just say it was so fun to spend the day at the lake and zoom around on that thing all day!  The boys keep asking when we get to "go boating" again.  Just waiting for some nicer weather to show up!

A picture of the boat the day we got it.  The kids were just bursting with excitement when they saw it.  I'd post the goofy little video of them, but it's just too goofy.  You know how goofy you get when your so excited you can hardly stand it?  Just picture that.

 

Skylander's school

My boys have been having a blast with the Skylander's Kindergardener printable pack from 1+1+1=1.  They are a little obsessed with this game/characters right now, so this pack has been fun for them to explore over the past few months.  Yes, months.  They keep wanting to get it back out.  But, we're finally done with it.  They've exhausted all the printables!  Lol.  They'll want to keep reading the book though I'm sure, and there are a few that can be re-used.  We'll probably take them out again someday.

Desiree