artists and classics for toddlers

Some recent book finds that I wanted to share...

I stumbled upon these great board books at my library.  They are touch and feel books of artwork from great artists like Matisse, Van Gogh, and Monet.  These are the 3 titles that I found at my library one day:  Feed Matisse's Fish, Make Van Gogh's bed, and Brush Mona Lisa's Hair.  Since then I have purchased Find King Henry's Treasure.  I have a few more added to my Amazon cart to purchase later now as well.  My 2 little guys really liked these books.  Even my older ones were intrigued.  They have some great information about the artists and paintings that is quick and easy for short attention spans.



A peek at the inside of one of them...

Another fun "classic" board book style for little ones...
It is fun to see how easily something like Wuthering Heights can be introduced in a toddler board book.  What will they come up with next?

Desiree

G is for Gardening and H is for Happy Mother's Day

I'm getting behind on this blogging through the alphabet, but I will try to catch up!

Tonight as I was putting Aric to bed he said to me "mama, you must love gardening".  I do, but I have to admit I'm still learning.  I'm still trying to figure out a lot, but even if I can't grow the best garden I still love it.  So, that is why I'm pretty happy with my little garden right now.  I love to see everything growing so well!



It's all in the front yard right now until I can transplant it all to the back where the garden beds are.  I had to start with them up front while we were figuring out what to do about the cluck clucks.  They like gardens too :-)  And, actually ate my pepper plant before I realized I had left it down where they could get it!  So, for a quick solution we did this...



I am loving this!  I love that the chickens have their own space, but still get to roam around outside of the coop.  I wish we had done this a while ago.  I love that we humans have our own space too!  We have had this up for about a week, and they've only made it outside the fence 2 times.  We are pretty happy with it.  Since this is up, and appears to be working well, we can move the garden out back soon.



Hubby bought all the supplies to build a cover for the garden.  So, eventually he'll build that and that'll be our 2nd defense against the chickens, and it will be helpful to keep other critters out.



See that hanging basket?  That was just added today along with the rod to hold it.  It was my mother's day present.  Oh by the way  Happy Mother's Day!

   

F is for flowers

Tulips to be exact!  We happened to catch the tulip festival on such a beautiful day this year.  Seeing fields and fields of tulips in so many colors just amazes me!  I'll let the pictures do the talking for this post.  

Enjoy!



 

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: May 18 (camping)

 

In my life this week...I decided to take the kids for an unplanned trip and camp at Champoeg Oregon state park this week because my in-laws were going to be out there.  My Hubby did all the work with getting the trailer out there and back.  He's so great for doing that for us, and I'm thankful for his willingness to do it even though he couldn't be out there with us the whole time except the evenings after work.  It is only about 15 minutes to this campground from our house, but still so fun for a little get away.  The first 3 days were okay, but then it started raining too much for the last 2 days.  Luckily we were close to home and we could just go home when it was too wet to do anything.

In our homeschool this week...I planned little school work because I knew we'd be gone camping most of the week.  I took math books, and we got math done 2 of the days we were out there.  April did a lot of bird watching, and identified several birds throughout the week.  She had a complete list of birds that have been spotted at that state park in the last year and she tried her best to see how many she could find.  She is getting really good at knowing the birds names!  I need to learn them now so I know what she is talking about when she says she saw such and such bird.  She is also taking a bird class for Monday school so she is learning a lot there too.  It was a lot of nature study this week, and life school being out at the campground.  We enjoyed much quiet, and beauty.  Here are some of the pictures that she took while out bird watching at the campground.

This is the field behind where our trailer was.  She liked watching this box.

I'm not sure if this is an eagle, but I did see an eagle flying pretty close to us over a nearby field one day.  It was awesome to see it so close to us.

Some more bird houses visible from our trailer in the field.

This is the perfect example of how tranquil and peaceful it was out there.  Loved being away from everything.  Love this picture that April took.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...not much this week except the usual lessons (horse, art, Monday school, etc.)

My favorite thing this week was...watching my boys have a little picnic breakfast with the kids tupperware set that I keep in the trailer.  They loved pouring the apple juice from the little pitcher.  I guess this is the boy version of a "tea party".  LOL.

 

I'm cooking...while camping I made chili (homemade), grilled chicken with yellow rice, and the rest was easy stuff like burgers, hot dogs, and s'mores of course.

I'm grateful for...our trailer that makes rainy day camping trips bearable.  That summer is almost here.  That things will get quiet for a few months.  That April has decided to do 4-H again next Fall.  That birthday season is starting here at our house, and everyone will be moving up a number (it's huge really, they are all so excited).  That I can watch my children grow up.  For pictures that bring back memories and remind me of the things we have done.  For bicycles, and that we all have one to ride.  Also for fun family bike rides.

I rewarded my kids this week by...taking them to Safari Sams to play.  It's a giant indoor jungle gym, and it was rainy at camp so we decided to do something fun.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...  Serious AND silly...

Our new shower curtain.  You know you're a homeschooling family when...  I'm certainly learning more about the table of elements everyday!

Yes, stinker fits the description for all 3 boys!  

I'm linking this up to iHomeschool network.  To see other homeschool journals go here.

Desiree

Hagg lake boat outing

We decided to try Henry Hagg lake about an hour North West of us.  It is a pretty nice, peaceful lake, and definitely a good option for us.  It was such a beautiful day!  We are loving this beautiful weather we are lucky to have right now too.

April's very first time on the tube.  She was pretty nervous at first, but after a few slow runs she started liking it more.

Ready to go!

Cheesy pose!  Hubby has fun drivin' the boat.

Alexander has fun trying to drive the boat too :-)

Boys trying to get into the water, and saying it's COLD!  Also a view of the surrounding lake.

Aric decided he loves tubing.  He was too afraid to get in the tube at first, but finally he decided to just get in it to try it out.  We were anchored so I just pulled him around the back of the boat and showed him how fun it can be to move around.  He liked that.

Aric trying it out at first to see if he could do it.

Eventually we got him to lay down because he was "sinking" in the tube, lol.  He let Daddy drive the boat really slowly at first.  Then he didn't want to get off, and was asking to go faster.  I didn't expect him to like tubing for a long while!  Now he can't wait until next time.

Aric going slowly at first.  We didn't get a picture of him going faster, but he had a big grin on his face.

 

The Tale of Peter Rabbit FIAR

We spent pretty much the whole month of April rowing The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (five in a row).  Mostly because we included a lot of gardening activities, and actually used some of the time to get our own garden ready.  Plus, my boys just loved the book!  In fact, they are still wanting me to read it to them, and my 6 year old just started reading the book to me today!  We have also decided that we want to read all 23 books in our Peter Rabbit collection.  We've only made it through the first 3 I think.  I'm excited to just spend a day doing that.

There was a lot to go along with this book!  Not only were there some great lessons in the FIAR manual, there's tons of fun stuff online.  I had a hard time picking things which is also why we spent so much time on it.  The nice thing is, I think we are going to keep learning more about Beatrix Potter, and keep reading these books throughout the summer.

April surprised me by making a huge poster size copy of the first few pages of The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  She comes up with fun things like that sometimes.

April montly calendar heading.  I made this for our preschool calendar with some peter rabbit clipart.  It was a nice addition to our month of Peter Rabbit.

 

 The Peter Rabbit calendar numbers from make learning fun were pretty fun too.

 We located the UK, and put the story disk on the map.

 

Aric had fun making some puppets for the story.  These printables were also found at make learning fun.  I shrunk down the size of the character masks for printing, colored, and glued to popsicle sticks for puppets.

 

A dot to dot...(make learning fun)

A picture of the 2 copies we have.  The one in back is a copy I found at Goodwill a while back.  Then I ended up purchasing the set of the whole Peter Rabbit library from costco which is what the blue one is from.

 

A few games:  first, "hide the trowel" under the cabbage from Homeschool Creations gardening preschool pack.  Aric really liked this game.  I found it easiest to glue the cabbages to post its so they could just be flipped up and looked under.  Fun game!

A

 Second game:  Peter Rabbit tic-tac-toe.  This was from make learning fun as well.

A Peter Rabbit craft that I created with Aric.

Putting picture cards in order as we told the story.  I believe these picture cards are from the Five in a row fold 'n learn.

 

Aaron decided to make this picture of "Mr. McGregor's carrot" during some free painting time.

Copy work by Aaron

Painting vegetables for Mr. McGregor's garden. 

We made strawberries, turnips, peas, potatoes, carrots, and squash. (Idea for this project at Mrs. Lee's Kindergarden)

Some other activities not pictured:

• Playing games at the Tale of Peter Rabbit website
• Learning about Beatrix Potter with this book:  Beatrix Potter's Journal (we are all loving looking at this book, it has all kinds of flaps, and information about her)
• Lapbook from homeschool share

My boys also loved watching the Peter Rabbit tales in video too!  Did you know they have all the books on video?  I didn't until I stumbled across it on youTube.  Actually you can find every episode on youtube.  So, my boys watched quite a few of them.  Enjoy!


I don't think they'll forget this book anytime soon!
I'll be linking this up to Delightful Learning's FIAR vol. 2 link-up



Desiree