Preschool Parable of a Sower/Gardening theme Thurs 2/28/13

Today was an extremely busy day!  We had our regular theme activities, the big kids had their regular work, but had to speed up the process because we were going on a field trip to a bank!  I wish I would've taken pictures, but I forgot my camera!  The bank we went to was the Kinderhook Bank.  It's neat because it's in an old train station!  The kids had fun, in addition to seeing all the different parts and places inside the bank: the atm, the vault, the tellers, the customer service area they even got to observe a drive up transaction! They even got a "goody bag".  They now all have "mood pencils"!  J's favorite part was the "money machine" (atm), N's (big #1) was that it had been a train station.  K didn't answer when I asked her, but I didn't ask until Friday!  A was grumpy so she wouldn't answer either.  She will!

 In the picture above is our flower collage art activity.  A couldn't resist getting in on this one!  She's loves to craft!

Here J is enjoying the collage activity too!  He had so much fun he made three or four of them!

Oh, and the other "child"  in the picture is my darling husband, who was being funny!  After I snapped the picture, which it happened too quickly to tell him - I told him the pics was going on my blog!  He's a big goof, so he didn't care!

Here J and K are posing with there flower collage pictures.  This was J's idea, they both love to pose for pictures and then look at them in my camera!  They were obviously not ready to go on the field trip yet!!  

Here is little K at our writing/literacy table again! She loves this stuff too.  She was coloring in a pre-cut paper flower.  The scissors and glue stuff were from J who had been there and gone too quickly to get a picture of him!

Here is K sorting "seeds" into en empty egg carton.  I'm planning on using this for planting real seeds next week!

Because we didn't get to our circle time this week, the kids were enjoying this them and there is so much more we can do with this theme, we're extending it through next week too! Have a great weekend!

Preschool Parable of a Sower/Gardening Theme Wed 2/27/12

Wednesday was a very busy day here!  

J and K have just discovered the gardening tools from my gardening bag! They were very excited!

 Here they are at our sensory box, which still has the coffee grinds.  They brought many of the gardening tools over and put them in here!

 This is what the science center looked like after they had explored the tools and the bag! As you can see, the bag has almost nothing left in it!  The gloves are scattered all over the tools were in the sensory box - or else where!  They also thought it would be fun to have a "sword" fight with them!  I ended that quickly for everyone's safety!  :)

Although this is not part of our theme, I had to take a picture of J working so diligently at building with the Lincoln logs! These were actually my oldest two children's and I held on to them because I had planned to open my own daycare or preschool.  

 Here is another picture of  him building, he wanted to make sure I got another picture of him looking! You can also see our lovely little playroom, well about half of it!  I still have labeling to do in there, I'm hoping to get to this weekend.  Each time I add something to the room I then rearrange everything and end up needing to relabel.  It's needed relabeling for a while now!!

Here J and K are at our writing/literacy table cutting out pictures of seed packets and flowers.  They were so busy and very involved in this!  I also had our colored construction paper and tape, I think glue sticks too.  J cut out the seeds packets so very neatly and then glued four of them onto a small piece of brown construction paper.  I'll have to take a picture of it and add it to this post.

 The next two photos above is littlest little K sponge painting.  In the top one, I had only just set the paint out and she starting dumping it and sponging!  I had planned on pink and purple paint, but she had added red paint to the tray that was going to have purple, so I added a little white to the red and mixed it then I added some of that to the purple (at her request).  The other tray had just pink  :) Before I added white, she had used red alone.  She really enjoys painting!

Here J is using this paints I had picked up at Yankee One Dollar, which sadly, is closing!  A Joanne Fabric's is going in, in it's place.  Yankee One Dollar had so many craft items..for only a dollar! Going to miss them! Anyway - these look like a  pen or some sort, but have a brush tip at the end and liquid water color in them. I made sort of and oval shape with the paper (our shape of the week).  

Here is K painting at the easel.  The brushes do require some major fine motor skills because you also have to squeeze them, a little to get some paint out.   

Here is J "sponge" painting, which as you can see, turned quickly to "hand" painting!  Oh well, he got his art and sensory experience in one shot and had fun doing it!

This was our Wednesday!  The activities were enjoyed by the children and it was a busy and productive day.  In case you're wondering why no Tuesday, we have a co-op/playgroup we attend on Tuesdays which takes up a few hours of our day, we also usually grocery shop on Tuesdays.  The unfortunate thing, we didn't get to our circle time.  We got a late start both Monday and Wednesday.  That happens sometimes!  We're still working on getting back on track after a very sad and crazy January.

Preschool Parable of a Sower/Gardening theme Mon 2/25/12

This week the littles are gong to learn about sowing seeds.  As I've stated before we use hubbardscupboard.org as part of our curriculum.  I then add in the rest of the activities based on it.  This week is the Parable of the Sower.  So, I've planned some activities to go with it.
In our texture box I put ground coffee, beans (for seeds) and fabric flowers.  I also added a couple of spoons for scooping and two clear dishes for collecting.
Art activity I had three different kinds of "seeds" (beans), green paper and I made the glue brown by adding some brown paint (to look like soil) for Monday. Wednesday-Fri I plan to do gardening collage, sponge painting flowers, I have to think of one more art activity - I'll have to add when I think of it! I may have them paint a planting pot and plant a flower seed they can take care of!
Writing Table/center - index cards, popsicle sticks, markers, tape and planting/gardening words.  I am going to try to make some sort of gardening journal during the week to add to our center
Circle Time books -  today, Monday we will be reading The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.  The other days are books on Parable of the sower, but we don't have them yet.  A requested some from the library, but I have not yet checked to see which ones they didn't have so I can get them from Amazon.
Science center/table - gardening books on Monday,  Wednesday will be gardening tools, Thursday hoping to explore seeds (various seeds, magnifying glasses and books, and Friday plant them.
Easel- Monday - red and white paint (left over from last week), over paper, Wednesday brown paint, big brushes, Thursday and Friday I'll see.  I may add some sort of gardening item to paint with, I have to think more about this one and look over my gardening stuff.

 This is our texture box, with the ground coffee, flowers, beens, dishes and spoons

 Here is little number two, K "sowing seeds" - our art activity of gluing beans onto green paper. You can see the little dish with the stick in it, that's the brown glue.

Here is K enjoying the texture box - she loves this box, she also loves dumping the contents on the floor, but I close it if she does that.  :)

I'm posting pics from Monday that I have taken.  Only three so far, but I'm planning on adding more!

One additional comment, we don't do the letter of the week they way they have it.  We're putting together an alphabet book and also I'm writing words for the current letter. I'll put some of the most recent letters in the literacy center with playdough, road letters and cars (road letters from makinglearningfun.com).

My Father's World

      This school year we began using My Father's World!  I had many reasons for choosing, but when I made my final decision was after attending a homeschool convention and taking two workshops for My Father's World.  We are using AHL - high school for our 9th grade ds and ECC for our 7th grade dd.  I am not using the MFW preschool curriculum.  When I purchased the two for my older children, we barely had the funds for that.  Currently I have been working with using a free online preschool curriculum from hubbardscupboard.org.  I also add in my own "style".  Having studied and earned a degree in Early childhood Education, I could not, not incorporate it!  It is a combination of Reggio Emilio, Montessori and Waldorf.  My older two children were trained this way before entering the public school system.  4 years ago we began our homeschooling journey!  
       The pictures above:  the top picture is our little K, age 2 and quite spunky - she was "helping" with our world cake for ECC - Exploring Countries and Cultures.  The beauty in the middle is our dd A - 12 1/2 and so very helpful with the little's (we also have a 4 year old), preparing meals, shopping and entertaining the littles.  The other beauty is my mom.  I was so thankful she was at our home this day, she helped get A started on her world cake.  The middle picture is A taking charge of the decorating.  The last picture, obviously our finished "world cake".  A fun and delicious activity!  I plan to take some more pictures of what she's done, but realized after looking, this is the only one we have!  We're still working on making this curriculum work for us.  We love My Father's World, but A is not a worksheet kind of kid.. at all!  So recently I've been trying to give her more creative ways of covering the geography material that includes a lot of worksheets.  She is supposed to be make a sugar cookie of Europe and decorating to show the bodies of water.  I need to look around for some ideas too.  We've worked out science.  Instead of using the Apologia General Science (she looked it over and was not at all interested - which I figured) I have had her choosing an animal or two from each country and create lap/notebook pages.  In addition to that, I get out a bunch of books on the other science topics listed: deserts, rain forest, forests, lakes and ponds etc.  She has to read those books along with doing some of her own research.  She is currently researching lakes and ponds and enjoying learning about them very much!
       Our oldest is N and he is a 9th grader doing AHL Ancient History and Literature.  He's been quite a challenge lately to educate!  He doesn't mind what he has to read, but does not like "wasting time" doing things like - science experiments for Biology!  I have recently began a new "schedule" for him.  He has made some comments about going back to public school, which I know he really does not want to do - he's gotten quite comfortable with having light work on Friday's and beginning his weekend early.  That said, I needed a way of keeping better track of what he's doing and the time he's spending.  I found that he was rushing through his assignments, doing them very poorly just to get done.  So I implemented a "period time schedule".  Basically he's now having to spend 40 minutes in each "class(period)".  I make sure he has 8 per day.  We've got some scheduling change to make. Here in our state, they have to take art or music.  So, I started him on the clarinet. Why? because I got one practically for free and we still had the cd on learning how to play it from when he was in public school.  He's not like that choice.  I'm going to explore some other options for him to try.  He enjoys drawing little cartoon type characters so I'm going to see what I can get form the library for him to try out.  He's a very bright young man and needs to be challenged, but he also needs to apply himself.  We're still working on some heart issues with him.  I know he's had a good foundation in the Lord, even though he did attend public school.  So, the roots are there!
         Our two little ones, whom I refer to as "the littles" are very busy and keep my going all day long!  As I stated above I do a preschool with them, but not MFW.  I'm excited however, to say, in the fall, little J, who will be 5 in October, will be starting MFW Kindergarten! YEAH!!!  I'm excited about it.  I'm planning on moving slowly through it though.  I don't want to rush him.  We'll see how it goes!  The Lord is helping me with making the plans for our current school days.  I'm going to be adding much more about that and photos too!  I hope you've enjoyed reading this very long post!  God Bless!

Another change in our school room!

School room 2012-2013

I had to make more changes in our school room, it was driving me crazy the way it was.  I had been online searching for something, can't remember what now, but I came across "littleredhen4.blogspot.com" and saw her pictures of her schoolroom.  I loved the way it looked and wanted to do something similar with ours.  I could tell her room was bigger, but the layout would work in our room too.  For now our computer desk is taking up more room than I'd like, but the desk was free!  As soon as we get some "extra" money I plan to purchase a tower style computer desk I've seen at walmart.com.  It will then go in the corner where I have our filing cabinet but, not sure where the filing cabinet will go, it may just stay, be be moved over where the desk is.  Once that is completed I'd like an oblong table to go in front of the window so everyone can use it comfortably, although everyone is using the little round one now, but that can be a problem when the "littles" are using their writing/literacy center stuff and the "bigs" are doing school work too.  I am pleased with how it looks now. Of course it never looks this nice during a school day!  But if it did then the day wouldn't be as productive! :)

 This is the listening center - I have books on cassette to go with some of our picture books.

 The colorful shelves hold the writing center and literacy center supplies.  The top boxes are labeled with the contents in the box.  The remaining boxes are Aa-Gg (Gg is on the floor - it holds some books to read) they contain literacy activities. Directly to the right of them are supplies and workbox "boxes".  I use the three draw things.  Currently we are working on getting back to the workbox system.  Next to them on the right, the dresser, holds art and craft supplies in the first two drawers.  The bottom on is scrap paper, newspaper/grocery flyers and old magazines.  The top holds our construction paper trays, finished work trays, scissors, markets, pencils, pens.. etc.  The laminator has it's own home, but I'm using it a lot right now!  The little round table is for creating and working.  As I said, it was for the "littles" but the "bigs" end up using it too.

The picture above is a silly picture, but I put it up because behind my "littles" is our "circle time" area.  I have books for our current theme, plus pictures to go with our theme.  When this was taken, our theme was "winter".  The pink in the picture - to the right - they are not normally there!  They belong to "big" A.  Up above the books, behind the curtain, is our calendar.  I cover it up when we are finished.  Also, I have a circle time board we do, that folds in three and stores there too.  "Big A" is behind the littles in the picture reading her "Window on the World" book for ECC - Exploring Countries and Cultures.

I also have a math center - shelves that contain six boxes I place math activities in.  The top of the shelf is the home for our guinea pig Smores.  Currently the bottom shelf is storage, but I plan to make that our science shelf.  We do have a science/math "table" too. It's our science center/math/science table.  I originally planned for it to be the science center, but I do place math activities that go along with our theme and besides, math and science are often grouped together with many early childhood activities.  We also have an easel.  I am so grateful for it too!  My beloved Aunt Gloria had gotten it from someone and brought it up to us.  She is now home with Jesus, but I have so many reminders of her, like the easel.  I also made a texture box.  Some call it a sand and water table, but the early education degree program I learned and received my degree from calls it a texture table.  I call it a texture box - we don't have room, nor did I need, a texture table.  I bought a larger plastic box from the store (I think they are called sweater boxes - it's a 16 Qt. container), labeled it texture box, put extra strength velcro on the bottom sides, stapled the other part of the velcro to this little table (another "gift" from Aunt Gloria") and there I have it!  I had to velcro it down so the littles wouldn't try to carry it all over the house!!  I actually made this before our youngest little was even a though!)  We are also fortunate to have a playroom.  It's very small, but holds alot!!  I use it for storage too!  In another post I'll have to get pictures up of our playroom! It needs more labeling, but right now, I'm thankful it's tidy - well, except for A's area!  Barbie/Monster High/crazy craft holding land!  She and I discovered an awesome site on YouTube called "myfroggystuff".  This woman makes all kinds of doll things from recycled materials!  So awesome!  BUT.. A saves too many things for crafts she's not even planned yet!  I'll get on here again soon to add pics and some info from our themes.  I'm going to try to put the lesson plans up too!  I'm still new with this blogging stuff!  Right now, I'm just trying to get on here more.  Have a great day!



Apple Picking October 2012

The children and I went apple picking this year, almost didn't get to! Hubby out on comp since the end of April, so it's been a crazy ride.   So glad we had the chance to got apple picking though! We go every year and I didn't want to miss it.  We've already eaten several apples!  Some of the apples that "ended up" with bites taken out of them, but not eaten all the way (our littlest one strikes again!) we shared with the family of deer that crosses by our back yard several times a day.  The few pictures I took from our apple picking day are below.

                                Little J enjoying his apple!

                           "Big kids N and A enjoying apples too!

                               "Little K enjoying an apple"

                                "The littles" with their apples

                            All four children at the end of apple picking!
Well this post is short, but sweet!  Have more to post though. 

Trying to get back to blogging!

It's been several months since I last posted.  Things have been busy with four children!  My husband is currently out of work.  He has had two sugergies and more to come, which makes life around here very interesting!

Last time I wrote we were trying "unschooling".  Well, that didnt' quite fit so well into our lives.  My two older children have had the public school experience before coming home and so have I!  I was not ready for unschooling and neither were they.  I may or may not try it with the younger two, we'll see.  We have made a big switch and are now part of the "My Father's World" family and loving it (well.. I am!).  My children are liking it some days.   It does honestly depend on the day! I think all in all, they will end up liking it.

We have tried some different math curriculums since we've started our homeschool journey too.  First I used what ever I could find, then after a short few months of that I bought Math Mammouth from Curr-click.  It was a great start.  Both of my older children needed more work/review on some things from being in public school.  We then, the following school year, moved on to Saxon math.  I kept my oldest using it for the entire school year, but about half way (or more) through the typical school year (Sept-June) I discovered Math U See.  I went with this for my next child.  It's a better approach to math for her.  Last school year I tried it for both of my children... not a good move!  It was still working for my dd, but not ds.  I should've just stayed with Saxon for  him.  Well over this past summer we tried Life of Fred.  Although I do really still like it.. it was not the right fit for our family.  The kids did/do enjoy the silly story, but they have not been trained in math that way and it would be too much back tracking for them at this point to really grasp Fred's math.  So.. we are back to Saxon for my oldest ds and dd is back to Math U See.  This is great though.  Now they each have a math program that seems to "fit" them and their mathematical needs.  As for the youngest two..I'm planning to start ds that just turned 4 on Singapore math..but I'm waiting until after Christmas.  Since he and dd almost 2 are young and will be schooled at home from the beginning I can go a different route with them.  I like Singapore, it looks like they will like it.  We'll see.  I still have time to change my crazy mind!

Life in our school room has moved again! I don't have pictures though.  I had originally moved it around to make it look nice to "show" for selling.  That never happened.  After looking back at our old pictures, I miss our old room.. nice and organized and neat.. If I can arrange it in here.. I may change it back that way.  I'm not ready for that big mess though, so for now, we're staying crammed and in order! I don't have the space in my home I'd like to have our school room like I like it.  Actually if I can figure out a new home for our computer.. then I could make is a little less crowded in here.  Small spaces!!!

Puppy??.. not anymore.. we had to give her away 7 months after we got her.  I was crazy to think it would work with a newborn and a new puppy.  It was horrible and I was not doing well with it.  The puppy was a lab/boxer mix and she was CRAZY!  My ds who is now 4, then a little over two, had the best time with her, but it caused problems for the rest of the family.  He would let her out of her crate when it was not a good time and she'd chew and destroy something..or he'd open our front door and let her run....!!!  Plus he also liked to be naked..alot!  So he'd join her in the daily run...yes, naked!  :)

We have a nice guinea pig who came to live with us around the same time as the pup.. but he's a cool pig.. very social and friendly.. and he does not destroy our home! 

I like blogging and hope to find more time for it.  I also hope to add some pictures of some of the fun stuff we've done..

Thanks for reading!  Blessings to you! 

It's been too long!

It has been too long since I've gotten to come on here and update my blog. Quite a bit has changed! Our "newest addition" is now 15 months old! She's adorable and very loud! Our little Joey is as wonderful as ever.. and A HANDFUL!! Abby our "princess" is still our princess and getting closer to being a teenager.. but not yet! Our oldest is a teenager.. oh boy! We have made some changes to our classroom, mainly because we were going to put our home up for sale and I needed to have the doorway I had blocked off unblocked. It's okay this way, but after looking back at the pictures I miss the way our room was last. It looked so neat and organized.
We have moved onto exploring "unschooling". I've been reading a book "Christian Unschooling". It's really great and so helpful! Our journey is off to a slow start, but I am sure we will get to where God wants us to be. I continually pray on his calling on all of our lives and for His guidance in our education. Currently Abby is working on a lapbook/unit study on Australia and one on Oceans. She is also very interested in fashion and writing. We did have a couple of great fashion books out from the library, but had to return them. I'm still contemplating whether or not to purchase them. I do have a mother's luncheon to go to very soon and there is a ton of used curriculum for sale, so I'm trying to hold off buying too much until then. Nicholas is into this show he discovered on Apacolypse. I've put together a unit study for him, but he's not too interested in it. I'm praying again we will find out way through this. Joey is very much into many things, but dinosaurs, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse and Scooby Doo are his favorites. We recently completed a few weeks on dinosaurs. Followed by a couple of weeks on "We Like Books" using a lot of Eric Carle books. Things have gotten a bit crazy lately so we're just filling in the day with activities. Kristen is into exploring everything. One of her favorite activities is painting... EVERYTHING! She does well at the easel though.

All of us, except for my husband are involved at the play at our church. My oldest is part of the stage crew, the rest of us are part of the play. It's exciting and fun, but also keeps us busy. I'm looking forward to the weekend of the performance and praying it will bring many people to Christ!

We no longer have our dog, it was sadly too much for our family. We will try agian another time. We still have our guinea pig and fish though. I will post some new pictures as soon as I can get to it.

Abby and I discovered an awesome craft of recycling many things and turning them into useful things for Barbie. We found it on You Tube. It's called my froggy stuff. It's so much fun for both of us! I love to craft and so does Abby. I'll be taking some pictures of what we've made for her doll house as soon as we finish each room.

A friend and fellow homeschooling mom and are going to be starting a new homeschool group at my church in April of this year, we're all looking forward to that.

It's been a while

It's been a while since I've gotten on here. I want to try to get on here at least once a month to update. The last time was was March! But the picture was Christmas! We've been so busy. We joined a great co-op group in February and we're enjoying it so much! Next week is out last day until the fall though. We plan to keep busy this summer with swimming, camping, schooling, and just doing fun things. Updated pics and activities hopefully to follow soon.

100th Day of School

Here on this post I am putting pictures of our 100 days of school celebration. I had found so many great ideas that I decided the children would just participate in the centers instead of our regular work. They had some challenges and some easy activities, but enjoyed it so much it didn't feel like work! I thought pictures would be nice in case anyone wanted some ideas!
Below are pictures of the kids working on the "centers" for our 100th day of school!

Our busy little schooler participating in activities! The picture on the right is his completed trail mix before baggin' and eatin'!

The picture here on the left and several below are pictures of the activities before they children began.

Below are the three special 100 day breakfasts I made for each of them!

shown above are N's 100th day breakfast(gluten free homemade waffles and raspberries) and still sleepy J with his.

The two plates of food above are J's (on left, french toast stick and strawberries) and A's on the right (two over easy eggs with toast and red grapes). YUMMY! We all ended up having some of the homemade waffles!(new recipe).

Our School Room Fall/winter 2010-2011

These are pictures I took of our school room amost ready just before we started school. I've made a few changes due to the addition of the new baby and having to make room for a crib for her. I now have four desks on the one wall where the two are and where the little one is in front of the window I now have a desk for myself. It's a little crammed, but we're making it work. Because I had to move the desk into our school room, I had to move the workboxes. I am not thrilled with their placement, but for now it'll have to do! We are planning on putting our home up for sale soon and looking for a bigger home that is closer to my husbands job. We use our kitchen table a lot too, thankfully it's big!!

It's been a while since I have been on here! It's been quite the challange with a newborn, a toddler (2), a 10 and 12 year old! Always in transition!! I will be uploading new pictures soon. We been enjoying some fun activities for Valentine's day and our 100th day of school! I had such a fun time finding and putting together activities I found. The kids loved them! Thanks to all for the great comments!