Having School Here There and Everywhere

In the past two weeks we have done school on schedule but we haven’t done school in our school room very much! We had a day that was a little cooler so I just took our workbox system outside  and we sat at the patio table and did our work. Emily enjoyed this even more then Ellie because I let her make a mess with her activities and boy did she ever. Instead of reading our books on the sofa like normal we read and ate our snack in our swing set playhouse. I am not going to lie….I enjoy the soft sofa way more then the hard wood floor but the girls love it!

Several times in the last few weeks we have loaded up my backpack with school books and the girls and I have headed to the mall Barnes & Noble for school (yes, I  look like a dork walking around the mall with a loaded backpack). When we get there both girls pick out ridiculously big stacks of books and while they are working I read to them and if there is work Ellie needs to really concentrate on I will help her and then we will take a break and read books after. It is also a great incentive to have the play area to go to if we get our work done in time. I use the play area for PE:) So where else do you do school?

Kindergarten with Ellie

We are into our 4th week of school and it is going really well. Having the first 6 weeks planned out has been wonderful. I have tweaked a few things along the way but we have stuck to it for the most part. So here how everything is going:

Math U See Primer-  Still really easy at this point but will be getting a little more challenging soon

Explode the Code – Going pretty good. The work is easy for her but she doesn’t love all the writing involved.

Happy Phonics – She still loves this and looks forward to playing the games.

My Father’s World 1st grade– We are taking this very slow but it is going really well. We are all enjoying the bible portion of it.

Artistic Pursuits – I love this and Ellie likes it but just not as much as me:)

Handwriting Without Tears – This is a great great program but this is where we butt heads. She wants to write her way and doesn’t want me to help her and doesn’t enjoy writing during school but loves writing on her own.

Five In A Row – I will do separate posts on our FIAR activities.

Teach Reading 100 Easy Lessons -  Ellie hated this when we started several months ago so I put it up and about a month later she said she wanted to give it another chance. I was shocked because I hadn’t even mentioned it. Anyway, we started it back and she actually seems to look forward to it. We don’t do it during school time but right before rest time and it only takes 10 min. It is working great and her reading is taking off!

More then anything we read lots and lots of books!!

We have had two bad school days but we have brushed them off and started fresh the next day!! I am so blessed to be able to homeschool my girls!

Tot School

~32 months~

Here is what we did last week in tot school wearing only our big girl panties:

Lots of puzzles and coloring books

 

Transferring pom poms and putting marbles on golf tees

Lots of doodling on workbook pages and building with pegs

Putting stickers on paper

 

Emily only did school one day last week so it was a pretty laid back week.

Bible Study

Tuesday night has become our family bible study night. We have done bible studies as a family before but only sporadically so it is nice knowing that we have a scheduled night. We are using Leading Little One’s to God. I am really enjoying it and I love hearing the girls answer the questions. You just never know what they are going to come up with. Every Tuesday I put a dessert recipe in Ellie’s workbox for us to all make together to eat during our bible study. The first week we made these yummy brownies and last week we made these cute sunflower cookies from Makes and Takes.

We iced sugar cookies that I bought from the bakery with yellow frosting, put candy corn around the edge and chocolate chips in the middle. They look like owl eye’s when they are side by side !

Seeds Family Worship

I read about the Seeds Family Worship CD’s several months ago on Homeschool Creations blog and I bookmarked it. Well the other day I finally went to You Tube and listened to some of the songs and I really liked them so I ordered the CD Seeds of Courage. Can I just tell you how much I love love that CD!! The best part is the girls love it too. Basically it is scripture set to contemporary music. You can read more about Seeds Family Worship on Homeschool Creations review.  Also, Homeschool Creations has a discount code so you can get 20% off! There are five CD’s total and I can’t wait to order the other four! I recommend going to You Tube and listening for yourself.

New Look

I have a new look!! Have you noticed? OK technically I don't have a new look but my blog does! I wish I could tell you how I did it but I didn't do it... my very dear friend did and she tells you how in this post. Thanks Katy!!!

Tot School

    ~Emily is 32 weeks old~

After taking about a month off from school we started back this past week. The girls were very excited and so was I knowing that I had 6 weeks planned:) I added an extra activity for Emily so instead of having 3 boxes to choose from each day she has 4. Here is what Emily did this week:

Magnetic Pom Pom’s. I can’t remember where I printed these sheets from!! I thought I printed them from Home Grown Hearts but I can’t find them but I will keep looking!

 

Window Clings (Both girls love these)

Match the small picture to the large picture using a magnifying glass. She loved this activity!!! I printed it from here.

Playing with Handwriting Without Tears letter pieces– She made roads to drive her cars on.

Color Wonder

 Putting noodles in a cheese shaker

  Playing Candyland – This continues to be one of her favorite games!

 Color Matching file folder game printed at Confessions Of A Homeschooler

  Pouring Water

AquaDoodle Mat

  The big hit of the week was finding alphabet puzzle pieces in the rice. I got the idea from here.

  Eye Spy Bottle that she played with for all of one second!

All in all it was a great first week of school! To see more tot school ideas visit 1+1+1=1.

Every Cowgirl Needs A Horse

The girls and I recently checked out Every Cowgirl Needs A Horse from the library. We LOVED this book. It is so cute and funny and the girls and I read it over and over and over again. It is about a little girl who wants to be a cowgirl and asks for a horse for her birthday. On the day of her birthday she puts on her cowgirl gear and does all of her cowgirl chores while waiting to see if she gets a horse. Instead of a horse she gets a bike that she pretends is a horse. It is such a cute story!!

Ok this is not book related but I have to share a few things that the girls have said and done this past week:

Me:Ellie, go ahead and get your last chore done

Ellie:Now I know how Cinderella felt!

I was sick one day this week so Chris and the girls went to the store for some ginger ale. Both girls come running in and told me they have a surprise for me. They were so excited!!!! Know what the surprise was….coupons they had found. They know me so well!!

Homemade Bagels

I have been wanting to make homemade bagels ever since I saw this recipe on Passionate Homemaking. I finally made them this weekend and they were so so yummy!!! I really wanted to try to blueberry but I knew the girls would love the cinnamon sugar ones. Everyone loved them but they were a little bit of a pain to make. Hopefully next time will be a little easier and faster. The main problem I had was that it took for ever for the dough to rise! Anyway here they are:

Luckily they tasted sooo much better then they looked:)

School Plans for 2010-2011

I have been in major school planning mode for the last week or so and have almost the first 6 weeks of school planned. My goal is when we start school at the end of August to have 6 weeks planned for both girls including circle time. I want everything printed, pages tagged or whatever needs to be done so I can easily fill our workboxes each night. Here is our school plan:
Ellie:
My Father's World 1st grade - I never thought I would use an all in one curriculum but I really like this curriculum, especially the bible section. I am going to supplement the reading with:

Happy Phonics - Ellie has loved this. It is all games and lots of fun!

Explode the Code
we will also be using
Math U See Primer

Artistic Pursuits

We will also be reading lots of books! I always include 2-3 books in one of Ellie's boxes and this continues to be her favorite thing in her workboxes.

We will also supplement in with games, Handwritting Without Tears (that we were doing last year), lots of hands on activities and different printables from Kidssoup.com, Confessions of a Homeschooler, Prekinders,Teacher File Box and Making Learning Fun.

For Emily:

I still plan on doing tot school activities with her. In the past she has had 3 school boxes to choose from while Ellie was doing school but I am going to add in another box so she will have 4. Three of the boxes will be ones she can work on independently and the 4th box will be one for us to do together. Also anything that is in Ellie's workbox that has to do with a science experiment or craft I include enough materials for Emily to participate too.

Circle Time:

Circle time will pretty much stay the same but we are going to do Ellie's bible lesson during this time so Emily can be a party of it and I have added a pocket chart to our circle time board so I can include fun rhymes and poems.