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.

Book Shelf

I have loved the rain gutter shelves from the first time I saw them here. I planned on putting one by Ellie's bed so she could actually put books on the shelf after she reads them instead of letting them fall off the side of her bed. After seeing this post I decided it would be just as cute and much easier to just buy this picture shelf from IKEA. I just love all of the ideas I get from blog land!!

Alpaca Farm

We recently visited an alpaca farm with some friends. Alpaca's look very similar to llama's and are pretty darn cute. Everybody had so much fun feeding and learning about them.

Cow Appreciation Day

Chick-fil-a recently had a cow appreciation day where if you dress up like a cow you got a free kids meal. Chris took my little calves and they had a blast!!

Art Holder

I saw the coolest art supply holder on Homeschool Creations blog and I knew that I wanted to make one for the girls. It was pretty cheap and super simple. I bought a lazy susan at Ikea for $7.99 and the little metal buckets at the Target dollar section. I hot glued magnets on the lazy susan which keeps the buckets from falling off when they spin it. I put it on the breakfast room table so the girls could color, draw, glue etc. while I am cooking dinner or just whenever.

4th of July Cake

I made a candy cake for a 4th of July cookout we went too. It was so easy to make and very yummy! I got the idea from here and although her cake looks so much better then mine I was still happy with it. I just used a boxed cake mix and iced it with white icing. I lined the outside with KitKats and put red and blue M&M's on top. My travel cake plate broke so I had to put it on this busy tray which takes away from the cake but it was all I had!

Our Circle Time Board

We have always done circle time but I loved the circle time board that I first saw here. I wanted to make one for us because I thought it would be fun but the girls have loved it more then I thought they would! So on our board we have:

• Upper and lowercase letter we are working on and right beside it is a sign language picture of the letter


• Shape of the week


• Color of the week


• Bible verse we are working on (verses from AWANA)


• Skip counting chart that I printed from here


• 100's chart (we mark off a block each school day)


• Letter activity cards that I printed from Homeschool Share to get the girls up and moving. I also found another set here to print once we go through all of the ones from Homeschool Share.


• Laminated sentence strip. We write a sentence and we talk about how sentences start with capitol letters, have punctuation, how many words are in the sentence etc. The possibilities are endless. I got this idea from my wonderful teacher friend.


• Number of the week


• Today's weather

The letters, shapes, colors and numbers are laminated flash cards I was given and I just attach them with a Velcro dot. Our bible verses are on rings so I can easily review with them and everything else is attached with double sided tape. I still have several open spots for us to add to the board and I thought about jazzing it up and making it more colorful but I am happy with it for now.

During circle time we also have a calendar that we use to talk about days of the week and months of the year. I always try to incorporate songs, books or simple games. Circle time usually lasts about 15 min.

I got so much inspiration from here, here and here!

Carwash

Emily loved washing her car! I am not sure what she enjoyed more...filling the bucket with a whole bottle of soap or washing.

I had to throw in the picture of the girls playing superhero.