It has been a busy week full of school work, play dates, cleaning, and appointments.
Yesterday we met up with some friends at an indoor play room. It went well for a while. Then my 1 and a half year old decided pants were not for him. He kept running off and taking them off. I kept putting them back on. He even handed them to my friend at least once. I'll admit it was funny, but certainly not a habit he needs to form!
The girls and I have also started a lapbook about the Kirsten Larson American Girl series. They are pretty excited. Right now we're reading and they are coloring their templates. When they're done we'll get them glued on to the "books" and fill them in with details! I have all kinds of activities for them to do too! I'm probably more excited than they are. :) I'll try to make sure I post updates and pictures!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Yesterday was a good day. The girls got done with their school work on time, so they were able to have some friends over. My husband took them all for a ride on the trailer bed for the tractor.
Today I got to play fireman and pictionary with my boys. Also did a little preschool stuff with them. The girls took a little longer than expected to do their school work. It was one of those "It's too hard so I'm not doing it!" kind of days for them. My oldest has more days like that then my younger one. Again they got to play with a friend. I don't know why people worry so much about the socialization of homeschooled kids. My kids play with other kids (outside of our family) pretty much every day. They go to parties and events. They get plenty of time with peers.
I have my pictures on a different computer so, still none to share.
I did get some good exercise from walking today, which was nice. Although the weather got colder and colder as I walked. I hear we just might end up with 6" of snow overnight. We'll see.
Today I got to play fireman and pictionary with my boys. Also did a little preschool stuff with them. The girls took a little longer than expected to do their school work. It was one of those "It's too hard so I'm not doing it!" kind of days for them. My oldest has more days like that then my younger one. Again they got to play with a friend. I don't know why people worry so much about the socialization of homeschooled kids. My kids play with other kids (outside of our family) pretty much every day. They go to parties and events. They get plenty of time with peers.
I have my pictures on a different computer so, still none to share.
I did get some good exercise from walking today, which was nice. Although the weather got colder and colder as I walked. I hear we just might end up with 6" of snow overnight. We'll see.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
February 21, 2012
This morning I woke up scrunched between 2 little guys. (Typical morning for me, actually) One, of which, was not about to let me move. I managed to grab my phone, that I had sitting nearby and began playing some fish game I downloaded for free. It's pretty ridiculous when I think about it. I'm just tapping my finger trying to catch fish and stuff in a net... When I finally had enough space, I peeked out the window. It looked like it was turning into a cloudy but sunny day. Then I checked my older son, whose been sick, and decided to cancel his speech session for today.
A little while later, when the boys were awake, we headed downstairs. When my older boy got to the top of the stairs, he started saying "It's snowing mom!" I thought he was just kidding, but I was surprised to see that he was right. It was snowing! We went downstairs and turned on the fire and had a little bit of breakfast. (It's weird to me to turn the fire on. I'm used to a wood burning stove.) We put together his spider man puzzle while my youngest played with some toys nearby. The girls were still asleep. Then we worked on his counting and abc's. I wrote words on the chalkboard, mostly names, and told him what the letters were and what I was spelling. He just laid on the floor watching me, answering questions when I asked them. Then he asked me to read to him. I pulled out "What Your Preschooler Needs to Know" and read him a page from each category. He liked that, but was still kind of lethargic, poor kid. All he wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch busytown, or car fixing shows.
I did eventually let him watch some tv, while his younger brother played and his sisters and I started our "Meet Kirsten" study. We're reading the book for a club and since we've already read it recently, I thought it might be fun to do more with it. I looked up lapbooking and found a great page full of templates for American Girl lapbooks. http://www.homeschoolshare.com/American_Girl_Lapbook.php Today I just read chapter one to them as they began to color their templates. They're both excited to try lapbooking. I had heard of it before, even had friends who had done it, but I never really looked into it until they started talking about wanting all the Little House on the Prairie books. I remembered a friend telling me how they'd done a book for that. I wish I had listened to them when I first started homeschooling. My goodness the difference it could've made for us! haha but I didn't so here we are starting a little later with it. My mind is flooded with ideas for different things I'd like to study with the kids and what all they could add to their lapbooks. I'd like to help each of the girls make friendship quilts and rag dolls as part of the "lesson" as well. I'll try and keep updates about how that goes and what we do and post pictures as well.
We also looked up the Eastern Bluebird again, which is now my oldest child's favorite bird. We came across a pretty cool site all about birds. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/Page.aspx?pid=1189&ac=ac
The site has all sorts of information. We will definitely being using it for future bird watching information.
When school was done the girls took a rest and I played with my boys. First we were steamrollers. Then we were lions. Then dinosaurs. And once again steam rollers. When I couldn't play that anymore, I suggested we draw pictures and guess what the other person drew (also known as pictionary.) My son has never really been interested in the game before, but today he had a blast. I started and drew and drew until he said, "Sit down, mom. It's my turn." I was excited to see all the things he drew. I forgot how easy it is to allow kids to learn naturally. Thus my interest in a more life learning approach for my kids.
We've also got some projects going on at our house right now. We bought a cheap used desk in need of some love for our oldest. Over the past week my husband and I took turns sanding down, possibly toxic, paint off of it. Today, she started painting it. She wants to be a marine biologist when she is older and she loves the ocean so she is painting her desk to look like the sea with a beach. It's a pretty cool idea and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I do have a picture, just haven't downloaded it yet. Another project is our coffee table. We bought a coffee table and matching end tables from the late 80s or early 90s (I think) when we still only had 1 kid. Over the years this set has gotten fairly beat up, not that it was in mint condition when we bought it. In order to move the set to our new home, I had to agree to redoing them. The past two evenings I've spent some time sanding down the top of the coffee table. It's almost done! Although, now I have to figure out how to sand the rest... I plan to stain it when I'm done sanding. I'm pretty excited because it's the first big project that I've had in a while. Again, pictures aren't on my computer yet. On top of those two projects, my husband is looking into turning a little beat up shed in the backyard into a chicken coop and rearranging our barn to prepare it for animals. We're hoping to get sheep and chickens this spring. Not sure what else we'll be getting.
That was our day today.
A little while later, when the boys were awake, we headed downstairs. When my older boy got to the top of the stairs, he started saying "It's snowing mom!" I thought he was just kidding, but I was surprised to see that he was right. It was snowing! We went downstairs and turned on the fire and had a little bit of breakfast. (It's weird to me to turn the fire on. I'm used to a wood burning stove.) We put together his spider man puzzle while my youngest played with some toys nearby. The girls were still asleep. Then we worked on his counting and abc's. I wrote words on the chalkboard, mostly names, and told him what the letters were and what I was spelling. He just laid on the floor watching me, answering questions when I asked them. Then he asked me to read to him. I pulled out "What Your Preschooler Needs to Know" and read him a page from each category. He liked that, but was still kind of lethargic, poor kid. All he wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch busytown, or car fixing shows.
I did eventually let him watch some tv, while his younger brother played and his sisters and I started our "Meet Kirsten" study. We're reading the book for a club and since we've already read it recently, I thought it might be fun to do more with it. I looked up lapbooking and found a great page full of templates for American Girl lapbooks. http://www.homeschoolshare.com/American_Girl_Lapbook.php Today I just read chapter one to them as they began to color their templates. They're both excited to try lapbooking. I had heard of it before, even had friends who had done it, but I never really looked into it until they started talking about wanting all the Little House on the Prairie books. I remembered a friend telling me how they'd done a book for that. I wish I had listened to them when I first started homeschooling. My goodness the difference it could've made for us! haha but I didn't so here we are starting a little later with it. My mind is flooded with ideas for different things I'd like to study with the kids and what all they could add to their lapbooks. I'd like to help each of the girls make friendship quilts and rag dolls as part of the "lesson" as well. I'll try and keep updates about how that goes and what we do and post pictures as well.
We also looked up the Eastern Bluebird again, which is now my oldest child's favorite bird. We came across a pretty cool site all about birds. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/Page.aspx?pid=1189&ac=ac
The site has all sorts of information. We will definitely being using it for future bird watching information.
When school was done the girls took a rest and I played with my boys. First we were steamrollers. Then we were lions. Then dinosaurs. And once again steam rollers. When I couldn't play that anymore, I suggested we draw pictures and guess what the other person drew (also known as pictionary.) My son has never really been interested in the game before, but today he had a blast. I started and drew and drew until he said, "Sit down, mom. It's my turn." I was excited to see all the things he drew. I forgot how easy it is to allow kids to learn naturally. Thus my interest in a more life learning approach for my kids.
We've also got some projects going on at our house right now. We bought a cheap used desk in need of some love for our oldest. Over the past week my husband and I took turns sanding down, possibly toxic, paint off of it. Today, she started painting it. She wants to be a marine biologist when she is older and she loves the ocean so she is painting her desk to look like the sea with a beach. It's a pretty cool idea and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I do have a picture, just haven't downloaded it yet. Another project is our coffee table. We bought a coffee table and matching end tables from the late 80s or early 90s (I think) when we still only had 1 kid. Over the years this set has gotten fairly beat up, not that it was in mint condition when we bought it. In order to move the set to our new home, I had to agree to redoing them. The past two evenings I've spent some time sanding down the top of the coffee table. It's almost done! Although, now I have to figure out how to sand the rest... I plan to stain it when I'm done sanding. I'm pretty excited because it's the first big project that I've had in a while. Again, pictures aren't on my computer yet. On top of those two projects, my husband is looking into turning a little beat up shed in the backyard into a chicken coop and rearranging our barn to prepare it for animals. We're hoping to get sheep and chickens this spring. Not sure what else we'll be getting.
That was our day today.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Bird Watching
Today my girls were looking out of the window at the backyard, when they noticed a bird. It was blue and at first one was excitedly shouting that it was a blue bird. The other replied that they thought it might be a blue jay. As they got a better look they realized it was neither and that the bird was red/orange breasted.I had my older daughter"s science book next to me when my younger daughter came over to talk to me about the bird. She pointed at the cover and said, "That's the bird we saw!" I looked in the book and told her it was an Eastern Bluebird. My older daughter didn't agree with us which led to a google image search. The only bird that came up when we typed in the description was an Eastern Bluebird. Still my oldest didn't think that was it. She didn't think the bird had any white on the belly. She went outside hoping to get an even better look at the bird and came back inside to tell me how they sounded and what they looked like. Then she grabbed our Birds of North America field guide and looked it up. Sure enough, she found a picture of the Eastern Bluebird and said "That's the bird!" I couldn't help but laugh and her younger sister couldn't help but say, "We told you so!" Sadly my camera was not handy at the time and I didn't get a picture, but for anyone who might actually read this and want to know what one looks like, here is a picture of one.
I got this picture from a site with neat facts about them. Check it out at http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/New_York/bird_E_bluebird.html
The day was even more exciting for my husband, girls, and I when we saw some cranes or herons nearby. Our dogs started barking before I could get my camera. It was still pretty neat and made me realize that I really need to keep my camera more handy!
I got this picture from a site with neat facts about them. Check it out at http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/New_York/bird_E_bluebird.html
The day was even more exciting for my husband, girls, and I when we saw some cranes or herons nearby. Our dogs started barking before I could get my camera. It was still pretty neat and made me realize that I really need to keep my camera more handy!
A new addition to my blogging
Today, as I was writing my latest spiritually related post, I got to thinking about my blog. I realized that, even though no one really reads my blog, it might be a good idea to create a separate area for updates on my family, homeschooling, marriage, and parenting. So here it is. The family life of an eccentric housewife. Maybe I'll even add pictures to this blog in relation to the topics!
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