Here we go, Week 3

The first two weeks of school went super well. Last Wednesday I wound up with a wicked migraine that lasted for 2 days. UGH! Dante severely cut his thumb with a very sharp buck knife. (see homepage for full story) We were able to stay on track for the most part. We started week 3 with a fun activity for the kids called Ball and Cup game. They took Styrofoam cups, punched a hole in the bottom, strung yarn through the hole and attached an aluminum foil ball to the end. Once they got the hang of it, they had quite a bit of fun. Izzie's fun was just hitting the boys with her ball. The boys are such good sports with her...most of the time.

While the littles napped, Dante and Elijah did an art project from the book Art Appreciation where they listened to a story about an amazing piece of fruit. I gave them blank trees in which to draw their idea of what the fruit may have looked like. It was cool to see what they both came up with.

We did a bit of Math and Language Arts and now the boys are in the back yard playing Calvary.

We are hoping to get our History and Science curriculum here within the next couple of weeks because we are excited to get that started, too.

Love,

Amy

Self made Unit Study

Dante was browsing through The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. It has some beautiful illustrations. He was reading from the section on the first humans and decided to recreate some of their weapons. Dante, Elijah, and Justus all made clay pots from dirt. They were actually pretty solid, until I dropped 2 of them. Dante also went on to create an arrow, a wooden knife, a leather sheath, and a tomahawk all from things that we had in the house or in the yard.

It is just amazing to watch your children self teach. Knowing that not only is God filling in the gaps where we are missing, but are children are teaching themselves in the areas that they are interested in.

Love,

Amy

Pudding Paint

There are so many times that God gives me the opportunity to be thankful for all of these little ones that scamper under my feet from 6:30am until 8:30pm. Today was the perfect example. We need to do some Art for school and I really did not have anything prepared. A few weeks ago, I bought an Arts and Craft book at Sam's, so I whipped that out to grab an idea. Pudding Paint...hello. What better form of art than the edible kind? In less than 5 minutes we had a super art project going in the carport and all of the children were completely happy, messy, but happy. If my kids were older there is a chance that "Art" would not be so simple. I love that we can do super easy fun activities, call it "school", and have a blast. Yes, they did all eat their projects.

Love,

Amy

Day 2 in the life of our homeschool

Even with Rich home today, we have had a productive day. We have already had to move the schedule around a little bit to accomodate some crazy crazy toddlers and preschoolers who just refuse to sit still for anything. We decided to switch our morning academic time with the afternoon quite time/craft time. It seems to have worked a bit better to wait until the crazy little ones are napping in order to have the house quiet for academics. Both Dante and Elijah have a hard time concentrating with lots of noise around them.

Anyway, for craft time today, we cut out sponges and painted with them. The children made some beautiful art work. Elijah did cut his hand, but it was all better with one bandaid. Even Isabella enjoyed her first big paint project. Of course, she could not resist painting her hands and booster seat. Justus wound up in the bathtub with a blue head of hair. Dante made a beautiful cowboy picture.

We also painted the carport window with a stale beer and espom salt mixture to made "Jack Frost Crystals." It kind of worked, but not sure if it worth the beer smell every time you walk in or out of the door.

Elijah played a phonics match game and Dante reviewed adverbs and regrouping.

We also read the story of Jacob and Rebekah out in the sun and it was such a glorious reminder of why we are home. Why are house is so nuts. Why we love being together. We just LOVE being able to all of these things to the GLORY OF GOD and calling it OUR HOMESCHOOL. What a faithful and maginificent God we serve.

Love,

Amy

Back to school

We started our official school year today. Rich and I have worked together in coming up with a schedule that we both feel will balance out a day in the life of a momma and 5 kiddos. It allows us some structured academic time, some artsy fartsy time, and some good old fashioned play time. Using the schedule today proved very productive.

6:15....mama gets up, excercises for 25 minutes, starts coffee, showers, and starts breakfast

7:30....breakfast, Bible reading, clean up, brush teeth, room tidy

9:00....math and lang. arts with older boys/music time for little ones

11:00...lunch and clean up

12:00....naptime for littles/quiet reading, history, and science for older boys

3:00....arts and crafts and free time

5:00...dinner and clean up

I am sure we will be tweeking this schedule a bit as the school year progresses, but for now, we will work with it and hope that we see some good productive, calm days.

Today, Dante worked on Categorizing in Lang. Arts and he reviewed multiplication facts in Math. Elijah put together a phonics alphabet puzzle for Lang. Arts and wrote the #'s 1-20 and did some simple addition in Math.

All the children (except Cheyanne)made a hot air balloon out of tissue paper and used a hair dryer to fly it. This led to a total tissue paper extravaganza. The boys each tried to make kites out of tissue paper and sticks. Justus decided to set off some "fireworks" in the carport with 2 sticks and a rock, representing the matches and fireworks.

Their imaginations just amaze me. We also spent a few hours at the park with the Sullivans and my kids had a blast. Both Dante and Elijah thanked me for making time for them to hang out with friends. The kids were pretending to me Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Annie Oakley on this little wooden bridge....great fun and super memories.

I will have to say that our first day of school was blessed.

Love,

Amy