More Crazies!!

Another No-Prep, Crazy Week!

This is our second "no prep" week of the year, and it's only our 5th week of school! YIKES! Honestly, this is typical for us. We are either really on or really off!  After a birthday party Saturday, church Sunday, spending Monday with extended family, and Tuesday celebrating the girls' 4th birthday, we are going to jump into a 3 day week. I had planned to do "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" this week, but I LOVE that theme and want to wait until we can do it for a full week.  My son declared when it was his birthday that you shouldn't do school on your special day. FINE WITH ME! :) So we spent Tuesday riding bikes, ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then had a family movie night.

Next week we will start our first homeschool co-op. Twice a month the kiddos will have a chance to learn in a class with some similar aged peers. I think it will be a great experience for them. 2/3 are VERY social and the other little one needs to learn to branch out and make friends.

Our spelling curriculum is 4 days learning and 5th day test, so we are going to stretch that unit over this week and next. I don't want to put too much pressure on my little guy. I'd rather take it slow and be sure he has time to learn the information!

So, that's what's up in our little school this week. A 3-day week. We will probably do some fun lego activities and save Chicka Boom Boom for next week!

Homeschool Week in the Life #4 - Fairy Tales

Here's a recap of our fourth week of school. Fairy Tale Week!

 

Bible Time/Character:

"I am gentle" from We Choose Virtues

 

 

Everett learned that God is a spirit and the girls learned the story of David and Jonathan.

Circle Time: telling and retelling stories

We had lots of fun learning about what fairy tales are. During the summer a friend gave us flannel graph sets for Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Gingerbread Boy.  We also retold Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood  with puzzles I have from my teaching days.

 

Elynne's turn to add a picture

while retelling the Gingerbread Boy

Read A-louds

We checked out several fun books from the library. These fun spin offs of some of the stories we already knew were some of our favorites:

      

Center Time

I thought of a new "center" that the kids really enjoyed!  I love finding activities that excite them and this one did. Best of all, it was VERY inexpensive! $1 from the Dollar Tree.

WINDOW CENTER - I bought window clings with them numbers 1-10 and the alphabet. I will probably also go back for the weather set, so my first grader can match the words to the pictures.

Evangeline adding the correct number of dots
after putting the numbers in order.

 

 

Other centers they enjoyed included our Little People castle and people, Little People Klip Klop castle, puppets (they have enjoyed them for 3 weeks now!!), quiet books (hoping to show you these up close in an upcoming video), sorting bears/cups, painting. Note: we have several little people sets, but we were so blessed to receive the castle as a hand-me down when a friend upgraded her daughter's and I found the Klip Klop castle at a thrift store and bought it for $2!! One of my all time greatest finds!! :)

 

What didn't work?

 

Art! I had planned for them to make a Jack and the Beanstalk that I have pinned on pinterest, but it was a bust! With me being busy with some of my own computer work and assembling file folders for laminating, the girls got as far as drawing and painting the leaves and gave up. We even had an epic meltdown when one of them decided to cut her leaves into tiny pieces then got upset after the fact that they didn't look like leaves. **SIGH** Art wasn't fun like it was supposed to be, so we scrapped that project for all of our sakes. We will try another painting project next week.

Here's our Homeschool Week in the Life recap for this week.

I hope your week went well!!

Dina



Our Lunch today: healthy finger foods

Quick and Easy Healthy Lunch!

I love using these little muffin tins to create a simple lunch in a hurry. These are great for when our school day runs long and we need lunch before a hunger meltdown occurs.

Mrs. Mommy will do ANYTHING to avoid that kind of meltdown cause it is ugly! :)

There are so many different combinations you can create, just grab what you have. Something about a colorful selection motivates them to eat up! We added some fruit cups and yogurt after I snapped this pic, too.

Dollar Tree 6-cup muffin tins filled with:
lunch meat

cheese stick

apple slices

strawberries

salad

carrot sticks

broccoli

ranch dip



Fairy Tale Week - no prep, just crazies!

This is Fairy Tale week, so we are talking lots about talking/human like animals, princesses, good guys/bad guys, etc.

I usually spend some time printing activities for my preschoolers to do and find fun activities for all of the kiddos to do to make our school week hands-on and fun. This week though (**SIGH**) I didn't have a chance to prep, and I've been working on some other major tasks on my to do list. So, I'm realizing that when I do the prep, it pays off! It definitely makes school more fun for the kids and easier for me.

My first big job was switching my www.speechtherapygames.com site product links to my TpT store. BIG job, and wow, so hard to do with little hands poking at my computer. Computer + school room = sad times! But, I got it done!!! YAY!

I thought I was done with big project, but then I got these two File Folder Games books from amazon.com. So today during school, I was gluing and prepping all of these games for laminating. It will be soooo worth it once they are ready to go! These books are awesome and I highly recommend!! My kids are excited about all of the different activities they will have to do soon.

 

 

I heard about these from another youtube mom, https://www.youtube.com/user/cynthiaandhusband.

In this video she shows what they look like closer up!

I used my menu sized laminating pouches to laminate these file folder games, they came out GREAT!!!! I LOVE being able to laminate large things like this without a trip to the teacher's aid shop. I have a 12" laminator and the pouches are 12 x 18. I just trim the sides and bottom a bit and they fit perfectly with enough room around the edges for it to have a good seal!

 

When Mrs. Mommy is distracted, it makes our days more chaotic than normal. Hopefully, tomorrow we will get back into a better groove!

 



Updates Coming SOON!

I'm trying to get back into blogging since I started this 6 years ago and haven't been back! :)

Please check back to see what we are doing in our homeschool!

Updates 15 months through 18 months...

Hi all! :) Well the last year has been a fun whirlwind of activity at our house. Everett is growing, learning, and talking more every day. He is a sweet, happy little guy. He has brought so much joy and laughter into our home. Here are a few pics to catch you up on what he's been up to...

18 months sharing milk with puppy
17 months Everett and Daddy
17 months...tasting a leaf against my advice!
16 months...laundry helper!
15 months...going for a ride in his cozy coupe!

More 14 months

Fun in the pool! SPLASH!