Hh-Horse

All of my girls LOVE horses so we've been looking forward to horse week. However it's one week before

Christmas, so we honestly spent more time doing holiday activities than thinking about horses. Despite the business of the season we did manage to finish all of our school work and squeeze in a few horse related activities.

Boo's words to remember this week were "I obey right away." We talked about how a horse learns to obey the commands of it's master right away. God wants to direct us down a good path. We should obey his commands and not doubt the direction he's leading us. We also learned and sang the song "Trust and Obey."  

We compared a horse to a car discussing the ways traveling by horse would be different. We also talked about the many ways horses have been used to help people in the past.



We did a classifying animal activity. Boo had to separate the farm animals from the non-farm animals, then she practiced classifying them in diff ways like animals that walk on 4 feet and 2 feet, long tails & short tails, etc.

We did an "H is for Horse" craft. I cut the shapes out of brown construction paper. Boo used them to build the letters, then we added a faces, hair, and tails to make a cute momma horse and a foal.

 

For a fun extra activity Boo watched her favorite horse movie after school one day, Barbie and Her Sister's in a Pony Tale. This has been one of her favorites for a while now. You can watch the full movie for free online here...   A Pony Tale

Here are some pics from our all day Christmas baking at Grandma's this week. The girls also painted ornaments. I love being able to take days like this off when ever we want, especially near the holidays.

 

 Sis Highlight:

Sis completely finished up her study of the American Revolution. We did a big review of all the facts we have learned. We don't do written tests for history or science, but she did an oral  narration for me in her own words to show all that shes learned. She talked about the 13 colonies, the patriots and loyalists, Boston tea Party, British soldiers, the war, George Washington, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I give her an A! We're loving using these American girl guides. Now we're on to the war of 1812 with Caroline.

One last project we did this week was make a quill pen like they used in colonial times. We made a scroll and used liquid India ink to practice writing our letters fancy like felicity did.  We rolled up our scroll and sealed it.  

 

Boo wanted a quill pen too so she practiced her Hh's on her scroll and drew a picture of a horse. I was actually really impressed with her horse considering she free handed it without a picture to look at.

Cc- Cow

This week we started learning Cc-is for Cow. Our words to remember were " God's word helps me grow." We learned that just like cow's milk helps babies grow and our bones grow stronger, the word of God helps
our spirits to grow.


We did a lot of phonics activities at the beginning of this week. We sang our Aa-apple song and short vowel song.
Boo used her alphabet letter puzzles and blend ladder. We played letter sound bingo. I'm surprised how quickly the reading is progressing from blending 2-3 letter sounds to reading 3-5 words at a time. Some of our worksheets like this one now has her reading whole sentences and she's doing great with it.






 For our tactile letter activity we drew the letter Cc in chocolate pudding. Who says you shouldn't play with your food!




For our story times we read these cow related books...

Boo memorized the poem "Hey Diddle Diddle," and we made a poster for our poem. You can find the free printable that we used Here . They can also be used as puppets to act out the poem.

Due to a family emergency at the end of the week we ended up cutting our cow week short. One of my favorite things about homeschooling though is that when life happens, we have the freedom to take a break and don't have to worry about the kids missing school.  We ended up skipping homemade butter and the dairy party we had planned. However Boo finished all of her book work and we did drink chocolate milk and eat cheese samples on Friday.

Gg- Goat

This week was suppose to be Ii=Insect, but I decided to wait on insects until spring for several reasons. The biggest reason was that Boo begged to do a ladybug farm when we got to insect and it's too cold here for real ladybugs! So we will be coming back to that one at the end of the school year. Instead we started the Gg-goat unit. The only draw back to skipping units is that letters "Ii and Gg" will be new to her phonics worksheets making it a little bit harder than learning just 1 new letter.

The above picture was taken just a couple months ago when we got a chance to pet, feed, and chase around a bunch of goats. Since it was still fresh in her memory we talked about the goats we saw and we looked at our pictures from that day.This unit was actually all about farm animals and not just goats. The next 3 units will be about different farm animals.  Her words to remember were "Jesus died for my sins." It's a hard concept for a 5 year old, but I tried my best to explain old testament sacrifices (that's how the Bible portion tied to goats and lambs.) Then we talked about how Jesus died for our sins ( the Lamb of God) so that we no longer have to offer the blood of an animal for forgiveness. I think she got the basic concept on a 5 year old level.

We talked about animals that usually live on a farm. We looked at some pictures online. One of the activities we did was learn the names of baby farm animals. She thought it was super funny that a baby goat is called a kid. We cut out our animal baby cards and played a match game, matching the adult to it's baby.



 We also sang Old MacDonald Had a Farm and practiced her letters "E-I-E-I-O." We colored and cut out farm animal puppets to use while singing the song. After the song she begged to put on a puppet show, so I let her play with them for a while.

I'm seeing her progress so quickly with her blend ladder and reading skills. We're still slowly working on her handwriting and number recognition for math using flashcards.


We actually ended up squeezing all 6 days of this unit into 4 instead of 5. Birthdays can be official holidays when you homeschool, so we took a day off to celebrate Baby Bear turning 2 and went to a pizza place to have a little party instead.

We read  two farm related books for story times. Eric Carle's "The very busy Spider" and "Inside a barn in the Country."

Our manual suggested a rhyming activity, so we tried to think of words that rhyme with farm animals cow-now, goat-coat..etc. for some reason this is not easy for Boo. Just about every rhyme that she would come up with was a made up word! We worked on it for a while and she finally came up with some good ones. We wrote all of our rhyming words down and then Boo made up a poem using those words. I made this barn for her using red construction paper glued to a piece of white paper. I just free handed it otherwise I would post a link to a template. It's pretty basic and  easy to make with a ruler though. We put her poem inside the loft window and then she drew a  picture to go with it inside the barn doors. I love looking back at stuff like this in their portfolios. The poems and stories they come up with are always funny to read when they're older. Sis loves writing stories and poems so she joined in on this project too.

The most fun thing we did for goat was read the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I found these cute free printable face masks Here  so we decided to put on a play and act out the story. This was a lot of fun. I had to be the big billy goat so that we had enough people. The girls set up a (doll and stuffed animal) audience for our play and  Baby Bear got to have a part too as the little billy goat (even though she was really scared of our troll.)

 

Our New Elf on the Shelf (less stress) Tradition

Meet Elfie! This will be his 3rd year with our family.  A couple years ago I gave in and decided to pay a small fortune for this little guy complete with a book (and since that time a movie) so that my girls could experience all of the fun that is "Elf on the Shelf." They've loved him from day one. In fact I'm pretty sure I get asked when Elfie is coming back more than any other question throughout  the year. The first year we had so much fun! He toilet papered our living room, hung underwear on the tree, made tons of messes, and even stole our tooth money! About half way through his 2nd year here, I started to realize that Elfie is a LOT of work. Don't get me wrong I've never regretted starting this tradition especially after seeing the smiles he brings to their faces. but THIS MOMMA'S TIRED! By Christmas morning year 2 I had thought up (or found on pinterest) 60 different ways for our elf to get into trouble. Do you know how stressful it is at midnight to realize you've forgotten the elf and have to come up with some sort of mischief that's equally exciting as last night, before you can go to bed! Soon this fun tradition started to feel more like a hassle than a joy. Now with another little one added to our family I'm busier than ever. I've started to wonder why am I purposefully adding more stress and work to our already busiest time of the year!

As Dec 1st and the return of our beloved Elfie draws near I've began to search Pinterest for ideas. I found about 3 that I liked...that means I only have to come up with 22 more!( bc repeating ideas from the last 2 years is really lame right?) I started to dread the return of our dear Elfie. Then I had a scary thought...My youngest is just turning 2. My 8 year old still loves the elf, so that means I probably have at least 9 more years of my life to come up with Elf ideas! That's at least 270 more genius pranks to come up with! The Christmas season is already so busy, and searching pinterest EVERY night for a new bigger and better idea just adds to the stress of the season that's suppose to be a joyful time of celebrating Jesus. I started to think there has to be a way to simplify our elf tradition.

So, I started to brainstorm...How can I make Elfie less work and still use him to make fun memories with my girls. They love to watch the Elf on the Shelf movie every year. Then something else occurred to me, the elf in the movie is never naughty or even does nice funny pranks! The elf in the book simply hides and the elf in the movie doesn't even do that, he just sits on the shelf! So why in the world does our elf have to be always getting into trouble or being silly? (even though the kids think it's hilarious.) Where did that come from?  Then I had my "AHA" moment...HE DOESN'T HAVE TO! Last year my girl's favorite "elf visit" was the night he arrived on Dec 1st. He didn't even do anything crazy just gave them a note and a small gift. 

Another tradition we have always had is a Christmas advent calendar or countdown. We usually come up with a different idea each year and it usually involves the girls getting a small treat or piece of candy each day for the month of Dec. Then I got an idea... how about I combine the two and instead of pranks our Elfie can simply help us countdown the days till Christmas putting the emphasis on the day we celebrate Jesus rather than on his silly antics. What if each morning Elfie gave the girls a number to hang up counting down the days till Christmas and then occasionally a small treat? Since the elf in the story book simply hides I decided it wouldn't be too much work to just hide Elfie. My girls would still love searching for him each morning. I think it would be a less stressful tradition and still lots of fun. I know coming up with a new spot to hide him each night could also get tiring. Perhaps in the future he will simply sit on the fireplace with a treat each morning, but for this year our Elfie will just hide.

I came across the cutest thing from another mom on www.overthebigmoon.com.  Little Elf envelopes! Seriously how cute are these! Some days instead of a piece of candy he will have a little note in the envelope that says "Family Christmas movie day, Christmas cookie day, or lets make a tree ornament."

I bought a few cheap surprises like new coloring books and candy. I really didn't spend a lot (actually less than I normally would on Christmas countdown candy) and I made these number cards to display on the wall.

Again I found the blank printable cards HERE at Over the big Moon. I filled in the numbers and covered them with clear contact paper so that they will stay nice for future years. This will also save me from stress in the future of having to think up and make a new countdown calendar next year! I'll prob hang them something like this. I love the tree shaped countdowns..

 Our Elfie will still arrive and leave each year with a letter for the girls. I feel like I can breath a huge sigh of relief though, NO MORE racking my brain every night or pressure to come up with the greatest elf pranks around! Maybe I can relax just a bit more and focus on the true meaning of the season...Now if I could only come up with a way to take the stress out of holiday shopping!

Thanksgiving Week

We decided to take a week off of MFW K for a holiday break. Sis still did some of her regular work at the beginning of the week. We did however find time for a few Thanksgiving activities.

I wanted to find a project that the girls could do together that would encourage them to think about all that they have been blessed with. We started off by talking about how there are many people less fortunate than we are and how we have much to be thankful for. We talked about how God is the one who gives us all good things and that the Bible says that we should give thanks in all circumstances. We took a few mins and each of us tried to think of 10 things to give thanks for.We've already done the thankfulness tree in the past, and I'm getting tired of hand print turkeys, so I tried to come up with something different this year.

I came across the idea of Thanksgiving wreaths and decided it would make a cute decoration. I printed off these blank leaf templates. I can't find the exact link I used but here is one that would work Leaf Template. I traced them onto construction paper, cut them out, and had the girls write one thing they were thankful for on each leaf. Then we cut out the center of a paper plate to make a wreath. I found some clip art of a turkey online, and we gave him a little sign that says " Thank you God for...." The girls glued all the pieces onto their plates. I thought they turned out really cute!

A friend also gave us these cute foam Thanksgiving squirrel kits from Oriental Trading Company, so we glued them together one day this week too. We're going to put magnets on the back and use them for holiday refrigerator magnets.

Our tradition is to read this book together the week of Thanksgiving. We've read it every year since Sis was little and she's not tired of it yet. Boo doesn't really understand much about pilgrims and indians yet so we got to talk a little about the first thanksgiving and it's really all new to her.

Other than that we spent the week with family eating LOTS and LOTS of turkey! I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I've always loved Christmas so much, but the thing I like about Thanksgiving is that it's not about getting presents at all. It's just about spending time together as a family and being thankful for what you already have. Sometimes when times get hard we forget just how blessed we really are. God has given me so much to be thankful for. I pray that I will remember to give Him thanks not just on Thanksgiving day but everyday of the year!

Ww- Water

We finally hit the 50th day of school mark on our number chart this week. That means we now have 5 bundles in our tens cup ( I think we need a bigger cup) and we're half way to our 100th day of school celebration!

This weeks theme was water. The focus was on learning about solids, liquids, and gases. Our Bible focus was on Jesus being the "Living Water." Just like our bodies need water to live, our spirits need Jesus the living water. Our words to remember were "Jesus gives my spirit living water to drink."

On day one we just talked about water. Where does it come from? Where do we find water on the earth? How do we use water? What would happen if there was no water?






 LIQUIDS:

On day 2 we talked about liquids. We went on a hunt around the house looking for liquids. Boo found water, dish soap, medicine, olive oil, milk, and other drinks in the fridge. I would point to something in the fridge and she would tell me solid or liquid. We poured water from a cup into a bowl to see how liquid can change it's shape. Then we put a solid (marker) in a cup and poured it into a bowl to see how it's shape stayed the same.

We also learned that some objects absorb liquid. We gathered a bunch of items from around the house. She guessed whether or not it would absorb water and then dipped each item into her bowl of water to see if she was right.


We filled a cup half full of water and put it in the freezer to check on the next morning. I also let her mix up some JELLO and put the liquid in the fridge overnight.  Boo loves to eat JELLO, but she's never watched me make it so she was pretty clueless that the liquid stuff in the bowl was going to turn into a solid. Baby Bear was pretty into it too.

SOLIDS: The next day we looked at solids. We took our cup of ice out of the freezer. Then we dumped it into the same bowl that we had used for the liquid the day before. We observed that the ice didn't change shape anymore like it did when it was liquid.

We checked on our JELLO too and discovered that it was now a solid. All of the girls enjoyed eating it for a treat after lunch.

 










Instead of the chart suggested in our manual, we decided to make a water book. I printed off pictures of solids, liquids, and gases from the internet.  We used a blank file folder and taped half of a second folder so that it would fold inside. Boo has never made a lapbook, but Sis has been doing them for years. So we decided to make this sort of like her first lapbook. Even though it's very simple.We labeled the 3 inside pages "Solids, Liquids, and Gases." On our solid day, Boo glued the solid and liquid pictures onto the correct page. We worked on adding things to our water book over the nxt two days. (pictures of the finished product farther down.)

These are the books we used this week. I liked  "Do Fish Drink? First questions and answers about water," for a non-fiction book. I found it a at thrift store a few years ago and grabbed it. It has info about water and related topics with colorful illustrations for young kids.

I have to mention that we had a reading breakthrough on Wed. Boo has been doing pretty well with her blend ladder and alphabet worksheets. After school she got Sis's old Bob Books off the shelf and was looking at them. Sis started screaming "Mom come here quick!" Boo was reading BOB Book #1 all by her self! She sounded out all of the words in book 1 and 2 of set A and read her first sentences! She was jumping up and down "I can read a book!" She was so excited that I let her stay up late to read to Daddy when he got home that night.There are so many school days that are so frustrating. You feel like they're not learning anything, or you wonder if they're ever gonna get it. All it takes is one moment like this to remind you why you work so hard and it makes it all worth it!


GASES:

On day 4 we talked about gases. We watched a pot of water boil on the stove and observed the steam going into the air. Then we completed our lapbook and glued our pictures to our gases page in our lapbook.

Here is the finished product...

Here is the inside of our book finished...

 

On the back side of the right flap we answered some water questions. I wrote the questions on blank lapbook templates and then filled in what Boo answered. Her favorite thing to do with water: Swim at waterparks (love it!) I always use blank templates from www.homeschoolshare.com They have an awesome variety of free lapbooks too. Click HERE for the blank templates. We used the Simple Fold Basic Shapes.

For our words to remember craft this week we decorated the back cover of our lapbook. We used cupcake liners folded in half and construction paper handles to make these cute umbrellas. We added our words to remember and then Boo got to finger paint raindrops.

Sis Highlight:
Sis took a big unit spelling test and only missed 2 out of 50 words at 4th grade spelling level. She's been working on her typing, equivalent fractions in math, learning about primeval reptiles in science, and making her first  lapbook this school year for history. Nothing else too exciting, just all her regular school work this week. She has enjoyed helping Boo with her water experiments though and eating her JELLO.

We've decided to take a week off of MFW next week, but not a week off of school completely. We'll be doing some holiday related activities instead and eating lots of turkey. 

Oo- Octopus

 

This week was a very busy one for us. It seemed like we had something going on just about every day. It always gets crazy around the holidays! I'm still trying to decide if we're going to take a break for Thanksgiving. So our school days were cut short a couple days this week and we didn't get as much done as I had hoped. One thing I've had to learn over the last few years though is to RELAX! It's ok to skip things bc you've had a stressful week. It's ok not to check off every box ( I'm definitely a box checker person! I would not survive as an UN-schooler!) It's taken a couple years for me to realize 2 boxes left unchecked will not effect my child's chances of becoming a successful well educated adult! It's even ok to totally throw out the day's lesson plans (gasp!), and spend the day instead learning to make cookies or chasing bugs (bc that's what my child happens to be interested in that day.) In fact I've learned that a child might actually learn more in a couple unplanned hours than in a whole week of book work. One thing I've come to love most about homeschooling is the freedom that comes with it. Freedom to make our own schedule; freedom to learn at our own pace; freedom to study whatever and where ever we want; freedom for my kids to just be kids, and have more time to play together and enjoy their day than they would if they were in a classroom all week...

Ok back to the point of this post....Our octopus week was short, but we squeezed in a few fun things. Boo's words to remember were "Even the octopus praises the Lord." "Octopus can't praise!" she said. We learned that octopus and all the other amazing creatures on earth show us how awesome God is, so in a way all creation praises Him. Psalm 145:21 says "Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever."

A lot of this unit was learning about oceans and lots of different sea creatures. I didn't get a chance to go to the library, so we used books from our own library for our story time. We used the internet for facts and info. Here's a pic of the books we used (note: the manatee book includes references to evolution that we had to skip.)We also watched this short video clip of a real octopus. Both girls concluded that they even though God created octopus they are ugly and gross!haha 

For our tactile letter activity Boo used Fruit Loops to trace the letter Oo. Then she ate them! We also played our letter sound bingo game for the first time this week.

 Boo and I made this counting octopus to help her with her numbers. I drew and cut him out. She glued him together. Then I wrote a number on the bottom of each of his arms. She had to glue the correct number of black dots above the numbers. Our house is currently decorated with 3's. For what ever reason she can't remember the #3!In a desperate attempt, I hung 3's in just about every room of our house to try to remind her. One sign you're a home schooler...your friends houses are nicely decorated with pictures and flowers your dinning room is decorated with a time-line and yesterday's science experiment as a centerpiece!ha

We looked at oceans on the globe and talked about the creatures that live there. Then Boo had to color the oceans blue and the land green on a map.


Instead of doing the octopus hotdog lunch we made an octopus string cheese with her sub sandwich. I wish I could say it's because I'm so creative, string cheese is so much more fun than a hot dog, and because we did the octopus hotdog thing when Sis was little. However, I choose string cheese because I happened to have some in the fridge, the baby was screaming, we were starving, and it literally took 30 secs to peel the cheese...close enough.

   

Instead of an ocean mural or badge we just did a quick "words to remember" craft we made a little hand print octopus. We traced both hands, cut them out, and then had to glue them so that only 8 fingers were showing. Then we glued our words to the bottom.

 On Friday Boo earned her 9th badge. Our cute little caterpillar is growing!