Tt- Turtle

Well we finally made it home from a super long tiring vacation in the Smoky Mountains and then a big weekend ( all my girls and I were in my sister's wedding!) I sat down to prepare school, opened my manual to the apple unit and said "no way!" It seemed like too much to prepare after such a busy two weeks, so I decided to go with turtles instead. Hopefully we make it to apple next week. It was fitting though, because we just recently visited two zoos and an aquarium all of which had turtles to observe.

Our words to remember this week were "I don't quit, I persevere." Of course we read the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. We talked about what it means to persevere in general. Then we talked about how many Christians walk away from the Lord when trials and persecution come, but it's those who persevere until the end that receive eternal life. Boo made some finger puppets to act out the story too.

For our tactile letter activity I gathered up a pile of random items from around the house and I let Boo practice making capital and lower case letter T's out of it.

Boo also pointed out that she thinks capital "T" kind of looks like a table which starts with "T." I thought that was pretty smart!

I used these two books to present information and facts about turtles. We learned that there are many different kinds of turtles and that baby turtles hatch from eggs.Land turtles have legs and can hide in their shells. Sea turtles have flippers and can't hide inside of their shells.

For our craft we made these cute little turtles out of stuff we had around the house! I cut the center out of paper plates and we colored them yellow for the underside of the shell. Then we glued head, tail, and legs to the other side. We glued small Styrofoam bowls for the top shell and covered them with pieces of colored tissue paper. We glued our words to remember on the bottom of our turtles. The girls had fun playing with their turtles too.

The most exciting thing for me this unit was that Boo started learning to blend letter sounds to make words. We started using the "blend ladder," where we place a letter before and after a vowel on the ladder.We only used the "a" right now. Since we skipped the "Aa" unit I was a little hesitant to begin blends, but she knew the /a/ sound already so I went ahead. She did great with it. She has always had a hard time remembering her letters and sounds, but she wants to read so bad. She was elated when I told her she was reading her first real words!

We also ran a little race to teach us about perseverance and sin.  Instructions for this were right out of our teacher manual for Bible time. I thought it was a great illustration. First the girls took turns running to the slide and back. Then I added a heavy bag. Boo kept going even though she tripped once. The third time I added another heavy bag. It took her a lot longer and was almost walking on the way back because her bags were so heavy, but I was proud that she persevered and finished the race. After the race we talked about how like the heavy bags made it difficult to run, sin weighs us down and makes it hard to finish our race as a Christian. When we repent and get rid of the sin we are free to live for Christ! Then they dropped their heavy bags and the girls ran freely for a few minutes. I think it made the point and it was fun.

SIS HIGHLIGHT

I would say the highlight of Sis' week was learning about sound waves. We tied two paper cups to a very

long string and had to see if we could hear each other through them. I was doubtful, but it actually worked! The sound waves traveled through the string, and with the cup to her ear Sis was able to hear me talking very low from far away!

This past week she also mastered her 5x multiplication facts and started diagramming sentences. We're still reading Felicity and learning about the colonial days. We finished our unit on whales and moved on to pinnipeds. She also completed her first science field trip sheet in her Zoology journal after our visit to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. This was the first of two big aquarium field trips that we have planned for her this school year. We are really enjoying our apologia curriculum and learning all about sea creatures.

Nn- Nest

I'm getting behind on my posts! I meant to post this last week and forgot to do it before we left for vacation.For the MFW k users who are following along and was expecting this post to be "apple week," we decided to skip apple and come back to it in a couple weeks so that we can go to the orchard.Our "Nn" week was a short one for us though, because we're getting ready for a vacation and a wedding. We still managed to fit in a few fun things.

Our words to remember were "God takes good care of me." We talked about different types of animal homes and then specifically about birds nests and how they make them. Then we discussed how if God takes care of the animals, He will also take care of us.

For our tactile letter activity I tried to keep it simple this week, so I just drew an "N" on paper and Boo used pieces of colored yarn to practice building her letter. We also used our salt tray to practice lower case "n."

 

For our craft (that we make each week in place of badges) I found this cute paper plate craft. It was really simple. I just had them color the back side of a paper plate brown and then cut the plate in half and stapled it together to form a pocket. Then I cut out some simple bird shapes and they glued on beaks, drew eyes, and stapled them into the nest. We decided to cut up some strips of the extra construction paper to stuff inside then we glued on our words to remember. I thought they turned out really cute and it was a quick easy craft.

 Our curriculum said make an edible nest and suggested a recipe, but I thought that rice crispy nests would be easier. By this point we were all sick too and didn't feel like doing anything! They were yummy though!

 

We read a book every day this week. Here's what we used..The Scarecrow"s Hat, Silly Little Goose, Nest (mostly pictures), Annie and Snowball and the cozy nest, The Best Nest.

I had so many more plans for "nest" week but we never got to them. One was to make mini nests out of brown paper lunch bags. You just roll the sides of the bag down till ot reaches the bottom and forms a nest shape and then I wanted to go on a nature hunt to see what we could collect in our nests. We never got to it though. We have on more week off for vacation before we get back to school, so it will be a couple weeks before I post about apple, but I'm gonna try my best to keep this blog up to date.

Ll -Leaf

It was kind of challenging learning about leaves before fall is really here. A few of our leaves are just starting to change colors, but most are still attached to the trees. This lesson would have been so much better if we could have raked up a big pile and jumped in them (one of the girls favorite things to do in the fall.) We did manage to find enough fallen leaves to do our activities and Boo learned the letter Ll so I guess it all worked out fine.

Our words to remember and Bible portion of this unit was "I will live and grow in Jesus." On Monday we picked a single leaf off of the big tree in our backyard. This leaf didn't want to be part of the tree anymore, but thought he would be better off on his own. We took our leaf inside and watched him all week. By Friday he was withered and brown. Jesus is the tree and we are the leaves. If we remain in Jesus we will live and grow spiritually, but we can not live apart from Him. "Those who do not belong to the Son of God do not have life." 1John 5:12.

Even though it was "slim pick-ins", the first thing we did was hunt for leaves around the yard.





I found a free download for leaf identification cards
HERE , so we used these to try to sort and identify our leaves.

We read "Autumn Leaves" and "Fall leaves Fall!" to learn a little bit about why some leaves turn colors and fall off trees every year. 

For our tactile letter activity Boo made the letter "Ll" with Play-Doh. I love crafts, but there's just something about Play-Doh that makes want to run the other way. Maybe it's the huge mess and the doh crumbs that I'm usually still cleaning up a week later. Anyway, I'm a mean mom and won't let my kids play with Play-doh very often. So this was actually a bigger deal to her than it looks! She actually cheered when she saw me get it out and I realized that in her almost 5 years she's only played with it a couple times...I know, sad!

We did a couple really simple leaf rubbings with our leaves, crayons and white paper. Then we read "Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! This is one that we own. I highly recommend this book when studying leaves with little ones. It's a cute story packed full of leaf info. It has a diagram of the parts of a tree, teaches how leaves make food, what makes leaves green, names of diff kinds of leaves, leaf jokes, a leaf poem and even has instructions for doing the leaf rubbing craft.

For our words to remember craft I found an idea similar to this on Pinterest. I thought that construction paper would be a lot less messy than painting the trunks, so we traced our hands and arm on to brown construction paper. Then we cut them out and glued them to our paint paper to form the tree trunk and branches. Then we used finger paint to make thumb print leaves on our trees.

Here's a link to a magic School bus episode we watched on YouTube after school one day. It taught about how leaves use the sun to make food for plants. It went perfectly with everything we've been learning.

The Magic School Bus Gets Planted

SIS HIGHLIGHT:

The highlight of Sis' week was making apple butter. For History we've been learning all about the colonial days using the American girl Felicity books and study guides. In book 2 we read about Felicity collecting apples to make apple butter with her mother in 1774. Although Felicity hated stiring the pots of apples, Sis thought it was lots of fun. She followed her recipe for apple butter, but it ended up being way too runny to be a spread. However by accident she ended up making the best tasting homemade cinnamon apple sauce ever. We refrigerated over night and the girls ate it all up the next day. Sis got a feel for what it felt like to be Felicity and had fun doing it, so in my book that's a success.

 

Mm- Moon

This week we learned Mm if for moon. Our words to remember were "I am the light of the world." The moon has no light of it's own. It's only a rock, but it reflects the light of the sun. Jesus is like the sun and we are like the moon, reflecting his light to the world.

Both Boo and Sis learned a lot in this unit. Sis said she never thought about how the moon gave off light, because she knew people can walk on it. We did a reflection activity where we shined a light into a mirror and looked at the light reflected onto the wall.

 For our tactile letter activity I drew a big "M" on a piece of paper and Boo placed colored Popsicle sticks on top to build  M's.




We used this book Usborne Beginners Sun, Moon, and Stars for our information lesson on day 1. We also read a lot of books for our story time this week: Happy Birthday Moon, The Moon Shines Down, The Moon Might be Milk, Moongame, and Goodnight Moon.

We talked about astronauts walking on the moon and then we sampled real astronaut food that I found at a craft store...a space freeze dried ice-cream sandwich! I am NOT a fan of crunchy ice-cream! Boo didn't like it either, but Sis on the other hand ate the whole thing. Still it was kind of fascinating knowing we were tasting what they really eat in outer space!

We learned the phases of the moon using Oreo cookies. Boo learned the words "Full moon, New moon, Half moon, and Crescent." Sis learned all 8 proper names of the phases. Then we ate our moons.

On Wednesdays we're suppose to make a badge as our craft, but since I decided to reward her with badges at the completion of each unit, we've been coming up with our own crafts to remind us of our words to remember. I got the idea to make moon tambourines, because our curriculum suggested we sing "This Little Light of Mine." I thought it would be fun to play an instrument as we sing. We covered paper plates with aluminum foil to make shiny round full moons. It was perfect, because we talked about how our lives should reflect the light of Jesus and we realized we could see our reflection in our foil moons. We glued our words to remember on one plate and on the other we decided to cut some moons out of paper to glue on. We made a full moon, half moon, crescent, and new moon and labeled them. Then we filled our plates with dried beans, stapled them together and sung our song. We changed the words to the song, and took turns trying to come up with as many places as we could think of to let our lights shine. Some of their ideas: "Let it shine at Taco Bell, Let it shine at the park, Let it shine at gymnastics." It was fun. I think they could have gone on singing it all day.

We also went to the zoo for our first field trip of the year!

SIS HIGHLIGHT:

Sis is really enjoying learning about the American Revolution and the activities related to that. Her favorite thing this week though was beginning her writing journal. Last year she kept a creative writing journal once a week. She enjoyed it so much that we decided to do one this year too. Grandma found us these fun story cards to use with her journal. She always says she wants to write stories "like Mom" someday, so these will be perfect. There are 32 story prompt cards to help her come with ideas for stories.

Ss-Sun

We completed our first letter themed unit Ss is for Sun. Boo practiced the letter Ss and we learned all about the sun for science. Her Bible words to remember were "Jesus is the light of the world." Just like the sun lights our world so that we can see where we are going, Jesus is a light to the world to show us the way we should go.

This is our picture box. For every letter she learns we will make an envelope with that letter glued to the front. Pictures that begin with that letter are kept in the envelope, then the envelopes are stored in the box and used for learning activities throughout the week.

We used this tray of salt for our tactile letter activity.               
and played alphabet concentration.

 We used this book on day one to learn science facts about the sun. It was a good book full of facts and we just happened to have it on our bookshelf! (Note: If you choose to use this book and you're young earth, there are a couple sentences that need to be changed, but can be done easily.)

 

We made some cute sun-catchers to hang in our school room. I found these kits for $1 each at the Dollar Tree! They always have such cute cheap things to go with our lessons.

In addition to learning our numbers and calendar, we're working on patterns for math. We did this pattern activity with construction paper. I just cut a yellow circle and then made orange and yellow strips for sun rays. She had to place them around the circle following the pattern: orange, orange, yellow. Then we bent them and stapled it together...kind of looks more like a flower than a sun, but it was fun. We wrote our words to remember in the center and hung it in our school room.

She was also so proud of this worksheet! She said "I'm really doing math? I can't believe it!" lol. I love her little self portrait :)

 She started using her Cuisenaire rods and book. We did the page for letter Ss.

We made a simple sundial using a paper plate, drinking straw, and a piece of clay to hold the straw. We had a few really cloudy days when we were suppose to make this. It is so frustrating trying to learn about the sun

when there's no sun shining! Finally on Fri we got a sort of sunny day. We went outside and looked for shadows and talked a little about what causes them. Then we put our sundial outside and checked it every hour. We drew a different color dot each hour to mark where the shadow was and we wrote the time next to it.  

  We also learned that raisins are made using the sun. Then we tried to make some of our own. We put our plate of grapes in a sunny spot and observed them each day. We put them out at the beginning of the week and 5 days later they are just beginning to wither. I read it takes 14 days to make raisins. So, I guess we'll have to wait a while to see how they turn out. We won't be really eating them of course, but it's fun watching  them shrivel up and dry out.

Finally at the end of the week Boo recited her words to remember and earned her 1st badge! She proudly wore it all day and then we taped it to our caterpillar to display on our wall. 

SIS HIGHLIGHT:

Sis started learning to type this week. She's loving it. I find her playing the games even after school. We also started a unit on the colonial days and the American revolution. A lot of it is review for her from  Adventures. Along with that we started reading her Felicity American girl books and watching our Liberty's Kids DVD . I will post specifically about our AG studies as we finish them later in the year. We've also been enjoying our Zoology 2 science. The first 2 weeks were all about the ocean. We studied the layers of the ocean, the abyss, aquatic animals, tides, currents, and filter feeders. Now we will study one specific type of sea creature each unit for the rest of the school year. Our first one was this week: Whales! I never knew there was so much to learn about whales! This is a pic of the beginning of her year long project...the "Ocean box." After each unit she is suppose to add the sea creature that we have studied to her box (either made of clay or a picture) and at the end of the year she will have a beautiful display of everything she has learned.

A First Lesson on Dating!

I got asked a scary question by my 8 year old...."Mom is it ok for kids to have boyfriends or like a boy?" PANIC! NO BOYS! After my shock wore off, a sad realization hit me, My baby girl is growing up." My momma bear instincts wanted to scream "NO!," and change the subject, but I also know that the way I respond to her is crucial in whether or not she feels comfortable sharing with me and coming to me with hard questions in her future. It ended up being a great moment that I'm glad we shared, so I decided to write about it.   

So, is it ok for a young 8 year old girl to have a boyfriend? I recently heard of a family who took their 9 year old and her little "boyfriend" on a chaperoned "date" night. I remember when I was little having "boyfriends," getting chased on the playground, the cute notes "Will you go out with me?" having a crush on the little boy in my 2nd grade class and writing his name 100 times in my notebook. It's all part of growing up, finding who you are, and learning about life. Right? Nobody taught me about boys. I just learned from peers and watching my friends. My best friend in 3rd grade had a boyfriend who would give her heart shaped love letters! It's all cute and innocent right? As the years went by, I also remember first kisses, break-ups, girl jealousy over boys, sneaking out late, lying to my mom, talking about inappropriate things with friends, pornography. At what point does it become not so innocent? Why do so many tween girls dress the way they do? Why do so many post selfies showing way too much skin on the internet? Statistics show that in this day the majority of girls are losing their virginity before the age of 16 and that includes church girls! Teen pregnancy rates and the number of those teens getting abortions are insanely high in the US.  Is it extreme to think an innocent boyfriend at age 8 is gonna lead to all that? Maybe, but at what point do you say "It was cute when you were little but not now." Is allowing a boyfriend at 8 starting her down a path of heartbreak, bad decisions, and future regrets? or an innocent game?

Well with all of this in mind, I didn't say "no." I believe that a parent giving their child a list of do's, don'ts, or rules WITHOUT giving that child an understanding of the why, having a consciousness of God's word, and having a conviction about it themselves, will only cause that child to rebel and make the wrong choices. My goal as a mom is to help her make the right choices, not because I said so, but also for the right reasons. My hope is that as my girls grow in an understanding of God's word and a realization of His plan for them, that they will have no interest in this worlds methods of dating.

Her question was brought up during one of our Bible lessons in school. We have been going through the book Long Story Short, which is a 10 min a day family devotional with discussion questions. We were reading about the creation of Adam and Eve and how God made a perfect helper for Adam. First, I told her that it was normal for girls to be attracted to boys and vice versa, that was the way God made us. I told her there were boys I thought were cute when I was her age. Then we went back to our Bible story and read about Gen 2:24 and read "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and will become one flesh." We talked a little about God's wonderful plan for marriage. I asked her "Tell me what do you imagine your life to be like when you are my age?" She answered, "I want to get married, have kids, be a mom, and I hope I'm an artist and a missionary." I told her that from the day she was born God already had a plan all laid out for her life, and if she continues to follow him as she gets older, He will show her if those hopes are part of His plan. If God wants her to get married and have a family then He ALREADY has the perfect husband picked out for her! He may only be an 8 year old boy growing up in another state right now, but God is preparing him to be the perfect husband for a beautiful artist missionary some day. She couldn't believe it! "God already knows who I'll marry!"she said.  "Yes, but whether or not you follow his plan is up to you." I told her that one day when she's old enough and ready to be a wife, God will show her who he's picked. She was amazed!

Then I said to her "a lot of kids have boyfriends or girlfriends when they're little. A lot of teenagers have had many boyfriends. What do you think is the purpose of a boyfriend?" She said "I don't know, I guess because you like them and they like you." I said "Now for someone following Gods plan for their future what is the PURPOSE of having a boyfriend?" She answered. "I guess to find the person God has picked for you!" I told her that if God has chosen him already and He will not show her until she's old enough to be a wife. I asked, "Why should you waste your time and give your heart to anyone else even if it's just when you're a kid?" She said "I never thought of that before!"

Since the lesson in our book was about God making a perfect spouse for Adam, one of our discussion questions actually said "discuss the characteristics of a perfect future spouse for your child." So, we made a list of traits that we hoped her husband would have someday. We discussed that many attractive people and celebrities look nice on the outside, but have an ugly heart. We talked about tall, dark and handsome boys who's hearts are full of sin and bad intentions. We talked about Daddy and in which ways she hoped her husband would be like him. I'm proud that her list of characteristics began with "Loves Jesus." and none on her most important list was about physical appearance. I know as she gets into her teen years dating and boys will be much more of an issue than it is at age 8. I pray that as she grows up she will always feel comfortable asking me life questions.  I think this lesson really laid a good foundation and helped her to understand dating from a Christian perspective and the purpose of courtship.

I don't have all the answers especially to the hard questions, but what I do know is that I want all of my girls from the youngest age to realize that they were made with a divine purpose in this life, and that God has a special plan for each of their futures. I will try my best to guide them in the right direction, and I pray that they make their own decisions to follow that plan.