What she's reading...

"want to hear my favorite new poem mom?  I wrote it down for you."
Yes.  A hundred times yes.

Thank you Thomas Locker, and thank you to my sister for giving us this beautiful gift.

Thank you for the moment that my little girl wants to share her love of poetry with me.

One moment of magic

I love this so much I could marry it.

Brothers plus Mud Puddle plus Rocks equals

Oh boy.  Boys.

Gratitude Monday

Here's What I Am Loving Today... 


~This wet cloudy cool weather!

~Visit from my sister and her children...

~Getting christmas lights on the house...

~A partner who will get up there and hang up lights with out complaint...
(even if he thinks it's too early.)
and

(he thinks it's too early Every Year)

~Ordering christmas cards...


~Holiday planning...


~A baby who is communicating both with sign, and little words more and more....


~New books, and new electronic toys...
(a new tablet equals much to figure out)


~A little boy who likes to play "package man"
(UPS is his favorite and I love all the little deliveries)

~Clean sheets...
(my side of the bed stays clean for about 8 hours, until a dirty little baby finds a way to make them less than pristine)

~A little girl who is so big, and so grown up, yet still sometimes just wants to be held..



Here's to a new week, with would you believe even more possibilities being presented!?!
Eh.
Grateful for possibilities, and the possibility of maybe some answers soon?

Weekly Wrap Up #9

This week in first grade...

In Poetry..
This was our first week with our poem of the month.  We are back to using one of my favorites, Swing Around the Sun.  Our poem of the week was a Jack Prelutsky classic.  This week's silly poem activity Ava chose to write her own short story using writing prompts, and the poem as inspiration.  This was the first week she's chosen this option, usually she chooses drawing.  I was delighted with the change, and the chance to hear her tell a story using prompts.

Seven Monkeys

Seven monkeys were hopping along.
Then they threw their sticks down and started swinging on a gate.

They didn't know who's gate it was, but they knew it belonged to somebody. 
They didn't know why they were swinging on a gate.  They were just having fun.
They could hear someone opening the door.
They saw the person's face, and she looked mad.
They ran away covering their ears so they couldn't hear her saying
"Stop Climbing On My Gate!"

In Social Studies....
We explored Australia!  We are very fortunate that my in-laws recently hada trip to Australia, they were able to bring back lots of fun things to explore for continent box.  I was equally fortunate to find this fabulous story book, Are we there yet? by Alison Lester at our library for fifty cents.  Are we there yet? is a family's real life account of their three month journey exploring Australia.

 

In the Kitchen/ Music..
This week we had some of our family stay with us.  We traded kitchen and music fun for cousin fun.
Totally worth it.

In Art..
We made Australian Aboriginal Bark Paintings.  We used this as our guide, and paper bags as our 'bark'.  We had such a good time, and the kids really got into it.

In Art Study..

We explored New York Waterfront by Stuart Davies.   Ava enjoyed this painting much more than I thought she would.  "It's cool.  I've never seen anything like it before.  It's really really interesting.  It reminds me of driving in San Diego, going to the farmer's market and watching everything out the window go by"  Maybe my girl has a little abstract in her after all.

In Science We..
Discussed sound, vibrations, and energy.  We used marbles on a strip of molding to demonstrate how sound vibrations travel through the air.  As always, Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding took something abstract, or complicated and made it hands on, fun, and clear.  I LOVE this book.

In Math We... 
~Played games
~Worked with manipulating right triangles
~Covered the concept of 'practice for accuracy'
~Started work with our addition facts sheets
~Experienced trading with our base ten cards

We were so blessed to be able to spend time with one of my sisters and her children this week.  Her daughter is about the same age as Ava, and she enjoyed going to "school" with us for a bit.  It was a pleasure having her.

lullaby...

Sleep baby sleep

Thy father guards the sheep

Thy mother shakes the dream land tree

Down falls a little dream on thee

Sleep baby sleep.

Retro Love.

This week I had the opportunity  to introduce to my babies a childhood favorite of mine.

There is something so magical and mesmerizing about 

little pegs of color mixed with light. 

 

Who doesn't love a Lite Brite?

(thank you Rachael!)

Hair cut fun...

If you where to ask my children what a trip to get their hair cut  is like, it would be something like this...

A trip to their Aunts house, playing with cousins, and hanging out the the chickens.  Who wouldn't love that?


If you are local and looking for a great cut  (playing with chickens is not mandatory) I highly recommend a trip to Hair Designs by Rachael.

Gratitude Mondays...

Here's What I Am Loving Today....

~Chocolate fudge sundaes...

~cooler weather!!!

~Extra blankets on my bed...

~Epsom salt and essential oil baths...

~A weekend with a long to do list left undone, but a lot of fun accomplished...

~Setting up next year's curriculum...

(what?  Nine months ahead seems to early?)

~A little girl who is making grand plans for her homemade christmas...

~A little baby who loooooves to be naked...

~A little boy who pretends he's a dinosaur everywhere we go...

(let's just keep the roaring down a bit while we are in a restaurant, okay?)

Japanese restaurants....

~A partner who plans our whole day around trips to the park and lunch...

A new week.

Weekly Wrap Up #8

This week in first grade we....

Took a different approach.  We both needed a break, and neither of us were thrilled with the idea of school this week.  So we didn't do regular school.  For most of the week we did very little.  Somehow I still managed to sneak in enough that I don't even feel remotely guilty about this either. 

Monday...
We made pumpkin muffins, played a Halloween math game, spelling pretest and had many photo shoots for our fantastic costumes.

Tuesday...
We had a serious candy experiment.  Complete with scientific procedure, graph paper and everything.  To her it was a game, to me it was a chance to expose her to a greater way to solve problems.

Wednesday...
Park day with our local homeschool group.  Enough said.

Thursday...
Spelling games, art and character study, and some time with silly poems.  The silly poem was well, silly.

I think the art study either expanded her mind, or messed with it a bit.  MC Escher has that effect on people.

"It's a really interesting painting.  It shows you two views of the same time and they're both in different colors"  (most of her explanation of this painting had to do with taking a canvas and breaking it into quarters and how all of our other paintings have been whole pictures, but this one was in many pieces, and some how there is a bird wedding)

Friday...
Technically Friday hasn't happened yet.  I plan on doing an actual math lesson,

exploring the European continent box, watch clog dancing videos, and listen to Celtic music.  I've done things so differently this week that I don't have pictures yet.  I'll come back and add them later!

I really really liked this week.  This week was all about making it work, being flexible, and using homeschool to our advantage.  Even though I feel like we took the whole week off, I still managed to keep us caught up on everything that depends on a schedule.  Next week we'll jump into November with renewed spirit.  November has it's own special circle time songs.  November is nice and short, especially now.  AND we take the whole month of December off!    I love homeschool.  LOVE IT.