Boys Rule My Life

I like saving money!

2011-11-23T11:32:00.000-06:00

I love a good deal and I just ran across a website I have never seen before. It offers 9 daily deals of drastically reduced items and then will occasionally add INSANITY deals (like $43 for and iPad!) Friend referrals allow you to collect free items, so if you do check out this site, please use my referral code: http://www.nomorerack.com/?cr=2887059

Organized Necklaces

2011-10-26T07:13:00.001-05:00

I have such a handy husband. I showed him this idea on Pinterest and the very next night he had all the supplies purchased and then put it up for me. I love it, but not as much as I love him! :)

(hand towel rack with double sided hooks purchased at Lowes)

(No Sew) Superhero Cape

2011-10-11T07:25:00.000-05:00

My two Super Mario fans playing in their Superhero Capes!

Idea from Pinterest... of course!

Five Senses Board

2011-10-10T09:05:00.002-05:00

For 3rd grade science, we were studying stimulus/response. This lead to a discussion of how each of our senses help us... which lead to a kindergarten lesson on our five senses. I love it when it all just pulls together like that!

The week prior, I pinned a texture board on Pinterest which facilitated my idea of a Five Senses Board.

The far left column is TOUCH.

feathers
double-sided sticky tape
both sides of velcro
glass beads (flat side is hot glued to poster board)
pom-poms
foam shapes

The next column is SIGHT.

Opaque (cut from a milk jug)
Clear (cut from a blueberry carton)
Pennies (dull/shiny)
Foam pieces (plain, glittery, stripes, dots)
Assorted colored pipe cleaners
Sparly stars

The third column is SMELL.

Vanilla bean
Cocoa Nibs (lost their smell the first day) :(
Cinnamon sticks
Cloves
(Added later: scratch 'n' sniff stickers)

The forth column is TASTE.

Sour: I put sour gummy candies in... which don't last long!
Bitter: cocoa powder
Sweet: sugar (this is sucanat here)
Salty: chunks of sea salt

Fifth column is HEARING:

click pen
rubber band "guitar"
velcro
(Later added large jingle bells)

The boys absolutely LOVE this board! Adults even enjoy it! :) Honestly, it's just hard not to interact with this board once you see it. It's a lot of fun and I'm so glad I had all this random stuff on hand to pull it together!

Here's Witt showing off the "Sweet" bag... his favorite, of course.

Here are the boys huddled around checking it out. Nathan (left) has removed the "Salty" bag that is attached with Velcro and Will is scratching the cinnamon.

Will getting a whiff of cinnamon and Witt (left) pointing out that the Sour bag is empty! LOL!

Birthday Countdown

2011-10-06T06:05:00.001-05:00

In September, Will turned 9 and had a sleepover party. Since then, Nathan (now 5) has been asking daily when his birthday will be (November). Just about that same time, I ran across a chain calendar on Pinterest for kids that aren't proficient with a regular calendar. I thought this might work perfectly for Nathan and I got to work.

I included a blue ring for the day his Daddy would be back from a business trip and a black ring for Halloween. The final one is red and is his birthday. Each morning he wakes up and cuts off a ring getting closer and closer to his birthday. He LOVES this!

Hand Print Canvases

2011-10-05T16:54:00.000-05:00

I'm not a really big artsy person, but when I ran across this idea on Pinterest, I knew I wanted to do it. I picked up a cheap 3-pack of flat canvases in the craft section at Wal*Mart. If I were to do this again, I would pick up the ones with more depth like in The Mom in Madison.

First, I let the boys draw and color in their hands, names, and ages with oil pastel crayons. Then they used water colors to paint around (and over) their handprint. Bringing out the paints was a nice change of pace for our house. :)

Be Prepared...

2011-10-04T07:22:00.000-05:00

I have tons of posts coming from ideas I got off of Pinterest. Just wanted to warn you. They ARE coming. :)

You can follow me on Pinterest here.

If you need an invite, just let me know in the comments. :)

Bear Cub

2011-08-30T09:31:00.005-05:00

First Day of School Pics

2011-08-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

Nathan's Tiny Talk

2011-07-23T18:55:00.003-05:00

4th of July week, week I took the boys to Camp Wiregrass. Nathan kept me rolling in laughs each day.

One random comment was, "I want to have a motorcycle when I am older than 12 years old. Just so you know. And if you forget, just ask me."

Another day he was caught playing with a frog in the water fountain. LOL!

During a break, Nathan came up to me and asked if I wanted to know his new friend's name. I was quite taken aback because he never remembers anyone's name, so I enthusiastically said, "Sure!". His new friend's name is Maya and he told me they played on the see-saw together.

I asked him to tell me what she looked like and he said that her hair was dark and goes, "Loopty-loopty-loopty- loop!" Sure enough, it does! :) She was just the cutest thing!

Nathan & Maya at the Camp Banquet Dinner

The second to last day at camp, he said the following with a BIG, EXCITED GRIN:

"Today, I got to dig in the dirty clothes basket and put dirty clothes on!"

************
Last week at lunch, we played "High and Low" where you go around the table and say what your high point of the day was and your low point. Nathan's cracked me up:

"My favorite thing is that I found a worm in my corn." (We shucked fresh corn from the farmer's market.)

"The bad news is that I lost him in the grass."

************
This quarter, I am teaching the younger boys' Bible class on Sunday mornings. Turns out Nathan was listening to the story of Daniel because later in the week he said,

"I only want vegetables and water for breakfast; it will make me strong."

I gave him carrots and a glass of water. He smiled. :)

*********
When something doesn't go his way, he says, "Awww.. Nuts!" or "Awww... Walnuts!" He's such a character!

Boys Will be Boys... Even when they are Men :)

2011-07-23T10:18:00.002-05:00

Apparently Disney Needs a New Ride

2011-06-29T09:52:00.010-05:00

Will, age 8, asked me to take a picture of a roller coaster he designed and wants to submit it to Disney. Here is his creation... of course it involves a train. :)

2nd Grade Curriculum Reviews

2011-06-24T11:53:00.000-05:00

Found this in my posts that were never published. This is from the 2010-2011 school year.

HISTORY and GEOGRAPHY

We used Sonlight's Intro to World History Part I. We studied mostly about Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Will said his favorite was all the Greek Mythology stories. It took me a while to get used to the writing style in A Child's History of the World. Eventually I came to realize that for his age, History should be just an introduction and read more like stories than a text book. Later he will study more in depth, but will already have a general understanding from these early years.

Every time we discussed a new country, Will labeled it on our map. This proved to be very beneficial for everyone. Even Witt and Nathan were able to point places out... especially Italy because it's shaped like a boot! :)

At the end of the year, I gave him geography tests for the countries we studied in Africa and Europe, as well as a test of the continents.

The only thing I wish Sonlight had was more hands-on ideas for history. I had to search other books and the internet for ideas beyond just reading from the book. However, we will used Sonlight again next year for History, but will move on to American History Part I. We ordered the Core Tips CD for next year in hopes of finding those "extra" hands-on activities we want.

READING, LANGUAGE ARTS, and SPELLING

We used Sonlight's Grade 2 Readers and the corresponding LA sheets. At the beginning of the year, I really liked that the LA sheets went with what he was reading that day; however, as the year went on and his reading progressed, he wanted to read ahead of the schedule. I adjusted his sheets to go with what he was reading, but eventually he was so far ahead that the sheets no longer coordinated. We back-tracked and used the sheets anyway.

After he finished the Grade 2 Readers, he moved on to the Grade 3 Readers and completed four of those. For each book Will read, he drew a picture and wrote a couple of sentences about each book. Then he would take a test on Book Adventure. Here are some of my favorite "book reports":

The Hill of Fire

The Big Balloon Race

Titanic

The Long Way Westward

We used Sonlight's spelling word lists for the entire year. Each day I gave him a different activity: 1) read the words and spell out loud while looking at them, 2) Make a sentence with the word, alphabetize, or some other exercise 3) Write words 2 times each, 4) Oral test without looking at words, 5) Written Test without looking at the words. Spelling was his least favorite subject. Many tears were shed over misspelled words. We will not be using this system next year.

We will used Sonlight's readers next year, but will not use their LA sheets. I am satisfied with the amount of LA information Will learned this year, but some of the questions were strangely worded to where I had to find the teacher's manual to understand what they were asking for. Plus there was the whole non-corresponding issue... although that's a good problem to have based on our reasons.

For 3rd grade, Will will use Easy Grammar 3 and Daily Grams 3 for Language Arts and A Reason for Spelling C for well, spelling. :) (I also like that scripture is included in the spelling program.)

HANDWRITING

We used Book C of Getty-Dubay Italic. Mid-way through the year cursive italics was introduced. He's still working on the joins of his letters, but he's getting much better. We will continue with Book D next year.

MATH

By far, math is Will's best subject. I am thoroughly satisfied with RightStart Math. It is a fabulous curriculum and we will continue with Level D next year. This year in Level C he studied time, money, fractions, addition, subtraction, multiplication, area, perimeter, and more.

SCIENCE

We used Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy. While we really enjoyed this, I personally found it hard to stay within a single topic for the whole year. I like to bounce around a little bit among the sciences.

We did use the notebook and I found this to be a nice tool to teach Will how to start taking notes on important information. I would read aloud and tell him what to write. Sometimes I would write for him and let him draw a picture about what I wrote.

We really enjoyed the activities in the book and the extra ones in the notebook. I think their favorite was the edible mars rovers, though!

Another fun one was mapping out the solar system on a scale of 1 inch= 35,000 miles.

(I really should have flipped this last picture around... oh well.)

While we did enjoy this curriculum, we will not stick with the submersion of a single topic next year. We are going to use A Reason for Science to give me the bounce-ability I prefer. :) Plus, it ties science and bible together.

BIBLE

We did a few different things for Bible this year. We started out with Character Traits, moved on to a Who is Jesus? lapbook, and concluded the year using up sheets from Bible Study Guide for All Ages that we had left over from last year. We worked on memorizing the books of the Bible and looking up scriptures. We also began working toward the Cub Scout Religious Emblem.

We will continue working toward the Cub Scout Religious Emblem and on Bible Study Guide for All Ages.

Summer Bucket List

2011-06-02T11:37:00.011-05:00

This list probably won't get completed in one summer, but it's good to have the list to pull from. :)

Short/Easy Activities

~~Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag~~
~~Homemade Popsicle - specifically~~ ~~fudge pops~~
~~Farmer's Market~~
Write letters and send pictures to Great-Grandparents in Wisconsin ~~and Grandparents in Washington~~
~~3D Sidewalk Chalk~~
~~Obstacle Course~~
Catch and Release fireflies (AKA lightnin' bugs)
Visit the Library (Nathan and Witt still need cards)
~~Wii family night~~
~~Water balloon fight~~
~~Put up glow-in-the-dark stars in the boys' room~~
~~Go see "Smurfs" at the movies~~
~~Look for shapes in the clouds~~
~~Make lemonade~~ (and maybe a stand!)
~~Play board games~~
~~Go see "Cars 2" at the movies~~
Have a baking day and stock up on ~~breakfast cookies, muffins~~, and sausages
~~Teach the boys how to jump rope~~
~~Root beer floats~~
Shadow Watching
Have a family candle-light dinner

Long/Big Activities

Have a few "no screen" days (no tv, no computer, no hand held video games)
Space & Rocket Center
~~Botanical Gardens~~
~~Cub Scout Day Camp~~
~~Attend a week long Christian Camp (the boys and I are going - 1st time at camp for each of us!)~~
~~Road trip to Georgia (my brother is getting married!)~~
U-Pickit Farms
~~Spend the Night Party with the many, many boys on our street (Will's Bday Party!)~~
Teach Will how to ride his bike without training wheels (maybe Nathan & Witt, too!)
~~Help harvest Great-Grandaddy's garden~~ (and do some canning!)
Visit the farm we get our milk and eggs from
Rollerskating
~~Hot dogs and S'mores over an open fire (at Will's Bday party)~~
Bowling
Set up the tent in the back yard and "camp"
Splash-Pad days at the local park
Get my blog caught up...

Books we own that have a movie to watch after we read it

Peter Pan
Sounder
~~Black Beauty~~
Oliver Twist
The Tale of Desperaux
Stuart Little
Swiss Family Robinson
Winnie the Pooh (coming to theaters this summer)

School Related:

Make Mini-Offices
Learn how to use an MP3 player - don't laugh!
~~Buy and automatic pencil sharpener~~

For more ideas:

Start All Over Again

2011-05-24T09:48:00.002-05:00

Will, age 8 1/2

"Mom, can I have a shovel? I want to dig a trench for the rain."
"Mom, can I dig a hole in the front yard so I can play golf?"
"Mom, can we start building a small fire for cold nights?"

Hey ~ at least he ASKS! :)

On the way back from Magic Kingdom, heading to the resort:

"Now that we're going home, I want to sleep. Don't wake me up until lunch time."

This from the kid who has never slept past 7am. :)

Nathan, age 5 1/2

It's never a good thing when the child that has brought you the front door knob before starts a conversation with,

"Mom, I accidentally unscrewed this..."

After dropping a toy

"Upsie my daisies..." then he turned and said, "if I had four hands I could do moe work!"

On the definition of "country"

Country is where you can pee outside 'cause no one can see you!

Witt, almost 4 years old

After leaving the Magic Kingdom

"We saw Woody and Jesse but none of their friends." {Thoughtful Pause} "Maybe they are still in the computer."

While sitting on the potty in a public restroom equipped with an automatic flush that went off too early -

"Now I'm going to have to start all over again!"

Not Tiny Talk, but this cracked me up...

included in a text from my husband, Jeff, where he had misspelled a word:

"Spelling? I'm an engineer and calculators can't spell either."

Collection of Facebook Pages Helping Alabama Tornado Victims

2011-05-10T06:22:00.002-05:00

Alabama Homeschoolers Tornado Relief

2011-05-04T06:39:00.000-05:00

***ATTENTION HOMESCHOOLERS***

I just wanted to post something quick about a new Facebook page to help out Alabama homeschoolers that were hit by the recent tornadoes that came through on 4/27/2010. I don't know if other states are doing something similar or not. This group was originally started as a group of lower Alabama homeschoolers helping north Alabama homeschoolers, but I'm certain anyone that wants to help can.

If you'd like to donate your "extras", please request to be added to the ALABAMA HOMESCHOOLERS TORNADO RELIEF page.

Thanks so much!