November 28, 2011

Menu Monday

Here is what I've got on our menu for this week...

Monday:
Lunch-
Lentil soup with potato and "sausage"
Bread

Dinner-
Chicken Divan Casserole

Tuesday:
Breakfast-
Oats w/apples and raisins
Toast w/peanut butter

Lunch-
Black bean and Cheese Quesidilas
Apples/Carrots (whichever each boy chooses)

Dinner-
Leftovers (either soup or casserole)

Wednesday:
Breakfast-
Cereal w/Toast n Peanut butter

Lunch-
*Undecided*

Dinner-
Crockpot Shredded Beef w/hamburger buns
Tossed Green Salad

Thursday:
Breakfast-
Sourdough Pancakes w/maple syrup

Lunch-
Leftovers

Dinner-
I'm hoping to go out for dinner!
This is our anniversary and I'm hoping to be taken out!
But if not, I'll probably do up one of my hubby's favorite meals.

Friday:
Breakfast-
Eggs, Bacon, Biscuits

Lunch
Sandwhiches
Soup

Dinner-
Beef Roast w/roasted root vegetables
Sourdough Rolls

Saturday:
We have afternoon church this week, so we'll get to enjoy a brunch. My hubby likes to do country fried potatoes, eggs, and bacon when he has all morning!


November 23, 2011

Wishing you and yours...

From our family to yours...have a blessed Thanksgiving!

November 21, 2011

Monday is for Menu's

Sigh. I am SOOO bad about flying by the seat of my pants when it comes to meal preperation. But I have a *good* excuse...I'm a single mom for 2 1/2 days every week, so those are the days I just stare into the refrigerator waiting for something to talk to me. When hubby is home, I try to plan meals he will enjoy. BUT I've decided that I really need to STOP doing that because I end up eating things that I really shouldn't...and if I shouldn't my boys shouldn't either. So starting today I'm going to have a Menu Monday posts where I list the things I'm considering on incorporating into our meals this week. I don't know if you know this, but I have a serious addiction to cooking magazines and cookbooks! I am 100% game to try new recipes and I'm always on the search for the "Next Great Recipe" for my family!

Now this week is tricky because Thanksgiving is coming up on Thursday, so I'll be cooking most of the day for that...but, here is the current rundown of things to cook this week...

Monday:
Dinner-
Chicken Noodle Soup w/my homemade Turkey Stock
Fresh loaf of my Three Flour Bread

Tuesday:
Breakfast-
Oats w/apples and raisins
Toast w/peanut butter

Lunch-
Black bean and Cheese Quesidilas
Apples/Carrots (whichever each boy chooses)

Dinner-
Chicken Noodle Soup
Bread and/or crackers

Wednesday:
Breakfast-
Cereal w/Toast n Peanut butter

Lunch-
*Undecided*

Dinner-
Chicken Noodle Soup
Bread and/or Crackers
Cinnamon Rolls

Thursday:
THANKSGIVING!!
Breakfast-
buttermilk Pancakes w/maple syrup

Lunch-
WYCF (Whatever you can find)

Dinner-
Garlic Herb Roasted Turkey
Mashed Potatoes (yukon golds!)
Turkey Gravy
Stuffing (I have a new organic one to try)
Easy Crescent Rolls
Green Salad w/homemade dressing
Mac n Cheese Casserole
Sparkling Organic 100% juices
Pumpkin Pie and Apple Pie

Friday:
Breakfast-
Eggs, Bacon, Crescent Rolls

Lunch/Dinner-
LEFTOVERS!!

Saturday:
Depends on what the hubby wants...he cooks breakfast for me every Saturday so I can have the extra time to get ready for church! Such a sweetheart!

I have a list of various snacks and desserts I might make this week too...this is the time of year when I LOVE to bake!!

November 16, 2011

MFW-K Highlights: Week #8- Dd Dinosaur


We enjoyed our Dd Dinosaur unit this week...here is an overview of what went on in our classroom.

Memory Verse: Hosea 2:23
We used the wonderful scripture helps by 2 Teaching Mommies!

MFW-K Unit #8
We started by coming up with words that we knew started with Dd:

Then we continued with our exercises from the manual for days 1-5. There was marked improvement with the blend ladders which was wonderful!

At first I was a bit apprehensive about this unit since we don't agree with a young earth theory and don't believe that dinosaurs were created at creation...so I had to adjust a lot of things from the science section. But we still talked about how they were still created and looked at various books. We discussed how much bones can tell us. We learned about what a Paleontologist is,  what makes fossils, and added the word "extinction" to our vocabulary box.

I found some good vocabulary matchbook helps for dinosaurs on Homeschoolshare.


As part of our geography, we filled out a dinosaur world map to learn where dinosaur fossils have been found...He was in shock that dino bones had been found in Antartica!

Here are two of the books we read...

They were great because there is no references to evolution and uses the terms "long time ago"...Little Britches liked the pictures and learning about these two dinosaurs.

We learned how to draw dinosaurs...He opened one of the books and copied from it. I was EASILY able to identify which ones he'd copied!

We enjoyed reading Danny and the Dinosaur for Day 6...we also snagged Happy Birthday, Danny and the Dinosaur.

Other things we worked on this week...

I laminated a Read, Build and Write sheet and we worked on Thanksgiving words...

And we put up our Fall Sight Words...using a great idea from the For the Love of Kidnergarten blog!
We take this down every day to review the words. He's definitely getting faster and recognized some of them in our scriptures for THIS week!

We started a FIAR again with the wonderful book Cranberry Thanksgiving...I will post all our projects for that together in a separate post.

All in all it was a wonderful week!


Links
Homeschoolshare~ Dinosaur World Map
Enchanted Learning~ Dinosaur Patterns
Schoolsparks.com~ Ordinal Numbers Worksheets
2 Teaching Mommies~ Hosea 2:23 Scripture Helps

November 15, 2011

Beanie Baby and 10 Commandments Printable

Just a quick post...

I just had to share this picture of the crazy Baby Britches! LOL! He had just discovered a love for black beans and quesidillas...and then styled his hair with bean juice. LOL!

On Sabbath, Little Britches was given his first scripture memorization for Sabbath school--the 10 Commandments. Since we had just finished a scripture, we are now working on these for our weekly memorization. Right now I'm only having him learn two at a time...once we get to the last five, I'll probably increase that since they are pretty easy. I tried to think of the best way to teach them since there are so many. I found exactly what I was looking for in this great 10 Commandment Train by Christian Preschool Printables. Every week Little Britches will color the car that goes with the commandment we are learning and we cut them out and hook it up to the engine on our bulletin board.

That's all for now! I'll be posting our MFW highlights for last week tomorrow!

November 11, 2011

Five Question Friday

For a bit of lightheartedness this fine Friday!

1. What's the last thing you spent too much money on?
Card Making Supplies!!! Oy! Don't even get me started on THAT addiction!

2. What celeb chef would you want to make you dinner?
Paula Dean! I love butter and cheese...

3. Where do you hide things when visitors pop over or do you let them see the real deal?
Usually my kitchen is a mess...and so I quickly shove things into the oven! Sadly that has had some DIASTEROUS results! Melted plastic anyone?

4. Who is your oldest living family member?
My Great-Uncle Frank! He's in his 90's and chipper as ever! I love Uncle Frank! He's my Grandfather (deceased)'s Older Brother and quite a kick!

5. What is your favorite DQ treat and/or Sonic drink combo (ie: cherry vanilla dr. pepper)?
Oh I love Sonic's Happy Hour! I always get a Strawberry Limeade!

What fun questions to answer this week! Thanks for stopping by!

November 9, 2011

MFW-K Highlights: Week #7- Uu Us

We finished up Uu -Us last week...here are a few shots of what we accomplished!

Bible
: Our scripture for memorization this week was Matthew 22:39

We enjoyed learning more about our senses this week. It was the perfect timing to do this unit since we had just watched the amazing shows on the Discovery channel about the eye and other body parts. I think it was called something like Pushing the LImits? Each episode dealt with a different part of our body. We were able to catch the one about the Eye and about the Muscles/Bones. Fascinating! It was the perfect intro for our unit.

We had already done an in depth study on the TASTE aspect as part of our FIAR book Lentil, so we didn't spend as much time with that...but here is a rundown on what we did do for each day.

Day #1~ The 5 Senses
We just learned what our 5 Senses are and then did a few worksheets where it asks us to figure out what senses are used to experience things like cupcakes, rainbows, wind, ect...We continued this throughout the day asking Little Britches which senses he was using or could use. We discovered that we don't use our "hearing" very much when it comes to daily life--especially with food. But then I had him eat an apple and other crunchy things and suddenly we could add it in too!

Day #2~Sight
We learned more about our eyes. We did an experiment where we went into a bathroom and turned the lights on and off watching our pupils. Then we read an old Discovery Kids magazine all about Eyes. To experience a lack of eyesight and how it affects us, I blindfolded Little Britches and asked him to draw a person, a car, a train and to write his name on the white board. Then I had him take off the blindfold and do it again.


I did the same task and we compared my pictures too. He really liked doing this experiment.

Day #3~ Hear
We spoke about what it would be like to not be able to hear anymore. We discussed the hearing impaired people we saw at the Feast of Tabernacles and mentioned the interpreter who translated the messages into sign language for them. Then we learned the ASL alphabet and then how to sign the numbers 0-10. We learned how to sign our names and how old we are.

Day #4~Smell and Touch
For the sense of smell we just spoke about how when we have colds we can't smell things very well and how it makes things taste differently too. Because our whole family was currently congested this was a VERY easy lesson! LOL!

For touch, I had Little Britches play our Feel and Find game--first with his hands as they are and then again with a sock over them. We discussed why it was harder to do with a sock on our hands.

Day #5~ Taste
We spoke about how things taste good and bad and that things that taste really sweet are usually our favorites, but how that doesn't mean they are good for us to eat all the time. We discussed the hazards of eating too much of anything and then I introduced the new Food Plate Food Group guidelines. We discussed what a protein, grain, and dairy was and analyzed our meals for the rest of the day and thru the weekend.

In regards to the actual lessons on Uu, we did all the manual work, but then spent a bit more time on the sound U makes since at the beginning of the week he kept saying that "U" said "yuh". I reminded him that before he told me what sound it made to think of the short vowel song and the words in it. After day 2, he didn't make anymore mistakes!

Various worksheets filled in our Uu and number 7 work. We've started incorporating Confessions of a Homeschooler's Letter of the Week worksheets into a lot of what we do. Especially her "A is for..." series. I print them off and then let him use his Dot Marker to find all the letters--in this case all the "U's" in the sentence. I highly recommend those to anyone!

I must say that I am very impressed by his work with the blend ladder and his handwriting! He is really starting to be much more careful with his letters--what an improvement over the last few weeks!

We finished our unit by reading Love You, Forever. Now why did they have that book? I bawl like a baby and can hardly finish reading it! Must be because I have TWO little boys just like the book...sniff sniff...

Now we are in Day 2 of Week #9-Dd Dinosaur! Can't wait to share our fun with you next week!


PS. Don't forget to check out what's in our book basket for this week!

Links to check out

November 8, 2011

What's in our Book Basket this week?

We left the library packed down and running over yesterday as we stocked up our book basket for the week! I took with me a list of various books that my blogging friends have been recommending and was able to snag some of those, but then some other ones too! We've been reading about 2 books a day which is quite fun!


So here are a few of the books in our basket this week...
1. Thanksgiving Is Here!
What a fun book this is! We poured over the fabulous illustrations and just enjoyed this book! We will definitely be reading it again because I'm sure we missed things the first time through! I totally recommend this book to anyone! 
Definitely a 5 star rating!

2. Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation
Oh I can't say enough about how much we learned from this book! As soon as you open it there is information to learn! This book follows the "Time traveling Twins" as they go back to be at Plymouth for the first Thanksgiving! So much history is incorporated into the fun dialogue from the original name for Pumpkins, to the reason why they drank beer instead of water! Little Britches giggled several times. The illustrations are phenomenal! Make sure you tuck this one in your book basket too! 
Another 5 star rating!

3. One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims
This book is very elementary without any real story...it is a good counting book, and one to show the differences between what a pilgrim child and an indian child would have been doing before the Thanksgiving feast. We didn't like this one as much. 
2 1/2 stars at best.

4. Cranberry Thanksgiving
I was excited to read this one because it's also on our Five in a Row list! I haven't had a chance to read it to Little Britches yet, but I read it myself and thought it was fabulous! I love the pictures and Mr. Whiskers is just priceless! I will be using this one with a few of the FIAR Manual ideas later. 
I personally give this one 4 1/2 stars!

5. Silly Tilly's Thanksgiving Dinner
This one is very very cute! I love the little animals in it. Silly Tilly is a mole who "forgets to remember" to do things and discovers through a series of things that she "forgot to remember" that it's time for her Thanksgiving guests to arrive, but has nothing cooked for them! It is a great way to incorporate the idea of sharing, giving, and the wonderful power of friends! We enjoyed this one.
4 Stars from us!

So there you have a peak into some of the books in our book basket this week--I hope that we helped you get some ideas for filling your own!

November 3, 2011

Let's Talk Turkey and Wampum!

With the arrival of November comes the beginning of our Thanksgiving unit--which is going to go from now until Thanksgiving. I have been snagging great ideas for arts/crafts, math, social studies, language arts, etc from all my wonderful blogging friends as well as some E-books I downloaded from the Scholastic Teacher Express site. Yesterday was the first day of our studies and we started off my making Turkey Magnets. Talk about a little boy in heaven! He ADORES paint and really got into this activity. These are turkeys of which you have NEVER seen the like! LOL! We made several since Little Britches wanted to make sure one graced the refrigerator of all his main relatives!


Baby Britches has been going crazy seeing them on the fridge and signs "please" and points at them! LOL!
We cut each one out and now I'm making a little card to go with them before we bag them up and mail them out!
Today I introduces the history of Thanksgiving to Little Britches. I found a really good simple story in my What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know book. There are no dates. Just a basic summary of why they left England. Then a bit about their voyage--including a sample (pretend) diary entry for a small child on the voyage. Little Britches enjoyed that because it was written from a kids point of view--making it easier for him to understand. After we read the chapter, we talked about it and discussed the Indians who helped the Pilgrims and what it was like for them. I referenced the way the Indians helped them to our scripture of the week "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39).

Next we looked at images online of the Mayflower including a cross-section of the ship to get an idea about what it would be like to have to stay below deck for so long. Little Britches favorite part? The Poop Deck of course! LOL! We pulled down our world map to see how big the ocean is from England (which he remembered from our FIAR of How to make an Apple Pie and see the World)to the "New World" and then compared that to the distance from our house (in Kentucky) to "Mum-Mum's House" (in Washougal, WA). We decided the ocean distance was at least TWICE as big!

We spoke about the Indians a bit more than I explained that the indians used beads as a way to buy things--instead of money. We talked about Wampum and experimented with dyeing our own purple "wampum". My color of purple was gorgeous, but I guess it doesn't work well on whole wheat pasta! LOL! I didn't even think about that! LOL! I will go buy some regular tomorrow to try again. In the meantime we used white and purple plastic pony beads. He strung them on a piece of yarn--purple on one side, white on the other. 

Then throughout the day he had to pay me "wampum" for different things. Using the phone to call Papaw. Getting a drink of water. Getting an apple. We'll continue doing this for awhile so he gets the idea--or until he gets tired of it.

We had an excellent day of class and I'm excited that he's enjoying learning about the history of Thanksgiving...I think his favorite thing to do today was to paint...me! 

I too made a turkey; however, my turkey did not look as cool as his, so it didn't get photographed! LOL!

If you need any more details or want a supplies list of what we used, please let me know! This is a great activity and one that could easily be adapted for even a classroom!