What's new for 2012?

Hey all! Hard to believe it's the last week of the year 2011 isn't it? Remember in grade school when we had to draw pictures of what we thought 2012 was going to be like? I know that I was drawing us living in outer-space with cool hovercrafts to jet around in--think like the cartoon The Jetsons's! LOL!

But it's true...2012 is right around the corner! A new year for a new start...or at least a reboot for our school curriculum. Over the past weeks-really since right before Thanksgiving, I've really let our "schedule" just kind be in a state of eternal flux. While that works for some people, I've discovered that for our family it's just not the best choice. If I'm going to get everything done--well, at least MOST of what I want to get done--in a week, I need to have a better grasp on things.

So we are making a few changes for 2012...

The biggest change will be including more independent work for Little Britches. He can do sooo much with minimal instruction, so I'm going to take advantage of that by initiating a Daily Notebook. You can see most of the pages I'm using--since I downloaded Carisa's (1+1=1 Blog) wonderful Daily Calendar Notebook--but I am adding a few more in for us. I am going to let Little Britches work on this while I get his stuff for the day out and ready to go...I have it all in sheet protectors in a binder that he can just pull out every day and work on while I get things ready, or while I'm taking care of the Baby Britches in the morning.

Another thing I'm going to try is using the Daily Heart Report form that Carisa has also created...you can find it in the bottom right corner HERE. I love that it's like a report card for behavior--something that might really help me out right now. It's rough for us sometimes with my husband working away from home for 3 days/2 nights every week and it tends to come out in the boys behavior...so I'm hoping that maybe using this report card will help us out. I'm laminating it so we can just hang it up in the classroom for me to make notes on. I love the scriptures for each section and really think this might work well for us.

We are going to start back up with our Five In A Row curriculum...trying to do it 2-3 days a week--which means we'll row a book about every 2 weeks. Little Britches really enjoyed our past rows, so I'm just going to have to step up to the plate and stick with it. I'm going to do ONLY the lapbook things which I think will help him internalize what we are going over and just use the manual for everything thing else.

And some changes in store for Baby Britches too!! First off my hubby moved in the other school desk into the classroom for Baby Britches since we spend about 70% of our time trying to keep him out of Little Britches desk! Oh boy, he was so excited last night, he hustled in there and climbed right up into it. Then he patted his brothers desk, then his own with a HUGE grin on his face! Talk about making my life easier! Today he just played with toys and books sitting there the whole time we were doing lesson work!

And I'm going to try to put him together a sensory bin to play with during school time. I have so much bulk beans/barly and oats that I know I can *spare* some for him a container full. I will get one with a lid on it and pick up a few random cups/spoon/containers to put inside of it. Then I'm going to let him have at it during school time. I know he's going to have a blast!

Whew! So there are the biggest changes. I'm going to post pictures as we incorporate them...this week we're just finishing up the year with just random things--games, miscellaneous worksheets, writing, books, ect...that way I can start fresh next week with our  new schedule! Needles to say my laminator has been going in overdrive with me getting everything ready! Now I just need to get some more binding rings--I checked out OTC, but with shipping it's ridiculous...thankfully I found some on EBAY for less than the shipping cost of OTC!

Be Safe!

I hope you all have a very safe weekend full of family and love!

MFW-Hightlights: Ww Water

We did our unit on Ww Water the week after Thanksgiving. We enjoyed doing some fun water activities along with learning about the wild and wacky letter W!

Some W cut n paste sheets from Schoolsparks.com

And some fun Water Themed science experiments--focusing on water as a liquid, gas and solid!

like testing the density of hot water (dark blue) versus cold water (light blue)...

mimicking what underwater volcanos look like...

Lifting ice with thread...

learning why they put salt on the roads during the winter.

As always, Little Britches fills out his science observation sheets before and after each experiment...

And then we also poured water into various shaped containers to show that it can take on any shape as a liquid--and then did the same thing with a penny to show that pennies keep their shapes.

The we worked more on ordinal numbers...

(worksheet from Schoolsparks.com)

We have been working hard on our sight words, so I decided to introduce a "spelling test"...I was tickled pink at the results!

We wrote our sight words onto craft sticks and put them in our jar to use for creative writing and then we started working on our new ones...I'll be posting a picture of our sight word snowman in a later post.

Nothing too highly exciting, but a lot was accomplished and we had some great science fun this week!

 

Link Information 

*Schoolsparks.com~ Letter W 

*Schoolsparks.com~ Ordinal Numbers

MFW-K Highlights: Week #9 Oo- Octopus

Here we go to start catching up for our past weeks!

Oo Octopus has been one of our most favorite weeks so far! We both really enjoyed learning about the octopus!

A great place for photos: http://dive.bc.ca/pictures/octo/octo.html

We loved the little hand octopus activity! Little Britches made one...and then I helped Baby Britches make one too! Isn't it darling?? Naturally we HAD to add googly eyes!

There are some great activities regarding the Octopus on the Homeschoolshare.com site. Just type "octopus" into their search and you will find a plethora of activities. I used the anatomy lessons found HERE and we labeled an octopus.

And here is our completed undersea picture with our octopus hands!

Some other things we worked on this week...

Still making sure we have our colors down...so it's a weekly thing we are doing.

Identifying number nine by the written word, counting objects and the number...

Letter hunt for O

And the most amazing video to conclude our octopus studies...to REALLY see how "Even the octopus praises the Lord"...

Important Links

* Homeschoolshare.com ~ Octopus 

* Mr Printables Numbers

* Letter Hunt Worksheets (confessions of a homeschooler)

* Schoolsparks.com

The Bugliest Bugs

It's all about insects this week! 

I will give a detailed post later, but I just had to share these darling little things we made today...

I got the idea from THIS SITE and had to make them! Of course we clearly made ours cuter...(wink) We made more, but I will show the rest of them later.

Catching Up

Hello!
I'm a bit behind in posting, but I promise to play catch up starting tonight! We had a couple great weeks with our studies and I took pictures! Since it's just a rainy day here, I should have time to knock out a couple posts later--so check back!!

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!

Wishing you and yours...

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

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!!

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.

We also did a dinosaur patterns math worksheet.

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

Homeschoolshare~ Dinosaur Vocabulary Matchbooks

Enchanted Learning~ Dinosaur Patterns

Read, Build, And Write Mats w/vocabulary

Schoolsparks.com~ Ordinal Numbers Worksheets

2 Teaching Mommies~ Hosea 2:23 Scripture Helps

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!

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!

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

A-Z Letter Hunt Worksheets ~ Confessions of a Homeschooler

3D Feel and Find World Icons by Guidecraft

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!