Nature in Winter

We woke up to a world of ice this morning. Thankfully, the ice did not accumulate on the roads...however, it did make for some beautiful landscape...

Here's a close-up of our holly berry bush.

Oh, and this one is for my six-year old son, a basketball net covered with icicles...

Summer Zoo Trip

We have a small local zoo that we have been wanting to check out for the past few years - but hadn't - so when Grandma & Papa told me that they wanted to take the two older kids - I asked if Caleb and I could tag along.

This is what greeted my mom and I (and Caleb in the stroller) as we entered the venomous reptiles building. They were cleaning one of the cages and I guess this snake wanted to explore outside the cage - and they let him! Needless to say, Mom and I turned around and left the building shortly afterwards - when the snake came out even farther!

I thought this alligator exhibit was pretty cool.

This picture was taken by my 11-year old niece - I love the perspective. When my hands were full with the almost 2-year old, she grabbed my camera - and she actually took a lot of really good pictures.

Another one of her pics - this one of the mountain goat.

This one I did take - I was determined to get a good one of this kangaroo.

The kids absolutely loved this zoo. This particular zoo didn't have many of the traditional zoo animals, but they had a number of exotic animals that we might not be able to see at the larger zoos. Plus it was only ten minutes from our house - and we had buy one-get one free coupons -and Grandma & Papa treated!

learning notes Wednesday 9/5 and Thursday 9/6

Wednesday: sounds for letter "p" - we pretty much speed through most of the phonics pages because Ryan already knows most of his letters and their sounds...we did spend some time using letter cards for letters we've already reviewed to make the following words: bake, rake, fake, take, make, fat, mat, rib, me, rat, bat, fib, kite, bite, bike, am, mike, pit, pet, pat, sit, at, sat, sam, bam, pam

Thursday: Last night was not very restful for me so we took a break from "school" but we did do lots of read-alouds: BINGO by Rosemary Wells, Stone Soup by Ann McGovern, Berenstain Bears Week at Grandma's & Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room, Daddy Kisses by A. Gutman, Biscuit Meets the Neighbors by A. Capucilli, Wibbly Pig is Happy by Misk Inkpen, Good Habits for God's Kids: Good For You by Laura Derico; Seven Special Days by H. Gambill (JOI selection) and Tanglefoot by Richard Scarry (JOI selection).

learning notes - Tuesday 9/4

letter "p" - Get Set for the Code pages 1-14 (verbal review); Italics handwriting; played "What Am I?" game from WOW! I'm Reading (WP RTL) - I read some clues and the kids drew pictures of what they thought the answer to the riddle was...Ryan loves riddles so he really enjoyed this game, Abby doesn't quite get the concept yet - she just drew whatever she felt like drawing, for example, one of the first clues was "I keep you warm" and Abby drew a cat?? ; MUS Lesson 6, page 6A; Read Alouds: God Gives Us Seasons by Dot Cachiaras, The Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race.

learning notes - Friday 8/31

Letter "I" - reviewed sounds (JRIR) and practiced handwriting (Italics), our WP LA curriculum had a few worksheet pages that Ryan really enjoyed - we usually don't do the worksheets I prefer to review them verbally but these looked fun:); made more words using letter cards (kite, bite, bike, am, rib, me, I, a, ram, fib, mike); Bible Stories to Read - both kids listened to story about Jonah & did the activity that went with their coloring page - the coloring book that goes along with this book usually has just a coloring page for each story, but for Jonah we had a really cute activity to do and the kids both enjoyed it! Read alouds: part of The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me by R. Dahl.

learning notes - Thursday 8/30

Letter "R": reviewed sound in JRIR workbook, practiced h/w; used letter cards (b,a,r,f,t,m,k,e) to make words (bake, rake, fake, take, make, fat, mat, bat, rat, bet, met) - Ryan got so excited when he realized that he could read these words!; MUS page 5D; "Let's Draw" from Sing! Play! Create! - we drew a simple hen - these drawing lessons are pretty cool!; read-alouds: Milk From Cow to Carton by Aliki, Miss Hunnicutt's Hat by J. Brumbeau, Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett, Here a Chick, Where a Chick? by Suse MacDonald, What Am I? by N.N. Charles.

learning notes - Wednesday 8/29

Ryan - letter "r" - reviewed sound using ETC workbook, practiced writing lowercase "r", wrote phone number from memory, worked on coloring train cut-out from Richard Scarry's Best Rainy Day Book Ever!, colored & cut-out puppets to use to sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", read-alouds: Mrs. Pigglewiggle's Farm - finished ch 2, Miss Hunnicutt's Hat by Jeff Brumbeau (kids loved it!), The King's Chorus by Linda Hayward, "God Made the Dinosaurs" & "How God Gives Us Popcorn" from the Happy Days Treasury.

learning notes - Tuesday 8/28

Ryan - morning walk, calendar, handwriting practice (letter t, phone number, date), played adjective-noun game (we came up with 10 adjective + noun phrases using letter "t": tough turkey, toothless tiger, etc.), practiced making a phone call - called Daddy at work, read-aloud - Mrs. Pigglewiggle's Farm - more of chapter 2, went to the library; drew a rooster following directions in Sing, Play, Create

learning notes - Monday 8/28

Ryan - letter T/t - reviewed sounds using ETC workbook & JRIR, practiced handwriting using Italics H/W; wrote our address & phone number; learned how to make a phone call, rules for using 911; MUS Primer Lesson #5 - page 5A; visited orchard - played at playground & bought some yummy peaches; read alouds: Berens Bears Week at Gmas, The New Baby Calf by E. Newlin Chase, The Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons, Mrs. Pigglewiggle's Farm - part of Ch. 2; The Talking Bread by Richard Scarry

Learning Notes - Week of 8/19

We began doing school "lightly" on 8/13...Ryan is quickly working through the WP LA program, he pretty much knows all of his letters and their sounds - I am just having him do one page of handwriting practice for each letter (capital and lowercase) per day, we are doing most of the other phonics stuff (ETC & Jump Right into Reading) verbally. MUS primer is also mostly review for him so far.

Language Arts:

• Letters E & K - did ETC pages & Jump Right Into Reading (JRIR) verbally, Italics H/W for both capital & lowercase of each letter
• Lang Arts for Little Ones 2 (Queen) - lesson 4
• practiced writing our phone number from memory, learning correct way to answer phone

Math:

• MUS Lesson 4 (rectangles), page 4A & 4D (review)
• Hop. Skip & Touch Nose game from Games for Learning

Other:

• Circle Time ~ calendar, Who Am I Riddles from Dr. DooRiddle book, madlibs, read-aloud poems, "Go In and Out the Barn Door" song from Sing, Play, Create book (kids loved this one), Bible Story Coloring Book (from Rod & Staff)
• Nature Walk ~ took a color walk
• Read-Alouds ~ Mrs. Pigglewiggle's Farm (Ch 1), "Milly-Molly-Mandy Gives a Party" from Treasury of Classic Stories (TCS), "Jesus Loves Me All the Time", "Jesus Loves Me", and other songs from Happy Days Treasury (HDT)

Starting our homeschool journey

This will be our first official year of homeschooling; I can't believe my little boy is already old enough to be going to kindergarten. Our plan is to homeschool for the duration (through highschool), unless, of course, God changes our plans. For Ryan's K year I am using Winterpromise's Accel K LA program, MUS Primer and Singapore Early Bird 2A & 2B, and History for Little Pilgrims & A Child's History of the World (history read-alouds). I am also adding in science & other fun stuff from WinterPromise's Ready to Learn program and read-alouds from WP's Journeys of Imagination Program. I chose the Ready to Learn & Journey's programs with the hopes of being able to include Abby (age 3) in some of our schooling...as painlessly as possible. I also have a variety of preschool workbooks that have been given to us and Rod & Staff's preschool workbook set that should keep her busy with her own "schoolwork".