School Pictures

Yesterday was school picture day at Trinity Academy. Ethan- 1st Grade
Tyler- 1st Grade

Isaiah- Kindergarten

Art

Yesterday we made homemade puffy paint. We got the idea from this website which is a great resource for fun things to do with your kids that make ordinary days special. It's number 9 on the list. (We also got the idea to howl at the moon from this website. My boys love to do that. It's free and easy and fun. The next full moon is in 2 days. Let your kids go wild!). Now, back to our art.

The directions call for painting on heavy cardboard. I improvised and used heavy paper plates. The kind that are paper, not Styrofoam. That is important because you are going to be microwaving your masterpieces.

We used cotton swabs to paint.

This is Tyler's cat.

How it looks after microwaving.

My masterpiece!

You'll have days like this...

Today I managed to frustrate all 3 of the boys during school... Ethan did not like the music I was playing.

Isaiah's puzzle was tooooo harrrrrd!

And Tyler didn't like cleaning off his desk after writing on it!

But I was frustrated today too. So I guess we're even.

What's New?

I seriously (in my mind) want to start blogging more. I have the ideas, I take the pictures, but somehow I just don't seem to make the time to do it. I love reading really good blogs and I admire the women who put the time and effort into writing really good posts every day!

I thought today I would do a general update on life since I haven't posted much of a personal nature lately. Sounds like I have something really juicy to share doesn't it?? Sorry, nothing that exciting!

Hm. What to start with. OK, probably the number one question I get asked on a weekly basis, "How is school going?". My answer usually ranges somewhere between "OK" and "it's getting better". School in itself is pretty simple most days. The boys want to learn, they want to do worksheets 95% of the time. They like school. The problems with school solely lie in me and my motivation. It's hard to ignore a dirty house, or the dishes, or the laundry. When those things are caught up on, it's easier for me to do school. I also struggle with making time to plan what we are doing. This is where I am sure using a curriculum would come in handy. I will probably look into that next year. I don't really fret too much about school, it's kindergarten, not brain surgery. I do try to make my major focus on reading as that is so fundamental to everything else. Tyler loves to learn to read and read his first "Bob book" last week. Ethan wants to read, but has a harder time focusing on his lessons. He is much more of a hands on type of kid and I really need to find something more focused on that for him to learn. We are currently using the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". I highly recommend it. The lessons are fairly short, it tells you exactly what to say to your child and what to have them do. It also has them work on handwriting at the end of each lesson which I think is an added bonus. Yesterday we went to the planetarium and watched a presentation. Isaiah does school with us and pretty much wants to do the same worksheets as his brothers. In fact, the other day he was explaining to Ethan how to do his work! That same day he told me the worksheets I was giving him were too easy. Guess he's going to be one of those kids!

Second most asked question is "How do you like staying home?". I really like it. It's generally better than work, even today when Tyler got the bright idea of stirring his milk with the TV remote! It seems like I've been home forever, but it's only been 5 months. I thought I would have better control of the house, but that is still something I struggle with. I am getting better all the time though. I love being home with the boys. We had some really great fun days outside in the fall and I'm glad they were able to do that instead of being in a classroom. Could we have done those things on weekends? Probably. But there is a greater freedom in being able to do and teach and learn 7 days a week. I guess what I'm trying to say is that right now in this moment, I feel we've made the right decision for our family. And that feels good. I wish that all moms who wanted to were able to stay home with their kids and not have to work.

New Years resolutions...the same as always. Read the Bible more. I had the intention of joining others at church and reading through the New Testament in a year. Just found my paper the other day. Still haven't started...I may still try to catch up.

Lose weight. This probably needs a post of it's own. I will tell you, that I have been doing the "Daniel Fast" for the past 3 weeks. Yesterday was my last day. I lost a significant amount of weight, but even more important than that, my head is in the right place. Stay tuned for a post just on this topic. If you look up the list of foods, make sure you scroll down and look at the whole list. It's not nearly as limited as the first paragraph makes it sound.

I've also been trying some new recipes and plan to post those. They are regular recipes (as in not diet) that I've been trying out on my family.

There are lots of things on my mind and heart. I hope to share some of those thoughts in future posts, but for now I'll close.

Have a great cloudy day!

Scenes from School

First Day of School 2009

Our first day of school was last Tuesday. It went fairly well, but I am learning that I need to be a lot more organized!

Pictures of our school room coming soon! (And by soon I mean sometime in the next week!)

:)

First Day of Preschool 2008

Today was our first official day of "preschool". While I'm not a huge advocate of preschool, I do feel that I need to get into some sort of routine for homeschooling next year. Here is the obligatory first day of school picture.

Here is Ethan crying less than one minute after we started. He was upset because I told him we couldn't have any airplanes (or other toys) at the table.
Here is the chair that Isaiah was supposed to be sitting in. Notice it's empty.
Little brother hangs off the table while older brothers put together puzzles of their names.
Ethan practices in his new workbook and apparently on his arm.
Learning is messy.

At this point, school was officially done, but I guess you could call this recess.
Isaiah riding his motorcycle (that's what it is when the handlebars are backwards, according to him).
A lesson in recycling.
Art class.
I hope you enjoyed your look into our first day. We try to "keep it real" around here. None of that perfection stuff for us!

First Day of Preschool....

and all ready to learn! On Monday we started our version of preschool. I am using the book "Little Hands to Heaven". It's got a really easy layout and I really like it so far. It works with all the boys too and that is nice. So far we haven't done it on days I work.


The first day they painted pictures. The yellow depicted the light that God made when creating the earth. The blue was our night or darkness and the green was the earth or grass.Today they made letter A's using Cheerios. Each day has some acting or pretending, a craft, some verses to read in the Bible, a poem, and a song. I ordered the music, but it hasn't come yet, so we just skip that part.

Garage Sale Goodies

Lately there have been a bunch of "teacher" sales. The one today was a teacher that was retiring after 35 years! Almost all of the books were 4 for $1. There were Mennonites there buying things for their one room schoolhouses (4 grades, 11 kids total). I have been to 3 teacher sales this year.

These little cut out things are laminated. She had tons of different games and things like this all 10 cents an envelope.

Cool vintage paint by number never used, 25 cents.

This is the best thing. A train that holds days of the week, months, or "first" "second" , etc. It was brand new and it was a quarter!!!
All kinds of fun vintage teaching books for 25 cents each.
A neat box of flash cards with maps on them. I think this was $2 but way cool.