So I’m way behind in blogging through my homeschool days. To be honest I’ve really fallen out of my schedule completely. I struggle with over committing our days. So here I go once more attempting to keep us home at least 3 of the 5 week days. Learning to say no is a major issue because I really love all the mommy adult talk time so I have to try to find a balance.

My kids loved talking about Noah’s Arc and singing the songs but Timmy especially loved making his own Arc.

I just took clip art animals, clothes pins and playdough and let him play. He was determined to get every animal in the boat.

We have a toy Noah’s Arc so we spent some time talking about the different animals and about how Noah sent out the dove to see if it was the right time to get off the Arc.

Timmy traced the Letter Z in his letter book. He is awesome at tracing.

He colored his Z treasure piece and glued it to the treasure map. This boy loves glue and he’s actually great at it. And he’s starting to color inside the lines!

I have this mini twister that we used to review circles and colors. Then we turned the cards over and played memory basically.

For snack we made Noah’s Arc with bananas as a boat and animal crackers .

We played pretend zoo and Timmy and Grace were my caged animals 🙂

We used tuning forks to learn about sound. I wasn’t sure Timmy would like this because he has sensitive ears but he really liked it.

It’s weird because as I’m going through the week it doesn’t feel like we do much but when I sit down to actually write it all out it seems like a pretty full week, right? The weather has been awesome these past few weeks so we have started spending a lot of time outdoors. I really hope I can get back in my routine but I’m thinking the holidays are going to be a little (a lot) bit distracting.

On top of our regular schooling we are going to be starting “The Truth in the Tinsel” it reviews alittle scripture from the Jesus birth story and you make an ornament to go with the story. I’m excited about this because I want my kids to grow up knowing that Christmas is hardly about Santa and presents and mostly {all}about the blessing oh our Lord and Savior.

This week was so fun! I’m noticing that I’m falling out of our schedule I set and I don’t know if that a good or bad thing yet. There’s a constant battle between wanting to be out and seeing friends and family or staying home and sticking to our schedule.

I’m really loving the Wee Sing songs and the kids love them too. Timmy picks the words right up and Grace thinks she does. This week was, ” O Be Careful” and I really love what it teaches. Now it’s one of Timmy regular songs that he sings all day.

We started the week adding the Letter A to our treasure map board and practicing some Letter A handwriting.

We used play dough to make circles and then reviewed all our shapes on the white board.

We are a little behind in our bible study but that’s ok, better to grasp it than to rush it I think. So this week we continued talking about the creation story and did a craft for day 3 and 4.

Now I’m embarrassed to admit but my kIds have never eaten apples. I guess I just always thought they were too hard for them to eat. Well I was wrong, way wrong! Both kids begged to eat apples every day this week. And there goes little grace walking around eating a whole apple like she’s big.

We ended the week with A Johnny Appleseed party. I had so much fun planning it. I planned the whole day around these three books:

As the kids arrived I had them play with my apple cinnamon scented play dough and I made enough so that they could take theirs home. I have them cut up green pipe cleaners to make pretend apples.

Then I read then the book about Johnny Appleseed. We measured their heads for their “pot” hats and went outside to plant our “appleseeds.”

When we came inside we made handprint tracing apple trees with Pom Pom apples and a paper plate apple with a green handprint leaf & stem.

For the second book, “Ten Apples Up on Top” I put a basket of apples and let the kids play along with the book trying to balance apples on their heads.

Then it was snack time! The idea was to read “How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World” but by this point the kids were over it and wanted to just play. I made an apple pie, crockpot applesauce and apple granola. I cored out apples for the kids and poured apple juice inside with little straws. It was so cute.

We finished the week adding the A to our letter wall and doing a review of the letters we’ve learned so far.

This week because we loved all the gardening activities I extended the theme into 2 weeks. I also used this week as a review to see if what we were doing was working. Boy was I surprised! Timmy is a little smarty pants.

My favorite part of the week was when Timmy would randomly bring me and say, “Look mommy an X!” I was so impressed. All week if something resembled an X he was pointing it out. We practiced writing both X and G on the whiteboard and Timmy does really good with sounding out G.

We did our square treasure hunt. Then we reviewed all the shapes. He knows square, rectangles, circle, oval, triangle, heart and star, sometimes diamond. Of the shapes with lots of sides he calls them all octagons.

We did a flower craft and talked about all the parts of a flower and what they need to grow. I showed him how to put the parts of the flowers picture together and then scrambled all the pieces and I think he did an awesome job putting it back together.

Our plant update:

We started reading Genesis and we made these two projects for Day 1 and 2. I like projects like this where there’s minimal parent involvement because it’s fun to see what he comes up with.

Sign Language is going so well. He is starting to use it during the day. He asked me if we were going to see friends at the same time making the sign for friends.

Sweet Grace tries to join in on all the learning. She loves to color {crayons are yummy she says} and she is a singing machine. She tries and almost does all the hand motions for Itsy Bitsy spider and where is thumbkin. She can point to her nose and eyes when you ask. She’s definitely watching Timmy closely.

For our Field Trip we went to the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary. They had a Storytime and brought out a baby alligator and possum for the kids to pet. Then we walked around and saw panthers, bears, bobcats, turkeys, owls, snakes and we fed the turtles.

Next week is APPLES! I don’t know why I’m so excited about that. I’m even having and Johnny Appleseed Party at my house.

This week lasted more like 2 weeks between the whole house getting sick and Great Grandma visiting.

Timmy’s language skills are really progressing. He is speaking in 3-4 word sentences now. He is also learning the concept of sharing, which is huge for him. He also started saying he was sorry without being told to, mostly to Grace of course. Timmy had a friend over and I didn’t have to yell one time. The two boys played for FIVE hours without fighting or anyone getting hurt. And they mostly played on their own. They had the most fun hiding in the closet and playing with instruments.

Here are some of this weeks activities:

I’ve always wanted to make a spaghetti sensory bin and I don’t know what took me so long because it was so simple. I just boiled the pasta with food coloring. Al dente is best so that it doesn’t fall apart when they play with it. I also added alittle olive oil to keep it from sticking together. Timmy wasn’t crazy about the texture and opted to use a fork to play with it. I let him add green sprinkles to it too. But in his mind he was feeding the “snakes” sprinkles. Everything turns to snakes lately. Grace was all about this activity, swirling it around her fingers and diving right in the bin. Not once did she put it in her mouth, only baby I know who won’t put things in her mouth {that includes baby food 😔}.

For this rainbow activity I cut out a cloud shape and strips of colored construction paper. First I had him glue cotton balls on the cloud, then he glued down the strips and then added the cloud to the bottom. I explained to him that this was a rainbow and we went over all the colors. He is pretty good at pronouncing all the color except orange. He did this project 95% on his own. I let him use the glue stick but I had to add more glue to make sure everything would really stick. I love how proud he is with his finished product.

The idea was to make shamrock stamps using 3 wine corks taped together. I did one to show him how it worked and the let him do his own thing. He got some stamped on his paper but then started using his fingers. I made the mistake of giving him a bottle of green glitter! & it was everywhere and of course it was his favorite thing. I explained to him that the shamrock represented the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that’s how the real Saint Patrick taught the Holy Trinity. Then we did the sign of the cross. This is something I didn’t even know myself. Teaching my kids is teaching me too.

While we were painting shamrocks, Grace was doing some painting of her own for the first time. I mixed the last of our yogurt with some green food coloring. She loved it but again not a drop in her mouth. Everywhere else yes. We had to get right in the tub after these projects.

This wasn’t theme related but a lot of fun. I put lentils, elbow pasta and corn kernels in a big Tupperware with measuring spoons and a funnel. This got real messy fast especially once the spaceship got involved. He played for 2 hours and the best part was he asked for the broom when he was done.

For this activity I painted right along side him. I think I had a little too much fun. I was showing him what I was doing on my paper and it was so cute when he started imitating my picture. He kept saying “look mommy a line.” I thought he made a really good attempt at painting a rainbow.

Last year we made this 2 liter bottle with cut up pipe cleaners. Every now and then I bring it out with a magnet and he loves it. It’s actually pretty cool. We also made a water and oil bottle with orange food coloring. I bought these alphabet magnets from a friend. They also click into a device that says the letter name and sound. Timmy loves when we get to the letter P, he yells peeeeeeeeee!