Wednesday, June 19, 2013

June 19-23 Hill Country Vacation

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 We spent four days in the hill country with the girls and some close friends. When we vacation I often try to record what the girls say as we're arriving at our destination. Here are a few phrases that made me giggle:
"Wow! Look at that big big mountain! Wow, Paw Paw made these all by himself?!"
"Woah, those are big."
"It's a dry heat."
"I want to see the sun."
"I can't wait to stay here. Are we in the Hill Country?"
"There sure are a lot of hills here. That must be why it's called the Hill Country."
"Momma, is the cabin made out of logs?"
"Are we going to hike these hills?"
"Look at that lake! Did you SEE that? I mean river..."
"I want OUTEEEEEE."
 We took evening hikes. Found wild flowers. Looked for deer.
 Enjoyed time with friends.
 Soaked in the sun and splashed in the river. 
 The minnow nets were almost as popular as these binoculars.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Kindergarten {Our Fifth Six Weeks}

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Our Fifth Six Weeks (April 29-June 7, 2013):
During our two week break the girls and I attended the Polk County Garden Club Flower Show and Tasting Tea with Granny. It’s an annual tradition that we look forward to. The girls enjoyed the flowers and eating fancy desserts.

This six weeks included a very special school day! May 15 was our 100th Day of school! We celebrated and you can read more about that here.


This six weeks was a continuation of the last six weeks having found a nice groove we settled in and moved at a comfortable, steady pace. In addition to our normal school work we also did some casual art lessons and watched the development of tad poles from Granny's garden. 

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Adalyn's 3rd Birthday {A Visit to the Fire Station}

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In keeping with tradition, I took Adalyn to the fire station for her third birthday. It was a wonderful day and we had so much fun spending one on one time with our middle baby. We took her sweet sister Marin to the station for her third birthday in 2010. At that time in life I felt like a terrible mom, because with a new born baby in the house, I just didn't feel up to throwing her a party. Taking her to the station to spend time with her Daddy was the best I could do. Who knew that it would be one of her favorite memories and what I viewed as a sad compromise transformed into a beloved tradition. Adalyn's paper birthday hat and "Birthday Girl" ribbon were gifts made and purchased by Marin. I'm amazed at Adalyn's vocabulary and wit. She's full of adorable grins, super tight squishy hugs and curiosity. During her third birthday "interview" when asked what makes her feel really happy she responded by saying "Butterflies! When they chase me I feel happy. But they don't sting you." 
Me: "Adalyn, what do you want to be when you grow up? 
Adalyn: "A grown up."
Me: "What will you DO?"
Adalyn: "Nothing. Well, play."

Me: "Adalyn, who's the last person you kissed?"
Adalyn: "DaDa" (grin)

Sunday, May 5, 2013

100th Day Of School

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It's the hundredth day of school today (hooray!)
It's the hundredth day of school today (hooray!)
It's the hundredth day of school
It's the hundredth day of school
It's the hundredth day of school today!
(Sung to the tune of She'll be Comin Round the Mountain)
It took Marin FOREVER to realize that her breakfast was in celebration of the big day.
She kept asking me why I didn't cut her pancakes. 
We played fun games with the hundreds chart and
chose special prizes from a treasure chest after every subject.
We did it! 100 days!!!!!!

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Gnome Beard Bib {FREE Pattern}

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This sweet little boy turned one last week. His Mommy, my friend, threw him a gnome themed first birthday party. Here is a sampling of the adorable party she hosted. (Photos by Jennifer Bradford.)
His gnome beard bib was made from soft, white Minky fabric and took about and hour and a half from start to finish to create. After searching the internet for a gnome beard bib pattern I ended up just creating one. Below is a free pattern with basic instructions for making your own (adorably handsome baby boy not included). I felt like the bib was a tad too long, so this pattern is slightly shorter in length than pictured above. Save these images and print on letter size paper at 100%. Happy sewing. 

Friday, April 12, 2013

Kindergarten {Our Fourth Six Weeks}

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Our Fourth Six Weeks (March 4-April 12, 2013):
During our two weeks off our family took vacation toNewMexico to enjoy snow sports. It was a 21hr one way road trip with family. The girls experienced snow shoeing for the first time and went sledding.

Bible Study: Marin read aloud daily form ZonderKidz “The Beginner’s Bible” and she completed all of the Old Testament (276 pages). She also memorized all of the books of the New Testament and earned $3 from Awanas for doing so. Having her read aloud from the bible has been effective in helping her understand the bible stories more thoroughly.
Calendar: In her Calendar note book Marin continued to make daily notations on a calendar and practiced writing the date in the correct form, April 1, 2013 and with numbers 04/01/2013. She continued to track the number of days of school numerically and with tally marks.  She updated a weather chart daily and we compared the most and least days of certain types of weather over the last four months. We talked about St. Patrick’s Day and April Fool’s Day. She pulled a prank on her Granny and Pops and had a blast thinking of lighthearted gags. We also observed Easter and completed fun activities to help reiterate the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Grab Bag: This concept worked so well we continued to use it these six weeks replacing three of the review topics with new items. These included:
·         Skip count by 10s (eliminated)
·         Skip count by 5s to 100 (eliminated because she does this when counting her tally marks)
·         Count to 100 (eliminated)
·         Learn to tell time (NEW)
·         Learn about Money (NEW)
·         Learn to Tie your Shoe  (NEW)
·         Say and write your phone number
·         Say the months of the year
·         Say and write your address
·         Say the pledge of Allegiance
·         Skip count by 2s to 100
·         Say the days of the weeks
·         Is _____________ a common noun or a proper noun?
·         What is a noun?
·         Family relations quiz. For example (Your mother’s mother is your? ________)
·         Write the letters of the alphabet (Upper and lowercase)
·         Sing the vowel song
·         Write your numbers 0-20
·         Name the five senses
Reading: Completed lessons 80 through 102 of “The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.” Covering adding S to the ends of words, reviewing long-vowel words, common spellings for the long A sound, vowel pairs and common spellings for the long E sound. Our read aloud selections were “Farmer Boy” (finished from previous six weeks) as well as “The Hundred Dresses.” Marin read her first chapter book “The Box Car Children” aloud to me during reading time. She also read many easy reader selections including “The Frog and Toad Treasury.”

First Language Lessons: We completed Lessons 37 through 48 in “First Language Lessons.” We focused on identifying nouns and drilling family relations. The book covered mailing addresses, days of the week and months of the year, but this was already familiar information for Marin. She memorized “The Months” a Mother Goose Rhyme. We learned what a pronoun was and have begun a list of pronouns that we are working to memorize.

Math: We are currently working in the Math.U.See Alpha book. We completed lessons 7, 8 and 9. We spent two weeks on each lesson covering addition +2, solving for an unknown and addition +9. I feel confident that Marin understands these concepts well enough to move forward. We have flash cards for math fact memorization and Marin is confident in 64 of 100 facts. We also spent a lot of time playing Sum Swamp!

History: Finished the Travel and Transportation section of “The Usborne book of Living Long Ago.” While reading from this section of the book we spent a lot of time identifying locations on the world map and globe. We also referred to the maps when reading from scripture.

Science: Read from  ”Simple Science” and “The Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature” but most of our “science” this session was hands on. We visited a local honey manufacturing company to see how honey was made. We planted a flower bed in the back yard, working together as a family. And we created a Nature Notebook filled with leaves from the various trees in the yard. Marin identified each leaf and labeled it appropriately.

Music: Continued to learn the piano using “Music for Little Mozarts.” We covered identifying and locating “C” and “D” on the keyboard spending time in review of the concepts already covered.    

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter 2013

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 Maintained our Easter tradition of coloring eggs with Hannah.
As a gift for Easter I made the girls these stick horses. I purchased the pattern from Rustic Horseshoe on Etsy. The shop owner was so very helpful and also provided a kit complete with everything I need to make the horses. 
 Easter morning. Checking out their goodies.
 Egg hunt at Granny's house.
 Little A wasn't interested in smiling for the camera.
 Celebrated Bunny's birthday. Another Easter tradition.

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