You can't tell in this picture, but these were Pelicans. (tons of them)

In Our Lives This Week: Spring is here. We have had some really great rains that have made our garden explode. If it keeps up maybe we will actually get some crops this year. We sprayed our weeds and our grass in the pasture is taking off and growing good. The weather can't be more beautiful right now. We are trying to get out in it as much as we can knowing the heat wave is right around the corner. Here are a few pictures depicting spring time.

Out tomatoes, peppers, and beans(background) are really taking off.

In School This Week: In my last blog I had bought butterfly nets for the kids, not knowing that our letter of the week was going to tie in so well.

We put butterfly stickers on all the N letters. It turned out cute!

It ended up being a very fun week for Brylee. She loves butterflies and bugs.










                                                                                    

shadow matching

Brylee has learned most of her colors and knows the Abc song now. She can indentify most of her letters. We are still working on the sounds they make and her counting. So we decided to make a counting chart with bugs and butterflies. 

 Here we are putting the numbers on her chart. She is still learning that they actually have an order to go in. I called out a number and she would have to pick it out of the pile. Then I would see if she knew what came next. After we got all the numbers glued down, then came the fun part!

 Of course her favorite part was picking out which stickers to put on her chart. Mom's favorite part was having her show me the ones that matched and counting the bugs together!


 Since we were doing Math you would think I would have counted the stickers ahead of time.  Let me tell you I was sweating as we got to the end, afraid I wasn't going to have enough stickers.

Cheshire cat!

Here are a few more things we did:

color chart

Other things we did: Bodie had his President's challenge again this year. What a difference a year makes. Although he did not make the times in all five challenges, he tried harder and had more focus this year. 

 For someone who likes to lecture his three year old sister on the proper way to do a pushup, I am amused to get this picture. Get that butt down, Bodie!

The shuttle run

 

 

 

 Here they are lining up for the stretch. Each age has to reach a certain distance with their hands and hold it to the count of three.

 Here they are lined up for the quarter mile. Bodie made this in 2 mins 19 seconds, passing this event. Last year he walked the last half, talking to a girl. 

The pushups and situps: He got no where close to the needed amount. He will not get a president's challenge award, but will get a participaters award like he did last year. He had fun and worked hard at it. 

I haven't gotten any picture's of Bodie's work lately so I'll try to focus on that for my next blog. He is doing really well. This year I have more freedom to work with Brylee because his focusing power is better. I can explain something and he is able to work on it independently some. This is going to prove invaluable in the coming years with Brylee taking on more work and Brooke coming up behind as well. I love that Bodie will sit down and read to both of his sisters. Today I was showing Brooke a tree and we were touching the bark. He started right in explaining to her that the bark protects the tree and telling her what kind of tree it is. It is sweet and those are moments I cherish. 

 www.thehomeschoolchick.com

Spring Break and Spring Blessings

In Our Lives:  Spring has sprung and we have been hopping here. It's been so long since I last blogged that this one is gonna be long and picture heavy. However, the pictures are awfully cute so maybe you won't mind. 

The triplets (Hunter, Camo, and Quiver) and a proud mom.

   We love spring time because all the babies are being born, the flowers are blooming, and it is garden time. Our farm is no exception and we have baby goats galore. We have four nannies. One had triplets, two had twins, and one had a single. 

Brylee named her Cutie.

Brylee has been eating all this up. She loves babies of any kind.









When the triplets were born, the first one was pretty weak in the hindend. We were really worried about her. Thankfully I have some great neighbors who know a lot about goats. It ended up being just weakness from being all cramped up for so long. After a few days of us and my neighbors going out and getting her up and stretching her legs periodically, she worked out of it. I must say also she has a super mom who did not leave that baby for one second for days while she got strong enough to walk. Any less protective mom and I don't think she would be here today.

 

our newest arrival (Spring) born on the first day of spring.

 They are a blast to watch and act just like a bunch of kids......quess that's why they call them that.

Quiver (the firstborn triplet)

 

some of the things growing in our raised bed.

Spring also brings gardening time. Last year we did not have great luck with our garden due to the drought.So we are more determined than ever to get some things out of the garden this year. I am trying to pick more things that I can freeze so nothing goes to waste. So far we have radishes, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, onions, cilantro, carrots, lettuce and spinach growing.

Hopefully this year we will actually do better in being more self sufficient.

We also added some more chickens to our flock. We had some mishaps along the way and so we don't have as many as we started with, but hopefully these three will make it to adult hood.

More fun We had: Springbreak! I did not realize how ready we all were for a break. The weather was great and I decided we would just spend the time relaxing and having fun. The first thing we decided to do was go letterboxing. A friend of mine had told me about this a long time ago. It sounded fun but I didn't know much about it. Since it is free I decided to check it out. Here's a break down for you guys that don't know what it is. Letterboxing is like a nationwide treasure hunt. People all over the world hide these boxes in various places. You can look at www.letterboxing.org to find out more. There is a map online. You click the area you live in and it will bring up all the places near you that have them. There were three in just one park that we hit. Each person who creates a box also gives you the clues to find them. (which are on the internet) When you find the box it has a stamp that you put on your journal and a logbook for you to date and sign. Then you put it back like it was so the next person can find it. Some are historical in nature and some are just for fun. The kids had so much fun doing this!

This picture is kind of blurry but you get the idea.

The first place we hit was a graveyard! It was actually in Florence. I was surprised because it's not a very big town. I felt a little creepy going to a grave yard especially when we were looking around under things to find the box.

a letterbox hidden in a park

There are a bunch hidden all over Georgetown and the surrounding areas. We spent one day at a local park, which happened to have three hidden in it. We only found two, but it was great fun and we look forward to finding more hidden boxes.

some of the stamps we have collected so far.

 





You need to make sure you bring your own inkpads, a journal to put the stamps, a pen for dating the logbook, and your phone for the directions. All of these were things we had so no extra cost. We packed lunches, took bicycles, and made a day of it. It was a blast!

Things we are doing in School: With the first day of spring I got the idea to purchase butterfly nets. This might be one of my favorite purchases so far. Some how I just wished my grandma could have seen the kids out there chasing butterflies. I can hear her chuckle. Right away Bodie caught two butterflies and a wasp. It took Brylee quite a bit longer, but her excitement was huge!

on the hunt

success!

the butterfly stuck around for a minute before flying off.

A great way to start off spring!

another one that Bodie caught!

noodles and a shoebox with holes is fun!

This blog wouldn't be complete without showing a few pictures of Brooke too! She is getting so big and learning fast.

I had gotten the parmesan cheese container out as a joke really.....did not think she would be able to get the Qtips in those little holes. I was wrong and she ended up sitting there for a while working at it.

Ok last two pictures I promise and they aren't very springy, but just reminders that when we get snow here it is always exciting and usually after a seventy degree day! This was all the snow we had this winter and it lasted about an hour and the next day was back in the seventies again.

Well that wasn't all that schoolish but more posts on school stuff to come :)

catch them while you can!

 

Homeschool Mothers Journal 1/11/2012

In Our Lives This Week: Honestly this week has flown by. Taxes and school has taken up most of our time this week. I have managed to do a few extra things though.......trying to keep up with my house and not let it get ahead so much. I got my filing cabinets cleaned out and organized. The feeling of knowing where everything is makes me smile. I am hoping to do one decluttering thing every week. I am just all about destressing our lives this year. My lack of organization spills over into everything, including my kids and that is a serious focus for 2012. Have been putting everything I find that we don't use on Craiglist. Pretty sure the kids think they might be next!

Bodie, graphing how many hearts of each color he has.

Here is Brylee sorting sweethearts onto the right color of heart.

In Our Homeschool This Week: I found some free, cute printables for Valentine's Day from www.teachingheart.com  and also www.preschoolprintables.com.

She liked this heart pattern matching game.     

    This game had pictures of hearts with a certain vowel on it. Bodie sorted the words onto the heart with the matching vowel sound. 

The next game we did was kind of like Cooties. We had the two hearts glued on paper. Then you roll the dice and look at your sheet to determine what bug part to draw.. They liked it so much we had to do more than love bug.






Things that are working for us: I am doing a combination of things to work on behavior issues. I have a jar for tickets. The deal is that when they get fourteen tickets they get to do something special with mama or daddy. These tickets are harder to earn. I reserve them for things we are really having issues with. I also take tickets for being disruptive in class, whining, argueing, and other things. I want those fourteen tickets to be something they really have to work for! We have a sticker chart for smaller goals. I am more generous with these and they can't be taken away. Once they get five stickers they get a choice between things in the prize box or .50 cents. I am always keeping this stocked with bargins I find in the dollar section.

Questions I have: Still looking for creative ideas to deal with sibling fights. Any ideas?

In Our Life This Week:  Spring feels like it's right around the corner here, especially with the really mild weather we are having here in central Texas. We don't have a tractor so Glenn hooked the disk up to his truck and was able to disk up our pasture and the arena! He put seed out too so now if we could get a decent amount of rain we might get some grass growing! I'm a little worried for our trees though. The leaves are already coming out and we are sure to get some nasty weather before spring really arrives.

In Homeschool This Week: More towel time and table time and it really helped this week. We had one day where she tried to pout about it, but I stuck to my guns and made her wait for the timer to go off. The rest of the week we had no issues.  The best part for me is that for at least part of the day there are way few battles. I am not frustrated trying to keep up with up jumping from thing to thing. She seems happier too so it is one little part of the day that feels more organized. 

Bodie's caterpillar.  

 

 

 

I found a site that had cute ideas for fractions using caterpillars for Bodie. I modified Brylee's to work on patterns.

Brylee's caterpillar   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She's excited about finding the right letter!

I have noticed a big improvement in Brylee's recognition of letters lately. I used my "parking lot" board with clothespins that had matching letters. She loved this game and was so proud when she found the letter that the clothespin belonged to. We did this during table time. It took about twenty minutes for her to get all the clothespins on the correct letters. She stuck with it the whole time and I did not help her with any of the letters.


Struggle of the week: Usually there is at least one struggle during the week, sometimes involving multiple days. This week Bodie had a day that he was just really emotional. I'm not sure what was going on, but he was just frustrated and crying over everything. I could feel my frustration rising and patience dropping so I just decided to have him lay down. I made him lay down for an hour and a half. He never did go back to sleep but got up in a much better frame of mind and the rest of the day was uneventful. Now if only I could lay down every time I was cranky!

Questions/ Thoughts: There has definitely been more fighting between brother and sister lately. Their ages are three and six so it is a tough age I think. I'm looking for any great ideas on what to do to break up the fights with less frustration on my part. Any ideas? Things that have worked for your family?

Fun Things We Did This Week.

   

In My Life This Week: Always looking for new ideas for school. This week I found a couple of ideas that I decided to start using with Brylee. I found a blog of a lady with a very large family who homeschools. http://www.largefamiliesonpurpose.com/2011/02/large-family-organization-scheduling.html

not the greatest picture but you get the idea.

I like to look at their organizing ideas because I assume with a large family you would really have to be organized. She had a couple of ideas on what to do with kids Brylee's age to keep them busy that I adopted this week. They are towel time and table time. Because Brylee is only three, I have presented her with things to do but not really pushed her to stay with an activity for any length of time. This has been frustrating for me on the days where she will do something for two minutes and then want something else to do. Sometimes I have days where she does not like any of the things I set out for her. With towel time you lay out two big beach towels and set three things out for them to do. You can start out with only five minutes if you want, but I opted for fifteen to start with. I set the timer and she has to stay on those towels until the timer goes off. I will gradually work for thirty to fourty five minutes. She does not have to play with the items on the towel, but gets no more options and cannot get off the towel until the time is up. I did not have any issues getting her to spend the fifteen minutes on the towel. Every day you change up what you put out on the towel so it is fresh and fun. For this day I picked several books for her to look at, Mr. potato head(which is something she hadn't played with in a while) and her magnetic dress up dolls. We also added table time, which we have basically been doing anyway except I picked two things for her to do and expected her to stick with them for fifteen minutes. I gave her a coloring sheet and stack a doos. She spent the whole time coloring, which was the longest amount of time she has ever stuck with one coloring sheet. So these two things will be added into our daily routine and will help me out immensely. I think just having her listen for the timer helped her stick with it too.

 

In Homeschool This Week: We continued on our nature challenge. This week was all about trees/twigs. We went out of order because Brylee was on the letter L for leaf so it was easy to tie together. I don't have many great pictures of this one. We observed several trees and were able to talk about all the uses they have and how our world and the animal's world would be so drastically changed without them. We took samples of three different twigs and examined the leaves, buds, and scars. I learned a lot of interesting things about twigs and trees too. Bodie did a painting and a poem about trees. The poem he came up with and wrote himself. All I did was explain what type of words he had to put on each line. If trees was the title, the next line described the trees, then what the tree does for us, and finally how they make him feel.

 

We played store this week. I put prices on the food ranging from .25 to $1. First Brylee and I shopped and Bodie had to run the register. He added everything up and had to learn about giving change. Then we traded out and he and Brylee shopped while I ran the register.

Adding it all up

using his salesman skills to get sister to buy his produce!

This one is blurry but she was the cutest little shopper.

I am looking forward to another great week ahead!