Ramblings of a 13 year old

Felt board math

Posted by Cris
2:18 PM, Sep. 24, 2008 .. 2 comments .. Link

Well, we are back at school again. Matty is in first grade. She is still working on phonics and beginning math. We take it pretty slow. She is 6. My older children are in 7th, 9th and 12th grade so that has been fun figuring out the Biology and Algebra and other exciting subjects.

Snow makes my toes turn blue

Posted by andrewPaul
10:52 PM, Mar. 16, 2008 .. 1 comments .. Link

There's something about snow that depresses me. It didn't used to, but after dealing with on a daily basis for a few months, i don't know, it just gets to me. I can't stand driving in it. I can't stand walking in it. Sure, it makes things look cool. Brings some excellent photo ops. Yet, it does something to my soul. The white fluffy stuff, chokes the life out of things. Covers them up. Suffocates. When it melts. Thats cool. Everything benefits then. It dissolves into root systems. Pools for animals to hydrate themselves. However, whens its there. Blanketing the earth, that is all you see. Snow and dead trees. When the cold frigid air hits your face, you can't help but long for warm summer days. The sun beaming on your person. Life giving rays, break through the bleak winter days and restore the death around me.

I'm so poetic it's really lame sometimes. Like now.

Busy with life

Posted by Cris
9:29 PM, Feb. 4, 2008 .. 4 comments .. Link

Well, things have been busy busy here lately. Trying to get school done and clean the basement. I made a playroom in the basement for the little ones. That's been a fun project. We've been reading lots of stories and using our new felt board that I made. Hopefully I will post pics soon of all the projects we have been doing.

Christmas craziness

Posted by Cris
1:16 PM, Dec. 16, 2007 .. 1 comments .. Link

With all the craziness that comes with Christmas I haven't had time to write anything. We are trying to get school done even though I'd rather be out shopping. We are having a Christmas party at our house for the first time ever on Christmas Eve so we are trying to get ready for that. We won't be seeing our family this Christmas because we saw them for Thanksgiving so that is sad. My son will be 2 in three days. He is having a Lego birthday with everything Lego. We got him a really cool Lego toy box to hold all the Legos in.

Remember JESUS is the REASON for the Season!

New glasses!!

Posted by Cris
8:16 PM, Dec. 6, 2007 .. 1 comments .. Link

My daughter's new glasses finally came in. Little brother keeps pulling them off and breaking them.

CA here I come!!

Posted by Cris
8:44 AM, Nov. 21, 2007 .. 1 comments .. Link

This is what I woke up to this morning. The snow is beautiful but it's COLD! It's going to be a long winter for this CA girl.

Eyeballs anyone??

Posted by Cris
9:30 AM, Nov. 20, 2007 .. 1 comments .. Link

On Friday we dissected some cow eyeballs for our science class. It was kinda gross and cool all at the same time. Here are some pics. Don't look if you get grossed out easily.

Here is how the eyeball looked before we started. We ordered it online and it came preserved.

Forrest with the eyeball.

Ethan after we have cut some of the fat away on his eyeball.

Dad helping out.

Opening it up. The back and the front.

Separating the optic nerve.

The inside.

The lens. You can see how it magnifies the words.

This was definately a project for dad. He likes to help out with stuff like this.

Turkey Fun

Posted by Matty
3:13 PM, Nov. 16, 2007 .. 1 comments .. Link

Today I did some stuff about Thanksgiving. Here are some pictures that my mom took.

I love my mommy. She helped me do this book.

I love school.

Turkey family. I love my mom and dad. The boys are awesome. My sister is cool.

Lapbooks??

Posted by Cris
2:50 PM, Nov. 16, 2007 .. 2 comments .. Link

Okay, Let me just say that I have never done a lapbook before. I am not even sure what one is. I have seen pictures of them on other peoples blogs and they look pretty neat. I am not one to get into long projects. If it takes more than a couple of hours then I think it's long. LOL So I figured that lapbooks are not for me.
Today I was working with my 5 yr. old and we were doing a bunch of worksheets and things that were Thanksgiving related and I thought I wonder if I could make one of those lapbook things. I don't know if we did it the correct way but we had some fun trying to work it out. We didn't do any research and I'm guessing that you are probably supposed to do that. Here is our finished product.

We cut out a picture of a Turkey and she also colored one. She has some ABC Turkey cards in the little pocket.

She did a color by letter turkey and the bottom one is matching turkeys to the numbers.

We made a turkey using her hands and construction paper.

Well, we had fun. It was a lot of work. I MIGHT look into how you are REALLY supposed to do a lapbook but this works for now. I could probably have my older kids do some really neat ones without a lot of help from me. So we will see.