Larena and I met today for Tuesday Time.

We started with circle time and sang the hello song since the children didn't really know each other's names. We sang, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and we talked about how God made us all different and we were made in His image. We also looked at pictures in my Children's World Cookbook at differents foods throughout the world.

We then made some pizza dough.

While the dough was rising we talked about what the top largest countries were and located them on the world map. We also discussed the continents and populations.

Populations:

World:

6,679,493,900

United States:

303,824,650

Washington:

6,468,424

Our city:

4,621

Top 10 largest countries:

Russia, Canada, United States, China, Brazil, Australia, India, Argentina, Kazakhstan, and Sudan.

The children played and had lunch. It was so relaxing and enjoyable!

The cheese pizza!

C4 thought it was yummy!

 
We had a great time! It was so much more relaxing and enjoyable to meet this way!

Our Co-Op went to the Pacific Science Center yesterday. It was the first time we as a family have gone.  We really enjoyed it and we will have to definately go back as a family.

The space needle through my sun roof

We have the book The Magic Schoolbus Lost in the Solor System and in it has Arnold's different weights on different planets, so it was neat to see this scale. Here is what all the kids weigh together on Earth and on different planets.

The boys getting ready for a chess game

C3 having a snack and watching the chess game

C4 playing with the chess pieces that the boys were done with, that kept her entertained for a while!

The butterfly exhibit was cool!

We loved the bubble wall.

C3 looking through the periscope

A group shot (minus me)

Sundy hosted our group today with the theme of excercise. We split up into three groups, younger in one room with different stations (dress-up, puzzles, play-doh, etc.) and the olders divided into two groups.

Circle time

We started out in the excercise room. Sundy had the kids listen to their hearts before excercising. They started out with jumping jacks, jumping, stretching, and then she had circuit system set up for them. They started out with hopping backwards, then hopping on one foot, then hopping on the mini trampoline10 times, jumping over a stick, somersaults on the mat, and crawling through tunnels. They had a blast doing all of that, especially C1.

Listening to their hearts before the excercise

You want me to excercise!??!

Oh okay!

Crab walk

We then switched rooms with the other olders group. There we looked at pictures of the inside of the body. They each took turns drawing parts of the body on the poster.

Drawing parts of the body

We talked about weights and the proper way to pick them up. And they were to organize the weights from heaviest to lightest. We also played Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.

We all had a great time today!

And a cute one of C3 since I didn't get many of her at co-op today. She has matching play-doh on her tights from co-op!

Sundy from our Roots and Wings group hosts a music time. We have gone twice now and the kids love it!

C3 ready for it to start

The kids putting on their masks before singing the song 'Octopus'

Sundy's daughter

Thank you Sundy!

Leigh was the teacher for co-op today. She did the theme of Dr. Seuss.

We started with cirlce time then got into three groups and rotated between three different rooms. It was really nice having it in three rooms!

Circle time - musical hats

Station one had the book The Cat in the Hat. We were to read the book, then discuss family rules that we have in our house, rainy day activities, and naming various hats and where you would find them/see them.

Station two had the book Green Eggs and Ham. We were to read the book and then discuss green foods, what animals besides chickens lay eggs and do a dot to dot page.

Station three had the book Dr. Seuss' ABC's. We read the book and then worked on our ABC's.

C4 and her friend 'N'.

We had a great time! Thank you Leigh!

Kathy was the teacher at co-op today. The theme was snow.

Here is C2 and 3 looking at images of ice crystals.

The kids were to feel ice cubes and warm water and tell us what they thought/felt.

The kids also did some dot to dots and coloring

C4 taking in cirlce time

And of course snack time!

We had our Tuesday School today. I was the teacher and the theme was Friendship. We met at our church, which is so great!

We started out with circle time. We sang our hello song, The More We Get Together, and If You are Friendly and You Know It. We also played I Spy and The Alphabet Name Game. I did a small devotional on friendship and how God wants us to be kind and loving friends. We then divided into two groups, the olders and the youngers.

We did the following in our groups:

Activity one

Make a friendship card (or two)

Activity two

What I like about_____

Activity three

Friendship Quilt

What You Do:

• Give each of your children a piece of construction paper and let them decorate it any way that they want. Connect all of the pieces and you will get a fabulous Friendship Quilt.

Pictures:

Making friendship cards

What I like about (name)

Working together building

We also had some birthday celebrations. It was Leigh's son R's birthday today and C1's birthday tomorrow (26th). So we had cupcakes and icecream.

The kids had a great time at our co-op, Mommy got a little overwhelmed! Our group is getting so big, which is great, but the energy gets a little much for me. We are currently trying to figure out a little more structure for the group.

Liz was our teacher this week. She did a great job and planned so many great things for all the kids.

We started with circle time, we sang our 'hello' song and played a couple of games.

Here are the boys getting ready for 'red light/ green light'

Can you see the amount of kids!?

The kids filled out a paper about themselves and read it aloud, the other children were to ask any questions they had about that child. Some of the questions were, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?", "What is your favorite sport?", "What is your favorite shape?" It was pretty cute.

C1 reading about himself.

After that there was an egg hunt - the kids were to work together and put the eggs in order by number - the kids didn't want to give up their eggs! It was a good try!

There was also play-doh

We left group a little early, I was a bit overwhelmed.

Next week I teach.

What a fun co-op we had on Tuesday. It was Sundy's son's 5th birthday. We started with cirlce time even little miss got to partcipate in that.

We then had a puppet show, with some trivia on "T's" birth - very cute! The kids loved the puppet show put on by Sundy.

Sundy then had some dance music and the kids loved it! My kids just held onto the couch and jumped up and down - is that dancing??!

They got to make puppets of their own

And frost their own cupcake!

It was a great day!

More pictures over here.

We went for a beauitful hike today with our co-op. Everyone had a great time. The children loved it! We went for a nice hike, followed by a picnic lunch and playing at the lake. My kids could throw rocks in the lake for hours!

Here are some pictures from today.

Family shot

Taking a break!

Snack time! Yummy popcorn.

All of the little hikers.

Lunch time

Climbing on the HUGE tree stump

We had a great time. Thank you Leigh  for organizing the hike!

We are going a little stir crazy so we decided to go on a field trip! We headed over to Kid's Quest Children's Museum. The kids had a great time. C2 got injured but then he said his favorite thing there was the truck and that is where the injury happened! I never thought I would have to fill out an accident report at a children's museum! But I guess with four children it is bound to happen!

Here are some pictures from our field trip. There are more pictures here.

making music with water

more music

art with chalk

C4 playing with blocks. She is so adorable!

The kids

Roots and Wings group shot!

My boys just love soccer! Thank you so much Coach Julie!

Here they are doing their streches. It takes talen to strech while picking your nose!

C2 working on dribbling the ball

Megan and I taught school on Monday.

Megan bought a bag of groceries to donate to the food bank. She taught the children the signs for the food items in the bag and the signs for the ASL alphabet.

I helped the children make gingerbread ornaments.

We had a lot of fun!

Here is a picture of Kathy reading to some of the children.

Here I am with some children cutting out their ornaments

 The girls liked the dough! They played with it like play-doh.

Here are some of the finished ornaments.

Here is the recipe I used to make the dough:

Gingerbread Ornament Dough

Gingerbread dough for craft projects that makes ornaments to hang or put in baskets that look and smell like real cookies and are made with normal ingredients but bake up rock hard and keep for years and smell great for years. Use gingerbread dough and your favorite cookie cutters to make gingerbread man garlands, gingerbread ornaments and houses.

• 3 tbsp. shortening
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 cup water
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon of cloves, ginger and cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat shortening and sugar together until light and fluffy, stir in molasses. Sift the dry ingredients together. Stir them into shortening mixture in 3 parts alternating with a 1/4 cup of water each time. Dough will be stiff. Refrigerate overnight.

Cut dough into 3 pieces. Knead to warm dough slightly, then roll each piece out about 1/4 inch thick. Cut cookie out with a gingerbread pattern of your choice.

Use a drinking straw to punch hole in center if ornament will be hanging. Place cookies on cookie sheet and bake 20 minutes, turn oven off and let cool in oven.

Remove from cookie sheet and place on rack to dry for about 3 days to totally harden. These cookies are purely for decorative purposes and not to be eaten. If you wish you can seal cookies with 3 coats of clear acrylic and decorate with colorful acrylic pains when dry.

Our Roots and Wings Co-op met today at Sundy's house. We had sooo much fun! It was a very musicial day. The kids played Ring-around-the Rosie, and London Bridges (some of them did not like being 'caught').

We learned a new favorite song, Octopus (Slippery Fish).

Here are the kids doing the hand motions for the song. C1 has a huge smile on his face!

We also had some fun with the parachute, C3 did not want to get off of it when her turn was over.

Here are some of the kiddos cuddling with Leigh during Twinkle Twinkle

And of course snack time!

I really enjoy this time together. The kids get a long pretty well. They are learning very important social skills, and the moms have a great time with one another. It is also neat the ages and genders of the kids, all the older kids are boys and the younger ones are the girls - it just works so nicely!

We had our co-op today at Liz's house.

Liz read a Bible story about the creation of the earth, day and night - at least that is what I think I heard, the children weren't being very quiet at that moment!

The children played with orange or white playdoh while she read and they were making suns or clouds.

We separated the groups into the boys and the girls.

Liz talked to the boys about the water cycle.

Here they are having their clouds (cotton balls) rain.

They learned about evaportation - she had some water boiling on the stove.

While all this was going on the girls were gluing cotton balls onto a 'C' on their paper.

They got to make some clouds rain as well.

And sing

There was also some painiting! Wow we did a lot!

This is C3 'smiling'!

Double handed painting- C2

Enjoying a 'red light' snack afterwards!

Today was my turn to teach.  The children learned about foods that are good for your body and you should eat for the majority of your diet  (green light)  and foods you should have in moderation (red light). I talked to the children about different foods and then we played red light, green light.

The children then circled foods in the ad with a red or green crayon depending on if it was a red or green light food.

 I guess coffee is a 'green light' food - that is good news for Pacific Northwesters!

I served a very green light snack!

Leigh also read to some of the children while some were doing their circling...

The kids had a great time.

We had our co-op again today and we went on our Letterboxing hike. The moms ( and dad)  and kids had a blast! We didn't find the boxes - we found the right locations but for some reason the boxes weren't there, but  Leigh came prepared with stamps just in case!

Here are some pictures from our hike.

Group shot

Looking for the first box

C1 and 'A' on top of the boulder that looks like a face

The Mills Fam

I am part of a newly formed homeschool co-op. There are eight moms and 20 kids all around the same ages. The mom's all take turns being the teacher for the day and teach something that is meaningful to them. Today we were at Sundy's house and she is deemed our 'art' teacher. The kids designed their Letterboxing Journals and stamps, we are to go on our first letterboxing hike next Monday as a group.

Here we are having cirlce time

Here is Sundy explaining the journals

C2 designing his stamp

Leigh cutting out the design

A little sign lanugage, singing and signing the song ,"the more we are together".

A group shot of the kids with their journals