Unit 8, day 1

Reading: 

•  we reviewed all the letters we have done so far and introduced our new letter (I made a game out of this activity on the chalkboard and they could each hardly wait for their turn)
• sang the a-a-apple song and talked about our new card - dinosaur
• cut out our new picture cards
• practiced writing our letters on big red plastic plates with yogurt, then ate the "paper"

Math:

• calendar (we each have our own big wall calendars that I got for $1 each at Wal-Mart, we each have a different famous artist)  find the month, day and date, then copy the number in the box
• played a matching game (match the number of eggs to the hen with that number on her nest)

Science/Bible:

• briefly explained what evolution is
• read through pg. 7 of What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?
• colored in our Apologetics Press dinosaur coloring books

Poetry:

• we read #1 of the May poetry selections from the AO list

Read-aloud:

• chapter 16 of Days on the Farm from Rod and Staff (we love this book)

Watched a little Mary Poppins while waiting for it to warm up enough to go out and  ride bikes.  There are just enough puddles left in the driveway to make really great tire marks!

Today is bathroom cleaning day (ugh!) and the new carpet is being laid in our basement.......yippee!  I can't wait to get my furniture moved back to where it should be!!!  (Can you tell I'm excited?)  Tonight is haircut night, but maybe I can get dh to move a few things afterwards.

That's right...........we have chicken pox.  W broke out in what I thought was poison oak on Sat.  I had all 3 kiddos vaccinated for chicken pox so they wouldn't have the horrible scars that I have, so the thought of pox never crossed my mind.  Didn't think anything about taking him to worship Sun. but did notice that the "poison oak" was spreading in a really weird way.  Took him to the dr. on Mon. morning to get something to clear up the "poison oak".  Boy was I surprised.  Now we're just waiting to see if the girls break out.

MPE conference was very nice and a little overwhelming.  Sooo many people and sooo many books!  Did get a chance to spend some time at the MFW booth and it really reaffirmed that this is what we will stick with for the long haul.  I managed to only buy a few books for read-alouds and not kill my wallet, but it was hard!

I've been using the MFW K unit ideas to teach the 4 & 5 yr. old class on Wed. nights.  So far we've done:

                          Apple - fruit of the spirit - Ruth

                          Butterfly - made new - conversion of Saul (Paul)

                          Cow - God's word helps me grow - 1 Peter 2:2

                          Dinosaur - creation week  (the kids loved this one)

                          Elephant - remember what God has done - King Josiah

We're making a notebook to take home at the end of the study.  Hope I can stick with it for 26 weeks.

All for now!

We have been remodeling our basement for what seems like forever, and I just came upstairs after putting the last coat of paint on the last room!!  (I sooo wish I could figure out how to use those smiley face thingeys, cuz I would use some good ones now.)  We just have to hang the trim, doors and the carpet comes next week!  Yipee!!!  Now, if only someone wants to buy this lovely, remodeled house...........

I'm also very excited to be going to my first homeschool conference tomorrow,  MPE (Midwest Parent Educators).  I have all the booths circled on the booth map that I want to visit and plan to be there when the doors open! 

Hopefully, the house will be finished by next week and we can get back in the school grove.  We are planning on doing K for 2 years, so I'm not really pushing it.

I'm going to change out of these painting clothes and have a snack............

I'm wondering if I should have thought a little before I started this.......I am always too tired at the end of the day to type anything!  The kids have played outside all day and are not plopped down in front of a movie eating a snack, so I'll try to catch up. 

We had a great time in Memphis.  The lectureship series was wonderful.  My favorite lecture this year was "The gospel and science".  Made me glad I'm homeschooling.  My favorite lecture last year was "What is man according to humanism" which also made me glad I'm homeschooling!  We're already looking forward to next year.

We are trying to get our house ready to sell so I have been mega busy painting and cleaning.  I didn't know I had so many unused muscles in my pitiful body.  I teach the preschoolers on Wed. nights and I had to take 4 Advil just to get there!  (I already know that's too many, so no lectures on overdosing!)  We take possession of our new farm on July 1st, but it looks like we'll still be living here for awhile trying to sell this house.  It should go fast, if we ever get a sign in our yard!

Hubby went to the dr. and found out he had a hernia, so he had surgery last week.  He's feeling better, but this has really slowed down the "fixin' up the place"!

We haven't done school in about 3 weeks.  W asked me Monday if we were ever going to have school again.  Mommy has really got to get back in the groove.

Many other various things have happened in the past few weeks, but this pretty much sums it up.  The kids are wanting to go make more mud pies so I better run.

I guess they were working on the site, so I haven't been able to log in for a few days and then my password didn't work..................anyway.............

We have had a wonderful, busy week.  Tonight was the last night of our gospel meeting.  We had large crowds every night and it was very uplifting.  The kids did a pretty good job of listening.  The girls were so funny Monday night.  Bro. Crawford mentioned the fruits of the spirit in his sermon and I could see them whispering to each other.  Then El whispered to me that she thought he left one out!  Then a few minutes later she whispered again that she thought he did get them all right.  Soooo hard not to laugh!

School has been great this week.  We're reading lots of books about the 5 senses.  Yesterday we made homemade instruments and they are still playing them today.  We're starting to hit the blending sounds part of the phonics program and this has been a little more challenging.  We may start taking a little longer than 6 days per unit just to make sure we have the new blends well cemented before moving on.  The joys of homeschooling..........we can take as long as we want!

On a side note, I joined the gym last month as I had about 50 lbs. (now down to 40) that I needed serious help losing.  Well, I've been getting up and going at 5:30 am, getting home and showering and doing my housework before the kiddos wake up.  Well this week has zapped me!  I'm exhausted!  Good night all!

Today, we hosted our work team meeting from church.  Everyone came around 9 am so I spent the morning making breakfast.  We had our meeting which went great, then I cleaned up.  I also signed up to feed the visiting preacher tomorrow for lunch (not realizing these were back to back) so as soon as I got everything clean, I started cooking for tomorrow.  It was 2:00 pm before it dawned on me that I had not fixed the kids any lunch!  Ken (dh) had gone with his dad to north MO to pick up a new stock trailer and I just got really into baking and cooking.  Oh well, everyone is fed and asleep now and I've done all the prep work I can do for tomorrow, so here I am!

I was enjoying Rebecca's blog just a minute ago and realized that I had not introduced my family, so here goes.

W and Em (names are Wayne and Emma, but we call them W and Em) are my twins and they turned 5 in December.  El (Ellen) is my baby and she will be 4 in 10 days.  I really don't recommend having 3 kids in 15 months, but God knows best and it has been really fun.  We are able to homeschool them all together which is a real blessing.

Today we reviewed all of the letters and themes we have done so far in MFWK and I introduced out next theme.  Uu - us  God made us wonderful.  We read two books about our 5 senses and they spent the rest of lunchtime discussing which senses they were using while they were eating.  It was very cute and I was amazed at how fast they picked up on the 5 senses considering we'd never discussed it before.  We also sang two really cute songs that I'm going to try to post on the MFW message board under the Uu theme.  I love reading other's ideas so I guess I should share some as well.

Only 5 days before we head south for the Memphis School of Preaching Lectureships and I can't wait!  We had such fun and fellowship last year and I can't wait to see everyone and hear all the great speakers. 

Well, I need to go do a load of laundry and finish the book I'm reading for the week.  The book is Home Grown Kids by Raymond and Dorothy Moore and I have really enjoyed it.  They have written a couple of others that I'm going to try to get my hands on soon, Home Spun Schools and Better Late Than Early.

Later gator!

Okay, here I go!  I'm getting on the blogging bandwagon.  I wanted a place where my far away family and friends could keep up with what's going on in our lives and hopefully meet a few new friends along the way.

We are homeschooling our 5 year old twins this year using My Father's World K.  It is a wonderful curriculum and I can't even begin to describe how much I love it!

My 4 yr. old is sitting in and picking up most, if not all, of the learning.  It's soooo nice to have all 3 doing the same thing.

We also raise beef cattle on our farm.  We tried to add chickens last year.....didn't go well.  We'll try again someday!  I would also like to have a few pigs.....I love pigs!

My plan is to blog a little each evening about our day so stay tuned!