Here is the schedule!! Thank you, David!  Sorry I haven't gotten this out sooner - we had it together and then things changed - so here it is! You will most likely be meeting with somebody you have already you met with sooner - that is just the way it had to work! Sorry!

Liz L., "homeschool mentor mom"  will be joining our Tuesday Time format and rotate meeting with each mom and answering any questions you might have.  Yay for Liz L.!   

July 15th

Linda - Liz L.
Jen - Suzie
Leigh - Kathy
Larena - Megan
 

July 22nd
Linda - Jen
Leigh - Liz L.
Larena - Suzie
Megan - Kathy

July 29th 
Linda - Leigh
Larena - Jen
Megan - Liz L.
Kathy - Suzie

August 5th 
Linda - Larena
Megan - Leigh
Kathy - Jen
Suzie - Liz L.

August 12th
Linda - Megan
Kathy - Larena
Suzie - Leigh
Liz L. - Jen

August 19th
 Linda - Kathy
Suzie - Megan
Liz L. - Larena
Jen - Leigh

August 26th
Linda - Suzie
Liz L. - Kathy
Jen - Megan
Leigh - Larena

From Leigh:  Today, our group visited the Snoqualmie Fire Station.  They were very accommodating with young children, and the kids had a fabulous time!

This is the stained glass window in the lobby of the station...(our state (county?) require 1% tax dollars to go to public art.  I like this one.)

There are two levels to the station.  On the lower level, the lobby, meeting rooms, administrative offices, and the workout room...

Awww, we wanted to slide down the fire pole!!  Nope.  Washington state does not allow fire poles, so the stairs will have to do...

Upstairs, we sat in a big, open room, where firefigther West gave a talk on fire safety...

The kitchen off the main room.  Note that there are three refrigerators.  This is because there are three shifts and food turns up missing, so each shift has their own fridge.  The kids loved the little firetruck above the cabinets that have little firemen M&M's in them.

One of the five private bedrooms in the station.  No more dorm style sleeping.  Washington state requires private rooms and private bathrooms for their firefighters.

Showing us the North Bend maps...

Cool!  On to the rigs!!!

Jaws of Life...

Touring the cab of the truck...

The ambulance...

The gear room...

Firefighter Dillon suited up for us.  He explained each item before putting it on and also explained in detail how his looks and voice would change once he was in full gear.  He told them that if they saw him in their room like this that they do not need to be afraid because he would be there to help.  He then encouraged them to come up and touch his gear and get a good look up close.  Pretty soon, the kids were having fun bopping him on the head!

Group shots!

They handed out helmets and an activity bag for the kids.  As we left, they ran the siren for us.

The building for drills...

A picnic lunch and play at the park followed.  It was a fun morning!  Thanks for organizing this, Kathy!

We did our time around firefighting in preparation for our field trip next week and R's love of firefighters.

We started with cirlce time and a Bible story on God leading the Israelites out of Eygpt by a cloud of smoke and fire - and how that is not one fire we want to put out!

 After the Bible story, Linda read from a few books about firefighters and community helpers.

After circle time we went to work in the kitchen to start our pretzel dough! We made whole wheat soft pretzels . Yum-O!

Leigh talked on 'then & now' of how fires used to be put out; how buckets were used and were filled up by a well/stream/lake and people would work together to get the water from point A to B. The kids had fun with that one - the 'fire' didn't really get put out but I think that helped illustrate the point the hoses work so much better!

firefighter in training

Back inside for stories and lunch!

Playing a game with Grandma Katie that teaches about community helpers...

Play time at the park...

What a fun day!

Week #1 - June 24th  
Linda  -  Larena
Kim  -  Liz
Kathy  -  Suzie
Megan  -  Jen

Week #2 - July 1st  
Linda  -  Leigh
Megan  -  Liz
Jen  -  Suzie

  
July 8th - Fire Department Field Trip

Leigh-

This was last month, but I am still catching up from not being able to upload pictures until recently.

Here are some pictures of our group walking from Rattlesnake Lake to the Watershed Education Center.

Enjoying the waterfall on the way...

The creek at the Watershed Center...

Playing a drum outside the Center.  They have a bunch of drums that are struck by choreographed water spouts.  It's beautiful to hear.

'AA' learning about how much water is in his body.

'AJ' priming the pump to see how many times he has to pump for his body's fill.

Larena and 'J'

'A' and 'M' listening to Native Americans telling stories of when they lived in this area...

It's not a trip to the Watershed Education Center without sending the ping pong balls (representing a water drop) through the tubes, as 'O' is showing us...

Ha!  I love this shot!!

Too cute 'T'!

Watching a video...

Trying to pick up the amount of water that has to be carried from a well to a rural village every day...the equivalent of a five minute shower...

Enjoying the lake on the way back...

Larena and I met today for Tuesday Time. I am not sure what to call it - what do you think?

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!

Yummy!

Linda

Hi all,
I was browsing our blog the other day and looking at all the pictures of our little ones....they've all grown so much since last Fall. Anyway, I noticed that there are some GREAT articles that were posted soon after our blog was created. (I'm assuming Leigh posted them????) If you scroll down the page, on the Iright side you'll see the page numbers. These articles are mostly on pages 4 and 5.

I had David add Categories to the sidebar! Woo hoo! So now you can click on the category you want!

Lots of awesome ideas, encouragement and info.

-Megan

June 17th and 24th we will be 'traveling' to different countries.

July 1st and 8th we will be learning about Fire Saftey and visiting the Snoqualmie Fire Department!

June 10th - MNO- North Bend Bar and Grill

In attendance:

Leigh A., Liz L., Megan S., Linda M., Sundy P., Kim H., and Liz S.

The subject of craziness was brought up! How do we turn the chaos into something more peaceful and productive?

• capture their attention
• start with a large motor activity
• have stations
• have a gross motor room every meeting?
• have more hands on project- but not busy work
• split the cirlce time- younger/olders

We also said we need to set up a chore list of things that need to be done to clean up after. We will set up a list and put the jobs on craft sticks each family will pick a stick and preform that task. This is a way to deal with the craziness after snack, and to teach the children responsiblity.

After clean-up if there is time we could have a gross motor game.

We also talked about how we need to make sure to end at 11:30 and be out of there to respect the church. If moms still want to chat they can move on to a house or park...

Speaking of the church, the person who gave us the go ahead for using the space at the church will be leaving the church leadership in July. We need to find out if it is still okay for us to be using that space.

We should also work on a vision for our group - what are we doing and why. And possibly a statement of faith.

We discussed doing themes for more than one week - so we can really learn about the subject.

Suggested themes: (please comment with some your famliy might be interested in)

• Fire Department (Fire Safety) - July 1 and 8
• Sports (Basketball) - talked about doing this in the Si View neighborhood at the sport court
• Instraments- Sundy will play a drum, David A. possibly to play his guitar- would love more people to play
• Space
• Languages- spanish, asl, does anybody know any??
• Repiles- Liz L. son might show us his
• Trains-go on the snoqualmie train
• Volcanoes-build a volcano
• Camping-go camping as a group in September!

We would like to do things that we can't do at our own homes. Such as not do so much busy work and crafts that we can to at home with our individual families, but something more productive.

We also talked about bringing more science into the day, character training, and group activites we cant do alone.

We also need to come up with fall back plans. What if a co-teacher can't come? What if a scheduled field trip falls through? Possibly go to the Watershed?

Also, I feel we should come up with a list of gross motor games. Some moms are really great at getting the children calmed down and interested, some need a little help- I feel if we had a list that would help.

I think that is all! We had a really productive meeting and a great time together!

Oh one more thing - some of you can't make Tuesday nights, how does Monday work for you?? We would love everyone the opportunity to come.

Linda

Regal

When school's out, kids around the country visit selected Regal theatres for the Free Family Film Festival. It's a fun-filled nine weeks of movies for kids and parents. Since 1991, Regal has provided this service to the community, and best of all it's FREE!

Selected G & PG movies start at 10AM each Tuesday and Wednesday during the festival. First-come, first-served seating is limited to theatre capacity. The Free Family Film Festival is safe, lots of fun and a great way for kids to spend a weekday morning in the summer.

We learned all things frogs! We had four stations set up which worked really well for this topic. We had a lifecycles station, camo station, book station and a tadpole viewing station. The kids all had a 'passport' that they had to get a stamp on when completing a station.

Circle time

Frog lifecycle station

Reading station

Learning about 'camo' and work on crosswords and dot to dots

Ending our time with a fun game of leapfrog

6/3 Sundy AND Linda

6/10 Megan AND Kathy
6/10 (Mom's Night Out)

6/17 Liz AND Leigh

6/24 Linda AND Kim

Just wanted to bump this up.

Hay Ladies,

Is anyone interested in going to the Home School convention comming up June 13th and 14th at Puyallup Fairgrounds?

I am interested in going and carpooling as well as swaping childwatching if anyone else is interested let me know.

Here are is the link:

http://www.washhomeschool.org/

Sun-D

(Leigh writes):  Linda and Kim  hosted this session.  In circle time, she began with a reading from Ecclesiastes 3.  Here is a 'time to plant and a time to uproot'...

'A time for peace'...

Lesson on the calendar....

(I love these next two pictures...)

Learning the months of the year...


Our two 'A's'-of the same name!


Kim had the kids pull clothing out of a bag and say which season they thought would be best for wearing these items.

We ventured down to the Pacific Science Center.

We all had a great time. It is so fun to see how different each child is! Some loved the dinosaur exhibit some were frightened, others loved the bugs and snakes. There was defiinately something there for all of them!

Playing with water

Learning about the Puget Sound water ways

There was a beautiful butterfly exhibit

Chess

The children loved the HUGE fountain!

Todays theme 'Exercise' was really entertaning! It was so fun to watch the kids discover the sound of their heart on the stethascope and to watch them do the obsticle coarse.

A few funny moments. All the kids were up and running around after snack and 'T' was sitting plesantly at the table dipping her snack in her water before she ate it unaware of the world around her. Adorable!

After class we went on an dinosaur hunt and hid in the trees from Stegasauous and then we went hunting for his tracks. 'Z' came running up to me and said that he found Stegasurouses underwear as the pointed to a white plastic bag in the bushes. It was so hilarous and cought me off guard.

I was also proud of little C3 she was such a trooper trudging out in the wild with us without hesitation and you could tell she loved every second of it. These kids are so rewarding to be around!

A few pictures:

Cirlce time:

A shot from the youngers room

Crab walking

Yes, it was fun!

I was thinking that we could rotate through all of us ladies as to who is in charge of the night out. When it is your turn it could be your night to share with the rest of us so we could get to know you better weather it is through pictures or stories or your favorite things or whatever.  Don't get me wrong most of the night would probably be  just havefun together and communicating about our childs education. Let me know what you all think.

Reguarding the discussion that night, I was not clear that we decided for certain, that we were giong to group people together for teaching each week. I don't mind the idea either way but I think it should be said that if you want to teach alone it is ok. Some people said they work better alone and that option should be available too. I think we are doing well with playing some things by ear like where everyone is stationed each tuesday. I have enjoyed everyones uniqueness.

Things are successful from my viewpoint! I really appriciate all Leigh does to make everyones requests happen! As well as each moms contribution to this whole thing! I love how the kids are building relationships with eachother! And us moms as well! Home schooling is Great!!!

Where is the gosh darn spell check on this program? And I tried to upload a picture but what in the world? I guess I need a computer class its been awhile!

Oh my, did we have fun or what on Mom’s Night?!  Thanks for the laughs; it does a body (and spirit) good!

Linda made a list of some of the “Business” items we covered.  Here they are (with Leigh’s edits in italics)
Please add anything that might have been missed…

For those in attendance (six of us: Leigh, Kathy, Linda, Megan, Sundy, Kim), these are the items we have agreed upon to implement into Roots and Wings Tuesday School.

·        Using ‘three’ rooms – dividing the big one in half after circle time and using the one across the hall for a ‘youngers’ room.
 

·        The ‘youngers’ room would consist of different stations (same type of stations each time) – playdoh, puzzles, water/sand table, etc. – someone needs to be in charge of these items. Would the moms take turns rotating weeks on supervising this room?
 (We also talked about each mom being responsible for one same station to bring each week, so this does not fall on the same mom to have to bring multiple stations every week.  This is something we need to work towards, not expect to have it in place by Tuesday.)

·        We talked about having multiple teachers – one in each of the ‘olders’ rooms. (I am going to try to have a team schedule up soon.  I need to make sure you understand that instead of planning once every seven weeks, you will be planning (at least) once a month, maybe twice.)

·        Teachers teaming up- need to decide if we would have the same ladies team up all the time or rotate (I am going to set up a rotating schedule for now)

·         We touched on themes versus specialties, i.e. sign language, art, drama
(Do we want to commit to Megan always teaching sign, Sundy always doing drama, etc.?)

·        We felt that circle time at the end of snack would help with some of the craziness. – Sundy, I believe, said she would take this on.  (Liann has offered the sanctuary and a parachute for gross motor play during this time.  The host moms need to stay behind an coordinate clean up, so it will be one or two other moms to coordinate play during that time)

·         We talked about the teachers staying in their room and the moms rotating through so the moms can spend time with all their children especially if they were in separate groups – and so the moms wouldn’t get bored with having to do the same thing over and over again.