Keeping Up....

22 May 2009

Musings

26 January 2009

Shrinky Dinks

Today we made homemade shrinky dinks!  I found a website with great directions, and my friend Dawn gave me some number 6 plastic containers.  The boys were very excited to be using permanent markers, and I'm happy to report that no marker ended up on the table or their clothes.  AJ decided to make a red and blue Thunderbird (of which he is the pilot of course), and Drew colored a picture of me standing under a rainbow. Here are some pictures of the process: Creating the perfect designs: All ready to be baked: In the oven.  I know that my oven door is dirty, so it's hard to see them, but we were able to watch the plastic curl up and then flatten again.  I think the kids enjoyed that part the most. And the finished product.  The kids were amazed at how small and thick they got.  We compared them to a leftover piece of the pre-shrunk plastic. I'm not sure what we are going to do with them now.  I may have Ray drill a hole in the tops so they can be strung and hung.  We'll see.

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2 January 2009

Back at it

9 December 2008

More Schoolwork

The boys continue to work hard, and excel.  I am so proud of both of them.  They are good at different things, and it's fun to watch them learn new things each day! Just wanted to post a few more examples of their recent work.  I really enjoy going back and looking at these, so ya'll will just have to put up with me! These are examples from the boys phonics books.  They LOVE doing pages like this because they can now read the questions all by themselves, and figure out the answers as well.  They love not needing my help.  Here's a recent example of Drew's work.  His handwriting is REALLY improving.  I'm so proud of him because it's something he struggles with, but he really does work hard to get it right.  And a similar page from AJ's book: Drew is nearly done with book two of the "Getting Ready for the Code" series.  It's his favorite part of school, which doesn't surprise me because it's very basic and simple for him.  Here's a recent page from that book: And finally, a few pages from AJ's math book.  He has finally learned clocks, which he has been looking forward to ever since we started school.  Math-U-See teaches clocks with no numbers, which I think is fantastic.  It does, however, make it challenging for me when correcting his pages, because I'm REALLY at telling time on an analog clock.   AJ gets impatient with me because it takes me so long to correct his work, so often I'll have him show me how he got his answer, and then I know it's right. AJ will finish his math book this week, and will be starting in the Alpha book as soon as we can afford it. Guess that's it for now.  The kids will keep plugging away until Christmas time.  They were both challenged by their Grandma to read a book all by themselves when she visits this Christmas, so both boys are working hard towards that goal.  Hopefully Grandma will be impressed.

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14 November 2008

About time, huh?

I know, I know.  It's been forever since I've updated here.  And I really regret it because I really do want to keep a log of how our first year goes.  So encourage me to do better, okay? Today I thought I'd post some pictures of what the boys have been working on lately.  I've really been impressed with how hard they are willing to work, and with what they are able to do.  Every day they surprise me.  First, I will post some pictures that they colored today.  Tonight, the space shuttle Endeavor is scheduled to blast off.  So we've been talking a lot about it, and today colored some space pictures.  You'll be able to see here how differently the boys color.  Drew likes color and lots of it.  AJ likes perfection and detail. Here is AJ's space shuttle picture.  He had to look at a picture of a real space shuttle so he could get the colors right.  He made the fire coming out of the bottom blue because it's "really really hot", and the sky is black because it's a night launch. And here is AJ's astronaut.  Again, he found a photograph of an astronaut so he would know how to color the suit.  He informed me that the yellow in the sky is stars. Here is Drew's space shuttle picture.  You can see that he didn't really care about the "correct" colors.  He just got creative and went to town.  And Drew's astronaut.  He was kind of sick of coloring at this point, so he didn't want to do the sky.  He told me that the red face was not an accident.  He said, "That's me mom, and I have a BAD sunburn on my face." And now for some real schoolwork. Both boys agree that Phonics is their favorite subject.  Probably because it's so easy right now.  Phonics isn't challenging them at all, and we are supplementing with other things to encourage reading.  Here is a page from Drew's phonics book.  The "sat" picture was actually very impressive until he drew the boy sitting.  He drew a chair first and it really looked like one of our dining room chairs.  I was very impressed.  ;) And a page from AJ's phonics book.  Both boys were able to do this page with no help at all.  They were able to read all of the words and successfully answer the questions. Drew also does a few pages each day in a supplemental phonics-ish book that he LOVES.  It's pretty simple for him, but I think it's good review for him, and he loves all of the different activities.  Here is a page from that book. AJ is nearly done with his math book.  I don't remember if I posted that I stopped math with Drew.  He was having a REALLY hard time with it and it was causing him a lot of frustration each day.  I decided to put the book away and we'll bring it back out sometime next year (he's convinced that he'll have an easier time with it when he turns 5).  I've been reinforcing counting and simple addition with him using worksheets and dot to dots.  Drew also LOVES mazes.  Anyhow, here is a page from AJ's math book.  This was a review page, so it shows many of the things he's been working on.  He has learned to count by 2's, 5's, 10's, 20's, and 100's.  Other things he has learned include:  simple addition, solving for an unknown, simple word problems, tally marks, etc.  At the end of each day, the boys look forward to coloring in their journals.  It's so interesting to see the differences in what they draw.  I give them complete free reign in their journals, and they are allowed to draw or color or write whatever they want.  AJ is much more abstract in his drawings.  He'll draw things like dinosaurs or monsters.  But usually his page will just have a bunch of shapes or lines on it that he connects and colors.  Drew, on the other hand, almost always draws people or places that we go (church, home, MOPS, etc).  Here's a page from AJ's journal.  This is a dinosaur. And here is a page from Drew's journal.  It's a self portrait. And that's it for today.  Hopefully now that I've posted, I'll continue to post at least once a week.  The next couple of weeks will be filled with books, worksheets, and activities about Thanksgiving, so hopefully I can get some good pictures of what they work on.

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26 September 2008

Just a quick update

11 September 2008

Gilcrease Orchard

Wow.  What a fun morning!  I dropped Megan off with my good friend Jennie around 9am.  Then the boys and I were off to the orchard.  They had never seen apples hanging from a tree before, and were so excited to get this chance!  Before finding the apples, we found many other cool things.  The first thing we found was zucchini.  Many of these vegetables were HUGE.  I never would have guessed that they grew that big.  Much to the boys dismay, I wouldn't let them bring home the biggest one.  But we still got a good sized one that came home with us. This is AJ with one of the biggest ones. Next was eggplants.  I had no intention at all of picking any eggplants, but they were SO pretty hanging there that the boys just couldn't resist.  So they each picked two, and we left 2 of them with Jennie. Isn't it pretty? Climbing through to get the best one: So proud: Next we were looking for tomatoes.  I was really hoping to find some, but the ones we found weren't ripe yet, so we left them alone.  We did, however find a nice cantelope and a weird watermelon.  AJ picked the watermelon from the vine, and although it looks really strange, he HAD to bring it home.  We'll cut it tonight or tomorrow and see if it's any good.  The cantelope will need a few days to ripen, but I'm sure it will taste awesome. Here's the best picture I got of AJ and his watermelon.  Unfortunately, you can't really see how weird it is.  Our last, and most fun stop was the apple trees.  It was difficult at first and we got such a slow start.  Many of the trees were empty, and it was difficult to see the apples since they were green.  But eventually we found a couple of really full trees, and we came home with probably 20 pounds of apples.  Jennie got some of those too.  ;)  This picture was actually taken before we were done.  You can see that we got LOTS of apples! We'll be making an apple pie or two this weekend, and probably some apple bread.  If I can find a simple enough recipe, we'll also try to make some applesauce. It was such a fun field trip.  The boys had a great time picking the apples, and AJ even said, "I'm so glad we are homeschooled, mom!"  That comment made the whole day completely worth it.

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10 September 2008

A is for Apple

8 September 2008

Catechism

5 September 2008

First week done!

Well, I'm so happy to say that we completed our first week of school and everyone is still alive.  ;)  The boys learned two sight words this week, and have been using various methods to practice counting.  They learned to write the letter "c" and started learning their catechism.  Overall, it was a great week.  Not many pictures today, but I did want to share one thing.  Ma (Grandma Cobb) sent the boys a crane worksheet to color in honor of "C" week.  They LOVED the picture, and took their time to carefully color it.  Here are the finished products: AJ with his crane: Drew with his crane: And just because she's so cute, here is a picture of Megan with the "cake" she made while the boys were doing school:

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2 September 2008

First Day of School!

Day one is over!  The boys had a lot of fun, and I can honestly say that I did too.  Megan was mostly well behaved if we don't count dumping out all of the toys in her room and stealing potato chips off of daddy's desk.  She did stay pretty quiet though!   Here are a few pictures from the boys first day of school. All ready to start: The first thing we did was our Bible lesson.  Megan sat in with us for that, but I'm not sure that is going to work for the long run.  If she can't sit still and leave the boys alone, she'll have to be booted.  Next they decorated their "treasure boxes".  These boxes will hold their "star words", which are basically just sight words.  When they learn a word, it will go into the treasure box.  The boxes should be pretty full by the end of the year!  Here are a few pictures of them decorating their treasure boxes.  Next we got out our handwriting books, and learned what the different lines are called (our curriculum calls them the hat line, belt line, writing line, and shoe line).  Our letter of the week is "C", so we talked about how to write it, but they won't actually practice writing it until tomorrow. Then was math.  The boys have been ridiculously excited about math because Math-U-See uses blocks to teach the concepts.  They each did three pages in their workbooks, and did such a great job.  I didn't take any pictures of math because they were concentrating SO hard.  But they were fun to watch, and the blocks made it a lot less like work for them. Next they drew pictures in their journals.  They will do their journals almost every day, and they pretty much have free reign with what they write or draw.  I think it will be fun to see how the journal entries change as they learn to write and as the year progresses.  Here are a couple pictures from journal time. The last thing we did was make a counting book for our lapbooks.  Each week, the boys will make their own lapbook that is based on the letter of the week. This week the letter is "C" and we are focusing on "counting".  The little counting book that they made today involved tracing, cutting, and gluing.  On Friday, we will assemble their lapbooks, and I'll post pictures then to give you a better idea of what they actually are.  A few pictures from making counting books: The first step was to count the shapes and trace the coresponding number. Then they had to cut out the numbers: You may notice in this picture that Drew cuts with his left hand, but in the previous pictures, he writes with his right hand.  Then they glued the numbers to the boxes next to the shapes. And when they were all done, the paper went in their folders to wait for Friday! So that's what they did today.  They did great, and are both looking forward to what tomorrow holds.  Tomorrow they will have a word to put in their treasure boxes, and will learn to write the letter "c".  Stay tuned!

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1 September 2008

Tomorrow's the big day!

30 August 2008

Lesson Plans completed!

28 August 2008

Last box arrived!

26 August 2008

Package #1 has arrived!

25 August 2008

One Week