Dr. Seuss' Birthday

Tippy helped us celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday on Saturday...

Homeschool Share has a contest to draw the Once-ler, so here are Sydney and Ava's pics
Ava...age 5

Sydney age 9

they actually have a whole unit about The Lorax , which we'll probably do when the movie comes out on dvd

Starting School 2011

We started our school year a little early this year, not because we were so excited to start (as we have been in past years) but because we are going on vacation in September, so it can't hurt to be a little ahead.

Yesterday, we started the day with a movie (of course :) ) at a local theatre that was showing already released movies for a dollar. When we got home we still had some time to get in some workbook pages. Ava has been very excited about starting kindergarten and has already done quite a few pages in her math and language books. Sydney and Ava are both doing A Beka for their math and language and Ryan for language, but I got Teaching Textbooks for math for him this year. We tried it out at the end of last year and it made such a difference in his attitude, it's worth every penny. :)

We got quite a bit more done today, starting with a new Bible study for Ryan and Sydney, and math and language ( which are the only 2 subjects that I buy new books every year for each kid and they finish them each year). We dove right back into our Story of the World history (which we love) and the kids played Monopoly Jr.

So far I have to say, having 3 kids now who are school age, I definitely feel like homeschooling is a full time job :)

Art day

Luckily I got to this one before she started exploring around the house :)

We took out our liquid water color paints and did some sharpie drawings and painted them in...

Ava's butterfly



I was so impressed with Sydney's "Starry Night"

summer school

Since the summer is almost over, I guess I should admit that we didn't do as much "school" as I had hoped, but I'm sure my kids kept learning anyway :)

We took an afternoon and went to Deception pass...

We came home with pockets full of rock (I admit, I brought the most)

I had some fun making letter stones, and story stones.

Gretchy!!

I made a lower case and upper case set of letters, so the girls could put them in alphabetical order and make pairs of letters that go together.

I also made these "word builders" from paint sample papers, and just so anyone might be impressed with me, I got all my ideas from someone else :)

I had Ava move the one card that had an ending sound on it over the other card that had consonants on it and write the ones down that made a word, she loved it.

Ava's and my sharpies on foil drawing.

This idea came from here , we used Lego's to stamp pictures.

Sydney's

and Ryan's ( I only got a picture of the beginning)

Looking forward to more "summer schooling" :)

Unit study for preschooler/kindergartener

I love unit studies when I'm teaching my kids and a great place to get ideas is Home School Share .

I love looking at this site to find books to read and then ways to use them to teach :)

I recently got the opportunity to try out a new study that isn't on the site yet and we had a great time (oh ya, and they're free, it doesn't get any better than that!)

Here is the birthday girl with the books we picked up from the library. Our study was about reptiles, and we were given a list of books to read (although you could get books on the subject yourself) but most of the books on the list I was able to find :)

There are pages to print that go along with the study, these are for preschool/ kindergarten age. I laminated this one and Ava used the Crayola whiteboard crayons to write on it and then erase. I love those crayons!



finding the first letter of the reptile

patterns

big sister reading a story

how many spots

These 2 books are from Costco and I love them! Each one had a section about reptiles that really added even more to our study.

if you are interested in this kind of thing, check out the Home School Share site, I think these new studies will be there some time in August :)

Painting with a friend

I was going to have Ava's birthday part 2 but I forgot my camera at home for her joint party with her cousin, so here are pictures from today :)

I set up a painting station outside and sprayed shaving cream on some trays, then I put some liquid water color paint in the shaving cream. The girls had to mix it up themselves...

they are a little unsure at first, but...

in no time they were loving it :)

and what play date would be complete with out making "soup" ?

Ava's 5th birthday (part 1)

Happy birthday to our big girl :)

Ava is our "just so" child. On her bed there are about 30 stuffed animals that she sleeps with every night, she has too have them arranged "just so" before she can go to bed.

She is the only child that the dentist said brushes her teeth really well.

She is always the most eager to pray at meal times and at bed time her prayers take about 5 minutes and she really thinks about what she wants to talk to God about.

She loves to learn and do schoolwork, and has just started kindergarten.

Her nickname from Dad is "Peanut".

She is very gentle and kind to Gretchen (when she wants to be).

She loves going to Haley's house.

She loves to "talk smack" when playing games with us.

Ava's favorite things for dinner :)
Smack talking during her birthday Uno game.

I got her a first aid kit from Ikea and she played "Pet Vet"