Book Study

We are starting our book study and author study with James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. This is by far the most exciting part of our days right now! We snuggle up while Anna naps and take turns reading aloud to eachother. We stop a lot to discuss the vocabulary words and use context clues to figure out meanings. Roald Dahl has a great ability to describe things in interesting and funny ways so we are getting some laughs along the way.
We also decided to make a skit of one of the scenes in the book. While we are still deciding what scene (because there are so many great ones), I am so excited about making the backdrop, props and costumes to go with it! I definitely plan on making a large paper mache peach as a prop... could be messy! Can't wait!

Addy is making a poster today with her 4th grade goals on it. I asked her to imagine the end of this school year. What things do we what to say we accomplished and experienced? Of course there are hundreds of things but this is a great start. I imagine we will read this several times during those long, cold winter days to find motivation and inspire us again and again.

Well our first day back was very relaxing and nice! Addy started off the day by making us pancakes all by herself. We looked at all her books, websites and supplies today while discussing the best way to use them and stay organized. Even though I don't have a set in stone schedule this year, we still went over a general time line for our day and how it will flow (most days). Addy seems eager to learn and I can't wait to see what God has planned for us this year!

Last day of summer!

Homeschooling Again

We made it through our first year of homeschooling and even decided to do it again this year!  Last year was one of the most amazing years of my life so far. I had our second baby girl and took on the incredibly intimidating, scary task of homeschooling my third grade daughter.
I have to say it was an interesting year and we both did a lot of growing and learning. I struggled in the beginning with the pressure of being a perfect teacher and making sure that I was organized and well planned. I am an organized person in general but I am talking picture perfect and unrealistic organization here. There was an overwhelming amount of information out there about homeschooling and the different methods and curriculums that I should or shouldn't use. I am grateful for technology and the resources available to me but enough was enough!
I was so worried about getting it perfect that it was making me lose sight of the real reasons I decided to homeschool to start with. So, I decided to take this summer and figure out what I really wanted to make this year be like. Well, the school year is starting in less than three weeks and I am so excited about this year! Not like I was last year but in a calm peaceful way. I have a peace about this year that I didn't have last year. Again, don't get me wrong. I am so thankful for the amount of free resources available to me and I can't imagine how I could ever do without it. But I am free of the burden to do everything I see. I want our time together this year to be about quality not quantity. I want her to feel free to be creative and not feel the rush of a schedule and to-do list. I want her to take time to enjoy the moments and feel fully present in each moment. I want her to laugh about things and find joy in learning. But most of all I want her to find God in everything she does, to see that she needs Him all day everyday. Not just prayer time before bed or before we eat or on Sundays. The only way for her to see these things is to see ME doing these things. I read yesterday that we should not be worried that our children don't listen to us, we should worry that they are watching us. Yeah, that's pretty deep... ouch! So as we begin this next journey I open myself up to learn just as much, probably more, than she does. I will be fully present in each moment. I will begin the transformation of her being dependent on me and her daddy to being fully dependent on Jesus Christ. Our success will not be defined by keeping up with the best mommy blogs or doing every print out and neat craft that we see, or by how many subjects we cram into one day, or how fast she can multiply or divide or say the state capitals. Our success will be defined by LOVE. A Christ like love that we spread around like wildfire and touch as many people as we can. We will find joy in each day as we do math problems, reading, writing, and history.
So I plan to blog as a journal of things we do throughout the year and reflect on things. Hopefully it will inspire and help another mommy that gets sucked into the pressure of perfection. I will surround myself with things that will keep me on path and I will for sure get lost and need to redirect but I know I can do it with the Lord by my side. So bring on 2011-2012 school year cause I am ready!

DIY Bottle Cap Necklace

My stepfather was cleaning out his junk drawer and was throwing away a ton of bottle caps! Luckily I was there just in the nick of time to save them! Heehee
So my first project is a bottle cap necklace that I made with two preschoolers and a third grader. It was soooo easy. 

Using a nail and a hammer, put a hole in the top of the bottle cap.

I had some small silver necklace rings that I put on with pliers.

The letters are printed off my computer. I searched for monogram letters and played around with sizing. The girls colored the letters and I cut them out. I painted the bottle cap with acrylic paint and let it dry. Seal everything with fabulous mod podge.

We learned about symmetry and patterns while stringing beads. (You know I will squeeze in a lesson if I can!)

 Make sure the necklace will go over their heads and then tie a double knot.

Easy Dry Erase Board

 I can't believe tomorrow is Wednesday already! After an eventful weekend I guess I am just starting to come back to reality. So, most of you know that I babysit children part time out of my home and among my many part time endeavors I seem to always come back to keeping children. I guess it is my "calling" or something because when I am not keeping children I feel like something is missing in my life. I feel like it is my way of making a difference in this world. Impacting a child is one of the most important things you will ever do. I hope that through the diaper changes and preschool lessons that I show them how beautiful and wonderfully made they are. I also pray to be a blessing to the parents in a small way by giving them comfort in their long work days that their children are in a loving environment. With that said, I had a few children here today and realized that I needed a way to SIMPLY organize schedules and keep up with them. So I dug out a dry erase board from Addy's homeschool stuff and got the glue gun out!

 I bought a large piece of marker board from Lowes at the beginning of the year and had them cut it into 8 smaller pieces. It was SUPER cheap at only $10 bucks! I used painters tape to cover the edges because they were a little rough.

 

 I hot glued some ribbon around the edge. When I got to the corner I pinched it together and then folded it down flat.

Then I flipped it over and glued a piece of ribbon to hang it with.

Tied on a bow.....

 and hung it up! I used it immediately as you can see!