We're Back!!!

Good morning everyone! As Pax works on an art project, I am stealing a few minutes to share some of our adventures from the first full week of homeschool! I am beyond thrilled at how much fun we had last week. I still can't get over the fact that I have this amazing privilege to teach my son at home and be in control of what he is learning. I am living the dream! (my dream at least!)

I want to share with you some of the highlights from the week. I am sorry, but there will be a lot of pictures in this post as I cover the week. I am proud of everything we learned and how much fun we had getting back to our routine!

Enjoy!

~Kendra

Every kid deserves a first day of school picture, whether they homeschool or leave the home for school! This is my kindergartener!!!

Paxton loves to practice his handwriting and he is trying so hard to make the letters look just like the ones he traces. He is also learning to cut along the lines as well as cutting freestyle. He worked on this in Pre-K but now he really concentrates and doesn't want to be sloppy.

We got to turn water into ice and graph how long it took when placed in the freezer. (this experiment took about 6hrs from water to complete ice) and instead of making a tornado, we used out Discovery Kids tornado to observe how tornadoes are made. 

We got to celebrate our first "official" day of school with cousins Will and Jude at Chuck E Cheese and visit Will for lunch at his school later in the week.

On Wednesday, we were supposed to have some gross motor play at the park and visit with our friends Brittle, Silas, and Teddy. Unfortunately, an unexpected storm hit Springfield and we were stuck indoors for the day. We decided to make things fun by doing homeschool by candlelight, have flashlight play, and even read our book "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" in the dark. (we had electricity, but just decided not to use it and pretend instead)

Speaking of our current read aloud, "The Mouse and the Motorcycle", Pax came up with the idea to create a "safe" mouse trap using cheese, his VBS hat, and some toys under the hat for the mouse to play with. 

And last but not least, we decided to reorganize our homeschool supplies. Over the summer, I kept throwing things here and there and last week it felt a bit chaotic when I looked for our curriculum materials for each day. We now how every subject on a different shelf. I decided to recycle our diaper caddy and make it into an art caddy instead. Pax loves it and now all of his art supplies are in one place! 

Taking a Break

Hi guys,

If you follow us regularly then you know we try to post often but haven't been lately. We are too busy enjoying our summer and are taking a couple weeks off from blogging. Please come back and check on us August 25th when we resume homeschool and our normal routine. We are going to finish up the summer with VBS (Vacation Bible School), the State Fair, and a last minute vacation to Wisconsin.

I'll leave you with this cute picture of Pax! Enjoy!

Kendra

The Power of Play and Family

Sorry for the delayed post-we've been quite busy! I've been reading plenty of articles about how important it is for children to have time to play. The past couple of weeks have been just that and I can see a real difference in Paxton's disposition. He seems much happier and listens better when he's been given a substantial amount of play time and time to just be a child.

We've continued our curriculum throughout the summer but are spending about two days a week vs. the three to five when we first started. My goal is to start adding a day a week throughout August until we hit five days a week by mid-August. I have seen an increase in his attention span and the times we've spent reading our chapter books, he seems really engaged.

The past few weeks have been all about family too. We visited my step dad in the hospital while he was having back surgery and visited several times while he is "stuck" at home, recovering. We also try to head out to Greenview to visit my Grandma who will be ninety-six in August. AND, we were so excited to see our cousins from Tennessee- we hadn't seen them in two years. (That's just WAY TOO LONG!)

Needless to say, our time has been spent playing outside as much as possible and seeing as many family members as possible!

I'll quit babbling and let you see for yourself...

 July 9- visiting PaPa Tim in the hospital pre-surgery

Visiting Grandpa Biggs' house and got to explore the newly finished tree house he built for the grand kids!

                                  

Searching for bugs and learning to swim underwater. Both- a success! 

                                  

Painting Spiderman and working on our math work during a curriculum day. 

Ending the week with the sweetest surprise of all- we got to see our cousin Katie and her son Elijah while they were in town for a conference. They live in Tennessee and we don't get to visit often. Elijah and Katie are the ones on the end, next to me and Pax.

Next week will be another packed week as we volunteer to help out with our church Summit and meet various pastors and missionaries from all over the U.S. and assist in watching their children during the workshops/conference. I'll keep you posted on how that turns out and how much we actually accomplish in our own studies. Until then, have a fabulous weekend!

A Day in the Life of a Five Year Old

Yesterday was Paxton's fifth birthday. It doesn't seem possible that Donnie and I have been blessed for five years already as Pax's parents. Time flies and I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea of my little man growing up.

He woke up around 6 a.m. and the first thing he said to me was, "I thought when I turned five, my voice would sound different and I would be taller. Mom, I am not taller and I sound the exact same."
This kid cracks me up. I have no idea why he thought his voice would change but I had been telling him that he would grow bigger with each year.

Here is a recap of how we celebrated this little man turning five:

We started the morning off by opening the mustaches he got from his cousin Nate. We each placed one on our face and took selfies. (If you know me, you know this is a silly thing we do A LOT!)

After some breakfast and telling Daddy goodbye as he left for work, we ventured outside to do our usual bug exploration. We were quite pleased to find a giant moth and a bug we had never seen before. I must admit, it was refreshing not to have to search for spiders.

We released the moth before we could figure out what kind it was but we did research the other bug. He is an ivory marked beetle. We released him too! The bug catcher was also another cool gift from cousin Nate.

 

And then we went fishing out on Grandpa Biggs' pond. We had so much fun catching bluegill! Each grandkid caught at least three fish. We immediately released them back into the water-no worries!

PaPa Tim stopped by after we got done fishing with a ton of puzzles for Pax and an ice cream cone. Pax is so excited to try out all of these 3D bugs and dinosaurs!

We ended the day visiting Pax's favorite place to play- Chuck E. Cheese. Donnie, Pax and I had a little friendly competition at the Skeeball games and I am pleased to say I still hold highest score and ticket holder!

I must admit, I had just as much fun celebrating Pax as he did! :) Pax, you are one of the smartest, funniest, and sweetest boys we know and we are honored to be your parents.We love you buddy and hope you've had the best fifth birthday ever!

Summertime

I keep telling myself we will slow down, take a break from activities, and relax. And then I remember, this is summertime. We are still setting our own schedule and taking breaks when needed, but we are also soaking up the beautiful weather and enjoying lots of playtime.

Because of other obligations in the beginning of July, we decided to celebrate Pax's 5th birthday two weeks early. We had a small family party at the house with donuts and bagels and Pax blew out five candles from his favorite donut, a chocolate longjohn. (He is just like me!)

We spent the rest of the week doing a lot of outdoor things like tending the garden and looking for bugs.

We still managed to find time for schoolwork. Pax has really enjoyed working on his letters and basic writing. He even tries to sound things out, spell without assistance, and say the words that he recognizes while we read aloud.

But the best part of the past few weeks has been the family time. Pax loves playing with his cousins and he has had a lot of time to do that! (Kandice and I enjoy having sister time while they play!)

Hope you all are having a great time this summer. Might I suggest the article I just finished on the Sonlight website about how to spend summer.

 http://www.sonlight.com/blog/2014/07/dont-let-your-child-flunk-summer.html

It was a real eye opener for me and reminded me to slow down with activities and just enjoy the play. 

Finished by 10am

Today we got to experience the really fun part of homeschool; we got to create a schedule at our own pace, do fun things, and stay in our pajamas. And the coolest part of all? We are done with our work and it is only 10am.

The only thing left on our schedule is to learn the new song that helps us memorize our scripture verse for the week and to read from our new Spiderwick book. Both of these things will be done around bedtime or later this afternoon- whichever Paxton decides.

I must admit, it was nice getting back into the groove of actual lesson plans. I am a creature of structure and habit. I usually work best with a to-do-list and my shiny red pen to mark things off. I am a true list maker. (But today I used my hot pink gel pen and I think that's why I am in such a good mood. LOL)

Take a look at what we learned about today:

We started the morning off using the "Handwriting Without Tears" book. I love that Pax already knows his letters from preschool but that he is equally willing to practice and learn more. The book doesn't start in order of the alphabet and I liked this part the best. He is practicing and mastering the big and little letter F. 

*Not pictured* We continued with our reading lesson on "Henny Penny". We used the discussion questions after reading the story. I remember this story from my own childhood. 

Paxton got to watch his first science video and learned about air and what it is and why we have it. We did the science experiments they suggested and one of them was to see if an empty water bottle was really empty. Pax placed the empty bottle in the sink basin full of water. 

And bubbles came out of the water bottle. We learned that even though the bottle appeared empty, it was actually full of air. In order for the water to go into the bottle, the air must come out. Bubbles! 

And finally, we completed our morning learning about the four seasons and the sun and the moon. We each picked two seasons to color on paper and placed them in order. I was a bit surprised how much Pax knew and understood about how the seasons worked and he made this part of our learning quite easy! 

Since we are nearly done for the day, we are going to enjoy some time outside and other activities at home. We hope you have a wonderful day too!

 

Week Three Already?

Is it really the end of week three? I can't believe it! June is flying by and we are having so much fun. Here are some of the things we did this week- it was a slower week and not as much curriculum work as planned but we will catch up next week. Mama Bear wasn't feeling so hot this week and we took things a bit slower.

                          

After learning all about the spider we found in the basement on Monday, we decided to enjoy a nice picnic in Greenview, Illinois and visit with Aunt Kandice, Cousins Will and Jude, and Grandma Biggs. We had the best time and even though it was hot out, the shade from the trees made for the perfect play area. 

                                  

On Wednesday we took it really slow as I wasn't feeling all that great. (I suffer from terrible headaches.) We didn't let it ruin our day, though. Instead, we played a really fun math game that helps with recognizing numbers, writing them, and counting in general. We also finished our Boxcar Children book and Pax is anxious to start the next book for our reading adventure. I haven't checked which book it will be yet but I am sure it will be great! When we got home from church, Pax wanted to do another activity before bed. We decided to practice writing and he wanted to learn how to write different words like spider, snail, and ant as well as names of people in his family like seen in the picture above.

On Thursday we spent the day baking and cooking. We did the pumpkin spice cupcakes like we wrote about in the post before but we also made homemade applesauce. It is super easy and delicious. If you want to try it, here is the recipe:

http://againstallgrain.com/2011/10/29/crock-pot-apple-sauce-refined-sugar-free/

 

 We ended the week doing something really fun- we visited our old school. Pax loved seeing everyone and I really enjoyed visiting with the kids and my old coworkers. After we got home, we had out first piano lesson for the summer with Grandma McCoy. We took a long break from lessons but are back full swing now!

Wow! What a week! We had a wonderful week but I am excited to slow it down a but next week. We hope you all have a great weekend!