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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

My favorite links!

As a first year homeschooler I like when people share information with me since I am so unfamiliar with this whole new world. 
I will continue to add to this post as I find new favorite links! 
Whether it be free printables, games, learning websites, etc. 
I will also post that the list is/was updated when I add to the list. :)

Enjoy!


Curriculum Websites:


Seriously this website has been a life saver in our urgent decision to decide to homeschool. A friend suggested it to me thinking it will be ok for me for a couple of weeks... but honestly I love it, my kids love it! I don't see us switching up as of right now. Alot of people complain that its way to much computer time. My children love games. They learn from it. So why change it?! PLUS its already planned out for you! We do Math, Reading, Language Arts and "PE/Health". The Reading I'm not a huge fan of because the stories were on right now aren't holding my children's interest very well. So we might find something to replace it with next year. As far as History I am doing Famous Americans Mini Booklets and we find things about the person we are learning about to throw in the mix. A video, a book, a website that has information about them and sometimes we do mini research reports. Science, I am using a text book for that one so we have more reading time. We also do Zoology right now. We do mini books with that and also find things to add in about the animals we are learning at the time. We do when we have time Art, Science Projects and Homemaking. We do Scripture Study every day whether its reading or coloring or doing a craft to help us learn. 


This is what I use to get MOST of Alexander's curriculum from. We use this for our Preschool Co-op. Its completely free too. Just a bunch of the cutest ideas and FUN printables. Seriously another life saver!!! 


FREE Printables: 


Not everything here is free but you can find TONS of free printables on this site! I love it!!! 


Videos: 



Support Groups:

There is ALOT out there. You just have to look. On Facebook just start typing in homeschool and tons pop up! You can even get specific and put in your area with the word homeschool. Or your curriculum you use along with homeschool.  Here are some I have discovered that fit to my needs. I haven't taken advantage of them all yet as like I said there is ALOT!













Brainstorm for ideas:



Homeschool Perks:


Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Preschool Co-Op

Today we learned the letter Ee, shape Diamond, number 4, and the color Purple. Preschool is so much fun because look at all these cool printables that you can print out and have the kids do. I laminate them and keep them for Alexander to do while I am teaching the older children when he feels like hanging out in the school room with us.

Writing sheets. I laminated them so I could keep them and they use Erasable Markers to draw on them.

We used these to put the numbers in order.


I laminated this to keep forever. It's a puzzle.

I laminated this to keep forever. It's a puzzle.

We use these to play a matching game. Match the colors!

We use these to put in order and/or I lay them out NOT in order and call out numbers and the kids jump from number to number when they see the number I called out.



Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Family Tree

This week we are focusing on 1 Nephi 5 for our Scripture Study. I have an brilliant friend who suggested this craft too me to help the children understand what descendants are. We made a family tree! We talked about family history, descendants, generations, ancestors and our family name. We listened to a couple of talks: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2003/08/one-family & https://www.lds.org/new-era/2009/02/the-value-of-a-good-name Then we went to work on our family tree. As sad as the little tree looks because of inexperience it was fun. Here is the link to this craft if you want to try it for yourself. http://pikadillycharm.blogspot.com/2011/11/paper-bag-fall-tree.html?m=1









Tomorrow we will learn more about the plates of brass. :o)

Monday, October 13, 2014

Happy Columbus Day Yall!

Humm.... I'm just realizing I didn't plan any activities to do for Columbus Day! Oh well... will add that to our list of to do's for tomorrow! Today was a catch up day for us and since Daddy had off work today (Thank you Triump Bank & Christopher Columbus). Its amazing how much and how fast you can do to catch up at home. We did 3 days of Language Art and Math in less than 2 hours! Whoop Whoop! 
My favorite part of today? 
Was this craft:













Sunday, October 12, 2014

One of my biggest faults

One of my biggest faults with homeschooling is just letting go. I have added art to our daily routine and when I want it to look a certain way I have anxiety when the kids have their own ideas.  Like its really bad! Especially when its something I really want it to look good so I can hang them up for decorations. I understand if you just let their creativity flow that its good for them and then you might get something awesome out of it, but the MIGHT is a big nail bitter with me haha. Lexie has a thing for over crowding her art. I'm trying my best to get her to understand that sometimes less is more. Here is a perfect example of what I mean.  Luca wanted to mostly play at the park when we tried doing his so I let him do his hand print then I cut the hat and let him glue it on. Then he ran off to play so I went to work on finishing his picture for him.  Then a couple days later I let my kids finish theirs at home since they were to busy at the park.  I helped Alexander mostly with his  letting him hold the brush with me. 


Dakota's
Lexie's
Alexander's

Luca's

Friday, October 10, 2014

A few Fall things we have been up too

Here is some photos from things we have been doing the last two days.

A friend was sweet enough to let Alexander tag along for a "preschool field trip" to the Gentle Zoo. 






I didn't have enough energy to walk around that place after just recovering from being sick. So Lexie and Dakota made little cakes in the Easy Bake Oven as our special thing to do while Brother was gone.





Today we made these cute little photos to hang up in our home. This one is Luca's. We didn't finish all of ours yet. But I will take photos of each individuals tonight and post them. We had to come back and rest from the park first before finishing.


Monday, October 6, 2014

Mommy is going back to school ;)

I am finding myself having to keep a cheat journal for myself.  Its been quite a while since I have learned about proper and common nouns, action verbs and linking verbs and greater than less than (alligator sign). Thank goodness I am starting at this level with them in their homeschooling journey because I would be alot more lost ;)

The kids are getting tired of the book we are doing for Reading. Its called "Jolly Robin". They have challenged their-selves to finish the book today. We have 9 chapters to go. 22 chapters in all. I'm getting excited we have almost accomplished a whole book together! While we read this book we do spelling words that choose from this story and they also learn they Roman Numerals. So we read, spell and do math. They also do a summary in their journal after each chapter so I know that they are listening to what they are reading.

Our next book is The Tale of Peter Rabbit. What has been your children's favorite chapter book to read so far? We are getting our Reading curriculum from Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool this year. What is your favorite Reading Curriculum?

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Freezer Cooking Day 1 & 2

These last two days I have consumed myself into freezer cooking. I'm sick and tired of wasting our money on fast food because I'm too tired to make dinner each night. I wanted to be who I use to be able to be and get supper on the table every night. Now just going out and buying groceries wouldn't do it for me because by the end of the day I'm to exhausted to throw all this together. So I challenged myself. I made a list of 15 suppers. ALL different - no repeats because I honestly get tired of the same meal to often. Then I came up with 5 breakfasts that I could premake or freeze. Here are some photos I got in the mean time of doing all of this. None are great and none yet are of the finished products. I will take a photo of all I made tomorrow in the end of my freezer cooking marathon. Its better to just get one giant photo ;) So I am doing this challenge all by myself, except from the help of 3 little here and there helpers. They get bored with helping and then they forget how boring it is for a few minutes and then come help some more. I just put on my movie on the XBOX in the living room since my kitchen is open and I can see the tv and I just get busy. Towards the end of the day today I did have to make me a detailed list of what was left to do because I couldn't stay concentrated long enough to remember what needed done still. I am actually pretty darn proud of myself! First day I chopped a whole bag of celery and big bag of carrots. A huge bag of onions. Baked up 16 Chicken Breasts, cooked 11.5 lbs. of hamburger meat. I made a Lasagna, enough pizza dough for 6 mini pizzas, Bagged up Taco Meat with onions and seasonings and made Vegetable Beef Stew. I also made Stuff shells for dinner that night. It was suppose to be one of my freezer meals. But by time 4pm came around I was worn out and didn't want to cook anymore and it was the last thing I was working on that needed cleaned up so I decided to make it for dinner. I did get all the chicken chopped up and separated. The next day I made Goulash, Chicken Alfredo, Ranch Chicken and Potatoes, Italian Chicken Sauce that will go over egg noodles, Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with meat and 9 overnight blueberry maple oatmeal. Again 4pm came around. I was worn out and the last thing that needed cleaned up was the Chicken and Dumplings I was working on so that is what we had for dinner :) Tomorrow all I have left to work on are the mini pizzas, Scalloped Potatoes & Ham, Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole, White Chicken Enchiladas, French Toast Sticks, Pancakes, Breakfast Burritos and Breakfast Bowls. Then I can sit back every night while dinners heat up in the oven or crockpot! I am so looking forward to that. Now if I would have recruited some helpers and some babysitters and had lots of energy sure I could have possibly done this in one day but I needed something to keep me busy for a few days anyways :) 
 


My little helpers making the dumplings!




Yes I have 3 crockpots and 2 bread machines. They have their very only special cabinet just for them. I do believe I still need more! Just saying! They get put to work alot around here!


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Pancake Art









The children and I spent a few nights practicing wIth our pancake art. It was really fun. There is videos floating out there on how to do it and how to create. If your not in a big hurry to eat watch a video or two and try it out!

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Just another day in paradise ;)

Nothing exciting today. We are learning about the way plants make seeds and are structured. We decided to do our art on that today. We learned to draw a daisy. This page taught us how: http://www.homeschooling-ideas.com/draw-a-daisy.html 
We did our best to attempt the same. 




We are also learning greater than and less than, proper and common nouns which I had to take a lesson on myself since its been awhile.

Oh yea! 
No one threw up or ran a fever today! 
Hopefully the germs will go away and stay away.