It is Finished!

My daughter & I accomplished our greatest feat of 2013!  She completed her kindergarten year and learned to read!  I completed my 1st year of homeschooling and learned to trust God more! I was carried by His grace the entire year.  Trying to manage the kids, the home, and everything in between, there were so many times that I felt overwhelmed, discouraged, & isolated (this is VERY hard for the extreme extrovert that I am).  But Praise the Lord that He remains faithful even when we are faithless (2 Timothy 2:13).  God is so good & His grace is sufficient!  In the midst of my spiritual growing pains, we were still blessed to do so much and we had tons of fun!  I plan to write a different post about what I learned this past year.  For now, I'll give a recap of Carysse's final two topics of study: Yellow, Bird...nope not the Big Yellow Bird from Sesame StreetJ. We studied Q for Quails and Birds in general.  Then we wrapped the school year off with Y for Yellow.

We made bird feeders.

The feeders kept falling off the tree but the birds didn't have trouble finding them! 

We made Bird's Nest Cookies & took them to the Fourth of July BBQ at our friends' house.  Too bad we didn't have any red, white, & blue M&Ms. 

Little sister diligently working on her feather painting craft.

Me & my girls taking a break to look at the birds.  

I desire to spiritually take more breaks to "look at the birds".


Quail Unit

After Carysse read the book, Herbie Bear and the Yellow Kite, she made a yellow kite. The cloud reads, "If I were a kite..." She wrote, "I would fly to Illinois to see Grandma."  We had no idea that my parents were going to make a SURPRISE visit to see us that week!  It's so sweet that they got to take this pic together.

We also bought a kite.

Daddy had fun flying it with his daughters.

Our yellow craft stick flowers covered with buttons.  

This is a great fine motor activity for little hands.

Carysse happily exclaimed that she made, "Noah's Ark" out of her Eggo Waffle.  We also had eggs & bananas to complete our "Yellow Breakfast". 

We went on a "Yellow Walk" to take a picture of all the yellow things we see in our neighborhood.

I guess it's time to go home now! 

Yellow Unit

The Weather Has Us Going In Circles!

Shorts to sweatshirts. Bathing suits to Blankets.  All in the span of a week!  Good thing we know the creator of the "cold & heat" (Genesis 8:22).  We can rest in His perfect plan for us which includes the weather.  In the meantime, we can have a little fun with circles as well.

Summer Activity #3

Abstract Circle Art

We got the idea from this website.  Instead of dipping a cup in black paint, we traced circles from a mug (we didn't want to have to wait for the black paint to dry).  Then she painted inside each space.  

Not quite Activity of the Week...

More like Activity of the Month!  

I just realized when I mentioned I would post an Activity of the Week, I must have had a moment of insanity. I don't know what I was thinking.  For a brief moment I must have forgotten how many kids I have, that I'm still homeschooling, & that I'm married to a Senior High Pastor and we have 20-30 teenagers at our house on a weekly basis.  So, I won't apologize for not posting an Activity of the Week but I will apologize for my momentary loss of reality.J

Anyways, here's an activity that has kept the girls busy many days - 

Summer Activity #2

Spray Bottles

First, we purchased the bottles from the dollar store.  
Then, they decorated them.

Next, we add water & a little food coloring.

Finally, they get to spray everything in sight from ant hills to flower beds, to sidewalks, etc.

The Perfect Plan - Kids get a bottle & mama gets a break!  

Printable Prayer Cards - Free Download!

I read & really liked the book A Praying Life by Paul Miller.  I actually posted an excerpt from the book back in Jan '11 titled, Time with Your Father.  If you're like me, you never think that you pray enough.  There are so many concerns that sometimes it feels quite overwhelming.  So, I'm a big advocate for writing out specific prayer requests within various categories - husband, kids, extended family, friends, church family, missionaries, nation (leaders), etc. As you can imagine, I was ecstatic when I came across these printable prayer cards that a fellow homeschool mom created as she was reading Miller's book.  One can never have too much help in the area of praying more!  I plan to make a set soon!

June School Update

Since we're home most of the time, we still keep chipping away at our homeschooling.  Why not...what else are we going to do with 16 hrs of daylight in the summer??? In June, we finished our frog, fox, & vegetable units.

Here are my cutie patooties with their adorable frog treats!

They are super easy to make!  Each frog is just 2 mini pretzel twists, 1 oreo cookie, and 2 m&ms; you can keep the pretzels and m&ms in place with icing or any nut butter.  

I couldn't resist including this sweet pic of my little Christian when he was 3 yrs old.

A friend gave the girls animal shaped sleeping bags for Christmas.
My goofy girl just had to show off her froggie for this pic.  

Fox Unit

We started our Vegetable Unit by Okra printing with paint.

We went to the Farmer's Market.

We made Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins.

Mini & medium muffins...Yummm!

Have you heard about eating a rainbow?  Well, homemade smoothie pops are a delicious way to accomplish this all at once! Here's a list of our smoothie pop concoction:  blueberries (blue/purple), green-leaf lettuce (green), bananas (white), carrots (yellow/orange), strawberries (red) & some Kefir.  I was excited about using our new popsicle molds.

She also sorted several of God's plants into fruit/veggie/flower categories and we did a celery science experiment.

What a fun Vegetable Unit!  

Now I hope that we'll soon think eating veggies is as much fun as learning about them! :-)

Summer Activity of the Week

The other day, an older mother mentioned to me that she vividly remembers how hard it was when her kids were all little.  She said she understood how "one day could be like a thousand years" (2 Peter 3:8b).  Raising these blessings from the Lord is a wonderful privilege but the days are SUPER long!  In the summer, you feel every bit of it since the sun rises around 5:30am and doesn't set until 9:00pm!  So, how do I entertain 4 little ones with no TV and limiting their video watching to 1 hr a day?  I decided to try to introduce a new activity a week.  Some activities will be more elaborate than others and sometimes I'll just share a simple idea...all for the sake of helping the day not feel so much like 1,000 yrs!J

Summer Activity #1

Sandbox on Wheels

I really like that it can be covered & stored in the garage away from rain & rodents.

*60 qt. container with wheels from Target - $12.59

*1 bag of sand from Menards - $1.50

*Hours of constant play with toys that we already had - PRICELESS!

May School Update

Boy, do I have some catching up to do!  We've completed 8 units of study since our last school update.  During our long winter, we were "milking" kindergarten for all it's worth.  Then when spring slowly showed it's long-awaited face, we were so ready to be outside but had to painstakingly endure many rainy days inside.  One good thing about that is we were able to get a lot more school time in.  So, here's a brief catch-up of the units that we've completed and a couple of other activities.

Carysse is showing off her paper plate creations during our
Homeschool Group's Project Night.  

Horse Unit

Elephant Unit

 Penguin Unit

Kangaroo jump comparison

Kangaroo Unit

She really enjoyed this marble painting activity.

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Zebra Unit

Sink or float activity

We were "rock & rolling" with many of these great ideas & these too.  

Rock Classifying 

Btw, You know you're a homeschool mom if...

the neighbors are wondering what you're doing in the rain at 7:45am while you gather rocks from your landscape.J

Rock Unit

Each May, the Aquarium has it's Homeschool Week which offers a super great discount.  We went as a family and happened to see my close friend, Sarah & her son, there.    

Jewel Unit

We made these special butterfly treats for her Butterfly birthday party.

Butterfly Unit

Our Homeschool Group hosted a Track & Field Day
at the end of the school year.  

I helped coordinate the kindergarten girls group.
We had such a fun time until it rained.L

She got the 3rd place ribbon for the Broad Jump;

And the 4th place ribbon for the Softball throw!

Thank you Jesus for all these sweet blessings!