The Bee Tree

This week we are rowing The Bee Tree.
It's a story about a girl and her grandfather chasing a bee back to the hive.
We have so many bee resources in our house, it's going to be fun!










I won the Big price today on the Wheel of WOW!!!

Pretty Cool Homeschool Moment

When I decided to homeschool my kids there was one thing that kept freaking me out... how in the world am I going to teach my daughter to read?!?!?!
I decided to use the Five in a Row curriculum because all these moms kept saying how their kids had learned to read using it.
I was a little skeptical but I went for it... this morning as we were getting ready to read our book of the week, A6 put her hand on my mouth and started to read the book for her brother and me!
She read every page stopping only when there was a particular word she didn't know how to read, (I helped her with those) she kept going till the very last page!!!!!

How did I reward my daughter for giving her Mommy a "you're not sucking at this" moment?

A new Webkinz of course!!

Math U See

This week for math we are learning to skip count! I'm going to take my time with this lesson, MUS came with a music cd and it has skip counting songs that we are going to learn!
We decided to take today off from school and do school tomorrow instead. Although I could still count today as a school day since they are playing in their computers, call it a computer lab day!

My Webkinz Garden

If I'm not careful this blog is going to turn into a Webkinz blog!! ha ha!
On my previous post I was talking about how the kids and I have vegetable gardens in our webkinz world and how everyday we have to maintain them. Water them, rake them and then harvest them.
It is a great way for the kids to see what it takes to take care of a vegetable garden and to see the reward of all the hard work.
We have to wait 7 to 10 days for the vegetables to harvest, which for a kid can feel like an eternity, they are used to seeing results within seconds.

The kids are really looking forward to the harvest, they know all their hard work will pay off!
The food from the garden is healthier for the pets than the one from the WShop, they understand why that is as well.

Once I'm able to harvest lots of fruits and veggies I can show them how we can keep some to eat then sell some of them and make money like real farmers do!

Like I said before, very educational!

Another Gem of the Day

A6 found the gem of the day today!!

The Salamander Room

We are rowing the Salamader Room this week. This book is a lot of fun, insects, birds, frogs, lots of things the kids are interested in! The next few books are all about insects and we are starting to see lots of those around.

It's been so nice here the last couple of days, we spent a lot of time outside over the weekend.

We just set up our hummingbird feeder as well, haven't seen one yet. We also planted some seeds that are supposed to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, we have to water it everyday, the kids are getting a kick out of that..their first flower garden!

We are still loving our webkinz, A6 just got a garden on her backyard and she loves checking it everday and waiting for it to harvest. It takes 7 to 10 days for the veggies and the fruits to harvest. Very educational!!

For those of you familiar with Webkinz world, I found the gem of the day today.

The Webkinz Diamond, the hardest one to find!!!
I just wanted to brag a little.

I got W1000 for it!! SWEET!!!!

Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel

This week we are rowing Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, I also happen to have the book in dvd format. It's always fun to read the book then watch the book!

We only have 5 more weeks of school, we've been doing two math lessons a week and it's been going pretty good. We are going to continue to do Reading made easy and Math U See through the summer, two days a week and then take the whole month of July off.

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself...

Webkinz

Webkinzs have invaded our home!
It's been impossible to post anything on the blog because my computer's been busy playing webkinz :)

It all started last Friday during COOP, a lot of the kids brought their webkinz for show and tell.
Some of them had more than one, a few had 4 and 5 of these things.

I decided to investigate, was this another beanie baby craze??

It turns out your webkinz can be adopted online, then you have an online alter ego of your webkinz and he comes with a room which you can furnish, and if you earn enough money you can buy lots of other rooms and furnish them and so on. The trick is to get as much money as possible. You do this by playing games, answering trivia and doing daily activities that earn you money on webkinz land. The more webkinz you have the more rooms and money you get which is why some of my neighbor kids have anywhere from 4 to 9 webkinz. Also, you have to go to special places to buy them, you can't just go to Walmart and get them.

A6 was having a little friend coming over on Saturday for the whole day, and the little girls' Mom gave me their webkinz password so that the girls could play it. Dh and I decided to get her and X3 a webkinz of their own.
Well ... mommy and daddy had so much fun getting everything set up for the kids that we decided to get our own webkinz!!
Let's just say I can see now why one webkinz is not enough. A6 bought a second one, spending her own money, (A6 never spends her own money) mommy and daddy also got a second one!
X3 can only handle playing with one for now, I'm sure that will change!

If you don't hear from me for a while, you know what I'm doing!!

Amber on the Mountain

This week we are rowing Amber on the Mountain, a book about a girl who wants to learn how to read and write.
We are going to be hitting math pretty hard this week so we can catch up, we've gone three weeks without doing any math other than math games.
Playing webkinz has helped since A6 always wants to know how much money she needs to buy things for them.

COOP is over so that gives us our Fridays back, Thursday will continue to be library day and Friday we'll do math as well.
We've been doing crafts and music as well. We've also been watching books on dvd.

Easter

I hope you all had a great Easter. We sure did! Between Good Friday Camp and the Easter egg hunt we had a great time. I'll be posting lots of pics soon. Today I'm cleaning all of Easter away:)
I'm also doing some lesson planning that I didn't get to do last week.
I'm very tempted to take the next three days off to do just that and start school on Thursday.

We are going to focus on math and reading for the next few weeks and since the weather is getting nicer we'll have lots of nature study trips and crafts.
For music we are doing Vivaldi The Four Seasons, Spring my favorite!
Check back soon for pics.

March update

March has turned out to be a busy month for us, not because we have tons of stuff to do but because we've been sick. Yesterday I got the chills at Church, I came home and had to call Dh because all I wanted to do was lay in bed. I thought I had the flu, I didn't get out of bed today till after 11. A6 got breakfast ready for herself and her brother!! She knows Mommy is not feeling well. X3 took another super nap almost 4 hrs, it seems after he uses his energy to play or be outside or whatever as soon as we get home he needs to take a looong nap. His body is still recovering I guess. It's so hard to tell with him. One minute he's jumping around playing, the next he's passed out on the couch. I hope we will all be feeling much better by the time Nina and Granpa get here.

I have pictures of A6 at her dance class trip, I'll be posting them as soon as I get them from the phone. The dancing thing is out, she had fun at the dance studio but she is not interested in learning how to dance anymore.

We also went to the YMCA this past Saturday. The Daisy Scouts had a pool trip. It was only for an hour but she had tons of fun. Dh and I talked about it and we decided to make her a member of the Y so that she can take swimming lessons. It's a lot cheaper if you are a member.
I can still be there with her while the lesson is going on, I just can't get in the water which is fine with me.

Dh bought the movie Enchanted yesterday, it was wonderful it's so funny and romantic! A6 is watching it as I write this. X3 is playing in his computer. A6 tells me he's been playing games that are too difficult for her to play. Boys just seem to do much better with computer or video games than girls for some reason.

This week we have Good Friday Camp then on Saturday we have the Easter egg hunt and bike race, I hope the weather is nice for the egg hunt. No rain! Sunday of course is Easter. Dh has a special meal planned for Easter, he's going to get to use his new toy a dutch oven or French oven.
I think it takes like 4hrs to cook. This should be interesting!

Holy Week

It's been a while since I posted anything, X3 got the stomach flu, he was vomiting all night which meant that we were up all night. He's feeling a little better. It's a good thing we have this week off because of Easter, we have lots of books to read but that's all we're doing.
A6 just got back form a dance class. The Daisy Scouts had a dance class field trip. She is not very flexible, she enjoyed the class okay, but told me she doesn't want to do dance class.
Well, dancing with the stars is about to start, I'll finish this post later.

What we are doing in March Part II

We had a busy week. Since we were sick the week before some things didn't get done, so this past week I've been playing catch up. We just finally got all the laundry done and put away.
The warmer it gets the more we want to be outside! Library day was wonderful as well.
We just got all these books about Easter and egg hunts, I'm still looking for St Patty's day one.
COOP went really well, I can't believe we only have 2 more Fridays of it. The kids are really going to miss it. We've been talking about having a Park day for the kids after COOP is done.
I would love to do something like that!




This week we are rowing The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Since next week is Holy Week we are going to have it "off". Which means we are going to be doing Easter activities and we'll keep reading Easter books just for fun!!! It's funny, we seem to do so much better when we are doing school things "for fun". A6 is really getting there as far as reading. I had this book schedule for last week but A6 wanted to do another one instead. So last week we read Albert. It has to do with Cardinals building a nest on Albert's hand. She loved it and even read a little bit from it.

We are done with HWT Letters and Numbers for Me. I asked A6 if she wanted to start the next one, My Printing Book right away or wait till Aug and she chose to wait. She gets to do writing everyday anyways, so we can wait! Her writing is getting much better as well. She flips some of her letters and numbers but I've been told that's normal.

I've been thinking about music lessons, specifically piano lessons. I found this site KinderBach, which other Moms that I know are using and I really like it. I like the fact that you can get away with using just a keyboard to teach piano. A6 has a huge keyboard she got for XMas.
She can learn the basics then when she is older and wants to continue we'll pay for actual lessons.
I guess eventually we'll have to buy a real piano... that's what tax refunds are for!!
I've heard over and over again how learning how to play a music instrument helps kids do so much better academically. Also learning a foreign language! Thank God we don't have to pay anybody to teach her that!!

X3 is doing good, still has a bit of a runny nose, he is using the potty all the time now!!!!! He refuses to wear pull ups to go anywhere, only to go to bed.

The kids are looking forward to Nina and Granpa coming for Easter!

What we are doing in March Part I

We are all feeling much better this week, the weather was beautiful yesterday! The kids got to go outside and play with their friends most of the afternoon.
I'm getting together a March reading list, since Thursdays is library day I decided to make a list of books to read for the month.
This month is all about Easter, bunnies, duckies, jelly beans!! Also about the real reason for Easter!
We have a lot of Easter books already, but It'll be fun to look some books up while at the library!
I'll be posting the list as soon as I'm finished!

Last Day of February!

It is leap day! is that what they call Feb 29..leap day? It's also my brother's birthday!

Happy Birthday Manuel!!

I'm still sick, can't talk at all, had to skip COOP this morning.
We had such a wonderful outing yesterday! We went to the library with other homeschoolers from our church. Then we walked to the Pizzeria. The kids has a GREAT time! Us moms as well.
I thank God that I get to see my kids build relationships with these wonderful kids.
We are planning to do this every Thursday for the next few months.

Tonight is the ladies Night Out, I'm looking forward to that!!!!

February got to me...Again

Every year I get really sick during the month of February. This year was looking good, but it got me. Sunday night it started and by Monday morning I was miserable. I laid on the couch all morning , A6 did a little bit of school, I have Make Way for Ducklings on a DVD so we were able to watch the book instead of me reading it. She picked a sentence from the book and drew the ducklings crossing the street, it was a cute drawing!

I'm not feeling that great today, I don't think I'll be going to the Ladies Bible study. I want to make sure I'm feeling better for Clubs, plus the weather is not going to be that great today, freezing rain followed by rain. What a way to end February.

Dark Side of the Moon

Last night while we were coming out of the church around 8:45pm we noticed a shadow on the moon. We were told that the Earth was casting a shadow on the moon.
Later I found this:
North Americans will be able to see a total lunar eclipse Wednesday. The next will be Dec. 21, 2010, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Web site.

A lunar eclipse only can happen on a full moon, when the moon, as it orbits the earth, passes into the earth’s shadow for a few hours, that's what we saw. When the shadow covered the whole moon it looked like it was 3D or something..it was great!!

Happy Birthday B_Pa!

Reading For Fun Week

I'm taking a break from FIAR this week. A friend from church lent us some kids books and A6 really wants me to read them to her. So instead of creating a lesson from each book, I'm just going to read them for fun, as many times as she wants me to.
Here's a list of the books we borrowed.

• Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner
• Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino
• Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II
• Tacky the Penguin
  
• Tackylocks and the three Bears by Helen Lester
• George and Martha by James Marshall
• Mr Putter and Tabby fly the plane
• Mr. Putter & Tabby feed the fish
• Mr. Putter & Tabby paint the porch by Cynthia Rylant

After we read each book I'll pick a sentence for her to copy and something for her to draw and that will be our school for this week!
We are going to keep reviewing the words she's learned so far using RME. As for math, we are still using manipulatives for adding and she seems to be getting that just fine!
I need to start thinking about what book I'm going to be reading the kids for COOP this Friday.

We had a busy weekend, shape and race set up, then the actual race, clean up... Dh crashed most of the day Sunday while watching the Daytona 500. My children were very disappointed Jr. didn't win. He's the only driver we know!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Thank you for the cards Nina!
Here is a card for you and B-Pa!