Story of the World Year 2, Week 1

I was so excited to start this year because it covers knights and medieval times. How cool is that? We always start with a get to know you kind of activity to kick the year off. Their homework for the first week was to design their own coat of arms. Each symbol or picture on it had to represent something about themselves. Then on the first day they shared them with each other. It was definitely a great way to learn a lot about their families and hobbies.
Then when we actually read about knights in class we colored these awesome cardboard shields I found at Oriental Trading. Our last day of tutorial we always do a dress up review day so my plan is that if they want they can hold onto their shields, swords and other things we make to use in their costume. Again, it was fun to see how they chose to decorate their shield. We looked at several examples on the Internet and in reference books which helped inspire them.

Cutting Practice...

I probably saw this on a blog somewhere but don't really remember for sure, but when we got out our new pocket chart and there were strips in them my wheels started turning. I also had found some crinkled pages of Clifford stickers the boys had messed with, so instead of throwing them both away I decided to make something to give the boys some cutting practice. I just stuck stickers along the strip and drew lines between them for the boys to cut along. I cannot believe how much they enjoy this, especially Will. Every time I have strips of paper now I make more. I leave them out on their desk where they can use them when they want. They use them as fast as I make them and are some cutting experts now!

Mommy Got an iPad!!!!

I have been asking for an iPad for a few months never really believing it was a possibility, but when my birthday started coming around the corner my amazing husband got onboard. He actually just took me to Target one night at 8:00 with all 4 kids a few hours before I left for a week long trip I hadn't packed for and told me to pick one. Sadly, I don't do spontaneous well and couldn't bring myself to spend that much money without mulling it over, and over and over...

So, about a week later he finally convinced me that we should just go for it (ironic, huh?). Of course, I later realized that I married an evil genius because I paid for half of it out of my school budget and picked out my own gift!
Since then I have had to referee 56,326,354,564 fights over whose turn it is to play on it, but I've also sneakily downloaded tons of educational games for them to play. I guess that makes me Mrs. Evil Genius ;)
I can't wait to share all the ways we've discovered to use it in our homeschool. Maybe I can even actually blog all the things I want to since on my iPad I can take a picture and then blog it thus eliminating the waiting to download pictures wait time (can you hear angels singing right now? I sure can!).

Why I Haven’t Done a Sensory Box in a While…

I love sensory boxes. I have an entire board on my Pinterest account where I put all the cute ideas I find for them. I do have plans to do another one soon, but then I remember the feeling of picking up all the little pieces and the look my husband gives me that I have lost my mind. I guess I can't blame him. Our "Going on a Bear Hunt" tub turned into this:

I guess a lot senses were being engaged at least!

Double Trouble Fun...

I am ashamed to say that I don't spend enough time working with the boys as I should. When you are #3 and 4 your over siblings often overshadow you. On this day however, the big kids were gone and I was determined to do something with Will and Wesley. There is nothing they love more than popsicles so I thought it would be fun to teach them how to make their own. They helped me make Koolaid and pour it into popsicle molds. They were surprisingly great about taking turns and letting each other have a chance at all the different things.

They were so preciously excited to be helping mommy. Such a simple thing but such a great memory. The only thing that wasn't so great was how they didn't understand it took a really long time for popsicles to freeze...

Homemade Goodness...

We have this wonderful Aunt Donnie who is quite the seamstress, and lucky for me she only sews for my kids (pretty awesome, right?). Occasionally as I am blog surfing I see really cute homemade goodies and just happen to send her a link...

And because she has the ability and time to focus and follow through (unlike me) she will shortly show up at my door with some homemade goodness.

I'm really working with the boys on their numbers so was very excited to see these cookies with different "chocolate chips" to count on one of my favorite blogs, Counting Coconuts.

Since the twins are their father's child I knew this activity where they got to go fishing to practice counting would be a big hit:

I saw this button board on Tired, Need Sleep and knew I needed one :)
The possibilites are endless with this board: fine motor skills, shapes, colors, patterning and maybe even learning how to button their jeans back after, well you know.

So, here's a little bloggy love to our crafty Aunt Donnie. We are SO glad you retired :)

2010-2011 School Year In Review...

I went through some pictures to share for the slide show at our tutorial slide show. I'm always hard on myself because I always dream more things than it is possible to do, but I didn't really feel like this was our best year. Mostly because we were so busy with other things which really took us away from school more than it should have. Monday we were mostly home, but we were always tired and slow to start. Then Jackson had guitar lessons. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the twins went to Mother's Day Out at our church. I thought we'd get more done with them at school for a few hours. Some days we did but getting up and getting out and then having to pick them up... Of course, then there was also the thrill of only having two children and luring me to Target! Wednesday I had to take them to speech therapy, and Friday was our tutorial. All this kept us going and going and not as much school happening as I would've liked.

My main goal this year is to streamline our life and not allow the HOME part be removed from our homeschool! Yet, when I looked back through the pictures I had taken maybe we got more accomplished than I gave us credit for- more important things at least, like field trips, projects, quality time. That's worth getting behind in a few workbooks any day, right?

So, here are some of our 4th/2nd grade highlights. We always take "first day" pictures. Aren't they cute? Of course, Will wouldn't cooperate :(

Every year we always raise butterflies. I couldn't believe how into it the twins were this year! Will especially was amazed and loved everything about the entire process.

Of course, I love the educational value and all, but I have to say the great pictures I usually get on release day inspires me in no small part :)

We had a great time on "Release Day". We use orange slices to entice the butterflies to hand around a bit. The twins loved it, but it was a challenge to keep them from eating the orange slices :)
Of course, Jackson is in his happy place any time animals are involved:

One of our favorite field trips of the year is the Trade Days at Traveler's Rest where they have lots of reenactors showing trades from the 1800's. My kids definitely inherited my love of history and always want to stay there all day!

They have lots of fun stations for the kids to make things:

But this year BY FAR their FAVORITE thing was the washing clothes station. I cannot begin to explain how much they loved this. They washed clothes for probably 30 minutes and were upset when we had to leave! Maybe I need to set something like this up at home. I'll take all the laundry help I can get!

We started off the year with a fun unit about TN History. Of course, Ashton was all about the crafts and her iris turned out beautiful:

These two were working on their diaramas for our history fair. Maggie made a Native American scene and Jackson created Fort Nashborough. Ashton made Ruby Falls.

We took a field trip to the Bicentennial Mall which is wonderful. On the giant map of TN Jackson found his namesake city. We played lots of great games on this giant map to learn the geography of our state. I love this place.We also went to Fort Nashborough to see the beginnings of our great city.

Every year our homeschool group has a History Fair. It's the first event we ever participated in and remains our favorite. This year we presented our TN history projects. It came out pretty awesome. We made lifesize research reports of famous Tennesseans and wrote acrostics with their names and facts about them. Maggie chose Nancy Ward. Ashton chose Grace (?) a famous opera singer mostly so she could draw a pretty dress :)

Jackson, of course, chose Andrew Jackson.

They also did a leaf collection. I gave them a menu of project choices to complete like watercolors of the state symbols, flip books of facts, maps of the 3 grand divisions, Q is for duck flip book (including facts like V is for TN because it is the Volunteer State). Ashton also worked with her Aunt Donnie and sewed a state flag. They were all so wonderful we almost didn't have enough display room!

They also insisted on dressing up. Maggie was Nancy Ward. Jackson was Davy Crockett, and Ashton was a little girl from the Civil War.

What a great day to show off lots of hard work!

This year we had the amazing opportunity to participate in a tutorial. I taught Story of the World to grades 2nd, 3rd and 4th which meant that I got to have both kids in my class! It was great teaching in a "classroom" setting again, and the kids loved it and made some great friends. They both took anatomy which included dozens of fun experiments. Jackson took an IEW class, and his writing was really improved by the end of the year. Ashton was in heaven in her Meet the Masters art class. They both took sign language which to be honest I was a little unsure about at first. However, their teacher was phenomenal and they both took to sign language and were quite good at it.

I only remembered my camera about twice. This is Jackson in my class making a mosaic when we studied Rome.

On the last day of my class everyone got to dress up like Romans. My history loving kids had chosen to be Romans for Halloween this year, so that was easy :)

So, as I look back it truly was a great year. Homeschooling is such an honor and a blessing. I'm even more excited about this year and looking forward to many more years spending time and making memories with my 4 little blessings.