Where are YOU on the food chain?

Ah... love the smell of fresh baked cookies. Especially when I am not the one having to make them, bake them and clean up the mess after them.

We went on our first field trip of the year, and it was to a local company called Bud's Best Cookies. It was so much fun! We got on a "train" and were ridden around the factory. The girls thought it was so exciting to see the cookies being cut out, "Mom, there are TONS of cookies in there!", to going through the huge oven and getting to ride on the conveyer belt. Unfortunately, because of the company also packaging for other "name" brand companies, we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the factory. But, here are the girls getting ready for the tour:

Aren't those hair nets cute?!

The main curriculum that I use, My Father's World, uses a book called Drawing With Children (see sidebar). We are having a lot of fun with it, and I am so proud of the girls and what they are accomplishing. Here is what they created today:

Brianna's Bird with Berry on a Limb

Kirsten's Bird on a Limb Full of Berries

In science, we have started a study of animals, and have been talking for the past few weeks about how animals live. We learned about where animals live, how they can protect themselves or hunt using camouflage and today we learned about what they eat. The girls had lots of fun making a mobile of a food chain:

I was so surprised when Kirsten told me the the owl ate the mouse and the mouse ate the nut. This was before we even started the lesson! (Yes, little things excite me ;-) ) It was also fun helping them say herbivore and carnivore. That was some tongue tied fun!

As a side note, and because I can hear it now and it reminds me, I found at the Teacher and Parent Store a CD called Beethoven's Wig. The girls have been listening to this almost nonstop now for almost a week! It is really great, and if you want to intro classical music to your dc, then I recommend getting it. There are four of them, and we only have the first, but I am hopeful to get the rest soon. They are at the library, too, so I am going to get them from there until I can buy them. Here is a link to check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Beethovens-Wig-Sing-Along-Symphonies/dp/B000060OLA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1253676428&sr=8-1

Just so you know, Beethoven's wig is VERY big!

What a Summer!

Whew! Even though I know that summer hasn't officially come to an end, I am going to declare it over at my house. Now that school has started back around us, and ballet lessons are on again, it is time to STOP all the hectic running around. I am ready for the cooler days were you stay inside and cook comfort food and have hot chocolate.

We have had a fabulous summer this year. We even got in some school work! When I decided that we would school year round, I didn't realize how hard that would be to do during the summer. The call of the outdoors is just too strong for in depth, serious studies. (That, or I am just a pushover for anything more fun. I'm blaming it on the outdoors.) We had our scheduled family vacation in Gulf Shores, AL, which was a BLAST! The girls are still bemoaning that we are here and not there. "I wish we were at the beach RIGHT NOW, Mom." Check out the pics by following the link on the side bar to our family photo album.

I had for almost a year been telling Michael (dh) about wanting to go to Little River Canyon in north east AL. For some reason, he had been resisting going, and then schedules get in the way, and weather... Last month I finally got him to go. Once there, you would have thought it was all his idea, and it was me, ME mind you, that had kept us from all the fun. It so inspired him that after our day trip, we came home, got tons of camping gear, and back to the canyon we went for an over-nighter. This was my first time camping, and the girls', and I have to say... They LOVED it! Me... not so much. Well, it was ok, I just didn't like the yellow-jackets landing on my food while I was cooking it (yes, that is WHILE it was being cooked), and then swarming us while we were trying to sit down and eat it. The girls and I took shelter in the tent to eat, and Michael stayed at the picnic table with the wasps. He was probably asking God why He thought it so funny to surround him with just girls. My husband is an Eagle Scout, and has a wife and two daughters. Poor him. The only other male in the family is a cat, and I don't see the scouts letting him in, no matter that he's male.

Anyway, after dinner, we sat down to have s'mores! Well, they had burned and/or undercooked marshmallows, and chocolate with gram crackers. Me, I had some Aleve, and a great desire to pack up and go home. I hate having headaches; they ruin all the fun. The girls loved "cooking" over the fire, and we had a time of telling them to stop running so close to it, "You're going to trip and fall into the fire!" Kirsten was bound and determined to do just that. She kept tripping over the big rocks of the fire pit and taking my heart with her.

Finally, it was time to go to bed. I don't sleep well in the best of circumstances, so being in a tent in the middle of the woods with all the BUGS around. Well, there was plenty of sleeping going on around me, at least. Then, the ants came. These big, black wood ants. I don't know if there were any around Kirsten, as she was on the other side of the tent, but Brianna was beside me, and I kept getting them off of her. I don't know if it was ten or the same one coming back for more, but it was annoying. I think it was just the one, because there ended up being one in the bed with me and Michael. It decided to have a taste of my leg, and the whole canyon got to hear me sing. It kinda got tore to pieces during all the limb flailing, and I didn't see anymore after that. Surprisingly, the girls just slept right on.

The next day, we packed up everything back into the car, and headed out to the swimin' hole. There are several places to go swimming down in the canyon, and we were fortunate to find the best one on the first try. It is about a 15 to 20 minute hike down, but so worth it. There is a pool about ten feet deep, and a huge rock to jump from. We have pictures, so check them out. We went up to the falls to swim, too, but the camera got left in the car. Bummer. We really did have a lot of fun, and I hope we can do some more camping before the weather gets too cold. If not, there is always the spring.

I finally got us back into some kind of schedule at school. I discovered a scheduling system through some of the homeschool forums and blogs that I follow called workboxes. I have set that up and it seems to be working very well for us. I will have to take pictures and post them on here. It has mostly solved the problem of when do I do what with which child. All the things that we do together are done first during a "Group Time", like singing our hymn of the month, Bible, memory work (right now it is still the pharaohs of ancient Egypt), history or science, a read aloud, and art if we have it that day. Then, we move to the workboxes. Those have the things they can do independently and those that have to be done with me. It took a while to figure out how to fill the boxes so that there wasn't an overlap of working with mom boxes, but for the most part I have that figured out. Not always, so I have to tell one or the other to do something else quietly (what's that?!), or move on to the next independent box. However, so far, we are getting a lot more accomplished and having fun doing it.

Well, now that summer is over here, and school is back in session, hopefully I will be able to keep up with the posting. We shall see!

Mom, I Can't Believe I'm in First Grade Now

It's finally here! The first day of First Grade! What a day. I will say, it was not as exciting as I had planned in my head. You know the dreams you have while poring over new curriculum... they will LOVE this! and they will LOVE that! Oh, how reality comes and bites us in the, well.

We did have a good first day. The problem is figuring out the timing of everything. I know that we will be doing Bible first every day. When am I supposed to do spelling? English? History? Math? Where does it all fit in? And how do I teach two different levels at the same time???? Thankfully, a lot of what we are doing this year can be done together. Bible, history, science and some math and English can be done together. However, handwriting, most math, reading, spelling, phonics, ok most of the language arts have to be done separate. How do I keep one occupied while trying to work with the other? All things that will get hashed out as we go along this year. The beginning of K wasn't very smooth, either.

I started out with a plan this morning, but it quickly fell apart. Kirsten's attention span isn't long enough to work on same subjects/different levels right now. I think that tomorrow I am going to begin with Bible, put Brianna to work reading for her Summer Reading program, and work with Kirsten on her things before bringing them back together for our science lesson. After that, Kirsten will be free to go and Brianna can have her turn with me. We will see how this plays out tomorrow.

Until then, is it normal to squeal with delight when the mailman comes? (I have more books for this year on the way. Oh, the anticipation...)

End of the School Year Wrap-up

Oops. I seem to have lagged on my posting.

The end of the school year is finally here (well, and gone). We actually did do some school work on the last day of kindergarten:Here is a picture of Brianna working on her math facts.

Before that, though, we did have one more field trip. We went to the McWane Center in Birmingham. The girls just love to go there. They never get tired of it.I'm not really sure what this is supposed to be teaching them, but they are having fun doing it!Here Kirsten is digging for dino bones in an archaeology exhibit. There are so many hands on activities for the kids to do, and they are fun for the grown-ups, too!

We have also been spending a lot of time at the YMCA at the pool. After being away from the pool for the winter, the girls need time to remember what they learned last summer in their swim lessons. Especially since I put Brianna in a class this summer based on what she learned last summer. She seems to have forgotten everything! Aah! The more we go, though, the more it comes back, so I hope they won't demote her. Kirsten won't have any trouble with her class, I don't think. She will be in a class that doesn't expect quite so much. We'll just have to wait and see. Lessons begin on the 15th, so be watching for that.

Before kinder ended, we also got to celebrate Brianna's sixth birthday. I can't believe my baby is six! (Don't we all say that?) She had a great day, and we had lots of family and friends with us. To those who could not make it, we missed you, and hope you will be able to be with us next time!

We are now in our first school break of the summer. I don't think any of us are taking it very well. LOL Friday, May 29th, was our "last" day. Saturday, Sunday after church, Monday and today has found me in the classroom doing "school". Mostly planning and scheming for the beginning of next year. That would be June 8. Brianna has been telling me every day that, "school starts on June 8th, I wish it was TODAY!"

I have been working on getting all our lessons all planned out, and everything ready for the first day. I'm glad I have been doing this now, and not this weekend, because I found some things lacking, and have made a huge shopping list of supplies for our science and history lessons this summer. I am so excited, I can't hardly stand myself! (Is it normal to be this excited about school???)

Here, the sad, naked wall after all the kindergarten projects have been taken down. All that is left is our calendar and the morning, afternoon, evening, night clock. New for first grade is the 100s chart for Kirsten, the timeline you see at the bottom that we will be using in Bible lessons, and (not in the picture because I just put it up today), the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt chart that we will be memorizing. I haven't decided if we are going to be memorizing the Chinese dynasties or just the Roman Kings and first 20 Roman Emperors. If Brianna shows a lot of interest in ancient China, then we might venture the list, but if not, I won't worry about it.

Well, there is the wrap-up and even a sneak-peek at the new year. I will putting our 09-10 school year curriculum in the sidebar shortly, so you can see what it is we will be studying this year. For now, I need to take the break that I scheduled! LOL See you next year! (Yea, it's only 5 days away, so it's not like waiting for Lost to come back on or anything. ;-) )

Parties and Popcorn Plants

Kirsten had a great time at her end of the year party in ballet. It was hard to get her to be still long enough to get a picture! The girls sat and watched their dance from the recital and had plenty of cupcakes, cookies and candy. I would have gotten pictures then, but the teacher had turned out the light, and when I tried to take pictures, they just wouldn't turn out.

Well, we have been using the new schedule for the past few days now, and it seems to be working. Brianna is still hard to keep on task, but for some reason, it doesn't take us as long to get math done. We are almost finished with our study of quails (birds) and the letter "Q". Time has begun to really fly for me. The end of the school year is two weeks away, and I can't believe it. We only have one more unit in our lessons, and then we will be doing about four days of just math and reading lessons. That will be a nice change of pace. Then we have a whole week off! Yea!

I thought an update on the popcorn would be nice:

I am going to have to throw it out here shortly. We can't have a corn plant growing on the kitchen window sill for ever!

Short and Sweet with Candy On Top

Thankfully, today was a short day. We wrapped up our study of vegetables today with finishing the bean experiment (did you know there is a tiny baby plant in there?!), and read The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The girls really enjoy Beatrix Potter's tales. Their grandmother found a video collection of them animated, and they have been watching them over and over again.

Tomorrow, we will begin studying the letter "Q", and learning about quails and birds in general. This is our next to the last unit study, and I am so excited! I am looking forward to the end of school, but I am especially looking forward to the beginning of first grade. I am really excited about the new curriculum and the different scheduling. I really hope it helps with the dawdling. There are a lot of hands on activities, which I know the girls will like. I like doing them, too. We are even going to be mummifying a chicken! I know, right?! I will be sure to take lots of pictures to share that one. lol

Brianna had her End of the Year ballet party today. It was fun. The girls got to see the video of their dances for the first time (well, we've seen our video, but not the "official" one from the school), and it was fun to watch all of them giggle and laugh over themselves. Plus, they got to eat lots of snacks and candy.

Brianna, you are supposed to eat the candy, not put it on your head!

Come back next time for some interesting facts about quails. Are there any interesting facts about quails?

Watch Me Grow

We finished up our study of the letter "X" and foxes, and have now begun studying the letter "V" and vegetables. I think the girls are really enjoying it. We have sprouted popcorn, and are soaking pintos in water to be able to open them to see the tiny "baby" plant inside.

I have started trying a new schedule for school. I have been having some trouble getting Brianna to stay on task. She is so bad about wasting time and dawdling. We were doing math first thing in the morning after reviewing our Bible verse. Something that should take about 40 minutes, has slowly turned into 2 hours!!! Yuck! Everything else in our schedule only takes between 10 and 30 minutes to do, depending on how involved the subject is that day. I was talking to Michael about the problem, and he suggested doing math at a different time. I know, right?! Duh!!! Anyway, on Friday, I gave that a try, and I was amazed at how much it helped. It was so great to get everything done in about 2 and half hours like it is supposed to, and not 4 or 5. She did still dawdle, but not quite as bad, and it was easier to bring her back on task. I hope that it continues to be that way. I am open to mixing it up some, though. If I have to, we will swap up days were sometimes we do math first, sometimes last. I don't know, we'll just have to wait and see.

We are headed ever faster to the end of the year. I can't believe how fast it has gone by! Tomorrow is the last day of ballet for Brianna, and Tuesday is Kirsten's. They are having parties to celebrate their accomplishments of the year. I am going to try to remember to bring the camera. We are signed up and ready for next year. They had lots of fun, and are sad that they won't be going to ballet through the summer. Maybe swim lessons will soften the disappointment. LOL

Dance the Afternoon Away

We have had a full weekend! On Friday, we went to the final support group field trip of the school year. (My how time flies!) We went to the Alys Stephens Center to watch Alice's Even Bigger Tea Party, and this time, Daddy got to go with us! The play was wonderful. We had front row center and we got to sing along with the characters. We all had a great time.

After the play, we got some lunch, and headed to the ballet rehearsal. Boy was I stressed! Two girls in the dance, three different dances and three different costumes. Yea, I was up to my eyeballs in spandex, sequins and feathers. It was great! I am thankful for the summer break, though. It will be nice to be able to stay at home on Monday and Tuesday nights. We will have a breather, and get rested for next year. The girls have already told me they want to take again next year. I love it! Here are a few pictures of the girls in their costumes:

After the rehearsal, we took the girls to their grandparents' house, and me and Dad got a chance for an evening together. We went out to dinner and got to watch a movie. We had Chinese food, yum!, and saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It was so cute! Even Michael enjoyed it, though he blows it off. I heard him laughing during the movie. He can't fool me!

There are only about 3 weeks left in the school year, and I am so ready for a break. I have decided that we are going to go year round, so there won't be a very long break, but we will have a week off. Brianna's birthday is also this month, so we will be celebrating the big 6 soon. It is going to be a pretty crazy month, but I am looking forward to it.

Oh, on Thursday, we had a good time finishing up our study of foxes. I have pictures of the girls doing their science experiment. We did an experiment to see if bigger ears would help us hear better. Foxes have large ears, and very good hearing. We found out that if our ears were bigger, we would be able to hear better and more.

I will leave you with pure joy:

Isn't that fun?!

Another Day, Another Penny

I decided today that we would take our classroom to the out-of-doors. Well, out of the kitchen door onto the screened in back porch, anyway. The weather has been so nice this past week, I just couldn't stay in the house. Not to mention, we haven't turned the air conditioner on yet, and upstairs gets well into the 80's pretty quick.

The girls did pretty well in their new place. There wasn't too many requests to go outside and play. Although, math took us about twice as long as it usually does. It is the subject that takes up most of our time right now, though. We have a lot to cover. We are using Saxon Math 1, which is the 1st grade math curricula, and it has 3 different sections to cover, not including the "homework" sheet. We begin with the "math meeting" where we talk about the calender, what day, month and year it is, what our shape pattern is for the month, the weather, the time (morning vs afternoon)... We added two more things to the list this morning: a number pattern (3, 4, 5, , , what's missing?), and the coin cup. Today, the cup had 7 pennies and we counted them and talked about pennies, how much they are worth and what the cent symbol is. They enjoyed that a lot. There is just something about money, no matter how little the amount.

Then we did a sheet with the shape blocks again. Oh, jeeze, I hadn't blogged since we played with the shape blocks the first time. I need to keep up better! Anyway, the sheet had different shapes that the girls had to cover with the blocks. There were different ways to cover each one, and it was neat to see how they covered them up. When Brianna discovered that Kirsten was doing her's differently, she wanted to change hers to match Kirsten's. I told her not to do that, that they didn't have to be the same. We ended up talking about cheating, too, because she wanted to look around me to see what Kirsten had done. I don't know why, but they are both on this "we have to do/have/be the same" about everything right now. Girls, you are different, and that's good!

Next we covered some spelling and rhyming words, and did our reading lesson. Brianna is doing so well, I am excited to start her on the grammar lessons come June. I really think she is going to like learning new things, and having some things be a little bit harder for her. Right now, everything is so easy, she gets frustrated/board(?) and tells me she doesn't want to do some thing. I get, "No, no, don't make me do that" quite a bit. Good lesson in persevering. I know that it is not hard for her, she just doesn't want to do it. Especially something she has done more than two times.

Kirsten is doing well with her reading as well. She is still just beginning to figure out blending, but I know with continued practice, it will come. I can't wait for the moment when it completely clicks and she takes off. I am hoping by the end of summer, she will have it down.

The girls' ballet recital is coming up this weekend, so I will try to get some pictures of that. They are so cute in their costumes! We also have our final official field trip on Friday, so we are looking forward to that. Daddy gets to go with us this time, so that will be exciting. I'll let you know how it goes.

Awesome!

We had such a great day in school today. Right now the girls are outside (yea Spring!), and I am able to have a few moments to rest and get ready for the rest of the day.

We learned about using a balance in math today. The girls had a lot of fun putting different things on it to see which one was heavier or lighter. I had some containers with different things in them made up so that they couldn't see what was inside. We had fun trying to guess what they were and which ones would be the heaviest.

I am so excited for Kirsten today, too. She started blending sounds together!!!! YEA! I was excited yesterday when she started putting two sounds together, but today she was reading CVC words! That's consonant-vowel-consonant words. Yesterday we began "squishing" sounds together like a and t, a and n, or a and d. She hasn't fully got the hang of it yet, but as we went along, and started adding the third sound, like p-a-t, she started blending them all together. I started asking her what it was that she read, like when she read "hat", I asked her what we do with that. She told me we put them on our heads. That way, I knew that she had a picture of a hat in her head, and wasn't just repeating sounds. Once she started putting them together without a lot of help from me, the neighbors could have probably heard me cheering. Brianna actually told me that she didn't think I liked her as much as Kirsten anymore because of all the yeas and hurrays. Yea, that took a few minutes of explaining.

Brianna is reading things like "quests" and "depths" and "strength", as well as silent-e words. I forget sometimes to cheer her on, too, so I am glad she brought that to my attention. I do need to "yea!" her, too, more than I do. Tomorrow, she begins studying common spellings for the long A sound. I have to say, I am loving this phonics review for myself as well. I am hoping that I will become a better speller going through it with her. The book points out things that I have either forgotten or was never tought in the first place about why letter combinations say the the sounds that they do. Did you know that the English language has something like 74 sounds, but only 26 letters to represent them? It's no wonder it is so hard to learn to spell it. There are at least six different ways to make the long a sound alone! How do you decide which one it is???? LOL!

We will be wrapping up our study of frogs tomorrow with Frog and Toad are Friends. I loved that book when I was little, and I love that I am going to be able to share it with them. We have actually read it before, but it has been a while, so I don't know if Brianna will remember it or not. Probably, though. She has the memory of the young. Steal trap. Today, we made frogs from clay and discussed if we could make real frogs or not. Can you make a real live frog? No? Who can make a real live frog? "God!" I get with a HUGE smile on the face. It's just awesome.

It's Just Weird

I don't know about you, but I think it is just weird to hear words like "parallelogram" and "trapezoid" coming out of a five year old's mouth.

In our math lesson today, we started using shape blocks. Now, these are flat shapes, so I don't know why they are called "blocks" and they are not block-y at all. Only some of them are even square! I put a couple of hand fulls in front of Brianna and Kirsten, and they commenced to making all kinds of patterns with them. It was so fun to watch them make hexagons from trapezoids, and have them yell at me, "LOOK MOM! Look what I made!" Kirsten took some of the triangles and put them together. She said, "Look Mom, I made a pizza!" Michael was standing there and he and I both had to cover a laugh. It was just too cute. Brianna made a triangle out of some trapezoids and different sized star patternes with the parallelograms. Needless to say, math class was a hit today. I just love watching their faces as they try to figure stuff out. To see the understanding light their faces is one of the best things in the world. Thank You, Father, that I get to be the one to see it!

Handwriting is still a difficulty. Brianna just doesn't like practicing her letters. Numbers, either. I don't use a formal handwriting program right now, though, so I am hopeful that when we start one in 1st grade, she will do better. Kirsten is busting at the seams to learn to write. I know I should start her on her lessons, but I want to wait and begin it when we start the new school year. That will be in June, so she doesn't have that much longer to wait.

We will be wrapping up our study of frogs in the next few days. For our trip to VA, I went to the library and got two backpacks full of books. Some were just fun reading, but a lot of them were nonfiction. I got a couple books about frogs, and I got to hear all about them on the way up and on the way home. Brianna really enjoyed learning about them, and I think the things she learned will stay with her, since she discovered it for herself in the books.

Reading is coming along very well. Kirsten is on the verge of blending, and Brianna can read the newspaper now. Well, maybe not quite the whole paper, LOL. I am not sure what "grade" level you would put her reading on, but she is about ready for the smaller chapter books. She reads things I don't even know she can read. She has been doing that to me for at least a year now. Probably longer. She has got a lot of it from watching Between the Lions on PBS, so I am glad for that. I know that a lot of her reading is phonics based, but she does have more sight words memorized than I would like. I finally found a great reading program, so she is catching up in that area.

See you next time.

Home At Last

We are home again, and trying to get back into the swing of things. I am still on vacation mode, and not ready to get back to the old routine. I always seem to need a few days to get back to "real life".

Our trip was great. Seeing old friends is always a special treat. I will have a picture or two up soon, if I can remember to have the camera around me when I am at the computer!

Oh, and I discovered how to put music videos on my blog, so scroll all the way down to the bottom, and you can see where I want to go on my next "vacation".

April Fools! (meaning the day, not my post)

We had an extended school day today. We started out the morning, doing our usual routine of going over our Bible verse, and then moving into math. Our new Bible verse for the next month (we will be going out of town for two weeks, and I am not going to do any school. If I can help it.), is Proverbs 21:23. Once we finished math, we had to stop and meet family for lunch. Then we spent some quality time at the grandparents' house. We didn't get back until after 3 p.m., and we still had science, Bible and reading to get to. Thankfully, in kindergarten, none of these things is too involved.

Because of our going out of town, I decided to change the schedule up a little. Instead of reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar like we were supposed to today, I changed it to start our next unit study about frogs. That way, on Friday, the day we leave, we can do the caterpillar book and then be on our way. I hope to leave early, but we will have to see!

If you have any questions about scheduling, classical teaching methods, or anything else, please leave me a comment. I will get back to you. Maybe not for the next two weeks, though. It's vacation time!

Until next time...

"You mean caterpillars turn into butterflies?!"

For the past four school days we have been studying about butterflies and focusing on the letter Bb. We learned all about how the butterflies lay eggs (Just like chickens!), that hatch into caterpillars that eat and eat and eat and never sleep, that sheds its skin several times before it finally turns into a chrysalis, and then turns into a beautiful butterfly. For those who want a simple, yet very informative, book about butterflies, I highly suggest getting Watch me grow: Butterfly from DK Publishing. You can probably find it in the library.


As part of our study, we painted butterflies and made caterpillars. The girls had a great time using finger paint to paint the wings of their butterflies. Here they are: this one is Brianna's
And this one is Kirsten's

I wish I had pictures of them painting, but I never seem to have it around at the right moment. Ah, well, I will try to get better at it.

Today was also the day for memory verses to be recited without peeking, and Brianna nailed it! Yea! She likes to pick out the sticker that we put on the page once she has recited it to me by heart. Then we punch holes in it and put it in her notebook.

Well, thunder and lightening tell me to wrap it up, so until next time: How much can a caterpillar eat, anyway?

PS Please leave comments. I love to hear from you!

Side Note

Yes, the background has changed again. The background I made won't grow with my posts, so it ends up in the middle and nothing at the top and bottom. If anyone knows the HTML to make it grow with my posts, I would greatly appreciate it.

This will do for now. Maybe.

New Discoveries

We had a pretty good day in school today. We got a late start, and that always makes it harder. The girls want to go outside or play or watch a movie... I need to work on not starting late.

I have to brag a little on Brianna. Starting about six weeks ago, I started picking a Bible verse to memorize that goes along with our lessons. We go over it every day for two weeks. (I like this because it gets me memorizing, too, and I have been sorely lacking in that department!) Anyway, Brianna is doing so well that she usually has them memorized long before the two weeks is up, and she remembers them better than I do. I usually have to ask her, "Brianna, what was that verse we learned in Matthew, again?" I have done that so often now I think she is starting to roll her eyes at me. "Mom, can't you remember???" Maybe I need three weeks per verse.

Not to leave Kirsten out, she is learning them right along with us. She is so cute when she says the verses. She doesn't know them well enough to say them by heart completely, but she can say it with you. She does that with the Pledge, too. She can even tell you where your hands go and where you are supposed to look. They are both so cute!

The verses that we have learned so far are 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, Hebrew 4:13, and Matthew 16:26. My greatest hope is that these will stay with them for life, and become part of their beings. I know that God's Word does not come away empty, that it will accomplish what He sent it to do. (Isaiah 55:11)

Now, for those family members and friends who have not been able to come by the house for a visit, I have a couple of pictures of the classroom. Just in case you were curious.

Believe me, it is almost never this clean. I just couldn't bring myself to take pictures of it with books all over the floor and papers from craft projects strewn everywhere. What looks like the grocery store run amuck under that desk happens to be a grocery store. We use those in math when we are learning about money. Don't you remember playing store when you were in school? I do, and I always thought it was fun.

And, I have discovered something very fun and exciting that has been around forever but I had no idea it was out there: Lapbooking! For those who don't know what that is, don't worry, I didn't either. What it is is a file folder that has been folded in such a way that the tab and it's negative meet in the middle. Inside are all kinds of fun activities for the kids to do. This is the one I have started for going to the grocery store. Heaven knows that can be a challenge even on the best day with the children. Hopefully, this will help keep them occupied. This picture is of the basic folder. I have cut a second folder so that I could have a flip-up center to put more stuff on.

Here is some of the stuff.

And here is where I am trying to decide where I want all that stuff to go. You can see that I have the flip-up part, well, flipped up. ;-)

OK, well I guess that is enough for now. Maybe I will get a chance to post tomorrow, and you can see some other things that we have been learning about. What is a "pupa", anyway?

Tweeked Enough For Now

Well, after many hours of pulling my hair out, and realizing I didn't need the book after all, I think I am finally satisfied with the way my blog looks. I am proud of myself. The background I made myself with some wonderful elements I found on the web. Thank you to those who are creative and tech savvy enough to make them and post them for us less savvy to be able to use!

For now, I hope to just post about our adventure. But don't be surprised if you check back one day and it is all rearranged again! Ooh, I just remembered I wanted to make a special signature. Oh, well. A little more tweeking wouldn't hurt, would it?

A Work in Progress

I don't really like the way my blog looks. I am working on learning how to change things, and I got a book on HTML and other computer letters from the bookstore today. I guess I will be schooling me, too. (I knew that was going to happen, anyway! I love getting the refresher along with the girls learning.)

Anyway, keep posted and see if I can get the changes to actually work! LOL

The Beginning

After enjoying a few fellow homeschoolers' blogs, I have finally decided to join them. I am not sure how this is going to go, or if I will have much to say, but I thought it would at least keep the family updated as to what we were doing. So, stay tuned and we will see where this takes us!