Muffin Tin Monday

Here is what we did for Muffin Tin Monday this week. (We missed a couple weeks.) The theme this week was orange. We were able to use the silicon muffin cups I found at Target this week. :)


They had...

Mac 'n cheese, Natural Cheetos, orange slices, cheese chunks, carrot sticks and Kaden had a couple peanut butter crackers too. ( hey it was close in color.. :)

To see what others did for MTM click on the button to the right!

Homeschool Week in review 2/15-2/19

Meghan did great this week. We were out a couple days as I mentioned previously and when we are out it takes a looong time. We live 30 minutes from town and if we go to a bigger town, which we did, it takes even longer. We usually just decide to get a bunch of things done at once. So she was able to either get her work done early or double it up on the days we were home.
She did great on her spelling as usual. Math is going great too. She has been getting a page a day done in her Horizons book. Then she also has a book that reviews math facts and a book to review telling time. She only has to do one page a day but sometimes she just wants to keep going. It's an easy book and it's review so I don't mind. We read through our chapter in Farmer Boy. She learned about how they spent their Sundays back then. She is keeping up with her chapter a day reading as well. She wanted a book about ocean life when we were at the education store last so I got that for her and she has been reading that as well. I plan to do a study with her on that while she is interested. She is doing one to two pages in her Handwriting Without Tears book. She will be done with this book soon. The next book begins Cursive. I am not sure is I will have her go right into that one yet, we'll see. We got a placemat that is a wipeoff board with Cursive writing on it and she wanted to practice with that this week. She actually did really well with it. She came up to me and asked about how to connect the "o" in a word at one point but the rest she did on her own by looking at the mat.
She also had her 2nd riding lesson this week. She was very excited. I didn't go to this one but her teacher said she was doing great. She said that usually they need to be led around a bit longer but Meghan was ready to ride on her own after a few times being led around. So she spent most of the time riding on her own in a circular pen and gaining confidence with the horse. She was very proud and can't wait for next week.
Not many pics this week but here she is working on her computer on Spellingcity.com

It seems that we are probably going to be moving back to AZ in March. I think Meghan will be very excited. She misses her cousins and her grandparents and her friends. She'll be upset about the riding lessons maybe but (shh) I found some in AZ too. I have to contact the lady and make sure she can do it but I have her information and will work on that this week. We're also going to plan a birthday party for Meghan and Ellie. Meghan is 8 years old today! and Ellie will be 1 on March 10th. We are going to go to a little thing here with my sister in law and brother and their girls. Their daughter Matty will be 1 on March 6th so we want to do something with them before we leave. But once we are in AZ we'll have a big thing with all our friends and family. I'm excited although it's going to be a rush to get everything done. Now I have to ask Meghan what kind of party she would like to have. I have some sugestions. ;)

Tot School 2/15-2/19

Kaden is 34 months old

This week we have been pretty busy. Our main focus is potty training right now. We've had a couple days where we went out. He wore pull ups on those trips. Sometimes he will use the potty out but most of the time he won't. He's not comfortable on the big potty even with the little fold up seat we bought to put on them. At home: he has good days and bad days. Today is a good day. I would love to hear any tips and tricks you might have! The main thing seems to be taking him all the time. He still doesn't tell me when he has to go, he tells me after he's started or he just goes to the bathroom and it's too late, He still hasn't done #2 on the potty either. We have revisited him holding it a little as he didn't go for 3 days. SO still working on that and because he is running around in underwear all day I didn't take a lot of pictures. ;)
Other things he did this week...
- played with lego's
- used the wipe off book, tracing lines
- sorting pom poms
- playing with large blocks
- watched the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD
- reading books

Here are the few pictures I did get and this is the hat he wore this week. :)

Kids: Their always sticky! Most noticable in boys. HA

 

To see what others did this week check out 1plus1plus1equals1

Valentine's and Cousin's

Here the kids are opening their Valentines from Mommy and Daddy. They each got a new book. Meghan and Kaden also got a little notebook (Meghan turned hers into a diary, she loves notebooks), Kaden got stickers and Meghan a mini coloring book with stickers.

The beautiful flowers Nate got for me.

Nate holding the little people.

Kaden and Ellie hugging.

We went to see my brother and sister in law one day. I snapped a couple pictures. (This is where Kaden

was getting in the doggy pen).

Look at all that hair Matty has! She is 4 days older than Ellie but was suppose to be 10 days after. haha

Lily is getting so big!

Unsocialized Homeschoolers??

Many people question how homeschool kids gets learn real life skills. For some reason the general public thinks that you need to have your kids in a school setting so that they can learn how to deal with hard situations. Well WE know this isn't true.
I want to share this site. Please read the blog post here, on Smrt Lernins, about exposing our children to tough situations. It is just an amazing post and I completely agree. I just had to share!

Homeschool Weekly in review 2/8-2-12

Meghan had a good week. We didn't do a whole lot of extra things this week other than some Valentine's activities. She is still doing great in Horizons Math and started working more on the 3's multiplication tables. She finished her valentine's and we got those sent out. She actually made a valentine for me and one for her Daddy too. Very sweet! She also made me this cute picture!
                                  
The chapter book she is reading now is Disney Fairies: The Trouble With Tink. Here she is working on her spelling.

We read chapter 7 in Farmer Boy as well. Kaden likes to listen in to this also. She had vocabulary, math (liquid measurement) and she narrated the story back to me. She learned a little History in how they took baths back then and how much work it was to heat the water, made harder at this time in the story since it was winter in 40 below 0 temps. We talked about expanding and contracting again in water/ice (Science).

We actually got more done than I remembered now that I have it all down. One of the reasons I like documenting our days.

Tot School 2/8-2/12

Kaden is 34 months

This was a fun week! Kaden and Meghan were both in a valentine swap on my scrapbooking board. They were simple little things for them to do. Kaden added stickers to his. He loves stickers.

He was really funny with them. He had to put the like stickers together. He called them friends and they had to be next to each other.

He practiced some cutting.

He sorted foam hearts by color...

He used smaller hearts to trace an M...

He wanted to try writing some m's...

I got out this tracing book for him. It is a wipe off book. He did really well on the straight lines. I was surprised. Of course then he scribbled. lol

Isn't he cute!?! (Ignore the PB on his face. haha)

He is still loving Meghan's Lego's. I think he is going to need his own soon.

I thought it was sweet he was playing with Meghan's baby doll.

Another day we went to see my brother and sister in law and their kids. Kaden of course ends up in the dogs pen. It was funny and he was saying cheese to me once he saw me taking pictures.

The only other big thing this week is he is working on potty training. We kept talking to him about it and he wlould say no or "tomorrow" he'll do it. So I just decided we have to go for it. I think he is actually doing very well.

If you want to see what others were up to this week check out 1+1+1=1

Homeschool Week in review

I am a little behind getting this posted. We have been pretty busy this weekend and with the new week. Sorry!

Last week went very well though. Meghan started her new Horizon's math book and is doing really well with it. She is still practicing her addition, subtraction and multiplication facts online with vaious games also. She does very well with her multiplication, 0-2's 5's and 10's.
Meghan wanted to practice some oragami one day. I found these little books of different oragami pictures at Michael's in October when we were on vacation. They were on clearance for .25 too! She has really enjoyed them so I hope to find more sometime.

Here's her snowman. She says he is getting all wishy washy.. Well he's fallen over now.Just his behind is left.

Everything else was pretty much the same as last week. We didn't have any new, big or exciting happenings. Meghan was actually very disappointed as her 2nd riding lesson was cancelled. Sassy the horse she rides, had an absess in her hoof and has to sit out a couple weeks. Meghan will be able to go again on the 17th.

Meghan did finish the book she was reading. She was reading A Jigsaw Jones Mystery; The Case of the Secret Valentine. In the book there is a code used on one of the valentines. Meghan decided she wanted to use the code to write a valentine message to her penpal. So that was fun and cute. I really like when they decide to do some learning activities and don't even know it!

Until next time...

Tot School 2/1-2/5

My plan this week was to finish up or get close to finishing the lapbook we started on Goodnight Moon. However, he wasn't really interested at the time so we didn't get to it. We did read the book some more.

He did want to work with his puzzles. He doesn't like the easy puzzles anymore, the ones that have pegs to hold onto. He likes these, that are early learners jigsaw puzzles. These are from Melissa and Doug. They have such cute stuff! He is getting really good at it too. I talk to him if he gets confused or something and he finds the piece and puts it in. You can tell when he is getting tired though, it gets harder.

He wanted to work use a couple of his activity bags. He picked out the bead lacing which I showed here. He also wanted to play with the lacing one. This one was created by my friend Shannon. Here is a picture of that one.

Here he is working on them.

I bought this finger paint kit on clearance at Hobby Lobby a while back and the kids have been begging to use it. It has a roller with different shaped sponges and little paintbrushes that fit on the fingers. I think that is what makes it "fingerpaint". lol Anyway, they wore their Lowe's aprons and painted a while.

We bought a Junior Monopoly game (game was clearance and there are coupons on coupons.com as well, good deal!) The kids had a good time. It's for ages 4 and up but Kaden did pretty well.

Of course there is lots of play and fun throughout the week. His imaginative play is so fun to listen to. He and Meghan watched some Magic School Bus episodes and played with Lego's as well.

Here are the kids playing in a living room fort or club as they called it.

Here he is playing with his paper airplane Daddy made him.

If you can't tell he has been in love with that car shirt this week.

This week we also stopped letting him go to bed with a milk cup. It took a few days of him being upset about it but he is doing fine now. He still gets water. :)

He says some pretty funny stuff sometimes. So here are some of this weeks "life according to Kaden" quotes and funnies.

We sitting at the table one day eating lunch and Kaden says "Not happy, Bob". haha He wasn't talking to anyone or looking at anyone.

Meghan and Kaden watched The Mask a couple weeks ago. Kaden picked up a line from the movie and says it once in a while. It might not be the best but it's pretty funny. "Look mom, I kodekill! ha ha ha" (It's actually "Look ma, I'm roadkill, ha ha ha"

Kaden is asking me "What's this?" or Who's this?" a lot. We were looking at pictures one day and he was doing this. So I started doing it to him. When I asked him "who's this?" about himself he would say either "Buddy!" or "Kaden Boy!"

He was jumping up and down next to Meghan one day saying "I wub you Meghan!"

So cute! 

Ellie is still cutting two teeth. Sometimes she is pretty cranky so I assume that is it. We stopped giving her bottles when she goes to bed. We feed her before now and then brush her teeth and put her to bed. She didn't care for it at first. It's easier for her to fall asleep while she is drinking and easier for us too but I didn't want her to get too used to it plus sometimes if she doesn't finish it her bed will get a wet spot. She still wakes up most nights. She wakes up sometimes and I just lay her down, but she does still take a bottle once a night. I am hoping that will be done soon, as it seems she is taking longer before waking for one.

She loves being with the other kids. She follows them around all over. She gets upset if they close their door and she can't get in. Here she is getting into my little cabinet. We have been adding door cabinet locks to some of them but this one needs a different kind. Cute pictures though so it's worth it. :)

Ellie loves to play peek a boo. She actually started doing it all on her own one day in the grocery store. She was hiding from me with her blanket while I pushed her in the cart. So I started playing with her. Here she is playing again with Kaden's blanket.

We had a great week! If you are interested in seeing what others did in Tot School just click here.