Wrapping the week up!

We finished up our week with a fun trip to a local orchard.  But first we had to get our work done:

Adeline worked on some see and spell cards.

Braxton did his AWANA homework.

And Sadie hammed it up.  The spots on her face?  Evidence of the glitter she tried to consume.

Braxton thought his do-a-dot "Bb" sheet was lots of fun!

And then he worked on his Farm Number book.

And some size sorting...

Adeline wanted to use the do-a-dot stamper, too, so we used it on an uppercase letter assessment.  She did well.

And since it was Friday, we added the letter B to our tree, then read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  We also read a fun new book, Boom Chicka Rocka, as well as one about Golden Delicious apples and a Max & Ruby mail book.  Whew!

 THEN we got to go to the orchard!

I was busy picking raspberries when I felt a little hand reach up to my bucket.  Sadie had brought me a raspberry!  So sweet!

Four pounds of raspberries later (plus several dozen in some little tummies), we moved on to apples!  Sadie thought she'd try crawling through the smallest openings.  

We picked 30 pounds of apples!!  The biggest challenge was getting us all back out of the orchard with our treasures.  We had such a good time!  If I still have ambition after getting all this produce "put up," we just might make another trip.

His Mysterious Ways

I love L.O.V.E. love my women's Bible study group.  I've grown as a Christian by leaps and bounds over the past couple of years that I've been attending.  I've made some amazing friends and shared some tough, but good, journeys through Scripture.  I've gotten to know God like I never knew Him before... and I know this is just the beginning!  But this August when the much-anticipated day came for the Women's Bible Study kick-off brunch, I decided with a heavy heart not to go.  I looked at our homeschool schedule and thought there is no way I can add a whole morning of Bible study each week - especially when it falls on our busiest day.  Not to mention the homework load (about 45 minutes, 5 days a week).  It just didn't seem possible.  So I stayed home and did schoolwork with the kids and probably pouted a fair amount.  A couple days later, I ran into one of those afore mentioned "amazing friends."  One who has the uncanny ability to tell it like it is, kick your rear in gear and somehow still make you love her.  Without going into the details, she convinced me I needed to be at Bible study.  Make it work.  Period.  I'm certain I gave her an exasperated sigh and rolled my eyes - she sends her kids to school, there's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't help her understand my position one bit! - and then I agreed to give Bible study a try.  Two weeks later I found myself sitting in a room full of women beginning the Beth Moore study of David: Seeking a Heart Like His.  Oh how I had missed this!!  I found myself nodding at the screen as Beth spoke - yes, Lord!  I'm hearing You!  Praise You for using a dear friend to get me here!

You never land in a Bible study by accident.  God places you there.  He has something He wants to teach you.  I'm only one week into the study of David and have already had my eyes opened multiple times.  God's Word is eternal.  It spoke truth into the lives of people hundreds of years ago.  It speaks truth into my life right now.  It will continue to speak the truth forever.  It is applicable yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Isn't our God AMAZING?!

The homework of day 1 began with the question "Have you ever been in that kind of predicament (referring to King Saul having a position that exceeded his passion)?"  Why yes I have!  In fact, it's something I've been struggling with for the past couple of months.  The question is followed up with the reminder that God can grant "a fiery heart toward Him and what He favors."  You mean, I just need to ask?  Well that's easy enough!  Why is it that the most obvious solutions often elude us?  And in case you're wondering, yes, asking for the passion to match up with my position has made a huge difference!

I don't want to give a book-long explanation for everything God has spoken to me this past week.  I don't want to take the time that would require (I have to sleep sometime, right!) and I'm not certain that much sharing is appropriate for a blog.  But I do want to highlight some of the things that struck me.  Maybe they will strike you, too.

"Our enemy will fall before our God.  We are only deadly to the enemy when we go behind Him."

"Saul learned that obedience was better than sacrifice.  Samuel learned that sometimes obedience is the sacrifice."

2 Chronicles 16:9 "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."  Praise you, Lord!

"If God places you there, you've got what it takes."  This spoke to me at a time when I was wondering why on earth we thought homeschooling was a good idea.

Acts 1:8 "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Show your faithfulness to God right where you are, then He will move you forward.

You are blessed to be in a situation you know you can't do on your own.  It requires you to seek God and to give the glory back to Him.

"When God finds a heart given over to Him, He forms from it a life with facets and features that normally wouldn't fit."  He makes us unusual in the eyes of the world... and that's a good thing!

This homeschool business isn't always pretty.  It sure looks pretty on a carefully edited blog!  But the truth is, sometimes I just plain don't feel like teaching.  Sometimes the kids don't cooperate.  Sometimes the baby screams at my feet and I find myself almost shouting at Adeline just so she can hear me.  Sometimes I find myself shouting, period.  I don't want to make it sound all bad.  It really isn't.  Sometimes everything runs beautifully.  Sometimes everyone (me included!) is a joy to be around.  Sometimes I want to immediately blog about our amazing day and I am so thankful we chose to teach our children in our home.  But most often things fall right in between "What were we thinking?!" and "Awesome!!!"  I tell people that homeschooling is going good, I enjoy teaching and the kids enjoy learning.  And that is the truth.  But it's hard.  Really, really hard.  There are days when I wonder if we're making the right decision.  Not because it's a good day or a bad day, but just because.  So for that reason, I am very thankful for this Bible study.  God has used it to lift me up and keep me going this past week.  He has reminded me that the work I am doing is for His Kingdom.  My work has an eternal purpose.  I pray that He is moving in your life, too.  Speaking truth into your needs and carrying your load.

Good night.

So far this week

 A peek at what we've been up to this week:

On Monday, Adeline was able to read the entire board BY HERSELF!!  We've since added another 5 or so words to her growing list of "can read."  

Hello, friend!  I found this little guy about two and a half steps outside our classroom door one night.  He was promptly moved into a more appropriate habitat - the yard!!

One of Adeline's workbox activities this week.  She loves it!

Braxton is working on the letter B.  He doesn't understand the concept of letters yet, but he will happily sing you the alphabet.  I only care that he has exposure to letters and numbers this year.  Next year he will learn to recognize and write the alphabet.

Meanwhile, Adeline finished a few of her shape boards... :)

This just might be the most exciting part of the week!  A very talented, dear friend of mine has agreed to teach music for me.  Hooray!  Adeline started Kindermusik for the Young Child on Tuesday.  She will be taking a pre-piano course with the glockenspiel.  We are all excited!  

Adeline and her teacher, Miss Jessica, work together, while I entertain the rest of our kids in the playroom.  Consequently, I don't have a lot of pictures, but I did snap this one of the board after the lesson was over.  Adeline told me that she played rhythm sticks, learning how to hold them at rest, ready and play positions.  She also listened for the sounds around her during her lesson.  It's her homework to be listening for music in her day-to-day life.  She was disappointed to learn that Jessica will only be coming once a week!  Jessica says Adeline is doing well.  I'm just happy she's enjoying it!  

After we finished school yesterday, Adeline was sitting at the table coloring.  She came to me very excited to show me that she had "written a sentence!"  Her sentence is "Adeline is it."  I'm pretty proud of her, too.  :)

 Some nights I'm strict about the kids cleaning up toys before bed and sometimes I decide to forego the battle and just do it myself.  I'm always amused by what I find.  Braxton is his father's child, no doubt about it!

All last week and part of this week, Adeline worked on writing her thank you notes for her party.  Here is a sampling.  This week we are conveniently learning about the postal service, so tomorrow we will address envelopes and visit the post office!  

This is Hopper the Frog.  Hopper loves to hop on sight words.  Adeline loves this activity because she gets to shout really loud.  As she reads each word, Hopper makes his way to the puddle.  When he arrives, Adeline gets to yell out "SPLASH!"  She happily does this over and over.  Shh... don't anybody tell her she's learning at the same time.  :)  

We have handwriting practice every day.

In Math, Adeline is making a number book.  I thought it would be nice for Braxton to make one, too.  This is Braxton's:

And this is Adeline's.  I thought it was cute that she colored her tree to be a "fall tree."  The book goes through number 10.  It's an easy activity for Adeline, but after she has worked so hard in Reading, it's nice to do something that doesn't require quite as much effort.  

Which brings us to tonight.  Both kids earned their vests tonight at Awana!  And Braxton immediately spilled water on his.  :)  Adeline moved up to the Sparks club and Braxton is starting his first year as a Cubbie.  We love Awana!    

Our extra workbox activities this week have focused on apples.  We are reading apple books in preparation for a trip to the orchard on Friday.  Today we read Applesauce Season.  Love this book!  We already planned to make our own applesauce next week, but I think we will also give the recipe in the book a try.

Oh!  I almost forgot.  Our other fun thing this week was the first meeting of our VeggieTales co-op.  We hosted it at our house this time.  The kids watched Duke and the Great Pie War which is derived from the book of Ruth.  After the video, they had a coloring sheet and a discussion about loving your family.  It went pretty well.  We will meet twice a month.

Well, that's a wrap!  I'm looking forward to the rest of our week!  I have a blog entry in mind based on some things I learned at Bible study this morning, but that will have to wait until I'm a little more awake.  :)

A picture-heavy update :)

Wow!  Where to begin?  Sorry it's been a while, we've had a couple busy, crazy weeks.  Last week didn't go completely as planned, so we started over on a few things this week.  Here are some highlights:

One of Adeline's workbox activities (from Confessions of a Homeschooler) is this See it, Build it, Write it page.  Adeline draws a word out of our bag, then "builds" it with letters.  Then she writes it on the line.  She really likes this activity!

Hooray!  Our workbox cart arrived!  It was super simple to assemble - I did it in about 30 minutes.  Adeline's side is on the left, Braxton's on the right.  Adeline usually has 8-10 boxes a day.  I've been putting her core work in it, as well as the extra activities.  Braxton gets 3 boxes.  Someday I'll make numbers to velcro to the outside of each box, but probably not in the immediate future.  :)

A new Calendar Time activity is graphing the daily weather.  I took this picture about a week ago.  Our graph is looking really pretty with mostly sunny days!  A beautiful September!

Ok, don't judge, art isn't my strength!  I made a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree for the back of our door.  Each week we'll be adding a letter to the tree.  When we get through capital letters, we will do lowercase and then numbers.  This will carry over into next year.  Both kids think it's fun to read the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book and put letters on the tree.  I have a lapbook that we will be making in the coming weeks to go along with this.

Last week we learned about firefighters.  We spent a good chunk of Tuesday testing our smoke alarms, practicing Stop, Drop and Roll and planning/practicing our escape routes from various places in our house, including practice opening the windows and removing screens.  The kids learned to crawl under the smoke and to test a door to see if it's hot before opening it.  For our final fire drill, I pushed the smoke alarm button and let the kids get out of the house completely on their own.  I was really pleased with the day and Adeline now wants to show everyone how to escape.

We completed our fire safety workbooks and watched Elmo Visits the Firehouse.  Excellent video!

Adeline worked on her second reader on Friday.  It's the last reader without words.

And then on Saturday we had a huge birthday party for both kids!

We spent some time at the park this week.  Sadie loves playing with her big sister!

And back to schoolwork!  I didn't take many pictures this week.  I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed and crazy.  Just getting through the day is an accomplishment!  Although today went much better - just  in time a little glimmer of light shined in this tunnel!  More on that a different day.

Adeline is making huge strides in learning to read!  I'm so very proud of her!  Today we played this tic-tac-toe type game.  I said a word and when she found it, she got to put a star sticker on it.  She found them all on her first try!

We did some boardwork reading sentences.  I first read through the sentences, then Adeline circled all the words she knew.  Then we read the sentences again with Adeline shouting out the circled words as we came to them.  "Kate" and "Josh" are characters in our Beginnings curriculum.

The letter "S" was one of our letters this week.  It's the only letter Adeline has trouble writing.  We practiced a lot using finger tracing, writing with a pencil and crafty activities like this one.  She has improved a lot this week!  Still one of her harder letters, but now legible.  :)

Last week was firemen, this week was police officers.  We learned a cute poem about crossing the street and got to practice it a few times when we went to the park!

Stop, Look and Listen before you cross the street;
First you use your eyes and ears
And then you use your feet!

Today we examined our fingerprints and talked about how God has made each person special, giving them their very own fingerprint.  Adeline and Sadie's fingerprints are on the page.  Braxton wasn't feeling well, so he slept through this activity.  Adeline then drew a picture of her doll - something her fingerprints would be on.

We've spent a lot of time this week with the pocket chart!  I just have to say it again - I'm so proud of Adeline's progress in reading!  She's so proud of herself, too.  It's cute.

We started the Madeline unit over this week - it was one of the things that flopped last week.  We located Paris on the map, learned a few new vocab words and talked about how to keep our bodies healthy - as Miss Clavel says, "Thank the Lord you are well!"  Wellness was a timely lesson today as the pukies have struck Braxton and Sadie.  What you don't see in the pictures is the stripped bed because Braxton woke from his nap, walked into the classroom and threw up all over the bed.  All in a day's work, right?  :(

As for reading Matilda, Adeline informed me today with the inflection of a teenager that "Matilda is the longest book EVER."  I don't think she's a fan of our reading time.  I think we'll try again with a shorter book.  For the record, I was thoroughly enjoying the read!

And that's pretty much it.  We played some games and put together some puzzles and spent a lot of time outside soaking up the warm, almost-fall sunshine.  Oh!  How could I forget?!  Grandma located a couple of desks for us - for FREE!!  They are MUCH better than our tiny table.  We like our table, but it just wasn't big enough for two kids.  I'll get a picture of them next time.  :)