Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I’d say something about the luck o’ the Irish, or “kiss me, I’m Irish”, but…nah :D We’ll just go with wearing some green instead!
These past couple weeks have been a blur – hence the reason why I am writing this post for 2 weeks instead of just one :D It seems to work better that way – I have more to talk about if we do two weeks at a time!
In my life this week…
Because today is St. Patrick’s Day, we’ve been studying all about him, learning the TRUE story behind his life, and understanding some of the reasons for the symbols that are tied in to the day. We’re steering clear mostly of the rainbows, leprechauns and pot of gold theme, although I DID make rainbow meringue cookies and we MAY have some chocolate gold coins lying around somewhere :D But I am realizing the more emphasis I put on the silly stuff, the more it takes away from the TRUTH. That goes with a lot of things actually. Some of the videos we watch are kinda silly when it comes to addressing biblical stuff and history, so I’m very cautiously approaching them and explaining to the kids what’s truth and what’s just being silly.
In our homeschool this week…
We have accomplished a LOT! Our swimming lessons and co-op are done until the end of March/beginning of April, so that means we have 5 FULL DAYS to work with! Woo hoo! 5 days are too many for us to homeschool though, so we take most of one day off, and with the weather this week, it has been absolutely AMAZING! I’m curious, how many people homeschool all 5 days? Looking at our curriculum, if we did that every week, we’d be able to accomplish almost 2 grades in a year! I used to be push, push, push to get ahead, but now that we’re knee deep in homeschooling, I am seeing the benefit of slowing down, taking our time, really enjoying what we are learning.
Keekers has been learning letter E – for elephant and egg mostly!
We are using books from the library, and some from our own collection.
What’s in the Egg, Little Pip?
Elliot’s Emergency and other Elliot books
She can easily recognize most letters, and is getting REALLY good at tracing….
and even trying to write her own name!
Either she’s an overachiever, or girls are just faster at these things than boys :D
She’s had some great help from a big brother on some things this week, which has been a help to me as well!
We are loving all the great resources available to us online for activity pages. This week we used ones from:
Homeschool Creations – Letter E activities and printables
1+1+1=1 Tot School – Letter E activity ideas and printables
Making Learning Fun – Letter E printables and activities
Each week I print out some of the sheets and leave a few lying around each day for her to do. She’s getting more independent in being able to do them on her own, but still really likes the 1-on-1 time with Mama – and is always asking for it!
The boys are progressing well with pretty much everything except math – I don’t know if it is the weather or what, or if we need to slow the pace some more for better absorption, but we keep hitting some walls.
God has taught me a lot of patience and grace (although I still fail a LOT) and I definitely need to work on letting the lesson go sometimes, so we’re working through all that and learning together. On that note, The Boy is doing double digit addition, MENTALLY, so I don’t think there’s very much to worry about :D
We’ve done some experiments this week – one is the borax crystal shamrocks. What fun to make a swirling tornado, watch the crystals dissolve in the hot water, and see them stick to the pipe cleaner!
We’re in the middle of a naked egg experiment as well…
I’ll let you know the results of our test to see how high we can drop the egg from without it breaking!
Read alouds…
We finished up Little House in the Big Woods! The boys are already asking for the next book. Hmm, good thing they don’t realize they’re “girl” books, ewwww! ;0)
We borrowed a book from the library called The Sugaring Off Party, with the intention of going to the maple sugar bush today to observe the “old school” and new process of making maple syrup. But after looking into the cost, we decided against it (I guess the last time we went 2 years ago all the kids were free! Sheesh things add up!). The kids are ok with it and we’re hoping to get to a friends’ next winter to watch them do the process – for free :D
The Big Green Pocketbook is a really cute book I’ve had on my Before Five In A Row list for a while – and with St. Patty’s Day, and studying the letter “E”, it was a perfect addition to our read alouds! We did just a couple of activities suggested (just google The Big Green Pocketbook activities) and included in a lapbook from Homeschool Share.
Then on Thursday, I took the kids to the Bulk Barn to pick up orange shaped gum drops and lollipops (like in the story!). We also hit the dollar store (aka the five and ten store from the book) and picked up some new crayons and coloring books (they have new color by number books!) as well as some candies for daddy.
Our other read alouds this week included:
Our Island Story – selections for literature and history
Madeline In London
Aesop’s Fables
James’ Herriot’s Treasury
I am inspired by….
All the fantastic ideas out there for regaining the focus of Easter on the LAMB of God…rather than the Easter bunny. We are hoping to start Ann Voskamp’s Easter Devotional, as well as another countdown with activities. The kids enjoyed Truth in the Tinsel so much (even though we didn’t get to everything!) and Amanda at Impress Your Kids has come up with some other great ideas (I’m sure, they’ll be released on Monday!).
My favourite thing this week was…
Getting out and enjoying the sunshine EVERY SINGLE DAY!
Going to the park, which began on the trike…
and ended like this :D
Bike riding lessons, learning to fall…
…and get back up again.
Hearing screams and shouts of laughter. The sun beating down on our faces.
Basking in the joy of new life in spring.
Mommy forgetting the water bottle…quenching thirst with coffee :D
I am thankful for….
God’s loving hand of protection and provision – we had booked flights with a very small airline for EXTREMELY cheap for a family vacation. My husband took his car in to get the winter tires off and while he was waiting, just “happened” to see in the business section a headline about the company being grounded (what kind of an airline doesn’t pay their fuel bill and has to be grounded because of it?). I panicked, he did not. Knowing we had booked with a credit card that had insurance, he contacted the CC company, filled out an online form, and we’re well on our way to getting our money back. PLUS, we got even BETTER flights (a bit more expensive, but still pretty decent!) with an even BETTER airline (shout-out to Southwest! I’ve always wanted to fly these guys!).
If my husband had not seen that headline, we may very well have showed up for our flights and not had one. God knows, he provides! And I am so grateful :0) (Oh, and it gets better – just found out the airline has declared BANKRUPTCY! We will never book with a rinky-dink operation ever. again.)
