Homeschooling 9/22/09

Every morning we wake up and get dressed but I've noticed recently that I've never talked with the girls about how to sit in a dress so that they don't show their panties. So this morning like all the other mornings we did "Circle time" where we all sit on the kitchen floor together. We talked about how to sit on the floor in a dress so I can't see their panties. We talked about how panties are private and we don't show other people our panties. Such a funny thing to talk about in school but very necessary!!


So in our "circle time" every morning we do a little saying with hand motions that I remember doing when I was in Kindergarten every morning. It goes "These are grandma's glasses and this is grandma's hat, this is the way she folds her hands and sits like that, these are grandpa's glasses, these are grandpa's hat, this is the way he folds his arms and sits like that!" Then we say 'straight and tall right hand on our heart eyes on the Christian flag' and we say our pledge to the Christian flag, American Flag, & the Bible. We talk about the days of the week, what day today is, and we open up the blind on the window and look at the weather outside and say if it's sunny, cloudy, rainy, or windy.
Today we learned about the Letter C, for Cow, and Caterpillar like we made last week, and C for our Uncle Chris!! A- said " OH I LOVE UNCLE CHRIS!!" hehe. It was cute. We talked about the color Yellow again, and our shape is still a Circle.

Last week we learned the verse 1Peter 5:7 "God Cares about you..." the week before it was John 1:3 "All things were made by him..." both girls have memorized last week's verse and still remember the verse from the week before!! So today we wrote out 1 Peter 5:7 and the girls were able to put it in their hearts. We also learned a new verse for this week Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God Created the heavens & the Earth...."


For our bible lesson today, "Taco" came and told us a story about David, and how he was a shepherd and took care of the sheep. We talked about how "God made things for us to feel" so we made a sheep of our own today, I cut out a picture of a sheep and we glued it to a blue piece of construction paper, then the girls took cotton balls and glued them to the sheep. we talked about how the sheep has wool, and the wool feels nice and soft.

We've slowed down the last two weeks on school, I started off doing it every day, A-is a very strong willed child who has to have structure in her life daily. I've had a hard time doing school daily and I know that most of the time for preschool they only do 2-3 days per week, but in order to structure their day I decided to do it every day. However with us doing that it will cut out any play dates we can attend, or other activities we can do. So this week we are going to try doing school 3 days Monday, Tuesday, & Thursday. Then Wed we have A's dance class and church that evening, and Friday will be left open for play dates and field trips. This way I don't feel so bad about missing a day or two during the week and their days are still structured.

A Day Off 9/16/09

Wednesday's are so hectic for us since my husband works for the church. So this week we slept in a bit, then A- had dance class in the afternoon, which she is LOVING! After dance class I ran by the bank and the baby got hungry so, I'm sure they appreciated me sitting in the bank parking lot nursing. Thanks to my handy nursing cover I got from my friend Stephanie at "Ooh Baby"

(check out her things they are amazing! So cute!) it makes it so much easier now days to nurse in public! Anyways, after that we met Papaw at McDonald's for lunch. The girls were SO excited, even E-! They all loved on him, then took turns feeding him fries which was so funny! They had a blast!! I think some of my favorite memories with my dad when I was a little girl was the times he would take me to McDonald's for lunch, just me & him. I remember when we lived in Ohio I was maybe 4 years old, he took me to the McDonald's over by the mall I even remember the exact booth we sat in. We talked about how I'm almost big enough to eat a big girl sandwich and maybe next time we came I could order a Big Mac. Then I remember walking up to one of the workers there asking them when Ronald McDonald comes in. It's so funny how exciting a simple trip to McDonald's is to a kid, not to mention how a simple memory like that one stays with you. I'm so thankful that my children are able to spend this time with my dad, and are able to have these precious times with him as children just like I did with him. My dad has always been so important to me! He has always been very supportive and encouraging to me. I thank God everyday that he is here to pour that same support and encouragement into my girls. He is definitely well loved by all of us!! You can totally tell by the pictures!

Homeschooling 9/15/09

Today we took some time out to learn about worship. We talked about how when we worship God we can dance, or sing, but whatever our worship to the Lord we need to give our all! We talked about raising our hands and how that is a symbol of surrender to the Lord, and giving God all of ourselves, all our hearts, and lives. We talked about how we always want to give God our best! And best we did, because the girls tired me out! We danced for the longest time worshiping God. Their favorite worship songs were Chris Tomlin "How can I keep from singing your praise" & Kari Jacobe "Revelation song".

After worship time, we read the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. The girls loved it I had to read it to them twice! And almost a third time until I told them we were going to make our own caterpillars now! This was a GREAT craft for them this week since the shape for this month is a circle. They also were able to practice with colors as well.

First thing we did was take a piece of poster board and cut it in half. I then cut out a bigger circle for the head, and then two smaller circles of each color. The girls talked about what color circles they had and as I was cutting them and handing them the circles we counted how many each of them had. Then mommy glued them and put them on their sheet, and then they got to glue on eyes and ears.


fter we got the caterpillar together we took little pompoms that were the same color as the circles and the girls got to glue them to the matching color circle. This way their caterpillar had a more real feel to him.



And this was our finished product!! They loved their caterpillars!!

For our bible lesson today, we continued talking about how "God makes wonderful things to eat." We had a visit again today from "Taco" our hand puppet and he talked about how God gave us wonderful things to eat like Strawberries, grapes, apples, and oranges. The girls loved getting to taste all the yummy foods that God created for us. They learned again today that all their favorite foods were made by God, and they had an even better time tasting them all!

Homeschool Monday Week 2

Today was a great day, very productive so far. We started our day off with circle time as we do every day. We did the pledge to the Christian flag, and the bible, and the American Flag. We talked about the sunny weather and went over the calendar. We also started learning all about the Letter B. We learned the sound it makes, and that B is for Bear, and we colored a Bear coloring page. We also went over our bible verse we learned last week which was John 1:3 "All things are made by him" since the girls memorized the verse, we wrote it on a piece of paper and they got to put that verse in their hearts today since we now have it written on our hearts! They were very excited to put them in their hearts!!
We learned our new bible verse for this week which is 1 Peter 5:7 "God cares about you..." I made up a little song for them to remember it with and was singing "God cares about you, God cares about you." When I would get to the "you part" Alanah would say "AND ME!" It was so cute! We got out some wooden spoons and made music on the table to our bible verse song, they had a blast!!

Also for our bible lesson today "Taco" our hand puppet told us the story of the Isrealites and how they had no food, they went to sleep and God rained down Manna from heaven!! Taco told the girls to close their eyes, and when they opened them again, there was Manna on the table in front of them for us all to eat!! They LOVED it! They really got the picture that "God gives us wonderful things to eat" and that ALL food comes from God!

First week of Homeschool

So our first week of homeschooling is going fantastic!! This week was also A's first Dance Class! She had a blast, and was SUPER cute in her outfit! She was so excited she came home and was hopping all over the living room showing me her dance moves! They did 1/2 hour of ballet and 1/2 hour of tap. Everyone in her class are Christian homeschoolers! It was even a great time for myself to be able to meet other Christian mom's who are also homeschooling.


We also started the book "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" It took us 2 days to get through the first lesson, but we made it through. We will probably have to go slower than I anticipated although I knew that was going to probably be the case. The first lesson talked about the sound for the letters M & S. We also practiced writing the letters too!

Today our devotional was about getting to know God by reading his Word, and praying. We did a HUGE heart craft, where we cut out a heart, and made a pocket on the front. We put the verse "Thy Word have I hid in my heart" on the front and the girls got to decorate it. At the end of each week we will write their bible verse on paper and stick it in the pocket of the heart, and hopefully they will have the verse in their heart as well.

Our Theme this month is ALL ABOUT ME! Family, friends, pets, etc.....We are starting that off with a Family tree. One day we did the tree branches and tree trunk. One day we did the leaves, tomorrow we will probably do more leaves and then paste the pictures on top of the leaves as we talk about our family.

1st Day of Homeschooling

Today was our first day of homeschooling. It was so much fun! The girls did such an amazing job! We started a little later than I had planned around 9:30 or so and finished up at 12:30. For a 3 & 2 year old they have a great attention span! We started out the day with the Pledge to the Christian Flag, Pledge to the American Flag, and the Pledge to the bible. Went over the days of the week, the weather, what time it was, and the color, letter, and shape of the day. We did a few worksheets on the color and shape of the day, and then the letter. We went over our bible verse for the week (John 1:3) and then did our bible lesson, and started our family tree project.
We made a new friend as well, his name is "Taco". Taco tells us our bible story which this week we are learning about how "God makes everything we see!" Taco was a huge hit!!
Part of our bible lesson today we talked about chipping away the yucky stuff around our hearts and giving them to God so that we can have a pure heart. I found a recipe online cortices of www.impressyourkids.org of how to make a rock with treasure inside for the kids to break away at. It was a combination of Flour, Sand, used Coffee Grounds, Salt, and water. I mixed it all up and stuck little heart beads inside as the "treasure" then baked it on low heat 170 degreese until it felt hard. I let it sit overnight and they were ready in the morning for the girls to break apart and look for their treasures! They had a blast!! So excited about tomorrow and A's first day in dance class!

A day to rest!!

Sunday's are usually our day of much needed rest! We do what we can to insure that EVERYONE takes naps after church on Sunday. Church was really good today! The Pastor talked about how we need to stop seeking the approval of men, and seek the approval of God. So many people have things going on right now especially with finances and we just keep going through the motions of life instead of truly seeking the answers from the Lord. I have been guilty of this in the past. The last two months we have had one thing after another going on in our lives and God has really been laying it on my heart to SEEK HIM more! My strong point has never been a really good prayer life, I mean I pray I'll ask for help, I'll praise Him, I'll pray daily but to actually have a PRAYER TIME, where I sit down and take an hour or half hour and do nothing but seek the Lord in prayer, I've not really done. I really don't know why I haven't because I totally believe that Prayer is a HUGE part of my walk with God and that prayer sometimes is the only thing that works! I've been unable to sleep much recently and been waking up at 4am quite often. I've been taking that time and using it to seek after God in my devotionals but not prayer. Once I start homeschooling the girls I'd love to teach them how to do this as part of their bible lesson. Maybe have a quiet time and start with just 1 minute and keep moving the time back more and more, this way it will help them to never struggle with prayer as I have because it is such a huge part of their lives.

I ordered this book from the library for the girls, as part of our first month of homeschooling for next month since we will be talking about manners. I went online to B&N and looked up all the Children's books on manners and this is one I found. The girls love Martha, and A- already had the book memorized after a few short readings! I was astonished when I opened the book to read to them and she said everything word for word! Makes you feel like your actually doing something right for once!

I read this book the last few weeks for a book club I am part of and it was pretty good, I'd probably give it about 3 stars. I have seen the movie before on Lifetime, and the movie was good, sad, but good. It was a while ago when I saw the movie so I don't remember much details but I know it was very similar to the book. I don't remember a lot that was in the book that wasn't in the movie, so they are very close.

Random Chaos!

SHEW! So today was a rough day! I was up since 4am because A-decided to get up and I had to take care of that. My husband had to get out of bed and be at the church early this morning since our Fall Classes are going to be launched tomorrow, he had to put the booklet of all the classes together and print them off. So it's now 8:30pm and he is still there working on that! SO I loaded up the kids and the dog and went to visit my parents this morning hoping it would tire them out enough to take a good nap, so I can get one in too. Wishful thinking I guess, because A-REFUSED to take a nap!! I ended up falling asleep and while I was sleeping she climbed over her gate and went into the kitchen. She took the entire huge tub of pretzels into S's room and they were crunched up all over the floor and in her bed! Then I walked into the kitchen and she had gotten the milk out of the fridge and was trying to pour it into her cup, but there were milk puddles all over the floor. She also decided to poop on her bedroom floor! However they did go to bed at a good time tonight and didn't complain much. I guess I am going to have to get a hook and eye to put on the outside of the door to her room so that she will not get out and keep getting into things before we are awake. The other day she did the same thing and I'm just afraid for her safety.

My diet today has been hanging onto a thread. I started off well I ate a good breakfast, no lunch, and haven't had dinner yet. While I was preparing the girls PB sandwiches I did sneek in a bite of PB cause I was starving!! Hopefully my husband will bring me home a salad on his way tonight.

I am excited however I absolutely love the show 24!! My husband's friend had the first season on DVD and asked us if we've ever watched it before, then let us borrow it. At first I was like "Ummm YUCK, I don't want to watch that!" but when we started to watch it, we couldn't get enough!! We were up all weekend long watching these videos! However, when it airs on TV we can't watch it because it gets so intense I can't stand the wait till the next week to watch it, so we just wait till it comes out on DVD and got buy it. But this time I found season 7 at the Library!! So we will be up for a few days watching this season! :)

I also found these at the library and they have been AMAZING for my girls! We got the "Hands are not for Hitting", "Words are not for hurting", and today just got "Feet are not for kicking" and "Tails are not for pulling". So far my girls have been very receptive to these books, I might have to just go out and buy them since they have been so responsive. They are starting to realize what "mean" words do to people and each other, and are starting to realize that "hands" are for Loving, and hugging, not hitting each other"

They also have LOVED this book! When they first got this from the Library they thought little David was a monster, but they soon realized that he was just a rowdy and mean little boy who wanted his mommy's hugs at the end. It goes through tons of scenarios of how he gets into trouble by dragging mud in the house, not doing what mommy says, breaking things, getting into things and then at the end he has to go to time out and his mommy hugs him and tells him how much she still loves him! This has been really good for my girls as well and has helped them to have more of a conscience when they do things wrong. Highly Recommend this book, as well as the Behavior Series by Elizabeth Verdick!

It's so funny how when we think about teaching our children, it seems like this huge thing where we have to plan out these elaborate plans but honestly just sitting down with them and reading some really interesting books that teach them things about different subjects, behavior, manners, fall, winter, spring etc...is probably all you have to really do to get by with a little teaching each day and you will be so surprised at how much they take in from just 15 minutes with a few good books.

Lots of new things!!

So today is day 1 of my South Beach Diet. I had done it before right after *A* was born and lost 25lbs! So I'm praying that I can stick to it and eat healthier and get back down to a good size where I can finally feel comfortable being in pictures again. Ideally, I'd love to loose a good 50lbs, but I'd be happy with 25-30. I'm going to venture out there and eat some Salmon for dinner tonight, I'm not really a fish person but we'll see what happens. I was preparing dinner last night so that I didn't wake up today and not feel like cooking and say forget it, and the Salmon totally grossed me out!! It still had SKIN on it! YUCK! So hopefully I can not think of that this evening as I eat my dinner and maybe I'll actually enjoy it. I've never really been much of a fish person so we'll see.



I've also started today doing www.flylady.com. It's an amazing site!! It helps you get control of your home and keep it cleaned by getting you on a daily cleaning schedule and helping you stick to it! It all starts with shining your kitchen sink and keeping it cleaned, then they take you step by step over a 31 day period teaching you to keep control of your home. I'm so excited and hopefully this will work for me. I've never been much for cleaning, I've always hated it since I was small. My mom had the cleanest house and everything was always in place and I hated cleaning because we did it all the time!! When I got married I decided that spending time with my husband was more important than taking time to clean the house...however when I had kids it backfired on me and I spent more time trying to clean up the mess in the house than I spent with my children. So now I've learned a clean house means more time with my children, if I can keep up with things daily and get things down to a 20-30 minute cleaning time daily... I will have more time with my children to teach them and play with them.


So my read this week is "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. AMAZING!! I started reading this book yesterday and am already half way finished! I couldn't put it down!! Aside from the main character being a harlot, this book is almost like my husband's and I's love story. I was married at a young age, and had saved myself for my husband and ended up divorced at a young age. When I met my husband now, I was so messed up for such a long time from my past that I couldn't accept that he actually loved me. I couldn't understand how someone like him could love someone like me who had already been "had" I guess would be the term. One day the Lord spoke to me and told me "you asked for him, and I gave him to you, now accept him before I take him away" After that was when I finally let go and accepted him...we got married and I've never been happier! Reading this book really brings back memories from how my husband had to break me down in order to soften my heart and reassure me he would never leave me. So this book has hit pretty close to home for me. I will be leading a Christian book Club at our church this fall and this will be our first read. Highly recommend this book!

Preparations for Homeschooling

This will be my first year on the homeschooling side of things. I'm really excited but nervous at the same time. We are down to 3 weeks till the first day of school and I've been planning, planning, planning! This year I'm planning to focus a lot on the Bible Lessons and also Reading/Writing with my oldest. A-is 3 years old and is pretty advanced, she already knows her ABC's, she can Count to 20, and knows all her colors and shapes. S-is my 2 year old, She hasn't had as much one on one time with me this year since I was pregnant with E- our 9 week old, so we will be teaching her the ABC's, Counting past 10, Shapes, and Colors.

I'm not using a formal curriculum this year since it is so expensive and ends up being mostly color pages. We will be working in the book called "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" also we will be doing bible lessons out of "Jesus wants all of me" Devotional, as well as learning a letter, number, color, and shape Weekly. We also just went to Walmart and got a preschool book, that has been really amazing with my 3 year old learning pre-math concepts, and learning to write. We will most likely be using "Signing Time" Videos with my 2 year old, in order to effectively teach her like we did with my 3 year old. I'm so excited to be able to teach my children! I just pray that the Lord be with me and give me lots of patience, and help me to manage my time between schooling and keeping up with the many tasks around the house!