Our Little Big Girl

Today I took Colleen for her 4 year old checkup!  Yes, I know that she is almost 4 1/2 now!  The assessment sheet asked if she could draw a person with 3 body parts.  Being the great parent that i am, I had no clue if she could so I turned the paper over and asked her to draw a little girl.  I think she draw and named 9 parts!  check!  She was a brave little girl until they pricked her finger!

Another busy week!

Tyler left early Saturday morning for the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine in North Carolina.  He was excited about this week and nervous at the same time.  I mean...the clothing for the week really scares a boy who wears gym shorts and tshirts ALL.THE.TIME!  It was a huge suitcase of business clothes...ekkKK!!

The younger girls went for a walk and found some pine cones that they quickly turned into bird feeders.  I was proud of them for doing this craft all on their own.  They just needed help hanging them after the made them!!!

 On Tuesday, we met up with a group of homeschoolers at P'zazz Art Studio to paint Olaf!  Corynne decided to paint today also.  Colleen made me extremely nervous with the paint.  This was her first time to paint her own canvas, and she had so much fun.  She did a great job!  The teacher did the outlining for her which "cleaned" up the painting quite a bit!

On Wednesday, we went to the first of a series of Space Labs using the littleBits kit.  Today we constructed the wave generator.  Then we played different songs on the MP3/iphone to see which song generated the best songs.  Look closely at the waves in the milk in the picture.  This was so cool to do!  We also built the energy meter which gave a value to how much energy different electronics put off.

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Corynne competed in the State Team Tennis Tournament in Auburn.  The team played some good matched, but the ended up in 3rd place for points.  They had a great time despite the rain!

Another summer fun week has come to an end.  The weeks are going by WAY.TO.FAST!

Gumballs for the Letter G

For preschool this week, we talked about the letter G.  Colleen enjoyed counting gumballs and cutting this week!  We also tried out the Hot Dots Jr. Let's Get Ready to Learn that I bought at Sam's last week.  It was a great car "school" activity!  She loved each of the books in the set, but the set was honestly to easy for her!  Great review activity to use up some in the car time!

We have been working on matching up rhyming words.  This does not come as easy for her.  She can hear the begins sounds and pick out the letter like you see her doing in the big picture above, but she does not hear the ending sounds yet.  We will keep practicing, and one day it will click!

Preschool is moving right along this summer.  I am proud of both of us for being consistent!

Homeschool Summer School

We really have been busy this summer.  We traveled and went to camps and VBS during the month of June.  In July, we have started a gradually moving back into school mode.  The girls have been working on their summer checklist this month.  Each day, they are required to complete their checklists after morning swim team.  Now really these checklist are not complicated!  They have to practice piano, work on music note flash cards for 20 minutes via one of 2 iPad games, minimum of 30 minutes on AlwaysIceCream.com working on typing, geography, and history skills, 1 session of XtraMath.com which is an add/mult fact review, 20 minutes on SplashMath (grade 6 or 3) which an iPad game which reviews many areas of math, and finally they are to complete their book club reading.  For book club this month, the girls have been re-reading Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie.  This time the girls have listen to the audio version of the books while following along in their own books.  After each chapter, they did complete Pockets of Time timeline activity for the chapter as a review.

On Thursday this week, we met for book club to discuss the books.  We also make butter, and played a few pioneer games.  Ms. Jennifer also had "What are you going to pack in your wagon?" activity the girls completed.  they had to take into account how much the items weighed, take enough food for their family, and still remain under the weight limit for the oxen to pull the wagon.

On Tuesday, we went over the Pike Road Library for one of their summer events.  The program was led by the Alabama Department of Archives and History, and they brought all kids of American Indian activities for the kids to participate.  The kids molded clay, learned about hunting, made gorgettes, ground corn, and learned how to work a pump drill.  It was a fun afternoon!

On Saturday, the girls and I went to see the film Walking With The Enemy at the Capri Theatre in Old Cloverdale.  This film was inspired by a true story during World War II of young Jewish man who is separated form his family in Budapest and sent to a concentration camp.  He escapes and disguises himself as a Nazi officer in order to save as many people as he can.  After his escape, he finds that life has changed more than he had imagined.  

We studied WWII in April and May, so Lauren and Lyndsey understood what was happening.  Corynne was exposed to WWII in 6th grade, but I am not sure as to how much they covered in her school.  They had also read many books and seen quite a few movies based on events of this time frame.  They loved The Diary of Anne Frank (movie) and Number the Stars (book).  Walking With The Enemy was definitely more graphic.  Lyndsey (7) did start crying during a few of the scenes like when one of the main characters friends was hung and another was shot.  Like I said, it was violent.  It was not a pretty, romantic time in history.   It was real, but they got it.   So I would not recommend this movie for the mild, very emotional child!  Although, I believe that the best way to understand history is to SEE it in action.  

As for the rest of the month, we plan to continue easing back into school.  Next week we will continue with our morning checklists.  We are going to read Swiss Family Robinson together over the next few weeks.  The girls are also going to take a few classes at AUM one week.  They will be taking a math class in the morning and a lego math/lego robotics class in the afternoon.  

After the week at AUM, we will be ready to hit the gas petal for our new school year!  I am getting excited!!!  We will again start a few weeks before the big kids start at their private schools.  Our plan is to take off the whole month of December again.  We loved that big break last year!

The Great Kids Cook Challenge

In an effort to get my kids to cook this summer, I issued a challenge on Sunday evening at the dinner table.  I told the older 3 that the had to cook dinner one night this week for the family.  The dinner had to include an entree, fruit or veg, and dessert.  They also had to prepare their meal for $25.  Even if I had all the ingredients in the pantry, freezer, or refrigerator;  I would add in the cost to their total.
They were actually all very excited about the challenge, and they decided that there would be a vote on the best at the end of the week.
     Lauren decided Monday was her night.  She prepared her favorite Beefy Mac-n-Cheese, chocolate covered strawberries, watermelon wedges, and peanut butter cookies with M&Ms.  She did a great job preparing everything by herself.  She had browned sausage for me before, so I knew she could handle browning the beef.  The cost of her meal was $27.18.  Oopps!  She went over a little!

Lyndsey was upset that she was not included in the challenge, so on Monday night Lauren helped her put together a menu for Tuesday that she could prepare.  I did help her on Tuesday night.  My guidance was more telling her which things to do when so the meal came together within 45 minutes!  We were all hungry!  Lyndsey prepared spaghetti with meatballs, herb breadsticks, chocolate chip cookies (slice-and-bake), and watermelon/strawberry fruit kabobs with her PopChef!  The cost of her meal was $15.27.

Corynne cooked on Wednesday night.  She prepared chicken quesadillas, bananas and apples fruit salad, and a pumpkin spice-crunch cake.  Her cost was $19.75.  That was really good food for under $20!!

Tyler stepped up to the kitchen counter on Thursday night.  He prepared chocolate chip bread pudding, buffalo chicken sliders, cheese tator-tots, and apples with peanut butter as an appetizer.  The meal was really good, but he spent $26.33.  AND he left after he finished cooking because he got a call from a Trinity coach that they needed an extra player at practice so they could have a good scrimmage.  He was out of here before he could eat, so I got left with the dirty dishes :(

On Friday, I set up the voting booth because in this family it is always about a competition!  The kids cast their votes for each other because the rule was you could NOT vote for yourself.  We tallied the results on Saturday morning at breakfast.....

Points were assigned for the budget/cost of the meal.  Then point were given out for best entree, best side dish, and best dessert.  The winner was.....

CORYNNE!!!!  She sealed the deal with her delicious pumpkin spice crunch cake!  I think everyone had food in the kitchen, and we will definitely be doing this again this summer!  We will spread it out over more than 4 days because Mom actually missed being able to cook a meal this week!!!

The Letter F

This week was All About the Letter F for our preschool time.  We read books about fish, firemen, and FROZEN!  I found a preschool Frozen pack on Pinterest, and Colleen loved the Frozen books!  

This week we worked a lot on patterns and cutting.  I usually do the cutting for her, but I realized that I was not letting her even try.  So this week took a lot of patience for me!

We had fun measuring with goldfish, and we graphed with the assorted Swedish Fish.  Now, the Swedish Fish were a huge hit!!!  Preschool is so much fun!

Colleen enjoyed making a Rainbow Fish after reading the books over, and over, and over this week!

Happy 4th of July, America!

We are enjoying some lake time this weekend!  it has been a long time since we have been out to the lake for more than 1 day as a family.  Granted we have made multiple trips back into Montgomery because Tyler had to work 2 night shifts, and we waned to go to the Biscuits game/fireworks, but we have had a lot of lake time!

On the water, we have had 4 kids ready to have fun!  Lauren even successfully kneeboarded, but the pictures were lost in the lake!  We were using JM phone to take pictures, and when we returned back to the house we could not find the phone.  Who knows what happened to the phone?!?!  Nobody did it, and nobody knows...

The pictures from the biscuits game did not move over to the "cloud" before it was lost either ;(
Smores pictures did upload, so we will not have to repeat these for the camera...darn!!!

 I am in town with Tyler tonight while the young man works!  We are going back out to the lake early tomorrow morning for more FUN on the LAKE in the SUN!

Eggs and Elephants...Letter E

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...

Yes, we sang this nursery rhyme all week!  It was so much fun!  Colleen's letter D lapbook this week was partly from Homeschool share again, but I added an Elsa puzzle, and the elephant is from The Mailbox Letter of the Week book.

As we are moving closer to the big kids starting school again, I am trying to set Colleen up for preschool success this year.  i need her to be able to work independently for some parts of the day so I can teach history, science, grammar and math!  this is where we failed last year, and she watched the iPad for HOURS!!!  We are working on the concept of centers.  Most of the activities are ones that we have worked on before together, and she is repeating them on her own. I set up 3-5 centers at a time for her to work through.  When she completes the center, she can take the star and put it on the "Reach for the Stars" chart.  After she has all the stars for the day, she can get a reward like iPad time or a special game that she loves.