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.

June Happenings

June 1st

Where did May go?  I cannot believe we have come to June 1st already.  Today we dropped off Lauren at the University of Alabama Roll Tide Swim Camp.  This is her 2nd year to go to Swim Camp. 

June 4th

While Lauren was at swim camp, Colleen, Lyndsey and I went to get haircuts.  I took Colleen in to get a trim, but she insisted that she wanted short hair.  We ended up getting 5 inches cut off, and it looks SO MUCH BETTER!!! Why didn't we do this sooner!?!

June 6th

Today we picked Lauren up from swim camp and began our drive to Texas to visit grandparents.  It was also National Doughnut Day, so we HAD to stop by KrispyKreme for our free doughnut!

June 13-16th

From JM Facebook post on 6/14, "Our tennis travels over the past year have taken us to Mobile, AL, Jackson, MS, Louisville, KY, Rome, GA, and Charleston, SC, not to mention all the Alabama tournaments.  All these travels with the goal of qualifying for the Southern Closed in Little Rock, AR.  Congratulations Tyler Vermillion.  Play hard and have fun...you've earned it!"  

JM took Tyler to the Southern closed in Little Rock this weekend.  It was a fun experience where the players are treated like pros for the weekend!  Tyler had a great time, and he played some great tennis against the BEST in the SOUTH!

Week of June 16th
The World Cup is on the TV ALL THE TIME.  These kids are so like their dad!  During the breaks, they had their own soccer challenge in the back yard!!!

We told Tyler he had to have a job this summer!  He applied for a job at Chick-fil-A, he has done the video based training, and now he is waiting to get his uniform so he can go through the on-the-job training.  In the meantime, he has a job as my personal errand and project boy!  He spent Tuesday running errands all over town for me.  I cannot explain how awesome it feels to actually complete a to do list in 1 day!  I did it with his help!!!  Wednesday I assigned him this project from Pinterest!  He was less than thrilled.

I think he surprised us both! The directions on her website give specific directions on what to buy and what cuts to make.  Easy as ABC!  It did take him more than 30 minutes (about an hour), but he built it!  This will be put to good use as a sand table-waterbead box-sensory bin for Colleen!  The cool part is is pulls apart and the pieces can be stored in the crate when not in use.  I did not add up my 2 receipts, but I know it was not over $30 which makes it even better!

 June 28th
Colleen and I took Tyler to another tennis tournament in Gulfport, MS, this weekend.  After Tyler's matches, Colleen and I enjoyed a little beach and pool time!  Don't be fooled by the picture of her sitting still at the tennis match!  I barely got the picture taken before she jumped up and started playing, jumping, climbing, and causing chaos!!!

June 29th
I think we can count on 1 hand the number of days in June when we were all in the same place at the same time.  Today was family fun day!  After church, we ate lunch and went bowling.  We all had a great time celebrating us and finishing off a very busy month!

Agency D3...Discover, Decide, Defend!

This week was VBS at our church.  We used the LifeWay AgencyD3 curriculum which turned out to be a lot of fun!!!  I taught 2nd grade.  Corynne helped with Lyndsey's 1st grade class.  Lauren was in the 5th grade class, and Colleen went to the Kindergarden class even though she is only 4.  We all had a great time uncovering the clues to find out the "Jesus was MORE than just a good man!"  WOW!  LifeWay VBS music just sticks with you!  It is so much fun!

 Oh, and cheers for the refreshment staff for cool treats this week!  Fruit kabob laser pointers, hidden clue jello, candy sushi, and robots snacks kinda like these...

I love it when we get to have fun with food!!!!!

Camp Victory

This is Lauren's 3rd summer to go to Camp Victory in Samson, Alabama.  She absolutely loves this sweet, little, Bible-based camp!  Mom loves that is it the best deal in Alabama for quality kid camps! Lauren has attended with her good friend Kate for the last few summers.  They have a great time together each year at camp!

 This year was Lyndsey's 1st time to go to Camp Victory.  She was so excited.  She was assigned to cabin #5 separate from her sister which was my intension.

She knew no one in her camp, but within minutes she left me behind to go with her cabin to the water.  My heart sank and the tears started!!! What have I done?  She has only spent 2 nights away from home and me - one at a friends house and her sister was there and the other at her AWANA leaders house.  Why did I think a week was a great idea?!?

 She had a great time, and she wants to go back next summer!  I give Camp Victory 5 stars, and everyone in Alabama-Georgia-Florida area should check it out!

All About Dogs...Letter D

This week we read a sweet little book called Angus Lost.  Her letter D lapbook this week was from Homeschool Share based on this book.  She had special puzzles and sorting games all about dogs.  We talked about how to take care of dogs, and we reviewed some directional words (inside, above, left, right, below) while moving "Angus" around the cave.  Angus must have been inside the cave when I snapped the picture!

We did many of the same activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler that we have done for each letter thus far.  I did pull out the dinosaur lacing this week.  She does not like these lacing activities.  She can do it, but not perfectly which frustrates her!

Colleen is really working hard at listening to the beginning sounds of pictures!

Texas, Here We Come!

We picked Lauren up from swim camp on Friday, and we started our drive to Texas from Tuscaloosa!  We made it to Longview, Texas on Friday.  We continued on our journey Saturday.  We stopped in Arlington at Flight Deck which is an indoor trampoline park to burn off some energy that was building up in the car.

These girls where hot, tired, hungry and thirsty after an hour of jumping!

Perfect time to try a new-to-us burger joint.

I think it gets a 5 thumbs up from our crew!  The burgers were juicy, and the fries were hot-and-fresh!  It was worth the wait!
Uncle Michael came to Grammy & Papa's house on Sunday.  We all went to church with Grammy & Papa, then came home for lunch and visiting.  It was so good to see Michael!  He has lost a great deal of weight and looks amazing!

               November 2013                                                             June 2014
We are so proud of how he is losing weight and improving his health!  Way to Go, Uncle Michael! 

I had texted Papa months ago that Lyndsey wanted to build a tree house this summer!  Papa got a jump start (and who would blame him for wanting to complete the task before the "helper" arrived!)!!!  The girls loved the treehouse!  Papa built the ladder up and bench seating around the tree.  Everyone climbed up to enjoy the nice treehouse view!

My girls in the picture tree...

Feeding the neighbors horses...

Crafting at Grammy's...

Their church is held at my old elementary school in Carbon.  The girls had a great time playing on my old school playground equipment!  Wow, watching my kids slide down that steep slide and climb on those monkey bars made me nervous!  I remember hours of fun on this playground as I grew up here.  Teachers kids get extra playground time!!!

We went to their church on Tuesday night.  It was a special night for the youth camp that was going on that week on the Carbon Encampment which is held in my old school building!  These men were impressive!

Thank you, Grammy & Papa for a fun week in TEXAS!

On Wednesday, we moved up the road to Mimi's house for a few days.  The girls enjoyed playing with Mimi, riding bikes, swimming at the city pool, and much more!  Corynne and Lauren made this American Flag Fruit platter for our hot dog and Smores cook out! 

 The week flew by fast!  We had an amazing week in Texas, but we have to get back home to Alabama by Saturday night! 

Carrots, Cats and Colleen...All Begin with C

Moving right along the Alphabet Path, we have come to letter C.  This week we read the book The Carrot Seed each day.  We talked about what it takes for a plant to grow.   Nice little science lesson for the week while we learn that the letter C says /c/!

We assembled the lap book from Homeschool Share for The Carrot Seed.  Colleen enjoys singing the rhymes and playing the games everyday.  

After we sing the ABC song, the months of the year song, and a few other rhymes, we start some learning activities.  The caterpillar count and puzzle are both from Confessions of a Homeschooler Letter of the Week.  I bought her ABC preschool set last year, so many of these activities are review for Colleen right now.  The bottom left hand corner is her completed sound sort.  I hand her a picture and say the name of the picture, then she puts the picture under the right beginning sound.  The last picture is a counting game from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

1. A cut and paste from My Book of Letters.  2.  A tanagram match for letter C from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  3.  Tracing the letter C in her My First School Book.  4.  Adding "stalks" to her carrots for the cover of her C lapbook.  5.  Small, Medium, Large puzzle in her lapbook.

We went to Texas the next week, and we took some "school" with us!  I carried her letter notebook and we did a few review games throughout the week!