While studying turtles for homeschooling, we had this yummy turtle snack.
A little peanut butter, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and bread cut out into turtle pieces can sure go a long way. =)
It was fun and sure did taste good. =) Mmmmm.
We Needed Toilet Paper and Sanity
Grumpiness. Pregnancy hormones. Disobedience. A toddler waking up an hour early to torture us. Selfishness. Frustration with interrupted playtime by an intruder, also known as a sister. Distraction. And neediness.
Yes, friends you guessed it right, it was a Monday morning.
And what better crabby crew than to frequent the grocery store.
We were out of toilet paper.
And we needed a distraction.
There was way too much time before lunch. And before naps.
But I found the cure… get out your sticky note and jot this down. I found it at the end of aisle 2 and at the back perimeter of the store:
Swiss Cake Rolls and Chocolate Milk.
That’s right, people… the reformation began. And the sun came out (cue the angelic music.)
– Something had to turn the Titanic around. =)
Continuing Right Along
I took the afternoon to finish Rachael’s Kindergarten lesson plans for the year. Yep, friends, for the YEAR.
I was thrilled to organize the remaining 18 lessons into 6 day bundles per lesson (dividing out each subject’s work and bundling them together by days). So pretty much now if I die someone can pick up my teacher book and teach Rachael the remainder of her Kindergarten year (P.S. No intent on dying, just happy to get this completed).
I also calculated out the days we have completed of school (I wasn’t tracking it before – oops) and have a game-plan for the remaining school year’s required days.
Just trying to get more organized here so I can
a). Not have to lesson plan each week.
b). make it a habit to track school days so…
c). I can have a written record should I need to prove the days we have homeschooled [With no idea where God will take us in the years after Matt graduates, I wanted to be prepared to meet other states’ stricter homeschooling requirements should we end up moving there.]
and d). Be more pro-active in planning fun things during our school year based upon future weeks’ themes.
It feels good to finally get a grasp on advanced forward panning for Rachael’s school year after just struggling to get into a regular school groove post-boys.
And it’s also been really exciting to make some changes in organization of educating multiple children in multiple grades, while balancing a baby on my hip (Hannah’s no longer taking morning naps).
I really like our new groove. And I’m excited and less stressed about the remaining school year.
Abi’s coming along quite well in her first year of preschool. She;s picking up things quite quickly thanks to being a byproduct of a homeschool listener. The alphabet and numbers are coming much more naturally to her and I’m excited at the increased fine motor skills in tracing and writing her own name.
And Rachael is really coming into her own in her Kindergarten schooling. It’s fun to watch her take confidence in developing the skills that began a looong (relatively) time ago when she first learned the alphabet. It’s also really neat to watch her manipulate her knowledge to apply it in different settings. And it’s downright fun to encourage her as she is beginning to read. Very…. very… slowly… she has begun sounding out words… one…. at…. a… time. And then her memory kicks in and she puts the words together into a sentence. It’s also fun to see her reading comprehension growing through a really fun workbook I picked up for a buck (Yay dollar store find!). She has enjoyed hearing the princess fairy tales and then learning to write sentences to answer the questions following the story.
I must say, I really enjoy homeschooling. And now that I’m more practically organized, I am enjoying it all the more.
I look forward to the wonder and excitement of the remainder of the school year. =)
All Trimmed Up
Yesterday I decided to trim Ms. Squirmy’s hair for the first time. She was starting to have a mullet of separation between the sides and the back (the greatest challenge for little girls growing in hair) so I figured a little trim could help even it out more. Then lay the challenge before me of how to get Ms. Busy semi-still. A buckle-in booster seat provided the perfect opportunity as well as a few highly loved toys, pacifier, and a little PBS.
Here’s a look at how long the back was prior to her cut.
Within 15 minutes, I put in some layers (since hair grows in layered anyway) and trimmed a total of an inch and a half off the back. But since she’s a squirmer, I trimmed it off in quarter of an inch segments so as not to make a drastic change that couldn’t be evened.
She was super squirmy post-cut so the pictures are the best I could do while letting her free.
Here’s her new cut, right at shoulder level.
Despite some being tucked behind her ear, this is the best pic I got of her newly evened out hair.
And since I’m still wanting the top to grow out instead of bangs, she’ll continue to sport her clips and pigtails.
And of course I saved some clippings for the baby book. 😉
I trimmed the older girls’ hair too. Rachael’s is unnoticeably different, but healthy. She continues to announce that she’s growing her hair out like Rapunzel.
Abi, on the other hand, was a celebration day. With this last trim, her sides are finally the same length as the back. Bravo little girl, it only took 3 years and no scary haircuts to even them out. 😉 She’s my “more bald” hair starter in life.
Here after an over-all trim, you can still see that the back is longer than the sides.
wet
dry
I decided to go back in and take an additional inch off the back to even it with the sides. So I cut a total of 2-2.5 inches off the back and just a tiny bit off the sides.
Here she’s looking down so it doesn’t quite touch her shoulders.
And with a section of her hair growing in wavy, I trimmed that section a little shorter to allow her under layer of curls to come through.
 
I’ll add a picture of the dry finished product a little later since she was napping directly after her trim and I forgot to get one before bedtime last night.
But I’m really happy with how all three of the girls’ trims turned out. Rachael’s – unnoticeable but healthy. Abi’s – Yay for even! And Hannah’s – more bobbed and less mullet. SCORE!
La Theatre
(Happy Birthday Moon by Frank Asch)
“the moon” played by Abi. (picking her belly because it was nearing nap time)
“Bear” played by Rachael.
“One night Bear looked up at the sky and thought, wouldn’t it be nice to give the moon a birthday present.”
” ‘Hello, Moon!’ he shouted. “
“But the moon did not reply.”
“So Bear paddled across the river…”
“hiked through the forest and into the mountains.”
” Now I am much closer to the moon, thought Bear… ‘Hello!! “
“This time his own voice echoed, ‘ Hello!”
” ‘ What would you want for your birthday?’ asked Bear.
‘What would you want for your birthday?’ asked the Moon.
‘I would like a hat.’
‘I would like a hat,’ said the moon.”
” He went downtown and bought the moon a beautiful hat.”
“That night he put the hat up in a tree where the moon could find it. Then he waited and watched while the moon slowly crept up through the branches and tried on the hat.”
” ‘Hurray!’ yelled Bear. ‘It fits just right!’ “
“During the night the hat fell out of the tree.”
“In the morning Bear found the hat on his doorstep.”
” ‘So the moon got me a hat too!’ exclaimed Bear.”
“Just then the wind blew Bear’s hat off his head…”
“He chased after it but it got away.”
“That night Bear paddled across the river…”
” and hiked through the forest…”
“to talk with the moon.”
(Awww, look how sad. Poor Bear.)
“For a long time the moon would not speak to him, so bear spoke first.”
” ‘I lost the beautiful hat you gave me, ‘ said Bear.”
” ‘I lost the beautiful hat you gave me, ‘ said the moon.”
” ‘That’s okay, I still love you!’ said Bear. “
” ‘That’s okay, I still love you!’ said the moon. “
” ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’ said Bear. “
” ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’ said the moon. “
The End.
– A part of reading comprehension in homeschooling, naturally. =)
– P.S. The girls were told to find brown and yellow hats from the dress-up according to their characters. Yep, my three year old returned with a chicken hat. We all busted up laughing. Love her! We flipped in inside out for “the moon”. =)
Wordless Wednesday: Our Spiderman
Today’s nursery rhyme dress up day in Big Guy’s Kindergarten class. So naturally he picked something AWESOME for me to make.
Paper says: “… Along came a spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away.”
He was elated and kept saying “Ahhhhhh” while I assembled it on him.
He couldn’t have cared less that they were repurposed socks. =)
– Love him.