Ice Skating~ Girl Scout Event

So here's the truth....I am not a huge fan of Girl Scouts. The corporate part of the organization anyway. It just isn't my thing. BUT I love the friendships the girls have made and the life lessons they are learning in their individual groups. AS long as I can keep away from the leadership aspect, I'm good ;)

One of the most recent Girl Scout activities offered was free ice skating for all the kids, even the non-GS kids. The kids had a BLAST! It was their first time on the ice. Well, Brooke had been once before. They offered a free hour group lesson then a free hour of open skate time. Tinker Bell even showed up and performed.

For some reason I can't rearrange my pictures on here so they are a bit jumbled...aw well...

Here is Becca doing twirls with some girls in her troop and Tinker Bell.

Shayna was a happy girl just skating around in circles.

Ok, Austin was hilarious! A true hokey player and I don't think he has ever seen a game before. He totally was muscling his way around the rink not giving a hoot who he ran over. He was all about the speed lol.

Kelsie (with the white hat/sweater) and Brooke (to Kels right) getting ready for take off.

Austin learning the basics...which he promptly ignored and created his own rules.

Shayna is the bright pink figure in the middle (don't you love my cell phones camera?)

Becca trying to figure it out.

There's Aus..the black poof ball..waiting patiently...

Ty was all signed up to skate. They have skates his size, pulled out a smaller walker and even had an extra instructor there for him since he was the littlest guy. But he would have nothing to do with it. He didn't even want to look at the ice! Hopefully next time he will give it a try. It was pretty awesome of them to go to all the trouble though!

Here is Becca and a few girls in her Daisy troop.

AND the classic "girls look over here! No over here! I'm right here girls! Look at me!" To be fair, the glass is really thick so they probably couldn't hear me ;)

Read~A~Thon

We started our first Read~A~Thon last Tuesday! It was a lot of fun getting the other home schooling families together for some good reading. We have about 25 kids joining the event which I think is amazing! There are kids who are just learning how to sound out words and kids who are reading young adult novels. My favorite part of the day was seeing the older kids helping the younger ones get excited about books. In between reading, the kids made cute bookmarks to take home and had "brain food" (e.i., veggies and crackers) They are going to keep track of the number of pages they read (or is read to them) for the next 3 weeks then we will get together again for an "awards ceremony". I'm getting a ton of little trinkets to hand out and out local $5 Book Store may donate a book for each kid. I'm still working on that though. Here are some pictures of the day (you will also notice my need for a new camera ;) haha):

Rainy Day Procrastination

It's a beautiful rainy December day at about 8:30am. I should be waking the kids and starting breakfast so our school day can begin...but I'd rather just sit here with my hot chocolate ;) I figured I'd write a little update on our goings-on just in case anyone still looks at this blog.

Its crazy to think that this school year is half over. It has gone by more quickly than I guessed it would. We have been working on some fun activities recently that have kept me busy. When the kids were in public school, I often wondered why the teachers didn't do more hands on projects. It seemed to me that the kids would learn more through them and book study just seemed tedious to teach and learn by. Little did I realize the extent of work the teachers put in to prepare, execute, and finalize each project. One example is the book reports the older girls did. In my "parents mind" the kid reads a book, does the project, hangs it on the wall. The End. In my "teachers mind" you read the book looking at in both your perspective and the kids, you research and decide what type of report would be best to understand the full meaning of the book, you collect the materials for the project, you come up with exact, yet simple instructions, a grading system, an appropriate time frame to finish both the reading and the project (which needs to also be appropriate for different reading levels),  the kid reads the book, you walk the kid through the project, when the project is "done" you both go through the editing process, kid re-does the project, it gets hung on the wall, you prepare supporting lessons for the book AND the project. By the time you are done with all this you as a teacher have no desire to see another project for at least another month, but the kids are rearing to go for the next one. Vicious cycle. Most people will say that teachers have the best job because they get summers off...I really don't see how they could have summers off if they are to be fully prepared for the next year. I know this next summer, my time will be spent pre-reading material and setting up projects so I don't have to be up past midnight getting ready for the next day. I'm sure others have their system better organized than me, but I'm new at this ;)

With that said, we have also been changing our system quite a bit this year. Keeping what works for us and finding new ways to fix what doesn't. Brooke was getting frustrated with our History Group because it was all material she has heard before. Granted we are covering more than she did in public school. But, the kids are all younger than her and have a slower time processing the information. So now she in doing "timeline" for history. She has a binder for each century. Right now she is working on the 1600's. Every day she picks at least 3 years (usually it ends up being more) and researching what happened during those years. She has researched all about Galileo, Pocahontas, Johannes Kelper, Isaac Newton, the Mayflower, and more. Although she has learned about some of these in the past, she is also learning how to do the research on her own, not having the information spoon fed to her. It's opened up a whole new world of learning for her. The other kids are loving the History group though. There are 4 families that get together once a week and we are also teaching in the timeline fashion  but we are going over American History right now. We just finished with the Civil War. It is a bit funny (I may have mentioned this before) but because the parents do the research and prepare different sections of the lesson, we learn a huge amount of details that we didn't know before. We get so excited to share that there are times the kids loose interest and wander off and we adults are sitting there teaching each other. In the end, I know the kids are still learning because every once in a while I'll hear them reference different quotes or stories at church or at the park. Its really fun to hear :)

We are still doing our State Studies each week. Recently, we finished the Northeast States and have moved on the the Southeast. Alabama was our first state in the region. One of the things we talked about was Helen Keller (she was born there). Inspired by her, Kelsie decided she wants to learn how the read braille and do sign language. So we sent away for a free braille card and have started learning that. As a teacher, I get to learn it along side her so I will know if she is doing it right. :) We got some old braille worksheets from Township Elementary, they have quite a few blind students there. I have no idea what the worksheets are for because they have no words on them, but they will be good enough for Kelsie to use for translation practice. Eventually she wants to write her own little story in braille. So if anyone wants to send secret messages to her, learn braille and you can be pen pals ;) The other kids were more interested in learning Morse code, so we will see if we can do that too.

Well, the kids are now all awake and hungry so I had better get on with my day. Hopefully I can get my camera charged and take some pictures of all the cool things the kids are doing :)

Friday Funday

Friday is the day I decided would be used for art, music, and any other extra subject (like maybe foreign language eventually). Yesterday I was realizing I could use a few more "helps" so I don't get overwhelmed with the same questions over and over. So today I also deemed "teacher work day". I set them up with some games and got busy making folder offices for them. I taped 2 file folder together so, when standing up, it will be a 3 sided barrier to put on their desk. On the folders I put some helpful reminders like a number chart and common words for Becca, the rules of multiplying for Shayna, basic equations and rules for writing paragraphs for Kelsie and Brooke. As we go through the year there is plenty of space for more to be added. I'm hoping they will actually be used and be a potential study guide. While I was doing my stuff, the younger kids were playing a math game. (But don't call it that in front of them, they won't play if you do) ;)  At first I was just going to assign each color ring a number (blue=1, red= 2...) but the kids were getting confused so instead I wrote #s 1-9 on paper. They threw two bean bags. The sum of the numbers they landed on was their score. Then we did subtracting the numbers. The older girls did a round of multiplying but after the second turn they kept aiming for the 1 and 2...end of game for them lol.

Becca kept score on the white board. Using mom's markers always makes a game better ;)

Because markers are rarely allowed in this house, I LOVE kitchen art. Today we colored rice so we could make mosaics. Its really easy! You need a gallon zip lock bag, a few spoonfuls of rubbing alcohol per bag, 1 cup of rice per bag, and food coloring. First put the rubbing alcohol in the bag then the color. Add the rice, close the bag and mix it up so the rice gets coated. You can add more color at this point if you want. Mix it for about 5mins if that then spread it out on wax paper to dry. I put the wax paper on a cookie sheet just in case. It should take about an hour to air dry. I doubled the amts above so it took longer but it goes by a lot faster if you stick it outside on a hot day like this.

 Once dry, I gave the kids cardboard pieces. They used glue to draw pictures and sprinkled the rice on top. Poor Ty was sent to the other table because he was helping too much.

 Brooke's shaking off the extra rice. At first she wanted to get all the rice to go the same direction but it was hot out and that takes a lot of time and patience. :)

All the wonderful creations! :)

   

Austin's 4th Birthday

Austin was so stoked to be turning 4! He was even more excited to have a superhero party!! Over the past few months he would go back and forth between wanting an Iron-man, Spider-man, or Woody theme so I told him we would have a Super Hero Training Camp. I stole most of my ideas from the party my friend did for her son. Thanks Keline! ;)  The initial plan was to have it in our backyard so I could use the trees for part of the course, but seeing as it was 105* Mark thought using the church building (and a/c) was a better option. So right he was! 

We started out by having the kids sign their name badges to show they are now members of the Super Hero Training Center.

 

   Their first task was to show how they could follow orders. We played a cake walk type of game. There were pictures of villains and one superhero in a circle. Who ever was on Superman when the music stopped had completed this task and was rewarded with a mask they could decorate themselves. 

Here are some of the kids coloring their masks :)

Their next assignment was to complete an obstacle course and defeat the villains at the end of it. They threw bean bags to knock the villains off the table. Once completed, they earned their capes.

 (These are the capes) ;)

 After they earned their capes, they had the ultimate challenge of taking out the leader of all bad guys. They were each armed with silly string to shoot at him as I ran the board back and forth haha. I think they had more fun shooting each other though ;)

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUSTIN!!

 He got 2 light sabers as a gift from his friends! He couldn't have been more thrilled!

"The Constitution State"

This summer has been full of amazingly fun activities and it has sped by incredibly fast! Along with beach trips, visit to the museums, garage sales, sleepovers, movie marathons and just hanging with friends at the pool, we have also been doing some summer school. I figured it would be a good practice time for me to get the hang of how long each lesson should be and good for the kids to get used to mom being the teacher ;)

Our friends, the Cannons, have been doing summer school with us, kind of a co-op thing. At our house we've started the program USA Road Trip which goes over the facts of every state. We only got through the nation as a whole: our flag, 13 colonies, constitution, the White House, regions of the U.S., map skills... (today was our first lesson on an actual state, but more on that in a second). While at the Cannons house we did math, reading, and learning how to post on a blog. Not to mention they have a pool so we took advantage of that as well. It was so wonderful to be able to spend time with their family! They are in the military so we really only get to see them in the summer. They move back to base when school starts, which for them is next week :( Seriously, summer goes by way faster now then I remember as a kid.

So today was our first school day without friends here. I have to say, some of the girls were not at all happy with the situation. They really, really miss them already. After they accepted the fact that no one else was coming (only took about 20min for them to get on board) ;) we had our lesson on our first state: "The Constitution State"! Which is.........Connecticut! We learned many interesting facts about this little state. For instance, it is named the Constitution State because J. Fiske wrote the very first constitution here, even parts of our U.S. constitution uses part of that one. I was probably the only one who cared about that fact (Brooke caught on to the significance but didn't really care lol) It is also the 5th state. What did they love the most? The very first hamburger was made here. For sure a fact worth knowing. Connecticut is also the birthplace of the first lollipop (which got its name from the creators favorite racehorse). Even more interesting is that you will find the worlds largest Dinosaur Museum here. Where you can see actual dino feet imprints. So in honor of this great state we ate lollipops, made fossils and for lunch had clam chowder. I know, I know, you thought it would have been hamburgers, but we just had them for Austins b-day dinner last night so the kids chose the next food dish the East coast is know for ;) And even with our 100 degree weather, it was still good.

 Look at them all sitting nicely doing their worksheets...you'd never have guessed this was just moments after they were all complaining that their friends were no longer joining us. ;)

 Austin making his fossils in clay.

 Kelsie figuring out what she wants it to look like.

 Becca created he own dino foot print. 

 Brooke experimenting with shells, leaves and berries. The pine needles were by far the neatest looking.

                                                          Shayna hard at work.

Someones fossils ready to be baked. Once they are hard, we are going to see about varnishing them so the imprint stands out a bit more...we shall see. 

There you have it. Our first official day of school without friends. It was fun and I hope they picked up some good info. At least I know they will be able to find it on a map ;)