Make your own puzzles

My oldest daughter does not like to study spelling lists, but loves to do word puzzles. With the help of some friends, I found a couple of great sites that have made spelling and vocabulary study much more fun.

Make your own crossword
http://www.eclipsecrossword.com/ You download the FREE software, enter your own word lists and clues and it spits out a really nice puzzle in less than 30 seconds. Love it!

Wordsearch
http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.asp You don't need to download anything to use this puzzle maker. Just type in your words and print out the puzzle. Fabulous!

Cuh-cuh Commandment

This post is a couple of weeks overdo, but sick kids will do that to you!

We had a great C week though! We learned that Commandment is a really big word for rules and that God gave 10 rules to Moses and His people. We also read one of our very favorite books by Eric Carle, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." We had great fun making our own caterpillars out of circles, took a nature walk and had fun playing at the park.

I Will Survive

I have no clue how to add this video to my blog, but I love it and wanted to share anyway. Just click on the link and it'll take you where you need to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIOogqa-5GA

Buh-buh Boat!

Buh-buh Boat went off without a hitch! My goal for this year is letter and sound awareness - not mastery. And it's a good thing because Sadey insisted that B said "aaaaah" for most of the week and is now convinced that the letter is actually called "buh buh beeeeeee". It's a good thing she's cute.

I've kind of abandoned Heart of Dakota and am doing my own thing. I wasn't overly thrilled with the way the program is put together for this age group. I've heard good things about the other programs, but this one just wasn't a good fit for us. I do love the Singing Through the Bible cd that came with it. I believe that's available through Focus on the Family - but haven't checked into it. I think we'll just keep reading through the preschool Bible and listening to the cds and I'll pull my own craft and activity projects together to round things out for her.

I was also planning to use HOD with my co op class, but it's just too hard to condense 5 day's worth of activities into 1 two-hour class. Live and learn.

This week in co op, however, we were working on the letter B and the color red. We began the day with a Bible story about Noah and his ark (a very big boat). The kids did an awesome job of coming up with lots of B words like bananas, bugs, baby and buggy. We also read a Veggie Tales book about colors. The kids all seemed to know that Bob (the tomato) was "very red." After story time we got out the paints. This is by far the messiest part of our day, but who doesn't like to fingerpaint with 14 three year olds?!? After fingerpainting we made our butterfly craft. I'll have to post a picture later because they turned out sooooo cute. Then we had our snack time and took a nature walk. It was pretty hot outside, but the kids had fun. They were so excited to have spotted a lizard as we were first exiting the building. We went on to listen to the wind, feel the rough rocks, find a stream behind the building, a butterfly perched on a flower and a spider making a web. Talk about a great walk! We'll definitely be doing those more often - only maybe we'll focus on finding "letter of the week" things as much as possible.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to teach this group of preschoolers. It's a lot of work, but a good reinforcment for Sadey since we are going over the same letter we are learning here at home. The kids are so much fun (most of the time LOL) and it's nice to see Sadey playing with some kids her own age. It's a win-win kinda' thing.

MFW 1st grade ~ Weeks 1 & 2

Delaney has been hard at work now that she's an official 1st grader. I had originally intended to lump her into Adventures with Sydney, but after lengthy discussion and prayers, we've decided to use My Father's World's 1st grade program with her. We have only done the first 8 days, but so far she seems to enjoy it. I must also confess that the one on one time we are getting by doing school this way has also been good for our mother/daughter relationship...which just can't be a bad thing.

So for the first 8 days, we have been following a very similar routine. We start our day with a Bible lesson. Right now she is learning some verses from the book of Proverbs. We started with Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." We spent quite a bit of time talking about what fear of the Lord means and how God wants us to revere Him - not to actually be afraid. That was a toughie to explain! Our newest verse is Proverbs 10:5 "He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son." You know, it can be hard to explain Proverbs to a city kid!

After Bible study, we move on to math. I am trying to combine MFW math with Math U See so it ought to be an interesting year. Right now D is studying patterns and learning about place value. I haven't been overly thrilled with the directions given in the math section of MFW, but I'm trying to be open-minded about it. D fills out a "Number of the Day" sheet each school day on which she practices writing the number and does a few math equations (0+___ = ____, ___-1=____, etc).

The best part of their math, in my opinon, is the hands on approach to learning place value and money. She gets a new bean to put in a cup each day and when she amasses 10 of them, she'll glue them to a popsicle stick to make a base 10 stick. We did something similar with the MUS blocks last year, but I think this will be even more concrete for her. For money, she gets a penny every day and when she has 5 she can exchange them for a nickel and 2 nickels can be exchanged for a dime. We won't be using quarters this year, but I'm sure we'll trade up for a dollar when the time comes. D loves doing the worksheets from The Complete Book of Math. I think that's been her favorite part of school.

So far her language arts studies have all been review. We are starting with practicing all the letter sounds and working on handwriting. I'm not sure how we missed it, but last year we didn't spend much time learning how to write lower case letters, so this exercise has been very good for her. Each day she practices writing 3 letters and then practices blending the new consonants with the vowels. When she's done with the alphabet, we'll turn all her papers into a scroll. We talked about how the Bible was first written on a scroll and only available to very rich people, so she's decided that she's making her scroll for the king (Dad).

She really seems to like all the hands-on activities that come with this program, but I'm not surprised since she's a hands-on kinda' girl :) One of her first projects was a pottery jar. I read that the recipe printed in the 1st grade manual was a bit of a flop, so we decided to make the jar with Crayola air drying clay instead.

She did a great job!

She also made a Jewish calendar and we talked a bit about the differences between our calendar and the one she made. She was very interested to learn about the Jewish names for the months.

In science we learned about bugs and creepy crawlies and then got to go outside and pick up all sorts of boards and leaves and sticks to see if there was anything living under there. She still does this every time she goes outside *eek* We also had a lesson on the seasons. I think her favorite part of that was when we acted out the earth and sun and I orbited around her to demonstrate the change of seasons. She was a bit disappointed that I didn't rotate on my axis as I orbited her - but there's only so much spinning a mom can take!

Outdoor Hour ~ Challenge #3

I'm very late blogging about this, but we did our third Outdoor Hour Challenge two weeks ago. We grew tired of all the mosquitoes in the yard, so we decided to load up the kids and head to a local park overlooking the bay.

We are originally from NW Indiana and it took us a long time to understand that there was more than one type of Oak tree. This park (and really, the whole city) is filled with Live Oaks - which are absolutely grogeous trees with acorns, but leaves that look nothing like the Oaks we are used to. The Live Oaks are filled with Spanish Moss!

Color me silly, but I had no idea that Spanish Moss is actually a flowering plant (Tillandsia usneoides) and a member of the pineapple family! Apparently it's an air plant and grows on the Live Oaks because they leach minerals through their leaves that the Spanish Moss thrive on. We all thought that was pretty darn cool.

Delaney has been learning about bugs in her science lessons and rarely hesitates to lift things up to see what may be lurking underneath. This was a tree that fell during the winds of Gustav.

She didn't see any critters around the roots - but she was looking!


These are some mushrooms (I think) that were growing along the driveway. I haven't looked them up yet, but we didn't touch them just to be safe.

This "little" guy is our favorite nature find. Dad found him hanging on the edge of our extremely overworked mosquito/bug zapper. We believe it's a luna moth. It's HUGE, but absolutely gorgeous.

I have noticed that we have all changed our attitude about science and nature since we began taking our weekly nature walks. The girls run up to me with seeds and leaves every time we leave the house now and I find myself trying to listen a little closer to see if I can discern the various bird calls from the noise of the crickets and frogs. I even took my preschoolers from co op on a nature walk last week! We are still not thrilled with the mosquitoes, but otherwise, this has been a great addition to our studies and something we will continue doing through the years.

Gustav

We took the kids to the beach as Gustav passed through the Gulf. We didn't get much rain, but the skies were definitely overcast and we did see some waves (which are pretty rare here). I don't have a good photo, but there were several surfers out there - thankfully none of them were killed.

Delaney thought she was going to be blown off the pier so she was holding on for dear life :)

The tide was pretty high that day. I don't know if you can make out the posts in the distance (right side of photo) but that's not generally under water!

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 7

This week we were still working on John 6:35 "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." We talked a bit about Elijah and how obedient he was to God. We read 1 Kings 17:8-16 - the story of the woman who fed Elijah even though she and her son were nearly out of food. My girls really have a hard time comprehending "being out of food" since we live such an abundant life, but we talked quite a bit about famine and the difference between being hungry and starving. They were taken aback at the realization that this woman was willing to literally give the last bit of food she had to Elijah. I think that they loved hearing how God took care of them for their obedience though and thought it was amazing that He provided for them for the rest of the famine. God is good!

Continuing with last week's yeast experiment, this week we learned about communion and why we take the bread and drink the wine. We learned about the Feast of Unleavened Bread where Jesus celebrated His last supper with the disciples and how yeast is a symbol of sin. It was interesting to show the girls a piece of regular bread and see that "aha" look in their head as they realized that yeast is like sin because it punches holes in the bread just like sin punches holes in our lives. Very cool.

Our science activity for this week was to make clay. That was a toughie for the girls :)

In social studies we learned the names of the Great Lakes and how Michigan was settled. We ready all about how birch bark canoes were made and how natives and settlers "portaged" the canoes by carrying them from river to river. We even made some canoes out of construction paper.

They were a great addition to our growing Native American village.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 6

This was another fun week. Our focus of study was Jesus is the Bread of Life, and the settling of New York (New Netherlands).

Our memory verse this week was John 6:35 "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be thirsty." We talked about how Moses led the Israelites out of slavery and into the desert where they were starving because there wasn't much food. We thought it was interesting how after all that God had done for them, the Israelites decided to complain about being hungry instead of just asking God for help. Nevertheless, Good did feed them manna (a special bread) for 40 years while they lived in the desert.

As a side note, we were all amazed at how quickly the Israelites seemed to forget about the pillars of smoke and fire that led them through the desert as soon as Moses was out of the picture for a few days. While Moses was up on the mountain talking to God, they were down below worshipping a Golden Calf. Wow! I guess it's not so hard to imagine why so many people fail to see God in everything when these Israelites were so OBVIOUSLY in God's presence and were quick to forget.

We also studied the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5000 men (and their families) with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. We discussed how hard it might have been for the little boy to give his lunch to Jesus, completely trusting in Him. We also talked about obedience and how sometimes we just need to obey, even if we don't know why - just as this little boy did - because we never know what plans God may have.

We read John 6:26-35 and took a closer look at our memory verse. We learned that the "bread" we get from God is food for our spirit and will keep us alive forever - unlike regular bread which only satisfies for a few hours.

This week's science lesson was a fun yeast experiment. We filled two jars with yeast and water - added salt to one and sugar to the other and then covered both with a balloon and put them in a cabinet for a few minutes. The girls then tried to guess what would happen and why. Through this experiment we learned that the yeast needs the sugar for food. When the two are combined they make a gas called carbon dioxide and that's what makes the yeast bubble and the bread rise. Here you can see that the yeast mixed with sugar inflated the balloon.


We also had lots of fun making butter. We cheated a bit and used whipping cream instead of getting our milk from a cow like the pioneer children :) We put the cream in a jar and took turns shaking it until we had a lump of butter.

We spread it on some crackers and had a tasty afternoon snack!

One of Sydney's favorite parts of the week was reading The Courage of Sarah Noble. It was so eye-opening to her to read about a little girl who went with her father into the "wilderness" and was left alone all day to do the cooking. She was amazed that this little girl was cooking over an open fire! And so began Sydney's cooking lessons.....

Pioneer Days

Right after we originally did week 5 (I reviewed it before I made the last post), we went on a field trip to a local Pioneer Days village. It was a very rainy day, but we had such a good time!

The village is actually made up of houses that were built in our area and were all moved to this site. I can't remember the exact dates, but some of the houses were from the 1700s and others were in use up until the 1960s. Here is one of the older houses. One of the most fascinating things was that they knew the history of the homes and even had many of the families' belongings which made it seem more real to the girls.

One of our first stops was at the smoke house. The girls were a little grossed out by the idea of killing the animals and rendering fat, but they loved eating those cracklins! I think that was Sadey's favorite part of the day!

The blacksmith told us all about making horseshoes and even made me a plant hook for the front porch. I love it!

There were a few arts and crafts stations. Here the girls are learning about making quilts and even got to make their own squares. At another station they got to make and decorate marbles and were excited to learn how easy it is if you have some clay and lots of time to let them dry in the sun.

Here's the family outside the general store - waiting for the rain to slow down a little bit.



During a particularly bad part of the storm, we were stranded in a house with a wonderful older couple who were all about re-enacting the pioneer lifestyle. They gave us warm biscuits and homemade jam, and then taught the girls some games that pioneer children might have played. Here she is showing Delaney how much fun you can have with a button and some string.


Thankfully it didn't rain the whole day! Delaney had fun making us some butter.


We had so much fun talking to this woman about the baskets she was weaving from pine needles. Pine trees grow like crazy around here - we have more needles in our yard then grass! She told us how she collects, washes and prepares the needles and then makes the baskets with just the needles and some string. Someday it would be nice to take a class from her and learn the technique - but it doesn't SOUND like it would be too hard once you get the hang of it.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 5

This week we studied the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. Sydney wasn't really thrilled about the chapter at the outset because she's read/heard about this so many times, but she ended the week a little more appreciative of the pilgrims' struggle and seemed to have a better understanding of it all.

Bible ~ Our memory verse was still John 8:12 "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." This week we talked a bit about missions and how God doesn't mean for us to keep His light to ourselves. Sydney has a strong heart for missions and we are trying to find an outlet for that. Right now she is saving her money and donating it to different charities, in the future I'm sure she'll want to do more hands on work.

Social Studies ~ We finished reading Squanto this week and began a lengthy discussion of why the Pilgrims came to America. It was really hard for the girls to grasp the need for religious freedom, but we talked and read about how King James persecuted those who did not want to worship his way. In American Pioneers and Patriots we read a story about how life must have been for those first Pilgrims. We also made an oiled paper window and completed a page about the Pilgrims for our notebooks.

Science ~ Our science focus for the week was the stars and constellations. The girls enjoyed reading about the stars in the Bible and learning about the Big Dipper, etc. I found some great books at the library with night sky scapes so the girls could try to find the constellations. It's too buggy here to go out at night, so this was a good compromise.

Another interruption

Well life is kinda' like that sometimes, isn't it? This latest interruption was brought to you by colds, MRSA, wii, co op and flat tires. In other words - craziness!

I can't even count how many times the kids have been sick in the last couple of weeks, but suffice it to say that someone is nearly always running a fever. I wonder what it's like in families with 6+ kids! Our latest illness involved Miss Sadey and a nasty case of MRSA. My poor baby had a boil on her hiney and couldn't even sit down for 2 days. She's much better now and the house has been thoroughly disinfected, we've all had nasal swabs and I'm thinking, hoping and praying that the superbug is out of the house. I know it can very easily pop up again, but we'll be uber careful.

A couple of months ago, we visited some new friends and the girls were so happy to get the opportunity to play with their American Girl dolls. My older two have been saving their money for almost 2 years so that they could buy dolls of their own (because Mom and Dad refuse to pay $100 for dolls). The play date was quite an eye-opening experience for my girls when they found out that American Girl dolls are just like all their other dolls - only more expensive. Ding ding ding ding!!!! So then the girls decided that they would rather pool their money and buy a wii instead. And being the fame addicts that their parents are, they were not dissuaded. So we've been having lots of fun playing the wii for the last few days. It can be pretty all-consuming, but great for those days when it's either rainy or too hot/buggy to be in the yard. I can see us getting a lot of use out of this game.

We started co op last Friday. It's been crazy, but it's also a lot of fun. Sadey is in my 3 year old preschool class. Thankfully I have 3-4 helpers or I would be pulling my hair out with 14 three year olds! Sydney is taking art, US geography and choir while Delaney is taking Spanish, ballet and choir. I had hoped both girls would also take science this year, but the timing just didn't work out with the rest of our schedule. Maybe next year.

As I was pulling out of the drive way to go to co op yesterday morning, I realized that my tire was flat. Upon closer examination we found that there were THREE flat tires. Apparently my children were playing with a board full of nails (I don't know - ask their dad!) and left it in the driveway for me to run over. Wasn't that nice of them? *ugh*

So that's what I've been up to lately. Fun stuff.