Tot School

Tot School was slightly better this week.  She didn't want to do it with any regularity but she did do a few activities.  And now I don't have to switch out too many activities so less work for me. LOL

She went to her buddy, Holden's 3rd birthday, and gorged on cupcakes.

Played this mitten color match game.  She breezed through it.  In 3.5 seconds.  I made it last year and can't remember where I got it.  Sorry.  =o(

Spooned "snowballs" into our snowman ice cube tray.  She said she was feeding them.  She did use this a lot this week, but only once as intended.  The rest of the week she stirred them for hours and dumped them on the floor. 

She played a lot with our Handwriting Without Tears chalkboard.  Mainly squeaking the chalk and driving Mackenzie and I batty. LOL

We tried out the Guidecraft Geometric Counting Cylinders that she got for Christmas.  She found different ways to work with them.  Much more creative than what those Guidecraft people had in mind. LOL  

Side Note:  After seeing her buddy turn 3, Kayleigh has decided not to.  She is going to remain a baby now that she found a "pac."  You should know that she would not touch one of these as a baby.  So typical of her. LOL

Kayleigh hearts popcorn chicken.  A lot!

She had fun with her Hide and Find game.  What's more fun then pulling things out of a bag?  Nothing is.

She destroyed her room.

Helped Sissy play Professor Layton

Basketball Buddies started back up and she played for the ENTIRE time.  Truly amazing since last year she's throw the ball a max of 3 times.  Then she'd retire to the bleachers and empty the diaper bag of all snacks while she watched the other tots play.  When the "official snack" was brought out, Kayleigh would slyly make her way back and sit in a circle with the others waiting sweetly for her snack.

Shooting hoops!

Practicing their passing

Time for running drills

The sweet, sweet reward!

Be sure to click the Tot School button at the top of the page and see what the other tot's have been up too.

Project Life: Week One

I had so much fun doing my December Daily project.  It was totally exciting for to have actually finished a photo project.  I still get a thrill when I look at my finished book.

My fantabulous friend Wendy, who got me to do the December Daily, had a new project idea for us.  Project Life by Becky Higgins.

It's a very simple twist on scrap booking.  You get the kit and it provides with a binder, special page protectors (similar to baseball card protectors only for photos), and decorative elements/journaling cards to use in the pockets.  All I provide are the pictures.  Take 'em, print 'em, write a little blurb on journal cards, and shove them in the pockets.  Any blank spots get a decorative card.  That's it!  You're done.

How easy is that?  (And there's also a digital one.)

Some people do a picture a day.  Other's a layout a month.  It's what works for you and your family.  I'm doing a layout a week but not a picture everyday, necessarily.  If I have more than one picture from one day then I'll use it.

I'm excited to see the finished project at the end of the year.  The girls love the December Daily book and I'm excited to have more albums for them to look back on over the years.

And with that.  Here's my first layout.  One down 51 more to go.

"Title" Page

Week One

Week One~left

Week One~right

Weekly Wrap-Up

Well what can I say about this week.  Typical.  Busy.  Exhausting.  That sounds about right.

It was typical in that sense that we got what needed to be done finished.  It was busy because cheer and basketball started.  Not to mention two outings with friends this week.  It was exhausting because we live with Kayleigh.   So exhausting also falls under typical. LOL

School, school, what did we do??

Math

She started division with remainders.  She seems to have a pretty good handle on that.  We love Mr. Demme.  He's such a fun math teacher.

Science

We're finishing up our study on bats.  We have decided that bats are the perfect pets.  They don't make your house dirty, chew up your stuff, claw you, jump all over you, or "go" on the floor.  And they're useful.  Not only do they pollinate tons and tons of things that we love to eat, they eat thousands of bugs a night.  We want one or two to make our backyard mosquito free during the summer.  =o)

Next week we're hitting a local museum that is having an exhibit on bats.  We're excited.  More on that next week.  ;o)

She also worked with her latest Snap Circuit set again.  She just loves that she got a bigger set.

Language Arts

Spelling, good.  Writing good.  Grammar good.  She's learning to diagram prepositional phrases at the moment.  Exciting, huh? LOL

History

We've been studying the growth of America during late 1800s/early 1900s.  The ingenuity our ancestors had to get what they needed done.  Building amazing bridges without modern equipment.  Inventing new ways to communicate.   And on and on.   It's amazing how such a new country shot to the head of the pack.

Mackenzie is reading about George Washington Carver as her read aloud.  What an amazing man!

We just finished The Great Wheel.  Mackenzie was so into it that she read ahead without me.  LOL  We're moving onto Little Britches next week.

Other Stuff

Well, as I mentioned, cheer and basketball started up.  We had our first practice and our first game tomorrow.  Nothing like having one hour to get a group of new girls ready to cheer.  The "old timers" will have to work extra hard.  Luckily their coach isn't a stickler.  At least not yet. LOL  Well maybe a little when she saw her daughter's sloppy high-V after 4 years of cheering.

Mackenzie got her favorite coach for basketball.  And her most of her cheer buddies are on her team.  She doesn't have mad bball skills but she's not too bad.  And I love the serious look on her face as she runs up and down the court.

Piano continues to go fantastic.  Mackenzie really has a gift for it.  Halfway through the year and she's almost done with her book.  She's in a group class, as this was her first year and I wasn't willing to pay the big bucks yet, and her teacher is always telling us that private lessons are a must for her next year.  We're so proud of her.

We've been slacking on our art since we headed back to school after break, but we did play a drawing game she got for Christmas.   It's called Pick and Draw and it is soooo much fun!!!  We were just cracking up.   I can't recommend it enough.  You can "try it out" on the website.

And that was our week.  How was yours??  Check out all the wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

.

Tot School

Kayleigh is 34 months old

Tot School was a huge bust this week.  She was not having it at all.  Not one activity for a single second.  She did dump a lot of Tot School stuff on the floor.  Every.  Single.  Day.   Such is life with Kayleigh.  LOL

So instead I'll share her favorite Christmas gifts.  Some I have pictures, some I don't.  Ironically, I don't have pictures of her with her top 2 favorites. LOL

Her most favoratist thing of all was her "candy hearts." The child is obsessed with them.  She asks everyday if she can eat some.  She's been hearing "no" for almost a year now.  Partly due to the fact that she can't have candy very often, not to mention that they're not always in season. LOL  At any rate, when I saw these I knew she had to have them.

I should mention that she doesn't use these as they were necessarily intended.  There are all kinds of suggestions for learning activities with them.  They're not for Kayleigh.  She's not stringing them or doing anything besides trying to feed them to her naked babies.  (She refuses to keep them clothed.  I've given up.)  I can't believe I don't have a picture of her shoving them at her dolls faces. LOL

Her second favorite is also from Learning Resources, the Counting Fun Fruit Bowl.  Adorable!!  Such a great learning toy.  Rest assured that there is no counting of the fruit happening here though.  She does make an awesome fruit salad though.  The trick is to stir it for hours.  And add candy hearts. LOL

Number 3 was the Jumbo Aquadoodle.  She loves her travel Aquadoodle so much that I thought she might like to spread out.  She did!!

Number 4 wasn't something that I was sure she'd like but it looked like an awesome motor activity.  The Guidecraft Screw Block.  She's not that good at it yet but she likes it.  She says that she's Daddy when she uses it. LOL

Number 5 is the Candyland Castle game and it was a big hit.  And so cute!!  This game was so perfect for her.  The rules were easy for a tot to understand and she loved it.  Plus she keeps beating me.

Here's hoping that next week runs more smoothly.  She seemed interested in my preparations in the school room this evening.  She kept saying "Gank you Mommy! Gank you!"  Then I had to shoo her away and tell her to wait for tomorrow. LOL

Click the button at the top of the page to see what the other tots have been doing.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Back to the Books

Well vacation is over and it was time hit the books again.  It was a relatively peaceful and uneventful week.   Mackenzie did her work with minimal issues.  Yay! A great way to start the New Year.

Items of interest:

She's halfway through her Star-Spangled State Book geography program.  This program is so fun and easy.  She does it 100% on her own and she's learning a ton.  Now that the first half is finished, she can recognize every state.  Whether on a blank map or just an outline of the state.  I can't do that.  And you enjoys the brief history she gets of each state.  It's even helped her a few times with trivia questions. LOL

I'm looking forward to seeing what she learns in the second half.

We learned an interesting fact in history about Samuel Morse.  Of course, I knew that he invented Morse code and the telegraph. But I had no idea that he was a working artist.  A talented painter he was.  Who knew?  It's quite an interesting story of how he came to be a great inventor too.  You should check it out.  We read about him in The Landmark History of the American People From Plymouth to the Moon.  Good stuff.

Mackenzie finished reading Helen Keller  as her reader and is looking forward to watching The Miracle Worker as soon as Netflix brings it.  She's now reading George Washington Carver: Man's Slave Becomes God's Scientist .

Our current read aloud is The Great Wheel.  It's the story of a young Irish boy who has the opportunity to work on the first ferris wheel.  We're really enjoying it.  And just because of my top notch Irish accent. LOL I wish!

Piano started back up and Mackenzie is thrilled.   She spent her break working on some more Christmas songs, the theme to Swan Lake, and Beethovan's Ode to Joy.  One of these days I'll have to make a video.

Cheerleading and basketball starts next week, so that will keep us busy and give us something different to blog about.

Be sure to pop on over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and see how everyone else is faring in the New Year.

December Daily: The Finished Product

All my pages are printed, mementos added, and the book is together.  I love it!  It's the first scrapping project I've completed from start to finish.  The only thing I might do differently next year is have the layouts professionally printed.  I'd like them a little crisper and I hate glossy photo paper. LOL

And I'll remember to photograph the right ballet program.  The one in this photo is last years.  By the time I noticed, I didn't feel like retaking the picture.  The 2010 one is in the book.

Now I'm moving on to Project Life.  Which should be even simpler.  Woot!

December Daily 26-31 The End

Well my first December Daily album is almost complete.  I finished the cover yesterday,  printed all the layouts and have begun to put them in the book.  While not as fabulous as the creators, I'm pleased.  I'm just happy to have completed something.  Finally!!  LOL

I can't wait to tell you about my next photo project, Project Life.