Week 2 of 2013

Monday - Not as I had hoped! 

The morning started out with my oldest son knocking on my bedroom door to inform me of an incident with one of the dogs. 

--- And just to think, just minutes prior I had asked the Father to do a 'miracle' in our day, "God give me something extra of everything today. I need your spirit". Because bed time the night before had not went well with the kids, namely the two little people! I just wanted a fresh day to joyfully approach another day with my kids. ---

Doggy diarrhea and urine on a large area of the very light shag carpet in the upstairs loft from during the night - not ideal. Since getting the dogs, I've made it clear to all family members that the dogs are to stay on the main floor at all times, because of certain mishaps which could occur. This doggy obviously keeps ignoring the memo and sneaking up there during the night. So, because of this, our 3rd day of school was dismissed. The shop vac was in use for a couple of hours. It's humorous how Zazu was so mesmerized with the clean-up process. I am HIGHLY thankful for my newly teen son Eagle, taking care of shop vac duty. I think he rather enjoyed the job; a successful grown-up job fully completed by him alone! 

So it's a matter of opinion. I could say, a day lost or a day gained. 

- I'm on the fence.

I decided to pull out the dusty fondue pot for a fun snack. 

Tuesday - I specifically bought a small box of Fruit Loops for crafts and games months back. I found the box that morning and decided to try some fruit loop math with Alba, she had fun. And while making lunch, my sneaky kids ate all the cereal we'd been using. A sign of hungry kids who don't get sugary breakfast cereal, or any boxed cereal for that matter.

For Lunch - Baked Perogies with pizza sauce and green pepper & onions.

Wednesday - Alba has become quite the busy little preschooler. Wanting to do 'school' beside me, while the boys work on their studies. I located some of Zazu's old lapbooks for her. It's interesting to see the parts that he chose to not colour or play with are the ones which Alba is choosing to do.

While one pooch lies at my feet, Alba excitedly counts strawberries and places the number tile in its spot. She can recognize numbers 1-5 easily now. 

It's neat to see a child just absorb things. With each child I'm a little less intentional with 'learning' things at this age. 

Amazing little sponges they are.

Ah yes, the tally marks almost went unnoticed. 

It was a day for character lessons with Zazu, mostly.

God is great to provide me with a way to explain time management skills to him in a simple way.

I explained to Zazu that God gives us time everyday to spend. And how we spend it is important, because it is a gift.

I gave the example of money as a birthday gift.

"If you were given $10 for your birthday and you threw $5 in the fire, it would burn up and be gone. Leaving you with half of what you were given. 

The same being with how you treat someone. If you love your brother like you say you do, then when you are unkind, it is like using part of your $10 to pay someone else to treat him unkindly.

Or if you wanted to buy a special toy costing $10, you wouldn't buy $10 worth of dirt from your own backyard" 

Through many examples he realized we sometimes 'spend' Gods gift of time on wasteful things and unkind things.

So the tally marking was a way of me to catch positive uses of time with a tick. And erase a tally mark when I noticed a negative use of time. I included all the kids, so Zazu wouldn't feel alone in this lesson. Because we really ALL spend the gift of time unwisely from time to time.

I should have written my name up there too!

For Lunch - Spaghetti Squash with spaghetti sauce and sausage. The squash was not Alba's favourite.

Thursday - Living near the mountains is beautiful and has it's advantages. Eagle hopped a ride with other homeschooling families for an afternoon of skiing/snowboarding. 

I took advantage of having one less and worked on printing lapbooks for the kids. My printer was busy busy all afternoon. The kids hung out in the loft with me, and Daddy joined us for a little while. 

Zazu did his math and finally finished his reading book. 

YAY!

Sweetness!!

- Joy!

I purchased lapbooks for four of the Exploring Creation books a few years ago, Astronomy, Botany, Flying Creatures, and Swimming Creatures. We'll be starting Flying Creatures next week. We're putting our Exploring Creation with Botany on hold till spring/summer. Then probably dip back into Flying Creatures in the fall/winter next school year once finished with the Botany book. Which is for two reasons. We are sloowww and I find it difficult to study something when we can't study the real thing. It's winter here, and finding specimens outside is quite difficult. At least with starting Flying Creatures, we can watch the many birds in our area; which we've actually already been doing.  

Island of the Blue Dolphins for Eagle. 

I realized that we don't have the book after I printed the notebooking/lapbooking pages. We have the book on tape, which may be a challenge for him. 

What do you think. Should I purchase the book, or are we safe with using only the audio version?

Zazu and I will be working on Henry and Mudge and the Wild Wind lapbook from Homeschool Share together beginning next week. This will be his first literature lapbook. It is light, but should be fun. Hopefully doing this together will ease him into narration a bit better than what I've been doing; which has been zip! 

Again from Homeschool Share I printed five literature lapbooks for Alba. 

Which should hold us over for the rest of the school year. I would have liked to include Blueberries for Sal as well, but maybe next fall. I'll probably start with The Snowy Day first, considering the season. 

For The Grouchy Ladybug, I located a bunch of books in our home library to go along with it. 

Alba should enjoy the titles, as they're books we've previously read. This will encourage me to make more 'one on one time with Mommy' for her, which she adores. 

For lunch - Quesadilla (tomato, onion, avocado, mozzarella, parsley, hemp hearts) carrot sticks 

Friday - Full day of birthday parties.

Alba and I went to a birthday party for a little friend of hers. I neglected to take a photo of her in that dress and smile, so excited for the party.

Eagle had a few boys over for some dinner, a game of Star Wars Monopoly and a movie this evening to celebrate his thirteenth birthday. 

It was a great day filled with joy!

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Setting up our home schooling room is coming along. I'm ever thinking of creating an atmosphere. For the mind. For the body. And the spirit in each of us. Printing photos, scripture, mapping where items may go in my mind. 

Earnestly trying to set our days on the Lord. -----------

How about you?

Even if you don't homeschool.

Are you earnestly setting your days on the Lord?

And now friends I'm really ready to hit the hay!

Saturday comes too soon for this Mommy.

I hope next week goes well. 

Full of thankfulness and joy!

Overflowing with His goodness onto my children! 

My desire is for selflessness and time management to reign in this home in the days to come. 

Goals to greet and conquer with full heart. 

Joy to you friend,

Mo