A Pile of Brothers

Look at this cute pile of brothers! I just love 'em.






















As if you need a reason to enjoy blue hair! It was crazy hair night for AWANA.

LE at 2 years

Things to remember about LE Babe at age 2

He used to say "no" now he says "mo" ** when something wrong happens he says "Oh mo!" **
has graduated from his high chair to a stool, his own doing ** has three cowlicks on the back of his head, his curls look like a roller coaster ride ** goes down for naps and bedtime so easily - he wants his nuk, his cars & trucks blanket, music, his stuffed elephant is a bonus ** is very neat ** he will clean up after himself when he's done with some toys ** he even happily clears his brother's dishes. ** loves his nuk, he sucks it upside down. ** calls Agent H "Hay Hay" ** double loves playing outside ** such a little monkey, copying whatever his big brothers demonstrate ** can make an entire paragraph out of the words "Momma" and "Papa".

Dear L we not only love you we enjoy you so much!

Brother-to-Brother Playtime

I finally have kids who are at the age where this works! In order to have some quiet school time with both Agent H & E we started a special playtime for LE Babe with his brothers. Every morning we meet together for circle time, then snack time, then we break up into groups. Agent H and LE head up to my room to play for about 20-30 min while Agent E and I do his preschool. Then we switch it up and Agent E and LE go to LE's room to play for about the same while Agent H and I get some time together. We are on week three of this and it's working wonderful. Admittedly the first week had a few bumps but we revised things to do snack time together before we break up and that brightened everyone's spirits. (By the way, Agent H who is in 2nd grade spends about an hour or so after lunch working-during rest time on the rest of his work)

I can't imagine why it took me so long to get on the rotating toys band wagon but now that I have, it's been awesome. I have a schedule written up so that I know who gets to play what, when during those play times. It's just a list with two activities for each group for each day of the week (I only pick one of the activities a day for each group). So . . . they should play with each activity twice a month. Then I'm thinking we switch the H&E column the following month so there is a whole new list for the big boys. Here's what it looks like.

	Agent H & LE	Agent E & LE
Monday	Bowling/Ring Toss/Air hockey game Race cars and track	Little People Duplo blocks
Tuesday	Rescue Heroes Mr. Potato Head	Play tools and benches Doctor play set
Wednesday	Plastic dinosaurs Elefun/Lucky Ducks	Wooden cars/trucks and road blanket Stickers and a large piece of paper taped to the wall
Thursday	Puzzles Bristle blocks	Balls, baskets, basket ball hoop Big trucks and fire engines

Extra activities: Puppet theater, castle marbleworks, plastic zoo animals, fort, movie, dominos, trains, play mailman, lacing/stacking toys, Leap Frog alpha and animal magnets.

I just happened to think that part of my motivation for toy rotation has come from reading the book The Well-Behaved Child. In the book the author talks about not making your kids' room into the Garden of Eden (i.e. removing most of the play factor). He thinks alone time in your room is a very good tool for getting your kids to come around. There's much more to it than that but you get the idea. So their toys have been gradually sifted from their rooms. Really, they haven't even noticed.

Our first week of Mighty Oaks

Yes I changed the name of our school again. My brother and SIL sent us this plaque last Christmas that I just love: Might Oaks From Tiny Acorns Grow. I posted it above the door to our schoolroom and love it. So Mighty Oaks Academy it is.

Our first day was pretty light. We took "first day" pictures, did a little circle time, gym, and a bit of desk work.















Sometimes you take what you can get. Can you see his mouth forming the "ooooo" in " Mooooooooom"





The boys constructed and reconstructed paths out of the alpha mat letters that LE Babe got for his birthday. Then they raced along them and jumped off the end. This literally consumed two hours of their day.








LE is at his desk playing with another of his birthday presents. Magnetic pom poms on a cookie sheet. I LOVE these. This is where I found how to make them (you really don't even need directions) and here is where you can get printables to use with them. LE just enjoyed lining them up along the edge or the cookie sheet.

















Agent E at his desk area and some active preschool time. We're using the Play-doh alpah mats from Homeschool Creations.
















Agent H at his desk area, no real dress code as you can see. Up next he's modeling our "globe". We wrote the continents and oceans on index cards and he had to tape them to the correct locations on our balloon.

That's a quick glimps at our week. Don't be deceived by the drawers at the desk stations. I am NOT doing the workbox method this year - I burned myself out on it last year. I am glad that I did it though because I learned a lot of things that I like from it and being a part of a workbox Yahoo list provided me with tons of great free schooling printables, ideas, etc.

Who're you looking at?

Who're you looking at?
-LE Babe

Our turtle for a day

Swimming Lessons

Per the recommendation of a friend we signed Agent H up to join her kids at Swim America. I have to say that I was sold on the company when I heard that the kids get to dong a gong when they pass on to a new level. I knew my Club Penguin loving son would LOVE that. After the first day of lessons he was convinced he wants to be a Swim America swim instructor. He passed through 2 levels so he was able to try his hand at the gong twice. And let me say, I think we all felt the vibration!

Oliver H. Kelley Farm

Oh how we love visiting the Oliver H. Kelley Farm . . .

Summer Came

Summer came . . . Agent H and Papa doing a little fishing.

35

Somewhere in the last 3 months I turned 35. My husband brought me to the only restaurant that could sooth my belly into a few hours of peace (Noodles & Co.) so we could enjoy a concert at Orchestra Hall. It was a beautiful night.

It also happened to be my first night away from LE Babe (LE Babe and I both survived).

1/11/11

It's only been three months since my last post . . . but really I have a very good reason. A ten itty-bitty fingers and ten itty-bitty toes kind of reason. A "I feel really sick, so only the bare essentials are getting done" kind of reason. Due 1/11/11.

Our wormery

Today we took advantage of the rain and scooped up some worms and made a wormery. I followed the instructions at Hillbilly Jillies. I think I see some fishing in our future. (That is if Agent H doesn't get too attached.)

It started out as a simple "panning for gold" activity as we talk about the CA gold rush in history.

It became a goggle-wearing, head-dunking, swim suit-wearing, surf board move contest kind of morning. I think all these grey days and rain are going to their heads. :)

The boys in their glory . . . .

Rocket Pops

These rocket pop molds have been on my wish list for a couple of years. I took the plunge and added them to my curriculum order on Amazon. Good ol' Amazon. I had some left over spinach smoothie so in the molds it went. The boys were very happy with the results. LBabe got a smaller ring pop version. That way his won't always end up in the dirt or melted. Happy kids. Happy mamma!

I heart CVS

Are any of you doing the CVS point thingie? I've heard about it for a couple of years but have been mostly intimidated by it. It is shocking to hear what people get for such little money actually spent!

I gave it a try. First I checked out iheartcvs.com to find out what the specials were, wrote myself a plan, then I hit the store. Here are my results. I spent under $6 for over $20 worth of product. Admittedly I think the items are over-priced BUT, I think I came out spending less as a total. I only bought products that were on my list of stuff we could use right now. The store employees were very helpful and patient. I think they get a kick out of seeing people do it.

LE Babe

Anyone else smell that?

Window + Markers = Chalkboard

We've been doing more school at the kitchen table than down at the desks lately. I was in need of a chalkboard one day and using the Crayola window markers on the patio door worked well. Agent H ended up doing his copywork on it too.

Note: The markers left smears all over the windows when wiped up with regular cloths. When wiped up with my Norwex cloths my windows sparkled. Dry erase markers work in place of window markers.

Spinning

When you're studying how thread/cloth is made it sure is handy to have an auntie who has a spinning wheel and will travel.

We

love

you

Auntie!

Pagoo

I was looking for a book to read to the boys when I remembered that there was a recommended reading list in the back of our Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory (Agent H's 1st grade curriculum). I ordered two books from our library.

The boys were gifted a couple of hermit crabs recently so in honor of them, we chose to read Pagoo by Holling Clancy Holling. I believe this book was first published in 1957, it's a gem of a book. Beautiful illustrations and words that tantalize your reading senses as this little pagurus finds his way in the big ocean and around the tide pool.

There are a lot of scientific words in this book (most with a phonetical spelling so you know how to pronounce it - thank you very much!) The sentences were big and I don't know that Agent H understood 1/3rd of it but he sat spell bound by the beauty of the words and the adventures of Pagoo. Agent E was fidgity as we read but he also would clamor for "One more chapter please?" There were probably two or three occasions where I rewrote as I read in regards to the age of our Earth.

In my naturalist's wanna-be opinion, this book was naturalist's dream story book. I feel a bit wiser and more well rounded for having read it. I love books that way!

The second book I reserved is The 21 Balloons by William Pene du Bois. We're about to start that adventure this afternoon.

The Hunts 2010

This was the best we could corral the boys for a shot after their egg hunt at my parent's. After all they had eggs to break open!

Agents H & E race to find the eggs that Papa hid around the backyard at our place.

LE Babe was a little more interested in climbing and playing than in hunting eggs.

Easter 2010

Here's our little Easter observance.

My brother asked if it was a pet cemetery or an Easter decoration. Based on our pet track record this month it could be either.

Here's an Easter craft that we did.

- We used white paper place mats.

- I cut out an oval template and taped it over the the placemat, then we used blue tape to make the white spaces on our eggs.

Sometimes I cut the blue tape in half lengthwise before we put it on because I only had the 1 inch tape (easier for detail work). I helped put Agent E's on but Agent H made his by himself.

-Apply the paint and remove the tape before the paint is dry and there you have it.

I've seen lots of tape painting on blogs and have wanted to give it a try. I'd like to do a less planned painting sometime too. Click here for my SIL's version.

Easter morning we spent some time looking over the lapbooks we made last year and cracking open and discussing our Resurrection Eggs.

Tabbed organizer still in process

The little tabbed box over on the right there is not functional yet but I'll keep working on it. If I can figure it out it should be a nice space saver. There's a nice tutorial at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

HTML Editing = Major blog Issues

If you should happen to be passing through, I can explain the formatting mess. It's just that HTML and I don't get along very well. I have hopes that our relationship will soon be reconciled.