100 Day Party

We have been homeschooling for 100 days.  Can you believe it?  100 days!  We celebrated with some of our friends. 

The weather here is just ridiculous.  Apparently someone forgot to tell the weather that it's winter, because we haven't had any wet or really cold days.  But, of course, the day we plan to have our party at the park, it finally rains!  We were able to play at the church building instead and it worked out well. 

To prepare for the party, we selected some snacks to share.  Our menu was: Oreos, Veggie Straws, raisins, Goldfish, and cheese balls.  I had Primus count out 100 of each and make labels for the bowls they went in. 

She used a different method to count each snack:  counting by one's, two's, five's, and ten's.  When it was time to count the cheese balls by 5's, she grouped them into the cups of a muffin pan because those darn balls roll around too much to stay in nice piles. 

We also made brownies and piped "100" on them with white chocolate candy melts.

Here is what Primus had to say about her party:



We celebrated our 100 day party and we saw Grandpa and Uncle and Cherub friends and playgroup friends.  And I loved my brownies that I made with Mom.  And the snacks that we brought.  And not the snacks that Sophia brought.  Because her M&M's were too spicy for me.  I loved playing games with Michelle, Uncle, and Grandpa and riding on Grandpa's shoulders.  I liked ball with Michelle, Uncle, and Grandpa.  I liked helping Mom putting things in the correct bowls.  And I loved when Michelle, Grandpa and Uncle pulled me on Tyler's dump truck.  I loved taking pictures with my Mom's camera before everyone left.  And when my 100 day party was over, me, Mom, Tertius, and Secundus went to McDonald's with Grandpa and Uncle so we could all have lunch and play.  And then we went home.

Yay for Free Books!

I love free children's books! 

A few months ago I found out about a promotion that Sunny D was having.  Your students were supposed to collect 20 UPC's from Sunny D bottles and then send them in to receive 20 free books for the classroom.  I was very pleased to see that homeschoolers were not excluded. 

Our books finally arrived!  The kids and I were extremely excited to go pick them up.  (They typed up my address wrong so UPS wasn't able to deliver the box, meaning we had to go pick it up a few towns over.)  The girls looked at the books the whole drive home.  And when we got home, we got cozy on the couch and read all 20 of them, one right after another. 



On the form, you had to indicate what grade level you teach.  I wrote pre-K and K so we got a really good selection that all 3 kids could enjoy.  And out of the 20 books, there were only 3 that we already owned.  Two of those three have been boxed away for future birthday gifts (I think I'm turning into the crazy aunt who always gives books for presents.)  When Secundus saw "Knuffle Bunny," the third book that we already had, she instantly knew that she wanted to give it to her friends Clover and Lillie. 

So I ended up spending about 20 dollars on Sunny D, plus gas money to pick up our box, for 20 new books.  While not technically free, that's still a pretty good deal.  I hope they do this again next year!

Budding Artists

The kids really like to paint so I am trying to work it into our weeks more. 

I just bought new, cool, no-spill paint cups and color coded paint brushes to go with them (not pictured below.)  So I'm very excited that we will get to paint more with hopefully less waste and the kids won't have to deal with washing their brushes in between each color anymore.  

One reason I haven't encouraged very much painting before is that the mess gives me major anxiety, even though the paint I use is totally washable.  But I have to remind myself, "They're kids.  They're supposed to get messy.  It's educational in so many ways!  And besides that, it is really fun!"

Everyday is Dress-up Day

I'm not sure what they like more,

going to school dressed as princesses...

or going to school in their pajamas.

Everyday is school spirit/dress-up day around here.

MLK Jr. book FAIL

I found a cute little book for kids to color to teach them about Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.  One page says, "Dr. King made his most famous speech...in 1963.  His speech began with the words, 'I have a dream.'"  (Emphasis added by me.)

Too bad that the "I have a dream" part isn't until the last half of his speech!

Good job, educational website!  Way to go perpetuating misconceptions.  You know, your ignorance really hurts your credibility. 

Effie Yeaw Presentation

This afternoon we went to a special wildlife presentation at the library put on by a representative of the Effie Yeaw Nature Center.  I'm really glad we went.  It was awesome!

 

The lady brought a ton of specimens to look at and touch, 2 animals to view up close, and she shared a ton of information.  Here's a list off all the things we were able to see.  I hope I didn't forget anything.

• 3 children got to dress up as a mammal, a bird, and a reptile to illustrate the differences
• picture of a beaver's home
• beaver pelt
• real (dried) beaver tail
• real (dried) beaver hand and foot
• beaver skull
• piece of wood chewed by beaver
• skunk pelt
• skunk skull
• stuffed mole
• stuffed rattlesnake
• live gopher snake
• skin that a snake had shed
• rattle snake rattle
• we heard a recording of a hawk call
• live red shoulder hawk
• hawk skull
• hawk feathers

Newspaper Roll Ends

Here's a tip:  Instead of buying those expensive rolls of butcher paper, ask your local newspaper about purchasing their end rolls.  They are literally the end of the roll of blank newspaper. 

The Sacramento Bee sells them in 3 different widths and they have a ton of paper on them.  Up side:  Super cheap.  The largest width is roughly the same size as standard butcher paper and is only $2.25 at the Bee. 

Down side: It's newspaper, not butcher paper.  It's not as durable.  But it still works great for most art projects.  I love to use it to cover the kitchen table for a disposable table cloth the kids can color on.  I also like to tape a long strip of it up on the wall outside our apartment so the kids can paint murals.

Homeschool Days at the Crocker

Did you know that the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento has a "homeschool day" the second Tuesday of every month?  Very cool!  I will definitely have to go to some of these.  Each event has a different theme.  Students get in cheap and their chaperones get in free.

http://crockerartmuseum.org/programs-events/events/event-search

Free MLK Day Materials

Follow the following link for some free promotional items about the Martin Luther King Day of Service from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

http://mlkday.gov/plan/library/communications/posters.php


These are the things you can request:

• Posters
• Fact Sheets
• MLK Day of Service DVD
• Bookmarks
• Stickers
• Door Hangers

Your supplies are supposed to ship in 1-3 days.  I just ordered mine and I can't wait until they arrive so I can tell you all about them!  Thanks to sweetiesfreebies.com for the heads-up!

A Kindergartner's New Year's Resolution

As a New Year Resolution, Primus wants to add more states to our country so our flag can be bigger. Think I should give my congressman a call?

Ooooh....Aaaaah...

Yesterday Secundus and Tertius were getting over a stomach bug so they couldn't go to Cherubs mommy-and-me music class.  So I brought home all the music and we did our own little Cherubs class in our living room.  Secundus loved it. 

Primus decided she wanted to be the one to read the story at the end of class.  So she sat in a chair and everyone sat on the floor in front of her and she did a great job.  She was really getting into it, too.  It helped that we all said, "Ooooh..." and "Aaaaah...." after every page.  Before she would read the next page, she would say, "I wonder what's going to happen next."  Or, "Do you want to guess what happens next?" 

When she was done, Tertius decided he needed a turn being the storyteller.  So he picked up the book, climbed up in the big chair, and flipped through pages randomly.  The whole time he was babbling away and we dutifully oooh'ed and aaaah'ed for him, too.  He loved it!

Eat Your Veges

Bad Mommy Confession:  We often have fights about food in our house. 

I don't want to get into the details here.  But suffice it to say that my kids are doing a lot better for the last several months.  They actually eat vegetables now...and without a fight!  They like a large variety of fresh, frozen, and canned veges, too!  I never thought we would get to this point.

A few days ago I babysat my friend's boy in the evening.  While he was here I decided to try a new recipe for dinner.  I took all the kids with me to the grocery store to get the ingredients.  (Our grocery store has one of those carts with a car attached to it that seated the 2 little kids and then the 2 big kids hung onto the cart at various points.)

Each child was given a shopping list to help keep us all focused.  (All the lists were identical.)  And they were also told to think of 1 vegetable that they would like to buy and eat. 

It was very interesting to me what they chose: 
Friend chose squash.  (He said he liked yellow squash but didn't know what variety it was and didn't see anything that looked familiar so we got spaghetti squash.  Not a hit.)
Primus chose Larry the cucumber and Secundus chose Bob the tomato.  Thank you, VegeTales.

Mission Accomplished

Every morning I wake up before the kids and take some quiet time by myself in the office.  As soon as Primus wakes up, she's supposed to come into the office so we can do our calendar and journal time.  (We'll worry about breakfast and getting dressed later.)

This morning instead of coming straight in, she decided to sit in the living room and read a book to herself that she has been practicing for a couple days. 

At first I was annoyed that she hasn't come straight in so we can get started, because we both already woke up late.  But really, isn't she doing, of her own free will, exactly what I want her to do? 

One of my goals was to instill in her a love of reading and a love of learning. 

Well, right now, she is in the other room having a blast reading to herself and laughing at the story.  She loves to read!

So I say, "Mission Accomplished!"  The other formal lessons that I had for her today can wait until later.  Never interrupt a reading child.