This is All I've Got Today

When I'm having one of those days...weeks...this is all I've got!  Elmer's Glue, construction paper, stickers, and scissors.  They are my lifesavers and I don't know what I would do without them...HA!

Erika

Where did last week go?!

So I missed posting on Monday because I've been in a little weather funk, but that's over now.  Although I LOVE fall, when the sky is dark during the day and it gets cooler it takes a little more to get going.  So I took a week to just "be" and do what had to be done and let go of what didn't have to be done:).  Which means I haven't been this overly planned homeschooling mom and I"M OK WITH THAT!!!  

Even though I needed a moment, I couldn't sit still for too long because I had Mimi's Wizard of Oz party that had to be planned (post to come).  So even though I was a bit "off" once Monday hit, I made sure I had the camera handy so I could capture the fun!

 Mimi's 4th birthday

 BFF at story time

 Loo reading to one of her friends

Birthday lunch with Grandmom

 

Wizard of Oz party

Conference:)

 Painting

 ...more painting 

Delivering cupcakes to Nana on her birthday

(Mimi is ALWAYS in first position...haha!)

Silly girls:)

(...or posing with the toe pop...ha!)

Whew!  I'm tired just looking back over the past week.  It was a blast and it just shows you how fast life goes by.  

Erika

Same blog...new name...AND new URL

So I've had my blog attached to an email I do not use anymore and I was just getting SO tired of logging out of my email, logging into the old one to update my blog, and having to comment on friend's blog as anonymous just to keep from having to log back into my new email.  So today I exported my blog and created a new blog under my Gmail account so that I could have an easier time blog hopping and checking email:).  So good-bye "What Up Holmes" and HELLLLOOOOO  "Dancing with Tiny Feet!"

I'm a little sad about this because I was pretty proud of that title, but it's just not as fitting anymore.  This blog, yes, is still about me and my family, but it is definitely more about me and the girls on our journey with homeschool with some sprinklings of other stuff thrown in there...sometimes.  So anyway, I could have left it the same, but I kind of like this new title too:).

Erika

One of THE best school days so far this year!

Today was my kind of school day.  It flowed nicely, I watched for cues that the kiddos were done with an activity, and we did music...LOTS of music which is always a great thing for us. 

Shadow shapes for definite success since they both know their shapes

 "The b's on the bus go b-b-b, b-b-b, b-b-b..." - This was my favorite random mommy-made-up-school-thing-in-the-car-one-day and now they ask for the song all the time!  We sang it and they found the bottle cap letter as we sang and put them back in their plastic baggie:).

 The girls LOVE candy corn so we did a roll and remove game with candy corn!!!  

 Then the whiteboard came out and I introduced them to the alligator that eats bigger numbers for meals!  They LOVED it!  They wanted to give him a body and legs too:).

Finally Dancin' Diva started singing Freshbeat Band songs so I put the CD in and we had a music/dance concert for an hour!!!

They were absolutely ADORABLE today and I had a blast chomping numbers and dancing with my girls:)

Erika

Homeschool Spirit Week

So last week was the first ever International Homeschool Spirit Week!  I thought it would be a fun way to do school that week and help me let go a bit:).  It was a fun time and I think we may do this sometimes to change things up!  Enjoy:)

School-away-from-home day

 Mixing the water form their water bottles with the dirt making mud!!!

Comfy Cozy Day!!!

I think we need at least two of these per week...haha!

 Crazy Sock Day...and winter day???  Haha!  Dancin' Diva found my stack of winter items I took out of storage:).

Mismatch Day

 Twin Day

Yay for spirit weeks!!!

Erika

Chill School Day

 So my intention is not to do school on Wednesdays because we visit with Grandmom.  However, we still hadn't read our library books from Friday.  So we had some school today, but because it wasn't planned everyone stayed calm and happy (something I'm trying to replicate so maybe I should stop planning???).

We read LOTS of books and the girls were too cute!  

So my kids love dry erase boards so I decided to bring it out and see what would happen.  I decided to have them erase letters, shapes, words, and numbers and they thought it was SO cool!

When they had their own time on the board DD decided to do some addition.  All on her own, by the way.  So we talked about the addition sign and equal sign.  However, I have to say I actually like her underlining method:).  She stated the problem out loud and then counted to get to the answer.  I left it alone after that since this was their free time.

This was just an adorable bonus picture after dinner.  From left to right it's Lil' Diva, Little Red Riding Hood, and a bad dinosaur turned good dinosaur that is now friends with Red.  I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!

Erika

School with some new concepts

Today we brought out some fun educational toys my sister-in-law handed down to us.  The names escape me at the moment, but they were pretty cool!   

 This one was perfect for SD to work with colors, sorting, and shape review

 DD got a kick out of replicating the movements of this directional puzzle.  It gave us plenty of opportunity to talk about directions throughout the rest of the day:).

 One of their favorites...Handwriting Without Tears!  They love this because of three things...the wood pieces, chalk and a wet paper towel...ha!  Often the wood pieces turn into drum sticks, wands, and whatever else they can think of and my kids have an obsession for wet paper towels.  I'm serious they could play with a wet paper towel for hours!  As for the chalk...what kid doesn't like playing with chalk?

This was one of my favorites of the day.  Count the House!  We would have gone all over the house, but Granddad came by to help look at our leaking ceiling:(.  So we kept it in the school room.  

 I am really into the living math with my girls instead of pushing them too soon into other math concepts.  I am hoping this will really give them a true foundation of what the numbers really are and what they mean instead

of just saying they can count to 100 by Kindergarten.  DD loved sticking the corresponding stickers in her notebook.  I also got a little addition in there when we miscounted and needed to add another sticker.  So instead of telling her I asked how many we needed to add to get the right amount and she was on top of it!  In that moment I was living my dream of how I would like education to happen in our home:).    

So although SD didn't really get into the sticker part she had a great time running around the room counting the different parts of the house/room.  For a moment I was preoccupied with her doing the stickers, but luckily I've been at this enough that I let it go:).  She was counting perfectly, playing with dolls in between, but would still count the next thing when I asked.  So I would say we had success for the day.

It was a fun school day and then we all headed off to dance class that afternoon.  Tomorrow we will be making an igloo on my bed and reading our library books from Friday.  I'm WAY excited!

Erika