Homeschool Projects

We've had fun with our homeschool lessons. The boys always amaze me at how much they know and can remember. One of our topics was our five senses. For art day we made this collage of items to represent each of our senses; sand paper hands for touch, jingle bells for hearing, googly eyes for sight, licorice for taste, and a cotton ball with body spray for smell. They turned out super cute! Oh and I have to give credit to Pintrest for this idea. I wanted to teach senses so that we could make this!

 Samuel was fascinated with the feel of sand paper.

 William wanted to "smell like dad" so he got daddy's body spray.

One thing I did was that worked great was to use the boys color for their background paper. That way there's no question as to which project belongs to who.
When I was trying to cut the licorice the boys we're jumping up and down trying to get a piece. While I was getting the glue ready for Samuel, he snatched up his mouth piece and ate it! Little stinker.

Skeleton Q tips

 William was the only one who did this craft. But he really loved it! We only learned a few bones in the body but he enjoyed learned how the body "stays together and strong."

William LOVES playing games!! Everyday he asks to play a game. I found a new deck of cards and he played war with us and by himself. I taught him how to play even and odd war, where you add/subtract the cards and one person gets the even the other gets the odd total. Although it takes longer he enjoys playing it "mommy's way."
Another game we play is Make 10. We lay out nine cards and he adds any combination to make ten. Royals are ten and we disregard the jokers. He does really good with this! One time he played he used up all the cards! Some of the combinations he came up with surprised me, like instead of using two bigger numbers to make ten he used four small number cards to make ten.
William enjoys playing these different games and is so proud of himself and what he can do.

Mr. Matthew

I tried to get first day of preschool shots with Matthew but he was being silly. However I did get some fun shots of him.

One of our projects with homeschool was a self portrait. I put a big mirror on the table and had them look at themselves and draw what they saw. This is what Matthew came up with. It's hard to see since he only wanted to use the yellow highlighter color crayon. This is how he explained it to me, see if you can follow: hair, head, ears, eyes, mouth, body, arms and legs. It was very detailed! I was hoping for just basic facial features but he did more than that! Great job Matthew!

Cheney Fire Station

The middle of September I organized a tour of our local fire station. We invited our friends the Horracks to come with us. We got to see how the firemen lived and the different rooms at the fire house. We were being shown the different trucks when they got a call and had to run. It was fun watching them get in and go. Even though the tour ended abruptly we had fun and learned more about what they do and how they keep us safe.

Fair

Beginning of September we took the boys to the Spokane County Fair. This was the first time they'd been to one. We arrived at nine in the morning and looked at the tractors, different farm equipment and an old train. We also browsed the booths. We enjoyed looking around and seeing all the different products out there. After the booths we enjoyed elephant ears and funnel cake. I thought the boys would love to get close to the animals at the petting zoo but they didn't want to touch any of them! I was impressed that the younger two could name everything we saw. After seeing more animals, we ate more food, threw some darts and won some prizes. Eric and I did noticed that the rides were more expensive, one ticket for one dollar and most rides were three tickets each! So no rides for the boys this year. It was a fun time even without any rides. We can't wait to go back next year!

As a side note this was the last picture I took of Eric with his goatee. He shaved it off the next day for his new church calling. I was sad to see it go. No more facial hair for a while.

Homeschooling begins

We began homeschooling the boys the end of August. Our first unit is "all about me." The boys enjoy learning about their bodies, what makes them unique/different, where they live etc.

Playing ABC hopscotch. William had to say each letter and then come up with a word for the letter that his rock landed on. I was impressed with some of his words. For F he said "fish, flat, and finally." His G words were "giant, grateful." Matthew and Samuel just had to say the letters.

 This activity was also helpful for their motor skills. We've been trying to get Matthew to hop on one foot but he's still more comfortable hoping on two feet. Samuel just walked to get his rock, said the letter then walked back. Oh and Samuel wasn't wearing pants cause he wasn't feeling well and just wanted to stay in his pjs.

 They loved being outside and playing. I loved that they were learning while they played!

Fish TB

 *Dead fish disclaimer*

A few weeks ago I noticed that one of our two remaining adult fish was looking a bit strange. It seemed bent and curved. Eric and I joked that it needed to see a chiropractor. I looked up "bent fish" on the internet and couldn't believe the results. One of the main causes for bent backs in a fish is TB!! Yep tuberculosis! It's similar to the strand that humans get and can be passed on to human handlers. But it's also very contagious to the other fish and can't be washed out of the tank, rendering the tank, pump, everything useless. So Eric carefully caught the fish and we put it in a bag. William and Samuel wanted to see it, Matthew was too busy playing to come see. So far all our other fish seem fine. After we killed it I read one note about bent fish that said it's a sign of old age in fish. Really?! I just killed a healthy yet old fish?! It acted fine, eating normally and swimming around, not like a fish would if it was sick. Oh well.

Shooting

On Eric's birthday weekend he said that the only thing he wanted to do was to take me shooting. Since he only turns 30 once I relented and went with him. Travis also begged to come along. We loaded up 4 watermelons, 4 honeydews, 4 bags of flour, one 12 gauge shotgun, a 9mm handgun, and a .45 handgun.

I couldn't hit the watermelon with the shotgun though I did graze the top. I did get the flour and honeydew with the .45!! Shooting might not have been my first pick of things to do but now I can say I've shot a gun and came back with all my fingers and toes.