Plans for Inauguration Day

Honestly, I didn't intend to do much for Inauguration Day. I planned maybe, and that's a big maybe, watching it on TV with the kids. But then FIAR came out with an Inauguration Day Fold and Learn. Perfect!

It has a short biography of Barack Obama, the inaugural schedule from January 18th through Inauguration Day, some fun facts about the history of inauguration, and Barack Obama's favorite dessert!

We are going to have a fun time re-reading If I Ran For President, which I purchased during the election. At the same time I also bought the other book by Catherine Stier,  If I Were President. These two books are really perfect at explaining the topic of the Presidency for a child. With eye-catching illustrations and wording that not only accurately explains a difficult topic, but makes it fun and exciting, these books are perfect for early elementary ages.

If you are looking for more ideas, Shauna over at Treasure Seekers has put together a wonderful list of resources to make your Inauguration Day educational and fun!

Back to School

After the holidays its always difficult to get back into your regular routine.  We took pretty much the whole month of December off. It not that we weren't doing anything. We certainly managed to keep busy! Lots of holiday books and snuggles, family baking time, and focusing on the meaning of the season filled the hours each day.

On Monday we started back to our school routine. Hailey had actually started begging to start school several days before. There is nothing like an excited student to get you moving! The first day was a little rough, but that was certainly to be expected. No tears were shed and thus, my goal was achieved.

Tuesday was so absolutely gorgeous. Who knew that we would be experiencing a 80+ degree sunny day in early January! So, we took the lessons out- of-doors for the day.





The dog enjoyed the fresh air too.



Alas, it was not to last. This morning we awoke to some extremely windy and stormy weather. The cold will be returning tonight.

New Year's Eve Countdown

New Year's Eve has never been intended to be a celebration for young children.  So, while you may have been able to stay up until the wee hours of the morning before you had kids, now it is almost an impossibility right? Up until this year I thought that might just be the case. With a 5 and 2 year old I just couldn't see any way, or reason for that matter, to try and keep them up to see the clock strike twelve.

This year I am going to try something new. One of the homeschooling forums happened to mention New Year's Eve bags. Hmmmm? What's this you say? Well, the suggestion is to have a paper lunch bag filled with celebration goodies for each hour of the evening, counting down to midnight.



You can fill these up with just about anything that might tickle your kid's fancy. Here is our countdown list of suprises. (Shhhhh....don't let the kids know).

- 4:00 - Balloons and confetti. We are going to blow up balloons to decorate the house. With the confetti we will be making contact paper art. Simply cut a piece of contact paper. Tape the corners to the table and add confetti designs! I will precut the numbers 2009 to put in the middle of the paper. When the designs are finished we will cover with another layer of contact paper and use them as placemats.

- 5:00 - Time to make pizza! I put a pizza cutter, pepperoni (doesn't need refridgeration) and sauce packets in the bag. The kids adore making homemade pizza anytime.

- 6:00 - Silly string. I just popped two cans of silly string in their favorite colors in the bag. We will head outside for some super silly fun before it gets too dark. Plus tonight we are suppose to be able to see three of the planets line up with the moon, just after sunset. So, why not squeeze in a little educational time into the evening too!

- 7:00 - Noisemakers! In the bag are TP tubes and pop corn kernels. We are going to make our own noisemakers by rubberbanding plastic wrap on the ends. Decorate with foil and stickers.

- 8:00 - Hungry Hippos. This is a new game for us! I put one of the hippos in the bag. Perfect for our age group, but you can choose a game based on your family ages and interests. I think that this may become a family tradition to add a new fun family game each New Year's Eve.

- 8:30 - Chex mix. We ran out of this way to early this holiday season, so it's time for another round. Very easy for the kids to make and enjoy during the rest of our countdown.

- 9:00 - Pop -its! While they are still to young for fireworks, pop-it are a great way to get in on the noise making fun!

- 10:00 - Movie time. The bag holds a new movie for little eyes. As they begin to show signs of tiredness, we will take a break and watch a movie and munch on our Chex Mix.

- 11:30 - Cocoa - The bag holds yummy hot chocolate mix, marshmallows, and Peppermint sticks. Yummy!! I also put a few glow sticks in there that I have been saving for a fun evening. When they cocoa is ready we will put on our glowsticks, get out our noisemakers, and watch the ball drop!

Here are some wonderful ideas from other ladies - much more creative than myself. Please check them out:

My Blessings from Above

Sir Galahad Academy

My 3 Little Lights 2007

My 3 Little Lights 2008

Joyful Mother of 6 Children

Even if they don't make it all the way through, we will have a wonderful time!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas Decorations

Here are a few of the things that are decorating our house this Christmas Season!

Our tree was lovingly decorated by the hands of small children...



The family table has a Christmas Carousel - powered by candles of course! And behind it you can see the Jesse tree that shows the path to the birth of Jesus Christ.

The front foyer shows a snow theme.

Precious ornaments from Christmas past hold a special place.



and the stockings are hung on the banister with care. . .

Merry Christmas!

Welcome Winter!

Yesterday started out a sunny 78 degrees. Around noontime we had some strange weather roll through. The clouds blew in and the winds picked up quite a bit. Our small lake in the back was looking more like an angry ocean cove than a calm quiet lakefront. We had a ten minute shower and suddenly......COLD. I believe it must have dropped 20 degrees in a matter of minutes. What a way to bring in the new season!

Hailey took great joy in changing the ornament that our seasonal angel holds from a fall leaf to the snowflake.



Our pumpkin is returning to the earth.



Lots of snuggles and napping.....



With Christmas only days away we will be working on Gingerbread houses today. In seasons past I have gone a bit overboard with gingerbread decorations. This year I am pledging to be calm, cool, and simple in decorating the gingerbread houses with the kids!

Hope that you have a wonderful Christmas week!

Advent Conspiracy

The Journey of Learning to Read

At first, I didn't see it when we began our learning-to-read journey with Hailey. But as we slowly progressed I noticed it more and more. At first it was that she was having problems with d's and b's then I noticed that she would throw letter sounds in the word that weren't there. So, I backed off. I thought maybe she just needed a bit of time before we pushed forward. When we started back I noticed that while she was progressing in every other aspect of reading, she kept hitting the same stumbling blocks. I also tried to pay close attention at where she was having problems. I noticed that she would also sometimes flip a whole CVC word when reading - frequently.

I tried to keep it upbeat, but eventually decided to try something new and different. I dropped reading altogether. I liked the philosophy behind Spell to Write and Read, but it seems to have a number of steps and I was really hoping to find something that didn't require me to study in order to teach. I found All About Spelling and decided we would give it a try.

AAS is based on the Orton-Gillingham method, as is SWR. However, I love the fact that AAS is an open-and-go curriculum. It also utilized colored letter tiles for illustrating spelling that we have magnetized and keep on a magnetic white board.

While the program is broken into steps we often spend two or three days on one step to assure mastery, but you can easily move quickly through each step as well. The steps have review for reinforcement and additional practice included at the end. It is truly made for moving at your own pace!

New concepts are introduced with the letter tiles. After introduction you can have your child write on paper (I like watch as Hailey traces words on a Ziploc bag filled with liquid soap).

I like the way that the sounds that might be visibly confused are introduced separately. This has been a huge help in getting past the dyslexia problem. Once mastery is achieved then they are mixed in for review. I can already see a marked improvement in comprehension.

The program does not include handwriting which was actually very helpful as we are teaching cursive first in order to help avoid letter reversals. It also does not cover grammar such as parts of speech or punctuation, but does introduce suffixes.

While we do read every day, we still do not have an official reading program. I really feel that by learning to spell the words first the reading will come much more naturally. I am excited to watch her grow into her reading capability through spelling!