School Stuff 24/7

I'm sure all the American kids know this but we were so surprised that you actually get a letter (more like a packet) back from the President of the USA.

 Look at all this fun kid stuff! And the return address actually says "The White House". So cool- marvelous idea Grammy!

 For FHE one night, Tim thought of making prayer rocks. The kids tell us that they say bed time prayers but sometimes forget morning prayers. So now, they put their rock in the doorway each night, so that in the morning they'll see it first thing and remember to say their morning secret (personal) prayers. I got these shots while they were snoozing one night.

Lately the best spot for a movie is in the chest.

Lapbooks 2013. Jane- Oceans Charlie- Pianos

Sometimes you have to water color paint Lehi's dream in a chef hat.

We've had some yummy cooking classes this year. 

I find one of these creations daily.

This is Scarlet's "school work" She matches the clear spoon that has the lower case letter to the solid color spoon with the corresponding upper case letter. Does that make sense?

This is a GREAT place value activity. You can twist the cups to make any number and have the kids tell it to you so they practise their place values. I still have to concentrate unusually hard to get the more tricky numbers right ;)

I have been getting a steady stream of these notes from Jane. I find them on my pillow when I get into bed and they actually do make me feel super duper. It's been awesome writing practice and I use them to make new spelling lists for her (brutal, I know). I have a whole collection in my bedside drawer.

Nothing like giving kids a coconut to figure out and buying yourself a good 35 minutes of free time.

This is Ezra doing his "school". He got his first tooth this month and he's starting to stand with out holding on. Everyone in the house knows that if they teach him how to do anything, they'll be in big trouble. This guy has to be a baby as long as possible because I need a baby at all times!

Cubby and Scoopy

Jacob blows our minds nowadays. He is constantly working on his dot to dots- I think he is truly addicted. He'll do one that gets up to 2000 in he space of an hour. I don;t honestly think I could do it that fast. He reads like crazy too. Our older two weren't so proficient at reading at his age- he's not even in Kindergarden yet. He's our easiest kid right now, he's independent, and he's the peacemaker (moms especially love the peacemaker kid) in our family, he's silly a lot, and he's quiet and he has this big toothy smile that I love. 

This is his latest lapbook on Bald Eagles.

I went downstairs to put a bottle in the fridge around 3am and found Cubby asleep on the kitchen table.

Jacob is the most willing to give in to Scarlet's demands. He spends a lot of time with her.

 In this picture, they are making "Unicorn Poop" cookies. Classy, I know. Scarlet was loving the Unicorn idea. We should have made them less cinnamon bun and more ploppy...

Scarlet created her first fairyland, it was an important moment. 

It's like a rite of passage in the Eaton home. She did a lovely job.

The other day Tim got in a hot tub at the pool with Scarlet and she said, "It's spicy in here."

Spicy as in "hot" water.

Whenever Ezra cries Scarlet starts singing the "Winnie the Pooh" song. She thinks it stops his crying.

Speaking of Winnie, here's a recent Jared quote:

"Mark is like Rabbit now. He's nuts about his garden lately."

We can always count on Uncle J for a Winnie the Pooh metaphor.

Jane's Obsession

 Jane loves Mozart's Magic Flute Opera so much so we studied Mozart's life to give her some background. She learned that it was composed during the last year of his life.

Lapbooks

Sorry about the boring post but I want to keep a record of these things.

 Charlie decided to study planets for his lapbook this time. He put together a solar system in Scarlet's room that glows in the dark. He used glow in the dark stars inside his folder to show constellations. It was really cool.

 Jane wanted to do hers on butterflies. I hesitated because she already knows everything about them but then I thought it would be good for her show me what she knows. I love how she made a tree covered in Monarchs to show migration to Mexico.

 Jacob wanted to study frogs. 

Jacob actually had his frog one done so fast that he did another before the others were done their's. He did his next on on the platypus.

Lapbooks Round 2

Sea Otters for Jane

Snakes for Charlie

Sharks for Jacob

I keep explaining that they can choose anything for their lapbooks, weather, poetry, a notable person, space etc. but all they ever want to study is animals! They've told me their lapbook waiting list topics and it's something like wolves, seahorses, peacocks, crocodiles... animals for miles!

Front

 Back

 The next two pics are the inside of Jane's folder.

This is the inside of Jacob's. I love his yellow shark he cut out. Check out the head he attached to it.

 This is the inside of Charlie's. It was totally his idea to write his info. on paper cut out like a snake.

 So clever. 

Like Magic

I want to write about school today because it was one of those everything-went-smooth-and-easy days. If I record these days then on the brutal-torture days I can come back to these posts and remind myself that there's good days and bad days.

When we woke up, 8 am, it was a rainy cozy day. The kids went outside to take care of the bunnies and I made hot chocolate and oatmeal of breakfast, then I had time to read my scriptures before they came in. Once they came in, we ate, then got dressed and washed up and cleaned rooms and came up to the school room. We had a scripture lesson about Obedience and we each wrote a page about that for our scripture notebook. We also practiced the hymn we've been working on, Where Can I Turn For Peace

Next, the kids wrote out their spelling words for the week using our Apple Letters, which are basically fancy Scrabble tiles.

Then, we did about an hour of math.

Then, we looked over the file folder I got out for today which was a temperature matching game.

Then, the kids got out their projects. They are each making a lapbook (my friend Amber shared this idea with me in June so I had the summer to learn about them and I think the kids will really like it).  We gathered our supplies (library pockets, mini file folders, glassine pockets, velcro, accordian paper, brads, paper clip, staples, pencil crayons, tape, glue, ruler etc.) and got started. We had already checked out our books from the library and perused them, so we were ready. Jane chose to study horses, Jacob is doing whales and Charlie is doing Peregrine Falcons because he is reading The Far Side of the Mountain.

***Sidenote: I bought a bucket jockey from Home Depot for $10 and stuck it on a bucket to contain all our lapbook supplies and projects. Today was the first day we tried it out and it worked like a charm.

When we finished and came downstairs for lunch, it was 2:30 pm. I couldn't believe the time. We usually come down much earlier but today was just flowing. We had lunch and then I helped Charlie with his piano practice and Jane with her cello homework.

DONE for the day! It was sunny out by then so the kids went out to run around for a while. My visiting teachers came over, Tim got home, I went to the gym. Through out all this, Scarlet is potty training and up to this point in the day she had no accidents so that was an added bonus.

Jacob taught us a beautiful FHE, we had healthy fruit pizza, Timmy read stories then put the kids to bed.

It was a fulfilling day and I am grateful because this is what gets me through the long, frustrating ones. I think it probably had a lot to do with me starting the day off with my own scripture reading, having a plan for the kids ready and not having anything else scheduled to interrupt us. 

So today, I love homeschool. I'll see how tomorrow goes and then I'll know if that statement is still true.