Homeschool Room Lay out.

We started homeschooling in September.  It has been an evolving process.  We recently started the Konos curriculum which is Unit studies.  So instead of doing school at home, I decided a more hands on lay out would work.  The first thing I did was get rid of everyone having their own desk.

 

 

 

This U shape is more conductive to this.  In the back we have our long term science projects.  Right now we are breeding Mollys

 

 

So our Molly station is in the far back, it consist of two aquariums and smaller "isolation tanks" for our mommys

 

 

 To the left is the Science table.  I have some science things set out at all times, they change but currently we have our anatomy puzzles

 

 

Our forensic science kit

 

Rocks and shells

 With Konos you add Math and Phonics, I have a dedicated math table where we do all math

 

 

 

Out side of the U I have our animal station.  We keep our garble and hamster there as well as one aquarium with our turtles.

 

How is your room set up?

Breeding Mollys

I just found this AWESOME blog called Living life Intentionally, she did guppy breading with her kids.  If you know me, you know I love animals and this was totally up my ally.  I happened to have everything but the fish ready

 

 

We set up the tank and the water & I made their Molly journal.

We observe the tank, think of questions and then Google to find the answer.  So far we think one is pregnant.  We have our Mommy isolation tanks ready!  (where are those for human mommy's?  Sometimes I need one!)

 

This picture makes me laugh, we have two pet turtles, and I moved the molly tank in front of the turtle tank so we could see the Mollys better.  The turtles swim up to the glass like "hey let me at those fish!!"  So if you were worried they are NOT in the same tank.

 

I will keep you updated on our success!

 

Elf on the Shelf 2012

 

 

This is our second year of Elf on the Shelf being our family tradition.  Our elf does not report back to Santa, he just does silly things.  These pictures are in no patricular order.

 

Day 1:  Sammy arrived and brought card board ginger bread houses and breakfast

 

Sammy left a note & magic seeds (sprinkles) to be planted in sugar

The magic seeds GREW over night into cookies!!!  You can see we were shocked

 

 

 

Sammy replaced pictures of family with pictures of himself

 

 

Sammy brought us a magic tree 

 

Sammy left us a paper chain, in the bathroom, down the hall.  WOW it was crazy!!!  He must have worked on it for days ;)

 

Sammy took a bubble bath in the sink

 

Sammy built an igloo and snow men out of marshmellows

 

Sammy took a nap in a tissue box

 

Sammy took it easy and hung out in the tree

 

Sammy Sold hot chocolate

 

 

Sammy hung from the celing fan

 

Sammy did some math

 

Sammy made a snow flake out of Q-Tips

 

Sammy drew silly faces on our family picture with a dry erase marker!

Scooby-Doo and the Gang caused a little traffic jam that had Sammy waiting for ever!

Sammy left a note on the Dry Erase board

 

 

 Sammy Made a Snow Angel

 

The toys tied sammy up!

 

 

 

Sammy shaved a Christmas tree into daddys head!  (Yes he knew, yes he was awake, yes it was his idea)

 

 

Sammy hung up our underwear where our stockings should go!

 

He did a few more things, that I dont have pictures of.  He made "Elf donuts" and he brought the kids one present to open early on Christmas Eve :)

 

Hope you enjoyed our Elf this year!  Cant wait to see what he does next year.

Foster Puppies

 

My husband has been unemployed since October 11th.  We are very giving people and its a new experience for us to be on the receiving end.  We have been overwhelmed with the kindness of others through out this time in our lives.

 

Two Sundays ago, in our church bulletin there was a challenge to do something clearly unselfish.  I was trying to think of something we could do as a family.  When I got home that day and got on facebook there was a request from Dakota rescue.  A mommy dog had quit nursing her babies (she had 10) and they needed help!  We offered to take two.

 

I packed the kids up and we went to get them.  The kids understood it would just be for two weeks, that we were caring for them because their mother could not.  The larger one we called Buster, the smaller one we called Scratchy.

 



 

They were so adorable.  We feed them, and loved them and played with them.  The boys helped as much as they could.  They helped with bottle feeding and changing the newspapers & when they got baths they helped dry them.

 

 

 

Opie was checking in on them.

 

 

 

Our baby was not too sure about the puppies.  He would clap at them, but kind of wanted them to stay at arms length away.  (this is buster & the baby)

 

Two cuties!

 

 

 

Then it was time to say good bye.  They played with the puppies all day.  Then we went up to pet-co to have them put up for adoption.  Noah cried first, then when the other puppies came, Eli cried.

 

But we were so happy to hear that Buster was adopted and it will just be a matter of time before scratchy is adopted too.  The boys were so happy to hear that!

 

Buster with his new owner!!!  I'm sure he will love him as much as we did

 

Orchestra Memory Game

We are in week 4 of our Konos curriculum on the character trait of attentiveness.  I can not say enough good things about Konos, I highly recommend it.  In weeks 3 & 4 we learned about sound, musical instruments and the orchestra and symphony.  One of our activities was to learn the lay out of where all the instruments are located in an orchestra and the names and family's that each instrument belonged into.

 

I had very much enjoyed week one of the attentiveness unit, where we used a very interactive approach to memorize the ear.  So I created this memory game to help the children with the memorization of the orchestra.

 

 

Link to: Orchestra Memory Game

This was such a fun night! We made sugar cookies, listened to Christmas music and then sat by the fire & played our memory game!

Blooming Bath Review

We had our third child about 5 years after our second child. Everything had changed, everything was new. It was crazy. I was going to go with the bear sponge tub it worked well with my first two children. Then I stumbled across the blooming bath.

I thought it was awesome!  I was in love with it.  So I ordered it.  It was so soft and plush and since I had a c-section it worked great bathing  him in the sink.  Everyone who bathed him thought it was the best bath tub ever.  Now that he is 10 months old, we still love it.  He sits on it in the bath tub and splashes around on it.  I highly recomend the blooming bath.

 

Below is a video I did on it to answer a question for a fb friend

 

Enjoy!

Elf on the Shelf

Last year was the first year I had heard about the Elf on the Shelf, or maybe it was the first year that I paid attention to it.  I purchased our elf about half way through the Christmas season and we had a lot of fun with him.   He has:

1 - Short sheeted the kids beds

2- hung from the ceiling fan

3 - Dyed the toilet water green

4 - Sat on top of a little Christmas tree

5 - Sat on top of a Reindeer

6 - Sat on the stair banister

7- Sat in a Christmas flower arrangement

8 - Hung out at the top of the big Christmas tree

9 - Chilled out by the cookie jar in the kitchen

10- Made a snow angle in the flour

11- Elf played cards with santa

12. Elf painted the kids nose red

So this Christmas I will have to think of more fun elf ideas - and not to mention towards the end of the holiday my sister and I started a "friendly" elf competition.  To say we are competitive at stuff like this would be an understatement.  Here are a a few of the things she did with her elf:

1 - Elf hung from paper chains in bathroom

2. Elf wrapped Christmas tree with TP

This Christmas I am going way over the top.  She wont beat me.