Christmas Celebration With Family

Merry CHRISTmas!

 Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning 2011

 Happy Birthday, Jesus!

 Choosing Gifts For Jesus' Birthday

Merry Christmas With Love From Our Home To Yours!

Tile Art

Another fun project with the girls.

Felted Soaps

A fun project for the little ladies of the house with help from Nana.

Edible Trees

Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus

This December I am making an effort to encourage my daughters' creativity with a few fun projects.  This one is simple.  Jesse cut the pieces of wood and we painted them.  They are not glued together so that the girls can untie the figures and use them in their play.  They love to paint and while this took them quite some time they were very diligent in their efforts.  I even wanted to make my own set, too!

Here is the link where I found this idea:

http://learning-to-b-me.blogspot.com/2010/08/flags-and-more-wood.html

You will have to scroll down to get the dimensions she used if you are interested in making your own.

26 Weeks

Okay, so I am a little late on posting a pic of me at 24 weeks, 

so yesterday I had Grace take a pic at 26 weeks.

Let's just say that baby has been busy growing:)

Christmas Tree

 We continued our tradition of going out and cutting down a tree at the farm.  Jesse was trying to hold out for snow, but we wanted to put up the tree before Christmas.  Still no snow in our yard to play in.  Anyway, Hadassah had the honors of finding our tree this year.  Gabe told everyone who would listen to him that his Daddy cut down a tree and that it was too heavy for Gabe to carry.  I attempted to string popcorn and cranberries with the girls.  We made a few strings as you can see for the tree, but not as many as I had envisioned.  Gabe is still in awe that we have a "big" tree in our house.  And the lights are on as much as possible.  And the nativity beneath the tree is played with everyday.  And there are lots of bright smiles on the little faces around here.

 Gabe taking a photo of the girls.

 The highlight for Gabe was plugging the lights in.

Snuggling with Daddy watching The Very First Noel.

Haven Homeschool

Since I am a mom of littles and just at the beginning of my homeschooling journey I know I have much to learn in regards to teaching my children at home.  This year we are having so much fun and I am enjoying the books right along with Grace so I thought I would share what our schooling looks like this year.  Grace is in first grade, Hadassah is pre-kindergarten, and Gabe is my busy little 2 year old boy who is doing a great job playing at short intervals on his own so I can work with Grace.

My inspiration and I my basic outline for Grace comes from this site http://simplycharlottemason.com/
We primarily use the Charlotte Mason method in our home and find that it is fitting our family so far.  This site includes a free curriculum guide which I find allows for flexibility for me, but at the same time I have a general outline and a place to go for additional ideas and resources.

So, a typical day(is that even possible?) for us is as follows.

Breakfast
* Bible Memory Verses ( using this Scripture Memory System)
*Character Study- just finished A Child's Book Of Character Training and for the month of December we are reading The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean and the girls so enjoy this Jesse Tree Advent that we are going to use it again this year

Morning Chores

The Pledge of Allegiance

History/Geography/Bible
*We are following the outline from SCM called Genesis Through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt
*The Bible  and The Story of The Ancient World by Christine Miller we use as our spines
*We just started Exodus and are reading the books Tirzah, The Boy and The Pyramids, and Exodus: A Child's Commentary to supplement our learning- I love to read!
*The girls each are putting together a timeline of what we are learning in a binder
*Also, they are learning the books of the Bible

Copywork
*Grace copies 2-3  lines of a Bible verse or poem each day in her copywork book

Phonics/Spelling/Reading
*We are using this program and loving it-open and go and fun- All About Spelling
*Grace enjoyed Cobweb the Cat from this company
*We are using the Elson readers and then she can pick her own stories to read when we are not "in school"

Math
*http://www.mathusee.com/
*Alpha - we really like this program, too, so far

Science (T,TH)
*Apologia Elementary Science
*Exploring Creation With Astronomy with Notebook
*read aloud: Among The Meadow People

Hymn Study (F)
*Hymns For A Kid's Heart Volume 1

Poetry
*Robert Louis Stevenson
*A Child's Garden of Verse

Art (not my strong area, but the girls could draw and do crafts all day)
*In January we will begin this book: Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art For Children In The Styles of the Great Masters

Family Devotions In The Evening
*God's Names by Sally Michael (we are starting this tonight, can't wait!)

Give Thanks With A Grateful Heart

First Snow Fun

Question

Grace: "Mom, I have a question for you."  ( I hear this about 50 times a day from her.)

Grace: "Mom, do you like when I ask you all these questions?"

Me: "Is that your question?"  :)   "Of course I do."

Grace: "No, that is not my question.  My question is...those little white flowers that you wore in your hair for your wedding...do you still have those?  Or does Nana have them at her house?"

Download Deals

If you are looking for some resources for your home collection here is a link to a discount on a variety of books, copywork, audio, etc...



http://www.charlottemasonhelper.com/

Fort

The girls have been wanting a fort and this weekend Jesse built them one out of of scraps.

They played so hard and so long out there. 

So fun!

It's the simple things...

...like making my breakfast today and cracking open 2 double yolk eggs.

How great is that?

Just had to share.

A Sneak Peek....

...of our baby.
Can't wait to meet our precious little one!

Playful Learning!

Okay, this is the last post from me for today, I think.  I was just sent this link and I haven't had much time to look through her site, but what I found so far was lots of fun.  Can't wait to see what the littles think:)

Check it out:

Playful Learning

20 weeks