Letters H & V & Valentines!!!!

Last week began discussing Valentine's & how it's a holiday for us to remind others of how much we love them & more importantly that God loves them. We started the week off with the letter H for Heart. The boys used these little Hearts for EVERYTHING all week long! They made patterns with them & sorted them by color & size.

Brady used them to count while he did his addition.

They glued the Hearts to a letter H.

Decorated their Valentine bags with them.

And Brady used them to decorate the Valentines he made for all his friends.

As we talked about love we focused on the Verses Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" We discussed many ways we could show love to others & how we can show God how we can show God how much we love Him. I really enjoyed talking about God's love! In fact I NEVER get tired of about of the love of my Savior & Bridegroom...but that's a whole other blog not in homeschooling :)

Our H foods were of course Hot dogs & Ham & cheese sandwiches.For the letter V we didn't have any foods except what I called our special Valentine meal of Heart shaped pancakes. We have some Venison, but I never got around to thawing it out to cook :)

For our V craft the boys made Vases.

I drew different kinds of flowers& let the boys color them. We cut them out & pasted them with stems to fill the Vases. I thought they turned out SUPER cute!

Today we concluded our Valentine lesson with a Valentine party with some of our favorite home school friends!

We went to Kidz Rock which has many inflatables for the kids to go crazy on.

And arcade games & outside playgrounds.

The kiddos played, us mommies got to chat, we talked about love & the lil ones exchanged Valentines.

We ate some yummy food & had a fabulous time! I am SO incredibly thankful that God has brought some sweet homeschooling mommies to me! It's nice to have some friends who understand what I am going through in this area of my life.

This week we are reviewing our letters up to this point so no big crafts. Hopefully this break will finally let me upload a blog on Tot School...Rylan's special stuff :)

Super Mom vs Abiding Mom

This is from the blog Confessions of a Homeschooler but ALL mommas should read this chart & see where we fit in on things! Pretty awesome!!!!

Today’s Challenge:

As a minister to your family, what is God’s plan for you as a homeschooler and parent? Take some time today to remind yourself who you are in Christ. (I realize this is geared towards mom’s, but really can be applied to any parent.)

Super Mom	Abiding Mom
Does	Is (Psalm 46:10)
Tries to impress others	Pleases the Lord (Eph. 5:10, Proverbs 29:25)
Is controlled by an agenda (curriculum, schedule, etc)	Is controlled by the Holy Spirit: (Gal. 5:22-26) (Uses curriculum & schedules as tools for orderliness so she's more free to follow the spirit)
Her self worth is found in her accomplishments (clean house, perfect kids, the perfect bulletin boards, etc.)	Her self worth is found in an accurate view of who she is in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:10)
Her peace is found in the “perfect” environment	Her peace is found in Jesus in the midst of any storm (Is 26:3)
She is discouraged by failure	Failure reminds her that God's strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9-10)
She expects perfection from herself and others	She practices grace with herself and others (Eph 4:32)
She teaches her kids to be good	She teaches her kids to be Godly (Proverbs 22:6)
She is frustrated with her lack of spiritual fruit	She abides in Christ and bears much fruit (John 15:5)
She does things with her children	She builds a relationship with her children (Deut 6:6-7)
Her perspective is based on what is seen	Her perspective is based on what is unseen (Col 3:2)
She chooses quantity of activities	She chooses the most excellent Way (I Cor 13)
Her kids may recall how busy she always is.	Her children rise and call her blessed. (Prov. 31:28)

Keller laughing @ patty cake

Keller laughing as Britany plays patty cake with him :)

Letters C & M (my favortie week so far!!!)

First of all let me say a BIG thanks to ALL the AAHHH-MAZING mommy bloggers out there who dedicate so much time into sharing their ideas for the rest of us!!! Because of these ladies I'm able to do so many fun learning activities with my boys & they inspire me to create some things on my own!

We began last week reviewing the letter C. I took this time to introduce Brady to the CH sound as well because we are about to cover that in our reading lessons. We also talked about how the letter C can also make a "S" sound like in the words City, Celery, & Cereal. Brady thinks the letter C is a tricky Cat! (dont ask)

Last year I read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to the boys & ever since then it has been a BIG hit in our household! Both big boys can quote it word for word! So they were pretty ecstatic when we read it during "school" time & made Caterpillar C's!

Rylan was incredibly impressed by the little fuzzy Craft balls we used. So I came up with a "Tot School" activity that I'll post tomorrow! :)

We also made Chocolate Chip Cookies in the shape of the letter C. This was quite messy, but of course that made the boys love it even more! Rylan sang the Cookie Monster song, "C is for Cookie, it's good enough for me" the whole time :) I wish I would've gotten it on Camera, but my hands were covered in gooey dough!

While our Cookies were baking we read the book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." I HIGHLY recommend all the "If You Give A..." books!!! We also took time to talk about their Cousins & named all of the ones whose names started with a C: Caleb, Connor, Cameron, Christian, & Cody; Brady was a little upset that his Cousin Kaelin's name started with a K & not a C.

We also discussed how Jesus is the Christ & though I know the deep meaning of Christ is above his lil head, I still enjoy planting the seed in him & sowing it, because one day he will understand & that is the ultimate goal!

Our other C activities included lots Counting with our addition, playing with Cards, eating lots of C foods: Cookies, Carrots, Chips, Celery, Chicken, Corn...bet you can guess which food was Brady's favorite!

The boys even had a lunch of Chicken, Chips, & Corn while they watched Cars. I was informed this day that I was "The Best Mom EVER!!!" :D

Brady couldn't have been more thrilled to begin the letter M when he saw we would be doing our Math lesson with M & M's!!! He sorted them by colors & counted them, did his addition with them, made patterns & shapes with them & we even brought the M &M's into our language lesson & traced our M's with M & M's.

I used to have a M & M Math book from when I taught 4th grade, but have seen it since then :( I will have to purchase it again because my students LOVED it!

We spent that afternoon reading "If You Take A Mouse To The Movies" & which led us to watching the Movie "A Mickey Mouse Christmas" while we ate some popcorn & M &M's with Chocolate Milk. (Notice the Mixing of C's & M's??? ;P) We also purposely Made a Mess so we could Clean it up. For dinner we had a special M Meal of Mini Meatloaf Muffins & Mashed potatoes. We also played ALL of their Musical instruments & made up silly songs together.

We focused our Bible story to Moses & the 10 Commandments & made our Mt. Sinai out of the letter M, added some clouds & of course Moses too!

We reviewed the Commandments & gave examples of each (with the exception of adultery) & I explained to my best ability what Mercy was & that even though we often make Mistakes, God shows us Mercy & He forgives us; which is why we should show Mercy to others.

Letters O & T with addition

Last week we reviewed the letter O & made some super cute Owls! Rylan joined in the fun this time!

They painted their O's added a triangle with 2 green circles for the eyes. This was also an opportunity to teach Rylan some colors & shapes, though he didn't care for it as much as he did the painting! I had to pry the paint brush out of his hand!

Our O food was an orange of course! Brady wasn't too keen on trying an Olive! We talked a lot about the Ocean & our vacation to the beach when saw a lot of different sea creatures up close! Too close for me! A baby shark swam 5 feet away from were we were! We also looked in books & talked about the different animals that live in the Ocean. After we made our Owls we learned a new word: NOCTURNAL because most Owls sleep in the day & hunt for food at night. Another new word was OAR. It was in his dictionary & he couldn't understand why they put a paddle under the O because paddle starts with P! He cracks me up sometimes with his simple logical sense of things.



Brady also reviewed the letter T & made a cute Tree in the shape of a T.

He colored the Trunk & branches, then used a sponge to paint green leaves on it & before the paint could dry, he added fake grass we bought a while back to add some Texture!

Brady came up with a Ton of T words! As you can see by his list some of his VERY favorite Things start with T. Trains Thomas & Toby made the list & Brady wasn't too happy I ran out of room to write Tow Mater from Disney's Cars :) Our story came from the Bible, we Talked about the Trees in the Garden of Eden & the 1st sin. Brady remembered most of it which makes me happy! We also Talked a lot about Trust & Telling the Truth. Our T food was his favorite vegetable, a Tomato! I had considered working on Telling Time for math, but I didn't want to interrupt our addition that we had already started.

As you can see he did VERY well on his on. I like to buy the $1 workbooks to assist with our Singapore book we typically use. Brady likes it too because as he says, "I get to work with my friends." Meaning his favorite characters. :)

He also uses his Cuisinaire Rods to help count the numbers & then add them all together. I'm amazed at how quick he caught on. I'm hoping he's good at math & likes it. I never did! One of my main goals in homeschooling is to make learning fun so here's to praying I can find fun ways to teach the stuff I don't like so much.

A Gift from God & some Kari Jobe!

As a new mommy again I find myself being very busy with the same stuff, never getting it all done. My days are full of breastfeeding & caring for an infant, potting training & wrangling a toddler, & homeschooling an almost 6 year old who is very smart & always has a million questions or things he wants to tell me. Then there's my house with one problem after another, still waiting to be fixed, the never ending laundry & dishes on top of other house duties, caring for a dog I could live without but my kids can't. Trying to be a parent & a friend to my 20 year old niece who lives with us & I assure trying to find a balance in letting her make her own decisions, good or bad, & trying to guide her isn't an easy task! Then there's being a wife to a busy husband trying to further his career & being a mentor/leader to teen moms, & most importantly my relationship with Jesus! Oh wait, I forgot about the ongoing battle of food I have & trying to lose weight.

I'm sure I've left some things out :)

Now please know I am NO WAY COMPLAINING!!! I LOVE my life! I have 3 amazing boys, a wonderful niece who is a GODSEND! A husband whom I love &that works hard for his family, a ministry I'm proud to be a part of, & a roof over our heads that WILL be fixed...eventually. All are great blessings, but sometimes Momma just needs a BREAK!!!!

Well here's God's special lil gift for me...my niece, Britany, offered to watch ALL 3 boys Friday so I could go shopping with my friend Karen. That's 2 gifts right there! The weather...well it was a BEAUTIFUL spring day in JANUARY!!! That should count as 3 gifts right there :) Our day was going great! I was out of the house, with a good friend, shopping & actually finding some things for myself, good conversation; couldn't have planned a better outing for myself!

So we decided to eat outside at Corner Bakery because the day was just getting more beautiful by the minute! As we sit down we notice a group of about 10 people eating next to us. They dressed pretty eclectic/rockish & I told Karen the girl in the headband looked REEEEEAAAALLLLLYYY familiar! For the life of me I couldn't figure out who she was or how I knew her. Karen checked her phone then looked at me with widen eyes & asked if I thought the girl was Kari Jobe. To our utter surprise & great delight IT WAS!!!!

Kari had really Tweeted that she was in Jackson & that's how we knew without a doubt that one of our FAVE worship leaders was eating right next to us. We were like giddy lil girls :) Kari was incredibly sweet, took pics with us & autographed my CD that just so happened to be listening to in my car! God-thing...ABSOLUTELY!



As if my day wasn't already wonderful, a nice gift from God to give this momma a break, He goes & puts a GIANT bow on top of the gift in the form of KARI JOBE!!!! How amazing is He!? I was also happy when my friend Marie showed up too! She sings a lot of Kari Jobe & I was thankful she was able to meet her as well.

I so wish I wouldn't have been such a "fan" & actually told Kari how much her songs mean to me! But I have a great sense that I'm going to get to meet her again one day & then I will actually tell her. Sunday night I was able to see her perform at a local church & it was an incredible night of worship! She has such a pure heart for the Lord; it's incredibly refreshing!

So now it's Monday & back to the usual chaotic busyness of Mommyhood, but with a great big smile on my face, feeling renewed & refreshed! All thanks to God, my Father, my loving Bridegroom who knows just what I need when I need it & throws in something special unexpectedly just for me....

Letters N & L

I know I'm late on this post but last was CRAZY! I had my 1st sinus migraine and I pray it was my last! :/

On the home school front we reviewed the letters N & L.

For the letter in our focus was Numbers. We went on a number hunt at Walmart and Brady wrote down all the Numbers he saw in his little Notebook. We worked on skip counting by 10s and 5s and worked on some early addition skills too. Our N food was Nachos (my favorite) and we talked about different ways we can be Nice to others and Not be Naughty.

The Letter L represented Letters. Brady is almost finished with his Kindergarten reading book! So we've used the last couple of weeks to review. Our verse was Luke 10:27 "Jesus answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Which also tied into our "Nice" lesson. His L food was a Lollipop, but thought it was "SO COOL" to eat ABC's & 123's because it had Letters and Numbers in it. :) The Little things that kids Like LoL...and speaking of LoL...we also talked about things that make us Laugh...my favorite was my kiddos, Brady's was Tom & Jerry.

For our craft I cut many Numbers and Letters out of newspaper and Brady had to sort them and glue the Numbers to the Letter N and the Letters on the L.



Pictures were taken on my phone so the quality isnt too great. This week we're taking off to the great state of Texas to visit my mom & sister! have a blessed week!!!