Busy, Busy School Days!

Another full week here!  Another post full of pictures!!  :)  On Monday, I felt the need to reorganize my homeschool cabinets.  That led me to find the parachute I forgot I had so we bundled up to try that out.  Samuel wasn't interested and we really needed another person so it didn't work great.  Still, we got some extra sunshine that day!

We did a lot of things this week but I mainly remember what I've taken pictures of!  I printed off some Halloween number cards for Samuel to work on #s with.  He did great and then rushed right off to show his big brother and sister how to do it!  :)

 Nathan is just busy.  He brings me to a new level of exhaustion because he can.not.be.trusted.  Seriously.  But look at that face!!

Fridays are usually pretty low-key for schooling here.  It's really not so much something I decided--the main portion of our curriculum just has less activities to do on Fridays so it's just something I've adapted to!  So, today I planned on a Halloween-ish activity from an Usborne science activity book I have.  This is called "Bubbling Wizard's Brew" and it was quite the excitement!!

Waiting....

Everyone's experiment soon bubbled over and the kids were seriously so pumped about it.  It was funny!

On Wednesday this week, we kind of took a day off of school but we also called it a field trip day so not sure if that counts or not??  Anyway, Samuel has speech therapy in the morning about 30 minutes away from where we live.  There is a children's museum not far from there so we decided to head over there after therapy (and we asked my Mom to come along for back up!).  It was so much fun!!  The kids and I had been once before as a family but had to leave early because Samuel was sick.  The twins and I had gone with their kindergarten class, as well (see? It is a field trip!).  Everyone played hard!  Nathan managed to get 2 bloody lips during the day but no other injuries or illnesses this time!  I would love to go back more often but I really feel better about having another adult and it can get pricey!!  It's a great experience for the kids, though.

This hospital area is probably the favorite for all the kids (even Nathan because he thinks he's driving the ambulance!).  

 Hunter looks like he's racing through the store.  The store is my favorite part because I would have loved this as a child!!  :)

Grandma was there!

 The music room was new to us.  Nathan got a kick out of making NOISE!!!

 The theater was another room we had not been in before.  The kids loved putting on a couple shows.  Nathan enjoyed running out and yelling "Boo!" over and over. 

 Nathan found a slide just his size!

 Samuel found a slide he liked, too!  I didn't let Nathan do this one!  The kids had to have gotten so much exercise doing this thing over and over!!!!

 Flying a plane!  I like this because he's contained for a moment.

The farmyard was a lot of fun, too, but it's upstairs so by the time we got that far, we were getting weary.  (We=Me)

Such a nice smile!  Full of orneriness at this point in the day!

All 4 kids on the plane.  They all took a turn flying and this was the end of the trip!

I feel like we have done a lot of fun things in these 50 days of school!!  I'll have to remember this when the snow sets in and I refuse to leave the house!  :)

2/2 Picture-Full Posts

I had to make 2 posts on our week because we have so many pictures to share.  Since it's getting so close to Halloween, I thought we better get in a trip to a pumpkin farm!  Brian had plans on Saturday and Sunday's weather looked questionable so Brian ended up taking his Friday off to make it a field trip day.  It was so fun!  It was an all day adventure, though, so I cut most of our school day out--we just read.  Hunter finished his Bible he had been reading so he was sooo proud, as was I!!  He's excited about his new book and read a bit of that already! 

I'm getting sidetracked...Anyway, we drove about an hour to a pumpkin farm that Brian's Aunt had recommended, spent all morning there, had lunch at the local McDonald's and drove home in time for me to grab a nap before our busy evening seeing a jr. high play my sister wrote/directed.  Whew!  What a Friday!

 This was in the corn maze!  They gave you a punch card and you had to find the 10 different punches (they were all different shapes).  We only found 9 but they were gracious enough to give the kids a prize, anyway.  We were in that thing forever!  We finally just busted out--not at the exit.  :)

They had this corn box the kids could play in--it was a ton of fun!  I think my kids could have stayed in there the whole time!!  We were the only people there so, thankfully, there was no rush to get them out!

 Enjoying a windy hayrack ride while we ate the popcorn they offered us.  Yum!

Trying out the pumpkin catapult!  This was a lot of fun for the kids!

Pumpkin bowling!  It was pointless to set up the 'pins' again because Nathan was all about rolling throwing the pumpkin at the bottles!

Finding the perfect pumpkins!  Samuel carried this pumpkin all the way in but when I inspected it, it had a gaping hole on one side.  Bummer!!  Everyone found a good one, though--40 lbs. of pumpkin.  

Enjoying Halloween bucket Happy Meals at McDonald's...that makes it pretty close to a perfect day for my kiddos.  Now, we're ready to carve those pumpkins and bake some seeds!

1/2 Picture-full Posts

Wow, this past week has just sped by and it's been a busy one! I don't know if I can remember everything but I have plenty of pictures to share. I'll do a 2nd post on our field trip since I have waaayyy too many pictures to post for that topic.

I have no reason to post this picture except that I love it!  :)

Samuel stamping some "G/g" for fun.  He liked this activity during "school time".

One evening this past week, I tried my hand at making my own tortillas for taco night.  The little boys enjoyed rolling their own tortilla out! 

H is for Haunted House.  This was a fun week because we were studying H and it's so close to Halloween that I printed a lot of Halloween-themed sheets.  Samuel LOVES Halloween!!

I used masking tape as a number line and printed off some pirates from a Pirate Squeeze game I downloaded--can't remember where and it's not listed on the game--to work on numbers.  It was a fun math lesson!

Tuesday was our big art day because Samuel and Nathan glued beans in the morning.  In the afternoon, the bigger kids made starfish as a part of our main curriculum lesson plans.  We then decided to use up our leaves we had collected last week.  So, we made creative pictures and then painted with the rest of the leaves.  We had wet projects laid out all over the kitchen!  

Fall is Here!

Wow, what a week we have had!!  This should be long and full of pictures but I'll try to recap it all.  Where to start?  Maybe with the interruptions of the best-laid plans.

This week, I went to Urgent Care twice--with 2 different kids.  I called the dentist and the doctor.  We had sickness, falling off chairs/down stairs/into toilets, slammed fingers...wow.  Sounds like a rough house here but, no, just another week in our life.

 Here's Samuel on Monday.  He's been very lethargic and complaining of head/throat pain recently.  It seems to happen at least once a week.  I finally decided to take him in and they decided it was a sinus infection (to the extent that kids can get sinus infections with not fully developed sinuses).  He's on medicine now so I'm hoping next week will go by without a sick day for him!  Poor guy.

Here's Nathan on Wednesday.  I should say that Monday, he fell off a chair on the porch and the blood was pretty intense.  I finally figured out he tore his frenulum (though I didn't know it was called that) and was kind of freaked about it but he recovered and we moved on.  Wednesday, I was cleaning up and heard a THUNK THUNK THUNK so I ran to the stairs and saw Nathan upside down with his head in the crack of the doorway.  Such a horrible sound and horrible sight.  I picked him up immediately and rocked him and then pulled him back to see quite the head bump with varying degrees of color plus the scratch on top of it all.  I also saw he had blood in his mouth but I couldn't tell where that was coming from.  I called my doctor and she told me to just take him in.  The kids were totally freaked and there was much crying--it didn't help that I was also crying but it scared me so bad.  His swelling went down pretty quickly and he checked out just fine--although, he fell again when I got him home so I'm not sure if he was just clumsy or out of sorts from all the head banging that went on in that stairwell!!  But I have to admit that I've been a lot more anxious about his falls after that.

A planned interruption on Wednesday was speech therapy for Samuel.  This was just stressful but I won't go on about it.  However, having a monsoon to drive through, this stressful hour, driving back home in rain, having Nathan fall down the stairs, going to Urgent care and back home just to have my supervising teacher knock, knock at the door (planned visit) did make for kind of a crazy day.  I'm so thankful for my supervising teacher, though--she's truly a blessing!!

Okay, actual work did also get done this week.  Here's Hunter and Lily working on some ships.  I do not think the Mayflower had skulls on the flag but whatever...  :)  They added foaming waves with toothpaste and that made for a really cool picture!

Trying to keep Nathan busy and in sight...paint may have been a little crazy but he LOVED it.

 I like seeing both the little guys work together...plus, Nathan has his tongue out--ha!

To end our week, we took a leaf walk.  We started studying plants and then the largest plants (trees!) this week so it was perfect timing.  The weather went from 80 to 60s so that was awesome, too.  The leaves are gorgeous and it was a great family time!  

We woke this little guy up but he was a trooper!

 Checking out the creek.  Samuel leaned a bit too far for my taste...

 Samuel found a fuzzy caterpillar!  He loved that thing but I'm pretty sure it did live! We found it a nice home in the grass.

 Nathan getting set loose from the stroller.  Look at that pretty hair--how can anyone want it cut???

 Brian is working on Saturday so he very kindly offered to take off early Friday for our leaf walk.  It was good to get some extra time with him!

Whew!  That was our week-in-review.  Exhausting but great!  I got some good advice and direction from my supervising teacher so I am going to change some things up and also work on RELAXING more.  Sounds good to me.  :)

Fire Staion

Today was our next field trip...to the fire station!  This was fun because it was just me and 2 other homeschool moms/friends.  We talked about how we'd like to take our kids (especially the pre-K'ers) to a fire station so the person who is most outgoing decided to just call and ask and it was that easy!  Who knew?  :)

It was a great tour.  They got to see everything they wanted, ask any questions, talk to 2 firefighters, feel the firefighter's outfit, sit in the front and back of the truck and take home a coloring book and hat.  The funniest part was that at the end the kids were asked who wanted to be a firefighter??  One of my friends' boys chimed up, "Not me!".  Ha!  Hunter said he wanted to be one and Lily told me she was thinking "librarian" so maybe a tour of the library is next?? :)

Everyone's favorite part:

-Samuel: truck

-Lily: living spaces

-Hunter: thermal imaging camera

-Nathan: probably that I brought milk for him, otherwise he was getting tired of being strapped in!

-Me: I liked that the 3 Moms all wore almost the same exact thing--ha!  We did not plan it but we all showed up in jeans and plain, dark (2 navy, 1 black) t-shirt.  So weird!!

Samuel had been sick yesterday (sinus infection) so he was pretty worn out by the time we were done...napped most the afternoon...but that combined with his shyness meant he did NOT sit in the fire truck and would NOT wear his hat.  And that's totally fine! :)