Friday, April 6, 2012

Back to Normal

We were rested up and ready to start a new week of school this week.  It feels like we are so close to the end of the school year--I can't believe it!  We had a good week, although 1 week off was too much in some areas.  I have a child that struggles with memory and needs more repetition than that.  It's good to find that out before summer, right??  :)

So here are a few of the changes I mentioned in my last post:

We are kind of notorious for starting and not finishing great ideas/plans, especially where chores are concerned.  We've tried it all!  Well, we recently decided to make another attempt at keeping track of the mundane.  I made cute charts on the computer (using digital scrapbooking software) and put them in some cheap frames so the kids can mark off chores with dry-erase markers.  There aren't a ton of things listed but it's a good reminder for everyone.  They were very motivated this week and they got to pick a prize from the $ section at Target for their hard work.  We'll see how long we can make this last.

I change the morning routine up a bit because they seem to get so bored with it.  I had a white poster board up with some things but it was getting tedious and it wasn't too pretty.  So, I decided to paint this giant frame I got at a garage sale and hang it up with the 2 things I really needed: days of school and any special notes {using same dry eraser method}.  It needs some matting but this is how we're leaving it right now.  I like it!  It's pretty and useful! 

Finally, this is our spring shelf...the 3 butterfly books I could find!  These displayed books definitely get looked at more than the ones on the shelf!

 Speaking of butterflies, we received our caterpillars in the mail for our butterfly garden.  The kids were sooo excited!!  This is our new topic for science and I think it's a hit!

Samuel started the letter 'Z' this week!  We did all zebra activities!  This is his {relaxed} pose while we "Roll A Zebra".

And, since this was his last letter, he received his "Certificate of Completion" for the Letter of the Week curriculum.  He was very excited and he doesn't understand why we will still be learning letters as we finish out the school year.  :)  

Hunter and Lily were busy this week, getting back into the routine of school.  We learned a bit about pioneer schools and made our own horn books.  

Nathan enjoyed the busier pace this week.  He likes to participate in most activities!
Hunter stacked the alphabet blocks for him so he's checking it out before swinging at them wildly.

Waiting on the new batch of play dough--we made purple this time.

Joining the big kids in coloring.  He was caught coloring on the desk and smiled so big when I told him 'no'.  

Another change this week was in our Bible time.  We had been working through a book but I wanted to pause that and start a Fruit of the Spirit study, as inspired by the fantastic blog When You Rise.  Their study hasn't gotten very far but I used their links to another blog that had a ton of ideas.  I had some colorful fruit pictures from a teacher store that closed in town so I did a combination of those fruits and the fruits that the 2nd blog used for their study.  Up 1st was "love" and we stuck with the cherry theme for that.

We painted cherries:

We added cherries to our fruit baskets:

We made cherry limeades:

And we spent time talking about love--it was a good reminder through out the day because there seemed to be an increase in sibling squabbles this week.  

Today (Friday), we took off from school because it's Good Friday.  We are doing some Easter things but I'll have a separate Easter post after the weekend!

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