A snippet of our Homeschooling

Lately I have been using my camera more.  Still trying to learn to use it and also want to try and document these sweet times.  I cannot believe we are half way through Feb!  This school year is flying by!  I love teaching 1st grade and preschool.  I don't want them to grow up so I can keep enjoying these fun foundation years.  SO at last I thought I would share a few pics of our last week in homeschooling.

We did a fun experiment that had all the kiddos interested!  Dancing Raisins :) It went along well with some of the things the kids have been memorizing in CC.  Here is a bit what they learned:
    That the baking soda that we put into the glass of water reacted with the vinegar I poured in to form carbon dioxide.  Then the carbon dioxide bubbles surrounded the surface of the raisin and because carbon dioxide is lighter than water it rises to the surface and takes the raisin with it. Then as the bubbles pop at the surface the raisin goes back down to the bottom of the cup until more carbon dioxide bubbles surround it again and take it back up to dance :)  I have to admit I enjoyed teaching this one :)

 They were amazed at how their sinking raisins began to go up and down and dance all around!

Here you can see the kiddos working on their Jonah and the Big Fish paintings.  They sure do LOVE to paint!

 Micah has been continuing to learn his letters.  This week we were working on the Letter P.  Madelynn enjoys to join in when she can.  She loves to do school with her big brother.

Madelynn hard at work!

he sticks his tongue out when he concentrates!! so cute!

 So the Friday we ended talking about the letter P.  I made them these secret messages with a white crayon.  Then they colored over with water paints to see what it said.  They were very HAPPY to have a PIZZA PARTY!

 My sweet Micah boy!  He loves to make forts. You can't tell from this picture much but he is inside his fort "reading" some books.

She wants to be in on ALL the action, but how do you say NO to this face :)

She looks soo grown up in this pic!!!

 Molly is finishing up The Reading Lesson.  We only have 2 more lessons!! ahh.  It has gone great.  I really do recommend using The Reading Lesson. And we have started using Spell to Write and Read the verdict is still out on what we think.  So far so good.  It is way more complicated to teach than anything I have used before. But I have a good friend who is using it and so I continue to rack her brain and learn as I go.

 Here Molly is practicing her cursive letters.  She is such a girly girl, she loves to write pretty and is so excited to learn cursive.  Today when she was writing the word "my" she said, "I love to write this word in cursive it's my 2 favorite pretty letters" ha! Good thing M and Y are both in her name!

And last but not least we wanted to wish you ALL a HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Matchy matchy

 Had fun today trying to get a good picture of the kiddos in their matching outfits that my mom made for them for Christmas.  Here are a few of them and a little humor of what was being said:

Here I told girls to sit around Micah

Then I asked Madelynn can you get a little closer to Micah please, like ya love him and got this pic

 ok then I was like Madelynn but I also wanna see your pretty smile!

 Molly said she looks like she is marrying Micah in this one :)

 sister love

 I have no idea whats going on I think we are loosing it

 and once again the marriage pose as Molly says :)

love my little ones :)

And 2015 begins!

Just thought I would post a little update on what we have been up to these past few weeks.  We had a wonderful yet BUSY holiday season.  Were able to visit with our family and even see a few great friends.  So now that we are home sweet home I was excited to settle in and rearrange the place to meet our new needs.
So for the past few months we have had all 3 kids sleeping in the same room as I used the 3rd room to sort through clothes and such.  But we just got a twin bed for Micah (thanks to my lil sis and bro for bringing it up) and so now we officially have a Boy room for him and the girls are sharing a room with Madelynn sleeping on the bottom bunk.  It is SOO helpful in so many ways.  Madelynn is excited to share all of Molly's baby dolls stuff that she gladly goes to spend time in her room while I school Molly.  And Micah is also excited to have a room with his boy toys :)

Anyhow I am excited for the new change around here.  Our "schoolroom" continues to grow into a place I enjoy teaching the kiddos.  Molly continues to love Classical Conversations and our Hearts of Dakota curriculum we use Little Hearts For His Glory.  Micah is also doing CC and he has a HOD curriculum called Little Hands to Heaven that he enjoys.  I also am loving getting to spend the day with my children and watching them grow and enjoy playing together.

My brother Jorge came up last week to visit.  And the kids absolutely loved playing with him and LOVED his dog.  That is what I hear about now is when can we get a puppy :)  So thankful he came to visit!

Here are a few pics :)

My brother Jorge visiting with his dog Leo

Madelynn enjoying snow

our new schoolroom display hanger

this is how we organize our school work for the day

Molly hard at work :)

Micah in his new boy room set up

girls room don't mind the messy beds ha  

So it's slowly coming together.  But it's nice for the girls to have all their baby doll stuff to share and for Micah have a place to spread out with his "boy" fun stuff.

Ok that's all for today. I'll update more later :)

Madelynn Turns TWO!

Madelynn turned Two December 8th 2014!  I can't believe how fast these two years have gone.  We had a fun time celebrating her on Sat. Dec. 6th with some friends. It was a Minnie mouse themed party.  We had soup and LOTS of cake!   Here are a few pics of the eventful evening.  

the Birthday Girl 

Micah soo excited for his sisters party!

 We started the evening with a craft.  All the kids made a "mickey/minnie ornament"

 oh the faces :)

 yummy soup

 birthday girl!

 BIRTHDAY CAKE!

 present time

 the whole fam

 oohing and ahhin over one of her gifts

 she loves babies

 daddy and her girls

 THE "CHAOS"

 mommy and her baby girl

We are so thankful for this sweet Madelynn.  She is growing fast!

• She is now speaking in sentence form.  Last week we heard her clear as day tell her big brother "Don't Shoot Me!"  The sentences she has learned to put together being number 3! 
• Another fun fact to remember about this little one is at 22 months she jumped out of her crib all nice and proud.  I wasn't ready to move on to toddler bed so tried the pack n play and she also jumped out of that.  All that to say she is in a toddler bed!  She just wants to be just like her big brother and sister.
• Her favorite drink is still "MILK" and she requests it every morning.  And she loves to eat cheese, carrots, apples, bananas, welp pretty much any fruit and any dairy.  And veggies well some she will eat just seems to depend on the day.  And she loves potatoes!
• She always wants to participate when I am homeschooling the older two.  She can hold a pencil the proper way.  And Loves to paint! The funniest thing is when we practice our presentations for CC.  After Micah and Molly do theirs Madelynn is always super eager to jump up and do her "presentation" and with the other two coaching her she will be ready for CC in a few years!   

 Thanks to all our friends who could come celebrate with us.