Birthday Party Pictures

Please be kind this was my very first attempt at making a decorated cake for the kids. They wanted a Lego Gotham city cake like in this video. Overall the twins were happy with it so I must have done a good enough job for them.

Pictures from the kids

The kids took the camera into the wild bird store and took pictures in the store. Billy, the man with no head, is a favorite of the boys. They love talking to him and telling others all about him.

New Visitor

We have a falcon in the yard. We think its a Merlin Falcon but are not 100% sure. This is truly an amazing bird. Sadly though he has chased some of our backyard birds out of our yard and has eaten a few birds.

Hand Poinsettia's

This was a cute idea and one the kids enjoyed doing. We cut the kids handprints out of green and red paper. Then we glued them to a paper plate with greens on the outside and reds on the insides. In the middle of the reds we placed a yellow circle. After we were done the kids asked to add glitter to the poinsettia's so I let them add a few touches to the flowers. The flowers are now hanging up in the front window for all to enjoy. The idea came from enchantedlearning.com.

Thanksgiving Day 1k for Kids

My sister works at the SDRC and they have this fun race on Thanksgiving Day. There is a 5k and 10 k run for adults and this little 1k run for the kids. My kids love doing this. They talked about going running for Aunt Mary this year and did some practice runs. Last year the twins, age 3, were the last kids across the finish line but this year they all did really good. Noah was the first to cross the finish line out of my kids, followed by Nathan and then Zachary. Zachary was worried he came in last of everyone again but there were still a kids behind him. Overall it was a fun experience for the kids.

Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day

Tomorrow is Japan's national holiday called Labor Thanksgiving Day. I had the kids make a Japanese Garden, thanks to enchantedlearning for the idea. This was a little more complicated then I thought it would be but it was fun. Instead of using real rocks like the craft suggested we just cut out paper ones.

Thanksgiving Scarecrows

Yet another fun art project. I let the kids pick out the colors they wanted for their scarecrows so some are a little weird. I just let them the freedom to do whatever they wanted and I think they all did a great job. Bet you can't figure out who did which scarecrow.

Pilgrim Art

Another fun art project we did with two of the boys. Noah did not want to join in the fun so he does not have a Pilgrim. Again we used Enchanted learning for the idea and templates. Overall this type of art seems to be more like art in a regular school and loads more fun than the art we were doing. Art is actually looked forward to these days instead of being among the last thing picked to do that day.

McGuffey Reader and Speller

My McGuffey readers finally came! I'm am so excited to get started with this new program. The workbooks tie in the reader and the spelling book. We started the primer today and Nathan did well reading the book and was excited to read it. He thinks its a big person book.

We are reading a Flat Stanley book for literature. After finishing the Flat Stanley book I may try having Nathan mail a picture of himself and see what letters he may get from friends. If your interested in helping us out let me know. I'll send you my email address so I can get your address.

Thanksgiving Art

I found some really cute Thanksgiving crafts for art projects on the enchantedlearning website. Today we did hand and foot turkeys. All three boys had fun doing the turkeys. Each had their own personal style for their turkeys. After they dry today I'll hang them up in the window.

Art for Veterans Day

This is what I call art. Having fun creating fun things. Yesterday we made patriotic wreaths for Veteran's Day. All three boys enjoyed creating the wreaths and we hung them up in the window. Today we did a Veteran's Day coloring book and fact book we printed off of the enchantedlearning.com website.

Changes in Schooling

We have left the UTVA, Utah Virtual Academy. No we did not enroll Nathan in public school but we are changing course with his schooling. We signed up with Washington Online, which uses the same program as UTVA but you get to choose which subjects you follow. As such here are the changes we are making to our schooling:

Still using k12 for:
Math
Science
History

We dropped the language arts, phonics, art, and music.

Instead we will be using the following:

Phonics
Bob readers
Explode the Code
Mc Guffey's primer (yes this is the book they used in the 19th century)

Language arts
Mc Guffey's primer
Mc Guffey's Speller
Grammar program by the Well Trained mind

Art
we will find some fun basic art things from books at the library

Music
dropping the study of composers right now and instead will be learning about instruments

School Work for the week of Nov. 1 to Nov. 6

Math
Count on by pennies
quarters
count on by nickels
counting mixed coins
trading

Language arts
junior great books
poetry
Streets, roads, cities and states
nouns in sentences
Winnie the Pooh

Phonics
new constant blends
spelling
sight words
handwriting

Art
ancient art Mesopotamia
ancient art Ancient Egypt part one

Music
Mozart

Science
the water cycle
the drifting snowflake

History
Pyramids and Zigguarts
Sargon conquers Mesopotamia
Abraham goes to Caanan

Corn Maze Pictures

Pictures from the annual trip to the Black Island Farms corn maze. For the first time in our times of going to this maze the weather was neither stormy nor was the ground a muddy mess. The day was not really cold but cold enough you wanted to keep moving.

School Work Oct 26-30

Math
Nickles and dimes
counting on with pennies
quarters
counting on with nickles
count mixed coins

Phonics
spelling
sight words
handwriting
consonant blends

Language Arts
poems
Winnie the Pooh
names of holidays
titles of books
junior great books


Art
read about art and artists van Gogh, Rousseau, Glackens
cave paintings

Music
Hadyn
Mozart

Science
water in the air
cotton ball clouds

History
King Tut
Egyptian Cinderella
Pyramids and Ziggurats

School Work week of Oct. 19-23

Math
Separating
Guess and Test
Logical reasoning
review and assessment
semester test
nickels and dimes

Language Arts
names of months
writing days and months
Winnie the Pooh
public speaking
poetry

Phonics
spelling
handwriting
new sounds

Art
primary and secondary colors
Wassily Kandisky

Science
the rain catcher
water in the air


Music
Bach

History
King Tut
the Egyptian Cinderella

Ogden Dinosaur Park Halloween Activities

Fun activity to do with the kids. It's not a scary Halloween activity although I heard the last two days of this month it will be scary and only for older kids. There were stations to trick or treat at and receive some fun treats. We got free Applebee's kid meals, $10 gift cards to Sparetime, free bowling at Sparetime, and discount tickets to the Ogden Nature Center. Plus it was fun seeing the park at night and decked out. Now I'm anxious to see if they decorate for the Christmas holidays.