T is for Thanksgiving and a Tooth

Ben lost his first front tooth this week!  Which was totally appropriate for our Letter T week.  We also got ready for Thanksgiving!  Ben was so excited that “all the Bonenfant’s” were coming.  I had so much more planned than we actually did.  We did at least read some books about the Pilgrims and Indians.  I was glad that by the end of the week he could at least tell me why we celebrate Thanksgiving and how it all started. 

 

Ben loves starting out the week putting the letter on the chicka chicka boom boom tree.  On the right, a little adding practice. 

 

Jacob got in on the action.  Both boys really struggle with handwriting.  I found these great printable that I laminated so they can reuse them over and over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Thanksgiving was here!  We had a wonderful day with family. And of course a ton of good food!

 

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Rachel’s Birthday

Rachel is eleven!!  She requested a sleepover with some friends and a fun night at Pirate’s Island.  The girls had a blast and it was nice for them to get in the water inside since it’s so cold outside.  A fun time was has by all.

 

Hannah went to her first all nighter called Zero Hour.  WMU’s Youth for Christ put it on. She had so much fun and loved sleeping the day away with Fifi.

 

More pics from the week

Hangin with the big boys

So talented!

Beautiful boy

H is for Hippo and Happy

This week we learned all about our emotions(which explains the happy part).  We made a very cute feelings lapbook.  I didn’t get many pictures of this week.  It was a busy week and we had company for a couple days so we got done what we could and we’ll catch up next week. 

 

 

This week we:

• Reviewed addition facts 0-4
• Read a lot of books about emotions
• Bible Verse “Honor your father and your mother” Exodus 20:12
• Spent time with cousins
• Worked a lot on Honoring mom and dad by obeying

 

I have a Steve Green CD that has verses put to song and it had our verse of the week on it.  Ben grabbed the verse and sang along pointing out the words as he sang. It was super sweet. *sniff*sniff* 

M is for Monkeys, Me and Batman!

Of course I know Batman doesn’t start with an M but I found this awesome Lapbook kit at www.1+1+1=1.blogspot.com (the link is at the right) and knew I had to let Ben do it.  He has been huge into Batman for the last few months.  Academically it was a little easy for him but it sure motivated him to get through his less favorite subjects to get to do the Batman activities.  We concentrated more on the Me than the Monkeys.  The Monkeys were a part of the letter of the week curriculum that I’m using to work on his fine motor skills.

Things we worked on this week:

• Adding 4’s
• Learning what organs, bones, and muscles are
• Learning about staying healthy and food groups
• Baby Moses
• Five senses
• Bible verse “I will praise thee, For I am Fearfully and Wonderfully made.
• All about me Lapbook

 

 

Cute Quote:  When Ben was showing me where his organs were on his body I asked him “What does your heart say?” He answered “The Pledge of Allegiance.” and he put his hand over his heart. 

P cont’d

The last two weeks have been crazy.  Jacob and Rachel were both home for 4 days from school with fevers and bad colds.  I’m so glad that I took pictures of stuff I did with Ben to reassure myself that we did get some school accomplished.  It really threw Ben off that the other two were home and his attention span was very short. 

                                        

 

 

 

 

 

   I made some orange playdoh and put some pumpkin spice in it to make it smell good.  He made cookies and leaves.  He sorted quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies into pumpkins.  We worked on adding 3’s. 

 

Rachel was home and took some pictures of us. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Rachel got to join in during craft time. 

For family time this week we read the Pumpkin Patch Parable and talked about how Jesus takes away all the yucky stuff inside us so we can shine for him. 

Our pumpkins. (Joe wasn’t happy with his)

 

We made a poster with our knuckle and thumbprints.   The kids loved that Matt and I put our prints on there too. Jesus is the vine that holds our family together and apart from him we can do nothing.  You can check out my facebook page for all the Halloween costume pictures.  Ben and Jacob did great this year.  Ben’s only issue was that he wanted to “explore” through everyone’s  landscaping.  Luckily it’s fall and all the flowers are dead already.  October was a very busy month and there were a lot more things I wanted to do with Ben than got done. Every day is a new day and I’m learning to let go of the little things and thankful for the things that do get accomplished.

P is for….

Lots of things this week.  First it’s for Potty!  Jacob is officially potty trained!!  It was one week of constant laundry and then it clicked.  He is so proud of himself and got to go pick out new underwear. (Thomas, because they don’t have Mario underwear) 

Next it’s for Playing in the leaves!  Be sure to click on the picture so you can see their faces better. I love Ben’s face. They had so much fun playing.  We made a fall tree craft.  Which turned out to be one of my favorites.

Ben drew pictures of boys jumping into the “leaf piles” he made on the “ground”.

This is what Jacob did during “Art”.  He wasn’t at all interested in gluing leaves.  I just let him be. 

P is also for Pumpkins!  We are doing everything pumpkins this week.  I made a sensory bin for them to play around in which they loved.  It was great to see where their imaginations took them with this. 

    

 

 

 

 

 

Pics from our “school day”

Joseph loves reading to Jacob at night and then falling asleep next to him.   

 

 

Ben was having a hard time at OT and wanted to get in the “net swing with all the heavy things”.  He had about 60 pounds of weight on him.  I rarely see him this calm.  It made him feel much better.

Sharing is not always a good thing…

The past week we have been passing around a stomach bug.  It started with Joe last Tuesday, Ben on Thursday, Jacob on Saturday, Ben again on Monday, Rachel on Wednesday then Hannah finally got it on Thursday.  Luckily it was only an 18-24 hr. bug but it was enough to totally mess up my school plans.  So, hopefully everyone had their turn and life will return to normal. Whatever normal is…

Ben got to spend a lot of time on his favorite new website called Zoodles.  It is a website that has a ton of educational websites together on one site. 

Here is Ben doing what he loves the most,  playing the computer. 

 

 

Matt is taking some time off again and going to Indiana to work at the store for the Covered Bridge Festival.  Hannah, Joe and Ben tagged along while Rachel and Jacob stayed home with me.  Rachel has volleyball games and Jacob has school.  I’m going to use the time to revamp some of my school plans.  I feel like I should kick it up a notch for him.  Some of the unit studies I had planned for him seem too easy so I just need to gather all my thoughts and ideas and get it all together. 

Here are some photos from our week….

            Matt playing football with Joe and Logan (neighbor) Shelby and Fifi taking over my chairs

                        Hannah’s 12th birthday!

Birthday and Gull Meadow Farms

  I always know that it is officially Fall when we go to the apple orchard and celebrate Hannah’s birthday.  Hannah chose three friends and went bowling for the evening. Later her big birthday surprise was a cat.  She’s been begging us for months for a cat and we happened to have a friend who needed to get rid of hers so we adopted FiFi.  Hannah is so happy and I really enjoy having a cat again.  I think it’ll take Matt a while to get used to her.          

    On Sunday we spent the afternoon at Gull Meadow Farms with the Simpsons.  The kids had a blast with all the activities and we were excited to be able to take Ben and Jacob.  There were a ton of people there and Ben struggled at first but then ending up doing a good job.  It’s very hard for him to stand in line and wait but he did it and found out that some things are worth the wait. We took a wagon ride around the apple orchard and of course the day ended with donuts and cider. 

D is for Dinosaur

It’s also for David and Goliath!  This week I had so much less going on that I felt like we spent more than enough time on “school”.  Both boys loved the dinosaur theme.  Jacob participated a little more this week.  I’m pretty sure it had something to do with getting candy corn after completing an activity. :-)  

                        

Jacob sorting Dinosaurs from biggest to smallest.  Then counting foam blocks

 

This week we

• learned about how BIG God is and he can do BIG things.
• Skip counting by 5’s
• Herbivores and Carnivores
• Different types of Dinosaurs
• What is a Paleontologist?
• Introduce nickels and counting them by 5
• Watched Dave and the Giant Pickle (Veggie Tales) and Land Before Time
• Adding 2’s
• Made a Dinosaur Lapbook

 

    Adding candy corn, reading David & Goliath and handwriting practice.                                               

 

 Joseph stayed home sick one day so he joined in the fun by working on his spelling words.  It was fun having all three boys at home but definitely harder for the “teacher” to work with them all at the same time. 

 

 

                         The finished Lapbook                 Shelby’s favorite spot in the schoolroom