AND......WE ARE DONE!

So we made it!  One more year of crazy fun learning down the hatchet.  This was such a rewarding year for me.  I cannot begin to explain how much I saw Kevin and Adam grow this year.

Kevin started piano last fall and has excelled like crazy and in doing so, I think his math was affected for the WAY better.  Last year was tough with math and Kevin and so followed the first half of this year.  The second half, though, something clicked.  Everything he saw he understood.  He caught on quickly and did not miss a beat.  Finally he began reading...I mean really reading.  like reading a 200 page book every day and half.  I wish I loved my local librarian at our branch because we have been there a lot.  I can keep up with his appetite for books.  I love it!  He will read anything ( that I will let him read)  He has really just taken off.  He also started a blog in order to log the books he has read and what he thinks about them or anything.  It is called Books First, Elementary Reviews

Adam was always good at understanding math concepts and this year was no different.  He worked his way through first grade and began second grade math this year.  He is great at concepts and seeing the big picture.  He too is reading very well.  Adam played flag football this year and absolutely had a blast.  He won an award for being the guy on the team that could make something out of nothing in every play.  (Most Crafty)  He was the quarterback this year and a flag pulling machine.

I am excited for summer...so excited for summer.  I do love the play that happens at summer time.  I am so grateful for this, another year to home school my boys and give them the absolute best start I can give them.

Plans for this summer:  Trip to Lake Tahoe and Virginia City
                                   Harry Potter, Musical Theater Camp
                                   Beach Days
                                   Tons of Swimming
                                   Camping with old friends
                                   Magic Mountain!

                           

Field trip (S)

Last week I decided I would take the boys to the Natural History Museum for their free home-school day on the following Monday.  Sometime between last week and this past Sunday I forgot I had decided that.  But I had told people that I was going apparently.  Sunday I got a Facebook message from someone I didn't know, a friend of a mutual friend, asking if I was still planning on going and that she had heard I was.  Well although I had never met this sweet lady, I decided it was a good kick in the butt for me and thought why not lets go, even though it seems like a lot of trouble this late in the game.  So Monday morning she came with her bigger than my van and picked us all up and we got to know some new friends while riding up to LA.  We ended up having so much fun and the boys and I met a new friend that lives right here local and they are super sweet and fun.

We actually ended up hitting both the NHM and the California Science Center right next door.  The boys loved the dinosaur bones and the woolly mammoth bones.  They got to touch some real fossils too.  We also barely escaped a dino stampede

 Next we headed over to the CSC and the boys got to test their physical abilities on the rock wall.  Adam made it all the way to the top along with his new friend!  But what could be better than a day full of bones and dinosaurs for a bunch of boys?  That same day ending up at a space shuttle, that's what!!  The boys were excited to see how people pottied in space for sure...that was the dinner conversation that evening along with all the glorious things they saw in the Rot Room.  We had to quickly change the subject so that no one truly lost their appetite.

I'm so glad we went and got to meet some new friends and see some fun and exciting new things!

Energy and Motion Cont...

Today we learned about energy using ramps. The boys got to roll their bouncy balls down a ramp at different heights. I wish I could claim the idea, but I got it off TPT. They learned that a ball gains more energy making it faster going down the taller ramps.








We are getting so excited for school to end! I am not sure if me or the boys are more excited. I did lesson plans through the end of April and we are sooo close to finishing all of our books. This year has been crazy easier than last year which I will attribute to a few things. 1. Little man (4) is in preschool 3 days a week. School is pretty smooth without his cute face wanting endless attention. Little Guy (2) is still at the into everything age but can be easily entertained with activities like this.


He loves putting it away and even more fun dumping them out...but then he has to put them away. This can go on for 30 minutes.
2. I am a little more seasoned and so are the boys. By the end of this year I felt we have had a great rhythm and my tough one (8) stopped being tough. The things he was struggling with really clicked midway through this year and he has been an ace ever since. I have enjoyed this year but oh how I love summer days, no schedule, vacations, beach days, tide pools, swimming pools, pop cycles, and a good tan! Hurry May we are so excited for you to get here!

Forces and Motion Playground Lab

Last week we spent some time at the park learning about force and motion.  We tried out all the equipment and decided what kind of force we were using to move it or us.  Pushing or Pulling. The boys had a blast.  We met our friends, Viktor and Carmen, there to do our experiments.

Then yesterday we did another set of experiments about Motion this time.  We had several objects that we tested.  We tested whether bouncy balls bounced higher when dropped from a higher or lower place.  Then we learned about friction with race cars and tops.  We learned about energy with bubbles and pinwheels.  The boys had fun, even Isaac got in on the action.

Owen loves his tub of small objects to put in the hole in top.  He does this a lot during school time.

Christmas Tree Farm Field Trip

These pictures must have gotten lost in the Christmas Crazy.  I took Adam and Owen to a field trip with CHEP at a Christmas Tree Farm.  The coolest part of this field trip was when he was trimming the tree with a Machete!  You can imagine this totally got Adam's attention.  We learned about allergy free Christmas trees and how expensive real trees are, truly.  We also met a new family that just joined CHEP the Herrin Family.  They have two boys around Kevin and Adam's age and a little girl Owen's age.  

Spit Wad Trivia

We started a super cool science unit which I found on TPT and the unit is here.  The unit is on Energy, Motion and Force.  We got together with our friends, the Wallaces, and practiced our Vocabulary words.  I can't take credit for this ingenious game.  It was Kathy's all the way.  There are questions for each square on the board and you get a point for each question you answer correctly.  You can only answer the question you hit with your spit wad and if someone else already answered the one you hit then you don't get a question and it moves on to the other team. The boys had so much fun with this game and had to be taught how to make spit wads.  The kids learned their Vocab and had a blast doing it.

Character Matters

This year the boys had a super awesome opportunity to participate in a play.  They got to have play practice and it was a musical which Kevin loved and Adam loathed.  They both had to audition for their parts.  Adam took the part of  "Pig 2" which had a solo song and two lines.  He did an amazing job!  He was so cute that teenage girls were asking for his autograph after the show and telling him he was their favorite!

Kevin took the part of Jack (as in Jack and the Beanstalk)  He had several lines and a longer solo song.  He also did an amazing job and was flawless in his performance. 

My favorite thing Kevin said after the show when we got home:  

Kevin:  "Mom, I need to be in another show.  Make sure it is a musical"

Mom:  "Why a musical"

Kevin: "If you sing you get to be at the mic more"

Yeah that's my boy!

I got very little video of this.  I am hoping I will be able to buy a copy of the whole performance from the PTO but haven't heard any details yet.  But I did get this short clip between chasing the little guys around during dress rehearsal.  (he actually did it perfectly during the actual performance)

Valentine's Day Party

We decided not to go to the CHEP V-Day Party because the time did not work for naps around here.  But we did throw our own party and did get a pretty good crowd of 18 kiddos!

We decorated bags for Valentines, and cupcakes.  Then we had an Olympic Challenge with straws, paper plates, and tape balls and a long jump...(javelin, discus, shotput and long jump)

I got lots of help from the other moms as well.  Kathy made the medals, Kristen brought the paper goods, and Michelle provided milk for 18 kiddos!

Here is the winner's circle!

The Herrin Family, Wallace Family, Biddle Family, and Johnson Family and a friend of Kristen Herrin came with her 4 kiddos as well.  We had a great turn out!