Back In The Groove

I feel like we have finally fully recovered from the Holidays and my injury on the school front. We have caught our stride, we are rolling with the flow...I could keep going, but I won't! I have been keeping up with lesson plans and I am looking forward to finishing strong.






Kevin hates worksheets...but needs some practice. I have been racking my brain (and the internet) to come up with ideas to help him have fun practicing his math without worksheets. I found a cool thing on TPT. You solve the problems then scan the QR code to see if you got the correct answer. I am hoping this makes it a little more fun.






I have been picking out problems for him to do on the white board.






Lastly, I went through some apps for the iPad to find some cool math stuff. I found one called splash math (2nd grade). It has every 2nd grade math standard in it and both boys had fun playing it today.





I found (for free) a template to make word searches. Today I had Adam make Kevin one out of Kevin's spelling words and Kevin made Adam one out of Adam's spelling words. They had fun making them and then doing them!


















Of course, we are still having lots of Olympic fun! My favorite Journal entry this week...

Olympic Fever!

We are getting Olympic Fever around here. I went to TPT and found some super cute posters and worksheets. I bought two sets which gave me tons of ideas to play with and cost me $6. It also came with medal tallying sheets and ideas for your own Olympic Games at home. I have more journaling prompts than I know what to do with and the boys are getting super excited. This week we are focusing on where the Olympics are being held...lots of geography! Did I mention I LOVE the Olympics!












The Winter Olympics begin this Thursday. Opening Ceremonies are this Friday beginning at 7:30 p.m. They will be showing the games on NBC during the weekdays during the day between 3-5 p.m. Now you know what we will be doing at that time of day!
GO USA!!

Reading is Fun

This week has been a strange week. I'm mobile but not quick! I have been having so much fun seeing the boys really get into reading! I ordered some "vintage" Moby Illustrated classics mini books from eBay. I owned a set of these as a kid and was more than a little dismayed that they had gained Vintage status...

Kevin is so excited to read this book! He loves the movie, Journey to Mysterious Island and the book is mentioned in it so it already has a cool factor! He read 3 chapters within 30 minutes of pulling it out of the mailbox!


Adam has taken to multitasking in his reading endeavors! I can't stop giggling when I watch this video...

Such fun boys! If I accomplish one thing in my tenure as their teacher I hope it is an honest love of reading and of books!

Teaching With An Injury

Getting back into school has been tough for several reasons! First it's hard to stop having so much Christmas time fun and get back to work. Second, Dad took two weeks off more or less and hung out with us! And it's tough for everyone when daddy goes back to work and lastly this happened!


I of course did this playing around with the boys' Christmas present, a Ripstik. so we have had to move school upstairs, and try not to let the boys take advantage of the fact that I can't catch them. I have not been able to drive or really walk without crutches until today! Yay! Today is my first day all on my own. I am so grateful to my mom and friends that have even made life possible this last week and allowed the hubby to actually go to work. School looks like this...this week.

I found this super cute mini penguin unit on TPT


Both boys have been having fun comparing 6 different types of penguins.

School is at the kitchen table instead of the school room.


Books are in a bin instead of the file drawers


The baby is watching videos of babies laughing while big brothers need my help.


And thank goodness I got rid of that big cast like splint and now I just have a brace.


So Here is to the New Year!! May it get better and better!!!

Homeschool Grinch Party

Kathy Wallace (fellow homeschooling mom) and I decided to throw a little party for our kiddos and their friends for Christmas! I would say it turned out super cute. We played Grinch Bingo, melted the Grinch's heart, and played pin the heart on the Grinch. We, of course, watched The Grinch That Stole Christmas. We ended up with 10 kiddos at the party. Here are some initial pictures of the food. I have more pictures that I took during the party on my other camera so I will upload them and add them soon.

School on the Go

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is no guilt vacationing. We can get up and go whenever the opportunity arises. There is no make up work or angry teachers to deal with upon our return. We just take a little time each day and do our school work in our fun new environment!








The other super cool thing we got to do while in Lake Tahoe was to see the salmon spawning....this was super cool, stinky, gross, and educational!


The silver ones are already dead and the red ones are still alive.


Owen lost his pacifier into the spawning waters....eeeeewwwww


Then we drove around the lake stopping to read the look out information!

Measuring Carrots

We decided to compare and contrast carrots by measuring them and weighing them. We were able to see that things that are the same type if thing are not exactly the same but have a lot of similarities...the boys loved doing this especially since they got to eat their project afterwards.