Weekly Wrap-Up, Week 6

We are wrapping up our first week back from a week off, rested, planned, refreshed, and jam-packed with learning and fun!

Our week started bright and early Monday morning with Tyler discovering a huge bag of play food and dishes recently passed down to us.  I had a blast spending some one on one time with him as he emptied the bag item by item, naming and admiring each thing as he pulled it out.

Hearing him name his discoveries - "Look! It's grapes!" - and then getting caught up in the whole event with statements like, "I love it!" were so precious.  The whole bunch of them enjoyed the batch of food goodies so much I am planning on bringing them out every Monday.

This was a big week for us with Aunt Kristin and Logan visiting!  They spent a couple of school days with us, just hanging out and helping out.  

 Oh by the way... another biggie this week... Brooklyn has mastered pulling up!  Cruising appears to be not far behind.

How we got anything done with this sweet boy around I do not know:

 But we did, completing a full week of....
Dale: Old Testament studies, continued reading through Exodus, finishing last year's math book (yay!), copying Proverbs on pleasant words, a new spelling list, writing, grammar (pronouns and sentence types), science, and social studies.

Alan: Bible lessons on respect, short 'u' in phonics, lowercase 'r' and 's' in cursive, continued addition in math, reading, science and social studies.

The boys are still working through the chapters on ants in their Nature Reader for science.

This week's country for social studies has been Spain.  We discussed some of the geography basics and spent a good bit of time on artists and composers, including creating 2 Picasso inspired pieces of art.  Complete blog post on Spain (and still one on the UK) to follow, hopefully next week!

Tyler began a 2 week unit on cars and trucks.  We've been doing lots of reading, as usual, and several transportation crafts.  Again, blog post on that to follow!

Our family devotions this week were centered around the letter 'D' with the verse "Christ died for the ungodly", Romans 5:6.

In addition to our usual lesson, the boys have benefited from Kristin being around with some fun bonus projects this week!

One of which involved quite a few dishes, and even though the final product wasn't edible...

 ... I do believe it was quite enjoyable, don't you?

Dale and Alan were lucky puppies yet again, getting to do a 'real' art project with Mimi.  Here's a sneak peek at that:

We did take a time out from all the creating Thursday for a cousin picture, since everyone was awake and happy.  That seems to still be a rarity at this point!

We finished up this morning with yet another fun Kristin project! 

 Care to guess what in the world is going on? 

Once again, blog post(s) to follow on all these fun projects.

I don't think my boys are going to let Kristin and Logan go back home!  On the other hand, I don't think Logan's Daddy will be convinced to let them stay on indefinitely.  I hear he's kind of fond of them, too. ;)

Below is a sampling of this week's work:

Celebrating 9 years of Dale!

9 years ago today I spent all day in the hospital.  

Pretty much most of that day was spent in labor.  

Pretty much most of that was miserable labor. 

(I was such a rookie.) ;)

But the reward at the end was pretty sweet.

And has been been ever since!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Boy!  We love you!

Under the Sea - Preschool

Tyler's second unit of the school year was beach and ocean. Such an easy and fun unit! Here are some of our activities:

Music:

From the blog: Because Babies Grow Up.

Books

A few of our favorites from the library this unit:

Crafts and Stuff

Seashell sorting and other printed activities from Under the Sea, on hand from last year's extensive ocean unit.  (Check it out for lots more links and activities!)

 Remember our finger painting a week or so ago?  After the pages were dry we folded them in half, drew a fish shape on the back, cut out both pieces, and glued them together with a string in the middle for hanging.  Or flying around the house.  

'F' is for 'fish'!  And 'fingerprints'. ;)  Thumbprints all over our cut-out letter, embellished with magic marker faces, tails, and fins.  I like to teach letter sounds before letter names, so Tyler and I both went around talking about his 'fffff' a lot. 

Paper plate fish: color or paint the backside of two paper plates.  Cut a triangle out of each for a mouth/tail.  Staple the plates together, with the tail opposite the mouth.  We did this project the same day Alan read about Jonah, so we made a paper Jonah to go inside the fish.

Water play with fish figurines.  And a rubber ducky.  And a toy tire.  Because you just never know what you might find in the ocean, right? 

Linking up with:

Christmas all year

Christmas in August: a project from a recent family devotion.  We liked having a reminder of Jesus' humble birth sitting in our dining space for the week.

One morning when "everything" was wrong and I felt overwhelmed and frustrated, I thought of our August manger scene and reflected on what it means for all of us who can call Jesus 'Savior'.

No matter how wrong "everything" gets - whether it is the simple frustrations of daily life, or the tragedies and hard times that come along less often (thankfully!), I can be reassured that not everything is wrong.

Because the King of Kings was born in that manger, lived a perfect life, paid the punishment for my sins with his death, and then rose again, I can have hope, no matter what circumstances come my way.

So whether I am facing a major crisis or a minor one, In August or December, I can see that baby in the lowly manger and know that "because He lives, I can face tomorrow" (and today)! :)



Devotion and manger scene patterns from:

(Amazon Affiliate link -I may receive a small percentage of your Amazon purchase)

Not back to school blog hop - Student Photo Week

Dale.  My firstborn.  The one with enough energy and enthusiasm for 3 kids.  The one who is often so tender and loving with his two youngest siblings.  The one who was most excited when we said a 5th baby was coming.  The one who has caused me more doubt and challenges than the other three combined.  The one with whom I am falling in love all over again.  He'll turn 9 this week.

Alan.  Our miracle boy.  He's been through four surgeries.  He's living life with a gifted liver.  And I do mean 'living', as he often seems to treasure every moment.  He's a charmer, easily winning over many hearts thus far in his life.  He trusted Jesus as his Savior this summer, and for a person who was already tender and sweet, seeing the transformation to "new creature" has been amazing.  He'll be 6 in November.

Tyler.  My big eyed, don't-let-him-out-of-your-sight, B.O.Y.  He thinks he's every bit as big as his brothers, and he just about is.  He ate more weird found objects in his babyhood than I care to recall.  Ditto for things broken and misused.  The boy is hilarious.  Not a day goes by we don't all crack up at something he says.  He keeps us on our toes, but he makes it worthwhile.  He's 4 months from his 3rd birthday.

Brooklyn.  Our girl.  The bit of pink and softness in a sea of maleness. 

A laughing, crawling, playing baby that everyone here loves to play with, feed, change, and dress.  We're never in want for willing hands and eyes to keep her company for a few minutes, and she enjoys being the recipient of such affection!  She is 11 months old.

Weekly Wrap Up - Week 5

Another full week, lined with full days.  I am surprised these days to find us schooling until 4 or sometimes 5 in the afternoons.  I thought homeschoolers were supposed to finish everything by noon!?  

I don't know if we are relaxed, trying to do too much, or just plain pokey.  Maybe a little of all 3?

Here's our week, mostly in pictures:

Continuing with Tyler's ocean theme we brought out our little sea creatures and a tub o'water.

This proved to be a bit hit with all 4!

Tyler's favorite new phrase: "I want to do some school!"

Which keeps me on my toes finding things to keep him busy.  Win/win I'd say.

Yeah, it's blurry, but he's doing copywork, and smiling about it!  A good sport about most of his work most days, it's still nice to have a picture as a reminder.

All of Dale's copywork this week were Proverbs about pleasant words.  I have enough lined up for next week, as well.  Some nice discussion goes along with these, for someone (or a couple of someones....ahem) that might ought to work on using more positive words. 

Alan's Bible topic this week was Obedience.  His Bible stories for the week were Adam & Eve, Shadrach & friends, Jonah, King Hezekiah, and Lot's wife.  Turns out Mama & Daddy's discipline isn't so bad when you consider you could be swallowed by a fish or get turned into a pillar of salt.  Am I right, or am I right, eh?

We started our Country Studies this week!  Our first stop has been the United Kingdom.  It's going to be hard to only spend a week in each place; there is so much to do and learn!

I'm planning a post for next week solely on our UK study, so I'll leave the details of the previous two pictures for that.  It's enough to say we stayed busy, learned some neat stuff and built something really cool!

Next week I'm planning a light schedule, basically an 'off week' for the boys.  I'm hoping putting one of these in every 5-6 weeks will keep us fresh throughout the year.  I've got a fabulous to-do list already going with all I'm hoping to get done next week!