Week in Review #40: Ee is for Earth and Eccentric Education

The week started out with an unplanned trip to the zoo! Hannah's lesson in her Bible curriculum was animals of day 5, and Autumn had a file folder game where she had to separate animals into three categories: ocean, farm, and zoo. Feeling like a super cool mom, I said, "You know where we can go and see these animals..."  Both girls immediately cried out, "The zoo!!" So we got dressed, packed the cooler and away we went. The zoo was eerily quiet since school is back in session.  It was actually kind of nice.

Hannah narrates to me in her own words
what she is learning from the latest lesson
and copies it in her astronomy notebook.

I've been reading the astronomy lessons to both the girls while they're eating or working on a craft.  We skipped to lesson 5 for this week, the lesson on Earth to obviously coincide with Autumn doing "E for Earth" stuff.  It's all very interesting.  Either I was never taught this in school or I just did not pay attention to ANYTHING! :)

Hannah got a 94 on this test ;-D

The rest of the week was very productive.  New activities started this week for Wednesday night church.  I was quite pleased with that.  The girls were beyond giddy to go to their own groups.  I think we all were anxious to get away from each other for a couple hours. :)

Other activities from the week:

Earth bingo (Hannah called it Earth-O)

 I printed these bingo cards from DLTK.  You can customize them with different themes and sizes. I think we'll be using these alot! :)

The morning board in action!

Earth craft..super easy! Blue paper circles,
scraps of green paper, pulled apart cotton
for clouds.

No, TV is not part of the curriculum, but they
were sitting so nicely together I had to get
a picture. :)

Autumn working on dry erase pages

animal sorting

Sensory bin...this was a big hit! I should have brought it out
forever ago! I'll be making plenty more of these!

First soccer practice! Hannah loves it!
More on that later I'm sure.

Next week is F which will be a combination of flower, fall, and farm!

This post is linked up to the Weekly Wrap-Up

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The Grace Card DVD Giveaway!

Our Busy Homeschool is holding a giveaway for a copy of The Grace Card on DVD! Click here and see about how to enter! :)

Goals This Week 8/22-8/28

Inspired by Money Saving Mom, I decided to make a list of goals to accomplish this week.

1. Do my workout at least four days this week
2. pay the water bill
3. homeschool!
4. start reading Little House on the Prairie with the girls (we watch reruns of the show every day so I thought it would be fun)
5. finish favor bags for Emma and Autumn's birthday party
6. clean kitchen floor (I go totally old school here with a bucket of diluted Lysol and a rag)
7. call the lawn guy to get the yard taken care of (Ryan is gone so I'm not about to do it, plus we got a good deal :-D)
8. wash and change bed linens (most definitely looking forward to putting a fitted sheet on a top bunk. yeehaw)
9. put away laundry that has been sitting folded and stacked all weekend. :-P
10. pick up prescription at Walmart I refilled four days ago

Procrastinate much? Heh. Hopefully this will help.

I had this saved as a draft, so I was excited to see I had already accomplished two of these goals.  I know paying a bill and picking up medicine may not seem like much but having to get dressed, get shoes on the kids, pile them in and out of the car is just never very appealing to me. I like to think my primary audience here is moms, so I know all you understand. :)

EDIT: two more goals I forgot to mention that will definitely need to be done this week: take the trash to the dump and get Hannah soccer cleats and shin guards for her first practice Thursaday!

More Dora Party Fun: "Backpack" Goody Bags

Disclaimer: I got this idea from Pinterest, so I am not claiming it to be my own.

Rather than search all over town I simply went to ebay to find the purple paper bags. Yes, "Backpack" is not this dark but I can't complain. The paper bags themselves actually came from Oriental Trading, which I felt kind of silly for not thinking of that in the first place. Next time, I guess. The face is not hard to draw so I copied it in pencil and drew over it in marker.  I made color copies on my printer (I colored the mouths to save on printer ink), and--now the tedious part--cut out the pieces and glued them together on each bag.  It's something to do while I watch reruns of Frasier after the kids are in bed, so it's not too bad. :)

Chicken Nuggets--some say like Chick Fila!

Ingredients

1-2 lbs. chicken breast, cut into nugget-sized pieces
1 cup milk
1 egg
canola or peanut oil
1 1/4 cup flour
3 Tbs powdered sugar
salt and pepper


Directions

Mixed the egg and milk.  Add chicken pieces.  Cover the dish and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

Mix the dry ingredients in a gallon-size ziploc bag.  Put in chicken pieces, 5-10 at a time, shake until well coated.  Heat oil in a large skillet on medium heat.  Carefully add chicken.  Cook on each side until brown.  Drain cooked chicken on paper towels. 

My own tip: To lessen calories and add a boost of nutrition, I used Egg Beaters and skim milk plus whole wheat flour. 

Granted these will not be exactly like Chick Fila, but they're great if you don't have one in your city or if you're craving Chick Fila on a Sunday. ;)

This recipe came via Pinterest from My Name is Snickerdoodle.

Week in Review #39: Dd is for Dinosaur and Daisy

Another week of Dd...at first primarily because I have really cute dino preschool pack I forgot about. Heh.  Since getting back from Clarksville we are finally getting into a good flow to where the kids know what to expect each morning. So nice!

At the commissary...pics of both girls smiling
are far and few between

 Autumn did some more practicing cutting with scissors.  I read about the idea of cutting play doh rather than paper which worked beautifully.  I rolled a bunch of little "snakes", and let her go to town.  I also introduced lacing.  I made some lacing cards using a shape stencil on cardstock and punched holes all around them.  One of the easiest things I've ever made. :) Autumn hasn't quite gotten a handle on it yet, but that will come. 

More "D" crafts:

We ended the week with a birthday party for a friend at church! As you can tell, the girls wore themselves out something fierce! 

Next week is Ee and the theme will be Earth!

This post is linked up with the Weekly Wrap-Up.

Explorer Star Craft

My sister and I are in the midst of planning a joint 3rd birthday party for Autumn and Emma (the niece).  We are doing a Dora theme (yes, very common but still should be fun and adorable!  At least supplies are easy to find!), and I had this great idea for a craft--decorating explorer stars! Parents of young children know exactly what I'm talking about. ;) I used 65-lb cardstock for the stars, googly eyes, and a fine tip Sharpie for the mouth and eyebrows.  I cut out the stars using my Fiskars shape cutter (surely I didn't pay the price they're showing here!) and my one stencil with a star.  Making 18 stars took maybe 20 minutes. Kids can decorate with glitter, markers, stickers or whatever embellishments can be held down with school glue! :)

Wordless Wednesday: Banana Irony

Beating the eggs, complete with the
apron she made at cooking camp!

Hannah loves to help in the kitchen! While most of the time it would just be easier to do things myself, she will never learn unless she actually does it.  I hope to encourage her interests rather than hinder them simply to convenience myself.

Peeling the bananas

The ironic thing is she doesn't like banana bread (either that or she just won't try it :-/).

Student Photos

This is week 3 of Heart of the Matter's "Not" Back to School Blog Hop--student photos!

1st grade! She's so proud she still loves
to tell everyone she comes across!

She loves to "do school" already!

 Close Ups

The shirt doesn't lie ;)

"I love my big hair!" :-D

Our class picture :) You know there's always that one kid
who won't look at the camera ;)

Here's some behind the scenes action, since I'm sure you're all dying to know how this photo magic was accomplished. Once we were done I had Hannah put the back drop back on her bed.

Monday Musings

It must be Monday! My mood had tumbled off a cliff and went SPLAT at the bottom. This little gem you see above did not help a thing.  While the cord has been loose for a while when plugged in, it officially will not register unless it is placed just so.  I finally got it to register and taped it up as carefully as I could. Even as I type this it is still working well, but I'm afraid to move the computer anywhere.  Time for an upgrade perhaps?

Of course that wasn't enough. I dropped a glass on the kitchen floor and as I'm trying to make sure I got every single little piece swept up and thrown away, the kids both picked that time to ask me to "eat" their play-doh ice cream they were making at the table.  Later today we needed a few groceries, and I was looking forward to getting out of the house.  Couldn't find my keys. Argh.  I have an extra key, but it was still frustrating.  I had visions of them accidentally being knocked  into the trash and considered going through it (I just took it out this morning :-/), not at all looking forward to it.  God bless Hannah.  When I was obviously frustrated she said so sweetly, "Mama, you don't have to be frustrated.  I like for you to be in a good mood." Then she proceeded to give me a hug, and I felt like the worst mother ever. Or the best, depending on how you look at it. :-p

The day is now over, and I am pleased to say it ended well. Kids went to bed without a fight, I got a workout in (thanks Jillian Michaels!), and we got a good bit of school done this morning.  I definitely do not have a lot to complain about. Oh, yeah...I also found my keys. They had fallen into Hannah's workbox. Silly me.

Week in Review #38: Dd is for Dora and Dollar Tree

Ah, another short week, but I think our trip to Atlanta makes up for it. ;) We had a good time and wish we had time to do all the other fun tourist stuff, but I think the baby panda was well worth the trip.The girls and I made it back home Tuesday afternoon.  I am thrilled to say the drive was very uneventful!  Plus, it's always nice to be home!

This was a idea that just popped into my head! Our current stove has no use for burner covers and they were perfect to prevent crayons and colored pencils from rolling on the floor. Love it!

The table obviously didn't stay looking so neat for long. :) Coloring has become a bit of a school warm-up, if you will.  The girls get focused on something instead of just diving head first into school.

On Wednesday I took the kids grocery shopping and made it out alive. It is definitely at the top of my list of things I truly dread doing. I incorporated Hannah's help more than before while Autumn stayed in the cart looking at books.  I saw an idea in a magazine about making a picture scavenger hunt with different items from your list, so I may give that a whirl next week. :)

I've been wanting to try out this workbox system I've been reading about on other blogs--you gather the following day's work and put it in a specified container(s).  I really wanted to get those plastic storage drawers but they are so expensive. I found these at the Dollar Tree! So excited!! The girls both wanted green even though they had prettier colors. :-p Each day I've been bringing their boxes to the table and they pick whatever they want to start with.  Hannah has her normal subjects (Bible, Reading, Math, Astronomy), and Autumn has her dry erase pages plus either a file folder game or her special scissors for some cutting practice.  This system is already working out beautifully.

Take a closer look at the letters. :) I completely forgot I had them. If nothing else it will help me actually learn the military alphabet without making it up as I go along. 

I'm linked up at the Weekly Wrap-Up.  Go there and check out other blogs! :)

And finally, some "D" crafts:

Duck

Dog--found these at the Dollar Tree. The girls just painted
and added the eyes. :)

Zoo Atlanta Trip

I can't even tell you how many times I have driven through Atlanta on my way to Hinesville when I lived there in 2004 and again in 2009.  I had never actually stopped to see the sites and do all the touristy things. We went this past weekend primarily for the zoo and to see the panda cub, Po.  OMG, he was so cute!!! It sure took us a minute to find the pandas.  I told my mom that Jack Black better be there in person after all the walking we did. :) I know he was there when they announced the name. That would have been cool to see that.

Our trip was last Friday through Sunday and included me, Hannah, Autumn, Meagan (my sister), Emma (my niece), my mom, her BFF Jonna, and Jonna's granddaughter, Marianne. While the trip was fun, I would also say it was pretty tiring with four kids ages 6 and under (even though there were four adults!).  Hannah, Autumn, and I traveled about 1000 miles total! We went up to Clarksville Thursday, left for Atlanta Friday, came back to Clarksville on Sunday, and drove back to Millington on Tuesday. Whew! It was a great trip, but always nice to be home.  Now enjoy our adventure!

lounging at the hotel

in the elevator getting ready to go to the zoo!

first stop--the flamingos!

the zoo had cute little parks!

Pumba! What's funny is the meerkats were
nearby! ;)

Po the panda cub!! He sure likes to climb!

Mama Panda trying to get him down...he sure
was a defiant little thing!

trying to get her child under control (we've
all be there!)

Having fun in the hotel pool!

Marianne jumping to her Nonnie

This is what I did...felt nice :)

Emma and Autumn lounging

Girls coloring while we wait for pizza...it wasn't as peaceful
as it looks!

Meagan took this pic...all the Cozbys' "grandbeauties" :)

Autumn is intrigued by the storm we had
Saturday evening

Watching cartoons and having pizza...chinese the first night
and pizza the second, oh yeah!

And then McDonald's when the girls and I headed
back to Millington! We won't be eating out for a while :-p