TotSchool: Lady Bells way

The past few weeks have been a struggle with Lady Bells. I don’t know if the “terrible” twos are finally setting in or if her allergies are just keeping her cranky. She refuses to do anything school, at times I can talk her into a activity, but only on her terms. I do not want to force her, because well she still has time before it is a must, school for her is just for fun now, and because she wanted to do it at the beginning of the year.
anyway here are a couple of things I got her to do:

This was something new for her (clips from the dollar tree and colored wooden disc) so she agreed to try it out, But notice her hair is not pulled up, that was her condition

She was into singing so she sang her favorite song, Jesus Loves Me, her condition was Sissy had to sing with her doing the signs.

She tried to do a puzzle (she’s done it before) but when the pieces would not fit just right she got mad and gave up!

I gave her, her notebook and went to check on the older kids in the classroom, when I got back in the living room her notebook was thrown in the kitchen and replaced with toys . I can’t wait until things are switched around and NO toys are around for temptation!

While working with Lady Jey, this is how she chose to entertain herself, until she fell!

She done a color sorting and Vocabulary activity only if her Pet Shops could “Watch” her and I didn’t “pull” her hair. Notice the flowers in the bottom left hand corner, this will cause the next tantrum?

I could not get her to understand WHY the flowers she picked earlier for me were now wilted.

This was soon forgotten when I gave her a scrap paper to “free write” She loves it when she thinks she is doing work like Prince and Princessa.

Thursday was a little better:

Magnet Stacking

cutting and pasting paint chips, still no luck with the hair.

Lacing beads.

Stacking pegs, I tried to show her patterns but she was having no part of it.

Friday was much better, maybe she knew the weekend was coming

She agreed to do a lacer after which she let me fix her hair!?

The FIRST real smile I seen ALL week!

She did a color clip activity, not to happy though!

So I told her to go to her box and pick something she liked, then we would go to the library!

She came back with the marble transfer activity, she ended up doing this at least 4 times, which helped out while I got the others ready to go.

Lady Bells is so picky like that. Some days she gets up all happy and ready to go, others you can hardly talk to her without making her cry. She is also a loner, which is ok I guess until someone tries to get into her space which usually ends with a tantrum and a nap. I try to explain this to lady Jey who often starts the tantrums, but she does not understand because she is a social butterfly and always has been. Lady Bells is was “touchy”that it is hard to gage her feelings. But I guess this is all part of growing into her special little person.
Thanks for joining us for “TotSchool” here at Our Days at CA

Moments to Remember

In Public School when do you get the chance to Marvel at God’s Awesome works, And then turn them into the lesson for the day.

Yes! you are seeing double!

I got this on a much needed day. Only to be reminded that God is there leading us through our storms. And then he always seems to double the blessing.

Anyway I remember automatically thinking when I seen this, “there is a rainbow after every storm, even the storms of life!”

                                                          

Pre-school: Ending with green

We did not do a whole week with St. Paddy’s Day as we did with previous holidays, I just couldn’t find a pack with all skills on her level. So I ended up with just a few pages from here and there.
So we continued reviewing letters (H) and their sounds, come to think of it, I think Lady Jey may be ready to pull out our You Can Read things, which I forgot about . It is funny how just a couple of months can make a difference!? 

Anyway here is our week in pictures:

I bought the younger girls some new learning games, this is one of them. They have different pictures that you insert “buttons” into. She did H for House.

I know this is an activity for small motor skills, but Lady Jey LOVES stickers. If she does all her work, what harm is a little fun thrown in   Her book is so full it hardly closes any more!

This sheet is from the collections I am putting together for Lady Bells. She has to find all the letters (H) capital and lower case. I gave her the choice of how to cover them and she chose her pipsqueaks which she LOVES!

This is another activity that works on upper and lowercase letters (H) and handwriting. Lady Jey has some problems with some of the lowercase ones, so I have chosen to review these with her.

Lower and Uppercase sorting

Hippo graphing

This is another of the new activities, Magnetic Match Rings, I purchased for the kids. You have to place the magnets on the pole to match what is on the cards. It took her all but a second to figure it out, but she likes it anyway.

               

                                                                    Lacing

Numbers Galore, we really do not use this sheet the way it is meant to be used, but whatever works for your family right?

Writing numbers

Magnet page, this is a favorite for both littler girls.

This is another page from the H for Horse collection I put together for Lady Bells.

Patterns

Number clips. The clips have the words and the number on them. I want her to  start recognizing the words for her numbers and colors.

Counting in sets. ( that’s Lady Bells Pet Shops who were helping her do her work )

This is something new I tried with Lady Jey this week. I really don’t know where exactly I wanted to go with it, but it worked. I gave her a simple sentence to work with this week. I was wanting to know if she could sound out the words. (A cat sat on a mat) I first had to explain what a mat was and when I realized I could not say "it is what Kindergartners take naps on" I was really at a loss of words . Anyway we worked that out and moved on.

On the first day I wrote the simple sentence on an index card and I read it to her.
Day two I had her read it to me.
Day three she had a word search of the words.
Day four a hunted up all the letters we had a gave her the ones from the sentence and told her to sound out and spell the sentence for me!  She was excited to read her first sentence!

On Friday we Had some St. Patrick’s Day FUN!

This is part of a pack here

Lucky Charms Graphing (YUM)! I think this was their favorite.

Count and Show, This is a part of a pack that I won in a giveaway YAY! Thanks Lacy!

We also learned about the Shamrock and used it to teach the Trinity to all the children for Bible. I got some really neat things from Oriental Trading.

As you can see we had a very good week, we usually don’t get this much done. Lady Bells was another story for another post!

Thanks for visiting our week, here at Our Days at CA!

                                                            

Moments to remember!

Is it not joyful to watch the relationships within the family grow, through the bonds they create while schooling together?!
Yesterday we worked on cutting with Lady Bells, she did good for the first time using scissors. Today while working on her work Lady Jey helped out…

Although you can’t really tell from the picture, she was showing Lady Bells the correct way to position her fingers, on the scissors. This was what I walked in on after a quick break .
These two know only homeschooling and the relationship they have developed over the past 3 years is priceless. Sure they have their moments like all siblings do, but they are quick to comfort and protect each other. The older ones will do the same but they have their “outside” friends, but Lady Jey is quick to say when asked, that Bells is her best friend!
This is one of those things that I prayed for as a result of homeschooling my children, and I can honestly say that God has answered my prayers.





                                                                    

Happy birthday Princessa!

I can not believe how fast the time has gone! It really feels as though I just brought you home from the hospital. I can still remember being pregnant with you and praying to God that you would be a girl. I remember being told at the ultrasound that they just did not know if you were a girl. I then remember praying harder. 9 years ago today, when they laid you in my arms, I remember crying I had my perfect little girl!
I remember like it was yesterday, dressing you in all your frilly pink clothes. I took pictures EVERYDAY!  I think it is my fault you are addicted to all things girl .
Now just as then, you are my perfect little girl. You have grown into a beautiful little girl inside and out. You have become a great role model for your little sisters, in showing then your walk with God. I pray that you continue to do so, and continue to use the talents God gave you to praise him, even when things seem hard.
Anyway, enough of mommy’s mushy stuff; I hope you enjoy your day and make it as special as you are! As I continue to watch you grow day by day just know Mommy will always love you!

Leaving Norway

We actually officially left Norway last week, but it has been so pretty out that school has been light this week. We plan on arriving in France on Monday. Many may think that we never get anything done because we are always taking breaks, but with our schedule we actually get lots done.
We school year-round, only taking the month of August and a week in June for VBS in the summer. I don’t know about you but summers around here are just to hot and the kids always in up in the house anyway. And even when we do a “light” week the kids still have to do one lesson in MUS and Daily Grams. We also do reading in something daily which to them is not school because you can always find them with some sort of book in their hands daily, I guess they get that from me .
Anyway back on topic, in Norway we learned about the many fjords and islands off the coast. Prince and Princessa both done drawings for their notebooks of the fjords:

We spent a lot of time on the Native Sami tribe, the kids seemed really interested in them. They also realized that when someone says Native tribe you can’t always visualize the dark skin of the Native Americans. Prince was interested in the Norse Myths also, “I let him read and learn about such things only because his faith and knowledge in God is strong.”
We also reviewed the Vikings and Leif Erikson’s discovery of North America and his role of bring Christianity to his people.
All in all we enjoyed our stay in Norway but look forward to France.
Thanks for reading about our week at Our Days at CA!