Dinosaur Land Vacation

Goofing around in the motel

 Playing at the park

Evan fell and hurt his knee (three times on the same knee!)

Dinosaur Quarry

Cave Dwellers

Huge Dino puzzle

Saying the official Junior Ranger pledge

Look out daddy!!!

We found a momma bird sitting on her eggs

 Katelyn stamped herself all blue on the long, boring car ride home.

 Fun vacation! We all learned a lot and had a blast together!

Photo Book

This is the photo book the kids and I created as a family history project.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Visit Shutterfly.com to create your own personalized photobook.

Mar. 21: On to the Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Today we finished "Prince Caspian."  The kids liked it, especially reading about Reepicheep the mouse.
I liked the quote: "You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," Said Aslan.  "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of he poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of he greatest emperor on earth. Be content."

After I finish reading Narnia I'd like to read the book "Planet Narnia" by Michael Ward, who claims to have found another meaning in "The Cronicles of Narnia"  Should be interesting at least.

Is it ridiculous that I seriously wish that Narnia existed?  I let myself entertain the idea that maybe it really does exist.  Ha, I laugh off the thought but still...you never know!  If I ever create a world I would make it just like Narnia (or how I imagine it).  Okay, head out of the clouds.

On a more serious note, I've recently found out that our next door neighbor is a homicide suspect.  Lovely.  All the more reason to believe in Narnia.  I'm going to start looking for magic wardrobes to walk through.  Okay, head out of the clouds again!

Back to the kids:  I've enjoyed seeing Annabelle improve on her reading.  She's reading more fluently and with more confidence.  This week she scored 98% on the Dolch Pre-Primer sight words.  That's up from 78% in September.  Also she scored 96% on the Primer sight words.  That's up from 60 % in September.  Nice progress!  I haven't administered the First grade words yet, but plan on doing that soon.

I measured the kids this month and was shocked to see that Annabelle has grown 2 inches since October!  That is the same rate of growth that Katelyn has made!  Insane growth spurt!  Evan also grew about an inch...but I'm almost positive he weighs more than Annabelle.  Maybe I'll go buy a scale today just to see.

Oh, we bought a Keyboard!  It was $20 at D.I. but it works great and the kids have enjoyed playing around on it.  I gave Evan his first lesson (he seems more interested in it than Annabelle at this point).  It's so nice to be able to practice the piano again, even if it is just on a keyboard.

I recently made up a checklist for Annabelle & Evan of things we should do each day and each week, with a reward if they get everything done.  It does help me stay on task and they enjoy checking things off.  I'm still tweaking it a bit.  It's hard to know what expectations are really realistic.

Park day has started up again now that the weather is getting nicer.  It's still a bit chilly, but the kids had a great time playing with their homeschool friends yesterday.  Such sweet kids.  Annabelle loves climbing trees and found a birds nest way up in the top of one.

Also we've been sorting through all the pictures I own and trying to categorize them.  The kids really enjoyed seeing a lot of their baby pictures.  We plan on scrapbooking soon, hopefully.

That's about all that is going on lately.  The kids are about 3/4 of the way finished with their school workbooks, so I'm hoping they will be all ready for school this upcoming year.  I'm still tentatively planning on sending them to Navigator Pointe.  Annabelle is #2 on the waiting list, so hopefully she'll get in.  I'm excited about it but I still do have my reservations.  I see how much fun they've had with home schooling and the freedom we've all enjoyed, but I suppose we must all grow up sometime.  Or maybe we could just find a magic portal into Narnia.

Feb. 21-March 7

Well I've decided that updating my log ever day is becoming harder and harder.  Especially when I feel we haven't really done anything too exciting (unfortunately).  I am just going to update as frequently as I feel needed and include notable things we do.  We found out that Evan was accepted to Navigator Pointe Academy for Kindergarten (I can't remember if I already posted about this or not).  Annabelle is #3 on the waiting list for second grade.

I can't even begin to say how thrilled I am, and how much I feel blessed.  A very small percentage of applicants are accepted.  Somehow I feel strange about it though.  I think it's just that it doesn't feel real yet.  I am very hopeful that Annabelle will be able to get in too.  I feel the chances are pretty good.  I'm not sure what we'll do if she doesn't get in.

The kids have been having a great time with our new ducks and chickens.  Annabelle has showed a lot of responsibility with taking care of them.   She feeds and waters them, gathers their eggs every morning, digs up worms for them, and puts them in their pen at night.  She loves them so much.  I'm glad, because I already have enough to worry about.

Both the kids have fun every day doing educational games on the computer.  They do that a lot.  I have a hard time saying no to it because honestly I think they are learning more from it than I am.

I have been working hard at getting pictures of our family back a few generations on familysearch.org.  It is so fun!  Steve and I have enjoyed showing the kids pictures of our ancestors and telling them stories.  Here is the link to Annabelle's tree:

Annabelle's Tree

I love the new photo tree option.  So fun to see all their faces.  (Jeri- if you wouldn't mind emailing me a picture of you, mark, and your parents that would be fantastic!)

Anyways,  that's about all we've been up to besides the normal worksheets, quizzes, and reading.  OH-We are halfway through reading "Prince Caspian."  Annabelle is loving it.  They write in their journals about the story and draw some cute pictures.

Well, until next time (Whenever that is!)

Feb. 17-21

Monday

Today the kids had a friend over all day and they had a great time playing with him.  

Tuesday

The kids have been doing really well using their chart they developed with all the things they need to do each day.  It is nice to have a routine.  They also played outside for quite a while today and just had fun.  Annabelle is such a big helper.  I wasn't feeling very well for part of the day and she helped me out a lot.  It's fun to see the kids becoming more responsible and helpful.

We also had a living room dance party which turned into a throw-the-teddy-bears-all-over-the-place party.  I used the opportunity to practice my manual settings on my camera.  Here are some of the shots I got.  Love my crazies!

Wednesday-Friday

We've begun a new method of trying to get all the things done that we're "supposed" to do.  It just a check list that's laminated and the kids check off with wet-erase markers as they do their tasks.  I feel the excitement of learning waning, however.  It is good for me though to see how we're doing each day.

Feb. 10-14

Monday

Same old cleaning day.  I  shampooed the livingroom carpet today.  It still smells like pee, but at least it looks nice :)

Tuesday

We have four new additions to our family.

Two ducks and two chickens.  Dad raised them from little babies and couldn't bear to get rid of them when my mom was threatening to do so.  So, they've found refuge here.  I love you Steve.  Sorry our garage smells like chicken poop.  

The kids are having a great time following them around the backyard.  Katelyn was determined to touch one, but they were too quick.  Finally she gave up.  Annabelle spent an hour out there examining them and poking at them with sticks.  Macy managed to escape the house and chased them around a bit.  Good grief, it'll be a miracle if any of them survive more than a week.  Well, I'm glad I could at least give the neighbors some entertainment as I tried to round them up in the evening.  haha.  We've made a makeshift home for them in the garage, but soon will build a pen for them.

Wednesday-Friday

I've slacked on writing in my blog but I'll do my best at remembering what we did.  We've been reading Prince Caspian.  The kids are loving it, as am I.  The kids have been writing in their journals as I read, making predictions and writing about the parts they like the most.

We had a family meeting and the kids developed a list of things we should get done each day.  We've started implementing it and I think it is working very well.  Having the kids be a part of it is helpful, and they get to check off the things as they go along.  Included is Reading, Math, Writing, Language arts, etc.

The kids have also enjoyed helping take care of the chickens and ducks.  Finding the eggs is especially fun for them.  It's an Easter egg hunt every day.  

Jan. 27-31: Self & Family

Monday

Cleaning day today.  The kids helped me fold and put away laundry.  It's so funny to see how they make a game out of everything.

Tuesday

Today we took a trip to the library.  I've decided that nobody under the age of five should be allowed in the library.  At least if their name is Katelyn.  She ransacked the place in about five seconds.  I just chased her around picking up books and movies.  And then she ran out into the parking lot.  Time to get a leash!

We came home and made some muddy buddies.  That helped, a little.  

We then worked on writing.  The kids wrote about their adventures playing outside.  There is a rock out front that they are convinced is an egg.  Evan claims he felt it move.  Smiley face.

We then worked on some math.  The kids filled in an addition chart, and it didn't take long for them to see patters.  I think it is so helpful to see patterns in math.  I don't think I realized this until much later.  Like college later.  Pathetic, I know.

Wednesday

Good things that happened: we watched "Reading Rainbow: The day you were born."  It was all about babies, and *yikes* included a real child birth.  It didn't really show anything, but the kids covered their heads.  haha.

Annabelle colored in a hundreds chart by 2's.  She recognized the pattern very quickly.  Evan worked on some of his language arts pages.

Thursday

I am so grateful for Steve and the kids.  The kids kept saying nice things to me and writing sweet notes.  They even said "Thanks for dinner", and "mmm...this is good" (this hardly ever happens unless dinner is pizza or pancakes).  

So, for school we read some of our library books.  I taught the kids that the paperback books are sometimes just lame, and they should "shop" in the hardback book section more.  I am so tired of reading Barbie, Dora, Transformers (gasp), and strawberry shortcake.  So every time we go to the library I try to pick out books that have more developed story lines.  We read one book that was very interesting called, "Good Enough to Eat" by Brock Cole.  It was about a poor orphan beggar girl, whom everyone shunned.  When an ogre came to find a bride, of course they offered him the beggar.  She came up with a clever trick to pay them all back for the way they'd treated her.  

It snowed during the night, and Annabelle went out and played.  She made a huge footprint picture in the snow of me, and above it "I <3 U" (that's a heart, btw).  

Annabelle also did two different timed tests today.  The first one was a 2 minute half page addition, which she finished with time to spare (improved from yesterday).  The second was a 5 minute full page addition.  She finished all but the last line.  I'm just impressed she is so motivated to do timed tests.  It's great!

We also talked today about when Annabelle and Evan were littler, and the funny things they'd do.  Their favorite stories involve throw up, pee, and poo, of course!  It's great that I can laugh about these things now.  At the time they were not funny at all.  The kids decided to draw and write in their journals about these awesome moments.  Evan drew himself  peeing on me when I changed his diaper (the picture is very anatomically correct), and Annabelle drew herself smearing poo all over the walls and carpet.  Lovely.  

Friday

Today we went over rules and consequences again and adjusted our schedule.  Our new schedule is much more loose than the one I originally created at the beginning of the school year.  I've had such a paradigm shift the last few months, but I think it's all been a change for the better.  I've come to realize that things can't be perfect all the time, especially when I have two little ones running around.  But learning can happen all day long whenever possible.  So my new schedule is more of a checklist:

Wake up by 9:00

Eat breakfast, get dressed

Read together

free time until after lunch

Do the following in no particular order:

Spelling

Reading

Writing

Math & Logic

Science, S.S., art, music, PE, or computers (rotating depending on day and what is applicable that day)

Dinner

Bedtime 9:00

I know, very unstructured, but you know what...it's what works for us!  And something funny, the kids have not been resisting as much because, half the time they don't even know we're doing "school."  They're just playing.  Like today, Annabelle decided she wanted to make "credit cards" for everyone.  So she cut out little pieces of paper, drew pictures, colored, wrote names and numbers; and then I helped her laminate them.  Little did she know that I'm counting that as art (and writing, and math).  She was fascinated with the cold lamination we did and was excited that they looked just like real credit cards.  

Another interesting phenomenon, Annabelle was resisting home-school and wishing she could go to public school  at the beginning of this year.  I made the decision that I would go and apply at several charter schools, as well as apply for a transfer to Jordan School District.  And suddenly, she has done a total 180, and now wants to be home-schooled.  I'm not sure why.  When we were going to the Jordan school district to apply for the transfer I noticed that Annabelle acted very uncomfortable just being there at a public school.  It could be just because she's so used to being home.  Anyways, we'll soon find out if we got accepted to any of these schools, and then we'll decide where to go from there.  Part of me thinks it would be good for the kids to have the structure, but the other part of me feels like they will start dreading school.  We'll see. I haven't fully decided yet, and I want the kids to be involved in the decision making.

Annabelle lost another tooth today.  I think that makes it 6 or something.  The tooth fairy is getting tired, I'm sure.

Feb. 3-7: Self & Family

Monday

Cleaning day.  Annabelle also had dance.  She's really liking it and she comes home and shows me her dance moves.  So cute.

Tuesday

The kids finished their workbook packets today, as well as had computer time.  I also got Annabelle's pictures developed from 0-1 year old.  We're excited to start scrapbooking.

Wedesday

Today we had some fun taking care of our house plants.  We watered, clipped, fertilized and cleaned them.  The kids loved feeling like they were taking care of living things.  

Annabelle asked what the biggest number is, so we talked about how there is no biggest number.  It just goes on forever.  We also talked about negative numbers.  She seemed confused at this, so I explained that it's like when someone needs to buy a car but doesn't have enough money, they have to borrow money and then pay it back as they go along.  Annabelle: "Kind of like us?"  Me: "Yes...unfortunately"  Annabelle: "So we have less than zero money?" Me: "yup.  Like, way less"

We then colored an labeled a rainbow.  They needed to read the colors to know which color to do each band.  I was suprised to see Evan sounding out and reading the words.

Thursday

We started reading "Prince Caspian" today.  We got to the part where they all are back in Narnia, when they realize they've been gone for hundreds of years and recognize some ruins as their old castle and home.

We also found out that we've been accepted to Jordan School District.  If we do decide to go to public school, that is the district I preferred.  The school is not far away, but we'd have to get another car.

Friday

Today we decided to go take Macy, our dog, to the groomer.  We had her shaved.  haha...she looks really silly, but I'm so glad we did it so she won't shed as much.  Poor dog...she'll be cold for a while.  We had fun watching her be groomed through the windows.  I feel bad for the girl trying to shaver her.  Macy was pretty freaked out.

We also went clothes shopping.  Very educational :)

Jan. 20-24: Family

Monday-Friday

Yikes, I'm slacking!  I keep forgetting to write every day, and my short term memory only is capable of so much.  haha.

Basically the highlights of the week were, we looked into a couple of different places for the kids to go to school next year.  I've applied at three different charter schools, and applied for a transfer to Jordan school district if I don't get into any of the charter schools.  I also went as far as Lindon looking into a private school.  They actually offered me a job, and the kids would get free tuition.  I thought about it, but in the end I decided that 45 minutes both ways each day would be just too much, and I wouldn't be able to help in my own kid's classrooms.  That's not cool.  I'm a little sad, because the school sounded awesome, but I'm confident I've made the right choice.  

Jan. 13-17: Family

Monday

We had a pretty good cleaning day.  The kids helped me clean the bathroom.  I taught them how to clean the toilet the way it "should" be done.  It was hard getting them started cleaning, but once they were doing it, they started having fun with it.  It's worth the effort.

Annabelle went to her dance class.  She's loving it so much!  I'm so grateful for my friend for offering to take her!

Tuesday

Today we got carpet in our family room downstairs!  So exciting!  We had to have a dance party afterwords to celebrate.

We also decided to go to Tracy Aviary (since we didn't get a chance to when we were studying birds).  It was pretty good.  It was cold, and many sections were under construction, but I feel it was a fun little field trip.

Wednesday

We read a fun book today called "The Legend of the Golden Snail" by Graem Base.  They kids were totally engrossed in it.  Such wonderful pictures too.  

We did some worksheets.  I've noticed that Annabelle just goofs around when I'm there trying to help her, but if I leave her alone she actually does the work very well.  I think this is a way for her to get under my skin and get some attention.  So...I'm backing off, and will only help if she asks for it.

We went for a walk today, because it was such a beautiful sunny day.  We met some friends and the kids played in the snow while me and their mom talked.  It was nice.

We also became little scientists for a bit and made a fun play dough.  It was very different than other ones I've made.  This one was a combination of hair conditioner and cornstarch.  It turned out pretty fun. Huge mess though!

Thursday

Today I've been feeling kind of sad because I feel like I'm not doing all I should be.  I hate that I have to practically force the kids to do worksheets and it makes learning just not fun at all.  I asked the kids what they wanted to do, and they said, "play."  So I did some research on the computer and found this article, "And They Played All Day" by Naomi Aldort, that was interesting.  Something to think about.  Sure playing all day won't help the kids pass any standardized tests, but maybe kids just aren't meant to be little adults.  The society we live in expects that of kids, and so do we conform to what society says, or do we let our children develop in their own time and way?  

Another great article: "Give childhood back to children: if we want our offspring to have happy, productive and moral lives, we must allow more time for play, not less"

We did enjoy reading from our "Book of Virtues" today.  Annabelle asked for it.  She thinks the stories are silly.  I've really enjoyed our habit of reading first thing in the morning.  It's a great, and peaceful way to start our day.

Annabelle also was doing a workbook that she chose to do (which was a preschool book, but at this point I don't even care).  She kept asking me to read the directions for her.  I kept telling her that I would help, but not do it for her.  She'd get so mad and say "I already know how to read!"  To which I'd reply, "then read it."  But no, she wanted me to do it for her.  Sigh.

We all went to the store today and got some things.  Annabelle and Evan love checking out at the self checkout lane.  So, yeah...they can buy things.  Scary.  I'd better keep my credit card up high!  

Friday

I don't recall :)  It's been a few days.