One Homeschool Day February

Today I am participating in the February edition of "One Homeschool Day" from ourbusyhomeschool.com.  

12:00am - I am asleep.

2:35am - Adam wakes up, I nurse him back to sleep.

4:12am - Ashley comes in and snuggles up against my back.

5:25am - Adam wakes up and we nurse.

7:10am - Adam and Ashley are up for the day.  Adam had leaked just a bit so I change him out of his pajamas and into a shirt and he immediately crawls over to cuddle with Ashley.  

 I join them for a few minutes and then he crawls over to the window and to take his morning view out over the countryside.

7:26am - I finally get up and take these two into the bathroom.  We made a tent of his playpen a while ago and the two of them play happily in it while I take a quick shower.

7:45 - I wake up Alexis and Emily.  Everyone eats breakfast (yogurt, cereal, and bananas), gets dressed, and does morning chores.  Grandma and Grandpa are visiting us since they are serving in the temple.  They were there late last night and had to be there first thing this morning, as well.  Grandpa heads that way, but Grandma was worn out from last night and decided to stay here today.  We're thrilled!  Ashley gets dressed backwards today.  I asked her why and she told me because it was "O" week she is wearing her clothes in the opposite way.

Adam has fun pulling toys out while everyone is getting ready and he and I play together for a bit, passing his ball back and forth and building blocks for him to knock down.

 9:00am - We gather for morning devotional.  We are learning "I Will Follow God's Plan for Me."  We also read "The Honest Woodsman" from the Children's Book of Virtues".  We discussed the importance of honesty and how important it is even when it's tough or when most of the world would consider it a "harmless white lie".  Then we chose a word for the day.  (We have a box of vocabulary words and we try to choose one every day or so to learn and then use challenge each other to weave it into our every day vocabulary.)  Today's word is 'defunct'.  We talk about things that are defunct and one thing the conversation leads to is words they used back in the 60's like "groovy" or "far out".

Then Grandma told them about some of the dances from that time era.  She taught them a few like the Twist and the Freddy, along with a few others.  I put on the matching music to these dances from youtube and they had a blast dancing.  They thought it was hilarious and had so much fun dancing to these songs.

9:35am - After that everyone headed off to work on individual lessons/projects.  Alexis started out snuggling up on the couch and finishing up her book she's been reading the past couple of days "The Two Princesses of Bamarre".

Emily and I started working on her Reading/Spelling practice.  We did some phonics/Spelling work for a while and then she read to me for a bit.  Then she took off to go do some independent scripture reading.

 During this time Adam played next to us and often on top of what we were doing.  :)

Meanwhile Ashley was setting up a library.  She was the librarian and after I finished with Emily and came in and check out some books from her.  I then browsed my messy shelves for a book on Owls I know we have to read with Ashley.

10:11am - I find the book and Ashley picks out a couple of others.  We head to the living room and she reads to me and I read some to her.

10:25am  She runs off to play, I put Adam down for a nap, and I pull Emily to do some math.  We are learning the story for 4x6 today.

After that she practices her piano and I notice Alexis is busy at the computer looking up information about Netherland Dwarf Rabbits.  She's decided she wants to buy a Doe and Buck and breed them for a business.  We have put her in charge of learning all the details and we will finance her a small loan when she's ready that she will pay back from her profits.  (She also has some money saved up for it, as well.)

10:45am - I ask Ashley if she'd like to bake some Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for a little girl from church who's name starts with "O" so she excitedly agrees and we bake them.

Adam wakes up from his morning nap during this time and he and Emily amuse themselves by eating chocolate chips from the bag.

11:25 - While Emily is doing Language I go upstairs to see how Alexis' lessons are coming along.  She has done Math, Science, and Writing and she and I talk for a bit about what she has been learning.

 11:40 - She comes downstairs and I read to them from our History book about the Boers settling in Africa.  We look up a few places on our globe.

 I read from our Science book to Emily about the different layers of Earth and how the tilting affects seasons and Alexis hangs around and listens, too.  Then I do some quick Spelling with Alexis.

 I read a couple of books to Adam and play with him for a bit and then I pull Ashley over for a fun Math activity form our book "Family Math."  We labeled cups from 1-10 and hid a little doll under one and used clues that had a mathematical basis to guess which cup she was under.  For instance I might put her under 7 and then Ashley would guess 5.  I would tell her "no" and that "She's under the number that is 9-2."  She had a lot of fun with this and Adam had fun chasing the cups from us so we ended up getting out a few extra for him to play with.  ;)

Then we looked up Octopuses online and read about what they like to eat and I set Ashley out to make her own Octopus.

12:30pm - Everyone is done with basics and we have lunch time.

 1:00pm - We do midday tidy up.

1:30pm - Everyone is off playing.  Ashley and Adam play puppets and read stories with Grandma for a while.

Alexis practices piano and violin and reads some more. (All of her favorite pass times.)  Adam goes down for a second nap.

Emily and Ashley put birdseed into our birdfeeder out front.

They spend some time observing the birds.

Ashley and Adam play together.

Emily curls up with good book.

Alexis works on some rainbow loom bracelets.

3:50pm - We bundle up and head over to our friend's house.  Ashley delivers her cookies and we visit for a short while and the kids play.

4:50 - We are back and Alexis helps me out by putting some fish on while I tend to fussy Adam.  Then I chop some broccoli and put some peas and rice on for dinner.

5:00pm - Grandpa gets back from the temple and he tells some jokes to Alexis.

5:35pm - We all sit down to dinner and chat.

 6:15pm - Everyone works on evening chores and gets everything tidied up. We then put on "Babes in Toyland" for a family movie night.  Daddy gets home during this time, too, but I was putting Adam to bed and forgot to take pictures.  We finished watching the movie and then played a quick game of Conga.  It's a fun game where you act out, sculpt, or give clues for answers.

9:30pm -  After that it was time for scriptures, prayer and bedtime.  

10:05pm - Emily complains she doesn't feel well (She says her tummy hurts and she feels blah.)  She is given a blessing and falls asleep.  I fall asleep soon after, worrying we may be getting the stomach bug, but thankfully she woke up in the morning perfectly fine!  I suspect she was just overly tired.  

Wednesday Night Activities

In the cold winter months when Alexis and Emily are at their Wednesday night church activities and Daddy is out of town and can't take them, then I get to bring these two little ones along.  We usually find an enclosed room and bring out a box of toys, some snacks, and water and play together for the next hour and a half.  Ashley likes playing a huge variety of make believe games with me and Adam is just along for the ride.  :)

Piano Duets

This year Emily has decided to take piano lessons.  We had been encouraging her for at least a year, but she was nervous.  We don't believe in being pushy parents, (my children have taught me long ago, that there is no rush and eventually they will progress and be ready for new things and new stages), so we waited until she was ready.  She finally decided she could give it a try and see what she thought.  Brenda Crook is our teacher and she is so good with her and she is doing beautifully.  We can tell she has a good bit of natural talent and is progressing very quickly.  She is a bit of a perfectionist and insists on playing each song perfectly until she crosses it off her daily practice.  The best part is now they are playing together.  They find songs and adapt them and play duets together.  It's so sweet to hear.

Magic School Bus Science Club

I took advantage of a groupon sale back in September and joined the Magic School Bus Science Club.  Every month they send a learning pack full of experiments and information about a different topic.  The girls are loving it and are always so excited to see what the new month's activities are.  On this particular day as I was taking pictures of their Science fun, Adam decided to help himself to the snack drawer someone had left open.  

Feed the Birds

The little wooden bird feeder Daddy and Ashley made together in November has been greatly appreciated by all the little neighborhood birds this cold winter.  And it has provided many cozy hours of bird watching from the playroom windows.

Nurse Nancy

Ashley has a new favorite book.  "Nurse Nancy."  So she has been playing Nurse Nancy for a few weeks now.  We even incorporated it into "N" week.  She nurses Mommy and all her siblings, taking good care of us all.  I een gave her "candy pills" to pass out, which her sisters love.  Such a cute little nurse.