Horses

I didn't realize until I was going to upload this picture today that we did not get any pictures of school last week!  Alyssa was sick with pneumonia all week so school was way scaled down.  Seth and I still had our afternoon reading lessons most days but we didn't do much more than that.  I guess that's why no pictures...there was nothing that was really picture worthy!

Anyways, we are doing horses this week!!  I thought our play-doh horse in the above picture was super cute!!  I had the boys roll out and mold each piece and then I helped them put it together!  

Our bible lesson theme this week is "I obey right away".  It is relating it to horses obeying when master gives commands we should obey our parents and persons of authority, and most of all God.  I really like this lesson :-)  I am going to do my best to make sure this one sticks!!  LOL!

Farm Animals - ALL KIDS got involved

My little Alyssa has always been a great sleeper and a long sleeper.  This has worked out great for school.  She would sleep until at least 10:00 in the morning which has always given us plenty of time to do a morning school session before she wakes up.

Well...it seems she is changing...which I knew would happen...she is growing up...but I have dreaded it!  I have dreaded it because she is a "walking disaster" and has been nothing but a distraction during school because the focus is not on her.

But...she is growing up...

Anyways over the past few weeks she has been waking up earlier.  Which up until this week has not been that big of deal because we were on Christmas break.  But his week I have dreaded the waking up early...even to the point of not going to the schoolhouse for morning school because she would be with us and I didn't want it destroyed.  But today I had to bite the bullet.  I can't avoid this forever.  So I thought I would try the schoolhouse with her in attendance...

AND IT WENT GREAT!!  OMG!  I guess she is growing up...she wants to be more involved...she is cooperating better and we actually had a fun morning!!  And I am glad she was involved.

So why did I dread this so much?!?!

But I thought I would share some pics and videos from the morning!

First off - Alyssa and Aaron got some new puzzles for Christmas.  I decided to put them on the floor with the puzzles while Seth and I did our bible lesson.  This actually worked pretty good!!

We are on our goat lesson and are learning about goats and other farm animals.  Today we played a version of Simon Says and Alyssa got involved with us.  I got some funny short videos.  (if you are reading this through your email the videos may not show up so you may have to go to the blog to view them!)

It was a fun morning! I am looking forward to Alyssa being more involved with us during our school times.  Of course I will continue to do Seth's reading and writing lessons while she is napping in the afternoon - I don't want to push my luck :-)

Fun Games We Received For Christmas

Happy New Year everybody!  I hope you all had a very blessed Christmas.  We sure did!  I think it was our best Christmas yet :-)  (they just get better and better every year!)

We are getting back to the land of normal this week.  It is proving to be a bit of a challenge in some areas.  I have been blessed to see how much Seth retained over the break as far as his reading and we have enjoyed diving back into our reading lessons.  We are now reading books together and he is loving being able to read more and more!

But as far as our other subjects we are still having some struggles.  But we are just taking it slowly.  The boys are still super excited about their new toys they received for Christmas and are having trouble breaking away from them...but you know what?  I have decided - that's ok - they are young!  And this is the beauty of homeschool!  My kids love being home and love being able to play at home and they are kids and they should be able to play!

So we are doing a  little each day...adding a little more each day.  Like I said Seth is doing really well with reading lessons (we do them while the others are sleeping) and to me that is the most important subject so at least we have that one covered :-)

We did receive some FUN games for Christmas!!   And there is so much learning that can be involved in playing games!  We are doing a lot of playing games this week and I have decided I am going to strive to do more game playing in everyday school time (especially on the days that the boys are not wanting to cooperate much - they don't realize they are doing school through games :-))

I have two I want to share with you today!!  I highly recommend both of these games!  (We LOVE all the games we got and I will probably highlight others later!)

The first one is the Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus Game by University Games.  This game is based on the book Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus by Mo Willems.  If you haven't read this book you really need to!  It is the funniest book!!  And the game is just as funny if not funnier!!  The game is simple enough that even my 3 year old can play but it is fun enough that adults can enjoy the game just as much as the kids.

From the manufacturer: "Develops concentration, fine motor and strategy skills. Lots of action to keep preschoolers engaged."

We have played it several times this week already and we just laugh the whole time we play it!!  It is super fun!!

The other game we have been enjoying is the I Spy Bingo game!   Seth LOVES the I Spy books and we have another I Spy board game that we love as well so it is not surprising that he loves this one as well.  This is a game that has several levels of difficulty and Seth and Aaron can play together at their own level.  This game is good for helping Aaron recognize his letters, and it is also good for helping Seth to hear and recognize beginning word sounds.  There is also a mode where is it just genuine I Spy fun, which of course is everyone's favorite!

Like I said I will probably post about some of the other games we got for Christmas.