Yeah...it's been a while...what can I say

Hey everybody!

Yep! It's been  a while since I have posted on here!  That should tell you just how busy we have been!!  Things have been crazy!!  School is going great - we are trucking right along!

Things are fixing to start getting really fun because my mom-in-law has offered to be a "teacher's aide" for a couple of days a week - and I have gladly taken her up on that offer!!  She is on vacation right now but plans on starting when she gets home and we cannot wait!!  She will truly be a lot of help!

Too much has gone on to tell you everything.  And I have not been very good at all at taking pictures.  But here is what I have pictures of to highlight.

At the end of August we took a field trip to River Legacy Park.  This was a nature center nestled in the city of Arlington!  It was a really neat place.  They had a lot of trails to walk on and explore.  They had tons of turtles too!  And thankfully we had a break in 100 degree weather that day so we didn't melt!  YAY!!

We are having so much fun with our Science curriculum!  I am LOVING Apologia!!!  I am also throwing in some "fun".  We are drawing some animals (using Draw Write Now) and the kids are loving that!!  They make such a cute addition to their science notebooks!

We made an Animal Kingdom flip book that we are completing as we go through the book!  

 

Here is our grizzly bear.  (They thought that mine needed to go on a diet LOL)

 Here is Seth's grizzly bear.

 Alyssa's grizzly bear

Aaron's grizzly bear

 

 Here is our panda bear

 Alyssa's panda bear (she said her's needs to go on a diet LOL)

 Seth's panda bear

 

Aaron's panda bear (he decided to draw mountains around it since we wrote that Pandas lived in the mountains.)

We have started co-op again!!  Unfortunately we missed last Friday's co-op day due to Daddy and I being out of town.  But we had a blast on our first day!!  Here are some pictures of the boys making SUPER bubbles in Mad Scientist Class.

 We are doing a fall reading challenge with our co-op friends!!  There are a couple of fun challenges involved.  One of the challenges is to see how many different places you can read.  It is a bingo sheet of all different kind of places and you have to see if you can complete the whole page!  I got some cool pictures of Seth reading under a tree and in his favorite "chair" (which is in a tree that he loves to sit in).

 

 And Alyssa enjoyed reading to her doll one morning!!

We are planning a super exciting field frip for April 2014!!  It is an interactive concert with the Dallas Symphony!!  The curriculum was written by Carnegie Hall.  There are several songs during the concert that kids will be involved with - either by singing along with, or playing recorders.  I took this as an opportunity to teach them (and myself) the recorder.  We are having a lot of fun with this!  :-)  I know they will for sure be able to at least play one of the songs with their recorders!!  It is quite possible they will be able to play all of them though.  They are catching on to it that quickly!

One day I wanted them to all go find a place by themselves and practice the notes that we were learning.  I got pictures of them in their "spots".

 

 Alyssa practicing on the porch

 Aaron practicing on the swing

 Seth practicing in his closet

We finished Mr Popper's Penguins!  We all LOVED the book!  We watched the movie one evening and decided that they probably didn't read the book at all before making the movie!!  Everything was so different!  I think the penguins was the only thing that was the same in both!!  Kids did giggle during the movie and the movie was very clean but afterwards we all decided that we liked the book much better than the movie!

We are now reading The Jungle Book.  Here are some pictures of some of the artwork that the kids have been working on during the reading.

 Aaron's watercolor lion

 Seth's watercolor Mowgli and Baloo

Alyssa's lion mane she is working on

I thought I would also show a watercolor picture Seth did one day for his Proverb lesson (from Draw To Learn Proverbs - which we are LOVING). 

 Unfortunately our cub scout group has dismantled due to the latest ruling from the Boy Scouts of America.  We were very sad about this at first but have since decided to join 4H.  We are very excited about the possibilities with this organization!  There are so many different things you can do through this organization.  I am still very much a newbie in trying to figure it all out.  One thing that I really like about it is that it is for boys and girls so I won't have to find something separate for Alyssa to do. 

Ok - I think that is all I have for now.  I have come to the realization that it will not be possible for me to update this blog weekly.  I will just try to update as I can!

Until next time,
Kellie