Random shots of our day...
Today was a pretty simple day, just really busy. DH got out of work early today so we ran a bunch of errands. We took the boys to the library (so check back soon for my next list), plus many more things. I got the boys working on their lessons this morning and started on my to do list for the day. Sammy worked on his states assignment and started learning about the water cycle. He loved watching the water cycle episode of the "Magic School Bus" (I love the magic school bus, so full of information) Gabe was working on some practical life skills. He started this morning with transfering beads from one bowl to another. After that I could tell he was not going to work well so I let him go play. I went to there room to check on him and I found this....

He thought elmo wanted to read, sometimes he is just to cute for words.
After supper we decided to finish off their school work. Here is Sammy setting payday to have a math lesson with daddy. So I had the fun of doing Gabes lesson with him. We had a .....
Tea party. This was more practical life work for him. He was doing all the work and pouring the tea for us. He is so funny. We had OJ for our tea so we pretended it was citrus tea. He told me that he grew the oranges for it in our bathroom, thankfully he said in the tub. Ok going to finish up my work real quick and then enjoy a movie with my DH. Good night.

ARCHIMEDES AND FLYING WIDGETS....OH MY
Today was a fun day with the kids. There was points that did not want to work with me but the rest of the time was really good. I started my working today with Sam. We started with his first lesson on learning multiplication and that went surprisingly well. (Anyone that knows him knows he really does not like math). When that was finished we moved on to science. For this school week science is going to about water. Today we started by making Archimedes pump. Sam had a really good time making this. I included some pictures of that. The first one is a picture of the only supplies that you need to make it.

This is one really proud kid with his pump. He took the tube and wrapped it around the rod, then tapped it into place.
Here he is making sure that it works. He took the one end and put it into the bowl of water and started turning it. He really got it to work. He did get a little bit tired of doing it though. We stopped on transfering it all to the other bowl. Then we got into his favorite part of the day. We played his favorite card game Scrambled States 2.
Then we moved on to my lessons with Gabe. First we played a game of memory. When he finished that we moved on to sandpaper letters. He was not really interested in any of that though. He wanted his flying Widgets. Mostly the Math Circus Movie is what he wanted. I got him to sit a little by giving him his own widgets to play with. I tried to have him put them in order from 1 to 10.
"Ok I did it. Can I have the video now mom."
So this has been our exciting day. Hope you all enjoyed.

The Second Section of the Book List--

To continue on with my attempt of reading 500 books to my boys this school year. I have put together my list that I am reading this week for everyone. Here you go--

18. Rhinos Who Skateboard by Julie Mammano
19. Dumpy To The Rescue by Julie Andrews Edwards
20. Dumpy's Apple Shop by Julie Andrews Edwards
21. Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth
22. The End by David LaRochelle
23. Here Come The Pirates! by Martina LeyKamm
24. Shiver Me Letters--A Pirate ABC by June Sobel
25. Fix-It Duck by Jez Alborough
26. Winter is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer
27. The Biggest Frog in Australia by Susan Roth
28. Miss Mouse Takes Off by Jan Ormerod
29. Trouble at the Dinosaur Cafe by Brian Moses
30. Elusive Moose by Joan Gannij
31. Below by Nina Crews
32. A Treasure at Sea for Dragon and Me by Jean Pendziwol
33. Pancakes for Supper by Anne Issacs
34. Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
35. Letters From A Desperate Dog by Eileen Christelow
36. Wild About Books by Judy Sierra

I hope that everyone enjoys the new additions to the list. Sammy wanted me to let everyone know that Winter is the Warmest Season is his favorite on the list. For everyone with the younger kids I enjoyed reading Shiver Me Letters--A Pirate ABC to Gabe. When ever I came to the part that said what letter they were looking for he got to read it. Make sure to check back for entry #3 next week.

Here is a couple of pictures of Gabe being creative yesterday. With all of the new room that we made it is funny to see what they come up with on things to do. The way the living room us to be set up there was no way he could have done this. He called this his tunnel. He told me that it was for little kids only not big kids or grown ups. He is so funny. It is nice to see him being creative though.
Check back for my entry tomorrow for the updated reading list. I have some really good ones to share with you.

In my last post I talked about how we did some major cleaning and set things up differently for the kids. I think that the best thing on doing that is it tends to make some of their old things new to them again. Well I was in the other room and thought that I better check on the kids because they were not making much noise for them. I found them in the living room watching t.v. and had pulled out on of their old foam puzzles. So I thought that I would get a few shots and share them with you.



This is a picture of the completed puzzle. It is actually alot harder than it looks so I was very impressed with the boys for that. Sammy wanted to take the picture and share it with everyone. He wanted to show you his brother to you to, that is why he was there.

We spent this weekend doing major cleaning as a family. Some of you might not know that we actually live in a small 2 bedroom apartment. Since we do storage is in really high demand for us. We have to use every area to the best of our ability. Because of the lack of storage it makes it really hard to keep the place picked up and organized, so every so often we have to go through an do a major cleaning of the place to get it back together. I thought that I would show some pictures of our work because we actually set up some school stations. The first picture is of the Library books. We always have a huge amount at any given time. It makes it hard to keep the amount small because Sammy has his own library card and he loves books. So we made a spot for them to keep the library books.

This is a picture of the cooking and grocery station that we set up for them. It used to be set up in the corner and got blocke off with a lot of things so they did not get to play with it much. Now it is out in the open and they love it.
This is a picture of one half in the Living room. On the left side of the picture is the toy corner. It has the puppets and music station at the top. Next two down are the truck shelves. Then the bottom is their active station. You see the trampoline but there is balls and hopscotch games plus other things. If you move over to the bottom of the entertainment center there is the sensory station for the boys, and their video games (Learning ones only of course). Then next to that is the alphabet wall and an art table.
This picture is the other half of the living room. The wall has all of our books on it from regular reading books to our reference books. The cubbies are filled with the science station, math station, art supplies, and English station. The puzzles are way up at the top of the highest shelves only because we do not have a better place to put them. At the end of the shelving is the recyclables that we use for creating art.

While my DH and I spent the weekend working on the living room the boys worked on their room. You could not even see their floor. Well they did so good on it they decided that was where they wanted to play this morning. They actually let us sleep in a little this morning and this is what I woke up to find. So sweet when they play together.
So I hope you enjoyed the little tour into my world. Please come back and visit us soon.

This was Gabe's attempt at taking photos this weekend. He was trying to take a picture of his dad but forgot about his fingers and they got in the way. I think that he has very cute fingers anyways. LOL. He did get his dad a little in the picture. If you look through the fingers you can see a little of his head.

Book List--

I have read alot of the blogs out there recently and they have had a book list of the top 100 books. I was going to try and put one together to but in all honesty I had no clue as to where I should start. I decided to start keeping a running list of all the story books that I am reading to my boys right now and post those. I thought then that maybe I should try to read as many different ones that I can with in the school year. (Sammy has to be evaluated each year so I thought that was a good breaking point) This does not mean that I will never read to them again, I just want to see how much I can do in a year. I had a few suggestions from the guys in my life. They ranged from 2000 down to 10. I actually choose 500. I thought that this was a good number. Because if I keep at it, that is roughly 10 a week (not to overwhelming). The books that I am including in the list are only going to be from the library so the boys will actually be getting alot more than that. I think that more than likely I will get to my goal and and a whole lot Higher. So here it goes--

1. King Puck by Micheal Garland
2. The Sand Children by Joyce Dunbar
3. Duck at the Door by Jackie Urbanovic
4. Dumpy and the Big Storm by Julie Andrews Edwards
5. The Fantastic Drawings of Danielle by Barbara McClintock
6. Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies
7. Where the Wild things are by Maurice Sendak
8. While Momma had a quick Little Chat by Amy Reichert
9. I know a Rhino by Charles Fuge
10. The Search For the Perfect Child by Jan Fearnley
11. A is for Zebra by Mark Shulman
12. Clarence the Copy Cat by Patricia Lakin
13. On Earth by G. Brian Karas
14. America's Promise by Alma Powell
15. Island Counting 1 2 3 Frane Lessac
16. Don't Mention Pirates by Sarah McConnell
17. All in Just One Cookie by Susan E. Goodman

Make sure to check back for each add on entries. We get to the library each week so there will be lots more to add on.

Our Day..
We are focusing on the southern states right now, so I was trying to come up with a fun way to do his spelling. Then I remembered his Game Hangman. It has a wild west cowboy on it so i thought perfect. We also did another game out of his workbook that worked his math, english, and science skills. He had a lot of fun with that.

Then he moved on to making a tribal shield of the Plains Indians. Here is his finished product.
He was very proud of the whole project. He was supposed to put something on that he cared greatly for so in the center is his manatee.
Here is a couple shots of Gabe. I asked him if I could take his picture and he decided to lay on the floor. Oh well I guess it was a rough day. LOL.
Well he finally decided to stand up so I could get a better picture of his face, he thought that he would be funny.

"Man that was Sour!" no not really he was just being silly. LOL

I am nice. At least that is what someone thinks.

Kate from Homeschooling in the Garden State so kindly gave me the award. Coming from her it means a lot. She is one of the kindest people in cyberland. Now the object is to pass this on to five other nice people. Well there is so many out there. I guess first I would have to choose

Theresa at LaPaz Home Learning--Her blog is so full of wonderful things.. She does such amazing things with her kids.

Meredith at Sweetness and Light -- She has such wonderful and sweet things to say all the time. Her kids look like they are having so much fun all the time.

Amber at School n Such-- It is amazing what she can do in a day with her kids. Her kids are always doing such amazing things.

Amy Sue at the Looney Lagoon-- Amy Sue is an amazingly creative person. She has always given so much helpful advice when trying to do something with the boys.

Pattey at The Koch Family Blog-- She has a beautiful set of twins that she is so creeative and does so much with.

Please check out all of these ladies wonderful blogs, and thank you Kate again it means so much

First off all please pardon the drawing, I am not the best artist. Ok now with that said I wanted to share this great project with everyone. It is homemade puzzles. I got this idea from a great activity book . To make this project take popsicle sticks, markers, and tape. Tape the back of the popsicle sticks together. Then draw out the picture that you want. When you are done take the tape off and mix up the sticks. The kids reassemble the picture. I made this one and Sammy was making them all day. He had such a blast with it. It is a really great project if you have older kids to make for the younger kids.

These are a couple of Photos of my latest attempt at making schooling supplies for my children. The top one is of lacing beads. I made them out of salt dough and painted them up. I got the idea to make my own from the teaching pages of childcare land. You can use your favorite salt dough recipe to make them but if you do not have a recipe for it she list one on there. The one below is of the pattern blocks that I made, also out of salt dough. The kids have been using these to try and build with to.

Where the Wild things are!!!!

While his brother was actually being the calm one for a change, and reading "Where the Wild Things Are". His Big Brother is becoming a wild one. LOL. What a day.

Sammy wanted me to share his finished Diarama with every one. He made the whole project by himself and had a really good time.

A New Book Entry--
Well I have a few new books to share with everyone.
First I wanted to share one that would go along with the theme of the last entry. It is called "Wake Up World". This book follows 8 children from around the world in their daily lives.
A book that is really cute is about a dog detective that is on "The Search for the Perfect Child". The book is written by Jan Fearnley. He talks about all of the different qualities that the perfect kid would have in such a fun way. One that is also great is "Clarence the Copy Cat" by Paticia Lakin. Clarence is a cat that does not want to hurt any mice. This causes him to have some troubles in life until a kind librarian takes him in. A mouse shows up at the library, does that mean that start of some new trouble for Clarence? A book that Sammy picked out was "King Puck inspired by an Irish Festival" by Michael Garland. The book is about a man that lives alone in the hills of Ireland. He has no one to talk to except his Goat. There was fairies that lived near by a felt bad for him. They gave his goat the ability to talk and made sure to get him entered in the the King Puck festival. If he wins that he gets to be the one king for a day. Did I mention it is the goat that gets to be King. Really a sweet book about friendship. I noticed that on some of the other blogs that I read some people have mentioned of doing a space unit for the kids. A book that talks about the earth and it rotations, around the sun and daily, is called "On Earth" by G. Brian Karas. It is a really sweet and simple book. A different Kind of alphabet book is "A is for Zebra" by Mark Schulman. This book is fun because instead of having all the words start with the individual letter, they actually end with it. The final book that I want to talk about is "All in just One Cookie"by Susan E. Goodman. This book is probaly my favorite. It is a good one for any parent that loves cooking with their child and the child ask lots of questions. It takes the Chocolate Chip Cookie and breaks down all of the ingredients to hw they got the way that they are. For example it takes you step by step on how you get that butter, starting wtih the cow eating his grass. She does the process for all of the ingredients. Then at the end she adds in a recipe to make them. I hope that everyone ejoys this list.

The boys did get a little bit of fun, a bike ride. The sun was holding long enough for them to gt out and get some good excercise.

Kitchen Fun!!!

The boys were having some fun in the kitchen today. Sammy is trying to make a diarama of the desert. He was working on Salt Dough sculptures. His brother did not want to be left out so he was working at his table with the lacing beads.

Friday--August 17

It was kind of a rainy day. So the boys had nice easy day today. I have some pictures that I included of the boys. Gabe spent alot of time wanting to be read to. He wanted to snuggle and read with me all the time, and how can you say no to this face.

Sammy spent his day doing the lessons on the computer. He actually asked to have a computer day each week now. I think that his favorite lesson was the Mad Libs. Over all it was a nice simple and easy day.

This is the new board my husband made for the boys with locations around the world. We use the board as way of getting the boys to think and want to learn new things.

I wanted to share this great find. I noticed that alot of people out in Blog World are doing a World theme this year for their lessons. I found the "Time for Kids--World Atlas" at Target. It is so full of information.

For Sammy's time today he decided to do some art work. Here is his finished piece. He was so proud of it. He entitled it "Nature". I think that I have a little Van Gogh on my hands.

"NATURE"

While I was in the other room today I hear "Momma come find me!" I walk out into the livingroom to see this. Now can you see Gabe in there.

I found Him. Very silly kid.

I decided that since the boys have the next few days off from school that I would do a book entry. I wanted to share a few more of the books that we will be using for the new school year. the first one is called "Hungry Planet" by Peter Menzel. He traveled the World looking at what different families eat. He gave some families the task of buying what grocries they would use for a week, at his expense, and photographed all of it. It is truley an amazing book. I wanted to show them a little more having to do with kids and what they eat, so I included "Let's Eat" by Beatrice Hollyer. The next is called "Children Like Me". This book is great because they traveled all around the world photographing children and things from there life. Also going along the same lines is "A Life Like Mine". This also goes around the world taking photographs of children and their lives. Both books are put out in partnership with unicef. To expand on the topic a little more I have added in "How people live". All of the books have some really amazing pictures in them. They are great to show the younger kids if you want to expose them to different cultures. Finally I also have "Rules of the Game". This book talks about all of the different sports from around the world. We got this book as an idea for gym class for the boys but it is not really what I expected. It is a good book though to teach about all of the different sports from around the world. Hope you all enjoy.

These are pictures from this morning. When we finish up the school week I give him a mystery day. This Day is an unusual way of learning for him. Today was the end of our school week so we worked on problem solving. His assignment was to teach Gabe his lessons. He got to pick out everything that Gabe was to learn. I have to say that he did such a good job, he may have to teach me some of his tricks. I was in the other room and heard very little hard times. He has now requested that this be his assignment every monday. LOL. Please excuse any messes you see. I have not gotten to the cleaning in there yet.

I posted below about the lessons being outside. Well it was a really hot day out side so Gabe decided to cool of a bit and I was lucky enough to get photos, yeah!

It is just way to hot out here for me today!

Attack of the Sea monster!

Just Relaxing

How much can I fit in here!?!?!

This boy is so funny he keeps us laughing all the time.