Silly Science, Puzzles, and a Book Post.......
Well yesterday I turned around to see the little guy holding his baseball bat with a big grin on his face. So of course I asked him what he planned on doing with that. He smiled back and said "My own science." So I decided to see where this was going. Evidently it was an experiement for sound.

The harder he hit the louder it was. Then that produced an even louder giggle. He was having so much fun that he decided that his brother should have some fun with it. Oh and he did! LOL!!
This morning we started out working on National Puzzle Day. For Sam I gave him this book to work on, he loved it. It is a huge math problem for him to figure out.

As soon as Gabe found out it was puzzle day he was asking for his beloved puzzle bin to be opened. He was having a great morning doing his puzzles.
Now time for the book post. I do have several on here that are for upcoming lessons so we have not read them yet, but we will soon. I am having a bit of a hard time now remembering if I have posted some of these books in the past or not. So I am sorry if I end up getting some cross post on this. I am pretty sure that they are all ok for now though. So here is list #22.....

360.) The Bus Ride That Changed History by Pamela Duncan Edwards

361.) Hey! I'm Reading! by Betty Miles

362.) Ella, Of Course! by Sarah Weeks

363.) Saint Valentine by Ann Tompert

364.) Starry Messenger by Peter Sis

365.) Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory by Margret And H.A. Rey's

366.) Alphabet City by Stephen Johnson

367.) The Ballad Of Valentine by Allison Jackson

368.) There's An Alligator Under My Bed by Mercer Mayer

369.) Nova's Ark by David Kirk

370.) I'm Pangoo the Penguin by Satomi Ichikawa

371.) Boom Chicka Rock by John Archambault

372.) No Biting, Louise by Margie Palatini

373.) Historical Jokes by Pam Rosenberg

374.) A Picture book of John Hancock by David Adler

375.) Stay in Bed, Davy by Brigitte Weninger

376.) Never Ride your Elephant to School by Doug Johnson

377.) Atomic Ace and the Robot Rampage by Jeff Weigel

378.) Chicken Chuck by Bill Martin Jr

379.) The John Hancock Club by Louise Borden

380.) Hello Robots by Bob Staake

381.) The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires

382.) Chicka Chicka 1-2-3 by Bill Martin Jr

383.) So you want to be President? by Judith St. George

384.) Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson

I have to say that the Gingerbread Cowboy was probably my favorite on the list. It was very cute hearing Gabe say "you cant catch me I am the Gingerbread Man!" Gabes favorite on the list was Atomic Ace. He really has been into robots latley. Sam loves all of the presidental-historical books on the list. He says that they are all so good he can not decide.

I will try to post more tomorrow. Have a good day.

Unplug your kids......
Time for unplug your kids project again. This week was fun, the theme was egg cartons. We had a bunch of those so the supplies were easy. I went online and googled egg carton crafts so that I could give the boys plenty of ideas to choose from. Here a some photos because we all actually did one this week.

This first one is from Gabe. He feels that an egg carton makes a wonderful rocket ship for his little people.
Sam decided to try and make a bird. I think it turned out pretty cute. Unfortunetly the tape did not want to hold so Sam decided to throw his project out. Maybe I will get him to make a new one this week.
The kids wanted their dad to make a project, so he made me some flowers. He is just the sweetest hubby. They are perfect for me, I can not kill them.
The final project was made by me. It is a place value game that I made for Sam. You number the bottom of the carton 1 - 12. Then you cut out circles and lable them with ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands. Close up the carton and shake them up. When you open the lid they have to tell you what the number is.

Make sure to check out everybody else's great project over at Unplug your kids. Check back for next weeks project .... PIPE CLEANERS.

Our Weekend-----
Well we got the boys to the beach this weekend. We tried to get this science project done. We had a great time it was just to short there. Only there for about 30 minutes because we had other things to do. (also we have to pay for parking at our beach:( ) So I got a few wonderful shots in. First up is our view when we first walk oer the hill and see the ocean. Nice isn't it.
Sam was preping to get ready for the experiment. He had a nice strong magnet to put in the sand and some baggies for what he collected. He got a little bit so he was happy.
While he was doing that Gabe really wanted to play in the water. So daddy took him over there. He had so much fun he did not want to leave. Soaked from head to toe.
After Sam finished collecting the items he needed for science, he started to collect some shells. These were for math class, he was to measure them and graph his results when he was done.
Sam decided to join them by the water and I got this wonderful picture of my guys (I am a pretty lucky lady). As you see daddy was not letting go of Gabe. He was ready to head into that water and it was a little stronger than him. So he kept a nice hold.
While they were doing that I walked a little further down the beach to try and collect some more shells for the boys. Well along the beach there was actually a lot of trash, this one piece really caught my eye though. If you can see there is a bunch of shells that attached themselves to the bottle and are still alive. I thought that it was really neat.
Here is my little guy at the end of our stay. The wave had knocked him over and he got water in his eye. That did stop him though he turned around and headed right back to the water.
Well today we stayed home all day. It was the first time in a while that this happened, it was really nice. Daddy worked on an art project with Gabe.
Sam who I did offer to give the day off from school work did want it. He was begging me to give him some. He loves the science worksheets I have been giving him.. To funny.
Gabe wanted to share this with everyone. It was the tower that he built. He was so funny because after the first picture I took he made me take this one. In the first none of the labels were showing. LOL.
Have a good night and I will post more tomorrow. It is the unplug your kids project.

Our school day today......
Well today was a decent day as far as school goes. Today was the anniversary of the first transcontinental phone call. So Sam read an article about that and answered some questions. While he worked on that I worked with Gabe on starfall.com. That is where the rough part of the day hit. We started working on his reading today. He was showing all signs of being ready to read. He can tell you all of the letter sounds and even would sit with a book and tell the story with it. So I asked him if he wanted to learn to read. He said yes, so we started. It was just that he did not want to do it with me. It was so frustrating. He was giving me a hard time on all of it, an example of it on one sentence tho. The sentence was "Zac had a nap." He sounded out every letter correctly than told me it said "Mac had a blanket" Oh I wanted to pull my hair out. Then to make matters worse he did it just fine with his dad at lunch time. Oh well on to other things. Sam has taken to studying Space for science. So I was getting things off from learningpages. They have a whole section on space. He liked them so much that he had me print off his math and english sheets there to. They were also space themed. It was his favorite part of the whole day. Well this morning they all worked on life skills. Today I had them strip the sheets off from their beds and wash and dry them. After they had to make their beds.

Well they real fun came after supper when supper was over. It was time for Gabe's science class. We made telphone out of the 2 cans and rope. The kids had so much fun with this and it was a nice experiment on how sound travels. I included some pictures of it.

"I can hear you"

"Maybe if I talk into both of them some one can hear me"

"Hello Sammy are you there?"
"Yes no need to yell"
After that was done Sam started working on his art work. We bought him one of the solar system sets. He started painting tonight. As for Gabe he was supposed to be doing math with daddy but was a little more interested in what his brother was doing.
He did give in tho and started working with him. They did some sorting. I had to share the picture tho because I just thought that it was so sweet.
Well that is it for now. I hope that everyone has a great night. I have to go and finalize the lessons for tomorrow. We are having a field trip to the beach.. The kids are going to catch some meteorites. Should be fun. I will try and post pictures tomorrow. check here for the lesson on it.

A meme .....
The Rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6) Let the fun begin!

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1.) Ok I think that I will be a brave one and say my weight. I am actually extremely over weight, not exaggerating I could lose close to 100 pounds. I am not by any means saying that this is a good thing. I have actually taken the right steps, in hopes that my children will see a good influence instead of a bad, and got a treadmill after Christmas. To date I have lost 15 pounds this month. Lets just hope the rest goes as smoothly.

2.) Ok now some not as depressing ones....I love photos. Taking them that is. I mean how can I resist, Have you seen my children. Absolutely gorgeous, good chance that is just a biast (sp?) mom talking but I am sticking to my story.

3.) I love being outside. I am trying to get the family into camping. Hopefully by this summer we will get to go.

4.) I am a crafty person. I love looking at things and seeing if I can make it myself. Any way to save some money and it feels good to make something with your own two hands.

5.) I love movies. Anything from Kick butt action films to a really good tear jerker. I could do with out the sci fi tho. I will watch it for my dh tho. It is some of his favorites.

6.) Ok last one....I love to read. Mostly mysteries but usually ends up a lot of kids books. Hopefully that will change one of these days and I will get some extra time to read something for me. Oh well a book is a book right. At least I get a chance to read.

Ok now that was not to painful. It says that I have to tag three people.

First I am going to tag Mrs. Darling at Dishpan Dribble. Her blog is great if you have not checked it out please. Her entries are very informative.

Next I am going to tag Shauna at Waterfront learning. She always has helpful links so make sure to check it out.

Last but not least I am going to tag Jennifer at Little Acorn Treehouse. Another informative blog. So check this one out to.

All three of these women a really kind a have such terrific blogs. I always come away wanting to do so much more with my children after reading what they do with theirs. So check them out.

Just a quick little note...I just updated my shelfari. So please check out all of the new books that I added.

Our day today....
Today was the California Goldrush day. I had Sam read this book, it was all about the history of the Goldrush. Then he answered a Question sheet his dad made for him. I got this picture of him on the couch reading it. It thought that he looked so cozy in his pj's. Well that was his English class.
Gabe I had practice his writting. He worked on letters A, B, C, D. I printed out great sheets from Starfall.com and laminated them all so he can use them again and again.
When he was done I let him do his sensory work, It was cornmeal. He was so excited when I told him that he could use his cars in it. He started bouncing up and down saying "Sammy I get to use my cars in the cornmeal!!!" he is very cute when he gets excited like that.
If his day was not already perfect from getting to do the cornmeal, I made it even better. I told him that he got to do puzzles for math class. It was like christmas morning all over again (if you see in the picture he is actually doing a Santa puzzle).
Well he also had a life skills class and gym class today to. For Life Skills I had him sweep the floors using the swiffer sweeper. That was a ton of fun to him. Sam got to vaccum using the swiffer carpet flicker for his life skills class. For gym I had them do the Penguin hop. they had a blast with that one. In true boys fashion they had monsters chasing them from iceburg to iceburg.
Sam had one other class today. It was geography class. I had him put together some puzzle maps. He has got to be the cutest nerd ever because when I told him that is what he was going to do, he had one response about the homemade one that I made him. It was "Can I please study how the roads go when it is together?" Of course I said yes, I am kind like that. He is so funny though. Today was a light day around here. The kids are actually always asking to learn. We thought to take advantage of this and the have lessons every day. Some days are fuller than others. The only thing the kids say is that the light days are to light. I guess this is what would be called a good problem right? Well I have to go and make sure lessons are ready for tomorrow. It is the anniversary of the first transcontinental phone call. We are going to be making phones out of the old way kids used to do it, two can with a long rope in the middle. I can not wait. I think the kids are going to have so much fun with that. All right that is enough for now. Have a good night. I will post more tomorrow.

I have a little to share from yesterday and today. Yesterday was national popcorn day so the boys had some fun with that. For english class Sam read this book and answered a questions about it. He found it really interesting it was full of all kinds of historical facts about popcorn. Then of course they had some popcorn for snack time. They watched the video that we had about popcorn today, a between the lions video, because I forgot that we had it. They finished up popcorn day yesterday by daddy reading them this story. So I think that they had a good day of popcorn. They did have some other activities to. Gabe for english played on starfall.com, he absolutly loved that. Then for math he played with some of the file folder games that I made for him. Sam has started studying space for science class and is in love with it. He watched a video from Bill Nye. He loves the whole series by him. When he finished the video he had some work sheets to do. For math Sam played the card game of war against his Dad so he could work on higher and lower.

Sam finished up with some landform cards. Gabe was all done with his work but he wanted share with his dad how good he was on the math. As you can see dad was impressed.
Today though I woke up with a headache so school was a little less. The kids took it easy on the written work today but we had a little field trip. We were out of milk so the kids and I walked over to the grocery store to get more. They had gym class by walking, science class, and nutrition class. How great is that with going for a walk you get three classes in one. The science was the kids learning about ducks. The pond that we walk by had a bunch of baby ducks. Then for nutrion the kids got to pick out the healthy snacks, They tried Soy milk for the first time and loved it. Ok enough about our days. I am sorry about the rambling, thanks for still reading tho.

Book list #21----

Ok It is time for me to put in the new book list. I thought there was some really cool ones on here. I have slowed the kids down a little bit on reading them because they had them all read in 2 days. So I started this week putting ones that can work with upcoming lessons in my room on the shelf. This way they do not read them before the lesson and I can enjoy it with them. No more "Oh I already read this".

341.) Monstersong by Mathilde Stein
342.) A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin by David A. Adler
343.) Carmine -- A Little More Red by Melissa Sweet
344.) Little Bitty Mousie by Jim Aylesworth
345.) Too Many Frogs by Sandy Asher
346.) The Yellow Balloon by Charlotte Dematons
347.) Z goes Home by Jon Agee
348.) How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning by Rosalyn Schanzer
349.) Do You Have A Hat by Eileen Spinelli
350.) When Gorilla Goes Walking by Nikki Grimes
351.) Flip and Flop by Dawn Apperley
352.) Spaghetti Eddie by Ryan San Angelo
353.) The Troll Bridge Troll by Patricia Rae Wolff
354.) This Train by Paul Collicutt
355.) Home Run by Robert Burleigh
356.) Art Auction Mystery by Anna Nilsen
357.) Action Jackson by Jan Greeenberg
358.) The Football That Won.... by Michael Sampson
359.) Popcorn at the Palace by Emily Arnold McCully

Ok so that is the list for this week, I will try to update the Shelfari bookshelf in the next couple of days. One big favorite on the list this week is the " How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning". It was a really humorus book about his life. Sam of course is enjoying all of the Ben Fraklin books on the list. Gabe really enjoyed "Flip and Flop". It was a book about two brother penguins. He thought that was really fun. The "Art Auction Mystery" is one that I am looking foward to going through with Sam. I have it set aside for the upcoming puzzle day. He has to figure out who put all of the forgieries in. Looks very cool. Another one that I found interesting was "The Yellow Balloon". It is actually a picture book no story. The pictures are great though and Gabe is a type of kid that loves to make his own story up so it is perfect for him.

Ok a little bit of catch up here. We took some time to regroup because of things that were happening around here. So today was our first day back to school. It was a good day, a few portions not so good though. Oh well what are you to do. The first picture I have here is Sam's Unplug your kids project. The theme was to use toothpicks but I was a little uncertian about that. So we used Kapla blocks instead. We tried to get Gabe to do one but he just did not want to this week. Check out everyone elses posted here.
Edit--Sam did want me to share that he has done a toothpick project in the past. see here
Now for our school day. I will get the not so good parts out of the way first. It took both boys two hours to do the english( see told you it was not pretty). For Gabe we set up an alphabet store and he had to find something for each letter to go in it. The boy wanted to put legos for every letter. Sam had to read a story about Martin Luther King Jr and answer a question sheet about it. And all of that took each of them two hours. (ZZZZZ.... oh sorry awake now)

We did have some fun parts of the day though. This is a picture of Gabe doing his science he had a great time. We discovered that salt stays behind when water dries up. He painted the page with Salt water then we dried it with a blow drier. It was really neat because it left salt crystals behind on the paper. It kind of looked like the night sky.
Here is Sam working on his Art and music class. We art starting to study space so the boys made their own astronauts. As you see Sam is very proud of the work that he is doing. I was proud of the both of them because as you see both astronauts are girls. Yeah my boys do think girls can do anything, they are listening to me. LOL.
The top one is the one that Gabe did. I helped with his because he is not quite up to the area of cutting that he should be. Sam's though, shown below, was all done by him and he did a great job.
For Sams science class today he had o make a submarine. This is actually the anniversary of the first submarine launch. So in honor of that he made this. He still has some kinks to work out that he will do a little later.
So overall we have had a great day, but what tomorrow holds is anyones guess. I will be back with a book entry tomorrow. Have a great night.

A really long post----

Ok I am sorry that it such a long one, but I have a few things to share. I will start out with my weekly book list. This will be our 20th posting for the list. It really is starting to get long.

326.) The Z was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg
327.) Puff The Magic Dragon by Peter Yarrow
328.) Sweet Tooth by Margie Palatini
329.) Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed
330.) A World of Wonders by J. Patrick Lewis
331.) M is for Masterpiece by David Domeniconi
332.) Toy Boat by Randall DeSeve
333.) Bear's New Friend by Karma Wilson
334.) Bear wants more by Karma Wilson
335.) Our Class Took a Trip to the Zoo by Shirley Neitzel
336.) Toys Go Out by Emily Jenkins
337.) Trouble With Wishes by Diane Stanley
338.) The Magic School Bus--Lost in the Solar System by Joanna Cole
339.) Pirate Pete's Giant Adventure by Kim Kennedy
340.) Abe Lincoln--The Boy Who Loved Books by Kay Winters


Gabe really enjoyed "Pirate Pete's Giant Adventure". He has really been into Giants lately. he think that when you become and Adult you become a Giant. Very cute. Sam enjoyed the book "Four Feet, Two Sandals". He found it really interesting. I also got the book for Sam called "Abe Lincoln--The Boy Who Loved Books". It was right up his alley. It dealt with a president and books, perfect for him.

My friend Sherry gave me a link with recipes that kids can make all by themselves. See Here. Gabe tried out his first recipe and had a great time with it. He made Coconut Bananas. I put a pisture below, It does not do them justice. They were really yummy. He sliced the bananas in to chunks. Then he dipped each chunk in Orange juice to prevent browning. After that he coated them in coconut. Really Yummy. The kids loved it.
Now on to Sam. He is the cutest little book worm ever. This is how he spent his morning. He got a new book last night and loved it. Click here to see what the book was.
I am going to try and get more post in soon. I just have really been busy to trying to get ready for the upcoming tax season :(. DH is an accountant so I am about to become a tax season widow once again. Got to get ready for that.

Unplug your kids #10----
This weeks project was to do a sculpture. I ran out of time this weekend to get this done with the kids. This morning I threw together some playdough so that they could make the sculptures. They were very happy with this. I let Sam take the pictures when he was done and he came out with some very cute ones. The first one is of his sculpture. He calls it "Sam and the Hoover Dam". He was very proud of that name. LOL. He is such a cutie.

These next few of Gabe were so cute I could not decided which ones to put on. So I put them all on. I asked Gabe what he called his. He said "Mommy" , "thats because I love you." awwww to sweet he is.


Well when I left them to post this they were still playing with it and having a great time.
Well I have to go for a walk on the treadmill but please check out any of the other project posted at unplug your kids.

Books---
I have been sharing my list with you about all of the story books that we have been reading but no school books. I felt that it was alot to put all of my books on. It would have been really overwhelming. Then I saw on Kate's blog a way I could do it. She had a book shelf and I thought that was a perfect idea to keep our "school" books on. Thanks for the great idea Kate! So I added one on to our side bar. I did not even put on all of the books. I just put on the ones that we are using for school lessons. Sam has a pile of reference books that he goes through just for fun. Those are not on there. You should see all of the silly looks we get when we leave the library. All four of us walk out carrying the biggest stack of books that we can, it is a site. So if anyone is curious about the school books that we are using right now take a peek on our book shelf and I will be back in a couple of days with a new story book list.

We have been so busy latley that I decided to take some down time with the kids. We have been having some simple times. I had the kids doing their laundry for some life skills.
Sam of course worked hard through the whole thing, as you can see though Gabe had other ideas. I thought that they were so cute sitting together doing the laundry.
When they had some time later I found them later in the living room building with legos. They do so much for my heart. This is why I homeschool, I get to have these moments every day.

I read on one of my online groups about a polar lesson idea. You have some icy water and have the kids feel it to see how cold it is. Then you explain about the blubber on animals that live in that area so they can stay warm. To demonstrate that you take a plastic bag and fill it with crisco. Then take another bag to cover the kids hand. Then they stick that hand into the crisco and put the whole thing in the water. I tried it to see if it really worked and it did. A very neat project. As you can see they really enjoyed it.