A peek into what we have been doing lately.....

Edited to Add: I forgot to mention that Sam also did a blog entry. An original story by him. Please check it out over here. Make sure to leave a comment if you like it. He would be over the moon if you did.

I have been showing what has been going on with Gabe over the last few days but have not been showing much about school in general. Here is a little peek into all of the school we have been doing.
We started working on the state capitals with Gabe. It turned into a little bit of a life lesson for Sam. See Sam learned the state capitals awhile ago, he knew them cold. Since he did he thought that he would always no them, even with out reviewing them. He He, when they started playing the game it was funny. He kept running to his room saying that he is not the right person to do this with him. Even though the assignment was ment for Gabe, Sam did some learning to.

Since the boys are still working on Japan, they made kites for art class. It was very cute, Sam taught the class. He decided to make it like one of the Koi kites popular in Japan. Then they painted one side and folded in half to transfer the pattern.

I just love the look on Sam's face here. We were playing a history vocab game and I got a word that he really wanted. He is so funnny.

This was actually the picture taken at the begining of the reading yesterday. See everything was nice and calm. Ten minutes later the floodgates just opened up on him.

Every Wednesday I work on oral stimulation with Gabe for his sensory time. This week they went outside to blow bubbles. Sam was having tons of fun just trying to pop them.

Here are a couple shots from math today. Sam worked three digit subtraction on a FFG. Here he is double checking his answers. Gabe played his new game called Shop Till You Drop. This game is great because it does not only work math skills, it works english to because they have to do writing.

That is just a little of what we have been up to. I will be back with more soon. Hope you enjoyed it.

Can we say worst mommy?

At least that is how I feel when this happens. Know what brought this on, I introduced a new book.
I know I am such a horrible mom. We have a series of readers for him to teach him how to read. The series has different levels to them. He recently mastered the set he was on so his dad and both felt he should move on to the next level. Well he did not think so, My stubborn little child. Everything starts out fine I am calm and he is to. Then he starts to fight at every little thing. It is so frustrating that I want to scream by the time that dh gets home for lunch. He then steps in and trys to help. I mean he is fresh and not stressed at all. Gabe works for him a little better. As you can see though in the picture. He still can frustrate.

So does any one have any ideas on how to get him to respond better to the new book? I know that it is not because he is not ready. He shows all signs of reading, he just hates having to work. He prefers to play all the time. PLEASE HELP!!!! Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

Wordless Wednesday

Just one of those days......

I had the best of intentions, really I did. I wanted Gabe to work on his writing today, so i was going to have him write in shaving cream. Well, scroll down to see how that went.

At least I got him to write out two words before this all happened. I put Gabe in the shower after all of this. He proeceded to the hokey pokey. Well my days are never boring with this kid around.

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Uncle Anthony!!!!!

A Penguin Ride

I mentioned in the past that each week I give the boys a little skit to do. Doing the skit itself covers English for the day because they work on public speaking. Then I cover the arts with them because they are in complete control of the set and costume design. The only thing that Dh or I do is video tape them. (the boys love watching themselves back) I have been getting my skit ideas from this book. I found it at the library and it is full of wonderful ideas. What I like best about it is that the kids are responsible for coming up with all of their own words. It only gives the setting and what is happening. They need to figure out the rest. So I hope you enjoy their version of "A Penguin Ride"

So Many Animals, So Little Time

So this is some of our shots over the last few days. This first project was a huge hit. (and it only cost me a dollar :))
I decided that since Gabe is learning about Zoo Keepers, it would be fun to have them make their own zoos. I went to the dollar store to pick up some poster board (they were out of white, so I had to go with yellow). The boys used their crayons to draw the cages. For the animals, they each have a planet earth sticker book. It makes for great animals. They worked on them for a good hour and a half. It was so wonderful and peaceful.

After school work was all done Gabe decided to make another zoo. I love when homeschooling carries into their play. He was so cute how he put all of the animals into their little areas. After I took the picture he brought out some of his Rescue Heroes to be the Zoo Keepers.

Sam spent some time on his globe learning different facts. He was so excited, he loves this globe.

Gabe helped make playdough. He then proceded to make an animal statue for all of us.

This beauty was a the nature center. She was so close that we could reach out and touch her. Of course we did not do that though.

Our weekly plan.....

Normally I try to post the weekly list on Sunday, but honestly I just did not feel like it. I did not feel up to doing much on the computer this weekend. Now I get to play catch up though, so please bare with me.

Week of Jan. 26th to Feb. 1st

Sam's Week
Geography - Globe time, Rural Japanese Town Picture, Japanese Trivia
Life Skills- Folding, Sewing, laundry, manners, baking
Art and Music - Zoo Maps, Blob Print Kite, "cooking lesson"
Science - Health and Nutrition, experiment
Math - Sabe Cafe, Geometry Kit, Pencil Pockets FFG, Fractions, Iguana Factor
English - Cursive Writing Sheet, Blog Entry, Story Writing, With a cherry on top FFG, "cooking lessons"
Gym- Wii Fit, Walk
History- Vocab Game, Discussion Questions

Gabe's Week
Sensory - Bath, Rock Bin, Bubble Blowing, Playdough
Life Skills - See Sam's List
Art and Music - See Sam's List
Science- Exercise Teacher, Food, Experiment
English- Letter Book ( o page ), Shaving Cream Letter Writing, Story Readers, Boggle Jr, "cooking lesson"
Math - Sabe Cafe, Geometry Kit, Shop till you drop, Puzzle, Fishing Math
Gym - See Sam's List
Social Studies - Community Workers (zoo keeper)

We did get started on some of this today. It was really good the boys had a lot of fun. That makes it a nice way to start the week. Lets just hope the rest of the week keeps up that way. I would post more tonight but I have to go make some FFG's now. The work is never done. I promise that I will post some more tomorrow.

Some Bloggy Love.....

My dear friend Kate gave me another award. She is such a sweetheart. I have never meet her in real life but I would love to. It feels like we have known each other forever. If you have not checked out her blog, please do because you will be hooked to.

So here are the rules for the award

-List six things that make you happy.
-Pass the award on to 5 other bloggers.
-Link back to the person who gave you the award.
-Link to the people you are passing it on to and leave them a comment to let them know.


1.) When the boys learn to help with chores
2.) My silly loving Gabe

3.) Quiet reading time

4.) Brotherly Love

5.) My Happy Sweet Sam

6.) My wonderful sweet family having some good clean fun.

I have a few people that follow my blog through blogger that I would love to pass this on to. Since they should be on the list of things that make me happy. (I love people that like my blog).

1.) Mrs. Darling

2.) Montessori at home

3.) Super Fun Mama

4.) Mommy N

5.) Piseco Mom

A big thanks to Kate again for giving me the award. You always make me feel special!

A Stockpile of pictures

Just to share a some of what we have been up to over these last few days. I got a few of the pictures stockpiled for you.
There has been some excercising going on. I set a limit for him to jump of 800 jumps (there is a counter on it) He was so into the jumping that he did over 1100 jumps. So much energy, it makes me tired to watch. LOL.

Gabe played his new game about sight words with his dad. I thought the game was great because it was made for different levels. The card that he had to write on was two sided. One side the words he had to find was preprinted to help the kids still working on writing. It is great because he can grow with it.

Sam spent time just watching the inaguration. He is such a fan of anything presidential.

Dh and I made a new game for Gabe to practice learning where his continents are. Dh printed a map of the world and he put it into a file folder to make a game board. I found a bunch of animal cards broken down by continents here. I then made them into deck of playing cards. The goal of the game was to get one of the cubes on each continent first. It was fun I just have to work on it a little bit more.

I found a cute online coloring sheet for Gabe to do. As you can see from the picture it was getting a bit enthusiastic on the coloring. I let him play for a little bit. Then I stepped in and tried to direct him so we could finish up. When I walked up he was very funny. He told me that was just having to much fun. LOL!

For geography Sam made a wonderful tab book about Japan that we found on Enchantedlearning.com.

Some Serious playtime went on of course.

Sam made a cats eye game. There was two buttons for the cats eyes. He made some holes in the board where the eyes should go. The object was to get the buttons in the holes.

Today he worked on land forms. I printed out some landforms on to strips. Then he went to this world map and had to put them in the right spots.

Gabe played Junior scrabble with me for english. He is getting so good at his reading of the words.

Sam practiced some 3 digit adding with a monster math FFG.

This is an ongoing science project. Dh has a plant in his office that all it needs it water to regrow. If the leaves are striped off they are supposed to regrow. I think it is actually going to work. I will keep you posted.

Book List ....A Zoo Edition

I have a special edition of books for you this week. Gabe is working on community workers and choose to start with zoo keepers. I got a bunch all about zookeepers for him. I also picked up a few story books that I thought that I would share with you. If Anything Ever Goes Wrong At The Zoo by Mary Jean Hendrick

Little Leslie loves going to the zoo every week with her mom. She really wants to have an animal of her own to take home. So everyweek she invites a different animal to come home. The reply is always that the animal needs something special to live a good life. So she tells them that she has that so if anything ever goes wrong at the zoo they can come to her house. Well one day something does go wrong and see what happens.

Animal Strike at the Zoo, It's True! by Karma Wilson

I thought that this book was really sweet. All of the animals feel like they overworked and underappreciated that the go on strike. The zookeeper gives into some of the demands but the animals stay on strike. Then one day a little girl arrives at the zoo for a visit. She becomes very sad when she sees that all the animals are just sitting around doing nothing. Pick it up and see what the animals do when they see the little girl crying. Do Kangaroo's Were Seat Belts? by Jane Kurtz
This has become a fast favorite in our house. Gabe request us to read it everynight. Then when we finish he ask Sam to read it in their room. The story is about a little boy that is so curious how different things would work if he was different animals. His mom is so patient about all of the questions. The way that she answers them teaches the kids different things about the animals. A very sweet and inormative book! A Children's Zoo by Tana Hoban
A wonderful picture book for little kids. It gives simple little descriptions of each animal with big pictures of each of them. Wild About Books by Judy Sierra
A silly librarian makes a mistake by parking the book mobile in the zoo. She starts reading aloud and the animals come running. The animals soon become very interested in what she is reading. They all want to start reading their own books. This when all of the fun really starts. Check it out you will really enjoy it.