ART, SCIENCE, COOKING, LAPBOOKS, and MORE....
Our week all wrapped up.
As I mentioned in a previous entry Gabe is now home with us full time and it has been hectic but good. I have been having a harder time getting online to update though because of him being home. So sorry it is a long entry but this is what we have been up to over the past week. The boys had some art classes with us and here are the pictures of their finished products.

This one is done by Gabe. It was his own creation, not an assignment. He called it Mr. Windmister. I thought it was very cute. He mounded up the modeling clay and stuck a pencil in the top. Then he took his number stones and stuck them all around it.
I had the boys make some Thanksiving puppets as one of their projects. They are Pilgrims and Turkeys. Can you guess which boy colored which? LOL:)

These are the Thankful turkeys that the boys made. I had cut out a bunch of feathers and a body of the turkey. Then the boys glued on the feathers. They finished it off by writing the things that they were thankful for on the bellies.

We did some cooking with the boys this week. They made supper on Monday. Since we are studying Mexico they made a yummy meal of mexican food. Gabe made a Taco Salad from his cook book and Sam made some Salsa rollups that we had found. It was all really delicious and the boys were really proud of themselves. All in all it was a great night. If any one wants the recipe let me know, I will be happy to share them.

We have done a lot of science projects over the week, unfortunetly I did not get pictures of them all. This one though was called submersible. It is kind of hard to see in the picture but there is a paper clip folded the a straw over it. On the bottom of it there is some clay added for weight. When the bottle was squeezed the kids could make it rise and dive like a submarine.

One of the things we did for Gym class this week was to g for a bike ride. Gabe is still a little scared riding. Sam tried to make him feel better by putting some knee pads on him. It made him feel better except that they hurt being on. A little to small, oh well still sweet.

I thought this was cute. Gabe really wanted to learn how to play checkers with his Dad. Rob took time during his lunch break the other day to help him learn. He loved it because he won, with daddy's help of course. LOL

This was one of Gabe's Sensory classes. It was called Spirited Shepards. The obect was for the boys to blow the sheep (cotton balls) into the corral. I put the shower curtain down because I did not want any friction for them when the cotton ball to move. They had a lot of fun with this project.

This is the cover to the families first attempt at Lapbooking. This one was made by Daddy for Sam. Sam liked it so much that he is working on one about Squanto and the Pilgrims. I took some shots of the inside, they are shown below.

Lapbooks are alot of fun. We already have plans to make a whole lot more. For anyone that has to put a portfolio together for evaluation. This is a great way to show off what the kids have learned.

Unplug your kids 3---

The color red...
We have been having a lot of fun doing these projects from Unplug your Kids. This week the project was to something with the color red. I wanted to let the boys choose what they wanted for the art project. They thought that our tye-dyed t-shirts were really fun to make, so they wanted to do that again. They wanted to try and add some more colors in than just red though, so I said that it was fine. Below is pictures of their creations.

This beauty was done by Gabe,

and this one is Sams.

We plan on taking the t-shirts, along with others that we have, and stuffing them a little. Then allow the boys to use them as jump pads. Maybe the couch cushions will last longer :) !!

Not many people know this about Gabe but he has been attending the public school system in the special ed pre-K program. That is until recently, we pulled him out. We have no problems with some of the teachers in PS but do have issues with things in the school. Gabe had been in school for one purpose only, it covered some of the therapy that he needed. This school year though seemed to go downhill for him. He was no longer happy and wanting to learn. So we took him out of the program. Even though I have been homeschooling him all along I kinda of left the brunt of it up to the school. Our days had been going good here because Gabe would go to school for a few hours and that was the time that I could work with Sam on things without anybody bothering us. Needless to say I was a little worried at how that would work when Gabe came home. From the picture above you can see that I had nothing to worry about. He has been so sweet being home. It has been working really well and he is learning more than ever. I did have a few things to over come. He had only been at school for 2 1/2 hours, but his teacher gave him movie time. Gabe kept asking on the first day if was going to get movie time here. Ah no.... We do school work here. This week has been a little crazy with Gabe being home and trying to figure out things so I did not get many pictures of their work. I did get some of the art work though, they are below.
This is a suncatcher. I took an overhead projector sheet and traced on it, in black puffy paint, the turkey. When it dried I let the boys paint them in.
This one is Gabes! He really likes the color red!
This one is Sam's! Right now he is in the "proud to be different" phase.
This picture I added in because I thought it was sweet. Gabe played Tinker toys with his dad. So that is a little look into our life right now.

Book List #12----
So here is my newest list for everyone. We are getting so close to 200 books already. At the rate that the boys have been going through them it would be higher, but we only go to the library once a week. They read almost all of them the day we bring them home. We will be at our 1000 books goal soon. I actually asked Sam yesterday where his favorite place to go was. He said of course the Library was. My silly boy.

181.) The Three Little Rigs by David Gordon
182.) An Outlaw Thanksgiving by Emily Arnold McCully
183.) I.Q., It's Time by Mary Ann Fraser
184.) Owen & Mzee--The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship by Isabella and Craig Hatkoff
185.) Owen & Mzee -- The Language of Friendship by Isabella and Craig Hatkoff
186.) The Elephant's Pillow by Diane Reynolds Roome
187.) The Three Billy Goats Gruff Retold By Janet Stevens
188.) Brothers of the Knight by Debbie Allen
189.) Donkey Trouble by Ed Young
190.) T is for Touchdown--A Football Alphabet by Brad Herzog
191.) The Tale of the Firebird by Gennady Spirin
192.) Count on Us-American Women in the Military by Amy Nathan
193.) A. Lincoln and Me by Louise Borden

So far on this list I really like the Owen & Mzee books. It is a really sweet story with wonderful photos. i highly recommend it for anyone with kids that love animals. Gabe really enjoyed the Three Little Rigs, it is done to a Three Little Pigs theme. I also felt that the Elephant's Pillow was really sweet. The story was a really well done and the pictures were beautiful. Next week we will top the 200 hundred mark, So make sure to check back and see what there is.

Random Shots and even a little school--

This first picture Sam took of his little brother. He thought that he was being cute riding on the truck.
This one Gabe building with legos. He told me that it was his city. He was so proud!
My little strong man. He is so funny Sam was trying to get into his bed to do some reading. When he goes into his bed to read he usually brings up the ladder so that his little brother will not bother him. His brother decided to be helpful and put the ladder up for him today. He just did not wait for Sam to get off from it.
They have even enjoyed some painting this week. Sam has really gotten into his painting so we actually got him some canvas to paint on. Gabe just loves watching his big brother work.
Here is a shot of Gabe doing his math work. I put a target down for him and he had to stand behind the line. Then he would throw bean bags at the target. He had to count up which ones made it into the target then the ones that did not make it into the target. He had a good time with that. We have done a lot more that I will try to post about this weekend.

The Coolest Art Project--

If you take this.....

And use these......

You can do this!!!

This is one of the funnest Tye-dye's ever. This site has really cool experiment to do with science. The tye dye was done with permanent markers and rubbing alcohol. So simple to do that even my youngest can do it. (with adult supervision of course ;)) To start with you take a white t-shirt and place a plastic cup underneath. (we just used old plastic containers) . Attach the t-shirt to it with an elastic. Let your child draw whatever design they want on the spot. When finished take a dropper and drop the rubbing alcohol in the center of the design. For a little better directions click here, they even have a video to watch. I hope everyone enjoys this project as much as we have.

It's Haiku Time!!!

Well we enjoyed our last "unplug your kid" project so much that we joined in on this one to. This time the project was to write a Haiku. Our 7 year old took on the project and we could not be more proud of him. He was a little nervous at first about the whole project but he did it and we thought that he did amazing. We started out by going to the library to see what books we found on Haiku's. I found a great one called Asian Arts and Crafts for Creative Kids -- Haiku by Patricia Donegan.

Here is a picture of him reading it to us when he finished it. I think he was really proud of himself for doing it.

This is his finished product. The haiku states....

My nature is fun

It is interesting

And it is Cool!

I hope everyone enjoys. This project was fun. Make sure to check back for the next unplug your kid project. It is RED!

Ice Cream and Nature Walks---
Today was such a beautiful day that we decided to take the boys for a walk and get some ice cream. There is a beautiful fountain outside the ice cream shop that the boys had fun playing there.












Every one was having fun hanging around and making sure that all ice cream was taken care of.


















After we were finished there we walked next door to the lake by the shoping center. It was amazing that ice cream turned into a nature walk. The tree had a really cool lizard climbing up it. There was some really neat birds around to.












The boys were playing up in a tree. They had been wanting to climb a tree for so long that they were sad when we made them get down.


























As we were leaving Gabe found a really intresting item. Not really sure what it was. It looked like a really old pine cone. Also here is a shot of the lake that we were next to. Their Dad works walking distance from it so we think that we might take a walk and have a picnic lunch with him.

Sharing Time--
Well I had to share this with everyone that has little one that want to work in the kitchen. I found these sets a Toys R Us, and they are wonderful. I put a link to one of them here but they have about 5 or 6 different sets. We actually bought 2 because they were buy one get one free. Sam picked out the Juicy delights set and Gabe picked out the Around the World Salad set. Each set comes with some amazing cookbooks. The cookbooks are set so that even the non readers can do some of the coking on their own. The equipment that it comes with is actually color coded. It is such a great set. We made one of the juice recipes this morning and it was wonderfully yummy.

This is a picture that Sam took. He wanted me to share it with everyone. It is a picture of all things you can use to weigh against water on the scale.
I hope that everyone is having a great weekend.

Book List 11---
Ok so here is my newest list of books. For some reason we went with a lot of Thanksgiving theme. I know you are all saying that Thanksgiving is coming but I usually wait until the week before. I just went really early this time. Oh well, they are really cute.

167.) The True Story of The 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
168.) The Berenstain Bears' Thanksgiving by Stan and Jan Berenstain
169.) Goldilocks and the Three Martians by Stu Smith
170.) Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten by Joseph Slate
171.) Over The River -- A Turkey's Tale by Derek Anderson
172.) Three Feet Small by Michael J.Rosen
173.) Tucker's Apple-Dandy Day by Susan Winget
174.) Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems
175.) Arthur's Thanksgiving by Marc Brown
176.) Thanksgiving is Here! by Diane Goode
177.) One Tough Turkey-- A Thanksgiving Story by Steven Kroll
178.) Sheriff Sally Gopher And The Thanksgiving Caper by Robert Quackenbush
179.) My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
180.) Journey Around New York From A to Z by Martha and Heather Zschock

I wanted to tell about the Miss Bindergarten books. It is a wonderful series of books. It is based around the alphabet and animals. A very cute series. I hope that you all enjoy the list. The boys and I have been having such a great time. Look foward to many more great books since there is three library cards among the family now. Gabe is so proud to have his own now.

Smile of the Day---
He is so mad at me right now for posting this, but I thought that it was to cute to pass up. He had just finished eating a lollipop. To cute.

Brothers---
My boys are so sweet to each other (sometimes that is). The pictures that I have included here are ones that Sam took of his little brother. He thought that he was so cute and wanted to share that with everyone. How sweet is that? So I hope everyone enjoys them.