Weekend Wackiness

What did everyone do this weekend. It was a fun weekend here. Between running errands and taking the kids to dance class, we still squeezed in some family time. We played games and even went to the Science Museum for a field trip.
Dh and I played Monopoly jr. with Gabe. These two shots are of his victory dance. The kid beat us BAD. Donald Trump better watch out, we have the next real estate mogul. LOL. I love the bottom one. To funny.

With Sam we played ATM Action. It is a fun game to teach kids about money. The idea of the game is to build up the biggest bank account. You do this by going around the board trying to earn money, you can land on bills though. (electric, cable, water, etc.) . The poor kid did not land on one single spot to make money. By the end he was so far in the hole it was not even funny. He has asked to play again though, so that is good.

We bought this new toy for the boys this weekend. It is a puzzle castle game. We bought it here at target. As you can see from the picture the boys are absolutly loving it. I was so excited to get this shot of Sam, look how happy he is.

Our science museum has a mini golf course at it. It is really cute. The whole theme for it is the enviorment. I had to take some pictures of my cute golfers on it. This is the first time Gabe has really played with out our help. He did really good.

Sam got a little disappointed because he did not get a hole in one this time. Still an excellent score though.

Of course I can not forget my other favorite golfer :).

Factual Friday on a Sunday....

Ok I know I am late again. I swear I am going to get this done on time again. I hope that you are enjoying the animal facts. I find them really interesting. I just wish that I had more time in the day to devote to them. This weeks animals that I did were Zebra's and Sea Lions. 1.) At first glance zebras in a herd might all look alike, but their stripe patterns are as distinctive as fingerprints are in man. Scientists can identify individual zebras by comparing patterns, stripe widths, color and scars.

2.) Zebra's live in family groups made up of a stallion, several mares and their offspring.

3.) Zebra's have excellent hearing and eyesight. They can run at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour.

4.) A zebra's eyesight at night is thought to be about as good as that of a cat or an owl.

5.) Zebras take dust or mud baths to get clean. They shake the dirt off to get rid of loose hair and flaky skin. What's left protects them from sun, wind, and insects.

6.) Zebras have their own “smile”—a bared-teeth grimace that is a greeting and helps prevent aggression.

7.) Zebras are attracted to black-and-white stripes. Even if stripes are painted on a wall, a zebra will tend to go stand next to it!

8.) They communicate using the position of their ears and tail.

9.) Their shiny coats can dissipate three quarters of incoming heat.

10.) Ancient Romans kept zebras in their circuses and called them "Horse-Tigers" because of their strips. In Europe Zebras would sometimes pull the carriages of royalty and the wealthy.

1.) There is only two differences between a Seal and a Sea Lion. The Sea lion has ears and a seal does not. Also a Sea lion can move it hind flippers to walk on land and a seal can not.

2.) Sea Lions do not need to drink water because they get all of their water from the food they eat.

3.) A group of Sea lions in the water is called a raft. On land or floating ice they are called a colony.

4.) Sea Lions can swim up to 25 miles per hour for short bursts.

5.) Sea Lion pups are born on land called rookery.

6.) A sea lion dives up to 600 feet in search of food. They can stay under water for 40 minutes.

7.) Stellar Sea Lions are the largest of the sea lions. They have thick, hairy necks that look like lions mane.

8.) California sea lions are among the most vocal mammals, Their vocalizations include barks, roars, growls, and grunts.

9.) Male Steller sea lions don’t eat during the breeding season. They care more about protecting their territory and making sure their females don’t run off with another male!

10.) Each long whisker, called a vibrissa, is loosely attached to the sea lion’s upper lip. Like a straw in a soda bottle, each whisker can rotate around with the underwater currents, letting the sea lion "feel" any food swimming nearby.

Ok so I should be back on friday with another list, hopefully. LOL.

Playdough, Puzzles, and Cookies.....What a day!!!!

It was a really great day today. It started out making playdough with Gabe so he good do some sensory work. Then I found this wonderful idea in this book that I got from the library. It was coloring with playdough.
You just take any coloring book that you have and pull out some pictures. Then you stick the pictures inside a plastic bag. The kids then fill in the picture with playdough.

Of course you have so many other things to make with playdough. Like this Snowman Jazz. Gabe mounded up the playdough then removed his transformers head and stuck it on. Crazy child. LOL.

Math class for Gabe was to make this puzzle. Using those logic skills. He was having fun so his brother and I joined in to. Then for Sam's math he practiced fractions making cookies. Gabe helped out on this to because it was also their life skills lesson to practice baking.

I also thought that I would share one of the ways that I organize our week. This is a shot of my planner for just this week. It gets a little crazy but it gives me enough room to write out a list for each of the boys, then some notes on the bottom. So just a little peek in to my crazy mind! LOL

This is a short little video (45 seconds) about the boys play they put on today. I am having them put on a little skit each week to work on public speaking. It also covers their art and music because they design the set and costumes. This one is called "Poison Water". They had to pretend to be dying of thirst. The last person saves the one before him from drinking it. I think the video is so cute because they did the entire thing themselves. I only video taped it.

A little of what we did plus a book list......

Sam was trying learn about Pronouns. I made this file folder game for him called Pizza Nut. Unfortunetly there was a miss print and it did work out well. Sam got a great idea to check out Iknowthat.com. He found a great game to work on it. See here. I just love it when he figures things out like that. It is so nice to see his self esteem rise.

For Gabe's math class he made some supper. He was so excited because he got to crack eggs for the first time. It quickly became his favorite part of the day. While he was making it he had to stir the eggs with milk. He informed me that this was how we made Egg Nog. Funny kid because as soon as he finished saying that he said it was almost ready to be cheese. We were not making either. He cracks me up.

For Geography Sam and I played our Planet Earth Geography Game that we made. It was amazing I actually won. Sam is so strong in geography it hard to beat him at this subject.

I shared the musical instruments that the boys got yesterday with you. I thought you might like to see what quickly became their favorite one. The Gong. Surprised!!! They are so funny. Every time they finish something they ring it. It cracks me up.

Harvey Moon, Museum Boy by Pat Cummings

I saw a little bit of this book cover sticking out of the shelf at the library. I knew right away that I had to get it for my boys. They dream of being able to do what this boy does. I thought that this was a really cute story. In ways it reminded me of the movie Night at the Museum. Really a cute story.

The Jelly Beans and the Big Dance by Laura Numeroff

Of course any storybook that has a dance theme to it gets the boys attention (they are really loving dance class) This one sold me for being Laura Numeroff, I love her books. Of course she did not fail here. This story is about a little girl that loves to dance an takes a dance class. It is rough in the first few classes, none of the girls are getting along. That is until she finds a special way to get them all working together.

No More Kissing by Emma Chichester Clark

A book with monkey's is always perfect for this family. After all we have our own little monkey (Gabe). He also is very pickey about his kisses. You are only allowed to give kisses on his cheek except for special occasions. Alot like this story.

Thank goodness it was only blogger....

I posted a couple of hours ago and said that I could not post any photos. What ever the situation was it got fixed. So here are the pictures from today.
We recently moved Sam's desk out of our room and into his. He is loving it in there. Today he worked on short story writing for english. I can not get over how old he looks in this picture. He is just growing up way to fast.

The boys each worked on Japans timeline. The picture above is a small portion of the one that Sam is doing. Gabe though needs to learn more about timelines in general. For him I wrote a couple of the events out with year it happened on it. Once he mastered putting them in order he reall wanted to put them in a circle. He is such a cutie.

For Life skills the boys had to do their laundry today. Sam usually takes control of doing the laundry but he was busy with his other work. So I decided that it was time to teach Gabe how to get it going. He did pretty well at it, except for the pouring of laundry detergent all over my hands, LOL.

Gabe worked on his story readers with me. I love this picture. While he was reading to me I made a video of him reading. I played it back after he finished and he was so happy seeing himself. I mean look at that smile.

There was another game of Puffin Stuff. This is a fun sensory activity for oral issues. You put all of the different items in front of him and he has to try and move it with only the use of a straw.

For art class the kids made these adorable origami cups. They can not wait to try them out. LOL. So that is finally all of our day. I hope that you enjoyed it.

What's the name of that song......

I had a bunch of pictures to share with you guys about our day. I am having problems uploading the photos. I do not know if it is my computer or blogger. It did let me load this video though so you can see part of our day. The boys were given some money for Christmas and the package arrived today. They bought the set of instruments shown in the video. Which are these here. I think that they are really worth the money if you are looking for a nice set of instruments. They each got a new board game to. Sam really wanted this one to work on some math skills. Gabe needs to work on his reading skills so he got this one. The boys also got excited because they got a new cookbook to. We originally got this from the library and knew right away that we had to have it. All of this and the school work got done to. All in all not a bad day.

I do not usually have very many questions here but when I do I love to answer them. Kate asked what kind of needle do I use with the boys sewing. I originally started out with the plastic needles for them but that did not last long. They both now use regular needles. Sam does really well with his. He even uses the sewing machine. Gabe does o.k. with a regular needle as long as he pays attention, otherwise he sticks himself with the needle. He actually surprised me this week. I gave him his bean bag and told him to stuff it then bring it to me. That silly boy threaded the needle all by himself. He is growing up so fast. ;)

Well off to finish my nightly chores and prep for tomorrows lessons. Hopefully I can get pictures up later.

Our Tuesday.....

Here are a few our shots from today.
The boys had sewing class for Life Skills today. They made these cute little Juggling balls. Then they used them for gym class. They played Nage-Dama. It is an ancient Japanese juggling game. Basically the whole point is to have multiple players keeping balls in the air as long as possible. I did include a short video at the end of the boys attempt at playing it. It was not to successful because Gabe, well was being Gabe.

For sensory work today Gabe played Transformers in the bean bin. He was having alot of fun.

During English class Gabe played Menu Match with me. There is a letter on one and a picture on the other. So you have to match up what letter the picture starts with. It was fun until it ended. Gabe is having a little problem with poor sportsmanship. He actually hit me because he lost. After a little time out, things improved again.

For math Gabe did trampoline math. I wrote simple addition problems on a white board. He had to jump on the trampoline while figuring it out. Once he knew the answer he jumped off and ran to the answer on the mat and called it out.

During Geography the boys worked on a Drawing to scale project. Here are the pictures of their completed assigments. Sam's is on the top and Gabe's is on the bottom.

Sam wrote a blog entry for English today. By the time he got to it today Gabe had already finished all of his work and I was going to make supper. While I make supper I usually let Gabe watch a show but where our computer is that makes it hard for Sam to focus. So I got Smart with that and hung one of their blankets up. It worked he got it done really quick.

What did you guys do today. I would love to know.

Our Start Back To School....

Today was our first official day back to school. It went pretty well over all. So I have some pictures for you.
Dh tried to science with Gabe before he left for work this morning. He is learning about the senses. Today he showed him about sight. Specifically how your eyes can play tricks on you. Dh taught him a trick that makes it look like you have a hole in your hand. Needless to say this was Gabe's favorite class of the day.

Today I gave the boys chopsticks to have them transfer items from one bowl to the next. Sam I made a little harder and gave him pony beads to transfer. Gabe was a little easier, cotton balls, but I forced him to be patient and transfer one at a time.

Normally I do not include picture of the boys in the tub. This time I thought that it would be o.k. because they are pretty cute. He had bath time for a sensory activity. I mentioned in the past that he loves bath time. I think that these pictures show that. He discovered today that if he filled his little bath tub rocket up with water and squeezed it that the water went all the way to the ceiling. That was a lot of fun for him.

Gabe is working on making his own letter book. I got these great alphabet dolls from someone in one of the online groups that I am in. Unfortunetly I do not remember who sorry. What I do is have him color each doll then cut it out. After he cuts it out then he glues it on to a piece of construction paper. Don't you just love todays. He said that the boy is sad and that is why he clored his face blue.

Ohh what is big brother doing? I love this picture because usually Sam gets envious of the work that Gabe has. He does not realize that Gabe gets pretty envious of him to. The project that Sam was working on is contour mapping for geography class. The project was alot of fun all though it did not work out right. Our supplies were less than adequate. We only had small packs of sculpy clay, so we could not make the mountain big enough. Sam wants to try again when we can fix the supplies.

Sam did have a little bit of written work today. He has shown an interest in cursive writing so we gave him a couple of sheets to do. Look how happy he was. Actually he was laughing at me. Go figure he thinks I am funny.

So tune back in tommorow to see what trouble (I mean Learning) we do.

Back to school time.....

Well finally with all of the Holiday rush settling down it is time to get back to schooling. After these last few months Dh and I discussed what we wanted for a school schedule. I mean do we take off in the summer or do we go year round, what should we do. Nice that we finally discuss this after four years of homeschooling right. In all honesty, it is the first chance that we have had. These past four years we have spent trying to figure out the right ways to teach them (very important thing there.) Also Gabe was only schooling with us part time to and now he is with us full time. The last six months have shown us alot to figure it out finally. Over the summer the boys had the freedom to learn on there own and it was really chaotic. There was absolutly no structure to it. Then we came up on the holidays. While there was learning going on, there was alot of other things that were taking focus away from it. So armed with this new information we have decided to go from January to October with schooling. Then during November and December have some activities each day to strengthen their mind but not "real" schooling. Not bad right and it only took us four years to figure it out. LOL.

So today we set into our new schedule and I thought that I would share what some of the activities that we are going to do in our first week back.

Sam's Schedule for this week.
Geography- A Vocab Game of Geography terms, A color and Contour project, and a scale to size project.
Life Skills- Chopstick Transfer, Sewing, Laundry, Manners, Baking
Art and Music- Make a Jewlery box, origami cup, design costumes and sets for a short skit.
Math- Some Long Division, Totally Tut Game, Who Knows FFG, Fractions ( through Baking), and the ATM Game.
English- Practice cursive writing, A Blog Entry, Short Story Writing, Pizza Nut FFG, Public Speaking (short Skit)
Gym- Nage Dame, Obstacle Course
History- Work on Japan Timeline, Read and Answer questions from History of The World book.

Gabe's Schedule for the week.
Life Skills- See Sam's Life Skills
Sensory - Bath, Bean Bin, Puffin Stuff, Play Dough
Art and Music - Letter Book, Origami Cup, Set and Costume design for play.
Math - Math Circus Video, Trampoline/Number Mat, Pirate FFG, Puzzle, Monopoly Jr.
English - Letter book (L page), Menu Match Game, Practice Reading, Trampoline/ Letter mat, Public Speaking (Short Skit)
Gym- See Sam's Gym List
Geography - Scale to Size project
History - Japan Timeline

The kids will also have a field trip to the Science Museum. They will also have Science lessons this week. As I am writing this though Dh has not had a chance to plan them out yet. I will post about them as they happen during the week though. I promise to include lots of pictures from our learning fun this week. So make sure to check back and see what we do. I will also have a book list again and another factual friday entry. Lots of good stuff coming your way.

And now back to the fact list.....

I know that I have been missing on doing these fact list. I am very determined to stay on top of them now. So after this they will go back to their regular schedule of Friday's.
1.) The tigers saliva is antiseptic and comes in handy for cleaning their wounds.

2.) Tigers do not purr.

3.) Tigers move both legs on one side of the body almost simultaneously when they walk.

4.) The tiger's stripes form what is called disruptive camouflage, which is an illusion that appears to change their shape and blend them into their surroundings.

5.) A group of tigers is called a Streak.

6.) Tigers are the largest naturally occurring species of cats.

7.) A tiger's stripes are like fingerprints - no two are alike. In fact the stripes' pattern is often used to identify individual tigers in the wild.

8.) Tigers are largely muscular and rely on stealth and power to bring down a prey rather than speed. Like other big cats most tiger ambushes are unsuccessful.

9.) An adult male tiger in the wild requires around one hundred and fifty kilograms of meat a month.

10.) Tigers are perhaps the most notorious big cat for man-eating. In fact the single greatest man-eater is history is believed to be the Champawat Tigress who killed over four hundred thirty people in India decades ago until she was finally killed by the great Jim Corbett.

1.) The flamingos eye is LARGER than its brain!!

2.) What we call their knees are really their ankles.

3.) Flamingos eat with their head upside down in the water, so they can suck water and food in with the front of their bill.

4.) Flamingos live an average of 20 to 30 years.

5.) Nests are built up by mouthfuls of mud!

6.) Flamingoes can drink water from geysers at temperatures that are almost boiling.

7.) Although flamingos are tropical or subtropical, there is one species that lives high in the Andes Mountains of South America.

8.) The color of a flamingo’s legs differs from species to species.

9.) Flamingoes have been known to fly up to 600 km in one night (373 miles).

10.) Flamingo vocalizations range from nasal honking to grunting to growling. Check out this video that I got of them at the zoo the other day.



I hope that you all enjoy these facts and make sure to check back in at the end of the week for more facts.

A Little Jumping Bean

Yesterday I posted a picture of Gabe playing a trick on me. That of him pretending to sleep. This was him a couple of minutes later. The true him, my little jumping bean.

We bought the new trampoline on New Years Eve. The kids love it. Sam actually starts out every morning jumping 500 times.

A couple of New Years Pictures plus one...

So I promised some pictures here they are. These first two are from the game that we played.
It was alot of fun. Sam was getting frustrated because he kept getting girls. It was really funny the way he would react to finding out his card had a girl on it. He was also a ballerina. LOL.

This last one was taken today. How adorable is he. To bad he is playing a trick on me. If you look closely you can see his little mouth has a smile going on. He is totally faking it and he thinks he is SO FUNNY. This kid is funny, that is if he thought I believed for one minute that he would slow down enough to take a nap. Yeah right, LOL.

Welcoming in 2009...

I hope that everyone had a wonderful New Year's. The best to all of your families in the upcoming year. We had a fun New Years here. We let the kids stay up for the first time. It was a fun time but at the same time they were not to impressed. We played a new game with them. It was called Guess What I am? You put a picture in front of your face and ask questions trying to figure out what you are. Gabe kept telling me what I was when he was not supposed to. So eventually I just watched :(. Oh well I think we just started it to late. His focus was not there. will try earlier next time we play. There was also lots of jumping on our new trampoline. The boys are having so much fun with it. There is a counter attached to it so you can see how many jumps you did. The boys loving trying to beat each other with who can jump more. I have a couple of photos that I will try to post later. I forgot that they are still on the camera. oops.

As for resolutions, of course we have made some. They are the basics, eat better and be more organized. Basically the little things that can make life better. I do plan on blogging a little bit everyday. This is mostly because Homeschooling here in Florida we have to do a portfolio each year. I thought this would be the easiest way to keep track of our daily going ons.

So once again Happy New Year to everyone.