The second week of homeschooling officially for our year was a little more of a struggle BUT Thursday we had Zander’s first spelling quiz – 3 out of 5 right! I am very proud of my often frustrated learner. He is understanding that he has to learn five MORE words over the next week AND practice the two he got wrong. I am so proud of him, he spelled “a”, “all” and “about” correctly. The next set of 5 in our big sight word book are rather simple ones like “and” and “am” but those are GREAT for confidence boosters! Gavin is staggered in time and won’t have his first quiz until next Wednesday. He is starting at the end of the list with words like “yellow” and “would”. First steps to really writing their own sentences and stories.

First quiz

We got a VERY special package in the mail – our Wonder Box that I won from an online draw done by the site The Adventures of Supermom. We had to open it right up and look through…

Wonder box

Even with our not so motivated week I was amazed at how quickly we got through our list of to do’s. Math was conquered, reading done… Trinity started a new workbook with great joy and Emanuel was over the moon with his letter practice. I am so glad that my littles are learning as well as their brothers.

I managed my first tie in of yarn. I had to move onto my second ball of yarn for Ken’s scarf. I think I did a pretty decent job. If you want to learn how to change colours, add that next ball, there are some great left handed instructions in this video. 

Loving the colours

Our investment in beads and plastic string was a great one! As the whole group of them were huddled over the stash creating away! I definitely need to purchase some more. Though there may be an issue with the string and smaller beads. The big draw of the plastic string is that it is easier for the little ones to use and does not fray… but I am sure we will figure it out!

Beading

With results

We ended our week rather quietly. Since Ken was dealing directly with HR in regards to the test code they wanted and NOT the developers it turned out that the HR guy was using a term improperly and muddied the waters. So any plans to really go out and about were completely blown out of the waters. Thankfully we DID make it out to Target to ask questions at the optical place and do a little shopping… oh and get a free cookie. Gotta love the cookie clubs at grocery stores!

Instead they created a Lego tree full of parrots!

Trinity and I did her Wonder Box… I am going to do a separate blog entry on this wonderful amazing gift! I cannot thank Supermom enough for her draw! I have wanted to get Trinity a Wonder Box since they came out with the program and here I had the opportunity to share it with her. I have high hopes that in the new year I can get another one for our budding learner. She was so lovely about sharing it with Echo and Emanuel as well!

Sharing her project with her sister

Miss Echo even let me sit and take a few pictures of her in the sunshine. 

Pretty baby

I have a few freebies to share that I have been linked through emails!!! There is an ABC Notebooking set that is free now… you can find it on Currclick HERE. With Emanuel’s new interest in the Turtleman and the Crocodile Hunter I was so excited to see that Activity Village has added him to their famous people section now 6 years after his death. You can find print outs for him HERE. Moffatt Girls has a free fall themed math print out you can download right now as well. You can find that gem HERE. And there is a daily notebooking set you can download and print off HEREfrom Confessions of a Homeschooler. I hope to utilize these soon. I picked up sheet protectors for reusable notebooking sheets for  Trinity so I guess in my spare time this weekend it is time to make Trinity up some learning material.  

Working together (Zander)

As we continue to attempt to declutter, organize and progress as a family I find myself often debating what to keep… do you keep every paper and piece of art? Choose the best of the bunch? Go random? Well, when I think about it… this blog IS my memory book. Every day I write down the mundane, the whimsical, educational, emotional… all the milestones are here, the art, the interest, the quirks and more… do you think my children will look back at some copy of this and sigh? Or maybe reminisce? More likely, with my bunch, they will shake their heads and wonder at the time mommy spent on this site… the insane focus on each and every step, the massive amount of photography… But I bet they WILL look back and I can say SEE you did this!! Now WHY am I thinking about this? Well on top of the above reasons I got an email last night that deals with keeping memories. You can check out the blog entry on the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog. She has a great free download for dealing with all the wonderful things you have around created by your children. For a schooling OR homeschooling family. 

Speaking (er typing) of milestones, today Echo did TWO shuffling steps! YAY! She was VERY unimpressed by it, would rather I had just swooped down and picked her up… BUT she did it! The twins were right there and saw it, I caught it out of the corner of my eye… and were very congratulatory. What wonderful big brothers she has. 

Standing on her own

Advent has begun here in the Reinsch-Johnson residence and we actually have quite a bit to do each day. We start with our regular calendar and a discussion about the day, then there is the I’ve been good chart that Santa WILL see, they have been told! After that our Perler Bead Advent countdown calendar that we add a shape to and then count the days left. Whew! And then this year the boys brought some items home from church. A little Advent calendar that you flip up a flap for each day and it has a verse and a book… a finding object book with a bit of the Bible to read each day. Today’s reading was Genesis 3, 1-7 about the apple. You then looked at the picture, found the apple and talked about trees and fruit and such. 

Some of the learning fun

But there’s more… today marks the beginning of Activity Villages’s Advent Calendar as well! This is a favourite of ours as it is daily and last year had us end up with 100 new ornaments! This year you make your own village! Most of the kids have opted to string their houses up but Zander is doing the table version. Added to that they have activities and such for each day too. Today was a focus on stockings. Emanuel did the colour by numbers to go with it! I love the series, especially with the time difference as I can access the next day early and get my print outs done and supplies organized early! I can’t wait to see our villages unfold!

Colouring their houses

And the final portion of our Advent season – this is for the twins really – our Polar Express lapbook. Today we did the first two mini books, read the story again (a first time for the little ones to sit through) and folded our folders so we can start piecing it together as we go. Our lapbook is from www.ajourneythroughlearning.com. When I checked their site briefly I was not able to find the exact one we used but if you search on Currclick there are a few options connected to the book. Once we finish the lapbook we will watch the movie again. It really is a very good rendition. 

Gavin has decided HE wants to sew some gifts as well. I am keeping one of his personal designs but after that am giving him free reign to gift out. Right now he is working on a UK pattern (they are great as they don’t use half stitches). It is a joke card and very cute. He has a lot of patience for this and persists even when he gets knots and stabs his finger. 

Hard at work

Zander has opted NOT to sew, instead he focused on time with Echo (he is my sheet holder when I attempt pictures), fun with Lego and he was the first one out the door this afternoon to build a snowman. His exuberance did finally convince Gavin it was a good idea and they BOTH built snowmen… all I have for today is the works in progress but they went for the REAL deal… rocks for eyes and mouths and a carrot for the nose!

Well on its way

Work in progress

Emanuel was my indoors boy with his workbook excitement and a mini craft… We couldn’t find my 3 sided beads (I have them in holiday colours darnit!! But I will find everything in the end… I am down to my last closet to organize). What we did find was a bunch of Christmas ornament craft supply my friend Kathy gifted us a year or two ago. With some pipecleaners, imagination and careful creation of patterns Emanuel was the proud creator of TWO beaded candy canes. The blue and green one (not pictured) was VERY short and chunky but we managed. I am sure AFTER Christmas is over I will find my bead stash!

Traditional Candy Cane

In order to get in a bath I needed 5 min to myself so I dug out my surplus stickers and embellishments, got everyone a piece of paper folded into a card, had the boys help the little ones and snuck off. We ended up with 4 very different Christmas cards (including two pinks!). I just have to add in our moo cards to each one going to someone and check them off my list. Slow going as I am trying to keep organized but it is going! Last night I finished TWO gifts and crossed off some more people. I hope to do the same with a US package. 

Completed cards

I received some mail today! I ordered some blue hair extensions off of eBay and they finally got here today. I will have to play around with them and trim them down to size but I am so excited! I wanted to dye my hair blue but have heard some real horror stories so this is the next best thing! AND they were under 3.00 for all 3!

Hair things

So with snowmen, Advent calendars, talk about trains, sewing and all the other random occurrences we seem to have kept busy! I wouldn’t say the time has flown by but I blinked and it was past 3pm! Yikes! Take a look at THIS Lego creation! The boys now want that many Legos too! 

And the crafting goes on… for me as well. BUT I did manage some time in between crafts to clean up my ribbons (the kids dumped one container and the other container was a mess by my own work). Now the kitchen table… well… yeah let’s just ignore that one for now! I know I have! That leaves my laminating to trim up, a house to “assemble” for Zander…and of course a hunt for something for Trinity to “do” tomorrow… 

Echo's embellished pj's

Baby with her cube

There have been a few goings on that I have NOT posted about… let’s see… I had Ken pick up something off Freecycle – some sheets… flannel and not that while they won’t work for the original plan (pink for Trinity to make into curtains), the flannel ones will work for Emanuel’s mattress bed (at least until we buy him a single). So that is something! The others… well I am debating some ideas of making them into something!

I do have pictures of two of my leopard print duct tape creations! I am loving the look of it and plan on making a purse using these two colours and black… though I am debating the pattern and look I want.. Do I want to use MORE leopard and black accent… so maybe all the long strips be the cookie dough, the horizontals be the leopard and the accent black? PLEASE weigh in people!!

Spotty

I finished up the boys’ Trumpet of the Swans books they made. I used a cropodile and these neat plastic rings that I found at the local kids’ supply store! I think they worked out nice! This is the same thing we plan on doing with Stuart Little when we finish the book.

And then there is the laminating! Well I got done the Buggy Board Math Mats… all I need are some dry erase markers, the crayons are nice but I want markers as well. 

Laminated and ready to go

And then there is the days of the week and weather/season pieces I got from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I have subscribed to her newsletter and it is absolutely AWESOME for ideas. I seriously wish I could turn my blog into something like that, but I also enjoy it being a lot more than homeschooling… this is us in a nutshell to share with the friends and family who are NOT able to enjoy and experience first hand on a regular basis. 

We started our day early today… BLECK! We are so not a morning family. But we needed to go to the bank and thought we could go at opening. Turns out we had to wait until 11am for an appointment time but Ken had to run out to the post office to sign a form and send it right back for a contract anyway. So it was lucky he did that and stopped in at the bank to make the appointment without us. It really is a pain to get the kids into the vehicle and then it turn out to be for nothing! Since Trinity was up until midnight playing (so not happy about that) she actually slept in and had to be woken up. Echo woke up before 5 am and Ken was not cognizant enough to realize he should NOT take her out of the crib until it was too late. So they finished the morning on the couch snuggling. The boys found the one bit of Legos I had not put IN the bucket and stowed back away and used that as an argument starter while I was waking up and bathing… seriously Legos are a blessing and a curse in this house! 

Pre Bank Post Lego

I have to say I am in love with BMO, they were able to give us an appointment that we got into when we walked in the door… the lady was nice, speedy and able to deal with the kids easily! Joint account is now done… Just need to set up auto withdrawals and deposits and all that… though personally, I prefer cash! I actually have an aunt who works for BMO (different town) so bad on me to NOT be dealing with them already!

We decided to fill our morning up before the appointment by watching Electric Company. The kids (Echo included) really do enjoy the segments and the music and the storyline. I am not sure how much is sticking yet but today we were reviewing some of our favourite episodes… Netflix only has the first 12 of the new series… and pbskids.org does NOT allow Canadian viewing of full episodes (figures), the same issue as Cyberchase… Ken is still working on finding us episodes we CAN watch… I am almost down to having to purchase the dvds… not cheap!

We finally assembled our months of the year lapbooks. I used a couple resources for this… but the main one is a lapbook set up from homeschoolshare.com. As well as months of the year printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I also looked up months of the year on EnchantedLearning. We added in our pictures from yesterday based on the books we read and it turned out quite nice! Hopefully the boys can come back to these books and work on their months… we are getting there but it is not as easy to experience months as it is the days of the week! 

Finished!

All open

I heard back this morning that my dad’s second procedure was a success… both arteries are unclogged and he gets to go home tomorrow! Certainly a weight off my shoulders. I hope to get a chance to chat with him very soon! It is hard to be so far away but at the same time, thank goodness for technology to keep in touch! 

We ended our day early with a lovely early dinner for the kids and then Emanuel and I made up a crazy patterned flower! I was surprised at how the two patterns looked so… cute together. He was so proud! Zander and I have had a nice long talk and discussed his obsession with things we really can’t do right now the way he wants to (going to the beach, digging for treasure chests… playing hours of Minecraft). We are going to find things he DOES like to do and we CAN do together. The plan is to make a duct tape creation tomorrow just the two of us.

Emanuel and his flower

That is something we so quickly forget about – the one on one time… with all the kids and Echo’s needs the time gets lost in the muddle. It is something to work for. It looks like I may go on a trip to visit Karyn’s parents’ farm on Sunday… and Saturday is kick it to the curb – where you can put stuff out on the curb and people can come and take what they can use. Should be an interesting weekend!

Binky Baby