Attached Lamb & Eggs

On Sunday our pastor and wife did a tag team lesson describing how the lamb, whose blood would be used over the door during passover, was to be prepared. As part of the object lesson they brought in a basket of stuffed animal lambs, enough for each family to take 1 home. Well 6th grade is a sucker for anything soft, furry and cute and ooohhs and aaahhha were issued as the basket was presented. But! the catch was that each family could only have the lambs for 4 days before having to return them for sacrifice. At first Jordan decided that she was not going to get attached to the lamb and just left it sitting out on the table for 2 days, but yesterday morning when I went in to wake her, loudly singing the "Good Morning To You" song (did I mention loudly ~Smile~) I pulled back the covers and there was the little lamb in the bed with her. I knew she could not hold out. So tonight we take the little lamb back, but here he is in the mean while.

Yesterday, we colored eggs for the first time. They enjoyed it. The girl says she does not want to eat hers for sentimental reasons. Ha! I ate mine this morning. Yum

Furry Student & Egg Hunt

6th grade loves our new puppy (except for the business end of him that has created a new chore in the backyard. LOL!) and he is such a baby that he will sit with her all day.







On Saturday we went for an outdoor Easter Egg Hunt at 1 of the local churches. It had the potential to be a neat experience, but the lack of fairness left them feeling down. The children were divided into groups by age and were told some Bible stories and given the rules which included; each person could only have 12 eggs, the plastic egg had to be returned, the candy or toy inside was yours to keep. When they let the children go, they did the whole "on your mark, get set, go!" thing from inside the vestibule. The children charged out the door, causing a stampede. A couple of children fell in the doorway, which led to children tripping and tumbling out the door. The more aggressive children snatched and grabbed dozens of eggs, well over 12 and even took eggs from other children. My guys were only able to get 5 eggs, but I kept cheering them on because this is life.







We have a good week planned. Jordan's birthday is this week and I have a surprise for her. She wants a guitar, but I have not been able to find a good deal on e-bay yet. Gotta keep bidding.



Peace

Over-rated Math Skills

This morning 6th grade and I were talking about what I call "our vitals"; whole names, full birth dates and place. When she was telling me about my birth date, she could not remember the year. I told her. I saw her little math wheels a-turnin' and then she announced with complete and utter awe, "Mom! You are over 3 decades older than me!"

~sigh~

And to think I have been working hard to help her to improve her math skills.

Spell the Word...

Our home school group is getting ready for the annual Spelling Bee and all 3 of our Rotties will participate this year. We have printed off the list of study words and are going to spend the next few weeks bumping up our phonics study. Pre-K is not really ready to spell yet, but there are enough of his sight words on the list to let him at least have the experience. This Mama is very nervous as I am usually very squeamish about photographs as my children who were adopted locally, but we really want to have this new experience.

In History and Geography, 2nd grade has been studying about different cultures and this unit focuses on the Japanese culture. Today he learned about writing the numbers 1 - 10 using a brush and water-colors. He really enjoyed this and 6th grade has asked to learn to do this also. I think I will let 2nd grade teach her.

Friday Field Trip

We had a busy day out and about today. First we took our new puppy for a vet check and it was so good to see our vets again as they are longtime family friends. They got a good laugh at the fact that we had gone from a Rottweiler to a Miniature Schnauzer. He had a good 'ole bark at a very large dog. We have always had big dogs and now we have a little dog with a big dog bark.

After the vet we did some shopping and had lunch; breakfast again as Kroger's had eggs 10 for $10 so we will have them boiled and poached and fried and scrambled and stuffed and....

We live near a river that has a big paddle boat on it. They have dinner cruises, mystery theatre and you can rent it for just about anything. Ever since my daughter was about 18 months old she has referred to it as, "The party boat" It has lights, sails in the evenings and looks so pretty and you can often hear the music from the shore. I had always thought there were 2 of them, but could not figure out how they would get 1 out and put the other in, so we went down to the boat launch and talked to one of the owners who let us tour the boat and explained how it was actually 3 pieces that were transported separately and then welded together. The reason it seemed like their was more than 1 is because they paint it every season and replace railing and smokestacks. (I took a picture with my Blackberry, but cannot figure how to get it off. bummer)

The owner told us that they are building a new paddle boat that is smaller and gave us directions to the shipyard which was about 30 minutes away, so we took the drive and it was very cool.

I finally broke down and bought myself a new set of pots and pans. Being the head of household can be so over-rated in these situations. LOL!

James started some spring clean up and pulled the grill out today. He also spent about an hour on the computer doing 3rd grade SOS Math and History/Geography. We are just trying to make him familiar with the program as he will switch to SOS next year.

All in all a very busy, beautiful day

St. Patrick's Day

Today we studied the history of our very Irish surname and why we don't use the O'. We also had green peanut butter, banana smoothies. Yum Yum! Food coloring.

Some Review

Last week we had to do some major catching up in both 2nd and 6th grade. We also tried to get just a bit ahead so that we could maybe extend our spring break. We are so looking forward to going to London, Ontario and staying here.

2nd grade is learning to borrow for subtraction





Pre-K is able to write all of the letters from Handwriting Without Tears so far and is starting to write his high frequency words from memory.

I blocked it out, but he is also starting to write his middle name on all of his papers. It's funny because most times the line is not long enough and he always draws more line that curves down the side of the paper.

6th grade is not wanting to admit it, but she has enjoyed the adding, subtracting and reducing of fractions in math class. She has been working hard to avoid doing her science projects. I told her that if she put the same amount of energy towards getting them done as she does to avoid them, she would be done with most. So far we have done one on emulsion, color wheels and spectrum's and we are doing a 4 week study on the change of shadows with the seasons. It involves taping a piece of paper on the floor at the exact same spot, at the exact same time of day once a week for 4 weeks and marking the sun and shadows. We have done it for 2 weeks and can already see the changes as winter gives way to spring.

10 Random Questions

Theme For The Week: 10 Random Questions Time for a bit of fun this week.

Just copy the 10 questions below and enter your answers after each one of them for this week's blog hop.I can't wait to see all of your answers.

1. What time is it right now? 11:34 AM

2. What are you wearing? Black slacks and white tank top undershirt (you know…with the derogatory name)

3. What is your mood? Relatively good

4. What is one thing your children learned today? My 6th grader is baby and puppy sitting today and when I asked if she had learned anything new today she said, “That parenting is difficult and I should try to make it easier for you.” Ha Ha!

5. What did you (or are having) for dinner? Last night we had breakfast for dinner: Oatmeal, eggs and bacon. Tonight…Sloppy Burgers!

6. What's one book you are currently reading? Bible

7. What behavior (in people) is the most common but also the rudest? Speaking without thinking about their words.

8. What can you see out of your nearest window right now? I see a cloudy sky, a leaf-less tree, and brown grass in my front yard.

9. What are you currently praying for? For my children, my father who is traveling and for me to surrender my worries and cares.

10. What is your favourite hot beverage? I love hot water with lemon and honey.


Link up here!

Volunteering and Chewing

Today was our day to work at the food bank at our local church. The children love, love doing it and the ladies that run the food bank were once again impressed with how hard the children worked. Today they stocked shelves, filled orders and helped people take their food out to their car. It started off pretty slow, but then all of a sudden 4 orders came in all at once.

As for our new student, he has takin' a liken' to my slippers, (yes, I have Hom*r Simps*n slippers that someone gave me as a joke thinking I would not wear them. Well I do as they are so comfy and protect my sensitive toes) socks and yesterday I saw a little black fur ball run by with some little boy whitey tighties dragging behind....eeewwww! Ahh puppy hood.

New Student

We are in love....

Kissy, kissy!

He's Here!!

In early February, this happened, so we have been looking for a puppy since then. Well, we found him and he is a sweet little boy. He is 12 weeks old today, very smart and very calm.

My first dog after collage was a black lab named: Tin* Turn*r

Next was, Di*na R*ss the Boss, my beautiful Rottie.

This male is looking for the name of a great country singer.

Olympic Review

We loved the Olympics! We watched as much as possible. The boys loved curling, ski jumping and of course...snowboarding. That was a big hit. Some of my favorites were short track and bobsled. My 6th grader mostly liked the opening and closing ceremonies as she likes any kind of party. LOL!

I had purchased a PDF curriculum from CurrClick and we used just a bit of it, but mostly watched and read up on the sports we liked the best. All the kids learned to recognize flags from other countries which was neat to watch as Pre-K was usually the first to be able to name the flags. We used scores to determine greater than, less than and equal to for 2nd grade and just really enjoyed the whole event. Can't wait for the summer Olympics. (Still miffed a bit that Chicago did not get them...we would have so been there!)

On other review... 2nd grade is testing out of his units today and so far has received an 97% on Language Arts with 100% on the spelling test, a 100% on Bible and is studying at this moment for History and Geography. It is a tough one as it focuses on customs of other cultures regarding holidays. Poor kid don't stand a chance as we tend to not follow "traditional" customs ourselves. LOL!