It has been a while

It sure has been a while since I posted on our homeschool blog. We have been so busy with school and life and have not had much time to post.

I will post some pictures we did in the beginning of November with our friends the Barrons. We all got together and made NV flags to finish our study of Nevada. It was a fun day to get together and craft. :) We hope to do more and more crafts together in the months to come.

Gracie just finished unit three in reading and phonics. We have now started work on unit 4 and finishing up math. Then we will be starting a second grade curriculum that will include science and geography as well as our reading and phonics. Also Ashten will be able to interact more with the new curriculum. It is a joy and blessing to be teaching and learning with my kids each and everyday.

Ashten made a book about shapes and counting and is working on his letters and sounds. He is starting to write his name too. He loves to trace all the letters in his workbook. His favorite activity has to be puzzles and putting things together. We may have another little engineer in the family. ;)

Nevada Timeline

This is our Nevada Time line. As we have been working on learning facts about how our state came into being. The kids helped me put it all together and it has been a great visual for some of the basic facts. Nevada began its roots in Carson City, our state Capitol. Our state being rich in resources of gold and silver helped fund the civil war. President Lincoln signed the proclamation for us to become a state. On October 31, 1864 we became the Battle Born state.

Fall leaves

We did a fun project yesterday. We made leaves with waxpaper, glue, tissue paper and a leaf outline to make stained glass looking leaves. It was such a fun and easy project to learn about the fall leaves. I have been trying to take each month and work on a small unit study. Working on fall since it fits in with the season. October will be Nevada History and Novemeber will be Thanksgiving.

Cleaning up our house before school

We have found that it is sometimes hard to get all the chores done in a day when schooling takes a chunk out of the day. I often find one area in the home lacking like laundry, mopping or the big cleaning in the bathroom. Most everything gets surface clean but not always deep cleaned. So recently I was trying to think of a creative way for the kids to have a cleaned up room and for other stuff to get done around the house. That is when the 10 minute scramble was added to our routine. We all start in the kitchen and set the timer and then run to our rooms. We clean up and then showcase our rooms at the end of the 10 mins. It made cleaning fun!!! We are amazed what we get cleaned in 10 minutes. It also allowed me to get some much needed organizing done in our room since I usually don't have as much clean up. I came up with this idea compiling several tips I have heard over the years about keeping organized or things clean. :)

Psalm 23

This was so fun!!!! Each day we have been reading thru Psalm 23 and to help the kids memorize we also are working on projects to go along with the verses. For verses 1-3 we watercolored a picture and then added a shepherd and his sheep to give a picture of Christ our shepherd. :)

First day of school

Our first day of school was Monday August 31. We had a great day started out by getting all dressed up and taking first day of school photos. We then jumped in and started review and a few new lessons. We are also doing a small unit study on Psalm 23.