Wordless Wednesday

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Kids do the funniest things

This is kind of a continuation of yesterday's post. Claire has struck again!

She is studying the 5 senses in science. Today she had to fill in the blanks of a poem about summer. It went something like this...
Summer is______(a sound)
Summer is ______(a sight) etc. etc.

Well when she got to a smell she was stumped. I said, "Well what is something you can smell in summer?" She said, "Sweaty birds?" I said that we don't really smell the birds, but maybe she could think of something else sweaty that she could smell. She said, "Sweaty kids?" I said, "yea, that will work and its true! You guys can get smelly!"

Well, she sat quietly at her desk writing. Then she told me she was finished. I walked over to read her line and it said "Sweaty moms"!! Can you believe that? She was offended at my comment about sweaty kids so she changed it to moms! She cracks me up daily!

Kids say the funniest things

Claire is always saying something funny. Today during school I was standing behind her watching her do her work and she started making beeping/alarm sounds. I tried to ignore it so I wouldn't make her want to do it more, but finally she said, "You're affecting the system, back up!" So, now when I stand to close to her desk she starts beeping!

Last week we went to a local art museum. As we were driving up Claire starts yelling, "I saw a president! I saw a president!" I was helping my husband look for a parking space so I didn't pay much attention to her. Then she exclaims, "I saw a president! The one from the dollar bill! See, he's not dead!" There was an older gentleman with a head full of fluffy white hair wearing a dark sports coat. She thought he was George Washington!

Have your kids said anything funny lately?

Homeschool Talk: Literature Units

I love literature. I have a degree in English and I just love teaching it to my kids. My son is an avid reader so when he was in 3rd grade I started doing literature units with him. Then, I started a book club for him. Basically, we take a break from our English/Grammar workbook and read a book and do lessons on that book for 1-3 weeks. Sometimes I find lesson plans online, sometimes I make my own.

This year Claire is in the 1st grade so I decided literature units would be fun for her too. So, each month we are going to concentrate on a different fairy tale. I do literature once a week with her. So each Wednesday I'm reading her a different version of the same fairy tale and we will do an activity that goes along with it.

I'm sharing what we are doing on my blog because these units are so much fun! They are very easy to add to your curriculum or use if your child is already reading that book. I hope others will find my information helpful. I'd also like to hear your ideas for activities too.

In the "Homeschooling Corner" in my margin I have listed the literature selections for both kids for the month along with links to lesson plans and activities. I'll update this section each month.

This month Claire and I are reading The Little Red Hen. Below is our schedule for the month.

Week 1. The Little Red Hen by Byron Barton
Activity: Bake Bread


Week 2. The Little Red Hen by Jerry Pinkney
Activity: Make your own Little Red Hen Story Book


Week 3. Little Red Hen Gets Help by Kenneth Spengler
Activity: Stick puppets


Week 4. You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You:
The Little Red Hen and the Grain of Wheat
Activity: Field Trip to the Mrs. Baird's Bakery!
(We have a factory in Fort Worth)



I preread all of these books during the summer. I found most of them at the library. We have the You Read to Me, I'll Read to You book. (If you've never seen this its really cute. They have the text in two different colors. One color the child reads, one color the adult reads.) I tried to find different versions. For example, the animals that say "not I" are all different in each of these books. I made a chart for Claire so we can compare that. The patterns for the stick puppets and story book are in a Little Red Hen Unit book that I have. A link to it can be found in my "homeschool corner" section of my blog.



The activity for the first week was to bake bread. My husband has never baked bread from scratch so I told him we'd wait until the weekend to do it so he could be home to join in. So, that is what we are doing this afternoon. On Wednesday, I let Claire bake bread using frozen bread dough. I cut it into 3 strips and let her braid it. Here is how it turned out. It was a big hit at dinner!

At the end of the month I'll try to do another post that shows all of the finished activities that went along with this unit.

Postcard Friendship Friday #20

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at http://www.cpaphilblog.com/ Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.







This is the 3rd of my mission postcards. This is Mission Concepcion. This one was my favorite. I think it was the prettiest of all of them. It was completed in 1755 and is one of the oldest un-restored stone churches in the U.S.

You can still see some of the frescos that are on the inside.

Here is one that, I believe, was in a side altar.

It's just beautiful! That's why this mission is my favorite!

Here are my kids in front of the main altar.

To learn more about the San Antonio Missions you can go here... http://www.nps.gov/saan/

Our first day back at school

Yesterday was our first day of school. Don't they look excited? Claire did REALLY well. And Nathan, well, he's an 11 yr. old boy...what can I say? He grumped and complained, but nothing out of the ordinary for him!

We even took a little field trip to the pool on our first day back! Not many kids can say that! The kids had pool passes from the summer reading club at the library and they were only good on Mon, Tue, and Thu. Well, its been raining for the past 2 weeks so we never went during our summer like I had planned. So, we went the first day of school!

All was well until my husband called me at 5:00 and said he car quit! He works an hour away!!! Luckily, I didn't have to go get him. He had it towed back to our mechanic here in town so I just had to pick him up there. Of course, with his car in the shop, he has mine. So, I'm stuck at home today and Claire had to miss gymnastics. And who knows how much $$$ that tow is going to cost! Mondays...why are they so unkind to me????

Take Me out to the Ballgame!

I've been so busy this year that I hadn't been to a Rangers game yet.
We went on Friday night. Wouldn't you know it? My first game this season and we had a 2 hour rain delay! The rain wasn't so bad. We had covered seats. (I knew rain was in the forecast so I made sure to get the covered ones!) What I hadn't anticipated was the wind! It must have blown in around 50 mph. Trash from all over the ballpark was blowing around everywhere. I snapped a couple of pictures that show some of it on the field. It was actually a lot worse than these pictures show.

Then, the rain started. It was still blowing so we had to get out of our seats for a while until the rain died down. It was blowing up under the covered area.

This is the field about half way through the rain delay...

Every Friday is Fireworks night. I was disappointed that we'd probably miss them. BUT...they shot them off when the rain let up, before they resumed the game. So, yea! We got to see the fireworks set to the Beatles music!

Then we left even though they were going to resume the game. (it was bottom of the 7th) It was already 11pm!! We all slept in on Saturday. It was lots of fun. We have tickets for 3 or 4 more upcoming games

so hopefully no rainouts in the future!