Homeschooling Week 1

DD1 started kindergarten this week! She is beside herself with the thought that school has started and she is finally in kindergarten (telling me everyday that she is,in fact, ready for the first grade)! My schedule (term used *very* loosely!) looks a little like this.
Bible using a devotion from God's Little Princess Devotional Bible
Reading which is 20 minutes of Hooked on Phonics
BFIAR Its technically too young for DD, but we've never finished the book and I'm actually only using the curriculum as a guide. This week we read Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear and talked about dressing appropriately for the weather, patterns, size comparisons, etc .. something different for each day of the week. Today, our science lesson was (slightly derived) from the story. More on that later.
Math
Handwriting
Worksheets

The week went well and what I love about homeschooling is that I can do it whenever during the day that is convenient. I also like that,unlike the scene transpiring next door, there were no tears from a screaming five year old in the front yard this morning and dragging of said five year old to the car so that they could go start kindergarten! Yeah, it was easy this week but I know it won't always be.

On to the fun stuff ... Is there really a man in the moon and how did he get there? I'm glad you asked. Actually, the man in the moon is not a man, but a bunch of holes, now termed craters, in the moon that look like a smiling man from way down here on earth. Now, how exactly did those craters get there? Is the moon really made of swiss cheese? Nope, not cheese. In fact, those holes came from trash, now debris, floating in space that hits the dusty moon. Wanna see?

Here is our debris ..


I was supposed to use a ping pong ball and not a wiffle ball but since i don't have a ping pong ball .... anyways, @ this point we talked about size - bigger and smaller, heavier and lighter, wider and skinnier - and which ones we thought would make bigger or deeper holes. Here I pointed out that just because the wiffle ball was the biggest didn't mean it would necessarily make the deepest hole. We dropped the balls on round one from 1 foot (math!) into a pie plate filled with flour.





Next we observed what the balls had done. Then we smoothed the flour out and dropped them from two feet, paying more attention to the dust cloud that it created.






After we had finished making all of our observations and cleaning up the mess DD "journaled" her observations.

Show & Tell Monday: ISO

I'm participating in Show & Tell Monday thanks to Melissa who is graciously teaching us how to get out of that automatic setting on the camera! This week's lesson was on ISO.

I like learning how to do this! I didn't practice much this week but I did do one photoshoot of a beautiful moonrise. I have, however, been working on changing the light settings. It is amazing how much better the pic looks when I adjust from sunny to incandescent. I love learning how to do this! It may not look like it is paying off, but I am having fun just the same!

Picture 1:


On this one the ISO was 460, f/stop 5 and set on sunny ... the color wasn't right so I did some tweaking.

Picture 2:


On this one the ISO was 200, f/stop 5 but I changed the setting to cloudy. The color was perfect.

Picture 3:



ISO 800, f/stop 5 It was getting dark really fast so the color is accurate again. I loved getting these night shots without using the flash!

Just to prove that I am learning something here are some macro shots of flowers from our flower beds.

Three

My baby will be turning three on Saturday! In some ways it feels like she has been here forever but part of me can't believe that she will actually be three in just three days!
I remember being pregnant with her ... I was really sick. A lot. You know, like 29 of the 38 weeks that I was pregnant with her. I was scared. I had such a crazy delivery with my first that I was paranoid. A few months before I was to deliver we found out that our first born had cerebral palsy as a result of said crazy delivery. Now I was really nervous. Just ask my ultrasound tech. I've never been so interested in where one's umbilical cord was located. But when the time came, and it came early because it was thought that her cord was indeed wrapped around her neck, everything was fine. Well, aside from me absolutely going insane as they strapped me to the table for my c-section (did you know that those meds could literally make one crazy?? thanks blood pressure for bottoming out on me ... i needed that), it was completely normal. And strange. I held her right away. She got to come straight to my room from the OR. I held her and snuggled her and then yelled for my friend to get her quick so I could throw up (did you know those meds would make you insanely nauseous and make your face itch so bad that you look like a complete druggie??). But I recovered and she was easy. She was just happy to be here, and I was happy she was here, too.

Now, she is (almost) three. She's not as easy as she used to be. She's quite the character. She has the craziest things to say and is very comical. And smart. Too smart. And she's cute and very happy to be holding up three fingers in the near future. I love that baby. I'm glad she's mine and that God blessed us very richly with her three years ago.

I'm back ... I think

OK, so I really do have some part of me that wants to blog but the good Lord hasn't seen fit to add any more hours to the day or days to the week just yet so I can't promise that I'll be a proficient blogger. However, I am really excited that Melissa at A Familiar Path is so kindly reading the camera manual for us and giving pointers on how to use a camera so I'm back to participate in her weekly sessions.
I missed last week getting ready for my baby's third birthday party. I have 2 cameras, a Sony Cybershot that I've had for 5 years (love this camera)and a Nikon P90 that I just upgraded to a few weeks ago. I suppose I never even opened the manual for the Cybershot. I just assumed I knew how to use it. I went out with some great college buddies Friday night and learned a few things about the cybershot. In five years I never knew it could take black and white photos. Sad. I can't find the Cybershot right now. Its a little game we play - it hides and I find it a week or so later. When I win I'll post those pics.
On to this week's lesson ... self timer and macro. I love the self timer and am pretty well aware of how to use it. On the Nikon I can turn on the smile recognition option and the camera won't snap the pic until it has detected that everyone is smiling.
This pic is the girls and me dressed up for the cow appreciation day at Chick fil A a few weeks ago taken with the Nikon, without the smile recognition but a 10 second delay.

I'm learning to use macro on the Nikon and I love it. I think it is pretty neat.

A pansy on the back porch





Three! Wow! I can't believe that on Saturday my baby will be 3!

I ♥ Faces (week 18) Laughter

I've never entered an I ♥ Faces contest, but this week I just knew I had the perfect picture!




This is me and my girls. I love those girls!

Want to get in on the fun? Enter a different contest weekly at I ♥ Faces

Not Me Monday, Shameless Edition

Shameless. Who me??? Couldn't be.
I would never revive my blog on Monday just to participate in my first ever Not Me Monday over @ MckMama's blog just so I could have a miniscule chance to win a super cute necklace that I could stamp all three of my babies names on. I would never do such a thing because why would I ever want to have all three girls, side by side? Not I.

There's Much to Say,

but I'm taking a blogging break (you know, cause I blog SO much).
You'll find me hanging out with him



or them



Happy Easter! Remember that Jesus died for our sins and to save us for we cannot save ourselves.

Hopping Along

We've continued our bunny theme this week.
Yesterday the library took care of things for me by reading bunny books (how did they know that's what we were learning about) and even made a nice little bunny papersack puppet. The girls' really enjoyed that!
Today was more fun. We, and literally I mean we, read Bunny Rabbit Rebus. It was neat for the girls to "read" along with me and they both felt mighty important.
Tonight I cooked up a new-to-me Rachael Ray recipe, pecan crusted chicken with tangy maple dressing. I put a slight twist on it by wrapping the chicken with lettuce. It was pretty yummy.
Following our dinner I pulled out another rebus, the Bunny Salad Rebus.
The girls followed the directions and made pear rabbits. They gobbled it all up except for the cottage cheese tail (don't they know it is totally improper to have cottage cheese on one's tail??) but who can blame them?

2 Week Book List

The Little Rabbit by Judy Dunn
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
The ABC Bunny by Wanda Gag
Rabbits and Raindrops by Jim Arnosky
Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
If You Were My Bunny by Kate McMullan
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Bunches and Bunches of Bunnies by Louise Matthews
Mousekin's Easter Basket by Edna Miller
Owen's Marshmallow Chick by Kevin Henkes
Easter Bunny Are You For Real by Harold Myra
Bunny Rabbit Rebus by David Adler
Marshmallow by Clare Newberry
Bunny My Honey by Anita Jeram

Resources:
The Usborne First Encyclopedia of Our World

Before Five in a Row

www.homeschoolshare.com

Starting School

Or resuming school. Not sure which. I'm very sporatic about it since its still a bit early, but I thought it would be fun to do a few things in the next couple of weeks for Easter. My grand plan over the next 2 weeks is to row 3 books from Before Five in a Row; The Little Rabbit, The Runaway Bunny & The ABC Bunny.

Today we started with The Little Rabbit. We went over the days of the week since that is what Sarah names the baby bunnies. We talked about how some animals are made to blend in with their surroundings. The white rabbits in the book are easy to spot against the green grass but the wild bunny, who is brown, is a little more difficult to see. I then flipped in our Usborne First Encycolpedia of Our World to the page that shows snowy mountain ranges and a mountain hare whose fur turns white to blend in with the snow. We also read Rabbits and Raindrops and talked about how the bunnies blended into their surroundings and how they were so smart to get out of the rain and run back to their nest. For math we read Bunches and Bunches of Bunnies. The multiplication in the book is clearly over their heads, but we did count the bunnies up to 49.

After we read and talked the girls fingerpainted a picture (an idea we got from the Usborne Big Book of Activities) of rabbits in a field. They also glued white sparkly pom-poms onto their rabbits for fluffy tails.

Weekly Shopping

Kind of boring this week, but it here it is just the same. To see more Publix Super Savers, visit Sarah here.



CVS:
2 PAAS easter egg decorating kits
2 bags of M&Ms
1 newspaper

used $1 off 2/M&Ms q
used $6.99 in ECBs
Total OOP: 49 cents
ECBs earned: $3.98

Publix
2 bags Snack Factory Pretzel crisps
2 boxes Kellogg's Fiber Plus bars
2 bottles Glass Plus
2 pears
1 publix salad dressing

Total OOP: $5 & some change

Bi-Lo
1 loaf Sarah Lee Bread

$2 & change
I had planned on getting a few other things here, but it was all higher than other stores. I did get a pack of Solo cups that were on clearance for $1.64 but the 50 cent coupon I had didn't double so those are going back. They did have milk for $2.50a gallon but its gone back up for some reason.

Aldi
2 gallons of milk
1 container of cottage cheese

$7 and change

I don't like Aldi. The only reason I went was for the milk because it is considerably cheaper there than the other stores. That is all that is cheaper as far as I can tell. Plus, the line was majorly backed up with only one person on a register. I should have just paid 50 cents more for the milk ;)

Publix 3/22/09

3/4 lb fried chicken tenders (put in the salad for our lunch today)
1 lb+ ground beef
1 roll Publix paper towels (penny item)
2 17 lb bags Kingsford Charcoal
4 cartons Tropicana 50 OJ
2 4packs Yoplait YoPlus yogurt
6 boxes Quaker cereal bars
2 bags Fresh Express Salad
1 bag radishes
2 Snuggle fabric softeners
2 Publix reusable shopping bags (free with cereal purchases)
2 boxes Banana Nut Cheerios (rain check)
2 boxes Cookie Crisp (rain check)

Total OOP: $29.27
Total before tax, $24.48, total savings $71.91 for a savings of 66%

I need to go back and get a raincheck for the TGI Friday's frozen dinners, I forgot about that while I was there.
There is a $1 printable coupon for the OJ here http://www.tropicana.com/join_us/Trop50/
sign up to get it. that makes it $1.89 for 2 cartons of OJ.

Today I saved $140!!!

Publix:



2 packs 40 count Dixie Plates
2 packs 45 count Dixie Plates
3 Finish dishwashing gel
2 packs Wrigley Spearment gum
2 6 packs of Motts Applesauce
7 4 packs Dannon Activia yogurt
1 Nature's Own bread
1 Canteloupe
1 pack Capri Sun

Total OOP: $16.35
Total Saved: $39.95

Bi-Lo



2 jars Chi-Chi's salsa
2 jars Smucker's grape jelly
6 packs Mentos gum
3 cans Spot Shot carpet stain remover
2 packs Crest White Strips
4 packs Carolina Pride beef smokies
1 gallon milk

Total OOP: $32.23
Total Saved: $115.25

CVS



1 Irish Spring Body Wash
1 Colgate Max Fresh Toothpaste
1 Right Guard Deodorant

Use 1 50 cent coupon on the body wash & 1 75 cent coupon on the toothpaste
Used $10 ECB (adjusted to (9.75)
Total OOP: 12 cents and I got back $10 ECB



Want to see more fabulous couponers? Visit http://www.blogger.com/fiddledeedeeblog.blogspot.com

Vistor from Texas

A week or so ago my niece mailed a letter to K with Flat Stacey inside asking us to take her out and about and then send her back. K loved it! She loves getting mail from her cousins and talks about them all the time even though its been nearly a year or more since we've seen them.
Last Thursday Flat Stacey joined us for the evening.
First we went to ballet practice. The spring recital is just about a month away!



After ballet we went to dinner at TGI Friday's. YUM! I think Friday's may be my fave! 3 Words ... Cheesy.Bacon.Cheeseburger. Fried provolone anyone? (Shhhh, we'll not talk about the 5 pounds gained in one 45 minute dining session.)



After our consumption of greasy,fried foods we walked about 4 blocks to the Creative Discovery Museum. And when I say "we" I really mean "they." You see, just a week ago it was sunny and 80 but by Thursday it was rainy and 50. I drove around for 30 minutes looking for a spot closer to the museum, all nice and toasty in the van. Spot found, fun on!

Here is Flat Stacey checking out the dinosaurs and digging for dinosaur bones. I still have sand in my shoes.





From dinosaurs we moved on upstairs for the revolving exhibit. This time it was about what it is like to live in different parts of the world. K & Flat Stacey made stationary, fished and even designed their own house.





After that we headed up the tower overlooking our great city. Its such a family friendly place.




The museum closed shortly afterwards. We didn't get to visit all the exhibits this time, but there will certainly be another trip in the near future as Curious George is coming soon.

That concludes our visit with Flat Stacey. She was folded back up and shipped to Texas last Friday. Hope she had a safe trip!