Our First Day of Homeschooling

While I am sure I won’t be motivated to blog every school day, I thought it would be good and fun to blog our very first day. Our curriculum is My Father’s World, Kindergarten, and both children are participating, though this would actually be Asher’s kindergarten year, and Ellie’s PreK year.  But they both are ready to do the work at this level.

Our school-time discipline system is this traffic light.  It was inspired by a former co-worker of mine who used this in her classroom.  When I was thinking about what I could use for our homeschool discipline, this was the perfect answer because Asher LOVES traffic lights!  He was very motivated and wanted his car to stay on green.  I don’t think he even cared about the consequences that go with yellow or red, he just didn’t want his car to be on them! 

We started the day getting dressed and making beds before breakfast. Ellie wanted to get Schatzie ready for school too, so she combed her legs and

beard.  

  

Here’s a few pictures of our first day of school breakfast – nothing fancy – just cereal!

The first thing they did was to listen to me read day one of the creation story from the Bible.  Then they answered some questions about it.  They did very well sitting, listening, and remembering the story!

Then, they practiced writing their names.

Next, they cut out the number one which illustrated day one of creation, taped paper together to make a poster, and glued the number one onto the poster.  They’ll add numbers 2-7 in the following days for each day of creation.

After that we took a little break outside to ride bikes.  Then we came back in to review the alphabet (Asher’s knows this, of course, but it’s good for Ellie, and the point right now is to have easy work to establish the routines).

Then they worked on the first page of our creation book, shown here:

The last activity was to sing “My Father’s World.”  I found a you tube video with the Praise Baby version of this song, which they are familiar with since they used to listen to it to go to sleep!  It also had pictures and words.  Incidentally, there are a lot of great children’s songs like that on you tube.  They enjoyed watching some of them after “My Father’s World.”

Overall, we had a great day!  The skills we practiced were listening, comprehension, self-control, cutting, writing, gluing (fine motor), letter recognition, and ordinal numbers. Can’t wait to do it again tomorrow!

Scarecrow Costume

I am attempting to sew a Scarecrow costume for my son. I haven't sewn from a pattern in a long time and have never made clothing, but I am excited to learn!
So far I have cut out the shirt, marked the fabric, sewn the back peices and shoulders together, and attached a bias strip to the neck.



Pattern layed out for the shirt, pinned and ready to be cut.

Bias strip sewn to the neck.  I didn't have any bias tape from the store so I used some I had on hand that I had picked up at a thrift store.  It works and the blue will not be seen from the outside.

Back pieces sewn together, and shoulder seams sewn.

Cutting the felt to create a fringe - a.k.a "straw."

Two sleeves, one with elastic added and one without.

This is the sleeve pinned to the armhole, ready to be sewn. 

Asher trying on the shirt, with one sleeve on!

The completed shirt!

Just call me “Ma.”

Today I decided to tackle two tasks: Making more laundry soap and making pickles.  Both tasks were inspired by Mother Necessity.  We were out of laundry soap and needed clean clothes, and the cukes in the garden were ready to be picked! 

This is the second time I’ve made this powdered laundry soap mixture.  I use the recipe on the Duggar’s website. I had leftover Borax and Washing Soda from when I made it the last time, and 4 bars of Ivory Soap that Jeremy bought to make more laundry detergent.  After shredding the 4 bars, I discovered I did not have enough Washing Soda for 4 batches of detergent.  So I sent Jeremy to the store to get more, and he also bought 4 more bars of soap.  Happily, this used up all the Washing Soda and made 8 batches of detergent.  This should hopefully last us a long time!  I wasn’t sure how well it was removing stains, so I might try using extra borax if the clothes are especially dirty.  

After this I started slicing the cukes for pickles.  I discovered I like the pickles slices round instead of spears, so I bought a mandoline slicer to make this process easier.  I love it!  ($15 at Target!)

I didn’t get to actually pickle the cukes tonight since we discovered we don’t have garlic.  So that will have to wait until tomorrow.  For now, the cukes are sitting in ice water and getting very crispy.  Let me say folks, that REALLY WORKS!  The cukes I sliced last night were in ice water overnight and wow are they crispy today.  I just hope they stay that way until I can get them pickled. 

For supper tonight we ate green beans from our garden, picked yesterday.  (Spaghetti and green beans cooked courtesy of Jeremy Groff – thanks hunny!) Wow, fresh really is best!  There’s nothing like fresh veggies right out of your backyard.  Gardening is hard work but so fun and such rewards reaped – literally!

Jeremy commented on my activities today of homemade laundry soap and pickling cucumbers from our garden, trying to say I was being very domestic and natural. 

“Just call me Ma,” I replied. 

Sleeping, Soccer, Shopping and Storms

 

I couldn’t resist taking this picture last night of Asher sleeping with his teddy.  Rest up, Buddy!  Soccer game tomorrow!

Team Charge is ready to play!

Teams Courage and Charge pray with the Ref before the game.

Asher and Coach Daddy!  Asher really was happy, this just caught him by surprise!

Mom-Mom, Grandma and Grandpa came to watch his game!

Ellie sits on the bench with Asher.

Asher congratulates Team Courage on a good game!

After soccer we ended up shopping with Grandma at Miracles Consignment.  I found some Little Tikes doll house items, a dry-erase letter practice book, Disney princess shorts for Ellie to wear with her new Disney princess shirt from Missy, and a clock toy for Asher.  We then went next door for pizza at Caruso’s with Mom and Dad. Here is Asher as Pop-Pop, posing with Grandma. 

After that we went home and we all took NAPS!  Jeremy had been up since 5:30 since we thought we’d have to be there at 8 for pictures.  (They were cancelled due to the weather).  Games were then held INSIDE – ours was at 10 am. 

After a delicious meal of spaghetti and broccoli prepared by Jeremy (thanks hunny), we all went about different projects.  Jeremy started the taxes and the kids were watching Mary Poppins.  I started re-arranging the Living Room, again…only to put it back how it was, again.  About that time Dad called and said there was a tornado warning in our area.  So, we all headed to the basement for about 15 minutes until we were clear.  I was praying for God to calm the storm and not allow damage to occur!  We are so thankful for His protection! 

After that I started working on organizing the basement stairway – finally installing these clips for hanging brooms and vacuums and such.  Here is the result of my work!

I hung the various hooks on the opposite side for the dusters, etc.  You’ll notice Asher’s famous Blue Vacuum now has a home on one of the clips  

Jeremy finished the taxes…almost – only the local to finish now.  All in all it was a great day, busy, but great.  We are teaching the 2s tomorrow, so I’d better get to bed!  Good night!

Spring Things

Today was a beautiful spring day with a high of 67 degrees. It was a perfect day to get some gardening done since it was sunny but not hot. I took advantage of the soft soil from the last two days of rain and started hoeing the weeds out of the garden area. The picture above shows one area I had done before. Today I started on the areas that were the vegetable garden last year. Here is the upper area. It’s fun to take pictures so I can see what I accomplished!

Before

After

Here is the side of the house after I hoed the weeds. I don’t have a “before” picture.

Here is our lawn. I wanted a picture of it now, early in Spring, because HOPEFULLY it will look better after we treat with fertilizer. Right now there are a lot of patches of these blue flowered weeds – I think it’s chickweed and it seems to have taken over a lot of the yard. I was explaining to Asher and Ellie that weeds grow because of the curse of sin. They’ve recently watched “In the Beginning” on DVD and so I was trying to tie it in with that.

Here is Ellie in her fairy wings, swinging away!

I got a great picture of Asher here! He’s finally learned to SMILE for the camera! Lord, I thank you for the beautiful day, for safety, for fun, and for hard work and health. Amen!*****************************************

After we got home from soccer practice, the kids played outside while Jeremy and I (mostly Jeremy) removed the stones from the path out front. (We want to extend the flower bed to include that area). As we worked, Jeremy remembered a time working on this same area with two other children – Kaylee and Kearstin. They were spending the night with us when we were working on digging this flower bed and putting the stones down for a path!

Ellie was helping by picking up stones and putting them in her wheelbarrow.

Virtual Open House

As the holiday season approaches, I’d like to help make this season especially memorable. That’s why I’m inviting you to view my virtual Open House! In less than 10 minutes, you’ll see 10 ideas, including new products, gift ideas, money-saving offers and money-earning opportunities, Creative Memories is offering in the upcoming weeks. Creative Memories has solutions for anyone who takes pictures, not only the "crafty" ones!

Those of you who were unable to attend my Open House last Saturday at Janeen Kime's home, can still receive my Open House gifts by participating in my virtual Open House that’s available from November 19 - November 28. Watch the program, complete the Holiday Wish List (attached to the email you received) and email it to me, and I’ll set aside an attendance gift for you. Place an order by Nov. 28 and receive a sheet of coupons to be used in 2010 when you order from me! Order $50 or more from me or purchase online, and I’ll give you the coupons and a bonus Open House gift.

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There are many great benefits to hosting a Get Together, including earning FREE products! Please take a look at the attachment detailing our current Hostess Benefits. If you schedule a Get Together, I'll also set aside a special gift for you.

I would also love to share with you the fun I'm having using Storybook Creator Plus. I have just printed some of my first digital 12x12 prints and placed them in an album. Below is one of my favorites. They look amazing and I'm excited about this new way of memory keeping. If you are interested in attending a party at my house to learn more about the features of this program, please let me know as I'll be holding one soon!

Thank-you and enjoy the Virtual Open House!
Click here: virtual Open House

Sincerely,
Erin Groff
CM Consultant
717-333-3935
ejgroff@comcast.net
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