Summer of Success- week 4

July1rst-5th

Well July is almost here!We had a rough time this week with my toddler's reaction to Amoxicilin.He is doing a lot better now! We are going to stomp away from dinosaur to learn more about how America came to be!We will be doing some fun crafts and get to see dessert animals at the library.

Here is a break down of week
Theme:America
Scripture:Doctrine and Covenants 98:5
" And that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me."
Nursery Rhyme:Fourth Day of July by Jean Warren
Number:4
Colors:red,white and blue
Shape:star and rectangles
Skills to work on daily-reading,writing,math

Monday: Declaration of Independence/ visit library
Tuesday:Liberty bell, firework activities,indoor picnic
Wednesday:Statue if liberty/library program
Thursday:4th of July BBQ
Friday:prepare for next weeks lesson
Saturday:

Schedule
Wake up and do family contributions .They earn points and prizes.
9-10 1 hr of schooling-lesson,worksheets, reading,activities for theme or unit
11-12 outside /do things on bucket list
12-2 lunch and quiet time
2-3 snack &outside time
4-5 dinner prep,inside activities, dinner clean up
5-7free time and bedroom clean up
7-8 quiet time
8 in bed can read do things quietly until fall asleep
This is a very flexible schedule and I know there will be late nights :)

For the one hour of schooling is broken down by age as follows:
8 and up-daily tally of minutes read.add them to next days tally for math.fix misspelled sentences,word of the week found in dictionary. There will be words from reading too.After reading a book write character, plot,setting,climax and main ideas. Reading and picking an animal or whatever the interest.Prepare a report.This report will be broken down as data is collected and be done at child's pace.Weekly grocery list written and plan one meal.Counting practice and practice telling the time may also be done.An occasional spelling test might be given.Each subject will take 15 min.

5-7 year old will work on sight words,word families.Writing ideas and punctuation. They can write words for grocery list and identity what it starts with. Basic addition and subtraction will also be done.Counting by 2's and 5's and 10's.

2-4 letter,number,shape and color of the day.It is basically repetition at this point and lots of play.For the grocery list they can associate pictures with their corresponding words. They can also work on counting 1-10.

3 months-24 months
The more reading and singing the better! We earn nursery rhymes and play,explore.The older babies/toddlers may be able to count from 1-3.

Writing prompts for the week:
If you could be a character in a book who would you be?why?
Which site important to the founding of America would you want ti see?why?
What do you want to know about your Grandparents? ......
What was your favorite activity this week?

Hope you all have a happy and successful Summer!

How to have a successful Readathon -7 ideas to get you started

1.You want to get the kids excited about it!If you are excited they will be excited !A theme can be used for this purpose.
2.Have lots of snacks to minimize interruption.
3.Take lots of breaks
4.Move around. For example you can go outside make a fort basically just want a few different places to read.
5.Set a goal of how many books you're going to read or how many minutes.
6.A good option is the library.They have all new books there, so they are less likely to get bored
7.Have fun you want this to be a positive experience!

Below the kids had finished Froggy builds a tree house. I love when they cab relate to the book or characters.They ate "pizza" which was watermelon.The last picture is their tree house.

Take back your Turf Thursday-When your Turf is kicked to the curb

This is going to be short and sweet.After a week of having my husband gone I caught up on the house this week until my Tot had reaction to amoxicillin. After 2 sleepless night of having him in our bed,screaming,itching and putting his feet in my face I am done and my house is the result of running to his and my other kids aid.I'm tired and so do not want to face tomorrows pile of things to do and the heat.My turf is being kicked to the curb.Anyone else have one of those weeks?

I'm bringing home a baby Dinosaur

Luke 6:31 "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
Today we are talking about Being kind.My Mom's rule growing up was never hurt anyone on the inside or the outside.
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes is a great story on being kind.We are all different! Being different makes us special and unique.

My 8 year old was assigned setting,plot,characters and climax.Here is a great website to practice plots and setting
For my 6 year old we talked about title,author,beginning,middle and end.For my Tot we talked about his favorite part of the book.

We got these cute wooden animals from our Zoo trip.I grabbed some ham,apple and leaves ans asked the kids to put the animals by what they would eat.
Vocabulary:
Carnivorous
Herbivore
Omnivorous

The ham was too big of a temptation for our Prehistoric Pooch ,T-bone!

I'm bringing home my baby dinosaur 

Won't my mommy hide behind the door 

I'm bringing home my baby dinosaur 

Ooh eee it stepped on me!

For the baby we have been doing the Bumble bee song.There is a version @dltk There is an extra verse(above) which leads us into our next unit of study........Dinosaurs!

Believe in yourself and some monkeying around with some yoga

Our scripture: Mark 5:36 " Be not afraid,only believe"
This week I found this devotional by Gordon B Hinkly about this scripture.He quoted the following passage

1. Believe in yourself. Believe in your capacity to do great and good things. Believe that no mountain is too high that you cannot climb it. Believe that no storm is too great that you cannot weather it. You are not destined to be a scrub. You are a child of God, of infinite capacity.

Believe that you can do it, whatever it is that you set your heart on. Opportunities will unfold and open before you. The skies will clear when they have been dark with portent.

Commander William Robert Anderson, the man who took the submarine Nautilus under the North Pole, carried in his wallet a card which read: "I believe I am always divinely guided. I believe I will always take the right road. I believe God will always make a way where there is no way." (Quoted in Look , 20 April 1971, p. 48).

May the blessings of heaven rest upon you, my dear young friends, as you step into the future.

Letters Y and Z

Writing prompt -What can you do for someone in your family to make them feel good about and believe in themselves.

Y is for Yoga.
I took the book Animals don't so I won't by David G. Derrick, Jr. I used the animals in it as poses for our yoga.It is a cute book about a boy who doesn't want to do what his Mom asks.I don't know any kids who would pull that ha ha.(note the sarcasm)Yeah all kids want to be independent and do what they want.The author also educates the reader on the different animals.It is really clever and fun!

He turns into a beetle because he doesn't want to clean his room.Here the kids are doing dead bug pose.

He didn't want to eat his dinner so he turned into a penguin. Here the kids are waddling like penguins.

He turned into a leopard because he didn't want to take a bath.Relax in cat pose.

He didn't want to use soap for his bath so he turned into a hippo.

He didn't want to put pajamas on because he was a bear.Here is the ASL sign for bear.

He couldn't brush his teeth because he was a crocodile.

He didn't wash his face because he was a shark.

He went limp in his Mom's arm because he was a slug.Join the kids in forward fold.

He didn't want to get in his bed because he was a Monkey.Here are the kids monkeying around.

Good night my wild child.To end we rested in Shavasna or resting pose and I had them imagine that they were an animal.Where were they?What were they doing?eating?playing?sleeping?Was it warm or cold?What was around them?Trees?water?dirt? Then after a few minutes I told them to imagine they were going to sleep and that all was calm and peaceful and they should feel safe and happy.

Good night my Zoo!Z is for Zoo

Summer of Success week 3

June 24th-28th
I can't believe it is almost July! Last week was sooo busy.We got to go to the Zoo.This week we are finishing Zoo animals and moving onto Dinosaurs!

Here is a break down of week
Theme:Dinosaurs
Scripture:Mark 5:36"Be not afraid,only believe"
Nursery Rhyme:Baby Bumblebee
Number:3
Skills to work on daily-reading,writing,math

Monday: finish Zoo animals and letters y and z
Tuesday:Eric Carle the author's Birthday /activities for Brown Bear Brown Bear what do you see?
Wednesday:Dinosaurs
Thursday:free day after school and family contributions
Friday:Readathon
Saturday: hike

Schedule
Wake up and do family contributions .They earn points and prizes.
9-10 1 hr of schooling-lesson,worksheets, reading,activities for theme or unit
11-12 outside /do things on bucket list
12-2 lunch and quiet time
2-3 snack &outside time
4-5 dinner prep,inside activities, dinner clean up
5-7free time and bedroom clean up
7-8 quiet time
8 in bed can read do things quietly until fall asleep
This is a very flexible schedule and I know there will be late nights :)

For the one hour of schooling is broken down by age as follows:
8 and up-daily tally of minutes read.add them to next days tally for math.fix misspelled sentences,word of the week found in dictionary. There will be words from reading too.After reading a book write character, plot,setting,climax and main ideas. Reading and picking an animal or whatever the interest.Prepare a report.This report will be broken down as data is collected and be done at child's pace.Weekly grocery list written and plan one meal.Counting practice and practice telling the time may also be done.An occasional spelling test might be given.Each subject will take 15 min.

5-7 year old will work on sight words,word families.Writing ideas and punctuation. They can write words for grocery list and identity what it starts with. Basic addition and subtraction will also be done.Counting by 2's and 5's and 10's.

2-4 letter,number,shape and color of the day.It is basically repetition at this point and lots of play.For the grocery list they can associate pictures with their corresponding words. They can also work on counting 1-10.

3 months-24 months
The more reading and singing the better! We earn nursery rhymes and play,explore.The older babies/toddlers may be able to count from 1-3.

Writing prompts for the week:
What was your favorite activity at the Zoo?......
How can you be nice to someone in your family?
Tell me about your favorite book......
What do you want to know about your Grandparents? ......

Hope you all have a happy and successful Summer!

7 tips on how to have the best day at the Zoo

1.Get up early! You want to see the Tiger and Monkeys in the morning  when they are the most active.Plus, the closer it gets to nap time for your little ones, the more tired they will be.Then come the melt downs.

2.Pack,snack, drinks and Sunscreen.Things like food and treats are expensive. You want to pack lunch and lots of food for your wild animals.They are not like giraffes.Giraffes can drink gallons at a time and wait several days before drinking again.

3.Plan out where you will go and where the animal feedings will be.
4.Get to the animal events at least a half an hour early to get good seats!Here we are at an awesome bird show.The bird's flew right over our heads.Check out these pictures!

5.While you are waiting in line go on bathroom breaks,eat and do a scavenger hunt and talk about what you have seen.
 6.If one person goes to the bathroom all should too.This doesn't always work but this time it did! I hate to have multiple stops to the potty!
7.Be prepared and be flexible.I had to stop a lot to feed the baby.You do not want to run out of diapers or not have a change of clothes.
8.Make sure kids are well rested the night before the big event.

At the zoo they had animals made from Lego's.The polar bear was made from 9,500 Lego's.Here the kids are in photo booths made from Lego's also.

Take back your Turf Thursday -My goals for Summer

So far we are having a great Summer! We are doing school at least an hour a day. The kids are home more and pitching in around the house.The house is more clean.I even got a chance to work in my room!Things were a little crazy last week because my hubby was out of town.My biggest problem is still the papers.I am desperately trying to find a solution! I dedicated a drawer in my son's room for his papers.Once it is full it then he must decide what to keep and toss.

We are also doing operation baby.This is where if the kids find a toy they figure out if it is a choking hazard.If they don't know they can see if it fits in a toilet paper tube or if it can come apart.It won't be long till the baby is crawling so I am making them aware now!

We are in week 4 of our 12 weeks.4 weeks until I put on that bathing suit for our Vacation. I have been a lot more active.This challenge may have been too much when I have so little time!My most successful week was when I would squeeze in time at the park.Have any of these exercises been of any benefit?What did you like?not like?I can't wait to go to the beach!

A little tip:bring baby powder to the beach it will get the sand off and don't forget warm clothes!

What are we putting in our Spiritual bank?

As I was doing the devotional for the week I found this talk that went along perfectly with treasures in heaven. It is given by Mary Ellen Smoot.The title is Everything money cannot buy.To paraphrase she starts out with a story where her friends car was vandelized. Luckily they recovered her more valuuable things money couldn't buy.She talks about why we seek treasures in heaven and how we get them.

Writing prompt:What is your favorite treasure? Why?

I asked my son to get his piggy bank and some coins.We talked about that he has a bank account where he can put his money. I want to talk about their spiritual account.I had them put a coin in and I would say that is reading your scriptures, praying and being kind to your siblings etc....When we do those things our spiritual bank is full.If you don't do the little things that we are empty.

As we get closer to going to the Zoo we did some more research.My oldest wanted to look at a Falcon. We found a webcam for the Peregrine Falcon.It is the fastest animal in the world.

Here is how our bookworm is coming along. How many books has your kids read?

Happy International picnic day!

Writing prompt:What would you pack for your picnic and why?

Math:I drew a giraffe and had the kids roll 2 dice.Then add those numbers together.Then I had my Kindergartner draw that many circles in the giraffe.For my Tot he practiced drawing his circles on his own giraffe.You could also have the kids make spots out of play d'oh.For my 8 year old we had him roll the dice and add,but then he would do it again. So if he rolled a 2 and a 4 it would equal 6.Then he would take the 6 and the sum of his second roll and add them together. So you have 4+2=6 and 4+4=8.Now take the 6 and 8 and add them.You would get 14 then add 2 more numbers and add that sum to the 14 and so on.So the number should keep getting bigger.

We also did some research on the giraffe.The baby is called a calf.It eats leaves.It lives in Africa.It defends itself by a strong kick with it's front feet.The giraffe is the tallest land animal.

2 more days till the Zoo!Lately I feel like I am living in a Zoo!

Letters of the week X,Y and Z

X marks the spot where the treasure is.I don't mean Gold and Silver but spiritual. In the scripture Mathew 6:20 it talks about laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven. There is a story of a girl named Christina who lived in Denmark. She saved coins that her Father shared with her from taking their sheep to have their wool sheered off.She didn't know why she was saving them until she met missionaries and traveled to America. She had just enough to join the Saints going to Salt Lake City.

Nursery Rhyme: The Zoo
At does do we saw a bear,he had long dark fuzzy hair.We saw a lion cage he was in an awful rage.We saw the big long necked giraffe,and the silly monkeys made us laugh.But my favorite animal is the elephant- how about you?

We did a little puppet show with finger puppets and made the animal sounds. The kids had fun doing that for the baby.

Letter of the week:Letter X
The kids hid treasures. My oldest even cut out and made coins.He also named the rooms like the jungle of death and skull island.The maps were simple with lines showing where to go and and X where the treasure was.

For my 2nd grader:
I found some down loadable summer packets.I took some of the sentences and changed some.Then my 8 year old would fix the sentences, whether it needed to be a capital, misspelled word or punctuation.Then I wrote up a word problem where he had to figure out how much it cost for 2 adults to go to the Zoo.The decimal point through him off.Both of my oldest wrote about their favorite activity for the week.

For my Kindergartner:
We worked on counting by 2's.She wrote her X.We practiced b and d since she keeps getting them confused. We did some addition practice as well.

For my Tot he practiced drawing diagonal lines and we read books.

Speaking of books we are reading a lot our book worm is getting long.We put a tally mark on one's previously read so we can find out our favorite!

We are counting down to Friday when we go to the Zoo.

For bedtime we had the kids get into their pj's and we made cookies and had them with milk.If you give your kid's milk and cookies they ate going to want to read If you give a Mouse a Cookie.

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?
Muck and mud
and bath tub suds that is what little boys are made of.

Trains and planes
and video games...............

Rough and tough
construction stuff...............

Cuddles and puddles
and football huddles ............

That is what MY BOYS
                               are made of.

Take back your Turf Thursday-How to have a more relaxed day and you in 4 easy steps

Summer time is so much fun.The sun is out.Swimming,camping,and hiking are only a few of the things to enjoy.There is almost too much to do and routine tends to go flying out the door. We got invited to go swimming last minute and I had just started to get all the swim stuff together last night but didn't finish! So I had ti run around trying to find things! There are things we can do daily to be ready for the next day.I am going to share 4 steps to a more relaxed day and you!

1.Do as much the night before, then you know if your kids need underwear or you are out of snacks for the picnic.I will now have my swimming bag ready and a bag of snacks and water!I also want to pack my diaper bag at this time.

2.I am woken up at 5 a.m.most days with the baby.There are days I get up then and days I go back to sleep.On the days I get up early I get more done before the kids get up.The days where I sleep in, not only am I more tired but rushing around to get the kids ready , myself ready, and all the other things that I need to do.So my tip to you is to get up before the kids ,relax and do things that you need to do before they get up.Having more time in the morning and doing  more things at night help out more than you would think.

3.Next is to let go of expectations that your house is going to be clean and everything is going to work out well everyday.Let's face it your kids are home and into more things and eating more things, so your house is going to be more messy.Also there's going to be more fights and not getting along.So just take it as it comes day by day hour by hour.

4.This next step is also very important that I mentioned a little bit at the beginning.Stick to a routine!In the morning, afternoon, and night make sure the kids know what is expected of them.If you let them lay around all day and watch TV and have no structure and it's going to be harder for you to keep any kind of order or to keep the kids entertained.See my schedule here If you follow these steps you can have a more relax day.If it all falls apart at least you know you did your best.

To end I would just like to remind all of you following my 12 week to a beach worthy Mommy,that there are 4 more weeks! How is everyone doing with thier challenge? Can you find the time?I just happened to find a workout for the last four weeks.Good luck!

Digging into reading and animals

We are continuing to explore different animals.We look for what their babies are called, what they eat and where they live.We also talk about how they defend themselves. I am thinking I am going to put a food chain activity soon.The kids have been fascinated with Cheetahs and their speed.There are a lot of youtube videos of Cheetahs and other animals.
Vocabulary:
Carnivorous
Omnivorous
habitat

We did a few more activities geared toward my Toddler.We tried to identify the animal sounds in thisyoutube video
We also found a cute youtube learn to count with number Zoo. My Toddler could count the animals as they appeared on the screen.

We went to our Library.This is a great place to go,especially during the Summer! They had live animals there today and I thought how perfect!Enjoy the pictures!

It was a long wait

We dug into some good books and then grub at home.The baby is 4 months now and just had his first taste of rice cereal.Me, I lost my appetite after the animal guy put a scorpion in his mouth!No joke!Ewwwwwwwwe

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwe!!