Summer of Sucess-Week 9

This month we have been working in the Study guide for. 1 Nephi 1-7.There is even a quiz at the end.

Today:
Devotional: 1 Nephi 3:7
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

This week we are focusing on courage.It was hard for Nephi to stand up to his brothers.It is important when times are hard not to give up!

For school this week we have been reviewing letters.For my 4th grader we have been working on multiplication. For my 2nd grader we have been working on time,money and her writing letters properly.
I printed out a cute little booklet

We added it to our binders for church.On Monday we had a lesson on reverence, due to the worst behavior I have seen last Sunday!

To help them stay quiet we bought a binder and sheet protectors. We have been printing activities out.They can use dry erase markers to color on the sheet protectors and also be able to re-use the activities !

We also printed 1 Nephi 3:7 copy work for my older kids so they can memorize it.Here is hoping for a much quieter and sane Sunday this week!

August Intentions and how to plan for back to school

The past few days I have been at a loss as what to write.I am not sure if it is staying up late or major changes. I have been weaning my very allergy sensitive baby to a hypo-allergenic formula.It took 2 weeks!

Could it be the dreaded back to school cloud looming over my head?School starts for us in 2 weeks.I think next to New Years,the back to school bug bites hard. When it comes right down to it,the itch to do better this year or to be organized, is nagging and ever present.Pinterest definitely has the bug it is everywhere!

As I write this post I just sit here stunned that the Summer is almost over!These next 2 weeks I will be getting the kids back on a good eating and sleeping schedule. I want to give them, and me, plenty of time to acclimate to this new school year.I hope that if I finish my shopping and get a favorite foods list done,that the visions of school supplies will stop dancing in my head.Slow down! I wish I knew how to make time bend to my will.

More time and less stress is what my August is going to be all about.It is time to make new goals and make my house run like a well oiled machine.How can I do this?Plan,plan and plan some more!It appears many people feel this way.There are printable planners everywhere! I took a little idea here and another there and I love the results.Planning for me brings goals,needs and ideas to the forefront. If I get it on paper and have a plan BEFORE school starts there will be less to iron out when it is stressful!So here it goes,who is with me?I am writing my goals/intentions to get them out there in the universe.

August Intentions
1."Sprummer cleaning"Finish my Spring cleaning in Summer.
2.a.Organize my daily planner
   b.finish back to school shopping
3.Go to bed earlier and wake up at 6.
4.Plan Mom and Dad kid dates
5.plan date nights with hubby
6.Potty train my Preschooler
7.Toddler sleeping in his own bed!
8.Do a Diy project(cover seats in Living room or paint dresser)
9.Exercise 3 times a week.I think chasing kids around should count.

There is 9 goals and only 4 weeks to do them in!I am starting a few days early in July with the schedule. So what I came up with is categories that my goal can fall in.I write these categories done and make sure I do something from each one oer week.

Church-
visiting,callings and working on
 Christ like values

Home care

• Housekeeper-organizing,cleaning and projects 
• Wife
• Mother and teacher  
• Manager of time,food and budget
• Neighbor and a friend
• Daughter and a Sister
• Personal-exercise,blogging 

At the end of each day I write what I am grateful for,look at the next day and ask myself what I can do to make tomorrow better?At the end of the week I look at my goals and several weeks ahead so I know what is coming.

None of this,unfortunately can stop the whirling and urgency of my day to day.Things come up.I can ask myself,when there is too much on my plate,  what is most important to get done."I will finish" is my affirmation. I want to focus on one thing at a time,take one step at a time.Take one step and you will be that much closer to achieving your goals and dreams.

Summer of Success- Week 8

Devotional:Pioneer day is coming up!A lot of my husband's ancestors were pioneers.Keeping with the theme of pioneers we talked about Lehi and his family,who were pioneers.Lehi belonged to the house of Israel through Joseph,who was sold into Egypt.They left Jerusalem and were guided to the promised land.We talked about how hard it would be to leave all our treasures behind. I asked the children if they could do that and what they would take with them.

We decided to take a journey of our own.We pretended to be explorers.

Writing prompt: They each had a notebook, pencil and magnifying glass.They wrote their findings.

The challenge was to find a face in a tree or we found one on the fence.

What better place to explore than the library!I printed these cute library plan.

What are you doing to explore for Summer break?

Summer of Sucess-Week 7,Day 3 of Spy Week (If you love legos you need to try this!)

Devotional:  The kids are working on memorizing a poem to learn the books in the Book of Mormon.I am on the lookout for one for the Bible too!
First there is NEPHI ONE and TWO.
Then five short books with pages few:
JACOB
ENOS
JAROM
OMNI
WORDS OF MORMON
How they fly by!

KING MOSIAH,good and great
Then ALMA'S love instead of hate.

"Repent!" Says the prophet HELAMAN.
Five more books and we're almost done.

NEPHI THREE and FOUR and MORMON
ETHER and MORONI,now there are none!

Letter:U for undercover
For baby:Play peek-a-boo.Hide toys or yourself under the blanket.My little guy really gets into it.You could say he likes to go under cover lol I can't help myself.:-P

Activity -My kiddos have been spending so much of their time with legos!I thought they would have fun setting up their own crime scenes with legos.They had a blast!The pictures aren't a good representation of their scenes,but I did my best!

Crime#1

There is a party going on with these body guards.Their party is crashed when a bad guy steels a weapon.He is the shooter!See picture below.

The guards run for their life, but 3 are killed.They must protect this guy:

Why?He is carrying discs that hold important information.

Crime#2

There are 3 dead!One guy lost his helmet!

They are all after a pink stone that can give anybody powers.Their is a spider that will eat you if you pick up the stone.

Other guys tried to warn him.There was a robot who was helping the spider by killing them off!

Crime#2

Someone stole some very important jewels and is trying to escape.He has made a lot of people angry!Will he make it out alive?

Only 3 more weeks and one day until school starts!Eeeek! 

Take back your Turf Thursdays-Prepare for Christmas in July

It has been a while since I have done take back your Turf Thursday!Let's face it Summer brings chaos!I was looking ahead in my calendar and realized there is only 4 more weeks until school!!This thought got me on an organizing kick again.I looked at what was and wasn't working. I also realized I haven't made any real concrete goals in a while!So here is my thought process:

1.Look at my priorities
For school I need-

1. Go through kids clothes and make a list of what is needed.I am doing this right now!This week.
2. Get list for school supplies
3. Budget
4. Buy what is on my list
5. Plan one more big event before school
6. 2 weeks before-Get back to a routine. Go to bed and get up earlier

For Christmas-I like to look 6 months ahead to see what is coming. I passed Thanksgiving and Christmas!It is less than 6 months away!

1. Make master gift list.Start thinking of those people you want to give gifts or make. 
2. Budget. Put money away or buy gifts.I figure I will start with 2 people each pay check. 
3. Buy extra tape when school shopping 

Summer of Sucess-Week 7,Day 2 of Spy week

Devotional: We are learning to be scripture detectives.There is an awesome study guide that comes with the children's version of the scriptures.We reflected on questions like:

What is the book of Mormon?Did you know the prophet asked us to keep a journal?Why did these people write on plates of gold?

Activity: Write on tinfoil with a pen to get an idea how it was writing on the plates.

Why do we need the Bible and Book of Mormon?God loves us and wants us to have as much knowledge as we can to help us.The Book of Mormon is from a people who left Jerusalem 600 B.C.I love it!We use both for our devotionals!

Letter:T for training, spy training in fact!Read Richard Scary's Fun with Words, letter T

Writing prompt: Write a story:You find a key.What would you do next?Would you try to find where it belongs?What does it go to?Where is it?

I wanted the kids to pick agent code names.To help,we picked a color and a noun.The kids chose 1.Blue Lizard 2.Pink Unicorn 3.Red Bomber

I got the idea from here

Welcome to the CTR(Choose the right)Agency.

The agents were called by their agent numbers and code name.

1.Security scan-My husband used his electrical meter and if it beeped he would tickle the culprit!

2.Check in and background check.Got this link for this activity and more dun ideas!

3.Fingerprints 

I printed out Id cards hereThere was a place on the back to put their fingerprints. They received their badges and passports. 

4.Receive their Alias and disguises.They were Prophets from the scriptures. There was Nephi,Alma the younger and Abinadai. We talked about them and what they did.The passports we downloaded from lds.org

Top Secret Mission-finding wanted fugitives

Our agents were told to memorize our fugitives names and faces.I just photo copied pictures from the kids volume of scriptures. There was Laman and Lemuel "L and L brothers",King Noah "Underwear bandit",Nehor "Bulletooth Nehor"

They were all apprehended and Nehor was taken down in the process!We had a lot of fun!

Summer of Sucess-Week 7 is Spy week

Did you figure out my little hint yesterday?

Tick tick tick....................................................
BOOM!

It is spy week at our house!I really started planning this great week after attending a library program for Summer reading.It was a CSI library.

There was fingerprinting and finding what type you are.

 Next,soil analysis.There was 4 samples of soil in a bottle(diluted in water),on a sandal,in a specimen box.The kids had to match them up!

 Finally, we watched videos and answered the librarians questions.They had to tell who did the crime and who is being honest and who is lying.

Tommorow is spy training. ...and a top secret mission ;-) 

Summer of Sucess-Week 6,Day 3

Patriot camp looked like so much fun!I love that my kids can learn more about our country.I don't want to spark a political debate,however,I feel like the ideals and the constitution is under attack these days.I want my kids to understand what our founding fathers fought for and how they can be good patriots.I think it is very important!!
The kids learned about join or die,a well known political comic by Benjamin Franklin.The kids loved  painting wooden snakes.At least it might help them remember what they learned.:-)

We finished out our week if patriotic symbols,by learning about the liberty bell and the eagle.My oldest son collects eagles,so they are well known around here anyways.:-)

Letter: B for bell

We made our own bells by filling up water glasses.We put different amounts of liquid in each to change the pitch.It turned into an opportunity for my Preschooler to practice pouring.

Next week is spy week and I am really excited about it!So is my husband! He rarely gets to be involved in Summer fun during the week.He is going to make something for me!I will give you a hint.Tick tick tick............

Summer of Sucess-Week 6,Day 2

Happy Teddy bear picnic day.We had a blast with our star and stripes grilled cheese and my daughter's tea set!

Us with our bears

This is my son's reindeer, Sven.We have the Frozen fever too!Ahhhhh

Who says it has to be the fourth of July to be patriotic!I love my patriot bear!Tomorrow is the last day of patriot camp.My oldest kids continue to write about what they have learned.My 4th grader is working on his multiplication table and learning the 13 colonies to first gain their independence.

We will work more on spelling and writing for my 2nd grader.

For my Preschooler we looked at the alphabet to see what letter he recognizes and practice writing his name.

5 more weeks until my babies go back to school!!Hope you are all enjoying your summer as much as we are!

Summer of Sucess-Week 6

While the older kids are at patriot camp during the day,my preschooler,and toddler will learn about the (U.S.A).

Devotional:A better way

Letter:U

-teach/familiarize with U.S map
-show where we live and where family lives
-each country has its own flag
-U.S flag and activities and lesson plan
-talk about the statue of liberty
Music and movement: Play patriotic music and have a little parade with musical instruments.

For toddler-take red,white and blue blocks and help them sort it into colors.Then with all the kids you can build the statue of liberty or any monument.

My little patriots at camp!

Writing prompt: Older kids write about what they learned at camp.

Summer of Sucess-Week 5,Day 3

Devotional: Ephesians 4:29
" Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers."

We all get angry and upset,but we cannot let our words become hurtful and volatile. It is hard to control our anger,however, we do not want to be like a geyser. We are like geysers when we continue to fester and be angry. Eventually with all the pressure and a continual stream of negativity,we become unstable and continue to blow and fume.It becomes a habit and continues to build over time.It is only through Jesus we can ask for help.Pray to be in control.Pray for your spouse and children,that they will speak kind words to each other.

We talked about How Yellowstone geysers erupt.Then we made our own geysers using materials around the house.None of our experiments worked,except the vinegar and baking soda.The kids had fun though Eventually, they took a pool noodle and blew into the bath tub.It bubbled and erupted.All four kids splashed and experimented together.The baby mostly filled up water containers and dumped them out.This is good practice for fine motor skills.

Here is a real geyser.How did we do?

Since we didn't have much success on our own we used coke and mentos candy experiment. It is like old faithful! It works every time!

Summer of Success- Week 5

We just got back from Yellowstone! It was so much fun!I had no idea of what to expect and how big it really was!Wow!Here is my picture heavy post!

This was a cool tree.Great picture right?

We saw lots of bison and a moose! Many bison blocked the road,like the big guy in the picture below.

We saw a waterfall in the Yellowstone grand canyon.

We saw interesting green plants.My son almost could pass for one don't you think?

Mesa waterfall

We fished and did some rafting at a lake right by our cabin in Island park.

Last week we learned about maps and what we would see at Yellowstone. Tomorrow we are going to learn more about geysers and make one of our own!Next week my oldest 2 have patriot camp.I am thinking of patriotic ideas to do with the younger 2....