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!!

2 by 2 and ice play too!

Noah gathered the animals 2 by 2 a male and female. The kids understood that they needed both Mom and Dad to have babies.We pretended to be like Noah and count by 2's.My Kinder struggles there.For my 2 year old we practiced 1-10.

We started off this morning writing our favorite zoo animals.My toddler drew his favorite while my 6 and 8 year old scribbled away.For my Kindergartner I looked for spelling and letter formation. She picked a cheetah and got all the sounds especially the ch blend! She wrote cHeetu.Her c was backwards so we practiced c and her lower case h.

For my 2nd grader I had him practice telling the time.He wrote what time it was when he was done with writing.Then what it would be in 15 minutes,and then an hour.

Next I had him pick a 3 digit number.
1.write it out
2.draw it with cubes
3.add 3
 4.add 35
5.subtract 5
6.subtract 17
7.what are next 3 even numbers
 8.what are the next 3 odd numbers.
I got this idea here

This week we are working on picking up after we play.Our rule is one thing out at a time.We are also gathering all the Lego's,Barbie stuff and Squinkies I have found everywhere from people getting small stuff down and not monitoring the kids,when I was recovering from my C-section.I sigh...

Here is our bookworm.We add a section of him each time read a book.

Do you do quiet time? Every kid here does.The. can read,write,draw.Play with certain toys quietly.My oldest loves to draw but then there is paper EVERYWHERE!

Good mess?Yes? No?

It has been really hot here, so 24 hours before I wanted to do the activity for water week, I filled a container with water and little things and froze it.The kids had a blast! They smashed it and tasted the ice.We tried to get the baby to touch the ice but he wouldn't do it.He will stick with his nursery rhymes and books, thank you.I'm not sure where this idea originated so if you know let me give credit where it is due.