Trick or Treat

Jumping into Six

Anna officially turns 6 on Sunday, but we celebrated her birthday today.  In our family 6 is the year for a "party" birthday party.  Anna joined our family shortly after she turned 5 and she has had to endure every other family members birthday - let's just say it has been a long year.  And since she had yet to have a proper birthday, can you blame her?

The Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Anna!

Wrapping Up the Week - 10/29

What We Are Reading→ 

On my Kindle: The Blessing

Bob is reading The Hobbit to the boys

Betsy-Tacy with the girls

On My Waiting to be Read Pile

Theology of the Body for Beginners

Jane Eyre

Rebuild my Church

Brideshead Revisited

Fall Kitchen→ No baking this week.  Today cupcakes are in the works for weekend birthday festivities.

Tea Time→ No Tea Time.  We went on a short little road trip with Dad this week instead.

Happenings→ We are looking forward to birthday celebrations and Trick or Treating this weekend.

Discovery Time→    

   Basic Skills Unit: We are all enjoying The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  There have been several days where we have read two chapters in one sitting - that says a lot for us.


The kids are determined to make the most of every little last bit of fair weather.  I can't blame them, winter seems to last a long, long time around here.

Jacob ~ Handwriting, Math Journal, Phonics, Vocabulary, Map work, Russian, Nature Reader

Jonah ~ Handwriting, Mental Math, Phonics, Reader

Sarah ~ Handwriting, MUS, Phonics, Fancy Nancy Books, Word Search puzzles

   Along the Alphabet Path: Letter H week - We were back at it this week, learning about a new letter.  We read a few books about hair, as well as Sunflower Houses, and Birthdays.

The kids really enjoy making the letter of the week.

We colored and cut and paste a letter H.  It was about the only craftiness I could muster this week.

"word collecting"

I do think this ends up being the favorite activity of the week.  They will spend lots of time trying to think of appropriate words.  Today Jacob even got the dictionary out to find more H words.  This lasted all afternoon and all through dinner.  Sometimes it really is the simple things that are most engaging.

Be sure to link up your wrap up of the week!  Have a great weekend.

{in this moment}

{sisters}

in this moment, a moment to remember, for more see SouleMama

Strengthening Hand Muscles

A couple of my younger children have some issues with fine motor skills and one in particular has low muscle tone, so she could use some help to strengthen her hand muscles.  She enjoys writing but her hand fatigues quickly and her penmanship needs some work.  I thought I would share a few of the resources I have collected.

Fine Motor Skills and First Grade Readiness - great suggestions for easy things to do at home like the wheelbarrow, squeezing sponges in the tub (love that!), stringing beads etc

Difficulties with Hand Function

Fun Fine Motor Activities - lots of links for activities and maybe even some Christmas gift ideas!

Hand Exercises for Preschoolers

Improving Handwriting more ideas, plus toy suggestions

Christmas Countdown ~ Two Months

I reviewed the list in my Christmas notebook of things I would like to have completed by Thanksgiving, which is November 25th.

   ❧ Christmas cards ready and waiting to be mailed

   ❧ St. Nicholas gifts ready (we do our stockings on the Feast of St. Nicholas)

   ❧ December birthday gifts purchased

   ❧ Have all Christmas gift items purchased, so we can focus on our homemade things in December

   ❧ Have Advent craft supplies purchased (Advent starts November 28th!)

   ❧ I am going to use many of the Advent resources found here at Real Learning

   ❧ Check gift wrap supplies

   ❧ Go over Christmas budget (this should probably be at the top of the list!)

Lots to do and our remaining weekends before Christmas are already filling up.  Happy planning :)

Wrapping up the Week - 10/22

What We Are Reading→ 

Lucky Girl

On my Kindle: The Blessing

Bob is reading The Hobbit to the boys

Betsy-Tacy with the girls

On My Waiting to be Read Pile

Theology of the Body for Beginners

Jane Eyre

Rebuild my Church

Brideshead Revisited

Fall Kitchen→  We are reading a FIAR book this week.  We chose The Tale of Peter Rabbit, as we read about Peter Rabbit in The Burgess Bird Book.  Wednesday night we had Vegetable Soup using the recipe from the FIAR Cookbook.

Tea Time→  This was a review week so we didn't follow the tea time alphabet snack list. 

Fall Outings→ Last weekend we went to a local apple orchard with cousins, this is for my sister....can't wait until Ben is home to complete the photo!

We are meeting a blogging friend at the park today :)

Discovery Time→    

   Basic Skills Unit: We started reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz this week.  A few weeks ago we tried to watch the movie, but about 30 minutes into it we realized it hadn’t downloaded correctly from iTunes.  Shortly after that I happened to see Sarah @ Amongst Lovely Things was reading the book to her children.  Duh!  We should have read the book first, and now we are.  Extra bonus, it was a free download on Kindle.  I am sure we will watch the movie soon.

Jacob: working through Your Business Math Series, Explode the Code, Map Work,  Vocabulary, and Nature Reader

Jonah: MUS, ETC, Handwriting, All About Spelling Reader

Sarah: MUS, ETC, Handwriting, BOB Books

   Along the Alphabet Path: Review Week - This week we are reviewing letters A-G.  We have been reading lots of alphabet books:

The Handmade Alphabet a great book that reinforces ASL too.

Clifford’s ABC

An Old-Fashioned ABC Book

Lucy & Tom’s a.b.c.

Alfie’s ABC

Anna and I spent some time on her alphabet book:

We used alphabet review sheets from Homeschool Creations.  The kids had fun using the chunky Do-A-Dot markers.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to link up your post!