Sea Life

A few weeks ago, my dear friend Catherine, came to town. We are kindred spirits in so many different ways, but probably our most special bond is we both were blessed with children through adoption and then very quickly had a biological child! Her “babies” are only 5 months a part! This is a very unique and rare journey to share with someone and it has been so fun to have someone to share with me.

(This photo was taken in April, right before she MOVED away….when she so honored me and ask me to speak to her Mops group!)
Another passion we share is teaching our children at home! So when her husband came back to town for a conference she was able to bring her kiddos along for a fun filled day with the TripleSmiles We decided to spend the day together at Sea Life. It was a super fun day FILLED with learning about our under water friends.
The kids(with help!) had to read the walls to find answers to a super fun scavenger hunt!



Crawling across the shark tank!




Such a super fun fun day!
It was fun to re-visit our learning back at home! Sea Life offers a complete educational packet to educators on their website.  I cut a part the packet and had the kiddos glue the activities into their Science Journals.

Ordering Life Cycle of a Penguin

Matching Animals to their descriptions.

Matching Animals to their Habitats

And finally, they made their own aquarium exhibit in their draft books. I will have them pretend to be an animal in the exhibit and write about it next week!

Thanks for stopping by……

More about Pumpkins

One of my goals in homeschooling is to be able to provide the kids with lots of hands on experiences and then bring that experience back into a learning activity or lesson. Here are just a few examples inspired by our visit to the pumpkin patch.

Levi’s writing in his draft book about his day at the pumpkin patch.

Kids on their “listening rugs” about to hear The Parable of the Pumpkin Patch by Lizz Curtis Higgs.

Zach is looking for an answer to fill in on our pumpkin about the beginning, middle and end to our story.

The kids enjoyed watching a retelling of the story on the computer while I made lunch.

They also colored a coloring book retelling the story.  I will put the coloring book in their reading baskets so they can go back and revisit the story this month.

We also had fun digging into the pumpkin just like the farmer to see what was inside!

 

After we cleaned up, we worked on a Draw Right Now lesson on pumpkins.

(Ava had started on her pumpkin in a previous setting)

(Zach’s Work)

I absolutely LOVE this writing curriculum.

The children are given step by step instructions on how to draw something and then they can read some facts about the subject. Then they write about the subject.

Here is another one Zach drew on the Little Red Hen which was the story he studied during “Nana School” a few weeks ago.

Carisa offers some tracing activities for book 1.

I am still holding Ava’s hand for support, but she is able to draw the basic strokes. I traced over her strokes in black and she colored, pink of course!

Last by not least, Levi has enjoyed some extra Columbus enrichment to his regular Kindergarten load.

Stay tuned for our latest experience to Sea Life!

Thanks for stopping by……

Pumpkin Patch Fun!

We kicked our fall off to a great start with our annual tradition of visiting the pumpkin patch.
Woodbine Farms is owned and operated by the sweet family that knew that our Zachariah needed a forever home! We love going back to visit each year. It is a 2 hour drive from Dallas, but totally worth every mile!


They have darling red wagons and the kids absolutely LOVE lugging around each other and pumpkins all day.





The kids love love love making smores over the open fire…..


And I can’t resist this fun picture of my mini-me.

And the day would NOT have been the same without our sweet friends who I called and said “Lets go to Oklahoma! Yes! Today! In an hour!”

Happy FAll Ya’ll