home school preschool butterfly week

This week in home school preschool 

We learned all about Butterflies!

We read (of course) 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

and studied a lot about the life cycle of a butterfly.

this was a great video

here she did a matching game to review her numbers. 

Then I assisted her in a sewing project.

She created her very own Butterfly wings.

 

Then we made a diagram with doors that open to show each phase of the life cycle.

 

recent events have me second guessing my girl and what she is actually learning but she shows me every day that she is just fine and making great progress! 

here is just one page out of her math work book. 

we are reviewing all the teen numbers.

We still have work with her letters and being able to recognize them but she is getting there. 

Today she asked if she could write out her guest list of friends she wants to invite to her birthday party and I handed her the flash cards and told her the letters of her friends name and she wrote each of them out! It's a small thing I know but it's amazing to me.

We had another busy week this week. we had extra friends come play one day and then we had a doctors visit to take my dad too and we had to also visit my grandma who is entering into her last days  and I am extremely behind on photography work. It's been very stressful and I could have easily said no to home school preschool this week but it's really that special one on one time I get with my miss Belle and I needed that time with her. We only have a month left of preschool planned but I am thinking about doing a family summer home school. I need to look more into what we all can do but I am looking forward to it too.

Ok I am done rambling on to planning. have a great weekend! I have lots of post coming your way just have to get caught up first!!!

home school preschool military week

After Belle was born I witnessed something I never imagined

My little rebel, trouble maker of a brother's heart melted.

He just fell so crazy in love with her and being an uncle.

He was so protective and loving and playful and he was teaching her little baby tricks like blowing bubbles and peekaboo.

I knew he would make the perfect God Father to her

so much so I didn't feel like she needed a God mother.

Then he signed up for the Army.

He signed up for 5 years as a US Army Firefighter.

and we were all so proud of him.

We traveled to his boot camp graduation and got to spend some time with him before he headed off to his tech school and base.

I remember a conversation we had at one point where he was holding her.

 He said "I don't want her to forget about me."

it makes me cry even thinking about it now.

I promised him I wouldn't let that happen.

They have phone calls and during his visits home he always makes extra time to just hang out with the girls. we send letters and she has his picture in a frame on her dresser.

She loves her Uncle Gage.

This week in home school Preschool, I wanted to teach her a little bit more about the Military.

We learned the Pledge of Allegiance and how to place your hand over your heart.

She crafted her very own dog tags with her name and address.

We learned about camouflage and we played eye spy with different soldiers in camos at different locations in pictures.

she wrote a thank you letter to her uncle for his service.

then she drew herself looking up at him.

Along with my brother I have many other family members who serve in the military.

including my late Grandpa. 

He passed before my children were born

I know he would have been just as crazy about them and Gage is.

His flag is sitting on the mantel at my Aunt's house. 

we went to visit my Grandma who is living there also

 and I showed Belle the flag. we talked about how to salute.

 

She is moving along in her workbooks numbers 10,11,12,13 and 14

we are still working on flash cards with the ABC's  she's got over half of them memorized but we will keep doing them until she has them all.

It is very important to my husband and I that our children show respect to those who served in the military. We teach them that being a soldier is a very dangerous job and it requires people to leave their loved ones and homes for long periods of time. and because they said, yes mommy and daddy don't have to. 

We should always say thank you. 

My husband is really good about going up to a person wearing a veteran's hat and thanking them. I am a little more shy but I know it's important so I am working on it too. it's the very least we can do after the huge sacrifice they did for us.

our master bedroom

our lovely bedroom.

it's been the only room in our house I just don't have a clue as to what I want to do with it.

I did have some fun a few years ago and made a walpaper out of books

check that out here

but over some time the pages were falling down and we got a new bed, I was tired of the placement of the furniture. 

so things changed. 

most everything  in our room is the same as it was in this post.

but I really wanted a statement wall.

something 

anything.

so my good friend Pintrest showed me a bunch of cute ideas.

follow me here

 I loved each one but I wanted to do something simple and not have to buy anything.

so I found this idea.

Here is our wall before. 

I cut out a design using cardboard.

I traced one row and decided I wanted it bigger so I used a bigger box. but same shape as pictured:

Then traced the whole wall

Went over the marks with gold paint.

it was a fast project but took me a little longer becasue I had children to feed 

but all together took about 2 hours to do.

I am a wierdo

Painting relaxes me 

I love to put on some music open a window and just paint and paint. If someone asked me to paint thier whole house I would for free.

BUT they would have to be ok with my need for things to be random and not perfect.

I love it. 

for now. 

I still feel like the room is not every thing it could be and we are going to be in the market for a new dresser and side tables and hopefully a vanity desk next year so maybe then I will decided on a design I want for the master bedroom.

Home school preschool Veggie week

last year I wrote about our garden

 I was so excited to start gardening again this year.

I knew it had to be a topic for home school preschool.

We read one book

Peppa pig and the vegetable garden

Then we started some seed pods.

I research and found a way to use toilet paper rolls and once the plants start growing you can just plop the whole roll into the ground and it will decompose! we used an old container to keep them together added soil, the seeds and water. then set it next to a window to get lots of sun. 

This year instead of just planting whatever seeds I had inherited from others I really wanted to focus on things my family will actually eat. I know that sounds silly but last year we didn't eat a lot of what we grew because we didn't like them in the first place. 

 

we are growing green beans, carrots, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, strawberries and I found a kit to grow grapes. 

 

 at the store helping me pick out tools and seeds and plants for the garden.

 This is what it looks like so far. I laid out the wood around to help visualize to my husband where I want to chicken coop to go and the fence around the garden. he is still not on board but I figure if I build it anyway he will just let it happen. 

and it will happen one step at a time.

 Then on Friday we found other ways to use vegetables besides eating them.

 Its funny to me that I am Belle's teacher but in this weeks lessons we are learning together. 

because I still have lots to learn!

 any tips would be greatly appreciated!! 

like  how do you know your pulling weeds or actually watering and growing a weed?! (true story) how do you know when to harvest? how to keep bugs, squirrels, birds, rabbits and the occasional wild turkey (another true story) out of my garden? how to build a simple coop and fence? what supply should we have on hand before actually buying our chickens? what do I do with the chickens in the winter? how to start composting? and how to talk my husband into this life style :)

Hazel's 5 month check up

For her 5 month pictures I really wanted to capture all her rolls

so we did a little naked baby shoot!

 

The bracelet she is wearing is a cross bracelet my mom bought her for her baptism and she said a lot of her Hispanic patients give a newborn baby a religious bracelet at birth and they never take it off. I really liked the idea that she had Jesus with her always. so I leave it on her too.  

FYI: it fits her very well

so no choking worries.

 trust me I have anxiety over choking hazards so I made sure she is safe.

 She is warning me that she doesn't approve of these naked baby pictures.

 Then her sisters HAD to join in. 

they each had a pose they wanted with her.

 She is very playful right now.

loves taking baths and makes Indian noises when you put your hand up to her mouth

she started eating cereal

she is not a fan of anyone but her mommy and daddy holding her. 

she cries the saddest cry if anyone tries.

she still sleep pretty good and has set her own bedtime at 8:00 every night.

she hates being hot and sweats a lot-she gets that from her daddy ;)

she has a huge smile and the biggest blue eyes that catches EVERYONE'S attention-she gets that from me ;P

hahaha

no seriously we keep looking at her and saying how much she really DOESN'T look like her sisters or acts like them at all! she is her own totally unique little person.

 5 months 

I can't believe it.

and she needs to start sitting up better because her monthly picture looks so uncomfortable now 

Home school preschool Easter week!

Last week was Easter Theme week for home school preschool

 We focused a lot on all the events leading up to Easter.

we read all the stories in the bible 

about 

Judas

washing of the feet

the last super

the Garden of Gethsemane

Jesus being arrested and sentenced to death

his crucifixion

and then the happiest ending of any story

The Resurrection!!

back when Julia was younger I always debated on telling her the whole story.

I mean it gets pretty graphic and scary for a little one to hear about all the pain.

But the whole story is the basis of our faith.

I don't want to sugar coat it or skip passed anything for fear that it might scar my children.

I actually do want it to scar them.

sort of.

Jesus endured all the humiliation, pain and betrayal for us

because he loved us.

This is one thing I want them to know without any filters.

So I tell them exactly what the bible tells us.

I think this helps them understand better about why Easter is so important.

We also did a few fun activities.

color matching with plastic eggs.

 Number of Carrot leaves that is listed on the carrot.

 I wrote all the stations of the cross in a blank book and Belle drew a picture of what she thought was happening. Jesus is the happy guy because he understands why he is doing this and Simon is sad because he feels bad for Jesus. Miss Belle also felt bad that Simon was sad so she drew party hats on everyone to lighten the mood. 

see she's not scarred but might need to work on her cross drawing skills.

 she worked on lots of math papers in her workbook and we continued her ABC's flashcards.

Then we did our traditional family Easter activities.

a few years ago we were broke.

like really really broke!

so much so we couldn't afford Easter baskets for the kids 

I was really upset but didn't want to call off the bunny's stop at our house.

 I picked up a few brown paper bags from the grocery store and we cut and painted them to look like baskets. This worked perfect and every year since the kids actually prefer to make their baskets.

 so we that's what we did again this year. 

After the bags were drying my mom stopped by and we dyed eggs.

 and we also got another traditional Eater family picture in front of our house.

but I wanted a more serious look so I said NO SMILES! 3 people listened. Belle likes to smile and Stella likes to make pirate faces. Hazel, I think she's just there for the ride, no real opinions on our family pictures yet.

We had the best Easter and hope you did too!

slap me!

 even though this is our 4th and I have taken care of babies my entire life, I still have moments where I feel like I have no idea what I am doing. during the day when Hazel was sleepy I would just set her up in the swing and let her rock to sleep. Then this last month she started fighting it bad! screaming so hard and was just inconsolable. she wasn't hungry, had a clean diaper, wanted nothing to do with toys or even being held. I was so lost as what she wanted. I felt like during these times someone switched my sweet Hazel with a crazy angry baby! Then right before all the screaming got to be too much I just wrapped her up as tight as I could and laid her in her bassinet up stairs next to my room.I needed to take a break

and guess what?

it worked!

she fell a sleep!

I felt like I needed someone to slap me!

duh!!!

she just wanted to be away from all the noises downstairs in order to get a good nap.

I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out! 

maybe it's my own lack of sleep

but my happy girl is back!

 Then I realized that she is growing

and soon she will out grow her bassinet and who knows if we will ever be using it again!

so you know me I had to pick up my camera and take as many pictures as I quietly could.

I tried to move around to every angle I could. I noticed our wedding picture on the dresser. 

I loved that.

When you are pregnant the baby is with you all of the time

when you are breast feeding the baby is literately attached to you

when you co-sleep (sleep in same room) they are with you.

you get pretty used to this little creature being your side kick and in our family when they get too big for the bassinet it's really the first step in baby getting some independence. she will officially move to the nursery.

this makes me sad. 

I know I have separation issues with my children and moving across the hall is not really a big deal 

I should just hold all these emotions in for when something really big comes like KINDERGARTEN!

Lord help me for the other big growing up steps. driving, graduation, college, moving out, marriage

my children growing up. it's coming but for now I will tip toe around them sleeping and snap as many pictures as I can.