Home school preschool Daddy week

My husband has just celebrated his one year anniversary at his dream job.

His title is Calibrations specialist.

 He works with a lot of machines and computers that test different products for other companies.

most of the products are top secret.

things for aerospace, power generation, oil gas, transportation, biomedical, and farm heavy equipment suppliers and manufacturers in the United States and worldwide.

he loves his company and everyday is something new

I love how he comes home happy and feeling appreciated by his co-works and bosses.

This week for home school preschool We learned about technology.

or I named it -Daddy's work week!

We watched this video:

I very rarely let my kids on any kind of computer/phone/tablet 

I just don't think they are all that great for kids and I would rather my kids be playing, exploring, and creating with hands on activities.

but for this week I did let miss Belle visit the PBS website and play a few learning games.

 Everyday my husband empties is pockets and he accidentally brings a handful of these things home!

he always returns it :)

But we decided to make a tool box and filled it with some random tinkering tools.

 We built a motherboard and connected the color "wires" to the correct color ports.

Brian loved this!

 The real reason for doing Daddy week in home school preschool was because it was also his birthday week! So we spent one day shopping for his gift and the next day making his cake.

his favorite is German Chocolate.

I am not a fan so he got big helpings of the cake.

 I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday and he said he wanted a family day.

so We took a trip to the museum. 

(I will have another post soon about our trip because I got tons of cute pictures!)

at one point of the museum they have on display lots of machines from back in the day.

and Brian held Belle up and said this what I would probably be working on if I lived in this time.

She is going over the letters Rr Ss and Tt

numbers 1234 and 5 in her workbooks

We has so much fun learning about Daddy's work and celebrating the man of our house.

We sure love him a lot.

home school preschool Lent week

I am a little behind. 

as you know from my post last week 

that it was a mess.

the big kids didn't have school all week because of the insane snow storms and extreme cold

and

 when the big kids don't go to school it makes it's nearly impossible for the little ones to take naps.

 But home school preschool this week was all about preparing for the Lent season.

and I needed to learn about it as much as Miss Belle did.

so I made it a point to find time somewhere in the days to do our work.

We read a lot in our Bibles.

We have two children's Bibles.

one that is geared more to Catholic children and one that is just filled with lots of colorful pictures.

 the stories we read:

The Devil tempts Jesus

The washing of the Feet

The rich fool and the widow

I tried to stick with stories leading up to the lent season and the Lessons Jesus was trying to teach us about temptations and almsgiving.

 Technically Miss Belle is underage for the catholic practices of fasting and giving up something during lent.

but we believe if we expect them to participate when they are older they should practice now.

 So we did not eat meat on ash Wednesday or the Fridays during lent.

and when you choose something to give up during lent it is supposed to be a bad habit or something you do that is not seen by God as a way to live a good holy life.

but you don't always have to give up something you can actually take on something instead.

I felt like the taking on something would be a little more on Miss Belle's level.

so we made a list of 10 acts of kindness she can do from now until Easter.

She came up with them all on her own.

I just wrote them down. we will go over this list everyday as a reminder of a way she can help someone she loves.

 While reading the bible she kept asking me "what does that mean?"

or "I don't know that word"

so we made a vocabulary sheet that includes some words associated with Lent.

 We had plans to attend mass on Ash Wednesday but mother nature made that impossible.

so we made self portraits of each of us with our ashes on our foreheads.

 Then we made a countdown to Easter Sunday.

and listed all the important days leading up to it.

when we go over her list of kindness at the beginning of class we will also mark off a day on the countdown.

We worked on the letter Rr 

and she has officially completed her number and basic skills book so I picked up another number work book and we started that with the numbers 1,2,3, and 4.

Easter is extremely important to our catholic faith. it's everything actually.

and I want my children to celebrate the true meaning of the holiday. So the only way for her to know what that is would be to teach her.  I am so glad I didn't let the change in schedules stop me from doing this very important preschool lesson. 

and since I shared what Miss Belle's Lenten promise is I feel like I should also share mine.

it's a little personal but

i wanted to do something with more meaning than giving up chocolate or biting my nails.

I really wanted to do a better job at praying with my husband.

We both have strong religious beliefs 

we pray together as a family before dinner every night and we sit with the girls at bedtime and listen to their prayers. 

but we don't pray together. 

I always hear about how a couple that prays have a more intimate strengthened marriage.

our marriage is strong and great 

no complaints

 but if we can make it better then why not?!

so every night before we go to sleep and after we caught up on all the days happenings 

We ask each other to pray.

it's only been a few days and I can't say that our prayers have been answered yet

 but

it does feel great knowing my husband is praying for something only him, me and God knows about.

what are you doing for Lent?

face paint art

We are still snowed in.

day 5!!

I am running out of ideas to keep these kids happy.

then i decided to do something a little out of the box but fun.

 

 I wanted these pictures to be more serious looking 

almost dark even.

why?

I don't know

it's art lol

I told each kid they were being bad and this is the looks they gave me......

they might not be something Grandma will hang on her wall

but I love them

and it killed as few hours of boredom.

snowed in.

we are on day 3 of being snowed in our house

day 1 wasn't fun

day 2 was beyond stressful

and day 3 actually seems do able.

but if there is a day 4

I might just run away 

no I will

I will run

to a very warm always sunny place.

like Africa :P 

I just am not a cold loving person

and being stuck in my house is not fun

even though I didn't have any where to go these past few days 

the fact that I CAN'T go somewhere makes me WANT to go somewhere!

The kids were semi behaving so I dug threw the box of gloves to find enough pairs

squeezed on extra socks 

and stuffed the bulky sweaters in to be able to zip up the coats.

then opened the door and let them all run free.

and I figured if I had to be out with them I might as well try to take pictures.

 her snow cloud looks like a heart.

 The youngest 2 lasted a whole 5 minutes

I brought them back inside and we waited until the others couldn't take the cold any more.

That was 10 more minutes

a half hour getting ready

a total of 15 minutes outside

and now I have more laundry to do.

 I have a hard time thinking it's worth it.

I will be doing a special sun dance tonight that all this melts and school will be a go and life will be back to normal schedule.

 please do one too!!!

The White family

The White family welcomed another sweet little boy!

Ace Enoch

so happy for them!