And when I'm ready to poke a pencil through my eye, she gives me a ray of sunshine.

First, she cut and sorted these words all by herself. I only had to ask her once.


And clouds parted and angels started singing!

Then we went through the words. Usually she just stares blankly at me when we do this. Or she asks repeatedly when she will be done. But, this time...

Me: These words have the og sound at the end. O-G says og. The first one is..
P: Dog!
Me: Great! Yea! High five! You read the word dog. What about the next one? The first letter says?
P: fffff (This is a hard sound for her to make, so we practiced it a few times. She actually practiced. Usually, she gets grumpy.)
Me: Now put the og sound on it
P (whispering, because she doesn't like messing up): ffog.
Me: Yea!!!! High Five. How about the next one? That says hhh
P: hhog
Me:Yea!!!!!!!

And that's how it went folks. I was about to pass out from shock.

You know, when she wants to, it can be a piece of cake.

I am sure the rest of our week won't be like this. This little ray of sunshine will hopefully get me through the next month or two.

Shaving Cream Prints

We made shaving cream prints today. The kids had fun. More importantly, my outside table is now clean.

Put some food coloring and shaving cream down.

Mix

Ask for your hands to be cleaned frequently.

When you are finished, you just press a pieces of white paper down and let it dry. If you want to to make a print of your drawings in the shaving cream, start with a very thin layer and don't press very hard.

I think neon food coloring would work better. I bet gel paste is even better, but it isn't as forgiving as the liquid stuff.

So, how's it going?

I get this question on occasion. When Providence's pre-K teachers as, they understand when I shrug and say: "you know, it's Providence."

Fynn is so much more pleasant to work with. He likes to do it. He will draw and match and sort for me. He is just as much an over achiever as his brother, it's just currently presenting itself in the gross motor department.

Some days I want to bang my head repeatedly against the wall with Providence, though I love her dearly. Yesterday for example, went like this:

10am: Attempt to get started.
10:15: Still discussing how "I can't do it! It's too hard! I hate school!"
10:20: I give up.
1:00: Try again.
1:15: Providence has completed 4 phonics pages on her own.
1:25: Providence has finished her math.
1:30-2:00: We learn about dinosaurs and draw pictures.


Please, child, give me a little consistency. I completely get that your biggest challenge , is often your biggest reward. When you finally convince that underachiever to achieve, wow, how accomplished you both feel.

Here's hoping that happens sooner, rather than later. I may end up with a very bruised head.

Memory Verse

I turned off the camera right before a classic moment. A few seconds after I said "God wants what's best for us," Providence said:

"Like vegetables?"

I like the suggested verses in this book, because my kids can learn them in one sitting.

Bible Time

I am having a hard time getting Bible in. I broke down and bought a book called the Big 100. It has 100 essential bible stories for kids with activities and memory verses. The important thing is: they were more willing to do it because they had their own little book.

My biggest struggle is timing. I want Jackson to participate with us, but he is so wiped out when he gets home from school. He isn't in the best mood and the last thing he wants to do is sit with his family and be pleasant.

In comes: Wild Kratts. We have the perfect amount of time from when Jackson gets home to when it comes on. It's a good little motivator when certain children don't want to work. Jackson and Providence both even memorized their verse.






Hopefully I can be a little more consistent about getting this time in. Our church only has one kids thing and our kids don't go to. So, I think it is very important to get this time in with them. Not to mention, it is commanded of me to do it.

Theory vs. Reality

The theory was make sidewalk chalk paint in red, yellow and blue and mix while painting to see what happens.

The reality was a fun morning playing and squirting sidewalk chalk paint and not worrying about what happens when you mix red and yellow. (I saw the idea for using the squirters, which we already had, on this site)


"Mom can I paint with my feet?" (yes baby, absolutely yes)

Even Atticus had fun! He loves feeling different textures, so this was right up his alley.

We even made baby footprints.

Then Atticus decided to dive in.

All the way!

(Sidewalk chalk is equal parts water and cornstarch with a little food coloring. I wasn't too worried about Atticus getting it in his mouth.)
Look! Clouds! Not that it rained, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.

We will have fun doing this again! It's a cheap, fun activity. And probably washes off pretty quickly places where it rains.

Cutting, Math and S'Mores

I will say it again. These printables rock. I love them. We have been going through her camping set and decided we should make S'mores.

Yummy!

Look at my little boy cutting! Providence has been able to use scissors fairly well for a while, now. You know why? Because I let her use scissors alone. (Okay, so yes, her hair has been cut twice). Fynn is on his way to cutting things out alone, too. It's a terrible picture, but he cut that nice little pile all alone!



Providence has been using Horizons Math from Alpha and Omega. I bought the two workbooks from Amazon because they were a little cheaper. I skipped the teacher book, because I can teach Kindergarten math. I think it would be good to get if you had no idea how to go about introducing concepts, but I feel comfortable doing that.

I think it is great for Kindergarten and for Providence. The pages are bright and colorful and she doesn't feel overwhelmed by them. Right now, we are mostly reviewing counting and writing numbers. There are a few new concepts coming up that we will be working on. The books picks up pretty quickly and has kids adding two digit and one digit numbers together. It looks like it is based on using a number line, which is great.

This book probably resembles what kids do in school. Old concepts are reviewed frequently through out the book, which I like. New concepts are introduced at a reasonable pace that works for my child. Even if I were to switch to something else later, I think I would consider these workbooks for practice for older kids.

I like it because it just gives us direction and I don't mind worksheets. I am sure there a plenty of people out there that don't like (and I don't think I would use it for Jackson). The beauty of homeschooling is that you can get what works for you and works for each child.