Thanksgiving unit.

Well, last week we managed to get in quite a bit of learning during my free time, which was very very limited.  However, all the rest of the time I was racing around to work, rehearsals and performances.  I had two video recording sessions, two rehearsals, a dress rehearsal and performance on top of my normal 3 job schedule.  Needless to say.  I wrote nothing at all last week.  I will get back to last weeks fun moments soon, however, we are in the middle of the most fun Thanksgiving unit and it is time to write about it.  I have linked all my inspirations in each discription.

First, on Sunday afternoon I had Madalynn make two construction paper turkeys.  One for her and one for her Remington.  She is crazy with glue, but she had fun.

After a google search of various pilgrim and indian ideas, I came across this blog link.  I am not sure how I cam across the toilet paper printables, but here is the link.  I was really disappointed that the printables were not the same as pictured on their website, but they served the purpose for a preschooler.

 After making the people, we bundled up and went out in the snow and wind and gathered some sticks from an old dead tree in our yard and some rocks.  We haven't got to the rock fire activity yet.  However, I asked Russ if he would be willing to help Madalynn build a teepee while I was finishing making dinner.  We had to go back outside a second time to look for more sticks, but we eventually found the perfect sticks.  

 The next morning I got out my hot glue gun, some scrap white muslin fabric from my stash, sewed some pieces together and glued it to the sticks.  I only glued it to one stick to start the fabric and then to the same stick after I had wrapped it around.

 Afterwards, I looked up imaged of Native American Tepees online.  There are some of the most amazing black and white images of various older Indians in front of their Tepees.  I had Madalynn pick her favorite image.  The kids loved it.

 Then I got out the paint colors she asked for and she went to work.....for the next TWO HOURS!!!  It was heaven!!!  She is very studious, but seriously, it is so nice to have time to spend doing stuff with just my son.

 Remington and I drew around his hands to make turkeys for a little while.  Then I just let him color while I watched, talked to him and encouraged him.

The TONGUE KILLS ME!!!  He is totally my
husbands and my son.  

 I just sat back, taking pictures and enjoying just relaxing on a nice Monday morning.

 Remington and I started working again on our wood 12 piece puzzles from Melissa and Doug.  I love these sets.  He is getting this one for Christmas.  We talked through finding the ground and then the various body parts.  He is sooooo ready for these puzzles.  His concentration through all 3 boxes of 4 twelve piece puzzles was outstanding.  I don't know why I just keep expected him to do things later than his sister did at this age.  I think, part of it is his slower speech capabilities.  He just doesn't speak as clearly, but he is developmentally just fine and moving along.

 More watching.  

 All finished.  The front flap does lift up to the left and there is a round door opening for her to play in.  Her replica was awesome for 4 1/2 yrs old.  She has watched her Daddy work a lot and I think she has learned a lot about attention to details.  I certainly love this little girl.

 Oh...and while i was taking pictures of just the teepee, I looked up and Remington gave me the most heart melting smile ever!!!  It was out of control amazing.

 I was about to put my ipad down to go get lunch ready...when I saw this precious moment.  They were both admiring their own work.  He was cheering while staring at the puzzles and she was explaining how she would play with her teepee.  Three cheers for hands on learning!!!

Tomorrow, we are going to focus on the pilgrims.  We are going to take a quick trip to Fort Utah, which is about three blocks from our home.  We will get the Lincoln logs out to build another fort.  I will be taking many pictures and I am sure I will be posting many of them.  I will also look at Scholastics website and got a tour of the pilgrim ship the Mayflower.  I think that Madalynn will really enjoy that.

We will be doing this packet tomorrow.  Thanks to all those people that have pinned thanksgiving units and also those that provide free stuff that I can use.  I would never keep up without their help.

Wish I had had time to order this book.  This is exactly the kind of thing that Madalynn would enjoy.  I am linking it in case I ever want to get it again in the future.

Hope you enjoyed and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Museum Friday 11/14/15

Well, sometimes it just takes me a bit to sit down and write.  I have started getting up an hour before the kids get up to get things done.  This is when I usually write on my blogs, journal, get laundry started, finish emails that need to be sent, etc.

Last Friday Madalynn had her first quiz in our adventures.  I really want to teach her some more about different aspects of art, but I want to make sure that the concepts that we learn about are sticking.  We went to the BYU MOA again this week.  They had some print on display in the print study room this week only.  Several weeks ago they had some Rembrandt prints on display.  This week it was a German artist named Max Thalmann.  They were both shown in conjunction with the religious paintings through history display.  The Thalmann prints were so cool.  The images were drawn with only white lines to outline the objects in the painting and everything else was black.  Most of the time I could see what the images were.  After Madalynn realized that they were in sequence of the events leading to Christ's death she was able to see them all.  It is amazing how easily she saw them when I really had to look hard to see a few of them.  The contrast between the sparsity of detail in the print of Christ at the last Supper and then the amount of light surrounding him after his resurrection was a really striking reminder of just how significant the Resurrection is.  We read the 4 gospels from the New Testament starting in August with the kids.  It was soooooo great to see that Madalynn remembered the story really well.  History lesson..check.  Art lesson...check.

We went to view her favorite quilts again at the Pakistan/Indian exhibit.  I though it already closed, but it closes Thanksgiving weekend.  We tried to work on the blocks again, but some grandma was super super rude and told me that kids should just have fun and be allowed to build whatever they want.  I wasn't about to explain that we were having a schooling moment and I was talking to her about shapes, patterns, directions of shapes, colors, etc.  Madalynn was a stink after that.  She wanted to build her blocks into the quilt pattern but also didn't.  We didn't have a lot of time, so I just put Remington back in the stroller and we moved on.

We went and walked through the Costume exhibit again.  This time I let her just go to her favorites and tell me why they were her favorites.  However, following all the costumes there is a gallery of portraits.  After reviewing that they were portraits, I had her look at the clothes that they were wearing.  I then had her go back and pick out dresses that were similar to the dresses in the paintings.  We discussed that designers use these paintings to discover/recreate/ and design period clothing with the help of art from the time period.  This led to an interest in clothing in pictures for the rest of the day.  When we got home, she wanted to copy a master painter again and this is the picture she chose, her progress and finished product.

We went into the exhibit of pieces that the Museum owns.  It has been a year since we have been in there.  Before entering I asked her what words she knows to classify a picture.  She came up with all the words we have been working on for the past 6 weeks; portrait, landscape, still life, photograph.  She correctly identified everything in the exhibit.  It was awesome.  Then I moved onto sculpture mediums.  She has seen bronze before.  However, we have never encountered or discussed marble or wood sculptures.  There was a marble bust of Christ.  We discussed the word bust and the color of marble.

We walked over to the HFAC because there was a clothing exhibit on display the other day on the 5th floor.  However, it was sadly gone.  I walked down to the visual arts department to see what student display they had out.  It was very interesting.  While I looked at that, Madalynn and Remignton were thoroughly in awe of the workers on the main floor.  I have been taking the kid to see exhibits, but it was really fun to watch them setting up for a new exhibit.  They had taken down Housescape that we saw last week and were prepping for something new.

Last Wed I had to go to campus for a rehearsal.  While I was walking through the museum on my way to the HFAC I got to see an artist working on his newest piece.  I was hoping he wouldn't be finished so the kids would be able to see him working.  He was finished, but the final project was super beautiful and the kids LOVED it.  This pieces, Plexus 29, is made of all thread in different colors.  Everyone that came into the Museum stopped and took pictures.  It is amazing.  I vaguely remember something like this being in the Museum before many years ago, but I can't remember exactly what it was.  I am glad that I got to see him making it.

It was a fun day and I hope that you enjoyed.  

Organization

As I have read about homeschooling in general and the project based homeschooling book I am reading, I have learned that physical organization of supplies is essential.  We are halfway to my perfect organization dream.

When we first moved into our home, we had these awesome storage cupboards.  The top houses all our games, however, the bottom used to be three drawers.  They were nice and sturdy, but they didn't have runners on them to help pull them out.  So, over the course of the first year we lived her Russ took the old drawers and the weird shapes, unfinished shelves in the top cabinet, made shelves from some cupboards we pulled out of the bedrooms, made doors for the bottom half (that took months because he had to keep adjusting them because nothing is plum in this house), we finally added hardware and I have a great storage area for all puzzles.  Remington on occassion still opens up the cupbaord and just dumps everything out.  However, he has learned over time to just pull one out a time.  Taking this picture got me to spend a half hour and get the cupboard cleaned out and organized again from the time I shove things back in in a hurry.

Eventually this wall is going to have a fold up, latched to the wall kids table.  A large aluminum sheet to hag posters on and a shelf above.  The shelf will be like the Ikea holders that hold the bins pictured below.  We would just buy one of the Ikea shelves, but none of the are long enough for the area we want.  It will be nice because I will be able to keep smaller tupperwares on the top and keep other necessities inside.  The table will have a paper holder on the bottom side for adding a paper roll that can be pulled across the table for fun time.  It is going to be awesome when it is finished.  I have already purchased the chairs and the bins and Russ told me he has to finish the other house proejects we have started before he will work on it.

Right now the bins are stored in Madalynn's closet.  I took a day about two months ago and labeled everything for Russ to help her find stuff.  The top shelf are the bins that are going to go on the kitchen wall.  The small colored tupperwares will go out in the kitchen on the shelf.  The pink tub is my file folder box of projects i have printed out to do, or finished projects we done with and want to keep.  The brown basket is full of supplies of current working projects.  It is nice to have somewhere to just throw the stuff when I need to clean up fast.  There are bins of art supplies, scissors, flash cards, etc.

This desk is just to the right of the kids wall area. When we remodel the bathroom, we will be taking the linen closet cupboard and hanging them in this area, from the ceiling down, building our own cupboards down below with a counter top.  It will be the kids computer area on the left side and my craft area for the rest.  Right now, I keep a stack of papers in front of the copier.  My kids can take those anytime and use them to do whatever they want.  My rule in our house...all paper should be used on both sides before we get rid of it.  There is a small black organizer on the back right side.  That contains the kids scissors, glue and nice twist crayons.  They are in a spot Madalynn can reach to do whatever she wants, but Remington can't yet see.  The Tupperware on the desk holds all Madalynn's finished projects.  I am not going to keep them.  I have decided that I will just scan them and once a year I will do a picture book of my favorites.  We will see how that project goes, but I like the idea.

Our kitchen is the best feature of our home.  It is so large and very much not all in use.  It is nice to have cupboard space.  In the island I have four cupboards.  Two are dedicated to kids stuff.  I have a box of cards game and Madalynn sewing machine in one cupboard and the other cupboard has kids church stuff, travel stuff and a random box.  Eventually all these things will be in a six foot radius when we finish the kids wall.  It just takes time to get it all done.

Madalynn has her own pink tub for projects to work on each day.  I try and switch it up and have it ready on the kitchen table each morning.

I already posted about book organization.  All kids reading books are on books shelves in Madalynn's room.  I recently got on of my baskets out and put all the board books in it for Remington.  Eventually we will have floor to ceiling book shelves in the living room.  I keep nice books that only I read to my kids in the living room.

I think I went through everything, and as organization goes, it constantly alters according to need.

Hope you enjoy.

Sight Word Dominos

A while ago I pinned this link to a ladies after school game with her young son.  I decided it was time to try this game.  Madalynn has about 20 sight words down with no problems now.  It is super fun to watch her read her sight words.  She gets really excited, squeals half the time, leans in for a hug while we are reading, and just find overall excitement that she is remembering things.

I decided that a review was in order.  This game provided a great review.  About three weeks ago, I used my paper cutter and some large ruled writing paper we have and cut the paper into small strips.  I made sure that I had at least two of every word she has learned and added about a dozen new words.  I also cut up several extra and left them blank in a bag.  I figured that I would find words I had either forgotten to do, or I would add new tiles while we were playing of the words that needed the most review.  Needless to say, it is an easy game to play, quick cheap easy game to make and Madalynn had a great time.  It was a highly successful activity.  

We reviewed the following words:

Have 

To

My 

Me

Too

Of

Off

See

Are

Down

This

That

What 

Who

Here

Said

She 

He

Not

On

Hope you enjoyed.  

Priorities/Balancing

The hardest part of each day is the balance between being a mom and a working mom.  I realized early on that I would not be home for most of my children's youngest childhood.  If I become a stay at home mom it won't be for at least a couple more years.  So, the learning playdate really started from my anxiety 4 years ago that everyone else is teaching my daughter things that I can't.  Luckily we have been amazingly lucky and have been able to choose all the environments that my children have been in.  They have been looked after by people with my own ideals and similar teaching and disciplining methods.

Yesterday is a prime example of trying to find the balance for the kids sake.  It was the first snow day.  Ya, it only snowed a trace, but for a 2 and 4 1/2 yr old...that is enough.  I got home from work at 1:20pm and my babysitter dropped off the kids from a play date at her sisters house at 1:45pm.  I had to feed them lunch and then get ready to leave for work again.  Thur is a long working day for me.  Ballet from 9-1 and 3-7:30.  I wasn't sure if they kids were going to be coming with me to ballet for the first little bit before my husband could pick them up or if he was just going to make it home in time to get the kids before I left at 2:45.  Regardless, it was easy for me to say no to their pleas of going outside because it was not enough time to bundle them up, then unbundle them and get them ready to go with me if they got wet.  So, Remington got on the stool by the back door and was looking out in awe.  He was pointing at all his toys and yelling at me about what had happened to his shovels, his bike, his trucks, the swing, etc.  I got a lengthy video of that moment.  When he gets excited he huffs and puffs between words and then says a word several times.

So, I got Madalynn to come in and read.  I first read her a book and then we went through a unit of Hooked on Phonics.  We did the ending -ub, which when Russ came in and heard her reading he called out the same sentence I did.  Rub a dub dub in the tub.  Haha.  Two parents thinking alike.  She is started to have -s on the end of a word and learned about an apostrophe for the first time yesterday.  She learned the sight words: who, my, of and reviewed here, what and like in her story.  She struggled with the word "but" because she still has the "b" and "d" backwards.  I am going to work on that again this week with the rolling dice.  She earned two stickers and was a tropper.  I read several books to Remington both this afternoon and this evening.  I will be writing a post about the board books my kids read soon.

Russ got home at 2:30 and the kids begged him to go outside.  He bundled them up like a great dad and out they went.  We are going to have to remedy the lack of snow pants for the son, but they had a great time.  They had a total of 20 min outside play.  Russ taught them to throw snowballs, Remington learned that his hands get cold touching snow, they learned if you sit in it you get wet, I took several pictures and videos and then left for work.  Russ made sure to help Remington notice the snow from his boots on the sidewalk.  That is what is happening when this video begins.

The rest of these picture were my poor attempt at a sibling picture.  I have holes in my tennis shoes, so I wasn't willing to go and stand them next to each other.  I just stood on the sidewalk and took pictures.

Priorities: They needed a few minutes, just a few minutes in the snow and we made that happen.  They had a full day of play.  They learned to listen to the sitter while she took them to her fun workout class.  They learned to play nicely with a puppy at the relatives house of the sitter and they played with lots of other kids, getting social interaction.  It is definitely hard knowing that they are getting those opportunities and I am not there with them, but I am glad that they get them.  If I was home all the time, I would probably tend to stay in my house and they wouldn't get as many of those moments.

When I came home we watched videos of the artist we are going to go see today for Museum Friday.  I am super excited we get to see an artist doing his art.  We read scriptures with Madalynn and made her read the words that she knows and they went to bed.  No, there weren't tons of "teaching" moments, like school type stuff, but the moment I did have were definitely full of wonder.  And that is how we go about this business right now.

Hope you enjoyed.

Past Museum Friday

As I continue to post on this blog, I will be putting up posts of our previous Museum Fridays.   This is to help me keep track, off load pictures from my ipad and keep a journal of things I never wrote down.

This museum day was on Sept. 25.  Russ was home for the day from work, Remington was napping, and I had to perform in a master class on BYU campus.  I told Madalynn that we would go and have our Museum day early because of the time limits on the Museum's hours.  I knew it would probably be one of the last Wed I would be able to take Madalynn to the Provo Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum before it closed for the winter and doesn't reopen until next summer.  We will be looking forward to touring the pioneer village on the same property next summer as well.  I will mostly just be posting pictures of this day in this post, but it was so fun to take Madalynn to these museums.

Oh, as I post these pictures, I will say that all three of these museums are approximately 5 miles apart.  Yep, provo is a pretty amazing place!!  You may also notice that I always post a picture in front of each building.  That is how I keep track of the places we have been.

Historical Marker out in front of the Museum

Haha, the door

We went here.  

She doesn't even know what these are.
It was fun to show her the name was a Remington though

A replica of a living room during pioneer times.  

Period dresses.

She loved the mural of the different dinosaurs.
We went to the Eccles Dinosaur park on Labor day,
just two week before this picture.
She is reminding me of the different names of the dinosaurs.  

Small perfect exhibit for a 4 1/2 yr old

Really good exhibit of an archeologist and his kit.  

Standing in front of a dinosaur skull

Triceratops baby head

Mommy and baby

On my way to the Master Class I had to play for we had to walk through the BYU MOA.  The week before viewing this exhibit we had gone down to visit the Lotus Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Ut.  This was such a great review of Indian architecture, their Gods and see a few statues representing their Gods.  I found it completely fascinating.  She was being silly of course when we went to take a picture.  My favorite part...watching their religious dancing.  A lady was filmed doing the dancing at the temple we had just been too.  Madalynn got sucked in watching her.  

Jumping from bean bag to bean bag.  I couldn't stop her.  

 During the master class, a worker from the BYU library came in and handed out some note pads.  While I was performing, she made me a book.  Once we left the class, she read it too me.  She had pretty much drawn X's on each page and they meant something.  It was so fun to just listen to her talk about it.  I am glad that I took her with me.  She came to Master Class just one week after her first classical music concert.  She was really really well behaved and quiet.  Oh I love her.  It was a great Mommy and Daughter date.

Hope you enjoyed.