Schools cancelled, the substitute has work

We took a week break this week, because this weather has done a number on us. It started with a trip to the emergency room at midnight, because my Boo Boo couldn't breathe. He has asthma, but never really shows symptoms until the weather gets bad. His inhaler did nothing for him, so off we went.


A breathing treatment, some steroids, and a few hours later we were home. We got home at 5 in the morning! Needless to say we were tired, and slept most of the day. Next thing you know we each got hit with bad colds, except for my Bunny. I got it so bad that I didn't want to eat, and so I didn't... for a few days. By the weekend, I couldn't stand up and my husband was ready to take me to the emergency room. I took some cold pills, and was finally feeling well enough to eat. We hate being sick!

B week

The first few weeks of school have been hard for my Bunny to adjust to. Yeah, that's why were barely on the letter B, and number 2 :) I think it's partly my fault too lol, I was giving her too much work. I had to tap into my days of preschool teacher and remind myself of the short attention span (when not watching a movie), the lack of writing skills (when not writing on my walls), and well.... everything preschool again!

I found some learning games, and mixed it in with some stuff I already had, and this is what came out of this week (highlights really):

We (alright, I) finally got around to putting together her morning board. I still have a few more tags to make for the months, shapes, letters, and numbers, but I ran out of velcro dots :) Some of the stuff on our board came from homeschool creations, while others I just typed out the words and made them different colors. I have to double check where the song came from though :(


The big B, little B sort from Creative Learning Fun. She loves this game so much, she ended up doing it three times!

Lacing the letter B. Please ignore the fact that she's not wearing pants, it was hard enough to get a shirt on her lol. For the life of me, I can't remember where I downloaded them from, and they have no writing on them, sorry.


A bee made with her own hands. I glued a popsicle stick to the back of it, and she flew it around the house, hence the ripping. This came from dltk-kids, I love that site!

So that's what we did on the preschool front this week, mostly anyway. I promise I'll get better at this and remember to take more pictures while their working, and hopefully next week second and fourth grade will be added on too!

Ballet and Tap

My Bunny started a new ballet and tap class today. She has a recital at the end of November, although I know it's not going to be as huge as the last one she did, I'm still excited.

Hooked on Phonics

I know I've mentioned it before, but I firmly suspect my Boo Boo has dyslexia, and possibly some other type of learning disability. He has the hardest time reading, and it breaks my heart when he cries because he can't read his schoolwork. This week were starting hooked on phonics. I got a great deal on it, and I'm crossing my fingers that it helps somewhat. I know it's not going to help him read the way it's supposed to, but I'm hoping it'll make the phonics a bit easier for him to learn to break down. I also picked up some Kumon books, and I'm going to be using those along with some of the file folder games I printed out.

He loves having computer time, and how fast his phonics time goes by with it.

I'm giving up on our Abeka spelling for now, because I don't think it's doing him any good. I still like the language, and the letters and sounds books, so we'll stick with those. I don't think I'm going to push those lessons though, maybe a mixture of all of the stuff I have for him, at least until I see what really works for him. For now were going to concentrate back on phonics to help him enjoy reading again!

We need to change things up

I have my kids write daily in a journal, and everyday their given a different topic. Today's topic was, "if there was one thing you would change about school, what would it be?" Both of their answers surprised me, less writing and more games like the baby. Being a former preschool teacher, preschool things come easy to me, but not the other grades. I know my children are more hands on and creative learners, and I've been completely ignoring that. So, I've decided we need to change things up.



I spent the night searching the internet for games that teach. File folder, lapbook, dice, word searches, etc. I found a ton for my preschooler, and second grader, but hardly anything for my fourth grader. I guess that means I'm going to have to make them myself. I'm not very computer savvy, so it's going to take me a bit to figure stuff out. I also have to go through all of his books and see what I can make into learning games for him. He catches onto things so fast though, that it's going to be hard to make things he won't use only once. I guess that's a perk of his autism. I'll post links and pictures of the learning games as we use them, and of course any new ones I make!

Aquarium of the Pacific

Today we had a field trip to the aquarium. We went for homeschool days so it wasn't all that busy, which was nice. The kids got to touch so many things, and they had people all over that had additional learning centers. The learning centers are usually only available to public schools, but since it was homeschool days, we got to see it all too! I hope the kids don't get too used to so many field trips, but then again it is nice to get out of the house and still learn. Here's a little bit of what my kids did at the aquarium:

"Home" school of fish ha ha ha!

Watching a diver in the tank.

And gave him a quick high five when nobody was looking (except for me lol).

My babe read out everything that was in each tank to the others, he's so sweet!


They each touched a bunch of sea creatures, including sting rays (in 2 sizes). Of course I wasn't even brave enough to touch the sea plants let alone the sting rays lol.

They touched whale baleen, skulls, jaws, and talked to this guy for 30 minutes about whales. My kids were very thorough in their questioning :)

And of course we sat and watched diving birds, otters, and seals swim. We also got to watch a movie about otters (so sad), and 4d movie about a sea turtle (we highly recommend it). It was a good day :)

Overwhelmed with activities

Do you ever get that feeling like your being overwhelmed with activities? But, you feel like there's not enough? That's where I'm at right now. I'm tired from football, 3 days of practice a week, and games super early on Saturdays. Ballet and tap are being thrown back into the mix next week on Thursdays. Boy scouts start next week on Mondays, and park days (with our homeschool group) are on Fridays. I want the boys to join 4H, still working on getting info on that though. Oh, and they want to do archery, but it's just not going to fit into our schedule till January (when football is over).
Almost all activities are for the boys, but that's only cause my girly is too little for most things. I love being so busy, but my body needs to hurry up and get used to our hectic schedule.

Oh, and just a quick football update: both boys teams won their games this Saturday:) Go Wolverines!