Week 5 of MFW Learning God's Story

Another great week using MFW Learning God's Story!  We did a few art projects, made some yummy chipotle ranch, and read about several types of trees.  Warning:  This post contains affiliate links.  That means if you use the link to buy something, we will be paid.  This money goes to support my family.

Memory Verse:

Proverbs 21:23-

"He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity."

This verse was a great one for our whole family to focus on this week.  We've had a lot happen recently, and it was a good reminder to watch what we say.  Squirrely Girl and Miss Bear have continued to do well with the memorization, and are relating day to day life back to our memory verses and bible stories.  It makes my heart happy whenever I hear them pray for God's help in these areas!

We've also started doing a little something with our memory verses this week.  I love the CM Scripture memory system, and we made our own simple version.  You can read about it here. 






Language Arts:

Squirrely Girl reading her previous phonics lessons.

Squirrely Girl has continued with the MFW phonics.  I thought it was odd that they included -ing, -ang, and -ung together, because I thought it would be confusing.  She didn't seem to have any problems, though!    Her handwriting has already improved dramatically the past 5 weeks.   


Miss Bear is working on her ABC handwriting sheets as well as number words sheets.  I used a highlighter to make her a copywork sheet for this weeks memory verse, and I've already seen improvement in her handwriting as well.

Math:

This is week 2 of working numbers and counting.  This was needed more for Miss Bear, but Squirrely Girl had a good review with larger numbers.  She also used some leaves, rocks, and seeds we found on our nature walk to work on addition, which was great practice. 

Science:

 After reading the recommended reading for trees, we did several art projects, a failed science experiment, and read in our Fun with Nature about several species of trees.



We've also continued to examine our beans that are sprouting. (We didn't soak them until Monday!  We had a lot going on last week!)  I'm not adding that stuff until we finish it, but Bubba has loved looking at the beans.  Kids were all amazed to see the tiny plant starting to grow! 

 

Art:
One of our art activities was these tree ring paintings.  I put several shades of paint onto a plate, and the girls used their foam sponge brushes to get some paint.  They then pressed the sponge onto their paper and twirled it around, giving the great tree ring effect.  We all had a lot of fun with these!

We also made these My Years in Tree Rings pages. 

 We had talked about how trees grow a ring each year.  We then made these pictures with a ring for each year they'd been alive, and things they thought were important for each year.


Lastly, the kids made these tree crafts.  All three of them love when I tape contact paper onto the sliding glass doors.  This is something that even Bubba can mostly do himself.

Handicrafts:

Squirrely Girl started working on her first needlepoint project this week.  You can find these projects at most craft stores, and I'm sure Amazon has them as well.

 

How was your week?  How do you like to incorporate art into the weeks lessons?

Week 4 of MFW Learning God's Story

We had a blast this past week with MFW!

One day, we decided to have a Jammie Day.  The kids really enjoy the days that we all stay in our pajamas all day.  We hadn't had one in awhile, so Squirrely Girl asked if we could have one. 

Our memory verse of the week came was Proverbs 9:10"If you really want to become wise, you must begin by having respect for the Lord.
To know the Holy One is to gain understanding."

 

Again, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which my two girls were able to memorize the verse.  Squirrely Girl and Miss Bear both brought up the verse throughout the week, and connected how when we read our bible stories and devotions that they are getting to know God better.  It really touched my heart to see them strive this week to be more intentional. 

 

 

 We also spent some time a couple of the days at the neighborhood park.  Kenzie also spent some time drawing in the sand.

This week, we also made some homemade yogurt in the crockpot... and it was a huge success!  We've been eating it for breakfast some mornings with some fresh fruit and yogurt, and for snack we've been making smoothies with it some days!  The girls were amazed how the milk turned into yogurt so easily.  We'll definitely be making yogurt regularly around here.



The Hubby also plays guitar, and all the kids like to use their guitars to try and play as well.  None of them have really learned how to play as of yet, but we're thinking that this is something we will be adding to our week this year!

 Bubba was too funny.  He refused to smile.  I guess he's just working on his rockstar look!
















We took a trip to the zoo as well.  We walked around and looked at the animals and plants, and talked about how butterflies, bees, and other animals help with pollination.  My mother also helped the take apart a flower and look at the pistil and stamens.  She was impressed with their knowledge, and Squirrely Girls use of the terms photosynthesis and pollination. 











All in all, this was a great week!  How was your homeschool week?  What did you do outdoors?

Small Space Homeschooling Part 3: Homeschool Room

Ok, I have a confession to make:  We don't actually have a homeschool room!  Eek!








We're living in an apartment for awhile, and thus have a lot less space.  Since we no longer have an extra room to use as our homeschool room, I've had to get a little crafty with how to store all of our homeschooling goodies.  I've addressed how we do workboxes as well as the way we are storing our curriculum and related materials.

We actually just homeschool at our dining room table.  In a corner of our dining area, I have our calendar, Hebrew calendar from MFW, a spelling list, and a pocket chart.  On the side of one of the bookshelves the girls also have a clock they made from one of their workbooks.

    
On the other wall leading into the kitchen I used a little bit of the self-adhesive dry erase laminate that I bought from Hobby Lobby.  I had this on hand, so I figured I'd use this for now, and replace when needed with an actual board.

The border is just some cheap ribbon that we had in the kids craft bins.  I believe I found it for $1 at Dollar Tree.

 
 

 

I also made this little magnetic sign for our front door, that their friends in the neighborhood know when they're not allowed to play.

1st Grade Math

We're only a few weeks into MFW 1st Grade, but I thought I'd share with you how we are doing math.  Squirrely Girl (6) has been working on her addition and subtraction facts since Spring, but it's been more laid back.  Bear (4) is still working on her numbers, but is able to do some simple addition and subtraction with the help of manipulatives.

I've seen quite a few people saying that they didn't care for the layout of the Math for first grade.  Personally, I don't mind the way the topics are arranged, but we are definitely supplementing because right now much of the work is just too easy for our little Squirrely Girl. 

We've been following along with the MFW lesson plans in The Complete Book of Math.  So far, the lessons are just a review and a little too easy for our 6 year old, but our 4 year old is keeping up well.  For now, this is working for us, but I'm evaluating mid-year if we need to buy something more challenging.

My kids love to do worksheets, so much so that sometimes they even request them on our off days!  So, we've been supplementing their math with worksheets we find online, as well as the Brain Quest 1st grade workbook as well as their Kindergarten workbook for Bear. 

 


In addition to the worksheets, we also incorporate a lot of hands on math practice.  We use our addition and subtraction flashcards along with a manipulative.

Some of our manipulatives include:

• Unifix cubes
• Pattern blocks
• Marbles
• Beans
• Coins
• Shape buttons
• Colored craft sticks
• Number bond bracelets
• Legos
• Dice
• Dominos

I also found this great little Count and Balance Scale at a yardsale!  It has numbers that can be hung on either side.  The girls love using this and seeing how many ways they can make it balance out!


I love yard sales!  We have found some awesome things to add to our homeschool from them!

 

I also made a set of 10 "Ten Frames" for the kids to use!  I did these by hand and laminated them, and as you can see I feel the need to decorate like crazy! I just think they're more fun that way!  The kids like choosing theirs for the day. 

We've used these for counting and adding with manipulatives, but we've also used them alone to talk about tens.  Squirrely Girl has gotten pretty good with knowing how many ten frames she needs to make her numbers, and then she'll grab single manipulatives for the ones.  It's really helped her to visualize place value. 




What do you use for First Grade math?  What manipulatives do you use? 

 

 

Our Family's Favorite Bible resources

The most important aspect of our homeschool is our relationship with God.  It's one of the main reasons that we felt led to homeschool.  It's also the reason that we decided to go with the curriculum from My Father's World.  We love how it is all bible based.

My Father's World: Learning God's Story includes My Big Book of 5-Minute Devotions as well as the Bible Reader and Bible notebook, so we will be using those as needed throughout the year.  We are also memorizing the Proverbs along with the lesson plans.

As great as I think these resources are, our family still likes to include more Bible time.  In the mornings, we usually read from 365 Read-Aloud Bible Stories if there isn't a reading from the Devotional book.  These stories are short and sweet and include a couple of questions at the bottom. 



In the evenings before we go to bed, we like to read out of one of our other bibles. We've been reading through the Jesus Calling Storybook the past few months.  They kids seem to really enjoy the stories, and the illustrations are captivating. 

We recently bought The Rhyme Bible Storybook, and have been reading from it some nights as well.  It's a joy to read and keeps all three of our young children's attention.

We also bought The Mystery of History Volume I: Creation to the Resurrection.  Although we haven't done much out of this yet, what we have read has been wonderful.  Our kids loved the lessons and we also did some crafts to go along with the stories.  

 

 

Do you use any of our favorite bible resources?

What does your family use?  Let me know in the comments! 

Week 3 of MFW Learning God's Story

http://www.kidsofintegrity.com/

This week has been a rough one!  We've had a lot going on with our extended family recently, and stressed mama = stressed babies!  Squirrely Girl has also taken to lying, which is something we obviously are wanting to nip in the bud.  In our search for something to address this issue, I ended up stumbling upon Kids of Integrity.  It's from Focus on the Family, and is a site with lots of parental resources with some important topics.  We're planning on using the site as needed for character development, along with a few other resources. 

Learning God's Story

School work for the past week has gone well.  Much of the initial stuff is still review for Squirrely Girl, but she hasn't complained of boredom, so it's all good!  Can't hurt to cement the phonics rules in her mind in any case.

Bible:

Our verse for the week is Proverbs 9:10:

"If you really want to become wise, you must begin by having respect for the Lord."

We've all been working to memorize the verse and apply it to our lives.  We were also able to tie in our talk about obeying our parents and being honest with how we show honor and respect for God.  It was great! 

Both of the girls have been doing really well with memorization!  In all honesty, I wasn't quite sure how well they would do with this, but I can see that sometimes we really are just dumbing things down for them when it doesn't need to be!  They're little sponges, just waiting to soak everything up!




Language Arts:

Squirrely Girl and Bear have been working with short vowel sounds.  I went ahead and laminated the foursquare cards and added some Velcro for the sentences.  This way, they're more durable and can be used again and again!

Bear has been continuing to practice her ABC handwriting as well.  I'm still using highlighters to write out much of what she's writing, but her work is already much neater than it was a few weeks ago.  She also has gotten a lot better at matching upper and lower case letters together.

Squirrely Girl has also continued with her leveled readers, and has taken it upon herself to read books to Bear and Bubba in the afternoons as well!










Math:

This weeks topic was sorting and classifying.  We went ahead and went with the lesson plans, and Squirrely Girl ended up completing all of the worksheets from CBM for the week.  She really likes the expanded form cards.  A lot.  She has asked to use them several times after we've already finished school for the day, and has sat there using them. 

Bear did the hands on work for this week as well as some worksheets with comparing quantity.  We also got quite a few free printables from 3 Dinosaurs a while back that I had laminated, so she's been using those to practice counting and addition.

Bubba has been playing with lots of our manipulatives this week as well.  One of his favorite activities right now is to play with the magnetic letters on our front door!  

Science:

This weeks science topic was Flowers.  In addition to the reading and activity in the TM, we read quite a bit about flowers.   The kids really enjoyed reaching The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds.   

We also used this simple little game to remember the parts of a flower and talked about what each part does.  It's just a worksheet that we colored and laminated.  I wrote numbers on the back and the kids rolled dice to get a piece of the plant.

Art:

For Science/Art, we ended up making these great Season's collages instead of making a seasons booklet.  I went ahead and laminated them because I'm planning on cutting them apart and using them, along with plants and animal cards, for sorting.  I figure it will be a great way to include harvest times as well as hibernation.

How was your week? What fun things did your kiddos do this week?  I'd love to hear about your activities in the comments!

Circle Time

I love how our "circle time" starts our school day off.  It gets the kids into learning mode in a gently way, and I am able to knock out some of our books that we are reading together.  I love that we will be able to do part of our learning together before breaking apart to do age appropriate work. 

I had read numerous blogs about what they were doing for their "circle time", but none of them seemed to be exactly what I was wanting our morning to look like.  Then, I stumbled upon The Unlikely Homeschool.  This seemed to be just what I was looking for! Instead of the traditional circle time we think of with preschool, her family uses a "Start the Day Together Basket". 

I immediately fell in love with the ideas presented in her post, and went to work putting our own version of the basket together.   This is also where we keep the book basket books pertaining to the weeks topic.  I love that I have everything that I need for starting our day all in one convenient, portable place.

What does circle time look like for our family?

• I usually begin with a few songs. 
  These include hymns/worship songs, learning song, and game songs. 
• Following singing, we work on our memory work.This includes our verse for the homeschool year as well as the Proverbs we will be learning each week.
• We then read out of our devotional or bible storybook.
  
• Next, I read aloud from one of our read-alouds.This includes folk tales, fairy tales, poetry
• Then, we read a book about our science topic.On Mondays, we read from the Usborne Science books from MFW.  The rest of the days, we read various books about the topic from the MFW "book basket" suggestions and others we find.
• Finally, I go over any instructions needed for the day.

 

So, what exactly is in our Start the Day Together Basket?

Every week the contents of our basket change a bit since we are using this as our book basket as well.  I include books on topics we will be covering and some pertinent flashcards as well if we have them.  Even so, a few things remain in the basket.

•  Science with Plants
• Science with Water
• Things Outdoors
• Fun with Nature: Take-Along Guide
• The Big Book of 5 Minute Devotionals
• Folk Tales from Many Lands
• 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories
• Index cards with our memory verses on them.
• An activity to keep little hands busy.  (I really like these and these.)
   

As the kids grow, I'm planning on adding composer and artist studies along with map work in the mornings.  For now, this is just enough for a 6 year old, 4 year old, and 2 year old to handle.

 

 

Does your family have a circle time to start the day?  What all do you include during this time?

I linked this post to

Hip Homeschool Moms

2014-2015 Homeschool Verse

This is our second year homeschooling, and since Squirrely Girl is now a First grader, I am now doing something more structured.  I've already spoken some about our decision to use My Father's World curriculum.  I had seen it on quite a few blogs, and when I was researching curriculums I kept being drawn back to this one.  God has a way of weeding through all of the unnecessary stuff for us!

In addition to doing the MFW 1st Grade: Learning God's Story, my husband and I are really wanting to focus on biblical character training.  This led us to adopt a verse for the year.  Since our kids are still so young, we wanted to start them out with a good foundation on how we should act. 

So I sat down, bible opened before me, and prayed that God would lead me to the perfect verse for our coming school year.  As I began reading, I was drawn to Galatians 5.  I immediately knew that this was a wonderful verse for our family for the upcoming year.  With all of us trying to become more structured with our schooling, we are bound to have hard days where the tears flow and the frustration levels rise.  What better thing to cling to than our Savior's provision to handle all these things?!

 

 

With everything that I am wanting to include in our day--from the math facts and phonics lessons to the science experiments and cooking lessons--I don't want to forget to focus on what's truly important.  One of the most important reasons we decided to homeschool was so that we could "train our children in the way they should go" (Proverbs 22:6). 

If in my zeal to check off my lesson plans and cram as much fun, interesting instruction I can into their little brains I forget the weightier matters such as love and mercy, then it is all for naught.  God gave me these three little blessings to raise into people that love and praise Him with every fiber of their being.  How will they know unless I point them to the One who did it all? 

Above all, if my children learn nothing else this year, I want them to learn to rely on God and know that in Him we can be victorious in all things.  Through Him we are able to truly love, have pure joy, a peace that surpasses understanding, patience in all things, show kindness at all times, goodness in all circumstances, faithfulness in following Him, a gentle spirit, and self-control. 

To help the kids memorize the verse, I got the bible verse printout as well as the fruit basket printouts from Christian Preschool Printables.  I laminated the verse and hung it in our living room so that we would see it often throughout the day.  I also laminated the fruit basket pieces and used some Velcro to make a game for the kids to practice our verse.  We've played many variations with it, and already Squirrely Girl has memorized our verse.  Bear in well on her way to having it memorized as well. 





Does your family have a verse for the homeschool year?  I'd love to hear your story in the comments.

Week 2 of MFW Learning God's Story

 

Last week, we finished up our second full week of first grade!  Phew!    Both Squirrely Girl and Bear are loving it so far!  For the most part, we've been going along with the MFW Learning God's Story lesson plans, but I've added spelling lists, comprehensive reading, and math minutes for daily practice for Squirrely Girl as well.  Oh yeah.... and lots and lots and lots of reading!

We also began using our nature journals this week.  For now, the girls are using journals that we made out of cereal boxes.  I found the idea on Pinterest awhile back, and making them was a fun activity for the girls.  (Plus... you can't beat free!)






Pretty impressed with Squirrely Girl's drawing of a
Monarch Butterfly. 



 

Bear decided that she wanted to make a rainbow spider
because realistic ones are "too scary"!  

 




 






 

I'm really looking forward to doing nature journals this year.  Our family really enjoys art as well as the outdoors, so this is a great way us to put the two together.  I just know that our nature journals will be treasured for years to come! I can't wait to see what their work looks like by the end of the year!



How was your homeschooling week?  What neat things do you incorporate into your nature journals?  I'd love to see what other's are doing!