I've posted a few more links that I've been using. The first one is for Sue Patrick's Workbox System. This book was recommended to me before we ever began homeschooling and it's a system that I hope to put into place by the end of this school year or the beginning of next. We have been slowly angling towards this method of homeschooling anyway and it really appeals to me because of my insanely organized side:)
The second link is to the Huntley Library's Tumble Books website. I have been using the library's resources more and more and am blessed to have a library with so many neat programs for the kids (most are free!) I found this link the other day and used the Tumble Books today in an effort to keep Ethan busy while I was working with the twins on some of their school work.
The third link is for a website that you need to pay before you can access their worksheets but they have over 50,000 different worksheets and activities. I paid the yearly fee and if I understood the conditions correctly other homeschool moms could partner up with me to split the fee and each have access to all the materials. One huge advantage of this website over all the free materials out there is that it's super easy to search based on grade, subject, curriculum/holiday, etc. The materials are all professionally developed as well and are used in classrooms around the country.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
This and That
Last week we made butter to go along with reading "Little House in the Big Woods"
I babysit my nephew Tayden a couple days a week. He likes to park it right in between the twins while they are doing school!
Ethan decided yesterday that he wants to do school too so today he started. I not really holding my breath that this will last longer than a few days:)
Kenton writing spelling words on the board
I'd love to say that the twins get along every second of every day but that wouldn't quite be the truth!
Now we're down to business!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Unit Study
We started reading the book "Little House in the Big Woods" yesterday and decided to turn it into a unit study. I've heard about doing unit studies but this will be our first foray into experiencing it for ourselves. Time will tell if we like this approach or not. Yesterday we read the first chapter and had a great discussion on what it would have been like to live in that time and why they had to salt and smoke their meat. Today we venture into chapter 2 and are going to try our hand at making butter to see how it's done. I started researching online and found there are tons of resources for using these books as unit studies. I included a new link on the side for anyone who's interested and will post more as I come across them.
For anyone who doesn't know a unit study is where you take a subject matter (the Little House books in this case) and tie it into all the areas that we study - history, reading, writing, science, math, etc. For us this is in addition to our regular studies although some use it as the main method of teaching.
PS: I also added a link on lapbooks and how to make them. We are going to take this approach in gathering and displaying all that we learn with this unit study.
For anyone who doesn't know a unit study is where you take a subject matter (the Little House books in this case) and tie it into all the areas that we study - history, reading, writing, science, math, etc. For us this is in addition to our regular studies although some use it as the main method of teaching.
PS: I also added a link on lapbooks and how to make them. We are going to take this approach in gathering and displaying all that we learn with this unit study.
Back (but not really) From Vacation
I've been back from vacation for three whole days now but I'm afraid that my mind isn't! It's still resting on a Caribbean island, listening to the waves, with a good book in hand and feeling the warm sun on my back! Not even the "warm" weather that we came back to has snapped my mind back to reality!
I will post pictures soon - I just need to get a few things caught up around the house and with school first and than I'll get on it.
I will post pictures soon - I just need to get a few things caught up around the house and with school first and than I'll get on it.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Donuts!!
 |
| Kaitlyn and Lily cutting out donuts |
 |
| Frying up yummy donuts |
 | |||
| Enjoying the fruits of our labors! |
Survived Blizzard 2011!
I was kind of chuckling yesterday afternoon that the news media outlets were making such a big deal about the blizzard that was descending on Northern Illinois that they named it! They kept saying, "Continuous coverage of Blizzard 2011" with dramatic background music! I have to say, though, after the events of the past 24 + hours I'm a little more in awe of nature's power than I was yesterday.
Our day started out normal enough - school, chores, etc - until I made the final decision to drive into Elgin for Swim & Gym. I was back and forth about it for awhile before finally realizing that if it started getting bad while we were there we weren't so far from home that we couldn't make it back. Ethan had been sick since Friday evening with an ear infection and fevers of 104 but I really felt like his fever had finally broke in the middle of the night and he seemed a little better Tuesday am. We trooped on in to Elgin where the twins had gym the first hour. My first clue that Ethan wasn't back to normal was when he spent the entire hour on my lap watching cartoons that were playing in the lobby outside the gym. My second clue was when the twins switched to swimming he asked if he could go too. I had promised him a few weeks ago that he can go sometime while the twins are swimming but by that point I realized that he was maybe still sick so I told him no. Instead of fighting me on that he just sat by a window and watching the kids swim. I looked over at him about half way through and realized he was holding his head/neck really funny. I went over to check it out and realized he was burning up with a fever again and he refused to move his neck at all. Naturally this worried me so I called his pediatrician. She, too, was worried over the symptoms so told us to go directly to the ER. By this point several other moms were getting calls from husbands saying to get home because the storm was starting up. I pulled the twins out of the pool and headed out to get the van. I was thinking over options while getting the car and remembered that my father-in-law works about 2 minutes from where we were so I called him asking if he'd take the twins for me. I didn't know how long we'd be at the hospital and I didn't want to get stuck there with all three kids and nothing to do. After I finally met up with him (I was so freaked out by this point I kept making wrong turns) Ethan and I headed to the hospital. It was slow going from the blowing snow and the heavy traffic but it wasn't too bad at that point. I had one moment of panic when I was trying to turn onto Randall Road by Sherman Hospital from Big Timber and watched the power lines throw out sparks after being hit by something in the wind. There were cars just sitting under the lines on Randall and that made me pretty nervous until I was clear of them.
Once we got to the hospital (at 4:00 pm) we were given a room in the ER fairly quickly where they started an IV, drew some blood, and took an x-ray because the doctor thought he heard diminished breath sounds. All the tests came back normal other than an elevated white blood cell count (which indicates infection) so the doctor ordered a round of Rocephin via his IV. Ethan was moving his neck by then so we decided not to do a lumbar puncture to check for meningitis. We were released around 7:30 at which point I was going to try and get home to Huntley. I called my MIL to let them know I was heading home but they encouraged me to either get to John and Alison's (which was closer and more city driving) or get a hotel room. The idea of a hotel room didn't really appeal so I headed on Randall to I-90. The snow plows weren't able to keep up with the snow on Randall which is a major four lane road. It was slow going with some slippery moments. The snow was also coming down and blowing like crazy with several moments of white out where the car in front of me completely disappeared, even with street lights overhead. I-90 was plowed but snow pack covered the roads. When I got to Rt 31 things got a little bit scary. The plows were beyond keeping up and I had to be careful to stick to the tire tracks or I'd be in danger or getting stuck. There is a point on this road where there are no street lights and that is the time another white out occurred. By the time the white out cleared I was so disoriented that I had no idea whether I was on the road, in my lane or floating around in space! It was crazy!! I've driven in nasty white out conditions before but NOTHING like this. Thankfully the side streets that I needed to get to J & A's were cleared enough I could get though. I did get stuck in the driveway and was rescued by J, Ricky, and Amanda (J & A live in an apartment over R & A's house.) I really believe that had I taken I-90 west out into the "country" I would likely wouldn't have made it home due to drifting. Even if I had made it as far as our subdivision I doubt I would have made it onto the street due to bad drifting. My neighborhood didn't get plowed until middle of the afternoon yesterday. There are quite a few cars stuck in the middle of side streets - they got as far as they could and than had to be rescued. Some in our area were even rescued by snow mobiles because there was no other way to get to them. When I went to sleep Tuesday evening I said a prayer of thanks for safety and more importantly for a warm place to sleep and a roof over my head. I can't even imagine being homeless on nights like that!
Ethan and I arrived home at 4:30 or so yesterday afternoon. We tried turning onto Rt 47 from I-90 heading south to pick up the twins from Hampshire but we were turned around by a police officer saying that 47 was closed. My FIL did manage to get the twins to me using a few back roads that had been plowed or weren't too badly drifted so it was nice being all together again under one roof!
Today we are playing catch up with the school we've missed! The twins did get a snow day after all:) This afternoon I've invited the neighbor kids over to fry donuts - a tradition that we started with the Fehr's way back in Kansas City when we'd have a snow day! We usually also did some sledding that day as well but with the low wind chills today we'll nix that for this year.
Stay Warm!
Our day started out normal enough - school, chores, etc - until I made the final decision to drive into Elgin for Swim & Gym. I was back and forth about it for awhile before finally realizing that if it started getting bad while we were there we weren't so far from home that we couldn't make it back. Ethan had been sick since Friday evening with an ear infection and fevers of 104 but I really felt like his fever had finally broke in the middle of the night and he seemed a little better Tuesday am. We trooped on in to Elgin where the twins had gym the first hour. My first clue that Ethan wasn't back to normal was when he spent the entire hour on my lap watching cartoons that were playing in the lobby outside the gym. My second clue was when the twins switched to swimming he asked if he could go too. I had promised him a few weeks ago that he can go sometime while the twins are swimming but by that point I realized that he was maybe still sick so I told him no. Instead of fighting me on that he just sat by a window and watching the kids swim. I looked over at him about half way through and realized he was holding his head/neck really funny. I went over to check it out and realized he was burning up with a fever again and he refused to move his neck at all. Naturally this worried me so I called his pediatrician. She, too, was worried over the symptoms so told us to go directly to the ER. By this point several other moms were getting calls from husbands saying to get home because the storm was starting up. I pulled the twins out of the pool and headed out to get the van. I was thinking over options while getting the car and remembered that my father-in-law works about 2 minutes from where we were so I called him asking if he'd take the twins for me. I didn't know how long we'd be at the hospital and I didn't want to get stuck there with all three kids and nothing to do. After I finally met up with him (I was so freaked out by this point I kept making wrong turns) Ethan and I headed to the hospital. It was slow going from the blowing snow and the heavy traffic but it wasn't too bad at that point. I had one moment of panic when I was trying to turn onto Randall Road by Sherman Hospital from Big Timber and watched the power lines throw out sparks after being hit by something in the wind. There were cars just sitting under the lines on Randall and that made me pretty nervous until I was clear of them.
Once we got to the hospital (at 4:00 pm) we were given a room in the ER fairly quickly where they started an IV, drew some blood, and took an x-ray because the doctor thought he heard diminished breath sounds. All the tests came back normal other than an elevated white blood cell count (which indicates infection) so the doctor ordered a round of Rocephin via his IV. Ethan was moving his neck by then so we decided not to do a lumbar puncture to check for meningitis. We were released around 7:30 at which point I was going to try and get home to Huntley. I called my MIL to let them know I was heading home but they encouraged me to either get to John and Alison's (which was closer and more city driving) or get a hotel room. The idea of a hotel room didn't really appeal so I headed on Randall to I-90. The snow plows weren't able to keep up with the snow on Randall which is a major four lane road. It was slow going with some slippery moments. The snow was also coming down and blowing like crazy with several moments of white out where the car in front of me completely disappeared, even with street lights overhead. I-90 was plowed but snow pack covered the roads. When I got to Rt 31 things got a little bit scary. The plows were beyond keeping up and I had to be careful to stick to the tire tracks or I'd be in danger or getting stuck. There is a point on this road where there are no street lights and that is the time another white out occurred. By the time the white out cleared I was so disoriented that I had no idea whether I was on the road, in my lane or floating around in space! It was crazy!! I've driven in nasty white out conditions before but NOTHING like this. Thankfully the side streets that I needed to get to J & A's were cleared enough I could get though. I did get stuck in the driveway and was rescued by J, Ricky, and Amanda (J & A live in an apartment over R & A's house.) I really believe that had I taken I-90 west out into the "country" I would likely wouldn't have made it home due to drifting. Even if I had made it as far as our subdivision I doubt I would have made it onto the street due to bad drifting. My neighborhood didn't get plowed until middle of the afternoon yesterday. There are quite a few cars stuck in the middle of side streets - they got as far as they could and than had to be rescued. Some in our area were even rescued by snow mobiles because there was no other way to get to them. When I went to sleep Tuesday evening I said a prayer of thanks for safety and more importantly for a warm place to sleep and a roof over my head. I can't even imagine being homeless on nights like that!
Ethan and I arrived home at 4:30 or so yesterday afternoon. We tried turning onto Rt 47 from I-90 heading south to pick up the twins from Hampshire but we were turned around by a police officer saying that 47 was closed. My FIL did manage to get the twins to me using a few back roads that had been plowed or weren't too badly drifted so it was nice being all together again under one roof!
Today we are playing catch up with the school we've missed! The twins did get a snow day after all:) This afternoon I've invited the neighbor kids over to fry donuts - a tradition that we started with the Fehr's way back in Kansas City when we'd have a snow day! We usually also did some sledding that day as well but with the low wind chills today we'll nix that for this year.
Stay Warm!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Bring on the Snow!
Food? Check! Lots and lots of books from the library? Check! Hot chocolate and mini marshmallows? Check! Flashlights and batteries? Check! Snowstorm of the century on the way? Check!
Bring it on!
Bring it on!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
