Last few days of Summer

The beginning of October was absolutely beautiful here...and so we did a bunch of school outside.  

Becca's really gotten into painting lately.  

Awana has started this fall as well, and Nathan is memorizing his verses and the books of the Bible.  

New Policies...

So the big kids have been fighting nonstop lately.  I've done timeouts, separating them, grounding them...nothing seems to work.  And with homeschooling, they never get a break from each other.  Finally I've found a rule that seems to be working:

If Child A hurts (hits, pushes, does something mean to be mean) Child B, then Child B gets to go into Child A's room and pick out whatever s/he wants to keep for FOREVER.   Becca's usually the winner of this policy, but it has cut down on the amount of crying and fit throwing from her end of things.

Hopefully they get back to being friends soon!

HMJ--Sept 15

In our homeschool this week…I backed off on the phonics/spelling stuff that we've been doing.   I did place a big reward at the end of the his book, so he's been a lot more motivated to do it on his own.  

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…I did a lot of freezer cooking this week, and I came upon this tip....

You can take a taco and wrap it in a paper towel, and then foil and put it in the freezer.  To reheat, remove foil and put it in the microwave for 80 seconds, and it's ready to eat.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…We went to the        pumpkin festival!  Yummy pumpkin ice cream tonight, and I'm all pumped  or pumpkin chili tomorrow.  

What’s working/not working for us…getting anything done while Nicholas is around!!  My house is trashed and I can't keep up with it.

I’m cooking…tons of freezer meals from this site...  http://freezermealsforus.blogspot.com/

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…Nicholas turned himself green while we worked on science.  It's food coloring.

9 months old!

Nicholas is 9 months old today!  My ornery little boy is getting bigger too fast.   He's everywhere and he's quick....he is always trying to get in tight spaces and put everything in his mouth.  Yesterday he somehow got into the fridge (I think the big kids helped with that part) and opened the soy sauce and emptied it into the bottom of the fridge.  He is definitely an explorer.

He loves his sister and brother (brother best, I think).  They're learning to get him when he's on the stairs or get stuff out of his mouth.  They have to be careful, because he's a biter!  I think he's just starting to catch on the to the word "no."  

And....he sleeps through the night now!  I think all 3 of the kids did right around 9 months.  

Art.

I have always done poorly in art class...the last art class I took was in Junior High and the only reason I got an A is because I played teacher's pet well.

But whenever I read blogs and learn about other families' art studies, I know the importance of doing art with my kids.  So today, we learned about Van Gogh.

I have this wonderful Usborne book that shows a famous painting, gives a description of the artist, and then gives directions on how to do something similar.  So today we looked at Starry Night, and painted a daytime  landscape with swirly clouds and trees.  Here's Nathan's....

And here's Becca's...

Not too shabby for our first "art" class.

St. Louis trip

We spent Labor Day weekend in St. Louis with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Kate, and Uncle Patrick.

The kids were so excited to go on this trip.  We went to the arch on Thursday afternoon.

I love the look in his eyes in this shot...definitely still the deepest blue of all the kids...by this time, Nathan's eyes had begun to change to green.

We spent Friday at the Magic House.  We love this place!  The kids had fun playing in the children's village, and Nicholas loved the toddler area!  We love that everything is hands-on.  My science boy played with circuits for a long time and Becca played in a pretend hospital for awhile, as well as a hospital.

 Becca was playing in the room full of experiments with air.

 Nathan played president for awhile...that phone had presidential recordings on it.

Nathan played in the bubble room for a long time.   

I'll post more of our trip later when I have more time =)

HMJ

In our homeschool this week…we survived the first 2 weeks of school!  The hardest part is still anything involving writing.  Becca's doing fantastic, though, much better than I expected!  We're finishing the Wizard of Oz, and are looking forward to family movie night for their first showing of it!

I am inspired by…Anyone who homeschools more than 2...this is exhausting!

My favorite thing this week was…quiet time with my kids.  I've been doing individual quiet time with each one of them once a week, and we've had a good time.  I feel like we're really building great relationships.

Things I’m working on…keeping the house tidy (not clean, but picked up)  


How do you get the kids to do chores without them wrecking it or making more of a mess?