workboxes our style...

On a lot of homeschooling blogs others post about their workboxes. We we do our own style of this...

We use a tray when we paint or craft and that got me thinking.... then we were giving some gold serving trays and I thought some more... This might work for our own workboxes. Less space. When we are done I just stand them up against the heater. For my family who have no idea what I am talking about your supposed to put in each box all they need for that subject. They do all that is needed to complete that box. It works. Samantha eagerly goes through each tray excited to see what the next one holds...

So this day she had lots of fun along with learning her core lessons...

Some sensory play.. it helps her concentration to work a little with her hands before we start the lessons for the day. We do this in many different forms playdoh, sensory tray filled with beans and stuff to find in it, shaving cream play and much more...This day she used this weird modeling foam do make a snowman.

We then played a fun game called Trim the Tree. You roll the dice and decorate your tree according to the dice. The person who completes their tree first wins. This game helps with learning to follow directions.

Number and number word match up. Next time I need to make this harder for her.

Spelling words of the week. I had her write them and make a paper chain with them. She loved learning some of the Christmas words.

Syllable clapping. She has learned about syllables lately and this was a fun lesson how clapping them out and pasting the word in the right column. I catch her doing this often through out the day. I love when I see her using her learning in every day life.

Story time art time. We read together the story Santa's Favorite Story Its a cute story where Santa tells the animals the story of Christs birth. She then tried to create her own art work like the ones in the book. She did a great job.

Science time. She is learning about living things and none living things.

Math and Phonics.. She is doing great in both. She loves to read but not the phonics books with out curriculum. But I am amazed at how well she reads.

She created this cute book called the very hungry reindeer. Its about the reindeer who is very hungry and is about to pull Santa's sleigh. Based on the story the very hungry caterpillar.

She enjoyed decorating the gingerbread house. She did most of it by herself! So if you haven't guessed yet we have been doing our work centered around Christmas. LOL more to come. We have done many lessons on Jesus and the real meaning of Christmas.

Has it really been a month since

I last blogged? Sorry for being gone so long. I have been so busy. We have been doing a lot of fun learning, traveling and just having fun. I will post about all we have been doing in the last month...... so sit back and enjoy the pictures and stories I have to share.....

We went to the playground and beach one fine day. The weather was holding around 50 degrees if not higher! We went to see what the beach would be like in late fall. Its nice with not much sign of life there besides the others who didn't want to let go of the fun beach times...

We also went to visit Mike in North Carolina. We had so much fun. We gave the kids our gifts we brought for them. We went to a parade... it lasted 2 hours! The people in the parade threw out candy for all the kids. It was fun. The time spent with my son and his family was a treasured moment. We were lucky to be able to tag along with my parents on the trip. Samantha thought I was so unfair making her homeschool on the road... in her words.. You never give me a day off. LOL The day we got home Daddy "forgot" that he had to school her while I was in work...She got her free day.

Here is some pictures from the trip North.









Well I will blog a little more on a different post about some more of the fun we have been having.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Samantha's Thanksgiving Thankful Turkey. We got together with a couple of friends to read some Thanksgiving story books and do a craft. It was fun to see what the children were thankful for....
Samantha is thankful for:
Mom
Dad
Her nieces Selena and Mikayla
Jesus
God
friends
friendship
food,
our cats
Love
Her brothers

Sorry I haven't been posting

We have been busy. This post is a catch up post....

What we have been up to...

Last week we went to the Narrows and viewed the THE ART OF THE BRICK Artist: NATHAN SAWAYA. Its amazing what he can do with lego's. The Fall River children's museum had a room with lego's and other building blocks for the kids to create with at the art museum (I am so excited the children's museum worker told me they found a building and it should be up and running sometime next year!). Samantha loved it. It was a nice way to end our school day on that very rainy Thursday.

We continued to do our normal school work. She went to music class. We started another book with the Five in the Row curriculum. The book we are working on is Cranberry Thanksgiving. She has done many fun things learning about Thanksgiving, cranberries, turkeys, how they lived back in the Pilgrim days. Throw in a few crafts and its been lots of fun. I will post about this in a few days.

Then we had an adventure with Samantha. We didn't tell Samantha that we were going to take her to New Hampshire to visit Santa's village. We just packed up without telling her where we were going. She didn't even know that I had all out clothes packed in the car. She was so funny. We didn't tell her where we were going. It took until we were in New Hampshire before she started asking what are plans were. It was fun. She told my mom that our trip was the best day ever. Well weekend. The hotel had a pool and we had fun swimming. I think we really needed this trip to relax and take some time to ourselves. Santa's Village was so much fun. We didn't wait in any lines besides the line to see Santa.

Waiting to enter Santa's Village

I love the joy I see on her face!

She only asked Santa for one thing a 3 D DS she said that is all she wants for Christmas from him.

I just love the look of joy on her face. She is so beautiful!

The view from our hotel window.

Playing on the playground before we leave for home. It was so cold our last day there was ice on the slide. I did have fun having a race on the swings with Samantha to see who could go the highest. She did say it was no fair that I was taller so I could go higher. LOL

How to deal with negativity....

How do you deal with negativity about homeschooling? How do you handle it when it comes from the people who supposed to love you? How do you handle it when you get the criticism second hand? What do you say when a person you respect makes comments behind your back saying you shouldn't homsechool but wont say it to your face?

I know I have made it know to people in our life that Samantha is our daughter and We will do what we feel is in her best interest. Even if they happen not to agree that their opinion matters but wont sway us in what we feel is best. But to find out it goes on behind your back. Its hurtful. Its harmful to our relationship and my feelings about that person.

I would love for anyone who doesn't agree with us to please voice your concerns maybe I can put your mind at ease. But please don't say things behind my back and not think it wont get back to me. Especially since the person you talk to loves to say these things to me to harm my relationship with you, to upset me. But really talking behind my back has really done it anyway.

You know when a stranger comments on homeschooling I can care less. I will defend my life if need be. Or I just keep quiet if that is what I feel is best. Strangers make no real impact on our lives. But family members do.

What is harmful is I know this person can't really see what is special about Samantha. Only sees the negative about her. Can never look at her and see her for who she is and who she may become with unconditional love.

When I look at Samantha I see a loving child, who wants to please, who loves to see her friends happy. who will encourage a friend, will want to dry her friends eyes when upset. She loves to be loved. She loves to know that you love her in return, She is a child who craves approval, she needs to know she is loved. She craves it. She loves and needs hugs on her terms, not yours. She is a child who loves deeply and feels deeply. She is a child who will spend hours making a gift for you by her own hands. She will do this to make you smile. She is a child who needs love and unconditional love at that. She is a child who needs to know that you will forgive her for her mistakes and not hold them against her for years to come. Samantha is a child who feels all feeling deeply and often can't see past her feelings in the moment. She is a child who is trying to learn her way and control her emotions. She loves her family and wants to be accepted by them for who she is. Not who you want her to be.

Sorry for the rant today just needed to get this off my chest.

My funny little Girl

This is Samantha's spelling paper from today. My child makes me laugh at times. She was supposed to write one sentence about a statue. After her fussing for a few minutes that she doesn't know any statues or what to write I told her she better have a sentence about a statue by time I got out of a shower. Well she came running into the bathroom all proud of herself. So excited she wrote a sentence. She wrote I hate statues. So I made her go back and then tell me why she hated statues. Her reply was well some people think they are god's.

We also continued with our Veteran's Day lesson. She called her brother and talked to him about being a soldier and what it was like. She said she wanted to know if it was hard. We read about superheroes and what it really means to be a hero.

We then moved onto the book Madeline. Today we had lots of fun with it. We talked about how life was in the 1930's compared to today. The other day we started making a hat like Madeline's out of a paper plate and bowl. We then had crepe's for lunch with her wearing her hat.




Samantha went to music class today. It was such a nice day we walked there and back.

Then we did our last project of the day. We learned about and artist named Giotto. We learned that artists of long ago had to make their own paints. They used eggs and thing to make pigment. Most used flowers, insects, plants and other items.

Step one for our pigment we used crushed chalk.. so she crushed all the chalk not an easy thing to do.


Step 2 mix the chalk with the eggs.



Step 3 paint your pictures and let them dry. The eggs give your picture a nice shine to it.