Kid's Choir Concert

M had his Christmas Concert at UU. He isn't smiling in the picture. He did smile while singing. We were so proud of him.

The kids totally made my Christmas before we left for the concert. I can't believe they were so cooperative when I ask for a picture before leaving the house.

After the concert we went to Steak N Shake! What a treat.

What we have been up to... and school weeks 11-13

Wow how time flies when you are homeschooling, finishing the second story of your house, Thanksgiving, getting ready for Christmas,and expecting #4 any day now!

Here we are enjoying a break from the loud noises in the house. This is one of our favorite fall activities. We rake the leaves into a huge pile and go down the slide on our play set. This never seems to get old...

I had to throw this pic in.. This is how our kiddos slept for a while. They had lots of giggles at bedtime.

Ok..the upstairs is now complete. Jump ahead to Thanksgiving weekend. These are our little elves decorating our tree. The hubs was not too thrilled about carrying anything else up or down the stairs. He did it anyway:)Thanks Babe!

Who knew Spider Man could decorate a Christmas tree.

We had fun making a gingerbread house.

On to a school review. Week #11 we finished up George Washington. Here is Marcus pretending to be sworn in as President just like Washington.

For week 12 we did Thanksgiving activities. Week 13 was a pleasant change of pace. We are now beginning our state study. Most days we will cover one state and do an activity that goes along with that state. This week we covered the first four states and learned some interesting facts about each one.

M finished Explode the Code 1 book!!! Moving onto Book 2:)

Oh, and we started Unit 18 in Alpha (Math-u-see) it is SUBTRACTION! I can already tell I am going to need to pray a little bit more in the next few weeks.

Week #10 Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, and the Revolutionary War

Well week 10 is finally complete. If it happened in 1776, I think we learned about it. It is taking us a little longer to complete weeks right now with construction still going on our house. Hopefully, in the next week or so the kids will be in their new rooms and maybe there will be some order to this house! Let's just hope in time for baby 4.. Ms. Ellen.

Anyway, here are the highlights from week 10.

We have been learning the words to Yankee Doodle. Here is our attempt at hasty pudding. We made it for breakfast. It wasn't terrible, but the kids did like it better drowned in maple syrup:)

Some of M's workbook pages...

Some Halloween pics!

What is a Friend?

What is a friend? God's word tells us that a friend loves at all times (Proverbs 17:17.) Any of us that have lived any length of time know that true friends are hard to find. However, when they are found, they are forever with you. With that... this is not a good-bye to my dear friend Kelly. This is a thank you for many blessed moments.

Thank you for seeing me and my kids at their worst and loving us anyway. Thank you for a 1000 miles of chatter (literally). No other friend on the planet would train for a marathon with me. Thank you for many days of insane laughter. Thank you for days of joint tears. Thank you for your fabric obsession! Thank you for being that friend that will give you anything need. Thank you for your crazy love for Jesus! And last of all, thank you for about a million cups of coffee!

Watch out the ladies of Texas.. you are getting a great friend in my friend Kelly. I will end with the words of an Alan Jackson song. "Oh how I wish Dallas was in Tennessee. I could move Texas east, and she'd be here with me....."

Love you sis!

Week #9 George Washington, Boston Tea Party, and Paul Revere

We have spent the last two weeks learning about George Washington. I am really glad that we allowed two weeks for George Washington. I feel like all of us learned a lot about a great man in our country's history.

I purchased Amanda Bennett's download-n-go study on George Washington. There were so many activities and web links that we only did about a 1/3 of the study. I hope to do this again when we do American History later in the 5 year cycle.

Here are M's notebook pages.

George Washington was born in Virginia. M marked on a map where he was born and were George Washington was born. He also drew Mount Vernon. I didn't stress that he color it. You know boys... too long of a sit and they can blow! So proud of his drawing:) The instructions came from Draw, Write, Now!

We read the story of George and The Cherry Tree. We talked about being honest and telling the truth. We did a study of Virginia and what jobs George Washington did throughout his life.We also read many of his rules for conduct:)

We talked about George Washington's character and what having good character means. We also incorporated this into our Bible time. M memorized Mark 10:45 "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

M really enjoyed learning about the Boston Tea Party. He thought it was so funny that the people dumped all that tea into the harbor because they didn't agree with the King of England. He is a prankster at heart like his Daddy, so he thought they really got him!

We studied Paul Revere and he memorized this:

These were just for fun! I found many fun fall activity sheets at www.superteacherworksheets.com to have on hand when things get crazy:)

Learning Out of the House:)

With lots of things going on out of the house, we decided to make George Washington week (#9)last for 2 weeks! I will be blogging all of our activities with MFW (week#9) at the end of this week.

Here are some of the highlights from the road!

We were so blessed to have presidential candidate Herman Cain come to our town. What a great way to show the kids the process a candidate goes through in being elected.

Our next trip was to see two replicas of Columbus' ships the Nina and the Pinta. The ships were docked in Memphis this week. We took a morning tour and lunch at a near by park. Great day with friends!

We finished up soccer too!

Thank you to our awesome Daddy who coached a great season this year. We love you!

Marcus' team did not do trophies this season. Greg picked him up football kicking tee as a reward for a great season. This has become his new favorite toy:)

Me and hubs had a great day in Nashville on Saturday. We went to the Georgia/Vanderbilt game ALONE:)

Week #8 Benjamin Franklin

What a cool guy?... This week we learned about Benjamin Franklin. We learned a lot of amazing facts about his life and his accomplishments. I think M liked this week especially because he loves science. We read many of Franklin's experiments. We did a few ourselves this week, and hope to do more this year as time allows.

L colored the one on the right:)

This is a horn book that children used during Franklin's time to learn to read and write.

Great library finds this week.

In Bible, we talked about Jesus being our Rock. What does that mean for us as believers? We can count on him to never change. We can hide in him. He will protect us. Our memory verse was, "Therefore everyone that hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." Matthew 7:24

In Science, we learned about rocks and the different layers of Earth. I would like to do a more extensive rock study later this year. If anyone has any good resources please let me know.

This a layers of the Earth book that I found at www.superteacherworksheets.com.

In Math this week we did not go on to Unit 16 in Alpha (MathUSee.)We worked on our math facts and did some money worksheets.

We finished up The Courage of Sarah Noble this week. I printed some of the activities from the lapbook at www.homeschoolshare.com. We put them on paper and added them to his notebook instead of doing the lapbook. Great read... M loved it!

Here is the summary from the back of the book.

"In 1707, young Sarah Noble and her father traveled through the wilderness to build a new home for their family. "Keep up your courage, Sarah Noble," her mother had said, but Sarah found that it was not always easy to feel brave inside. The dark woods were full of animals and Indians, too, and Sarah was only eight!
The true story of Sarah's journey is inspiring. And as she cares for her father and befriends her Indian neighbors, she learns that to be afraid and to be brave is the greatest courage of all."

That sums it up for this week.