TaeKwonDo

Every student must have physical education, right? For our son, we chose TaeKwonDo and I am proud to announce that last night he was tested for his next belt and did an amazing job. He was focused and his movements were strong and perfect! He was awesome!

He's a camouflage belt level one!! YAY!! This means that he is going to start sparring. I am not sure how I feel about other children hitting my boy but it'll be good for both him and me. We'll toughen up... right?

Sight Words exercise!

I was so excited when I saw a picture of this on Pinterest. Such a cute way to practice site words.

Isn't it super cute? It's a parking lot and I tell him where to park the car and he has to find the word or I park the car and he has to tell me what word I park the car on. On pinterest, it's a mat on the table and a little boy is using a real toy car to roll around but this is better for us b/c we just don't have the space. This hangs on the wall so we can go to it in the morning. It's how we start off phonics class which is Collin's least favorite of all his classes so it's a great way to get him smiling at the start of it. =o)

First Grade Math

Yes, my son is still in Kindergarten but he completed his Kindergarten text book before Christmas vacation so his teacher wanted to test him to make sure he retained all the information. After a 45 minute test and a score of 100% (teacher said there was slight hesitation on two questions but he got them right) the school decided to move him on up to First Grade math! YAY!!! :) He is loving it! He especially loves that he is allowed to work with number over 30. He has been learning <, >, and = signs. I don't remember learning that until second or third grade. I was shocked when we got to that chapter but he LOVES this section. Anyways... here he is working on his first grade math. :)

Ryanne was learning about shapes and was in the background cutting cookie dough into shapes. hehe!! We had very funny shaped cookies that day. ;)

Life in a Tree

In science Collin has been learning about what all living things need to survive. Yesterday we were learning specifically about how animals need homes and all the help trees are in this. So, we built a tree with animals in it in our dining room. :) What do you think?

I don't know how much you can see but in this tree there are two bird nests, two koalas, two monkeys, two deer (on the ground b/c trees provide shelter for them, too), two squirrels (one is on the electrical outlet), and two tree frogs. I think that's it!! :) Isn't it cool!! :) The kids each colored an animal so the strange colored animals (pink deer, purple monkey, purple koala are all Ryanne's :).

Smarty Pants!!

We are starting preschool with Ryanne on Monday and she does this thing where she pretends she doesn't know stuff. It's really easy stuff too so... Paul and I have a plan. If she wants to earn a treat from the "Smarty Pants" then she has to try. She cannot pretend she doesn't know things. She's super excited about it and she's already stopped (mostly) faking not knowing things. It's awesome. Here are our "Smarty Pants".

This was before it was stuffed with "Smarties" but now the pants are puffed up full of candy. I just sewed the legs of the pants shut and then ripped out the stitches to the belt loops and then sewed them back on over the hanger. So, we're encouraging our daughter to be a "Smarty Pants". Collin will earn some too when he shows himself to be a Smarty Pants too.

I got the idea from Pinterest and here's a link to the blog. You can also print out stickers notes and the label above for it too but since it's for my own kids I didn't see any reason for that. Although, we may go with the stickers... not sure yet. I think we'll just stick with the pants for now. ;)

Lesson plan template

I have always wanted a lesson planning book for my kids since Ryanne is homeschooled and Collin is virtual schooled. However, every lesson planning book I found wouldn't work for us and our schedule. They weren't very adaptable. The other day I read on a blog by a teacher that she made her own. Duh! Why didn't I think of that? So, I made this on excel... completely adaptable so you can do whatever you want with it.

This is our schedule but yours may be very different. If you'd like a copy of this (and I hope this works because it's the first time I've ever used this) click here.

Singing Time

• I Know That The Savior Loves Me (wk 1)
• Songs of the Heart - Learning the children's favorite songs.