Rhyme and speech

Bombie warmed my heart early this morning by reaching - unasked - for the alphabet flash cards we had made a while ago and then identifying upper and lower case letters correctly. Hucksley joined in with her and I could really see the wheels in his head turn as he asked me the letters he couldn't quite identify.
After a quick trip to the gym and lunch, Bombie and I worked on her pronunciation while the boys napped. She seems to have trouble with her b and p but only when the sound appears in the middle of a word, not at the beginning or the end. Then we read some rhymes and threw in some more books to finish off the day. Now we're all soaking up the sun. Seriously, sixty plus degrees in the winter? Yay!

More counting and a craft

I don't know what it is about coins but the kids love them. So I figured, why not teach them to sort coins? Bombie did a much better job with quarters, nickels and pennies than I did when I was new in the U.S! (And hey, this was a great use of those baby food jars!)

Later the kids wanted to cut paper. Bombie cut some felt paper and started to say it looked like a tree. So I thought why not see this idea all the way through to the end? I made them cut little pieces out of other felt paper (they chose the color theme) and then put some glue down on the paper. They had a great time then spreading the tiny pieces all over.  Serendipitously, we also had some empty frames!
Seriously, if every day homeschooling is like this, I'm so sold!

Ah, Monday!

After the tired, sleepy weekend, (yes, we're onto week three of being sick - the latest one to fall victim to this unnamed bug is me!) Monday was reading day. Sandra Boynton is quickly becoming a favorite of Bombie's with the cartoon animals. We might just need to head out to the library again: we're going through our books pretty fast!

Library visit

The baby is on the mend! Woohoo! To celebrate our family's increasing recovery after two weeks of sickness, I took them to our local public library. They love going there. Why? Well, for one, it's the only place I will let them play games on the computer. For another, we always come back with a nice stack of books we read over the next week or two. Books for them and books for me! (Mostly about them and raising them right, but that's okay.)

Planes!

Is been two weeks now that someone in the home has been sick. Carver has been the latest one in phase two of the sickness currently with a constant runny nose and elevated temperature. Needless to say we're spending a lot of time indoors.
Today we read about the Wright brothers and then made paper planes.
In addition the current battle with the older kids is to get them to put their toys away when they're done playing with them. It's a tough one but they're learning. Slowly. After all, it's taken me thirty four years! ;)

Homemade playdough

I've never tried making it myself. But we did today! So fun. Food coloring and glitter made it even more exciting for the kids. So much so that quiet time today really is quiet!

Sorting beans

The older kids sorted beans today and did a pretty good job too! Carver is sick as you can see in the background. Bombie took all of fifteen minutes to sort Lima and Pinto beans into baby food jars. Hucksley had a slightly harder time and I had to help him toward the end because he got a little frustrated.