Isaiah's Trip to Utah

Last weekend, Isaiah went on a trip to Utah to go to his sister wedding. His sister, Angela was getting married in the Salt Lake Temple. Most of his family was able to go out for it, and it sounds like they had lots of fun. I thought I would share just a few pictures from the journey.

They went on a few hikes up in the mountains while out there. Here is a picture of the boys on one of them. There is Helaman, Gideon, Samuel, Isaiah, Joe (the groom) and Timothy sitting down.

Here is a picture of Angela and Joe.

And last a picture of Angela and 7 of her sisters.

Michelle, Rosa, Evelyn, Ruthann in the back row. Martha, Angela, and Theresa in middle. Elaine in the front.

Melody @ 9 Months

Little Miss Melody is nine months already. It is so crazy to think in just three short months she will be a year old. She still isn't crawling yet, but is every so close. She will get on her hands and knees from a sitting position and can scoot backwards a little before her little legs give out and she plobs onto her belly. She so wants to be able to move and try to keep up with her brothers and sister.

She has learned to wave hi and bye. I have been telling her bye every morning when Isaiah takes her outside to let the chickens out, and she has started to wave back at me. It was so cute at breakfast the other morning, Carter was waving at her and she was waving right back at him.

Melody has been very fussy this last month. I finally took her to the chiropracter to make sure her back wasn't out. He said it was a little bit, but about a week after that I figured out the problem. She is getting her two top teeth. They still aren't all the way in, but you can see them starting to show. Hopefully once they are in she will start sleeping better.

Her Uncle Gideon has nicknamed her "Shredder" because she will be nicely patting her face or arm and then all of a sudden she will dig in and try to rip your skin off.

Our School Day

I thought I would do a post about our homeschool since it is what we spend most of the day doing. Right now, Benjamin is doing first grade work and Carter is just starting to learn to read. In the mornings, I do math, history, phonics, and reading with Benjamin. Carter does a few pages in a preschool workbook. Amita just gets to hang out with us and has fun. It takes 1-2 hours each morning depending on exactly what we are doing.

The math program I am using is rightstart. It is really fun and teaches math through lots of hands on activities and games. In the picture we are learning about congruent rectangles by making them on a geoboard.

The history program is called Mystery of History. We read a little story and then do an activity that goes with it. We also make figures for each lesson and put them on a timeline. Our last lesson was about Gideon in the bible and we made a clay pot. Here is a picture of our timeline.

After lunch, I have the kids do work folders. It is a system I learned about on another blog. Each kid has file folder with different activities in them. They do each folder and when it is done they move on to the next one. Benjamin has 11 folders and Carter has eight.

Benjamin's folders:

1) after lunch jobs (clear the counter & clean bathroom)

2)math drill (right now he is add 3 to other numbers)

3)Dragonfly lapbook

4)a writing exercise (this changes everyday, to day he copied a nursery rhythm)

5)Literature or History Pockets

6)math review (this changes everyday, today we reviewed the days of the week)

7)Science folder (watched magic school bus today)

8) some thing fun like a game, puzzle coloring sheet (today was a maze worksheet)

9)computer time

10)outside activity (today he rode his bike)

11) evening jobs (clean the playroom & feed animals)

I love using this system because every evening I just fill their folders and then the next day everything is ready for them. It usually takes Benjamin 2-3 hours to go through them depending on the exact activities in them.

We also do a nature walk once a week and then come back and journal about what we saw. This week we studied the pond. I am also reading The Tale of Desperoux at bed time.

Teaching the kids keeps me very busy, but I love every minute.