Happy Reformation Day!

Happy Reformation Day & Halloween to all our friends! This year Titus is dressing up as Dragonoid (he has no idea who this is, he just thought the costume looked amazing, HA!) and Justus is going as a T-Rex. He loves dinosaurs so this has been such a fun costume for him. He stomps around and growls, it's hilarious. Vernon and I are going as St. Louis Cardinal's fans but, in fear for our lives, we did not wear all our gear to Boo at The Zoo. I wore a Cards shirt and that was enough :) It was the day of Game 7 so it was risky. We will, however, be all dressed up tomorrow!

In honor of Reformation Day, last night Titus and I built a mock church of Wittenberg out of boxes and construction paper. We then dressed up in robes made of blankets and acted out Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the church doors. Here is a funny picture I caught of Titus aka Martin Luther.

This week and weekend, leading up to today, Titus and I read this book about Martin Luther's life.

Martin Luther:: A Man Who Changed The World

It is pretty good....it has a lot of information about Martin Luther, which was great, but I am definiately on a search for a shorter version that is more kid oriented. This one was great for the purpose we needed it for. We used it last year as well...so he was familiar with it.

Along with the letters of the week, each week we use this book for some short fun church history...it's a hilarious book! I recommend it as much for adults :) We skipped to L for Luther last night to look at what it had to say::

The Church History ABC's

We did a VERY short lap book project that I hope to expand on and it turned out like this::

This is actually my first time to experiment with "lapbooking." It was fun and easy and now Titus has something to put in his binder to keep for the future for "research."

Hope all of you have a fun day today and enjoy this evening!

Happy Reformation Day and Halloween!!

J is for Jack O' Lantern, Jellyfish and Jamba Juice

J week was a fun, easy going week. Justus was actually pretty sick the later part of the week resulting in a trip the the ER for breathing treatment but he is much better now...just a bit congested. We knew going into this week that we would be home all week...shocker, I know. So we really didn't get in a hurry about school. We just tried to keep with our normal little routine:: Bible (both boys) , Breakfast, Latin (Titus), Letter page (Justus) a speed worksheet in Math (Titus), go to the gym, come home, finish math, more letter fun (Justus), Grammar &/or Writing (Titus), Justus' nap, History, with reading and playing interspersed through out (both boys, obviously Titus will be reading and Justus will be read to).

That is a snapshot of our daily routine but sometimes we do this out side the home at fun places like:: Starbucks::

This is both delightful for them...and for me :) (note the Cardinal's gear, we had fun rooting on our team through the World Series!) (oh, and forgive my photo quality... I loaned my camera out and so this is another post totally from my iPhone pics)

This week our verse was, "Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness but with have the light of life." John 8:12 We talked about what is it like to walk around in the dark. Titus totally got this idea. Then we talked about the difference even when there is a little bit of light in a dark room. We chatted about what it means to have the light of life, again touching on the Holy Spirit and His roll within us and among us. We had a fantastic song by Seeds Family Worship that helped us memorize this verses. I know I say this a lot but I highly recommend their music for kids scripture memory.

Our "God is Faithful. You can be/have______" board was "God is Faithful. You can be Joyful!" I feel like I didn't do a very good job of really talking about Joy this week like I had hoped. But we did touch on it here and there. Hopefully I will be able to continue to come back to it. We keep all the words on a board so we can see a list of things we can be/have because God is faithful.

Monday morning we went to Jamba Juice for breakfast! It was a fun way to start the "J" week off. Titus and Justus LOVE Jamba Juice and we could literally spend a fortune if we went there every time they asked. So this was a fun treat for them.

Our J letter project was Jellyfish::

For the fall/Halloween season we read the book Pumpkin Jack (you can see it pictured in the picture below) which Titus loves because it is about decomposing (he loves all things science) of a pumpkin and the seeds from its decomposing actually make a pumpkin patch the following fall. Justus just liked the pictures and the seasons depicted in the pictures. We also have a board book called The Pumpkin Gospel that explains the Gospel in a cute rhyme about cleaning out a pumpkins. Both boys have loved this book over the years. Fittingly then, for the letter J we also made Jack o' lanterns::

Like I mentioned above, Justus had a cough starting Wednesday so we didn't get out much. It was also a bit chilly (for Texas), so we did a lot of this::

and our house looked a lot like this::

I am excited about this next week and all of November. We are going to be traveling A LOT so we will take one full week off in mid November, sort of a fall break if you will. :) I am going to attempt to do a Thanksgiving "unit" during that week to have something fun to do on the road. We shall see. Today we finished a book on Martin Luther and did some fun things to remember Reformation Day tomorrow....but I'll post that tomorrow!

Happy Schooling!

I is for Igloo and Ice Cream

This week was extra fun and crazy because we were the lucky family who got to care for our friend's little baby girl Evangeline Shea :: isn't she precious?!?!

Her sweet parents are both on staff at The Village Church and they had Staff Retreat Monday - Thursday. We had such a fun time! They boys loved having her and so did we. Because of having sweet Evie, school did not get photographed much by my camera. I did get some pictures on my phone so that's what y'all are going to get this week.

We did a lot of this::

And a lot of this::

Titus loved strolling Evie around Barnes & Noble and that gave me some time with Justus as he played with the trains and we could read together. I love that in this picture Titus is reading Superman to Evie...so funny!

This week's verse was "I am the Lord your God. I am holding your right hand and I tell you, 'Dont be afraid, I will help you.' " Isaiah 41:13 One of our scripture memory CD's from when Titus was younger, Scripture Memory Songs with Hermie and Friends, had this verse on it. Titus still really likes these CD's although they are geared toward more 3-5 year olds. This helped getting this verse down easily. We talked about God being near to us even in our fear. This is a constant battle for Titus (and lately for me as well). He is typically anxious and sometimes fearful. So I hope this verse will continue with him all of his days.

For our 'God is Faithful. You can be/have ______ ' board we re-used Courageous. God is Faithful. You can be Courageous! This is something we pray for our boys. That they would be bold and courageous as they take the Gospel to their neighbors and the world.

I hoped to read all the books in the picture above...but we didn't read as much as usual because we were very distracted by having cute little Evie around. Also, the weather this week was spectacular so we did A LOT of outside playing!!

Justus LOVED 'I' being for Igloo. We cut up some squares from white paper and glued them on a blue sheet of paper into the shape of an igloo. This ended up being a great last minute idea. It helped him with cutting, shape identification and gluing....along with I being for Igloo.

Justus has started LOVING to hang up his work. Here he is, insisting it is on the board right in the middle of Titus' math! hehe!

For our letter project we made I into Ice Cream. I wanted to make it into an Iguana but 'I' being for Iguana was confusing him because he would say "I is for Lizard!" I decided not to fight that battle :) So we went with Ice Cream...and it turned out not so cute...but he loved it! :)

I had plan to have us make homemade Ice Cream but that didn't happen. We ended up going to the pumpkin patch one day and serving at a homeless shelter another day.

All in all it was a great week! If we keep on pace with T's work we will be at Semester with him in 20 school days.

If you are in the midst of schooling I pray endurance and strength for you as you make it through to the holidays. If you are reading just to store up ideas for the future I pray you would be blessed and the Lord would use your creativity to help school your littles.

Happy Schooling!

Hair, Hopscotch & Harmonicas :: The Letter H week

We had a super fun week at school. Some weeks just seem to fly by and seem wonderful. (but those who homeschool know this is not always the case) I think it is because....brace yourselves...we didn't travel this week! It was easy to just spread out our things and get to learning. Titus flew through his work and was able to have lots of free time to work in his "lab" which is really just a table in our garage where he does experiments. Justus really seemed to like this week of school as well! I think it is a combination of things. Besides the fact that we had a very routine week, which he really thrives under, we also saw some major growth on his behalf. Those of you who know about some of the delays and needs Justus has had will love this post because you will see that he is really progressing in so many areas!! His speech, while still behind, is catching up and getting clearer and his ability to do both fine and gross motor skills are growing by leaps and bounds. Our chiropractor gave me some more exercises to do with him and in the short amount of time that we have been doing them, we have seen most all of the worrisome tendencies majorly decrease and some slowly leave!! (I know that is vague, as I have not really blogged about our journey with Justus. I haven't decided if or when I will do that)

In our Bible time this week we focused on the forgiveness of our sins. Our verse was Revelation 3:30, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me." We talked through this with Titus in quite a bit of detail. Because Titus is around a lot of Christian teaching as we travel he tends to pick up on little ideas here and there that aren't always clear to him. He is good about asking but I felt like this week he really asked some great questions about the soul & the location of the Spirit as he resides in us. This week I really let him talk it all out. He talked a lot, sorting through the imagery of Jesus standing at a door knocking, willing to come in. I love just letting him talk it out, sit with it and come to conclusions. It challenges me. Titus is very much a thinker. He will not be told, he must figure it out. So...this week he did the talking.

One of our family's favorite books is Halfway Herbert by Francis Chan. It starts with an H and the character starts with and H so I thought it would be a fun one to bring out this week. Titus read it this time. He enjoyed feeling "old enough" to read to us. This is a fantastic story of a boy who does everything "halfway" and sees that life is not intended to be done "halfway." If you don't already have this book and you have k-3rd graders I would highly recommend it.

For Pre-school with Justus we did a lot of fun activities for the letter H. His favorite toys right now are anything with wings or wheels, so the obvious H was HELICOPTERS!!! I found this one at Wal-mart for under $5 so I grabbed it for him. It made it even more fun that it was new!

Justus is just now getting into music. I, being a music lover, feel it necessary to act on this. So we did, H is for Harmonicas. At one point this week I thought I had lost my mind when both boys were playing their harmonicas loudly. Then I laughed and remembered that one day I will love that memory.

It was very nice weather this week, so the boys did A LOT of playing and exploring outside. I am so thankful for our backyard! I drew a hopscotch board on the back patio and they went to town having fun. This served as MANY helps for Justus. He has a hard time recognizing his numbers (although he can count and sort while counting he just cant recognize them as a symbol with great accuracy). So we yelled the numbers out loud as he jumped. We pointed at the numbers and rolled things to the numbers. It was great! I am not sure that he picked up that it was called Hopscotch and that that name starts with an H but ....who cares! :)

Our table projects (that we try to do when Titus is doing workbook type work) were about the words Hair and House. I just drew some people and had him color hair on them. The next day I drew a bigger person and had him glue tissue paper strips on for the hair. He thought it was funny!

And here is the letter project. We made H into a house. Justus really got into this. He thought it was fun because we talked about what all the house pieces were called, i.e. window, roof, chimney, curtains.

I think that is about it for H. Titus wanted me to take a picture of him doing work....so just in case you worried that Titus doesn't do much school since I never really blog about 2nd grade, here is proof:: (he was taking a grammar assessment)

Happy Schooling!

G is for Go, Green & Guitars

This week of schooling was very unique. On Tuesday at 3:40 in the morning, one of my best friends called and said her water broke. They live in Midland and we had planned from the beginning of her pregnancy that we would not schedule anything in early October so that we could drive over to Midland when ever she called. So at 3:40 I jumped out of bed and got us packed up and we were on the road to Midland by 5am!

This is the pic that I sent my friend when we hit the road. It was a source of laughter for days! haha!

I ended up packing ALL of our school books (just in case) and I am so glad I did. We were able to school quite a bit in our short 2 day visit in Midland....for Titus that is. Justus was not interested in schooling AT ALL. He was having way to much fun...so I didn't interrupt it much. We did school at home, however, Monday, a little on Thursday when we got home, and Friday as usual.

(If you are new to the homeschooling section of my blog, you might be a little less confused if you read this post or these :) hope that helps!)

This weeks Bible verse and topic were by far my favorite to this point. It was a great reminder for us as parents as we chatted with the boys about it. Our verse for G week was "Go and Learn what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but the sinner." Matt 9:13.

Our "God is Faithful, You can be____" board was "God is Faithful, You can be Yourself" We talked a lot about why Jesus would say something as provocative as He did in Matthew 9:13. We told the boys about how it is our propensity to try to "work hard enough" "be good enough" "be clean/pure enough" to come to God or for God to like us...when Jesus shows us the opposite to be true. He came to save sinners!! That is us! This truth allows us to be ourselves. To rest and not to feel the false sense to "prove ourselves" to God. It was great reminder this week for us and I feel like it was great for the boys too!

As for pre-school with Justus, I had high hopes to read some fun classics & some fun books about God but he saw the Go! Diego! Go! books and we didn't really get much past those! ha!

He was pretty in to the fact the Green started with G so we went out and bought (I know you can gasp that we didn't already own it) this little gem::

I had lofty thoughts of making Green Eggs and such, but he didn't really like the book much once we were back around Diego.

For his Letter G project we made a Guitar::

At our friend Sarah's house last Sunday they made Green Play-doh Perfect for making Gs and other fun things::


And the biggest G hit was Titus' Green Guitar:: years ago when I taught guitar lessons, two of my students bought this guitar for Titus off Ebay...ha! We still have it and we had loads of fun with it this week::

A fun song for G is 'God is Good' by The Village:: Kids It spells out God and Good and has great, easy to sing lyrics. My boys LOVE this song!

If you are hoping to go through all of the alphabet with your kiddos this year and you are on G week, you are 1/4 done! Way to Go!!

Happy Schooling.

Fun with Fishing For F

After a week off of school being in Missouri for His Voice Global Weekend, I had very little gumption to do all that much this week in way of school but really wanted to press forward with the school year. I felt like this week went well considering it is usually a struggle around here if we take more than a few days off. The boys don't usually want to jump back into routine after breaks but they did great this week! I was the one with no energy :)

For our "God is Faithful, You can be/have ______" board this week we did, "God is Faithful. You can have Faith."

This seems like a given but sometimes I like to take time reiterate that, we, in and of ourselves, can not will ourselves to have 'enough' Faith. The reason we can have faith is God's faithfulness. He is the giver of faith and the one who was first faithful. So we talked about that. Our verse was Mark 1:17 "And Jesus said to them," Follow me and I will make you become Fishers of men." I loved that this verse with the faith concept. It shows that, yes, God calls us to "Follow" him but his faithfulness is why we can have faith to "drop our nets" and follow.

I had high hopes of doing lots of "following games" but that didn't happen. :)

For Justus' school we made a Flower out of F. I also had hopes of collecting some flowers...but we live in Texas. No rain + 100 degrees = no flowers.

He did some F worksheets where he just colored and stamped like usual.

We did "Fishing for F's" and HE LOVED IT. He has played it everyday on his own since Titus and I taught him how. It was a hit for sure! I just filled a bowl with a bunch of letter Fs.
Then I took some pipe cleaners and connected them together. Next I added a little masking tape to the end of the pipe cleaners and curved it in the shape of a fishing pole. And that was all! It took about 2 minutes prep and it was hours of educational entertainment :)

As you can see...he loved it. He shouted "its a F!! F says ffff!" every time he caught one. hehe. Then I mixed it up by adding some other letters to see if he could just fish out the Fs. That was so fun too!

I think that is all for F. I hope it helps some of you to get your brain rolling.

I know I keep saying I will post about what we do with Titus (2nd grade) other than just the Bible lessons, I am sorry that hasn't happened yet. It is in the que of posts, I am just trying to link all the books and such so it will be helpful for you and I haven't hand much time to give to it.

Happy Schooling!