S is for SO Many Things!!

S week was so fun. I had so many things planned that we didn't get to a bunch of them.

For our Bible verse we memorized Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." On Monday I had Titus (7yr old) read the verse in it's context. He read Matthew 6:25-34. This section of Scripture come from the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus and in this particular part Jesus is addressing worry. So we talked about the things Jesus chose to point out that people worried about more than seeking Him. I asked Titus to think of some things he tends to worry about instead of seeking Jesus and trusting Him. Titus is a worrier so this was not a hard question for him. We talked through the idea of "seeking the Kingdom of God" with him. It was a little abstract for him still but nonetheless I felt it was important to cover :)

For our "God is Faithful" board we did "God is Faithful, You can have Peace!" This was to draw the connection of the context of the memory verse together with the actual verse itself. We talked about God being so faithful that we can trust He will provide all that we need exactly where & when we need it. This knowledge will free us from worry and give us peace.

Early in the week we had a 'S' field trip. It was fun!! It was a great way to change things up from our normal routine but still accomplish some schooling. Titus did his class work before we headed out for the day. Justus and I glued some letters to a piece of paper and started for our search for S's.

Our First stop was:: Starbucks! (as if you had not already guessed)

(Justus & I are gluten free so we brought our own pastries, he really liked this stop but this is the only picture I got and it looks like he is unhappy but he wasn't)

Next stop:: The Science Center::

I forgot my camera on field trip day...so excuse the iPhone shots. The picture on the right, Justus is building a Stegosaurus on the computers in the dinosaur section of the Science Center.

Third (and last) field trip stop was The Stock Show::

We met up with some friends for the stock show. It was such a blast. The boys got to watch them milk some cows, feed some chickens and much more! Both boys LOVED it.

For Justus' letter project we did the nice and easy :: Snake. (We did this letter project on Monday, so on Tuesday at the Science Center He was so excited that hey had a snake out to touch!)

We did S is for Solar System and S is for Saturn. Oh man this was a huge hit!

We turned off the lights and put the star projector on it and did S is for Star then put it back to the Sun cover and did S is for Sun. Lots of S in one little lesson. :)

Then later that evening with Vernon was done with work and dinner was over we did some puzzles together...so I brought out the Solar System puzzle and we talked again about the Sun, Stars and Saturn. As you can tell, the boys love evenings with Dad. We usually read or play games or puzzles. This is one of the many times we are thankful for not having a TV. (to be clear we do have DVD player but no TV channels) It helps us just unwind together and talk about the day and get some good QT with Dad with out the temptation or distraction of watching shows.

We did S is for I SPY. I had lofty plans of making an I SPY board full of letters, shapes, color splotches, and stickers of random characters he knows but I never got around to it. So we used our ABC dry-erase folder...and it worked just fine :) I would say, "I Spy the letter J. Do you spy the letter J?" And he would use his "Spy glass" to help him find the letter I said.

As usual we did Play-doh one day and we did S is for Scissors.

A couple of days this week were very rainy so we had to do S is for Soccer and Skating indoors.

To reinforces his colors and incorporate the Letter S he painted a worksheet as he listened to my instructions. I would say, "make an S line with the color blue" He would have to pick out the color blue and make a line (as opposed to dots). Or I would say, "put a bunch of orange dots on the letter S." etc.

Each night this week he slept in Super Man PJ's but I only got this one blurry pic::

We had a lot of great S books this week as well. A few favorites this week were, There's No Place Like Space! (Cat and the Hat) and I Spy Treasure Hunt. But the most loved by both boys is a book I really wanted to recommend and it is The Squire and The Scroll:: A Tale of The Rewards of A Pure Heart by Jennie Bishop

Woah, that was a lot. I hope y'all can get some fun ideas from this post. School is well into the 3rd quarter so we are nearing the home stretch! I hope you are loving schooling your littles. We are having fun...or at least trying REALLY hard to anyway!

Have a great week! Happy Schooling!

R is for Reading, Robots, Rainbows, Rabbits & Rockets

We had a great week! Turns out R is a very easy letter to incorporate into our daily lives. :)

This week was a short week because Monday, as you know, was Martin Luther King day. We got to watch the Hendrix boys since their schools were out. We had a BLAST! We met the Billups girls (and baby Kade) at the Irving Bible Tubes (an indoor play place) then came home and played the rest of our day in our back yard. We met up with Melissa at Red Robin (for R of course) so that we could eat and return the boys to her! What a fun way to start the week.

For our Bible time this week we worked on Romans 12:12, "Rejoice in Hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." This was a very similar verse to P week, "Pray constantly, Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus, " 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 So we reviewed the concepts we talked about on P week and added being patient in tribulation. We talked about how sometimes we want to rush through trials with a just 'get through the hurt' attitude, while God asks us to be patient in these times. We talked about how sometimes its is in the moments of tribulation that we feel and sense God the closest. For our 'God is Faithful' board we did, "God is Faithful. You can have Hope!" We talked about God's faithfulness in our times of trials and how we can be patient in tribulation because God's faithfulness brings us hope.

Our boys LOVE to be read to. They also really enjoy reading themselves (obviously Justus just looks through the books but its his form of reading). We did an extra amount of reading this week for the letter R. R is for Reading but also because the boys REALLY loved the books we had picked out for R week. I bet we read the two Francis Chan books in the picture above 6+ times a piece. Not to mention the other three. Being the book nerds we are, Vernon and I loved every second of it. (by the way, I know I've talked about Francis Chan's children's books before but we HIGHLY recommend all of them)

For Justus' Pre-School we did a few projects. I had SO many I could have done for R that we didn't do like have a Race, make a Rain Stick, go to Rainforest Cafe, get Ring Pops, Race Racecars, build a cardboard box robot....and on and on. But here are some of the ones we did do ::

We made a Rectangle Robot. This was a great project that helped him with both shapes and fine motor skills. Plus he got to make one of his favorite things :: a robot!

I found this template here :: I used a black middle section but the rest we cut out from the template.

We made an 'R' Rainbow:: This help us work on color selection as well as learn about the colors that make up a rainbow. I pre-cut the strips and laid them out and had him pick the color I said was next. (we were out of any shade of purple paper so we ended up coloring the bottom section but its not shown here)

We played with Red play-doh and made red Rs with his new letter cutters he got for Christmas.

For our letter project he made a Rabbit out of the letter R::

We did lots of bouncing around the house as a rabbit and lots of counting down from 5 to blast off like a rocket. HE LOVED THIS!

For Christmas we got the boys cardboard Rockets to design themselves. They have been a big hit. We kept Justus' out and decorated it with Rs. Then he did his R work book page inside of it one day.

The last picture is of him "Blasting Off!"

We had a great week. I sure hope yall did as well!

Happy Schooling!

Q is for Quail, Quilt and Quarter

This week seemed to fly by. I am not sure if it's because we are finally hitting a routine that hasn't been interrupted by travel or if the boys were just extra pleasant or both. Maybe one is the byproduct of the other :)

At first I thought Q would be such a hard letter. It ended up being fine. Not having a bunch of projects to want to work on with Justus seemed to open up some great time to work on his numbers and to let him play out side quite a bit (it has been in the 60s here! crazy).

For Bible this week we worked on James 1:19. This was particularly fun for me as I am currently personally studying James. James 1:19 says, "Let every person be Quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry." Our God is Faithful board said, "God is Faithful, You can be Kind." We talked a lot about storing up anger in your heart and how it is a breeding ground for sin. This is obviously something that comes up A LOT having two boys who love to play hard. I wouldn't say they fight constantly but we are definitely at the phase where both boys are having to give and take. (and by 'having' I mean we are making them, *ahem* , I mean trying to teach them to be kind to each other) So this was great verse to reiterate the things we are trying to teach them in relationship to each other and with others.

Books with Q titles were pretty sparse around our house but books were still read. We read about a Queen and about ducks that Quack. Sometimes you gotta stretch :)

For Justus' Pre-School we watched some YouTubes about Quails. Once he got over the fact that they are NOT turkeys, we were in business. We made our Letter project into a Quail.

We talked a little bit about money and introduced him to a Quarter. Then we did a Quarter toss. He loved it! (although he was kinda confused in these pictures. I didn't capture any when he finally got the hang of it and loved it)

With his Letter Color Pages my friend made (the ones we use every week), we made a Quilted Q. We talked about Quilts but I am not sure he understood the difference between a quilt and a blanket but he still enjoyed gluing the squares and later told Dad that he had made a quilt. So who knows :)

I mentioned before that we worked a lot on his numbers this week. We have these great Number Cards that are Thomas the Train. He really enjoys this activity everyday. I don't have a picture of them but here is a link to look at them :: Click HERE

And of course, the Fridge DJ never gets old for counting. 1, 2, 3 Leap frogs, 4, 5, 6 Leap Frogs....

Hope your schooling is going well! Have a great week!

Happy Schooling.