MIA.....

So, I have been completely MIA this month. I haven't been blogging much, but mostly because I haven't felt like we have done enough to do a weekly blog. I thought that I was beginning to feel better in the beginning of January, but apparently I was not. This post consists of some of the pictures of what we've accomplished this month. Usually this would be done in a week (sometimes 2). There are also many other things that I wanted to do, but just didn't feel up to doing it. I will say that I am finally feeling better (almost in my 2nd trimester!)....for real this time, I am feeling better/motivated/'normal'. So I apologize for my lack of posting. Here is what we've been doing this last month.

We've been working on 'rowing' The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. Rowing a book would generally take a week or so....but it took us the whole month. :)
I printed out these shape cards (along with many other printouts) from Homeschool Creations.
Asa looked through the book and would find the shapes in the illustrations.
Drawing icicles on the house. He would pick a number card and then draw that number of icicles.
This printable is from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Asa drew some of the things that he and Peter (little boy from The Snowy Day) like doing in the snow. He drew the snowman, the ground and the hill. He insisted that I draw the sled and the little boy on it. After he drew the picture he used a snowball (cotton ball) to paint snow on the picture.

Counting the snowflakes, counting out beads to put on the snowflakes, then circling the correct number. This printable is also from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Cutting practice. This boy LOVES scissors!
Letter tracing. We also did a little experiment to see what happens to snow when it is brought inside. In the book Peter put a snowball in his pocket and when he went back to get it the snowball was gone. I asked Asa to make a prediction about what happened to the snowball. He said that he thought it melted. We brought snow in the house and I asked him what would happen to this snow....he said it would melt and make water. He didn't let that cup out of his sight for the longest time.

He checked on his cup after naptime and he was pretty excited that his prediction had been accurate. Then I had to convince him not to drink the water. lol
More letter S work. These printables are from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

This is one of the trays that I really wanted to do and got around to making. The idea (and the snowflake printables) are from Making Learning Fun. The idea is to look at the card and build the snowflake using the correct shapes.
After putting so much time into making it I was pretty bummed when it wasn't a huge hit. It wasn't that Asa didn't like it, he was just more interested in other things. Oh well, maybe next year he will like it better.
One of the snowflakes that he finished.
Silas enjoyed creating his own snowflakes.
This was one of Annabelle's favorite activities last year. Asa liked it as well, but was still a bit confused about how to do it. We worked together quite a bit on this.

Play dough took up a good time of our month. I was pretty grateful that it consumed a lot of time. I made it just the normal color and added some vanilla extract (that's why it's a little brown). I had bought a couple Toobs (penguins, polar). The kids had a great time using the play dough as snow. They made tracks as well as little landscapes.
Silas LOVES play dough. This would easily consume 1-2 hours of time with him.

We did happen to have snow for about 2 weeks here in good ol' Michigan (it's pretty much gone now and in the 40s.....bizarre). We took advantage of it while we could. We did some sledding...

....the kids also enjoyed coloring the snow.....
I was pretty grateful for this activity. It was an extremely bad feeling day for me. The kids were insanely loud that morning I knew that they just had so much pent up energy.
I forced myself to get them bundled up and sent them outside to color the snow. I got an hour of peace and quiet in the house and they had a GREAT time outside (and didn't want to come in). I love my fenced in back yard!!!
I hope that everyone else had a fantastic January. I for one am really looking forward to February! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

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