Saturday, May 26, 2012

Vacation Break! :)

I know that I haven't posted in a week or so. I actually have about 3 posts that I need to get done. I just haven't had the time to sit down and do them. I just wanted to let all you wonderful people in blogland know that we will be on vacation this week so I will not be posting (yet again....). I will be back a week from Monday with some schooling updates and also my garage sale treasures. I hope that everyone has a LOVELY holiday and is enjoying this warm weather. Have a wonderful week, and I will post soon! :)

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 4

Such a fun weekend of garage sales!  I went out on Thursday and Friday and found some really nice things.

We are expecting a baby in August.  I have no idea what gender this little one is going to be.  I do know that we got rid of ALL of our baby things last summer in our garage sale so that we could buy a nice swing set for the kids.  I've been trying not to let the 'oh this is so cute' factor interfere with my garage sales and adorable little kids clothing.  I could not resist at this sale.  Adorable clothes at even better prices.  If I knew for sure I would be having a little girl I would've bought the whole sale!  These 7 pieces of like brand new clothing only cost me $5.75....less then a dollar a piece.  Now if I have a little girl at least she will have some clothes to wear. :)
Found a few cloths for Annabelle.  Hello Kitty jammies, a dress and skirt, couple pair of pants, pair of sparkly shoes, and a random pair of water shoes for my parents new cottage on a lake. $7
A couple maternity shirts for me and a fun belt to give me a waist while I'm wearing them (I wear it above my belly)....and having a shape while you are pregnant makes you feel so much better! $3
I love this little find.  A lot of 25 Country Living and Martha Stewart Living magazines...all .10 a piece....so $2.50 for all!
Some random books/movies.  I bought that .50 bag all for the dice....they are a great size for little hands to use during school.  $2.75 for this pic...
On Friday I had a list of 10-15 sales.....I only made it to the very first one (which was a block sale).  I spent all my money there and was very happy with everything that I was able to find.

  Found another US coloring book for .25!  Also love the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs for .25!  I almost bought that book off Amazon last week....glad I waited.  Caps For Sale was another on my list.  The Curious George collection kind of got cut off.  That was $1.00 and all the books in it come with it on CD (Excited about that one).  $4.75
This garage sale was fun.  Lots and lots of balls.  This place had 3 bins FULL of balls....the guy said that this was only half of what they had!  Bonus: They were all blown up and ready to be played with. $4.25 for all of them.....you seriously cannot beat that price unless someone is giving away nice balls for free!
Nice clean bath toys.  My kids have been complaining about our lack of bath toys (which was zero), so I was happy to find these. $4.75
I LOVE this picture.....so many fun things.  Random book that didn't make it into the other picture, Spin Art $2, new dot markers $1, Moon Sand .50 for 3 new tubs (will be going in stockings), bean bags .10, stencils $1.00, Melissa and Doug horse stamps $2, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD  $1.25.
GRAND TOTAL:  $43.85 (about $13 more than I wanted to spend....but I really don't know what I would cut out....)

Linking up to My Life on a Taffy Pull.  Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Tot Trays: Goodnight Moon

In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon, and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon.  We are gearing up to start our Goodnight Moon unit.  All printables for this can be found at 2 Teaching Mommies (Space unit), Homeschool Creations, and Homeschool Share .  There are lots of GREAT space ideas out there in blog land so it was hard to narrow it down.  I decided to do more of a focus on Goodnight Moon and then throw in a couple books on space, and the fun Hey Diddle, Diddle rhyme.
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The boys enjoyed the clothesline so much during our laundry theme I thought I would continue it with this theme only using mittens and socks (Goodnight kittens, goodnight mittens.  Goodnight clocks, goodnight socks).
Counting moon craters number cards.
Counting the stars in the sky (Goodnight stars, goodnight air....goodnight noises everywhere.)
Letter Mm sort.  Things that start with Mm and things that don't start with Mm.  This picture reminds me that I haven't posted on my letter box that I was finally able to put together!  I'll have to do that soon. :)
How many spots on the cow (you know, the one that jumped over the moon).  This is from the 2 Teaching Mommies farm unit.
This is a fun little activity that I threw together. I typed out a bunch of phrases (on the moon, beside the moon, over, below etc.).  I will read the phrase and the boys will move the cow to where it is supposed to be. The activity was inspired by a post that I saw at Train Up a Child , but I think the post has been removed.  Hers was inspired by the book Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss.
Finding words in the Hey Diddle, Diddle rhyme.
Roll and Graph.  We haven't done one of these in a while.  Asa really enjoys them so I think he will be pleased to see it.  He calls it 'A race to the top.'  He even picks out who he thinks should win....because of this the results are a little skewed....I wouldn't place any bets. :)
Happy blogging!
jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1 and Montessori Monday

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Kindergarten Wrap-up

The last couple of weeks we've been slowly completing Annabelle's Kindergarten year and easing into her 'in between'/1st grade year curriculum. That is the reason for the small amount of pictures....not much going on to take pictures of. We are finishing up our rainforest studies in the next week or so. We're having a pretty good time with it. Next weeks post should have some more interesting pictures in it....maybe....no promises. lol

We've been learning all about primates the last couple of weeks.  These are the cute little crafts that she made.....
It is a chimpanzee and a gorilla....
This is her rendition of a gorilla.  You can't see it in this picture, but he has an angry face.
These are her two little monkeys.  The girl monkey is wearing a bow in her hair and carrying a purse.  The boy is apparently a pan handler.
Finishing up her Saxon Math K.....and pretty excited about it too.
Working on story problems....just the basics of them anyway....she doesn't really know how to add and subtract yet.  We will get there soon!
Reading practice.  She's enjoying reading out of books.
That was the highlights of our week last week.  We did start our Bible curriculum....but I'll probably do big posts on those when we finish the person/topic we are studying.....I'm not sure yet, I'll have to see how it goes.  We're also starting Astronomy this week!!  Pretty excited about that.  I wanted to start it while it is warm out so we can go do the observations and not freeze. :)  Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Monday, May 7, 2012

Tot School: Laundry

We had a fun couple of weeks completing our laundry unit. We have been taking a couple weeks to do each unit as opposed to a week, but no worries. I want these guys to enjoy learning for as long as possible and not feel pressured. So far they both beg to do school...I wonder how long that will last? lol  If you are interested in seeing links to print outs and the trays in more detail go here.


Silas really enjoyed matching the letters.  He gets confused with some of the lower case letters so this was a challenge for him, which is why I think he enjoyed it. 
Asa liked doing this too, but he preferred to only do the socks.
Coloring his shirt book from the Jesse Bear pack from Homeschool Creations.
He said if he picked out a shirt it would be the color rainbow....yes, rainbow is a color in his world.
They both LOVED these next couple of trays.  They did them over and over.....
Silas would match the socks and then want to put them on. :)
They really got into folding washcloths.  I was pretty surprised....I think it may be time for them to start doing this in real life!

 Such concentration went into this.
 This was another fun one.  I don't know why some weeks they enjoy everything and other they enjoy nothing, but I was happy that they liked all these trays (I put a lot of work into them!). 
 Working hard on some fine motor skills.
 Loving his letter L worksheets.  He got a couple books from the Dollar Tree in his Easter basket and he has been eating them up.
I'm working on throwing together our Space/Goodnight Moon unit right now.  Should hopefully be ready to start by Wednesday....as both these guys have been asking for school the past couple of days.  Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 3

Had an alright week for garage sales.  I did manage to snag a few items on my 'to find' list.  I went out 3 days this week.  I normally only go Thurs. and Fri., but it was my birthday weekend and I splurge and go out on Sat. too.  Still getting used to this new blogger format so my pictures uploaded kind of randomly (well, just different than what I thought they would), so hang with me....there is a lot of jumping around.  Some of these prices are higher than what I would normally pay....I think it was due to my excitement that it is garage sale season, plus I feel that the kids sizes are getting more difficult to find.  At this point (boys 4T), paying $2 for a really nice pair of pants is better than paying full price for brand new.  Just wanted to add that little disclaimer.

Saturday finds:
Books....2 on the left were on my list, Big Red Barn is an extra copy (we like ours and it will most likely be destroyed soon as we read it a lot....always good to find extra cheap copies of favorites at garage sales), the body books are for Annabelle....she is absolutely fascinated with anatomy, the last one will go with our history studies this year. $2.25
A couple of maternity pieces for me (my maternity wear is slim pickings)....hoodie $5, jean skirt $1
For Asa (eventually Silas): sandals, flip flops, water shoes, 2 shirts ($5), for Silas: nice dress pants, 3 unders ($3)....p.s. Silas decided to potty train himself on Wednesday (my b-day)....so far so good!


 
Friday Sales:
For Asa: 2 shirts (.75). For Silas: 2 shirts, swim shorts, 4 pair pants, 2 sweatshirts, rain boots (9.50)
 
A couple boy movies for garage sale days. $4
Books 1.00 - couple Dr. books, good samaritain book....I always like to find Bible stories in picture books that way I can have another source with pictures to read to the kids...also the Rabbit book....another duplicate of a favorite.


 
Thursday sales:
This is for the above picture.  I went to a daycare closing sale and found some useful stuff there.  Counting bears bingo game....this will be great for color matching/recognition $1.00, discovery bugs....we already have this , but bugs are super fun :) $1.00, 3 bundles of felt with 14 sheets each $3.00 total, glitter .50, valentines with pencils....I didn't get this for the valentine factor....these guys have 16 pencils each in them with fun characters! $1.00 for both.

For Asa: 2 pair of pj's $3.00 for both, dress shirt $1.00, t-shirt .75, 2 pair of shoes $2.00
Fun shirt for me $3, really comfy lounge pants .50
Found this really great picnic blanket with matching bag. $5.00.  I've been carrying the bag through the mom2mom sales and block sales I've been going to this weekend....pretty convenient.
Really nice (felt like brand new) princess blanket.  I wanted to give this to Annabelle for Christmas or her b-day, but she saw it and confiscated it before I had the chance to hide it. .50
Crooked picture....sorry.... 2 shirts, pair of comfy capris, pair of pjs $5.
4 summer dresses, comfy pants, t-shirt 3 shorts, rain boots $7.50
Grand Total: $66.25

I'm linking up to My Life on a Taffy Pull.  Head over there to see her finds of the week.

jess_hak