Friday, July 17, 2015

Summer Update - 7 Quick Takes


We keep on having fun this summer!  It has been hot and busy, but we are finding ways to stay cool and enjoy our days!  Here are a few things that we have been up to!
 
--- 1 ---
Hydrant Party Fun
 
Our city sets up super fun Hydrant Party's throughout the city during the summer.  The fire trucks come, tap into the fire hydrants and set up big sprinklers for the kids to run through and cool off!  We were so lucky that they had an event right down our street!  It was a blast!






--- 2 ---
Lego Fun
 
Our city Children's Museum has a traveling exhibit of Legos right now!  It has been a great place to go and explore while it has been incredibly hot outside!  There are lots of awesome Lego displays to explore and also places to build Legos.  Our boys favorite activity is the HUGE ramp to race Lego cars down!



--- 3 ---
New Chores
 
With each developmental stage and each phase of life we are always re-evaluating our schedule and also what is working and not working at our house.  One big thing that we have been working on over the summer is our boys learning more responsibility.  Our oldest boys (5 and 3 years old) are both expected to get dressed, brush their teeth, and make their bed all by themselves.  They then eat breakfast and help put their dishes away and their newest chore is cleaning the counters!  They think this new chore is lots of fun and I love that there is another thing that they can take responsibility for!

Our goal is that we keep adding things as they get older and also before the new baby comes this November!  Our oldest son is working on being able to get basic breakfast ready for himself and his brothers including toast or cereal, fruit, yogurt and drinks.  These little things help SO much!
 

--- 4 ---
Homeschool Conference Fun
 
Our homeschool co-op put on their first Catholic Homeschool Conference in our city this past weekend and they did such a fantastic job!  The first night we had a big used book sale and I found all of the things below for $57!  We found a lot of Seton Materials, CHC and some fun learning extras that we will definitely enjoy in the years to come.  I definitely saved HUNDREDS of dollars from the list prices!

 
The second day of the conference we had Karen Edmisten and Suzie and Tony Andres as speakers.  I was so excited to meet and hear Karen Edmisten as her book After Miscarriage was a great gift to me after we experienced the loss of our son Samuel.  She had so many great words of wisdom about homeschooling and increasing our prayer lives.  It was so wonderful to spend some much needed time alone re-charging and setting goals for myself and for our homeschooling year to come. 
 

--- 5 ---
Lake Time
 
My in-laws bought a piece of property on a nearby lake and also bought a boat this summer!  We have been LOVING getting out to the lake for a few hours each week to go boating, swimming and tubing!  It is such a fun family activity and really brings me back to my childhood spending all of my summers at our family lake cabin!

--- 6 ---
Camp Google

We have started the 4 week activities with Camp Google and have been really loving this free resource!  This past week has been Ocean Week and we have learned all about the Ocean and done experiments How Things Float and How Dolphins See Underwater!  We also got to watch a Deep Sea Dive and see lots of fun fish and animals!  In the weeks to come we get to learn about Space, Nature and Music.





 
Learning how Dolphins See in the Ocean
Watching the Live Ocean Dive
--- 7 ---
Minions Movie
 
Our oldest son went out for a morning with my parents and again it was SO hot outside so we decided to go to the $5 morning movie!  Our middle son loves Despicable Me so he was excited to see the new Minions movie.  It was silly and we had a fun time!





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Thursday, July 16, 2015

6 months in Heaven



My dearest Samuel,

It has been 6 months now you have been in Heaven.  6 months that you have been away from being alive within me, and instead in the arms of God.  I think of you every day.  Some days I am very saddened that I do not have the chance to cuddle with you and hug you, but God has.  Some days I am weary that I never had the chance to get to know your sweet soul, but God does.  My sweet Samuel, I can only imagine how beautiful the past 6 months have been for you in Heaven.  You have given our family such a great gift by giving each and every one of us a greater purpose to enter the Kingdom of Heaven to not only be united with God but also for to meet you.  My little Saint, our whole family prays to you every day and asks for your intersession to bless us here on Earth.  We know that you are with us always and hope that you know that we love you always.
 
 
The Gospel today is from Matthew 11:28 "Jesus said: "Come to me, all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest.""  God's word has been such a strength to me and has given me such comfort that He is with you and that you have such purpose.  Also God's word reassures me that He is here for me, and our entire family as we grieve your loss.  He will carry our burdens and give us rest.  So today and always my sweet Samuel know that I love you dearly.  I thank God every day that we were chosen to be your parents and that we are blessed to call you ours.
Love,
Mommy
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Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Celebrating St Kateri's Feast Day


We have been celebrating a lot of feast days in fun ways this summer and this week we get to celebrate one of our favorites!  St Kateri or "The Lily of the Mohawks" feast day is celebrated on July 14th.  St. Kateri had such a beautiful and pure service to God.  She was born in 1656 and she spent her life deepening her own faith and teaching others about God. 

Playing with our St. Kateri Peg Doll
 
Our children's favorite part of St. Kateri's story is that since she had no Rosary that she would make a Rosary on the ground with sticks and rocks (rocks for each Hail Mary, etc).  They learned about this in Seton's 1st Grade History Book!  They love to see how we can not let anything stop us from practicing our faith and find creative ways to pray and teach others about God's love!
Learning about St. Kateri with Seton's History Book

To make celebrating St. Kateri's feast day more fun this year she was our Saint of the Month with our Saint Mail!  They included a lot of fun activities and we added some of our own!

First we learned about the Native American culture and made a teepee!  We spoke of how St. Kateri loved all of God's animals and we played a fun animal game that we have matching the animal skin or fur to the animal.  We finally went outside and gathered our own sticks and rocks from nature to pray our daily decade of the rosary and make our own crosses! 





Making our own Rosary with Rocks and Stick's like St. Kateri
We have had so much fun learning more about St. Kateri and hope that you do as well!

St. Kateri, Pray for Us!
“I will willingly abandon this miserable body to hunger and suffering, provided that my soul may have its ordinary nourishment.”
― Saint Kateri Tekakwitha


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Monday, July 13, 2015

Our 2015-2016 Curriculum Choices


Wow!  I cannot believe that we are already starting our second official year of homeschooling and our first year filing with our state for our oldest son.  2014-2015 was so much fun for our family and we all learned so much not only academically but also about our faith and growing closer as a family.  Going into this school year our oldest son is 5 1/2 years old (6 in December), our middle son is 3 1/2 years old (4 in October) our youngest son is 2 years old (3 in June 2016) and we are expecting our newest little blessing in November! 

We have been schooling over the summer because homeschooling has truly become a way of life for us but also because we are planning on taking a nice break once the baby comes in November through the end of the year.  We are looking forward to that time to slow down celebrate Advent and Christmas and enjoy family!  The only thing that we have on our "school schedule" during that time is using Christmas Mosaic for the activities and book list!

First, we are enrolled with Seton Home Study School which provides us with an amazing accredited Catholic home education program.  We have used Seton for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten so far and simply love it for our family.  Also, although it may look like we have a lot on our plates for this year we do not use each book every day or even every week.  Our formal school time usually takes 1-2 hours 4-5 days per week at this point in time.  With the rest of our time we add in a lot of read-aloud time, life learning and fun!  Our Religion book list with Catholic Mosaic, History with RC History and Phonics with Before Five in a Row for the little ones is all mostly great read aloud literature which takes up most of our time and is also super flexible!

Here is what we have planned for our school year:

Daily Circle Time with Everyone
  • Calendar (Days of the Week, Months of the Year, Weather, Seasons)
  • Daily Rosary -Decade or Entire Rosary (With Holy Heroes Rosary CDs)
  • Saint of the Day
  • Morning Offering Prayer
  • Pledge of Allegiance

Ryan (5 - 6 years old) Kindergarten/1st Grade:

English/Phonics: 

Handwriting / Spelling:
Mathematics
Religion
 
 
Science

History

Art/Music



 Physical Education
 
Connor (3-4 years old) Pre - Kindergarten

Early Literacy / Phonics:
 
Mathematics:
Religion:

Science:
  • Magic School Bus Books, Videos and Experiments
  • Life Experiences and Fun!
History:
Art/Music:
 
Physical Education:
 
Luke (2 years old) - Preschool / Learning Fun

Early Literacy / Phonics:

 Mathematics:
Religion (Following along with his big brothers):
Art/Music:
 
Physical Education:
  • Yearly Pass to Go Kids' Gym

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