Life in a Nutshell

Man, we have been MIA for a while. It's been a crazy couple of months...
Back in December, we did a lot of lapbooking. So much so, we actually needed a break from it. :) For our Language Arts lapbook we did A Pocket for Corduroy. Both girls did this. You can actually tell who did which lapbook just by the skills on the pasting part. Lily took her time, while Iris was just like 'this goes here, it doesn't need to be perfect.' We then mixed language with history by doing the history of Santa Claus (which I pulled out of my butt, and took 2 hours to make) and The Night Before Christmas. We then did the history of Hannukah and had a blast! I found a project on making a dreidel out of cardstock, which we jumped at. We even did a "lighting" activity where we lit the menorah for the whole holiday. We were going to do Yule and Kawanzaa, but that month was crazy and we were visiting family, so we decided to just take a vacation instead. :)


About a month ago, my husband and I went to Barnes and Noble and Border's and found a wonderful array of homeschool curriculum and workbooks in their education section. We bought three Brain Quest books for the girls to do as supplement to their every day activities. They were out of PreK, so we only brought home K, 1st, and 2nd grade. Lily is almost done with the Kindergarten book, and Iris has done a couple of the activities in it as well. Lily and Iris were also given workbooks as gifts for the holidays/birthday.

I have this old notebook that I've had for ages. I decided to make it into a planner. When I ended up finding a nice leather-bound one on sale at Borders, I ended up taking this planner/notebook that I had made into a lesson planner. It was a notebook from high school that I never used, hence the ridiculous stickers, but I found a nice fabric book-cover and added post-it tabs to make it more professional. I use it for book work, activities, and other mundane things, like doctor appointments and play-dates.

We've kept busy doing bookwork and other activities with open-ended toys. Right now I'm just trying to figure out what to do and how to do. I am the epitome of winging-it.

All I Want for Christmas...

Is an awesome wall map for my girls' Social Studies projects. I have a wall poster of the planets somewhere in my things...BUT I CAN'T FIND IT and it's driving me nuts. I find this one (picture) at the office depot website for $15 and it's LAMINATED so I want it. The world map would be awesome. But I also want one of just the United States. I have so many ideas. I HATE BEING BROKE. A globe would be nice, too. WHY ARE THEY SO EXPENSIVE.

We're currently doing a bunch of holiday lapbooks that I've either found or created myself using bits and peices of information I found online. We did one on Santa, and are currently on Hanukkah. We'll then being doing Muharram (Islam New Year), Yule (Winter Solstice), Christmas around the World, and Kwanzaa. And THAT is just this month. We also did A Pocket for Corduroy for our Reading study. Have I mentioned how much I am LOVING lapbooking? Lily loves it too. Pictures will soon follow.

I will have an all picture post of all of the recent lapbooks we've finished as well as her journal. I've been trying to keep it a daily journal (Monday through Friday) But I keep forgetting to sit down with her and do it. Juggling three kids AND homeschooling is hard work. But I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm going to talk with the state some time after the holidays are through to see if they would reimburse us on a kindergarten curriculum even though Lily is not of compulsory age for another two and a half years. The kid is just so smart, I'm the one who is keeping up with her.

Also, I'm trying to post daily, but I get distracted easily. I sign online and then totally forget what I came here for. LOL. But everyone will be seeing more posts from me. I'm not gone yet.