weeks....????

What better way to learn about dogs than by owning one!  yesterday we added Maddy to our family.  She's a gentle sweet 5 year old Basset hound. 

Elliott helping with cooking and baking, as always!  He's my sweet little helper.

We've been spending some time working in our 'workbooks' on phonics and math.  It's interesting because I feel like I have to almost drag Noelle along in the phonics department (not that she isn't good at it, just not motivated).  But she loves math!  Elliott loves everything:)

Sorting buttons by size

Putting buttons in groups according to size

The kids spent lots of time playing with our nativity scenes.  On the first snow day, we took out all of our winter and christmas books, and have slowly been decorating for Christmas.

Noelle asked to have this set in her room, and she makes up stories and plays with them during her quiet time:)

Sorry I haven't been as good at keeping track of stuff....just getting busier and busier!  Oh yeah, another fun thing the kids did was go on a fieldtrip with their dad to the Imax to see a show about whales and dolphins!  They had a great time.  We spent some time before hand learning about whales and dolphins so they would be prepared.  What fun!

Week 8 and 9 (so far)

Oops!  I guess I'm getting bad at posting!  Here's some highlights from last week and the beginning of this week:

Noelle writing a letter to put in her shoebox gift.



Measuring in our Franklin workbooks

Learning with Dr.Seuss

Noelle and Elliott's Tinker Toy Teradactyl

Making caterpillars out of dish scrubbers!

We also finished our Passport to India study, and started reading Madeline.  Hope you're having a great week!  (Notice how we're wearing our pj's in lots of the pictures?  One of the benefits of homeschooling!) 

Week Seven!!!

Wow!  Time has flown by!  This week I decided to take it back to basics and focus on Phonics and Math.  I have some great books I picked up at Liquidation World of all places!  Elliott works in his own "workbook" which is usually something I've picked up at Dollarama.  Noelle is doing really well....sometimes she has a hard time realizing that she needs to do her work...sometimes she just wants to be done right away, so I try to explain to her that if she were at school she would be working all day!  She's doing well, though.
The story we were doing from Five in a Row is called "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel".  At homeschool co-op they learned about steam, ice, and water (gas, solid, liquid).  They also got to hear a great devotional about hearing from God.  Later that evening we were dancing in the living room to some worship music, and Noelle said something like "When I was dancing, I was thinking about Jesus!" so we started talking about worship, and what it means.  Then, for the next half hour at least, she kept hearing from God!  Here are some of the things He told her:
"I like it when you do that (dance for Him)"
"I love you Noelle, I love you!"
"You can worship Me when you're climbing a tree, when you're working, whatever you're doing!"

She was so excited, she could hardly contain herself!  It was such a good reminder to me that homeschooling is not necessarily just about what we get accomplished, but what is happening in their hearts. 

Elliott's Steam Shovel

A little about me...

Chantelle from Thousand Square Feet tagged me to answer some questions about myself, and although this blog is mostly about what I do for homeschooling, I will play along! Here goes:

1. What is your favorite memory of your childhood years?
Wow. That's tough. One of my favourites is of when I was upset, and would hide under my bed...my sweet mom would come looking for me saying 'Where is Becky?'...she always found me!
Another is sitting on my Grandpa's lap combing his white beard with the little comb he kept in his front pocket:) Another is going on a Daddy-daughter date with my Dad to see "My Girl" in the theatre.
2. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Hmmm....I guess that would have depended on when you asked me! I think in my grade 2 book I said something about wanting to work at the bank like my Mom. I also LOVED animals, and probably would have wanted to do something related to animals, like a vet maybe? I also wrote a story about myself (Cowgirl Becky N) and my horse Twinkletoes, so maybe I wanted to own a ranch? I still would LOVE to move to the country and have all kinds of animals for my kids to enjoy.
3. If you had an evening to yourself with no expectations placed on you, what would you do?
Wow...that sounds too good to be true! Usually my evenings out involve grocery shopping and/or running errands! I would go for a massage, then go for dinner at a nice restaurant with my hubby. And then we could go to a hotel for night!
4. What would you like to learn to do sometime in this life?
I would really like to go to school to become a massage therapist someday. Mostly, I want to learn to trust God more and hear Him speak to me, and follow His leading.
5. Last book you read? Favorite book?
Last book...don't remember what it was called! I haven't read tons lately (other than lots of kids books!), so I will say the "Jesus Storybook Bible" ...EVERYONE should have one of these, whether you have kids or not! It is the best children's Bible I have ever read...and it really blessed me too. It does such a good job of tying the Bible stories together, and each story talks about being a part of God's rescue plan. If you go to the website they post a new video each week of one of the Bible stories!
6. Would people describe you as a "girly-girl" or more of a "tom-boy"?
Hmmm...definitely not girly girl, but not tom boy either...probably right in the middle! I am not 'high maintenance' or anything, but do like to look nice on occassion...sometimes after having snot crusted on my shoulder (NOT my own) and walking around in my pjs gets old! As a kid I learned to be competitive as I had two older brothers to keep up with, but even then I had my girlie side.
7. Favorite beverage?
Tough call...I'd say a steamer with some yummy flavouring on a cold day, and on a hot day some kind of slushy fruity smoothie.
8. Childhood nickname? Current nickname?
Well, my brothers used to call me "Muffalo" because I had such crazy, big, muffy hair! My dad used to call me "Little One", even into adulthood:) Most people call me by my name, or 'beck'.
So now you know a little more about me! Thanks Chantelle:)

Week Six

We've been reading "How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World", and made Apple Seed Counting Books where they had to count the number of seeds in the apple going from 1 to 20. I put a little apple picture over the number and then they counted but could check their answers. Then they wrote the number. We practiced putting in order all of the places visited, ingredients collected, and modes of transportation using flash cards. We did this Apple Basket Activity page. We made our own subtraction book using themes from the story. We also coloured all the flags of the places she visited to catch up on what we missed at co-op last week.

We watched some more of our Passport to India videos. We finally received our package in the mail, so we were able to go back over the videos we watched and answer questions in our very own 'passports'. We learned more about the different kinds of clothing, different kinds of temples, and learned about some children from a Hindu home who learned about Jesus through the Children's Bible Clubs, much to the chagrin of their parents. They are requesting prayer that their parents will come to know Jesus as well.

We learned about how to be safe, follow signs, etc. from our Boz activity book (we started these books in spring just to get into the swing of homeschooling).

At Co-op on Thursday we got to make apple muffins, finish our lapbooks, go to the park, have races, and eat a yummy lunch together!

Other than that, we do lots of reading books, playing games and puzzles, and other fun things where we get to be together and learn at the same time. We started having a prayer time together in the morning before we have breakfast where we pray and invite Jesus to be with us and help us love each other...He is really helping our days go smoother! We had been having lots of arguing, fighting, tattle-taling etc, and we were at our wits end. I couldn't think of any more ways to punish, or discipline. FINALLY I talked to God about it (which I should have done right away) and He gave me the idea about having a prayer time together. It is amazing what a difference it made! Thank you, Jesus!

Week five....

Playdough art

Wow....somehow I forgot to keep much track of what we did this week! Don't know how that happened:) Anyways, here are some highlights!

We did an apple tasting activity with some of our good friends where we compared 6 different apples and recorded our results. We had a blast!

I recall doing some math lessons from the book I mentioned before: really fun stuff, where you hardly feel like you're doing math.

Noelle and I baked cookies, and talked about different measurements and how to measure accurately.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to our co-op because of some bad coughs...hopefully this week.

Oh yeah...we also did two more days of our 'Passport to India'. We are really enjoying this: we got to see inside one of the children's homes, and see what kind of food they eat.

Week Four....

Elliott's Cat colouring....

Wow! This week flew by so fast...I will try to remember what we did!

We finished 'Papa Picollo'....what a fun book that was. We learned about cats eyes, and what makes them unique. We learned about colours, and made a colour wheel with paint. (Here is the covers of Noelle and Elliott's 'Cats' lapbooks. I got all of my ideas for the lapbooks here ).

We did some 'math' activities from the Usborne Number Activities Book....who knew math could be so fun! We did the counting to 20 and 30 activities.

We started 'How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World ' (another one of our Five in a Row Books). What a fun book! It's about a girl who wants to make and apple pie, and the market is closed....so she proceeds to travel all over the world to get her ingredients...like going to Sri Lanka to get cinnamon from the Kurundu tree. It's a great book for learning geography, and is so fun.

At our co-op some of the highlights were praise and worship, making their own apple crisps, and getting to go to the park for recreation time! And of course eating lunch together:)

We have watched the first two videos from My Passport to India . It was neat to be able to show the kids how people live in the slums of India, and how excited the children are to be able to go to the Bible Clubs and learn about Jesus!

And last but not least, we go to splash in the pool! In OCTOBER!!!! What a blessing

Week three...

We collected fall leaves, and 'laminated them'. We also played in the leaves! What better way to enjoy fall:)

We started reading 'Papa Picollo', which is one of the Five in a Row books. It is a really great story about a Tom Cat who lives in Venice and ends up 'adopting' two little kittens who don't have a home. We started a 'Lapbook' about cats including what they eat, what kind of teeth they have, how they communicate, etc. We painted a picture of 10 cats using potatoes to stamp their faces.

I'm realizing Elliott is quite the little sous chef! It seems that lately when I am cooking, he often pulls up a chair and joins right in. I'm amazed how much both of them know about cooking and what ingredients you need. They often collect the ingredients I need, help measure, stir, etc. Today Elliott even helped form the biscuit dough into biscuits...and did a great job!

We went to Penner Pumpkins with most of our homeschool co-op, and had a blast! Noelle even went on the zip-line which was pretty high up. Way to go!

We also had our homeschool co-op on Thursday, and went to the Zoo today with Grandma and Grandpa Mills to celebrate Malia's first birthday! It was a full week, but a really good one:)

week two

Elliott's Ping Drawing

We had a very full week! I'll try to remember what we did...

We learned about different kinds of ducks, and watched videos about ducks swimming, hatching out of eggs, etc. Did you know there is a kind of duck called a Red Headed Duck (I think that's what it was called) that says 'Meow'? Me neither!

We talked about 'Ping' from 'The Story About Ping' and how he was a lot like Jonah from the Bible... Also about how we can pray for 'discernment' (I didn't use that exact word;) and God can help us see whether something that looks good actually is good.

Noelle and Elliott drew their own pictures of ducks (Noelle actually showed different stages of a duckling hatching out of an egg...amazing detail...right down to the pieces of broken egg shell on the ground, and I was really impressed with Elliott's detail as well. We also made ducks (they drew their own) and decorated them with feathers.

Elliott's ducks (left)

Noelle's duck (right)

Noelle's duck drawings

Elliott wrote his name for the first time!

We did some more lessons in our Reading Made Easy...we're up to lesson 6.

At our homeschool co-op we worked on our lapbooks, sang, danced, played games....

We baked together a couple of times. Talked about how two half-cups is the same as a whole, the importance of following the recipe...this is Math!

We played Dr.Seuss games....ABC (great game), One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Go Fish, Green Eggs and Ham....

That's all I can remember for now:)