Homeschooling Fail = Mommy Fail

Seeing this practically broke my heart.  A total homeschooling mommy fail!  I failed as a mommy and as a teacher.  I failed my daughter.  These feelings have been plaguing me all day.  My daughter has completely forgotten she even wrote that distressed S.O.S message to me in her math book just this morning, but it has been following me around, whispering to me...

you're not smart enough to teach...
you're not not doing it right...
you're messing up your kids...
they won't learn a single academic thing from you....

And then due to all my feelings of inadequacies, I was short with her the rest of the morning. Oh, how I have let her down.  This funny, smart, sensitive and compassionate daughter, who challenges me to be a better mommy and teacher daily...and I fail to meet those challenges constantly.

At the end of my frustrating day, I sit back and I try to think what she needs.  What is it that I must teach her..I look to Scripture to help me find what it is I need to equip her with.  To my surprise, I did not see anything about Algebra, special blend sounds, cursive or state capitals...

This is what I found....

Teach her God's commandments- Deut. 6:6-7
Teach her to love Jesus - Matthew 22:37
Teach her to be a light -Matthew 5:14
Teach her to be a friend- Proverbs 18:24

This is what I want for her foundation!  There is so much more to teach from Scripture that I want my girls to learn.  The other things will come, bit by bit, in time.  But my main focus needs to be teaching my girls to love Jesus, love others, kind words, laugh , be joyful....and

                                                             play and eat ice cream!

So my dear sweet daughter, mommy may not be very good at fractions and I don't know the capital of Turkey...but I will always love you.  I promise to teach you and to show you God's Word because that is the foundation that will carry you through relationships, jobs, family and life. Always remember....
Jesus will never fail you.

Twin Cities Field Trip Ideas

I have been homeschooling for only a couple of years, and it has been so much fun.  I live in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota and there is so much available for homeschool groups. We have yet to duplicate a field trip.  Here are my top 10 favorites:

1. Minnesota State Capitol.  The children were in awe of the structure and grandness of the building and enjoyed the tour.  They even got a view from the top of the Capitol overlooking St. Paul.

2. MAD Science.  Professor Dude came to our local library meeting room(local library meeting rooms are FREE of charge. Great place to meet up!)  He gave us a fun filled, hands on and silly lesson on electricity!  They have lots of themes to choose from! They have a set fee, but the more families you gather, the cheaper the individual charge.

3. TWINS Stadium Tour.  Wow! Did the kids really enjoy this.  I did too!  We got a wonderful tour of the whole building, structure and workings of the it.  We got to walk around the field and had  science lesson on baseball.  They even got to have a little batting practice!

 4. U of M Raptor Center.  This was a fascinating field trip.  Displays of these amazing birds and how God designed them was great to learn about.  The kids particularly loved when the birds pooed on the floor and ate dead mice :)

5.St Paul Riverboat Cruise.  This was such fun!  We got an education tour of the river and saw a bald eagle on the way.  The kids even took turns sitting up front with the captain!

6. Berry Hill Farm, Anoka MN.  We just did this one for fall.  It was a beautiful farm with a lot of space for the kids to play.  They had a small variety of animals, a hay stack for kids to climb, wagon ride with a fun interactive trail , and a large interactive corn maze!  I loved it for being more Harvest themed and not Halloween.

 

 

 



7. Coon Rapids Dam.  My kids were able to attend this one without me, but they loved it.  They even got to do a scavenger hunt.

 

 

8. Stepping Stone Children's Theater, St. Paul.  We love the theater!  We got to watch Tom Sawyer at this theater and loved it.  We also attended Children's Theater Co. and Stages Theater in Hopkins, MN!

 

9. Sea Life at MOA.  Normally this is an expensive trip! This is where you take advantage of being a homeschooler!  In the Fall and Spring, they offer a homeschool day!  Only $5 a kid..whoohoo! Such a cool field trip!

 

10.  Rum River Art Center.  We don't have a formal art class, so I am excited to do this trip in a few weeks.  Due to the various ages of our group we are doing a session on water color painting.  They will teach us about an artist and do our own painting based on that artists technique.

    ** I also looked in Northern Clay Co. and Leonards Basement, but they started their lessons at 6yr and up for their classes and the pottery wheels were for 9yr and up at the clay company!

 

Some other trips we have done:

 Aamot's Apple Orchard

 Eveland Family Farm

 Como Zoo

 Science Museum

 MN Zoo

 YMCA Swim day



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New School Room!!

Ah, the smell of new crayons and sharp pencils.  It 's the first day of school!  We were super excited to start today..


.I just reorganized my basement so we could have a school room and I am super pleased with it. 

My husband and I did a major Ikea shopping trip!  It was fun to actually do a room and shop for it instead of dreaming and window shopping.
I think my favorite is the person touch of making their names for the wall. 

 It was super easy and didn't take very long. I did it while Elise was napping.  I used wooden letters from the craft store.  I used a small compiled book of coordinating scrapping paper, and that was awesome. I just traced the letters and mod-podged them on!  They are so light that I used small mounting tabs from the school supply store. No damage and removable!

Hope everyone had a great first day! here is to many more :)

Fish Bowl Challenge!!

I like to find fun ways to encourage the kids to learn their memory verses every week for our little co-op homeschool group.  We started this one in January, before the Super Bowl, so I thought this was a cute idea!  I printed off empty fish bowls for each child, and every week after they said their verse, they added a fish to their bowl! They loved filling up their fish bowls each week.  I just pasted them to a firm foam board and decorated it with sea life.

Passover Lapbook

I love lapbooks and I was so excited to find all the printables for it!  Since Passover is fast approaching it was the perfect craft for Naomi to do this week!!  Click here for the printouts 

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/passover_lapbook.php

                                                                 Inside of her book

                                                                   Back of her book

Passover--10 plagues

10 plagues craft!
 I just found this 10 plagues craft at http://homeschoolblogger.com/kristenph/576456/
You must check it out and there is a link to print out the template too!
Naomi will be doing this, this week for a homeschool project!

Life Cycle of the Frog

Today we did our science craft on the life cycle of the frog.  I picked up some colored posterboard to make the project more life size.
Here is a great template for the project   http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mfroglifecycle.htm

Our Favorite Journal Prompts

1st grade journal prompts:

1.  If you could stay up til midnight...what would you do??
2. What season is your favorite and why?  Draw a picture.
3. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
4. If you made dinner tonight, what would you make and why??
5. My home is happy because....
6. If I were the teacher..I would??
7.  I am proud of myself because I can...??
8.  If I had $1000.00, I would.....
9.  Describe a time when you showed kindness to someone.
10.  If you could have any pet...what would it be and why??
11. Jesus made me special because....
12. I am thankful for........
13. If I could have lunch with anyone in the Bible, it would be?? Why??
14. My favorite book is__________, because.........
15. If I could learn to do anything it would be........
16. If I lived on a farm, I would like.....
17. My favorite foods are???? Draw pictures of each.
18. My favorite game is........
19. If I woke up to a dinosaur in my backyard, I would............tell what kind.
20. My favorite place to go is................

Make journal prompts after certain holidays, seasons, field trips and other events.....
What was your favorite part about the field trip??  If it snowed today, what would you do??  I love Hanukkah because??? If I had a turkey for a pet, I would??  My favorite part about church yesterday was....

Have fun, let them be creative and encourage them to draw pictures and color them to bring their entries to life.  Have them write the date above every page and check grammar and punctution.

Happy Habitat

Today, Naomi did a habitat for 3 animals for our science lesson.  We have learning about the zoo and how they have to create a habitat for animals to comfortable and feel like they are in the wild.  We are thankful for the zoo because it allows us to study and see animals up close and keeps safe those that are endangered.

A nice watering hole for Mr. Alligator.

A wooded jungle for Mr. Monkey to swing from.

A wide open Savannah for Mr. Giraffe run free.

We are proud of our Habitat project! Way to go girl!

need: shoebox or shoebox cover
          playdoe
          tooth picks
          pics of animal
          artificial tree branches or if seasonal search the yard!

Hanukkah Lapbook

I totally missed this awesome Hanukkah school project for this year...but a definate for next year..
click here for more views and purchase http://homeschool.corecommerce.com/Hanukkah-Scrap-Lapbook-Kit.html  Or just google images and make your own :)

Pioneer Days

The girls have been studying Pioneer Days in history and the different occupations.  We did a candle making craft and they loved it.  They probably don't have the patience to make it an occupation though :)

it took several dips into the wax to get this thickness

we tried to blow to make it go faster....

My 4yr and 6yr old loved it

our proud candle making

time to burn. we couldn't wait for the sun to go down and get the house dark!

since they were not straight, we had to place them on a plate to burn.

To make a safe and enjoyable candle-making time, try the following:

1. melt wax in a container that you can toss when you are done(not worth cleaning)

2. lay plastic on table to prevent dripping

3. Let wax cool a bit so it thickens faster

4. Go an evening without electricity and just light your candles...go Pioneer!

*make sure kids know not to light candles or play with matches without an adult

Scripture Scoops

Who doesn't like ice-cream! My kids love it and are motivated by it...so, for our weekely scripture memorization, we would add one "scoop", that they decorated, per week to our cone and once our scoops reached to the tip top...the prize box came out!  It is great way to encourage memorization and love to see their ice-cream cone grow!

For Ice-cream and cone template click below:
http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/food/templates/ice-cream-cone-template.gif