Guiding and Guarding Their Hearts: School and some random fall fun

Okay....so, we have gone from being busy to being busy and sick. We actually had to take last week off of school because the girls were sick and so was mommy. Gotta love this time of year...blah...blah...blah. It is usually about this time that I start missing those lazy days of summer. Anyone with me on that?

Enough of that pity party! (I really don't like to stay at pity parties too long because, well, they're boring. But we all have to have them every now and then, right?) Anyway, this is what we have been up to lately.....

HOMESCHOOLING

The K4 curriculum is coming along great! Our little school girl is sailing right through the reading and math but continues to give me grief in handwriting!! I recently heard that at this age, I should just try to focus on getting her to write letters and numbers smaller. Not try and force her to write in between lines or perfectly....just smaller. I have noticed that when we learn how to write a letter or number she likes to take up the whole page. I am trying to encourage her to try and write them smaller. Here are some pictures from our school time.

Reviewing sight words and colors

Writing beginning letters of words

Playing a vowel sort game with our alphabeads

We have been learning about Japan in geography/social studies. We did our information page on Japan, read several books about Japan, went and ate some Japanese food, and made some origami. I remember having an origami book when I was little and making some origami. I loved it!! :) Here is a picture of us eating out for Japanese food. It was fun! We tried Miso soup, and sushi. We really didn't care for either one and packed them up as left-overs for the hubby. He liked them. :)

We read a book called "The Way We Do It In Japan." It is about a boy who moves to Japan when his Dad's job is transfered. In the book, he learns that people in Japan sleep on mattresses on the floor. So our little school girl wanted to sleep on the floor. We compromised and pulled out her trundle bed or her "secret" bed as she likes to call it.

And since it was Halloween, we did a little Halloween science.....muaaaaaaaah!!! I just love any chance to bring out my inner mad scientist! We made and ate some Jello worms and talked about gelatin. We talked about pumpkins, visited a pumpkin patch and painted some little pumpkins. (I had intended on carving and exploring the insides of a pumpkin and all but we were just too sick and tired for all that.....boo.) We also made some slime and played around with it. I don't care how old you are....slime is always fun!! Here are some pictures from our pumpkin patch visit and making slime.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!

HOLIDAYS

We got through Halloween the best we could. We were sick and it was on a Wednesday this year so that made dinner, Bible study, then trick-or-treating very hectic. We did our best to have fun. :)

We dressed up, had a Halloween dinner that consisted of jack-o-lantern pizza, "bugs" dancing in fizzy "swamp water", and digging in "dirt" for Jello worms for dessert. Finally, Bible study, then trick-or-treating of course. ;)

Jack-o-lantern pizza

Jello worms in dirt (Graham cracker crumbs)

Our Halloween meal

As you can tell, this tired sick momma did good just getting it on the table that night. No place mats or anything....ha! But Ariel and Pooh Bear enjoyed it. They really got a kick out of the bugs dancing in fizzy swamp water drink. A.k.a.....Sprite with green food coloring and raisins. The bubbles from the Sprite collect on the wrinkles in the raisins and eventually float to the top where the bubbles pop sending the raisins back down. Dancing bugs! An oldie but goody. :)

SOME RANDOMNESS

And for some randomness in this post. (And because I worked really hard on this.) I finished my first half-marathon!! Two hours and eighteen minutes.....YAY mom!!

Also, a visit to the state fair. I can not leave this one out. When I say that our little school girl loves going to the fair, that is an extreme understatement. She really, really looks forward to it every year. This year, the weather was perfect and we had an awesome day at the fair with family.....all SIX hours of it!!