Year Two: Week Eleven: Stuck on a Feeling!

I love your face. It always brings me peace.

~Moonlight and Valentino

This week we talked about our feelings! My sidekick wears his emotions on his sleeve, he always has. It was a good week to focus on what makes us change our feelings and why we feel the way we do. I am quite lucky because, normally, my little sidekick is quite the happy fellow. 

 Paper plate emotions. Easy after-school activity for us! I wrote the name on each plate and had him draw what each one looked like. Easy peasy. The idea was found here. 

Ice painting! While this doesn't have much of anything to do with emotions, it was FUN!  

Here. For you, if you want to try too!

We had a Valentine Date at his school (a couple weeks ago now). We had tea and he decorated a cookie for us to share. It was a happy day.  

Bubble valentines from my little Valentine. :) We found some dollar bubbles and I used Pinterest to find some cute saying. I had him write one word and sign each card. (Writing the whole thing would have been a bit much for the little guy.) 

Straw Blow Monsters! {Beware of spittle!}

After the paint dried, we drew monster faces and practiced some fine motor movement by making crinkle arms and legs. His monster has 10 eyes! He was quite specific, so I thought I should let you know. :) 

I may have had a little too much fun with this one.... 

 Winter finally arrived! We are actually in the middle of our second snow storm, right now. All my babies love the snow though! 

Enjoy the weather wherever you are! See you soon!

Year Two: Week Nine {and Ten}: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Bones

Never let your schooling interfere with your education.

~Mark Twain

Well, somehow almost a month has gone by! I knew we would lose a week with our traveling and then I was sick and wasn't up to much. I still think I've lost a week that I can't account for. Hmm...but, it's gone now! So let's move on. Here's what we HAVE been up to, in our little lost-time world.

We talked about our bones and our 5 senses these past couple of weeks. 

Take a look!

 For this one, I traced our hands with pen and then glue. Then I made my "bones" and had my sidekick come in after and copy my picture. He did fantastic! We talked about our bones in our bodies and how they work. HERE is where the idea came from.

This was a fun one! I got the idea from HERE. I changed it a little though. This was our process:

Favorite Shape = Body of monster

Favorite Color = Color of body

Age = Number of eyes

Rectangle/Oval Mouth = Boy/Girl

Hair Pieces = How many letters in your name

Favorite Number = Teeth

Then my sidekick insisted on arms, fingers, legs, and tickle toes.

He really enjoyed this one! 

This one was all about our senses. While he was at school, I put some treats into three bags. Once he came home, he asked for a snack, as always. So, we played "Guess the Snack" game! He thought it was a lot of fun!

 His favorite part was tasting, of course.

 We did a very simple, and yummy, version of THIS.

 So, we got to spend some time with Mimi a couple weeks ago. Sidekick and I took a plane to Oklahoma, picked up our dogs, and our Mimi, and road tripped back across half the USA to our new home. It was quite the adventure. {This is also when I was at my most sick. Not so fun for me, or my poor mom who was stuck driving while I felt like death in the passenger seat.} We made it back safe and sound and got almost a whole week of Mimi time! 

Then she had to get back home and I needed a distraction because it was going to break my sidekick's heart that she was gone. So...CAKE! Bright green cake, bright blue icing, and as many sprinkles as he wanted. Yep, I'm that mom. And yep, it worked. Until he asked for Mimi to come back so she could eat our amazing cake with us. So, it worked for a little bit. 

Now this looks like it was fun but, I made it hard. On both of us. I wanted him to work on his *listening* because, it's been lacking the past couple of weeks. Which is exhausting. So, we pulled his wood toys out of his busy box and set to work on building a castle together. My intentions were to follow the instructions this time, instead of building a crazy castle. So, I look at the instructions, he follows what I say, and ta-da, we make a cool castle. But, he didn't want to listen the whole time. He didn't want to smile for a picture once it was finally completed. I wanted to kick the whole thing over from his attitude and give him something to cry about. Don't worry, that didn't happen. We took a time out from each other and then came back to marvel at what we did accomplish. It wasn't what I had set out to happen, but in the end, it worked out for both of us.

Now, I would have loved to make this cuter. Like THIS. But our printer isn't working and my art skills only go so far. So, I asked for help. From my four year old. :) See those eyes, nose and mouth? All him! I, then, asked him what body part we use for each sense. He got them all and then added some tickle toes for good measure. Everyone has tickle toes. Every. One. 

We're already almost done with this week (last weeks??) work so hopefully, I will get another post up soon! Keep an eye out! 

Year Two: Week Eight: Home Is Where You School

“But we are all fortunate in one way or another. The task for most of us is to identify in what way that is, would you not agree?”

~The Importance of Being Seven (2012)

Oh what a wondrous time is was! Traveling, seeing friends and family, being back on our home land! And now, it's back to work! Still fun work...but work, none the less. :) Let me tell you a small tale of our travels and where we are now. 

Thank goodness for cousins! We spent our last days at home with family. The best part was watching these two get some quality time. I hope they have a special bond that lasts a lifetime. 

 After we said goodbye to our family, we made our way East. Right at the halfway point, we stopped at our good friends' house. They have three boys so our sidekick fit right in. He didn't want to leave his "brothers" that's for sure!

After all that fun, we finally made it to our new home. The tree was one of the first things up. We may have been living amongst boxes, but we were going to have some holiday spirit!  

This was our first Christmas where he started to get the idea of Santa. He was so excited to see his presents Christmas morning and simultaneously mad that Santa ate the cookies. I still count it as a win. :)

After the holidays, my growing sidekick started a half-day pre-k program. He loves our homeschooling but he wanted to play with friends, as well. So, I signed him up and off he went! He loves it, of course. 

As for our homeschooling, I have definitely cut back. There just aren't that many hours in a day to do everything that I really want to. But, we get some good times in and we're still pushing forward, so that's what matters.

Up first, snowflakes! He picked his black paper..don't judge! ;) This was some good cutting practice that we hadn't done in a while. 

 Marshmallow Math! My inspiration came from here. Still love my Pinterest ideas! 

Found this fun little game on Amazon. Here's the link: Amazon Penguin Pile-Up. Whether we play together or he plays alone, he really likes it. 

We made snow slime! He loved the idea of making said slime, but when it came to touching it... not so much! Ha! The idea came from Growing a Jeweled Rose.  

For some fine motor work, I got these tweezers from Amazon. They are great for little hands! 

One of things I did, while preparing to start schooling again, was make these busy boxes. One of the best things I ever did. I have seen different posts around the Internet about similar things but, these are my own. We have 5 boxes. He can choose one at any time, pick an activity in the box, and then he's good to go! They are all activities that he can do on his own. {We all need a little alone time, right?} In one box we have, of cutting, lacing, and a bowl of rice for searching with cups or tweezers. Box two has wooden toys (train set and a castle building set). Box three is full of art supplies (painting, color books, colors and papers galore). Box four is puzzles of all sizes and difficulty. Finally, box five has matching games, number cards and other memory activities. 

I think we're off to a good start! See you back soon with more of our adventure!

Lesson Seventeen: Pushing Restart

Hi there! We've been a little MIA but, with good reason! Other than the holidays, we have been moving into our new home. New state, new friends, new routines, new adventure.

We're {mostly} unpacked now and starting to settle in. The new house is nice. We're renting but we have more space than we thought we were. I've been so happy to use my 110v (American) appliances, to be able hang things on the walls with ease, and the comforts of home that we didn't even realized we missed. A full sized washer and dryer, a 2-car garage, a full sized oven, closets, carpet. It's the little things, really. My heart still aches for Italy. I miss many things about Europe but, being "home" is good too.

SO! With the new year {Hello 2015!}, we are starting a few new things. First of all, my little sidekick is starting SCHOOL! Half day Pre-K and he is very excited! We count our days in "sleeps" and every morning, I get the current countdown on how many sleeps are left until school starts ("One more sleep until school, Mommy!", was our conversation over breakfast). I'm excited for him, as well (Mommy nerves will settle within the week, I'm sure). I still plan on keeping up (restarting) our homeschooling plans, as well. I have been working on themes and projects. I have scaled back a little more with just a craft, math project, science project, and a writing project to get us through our weeks. The writing will, most likely, be our journaling. I really need to get our printer hooked up (who knows where the movers packed that cord?!), so I can use all the great resources I have found all over the internet. 

Anyway, just wanted to write a quick note so you know we didn't disappear again. :) Hopefully, I'll have a fun update by the end of the week about our first week of school and any other shenanigans. 

See you soon!

~Mandy

Year Two: Week Seven: Snip, Cut, Match

Absence, with all its pains, is, by this charming moment, wiped away.

~ James Thomson

How has it been almost a month? What have we been doing? What have we not been doing?? Sigh. Well, Daddy came home! Yay! A lot of our absence is because of that, and that's okay. We are all stateside now and getting ready for our next adventure. We've been busy with family and errands. It's time to get back into schooling and this is the first step! Get this done and get set up for some schooling days before Thanksgiving. 

Let's catch up on our past weeks, shall we? Have a look:

 Found these through Pinterest, here's the direct link to the website. These were fun, waaaaay back in October, just in time for Halloween. 

 Cutting practice. It had been a while but my sidekick picked it back up very well. Learning to cut can be frustrating both for the cutter and the teacher. We worked though it with only minor aggravation. :) I found a whole Cut it Out Pack from This Reading Mama but, it won't let me link it right now. Good stuff though!

 I found a new website for my schooling needs! TeachersPayTeachers.com. They have lots of freebies in lots of categories and age groups. I will be using this site for a long time.

The pig graph above is by Donna Glynn Kinderglynn and the letter tracing sheet is by Apple Bliss. There is a ton of stuff on that website. Check it out.

Sidekick chose to be Luigi for Halloween. Kid made bank in candy! It was our first real stateside Halloween (he was too little before we moved) and he loved it! He loved the running from house to house, he loved the getting of the candy, and he loved "winning" by racing little neighborhood friends to and from each house. The only downfall? He wanted to go INSIDE every house. And he did not understand why we couldn't go wandering in to stranger's houses and make ourselves comfortable. Overall though, it was a good night.

 Another holiday we celebrated was my sidekick turning FOUR! Every mom says it, and I must agree, how does time go by so fast?! My baby is turning into a little boy and, I'm sure, some time tomorrow, he'll be a man. We had a quiet family dinner, complete with ice cream and a few presents, on his actual birthday and then a party about a week later once Daddy was home. 

Instead of presents at his birthday party, we asked our guests to bring donations for our local animal shelter. Everyone was great in participating and the shelter was very happy to receive our gifts. 

I've had people ask me, "Why no gifts?". My sidekick is special. He doesn't really like or care to open presents. Also, we tend to get him plenty of toys and such throughout the year. This was so much better. It went to a good cause and we didn't offend anyone when he shunned their gift so he could continue playing with his friends.

 Downtime.

 We used our recently cut apples (that he cut himself) and worked on our math skills.

 All these pumpkin, P themed, worksheets are from here. Through Pinterest, per usual. These were great to continue our fall theme that has been present for about a month. After Thanksgiving though, it's onto Winter Wonderland and Christmas! It was easy to break these worksheets up and do a couple a day or even just one in the evening during some down time. 

There you have it! You're as caught up as I am. Now to get ready for next week and set up some travel schooling projects. Wish me luck!

See you soon!