Hall Monitor

After our morning lessons one day this week, Elliott finished his work and went to play. Aaron stood up in his chair and shouted "Elliott, get back in your chair! We're doing seat work!"

Music 101

So how does one teach music to a child who is only interested in Star Wars? Quite by accident actually. Matt put the Star Wars soundtrack on my computer. I thought it might be a nice change to see the orchestra playing the music so I found a video on YouTube. While we were watching the video, I started pointing out the different instruments to Elliott. Which led to a Google search where I found a website for kids with descriptions of many instruments and clips of music played with each instrument. Then we read about some composers and heard some of their work. And who was on the composer list? Of course John Williams, who wrote the score for Star Wars, Harry Potter, ET, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, etc. So we started with Star Wars and ended with Star Wars, but I like to think there was a little music lesson in there somewhere.

Aaron Speak

I finally put our hummingbird feeders out last week, and now we have hummingbirds visiting our deck throughout the day. Funny how that works! They are such interesting little birds, and we have enjoyed watching them fly up to the feeder before our loudness scares them away. When Aaron sees one drinking out of the feeder he says, "he nosing that." Well, Aaron, I suppose that is what it looks like.

He has also taken to calling Matt "Daddy Big Ole Man." I have no idea where he came up with that, but it is hilarious! Perhaps it's a new variation of Elliott's term "Daddy O Man."

Aaron also has started saying "oh my goodness" and "oh my stars." Both of which are extremely funny in his little 2 year old voice.

I guess he's at that age where most of what he says sounds cute. Stormtrooper usually comes out "Stormpooper." And his knowledge of Star Wars characters is astounding, but of course that's all we talk about in our house now. Even the way he says "sippy cup" is cute. And he doesn't yet have a grasp on pronouns. Matt discovered that he puts his negative at the first of his sentence, such as "No I want that" instead of "I don't want that."

There are some things that are just too cute to correct even if it is technically my job to teach him to speak properly. My niece used to say "belly butlin" and the first time I heard her say "belly button" I was so sad that she had learned the correct word. It is definitely worth writing down the funny things they say before they move past this stage.

3 Boys at the Zoo

Aunt Christy and Baby Jack came for a visit last week. On Thursday, we took a trip to the zoo and were glad that Mimi could join us too. All three boys started out in their baseball caps. Only one of them kept his on. (Hint - it's the little one who was asleep most of the time.) But it made for a cute photo of the 3 cousins ready for their zoo adventure.

After a stop at the playground, Mimi treated Elliott and Aaron to a ride on the carousel which they thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you, Mimi!

Go, Titans, Go!

The boys are ready to cheer the Titans to victory in their new shirts. My uncle gave Matt and Elliott his tickets for one the preseason games. Elliott was incredibly excited about going to the game. Aaron, however, was quite disappointed that he couldn't attend "Titans Go Night." Maybe next time, buddy.

4 Weeks

We have completed our first four weeks of homeschooling. The time has gone quickly, especially since we still have some summer activities like swimming that have kept us busy. In the past 4 weeks, we have made an All About Me book, learned 4 Bible verses, talked about what history means and read about Creation, Adam and Eve, the Fall, Noah, the Tower of Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses. We have learned a fun song about the continents that Elliott put to good use at the zoo to figure out where the animals live. We are about 3/4 of the way through the first grade box of Hooked on Phonics. We do a calendar and the weather every day, and I have also added storytime to our morning work. We checked out several books from the library and enjoy choosing one each day, and we started reading Charlotte's Web this week.

Elliott has daily handwriting or thinking worksheets and is doing some Montessori fine motor activities. Math is an interesting subject. After completing Unit 8 in our Math-U-See curriculum, I took another look at the book and noticed that there are only 30 units. We had been doing a week's worth of math work in one day! It was all review for Elliott at least, and we probably would have gone through it more quickly than the book suggests, but after I realized my mistake we were able to take a little break from the math curriculum and work on telling time.

Today we went for a hike at a nearby park and explored their Nature Center and pond. The kids were able to see tadpoles in action and even caught a large tadpole that still had a tail but also little legs. It tied in nicely to our lesson on frogs this week and happened completely by accident. I am sure we will be exploring more of the programs offered at the Nature Center. The guides there were extremely helpful and friendly.

I am now planning the next four weeks of our lessons. I have learned a lot in our journey so far. I feel like our curriculum has a few weaknesses, so I will add some activities to cover those. Our schedule is working pretty well. We do calendar, storytime, history and any science or art lessons in the morning. Then we cover phonics and math during Aaron's naptime. I still need to come up some activities for Aaron. So far we've had fun and learned a lot. I think that's all I could ask for the first 4 weeks!

Obsession

My children are obsessed with Star Wars. We have been playing it almost non-stop for several days. Elliott is Luke Skywalker, Aaron is Chewbacca, and I am Princess Leia. Still working on the braids.

This morning we made little miniature Star Wars puppets by printing out internet pictures of the characters and taping them to craft sticks. It's getting nerdier and nerdier around here. I am supposed to be making more characters right now. Shhhh - I had to blog this while E is cutting out the pictures. He's working on fine motor skills though, so I'm counting that as school. :)

You can see the puppets in our play-doh creation of, you guessed it, more Star Wars. Clockwise from the top is the Millenium Falcon (or Molivian Falcon as some members of our family call it), Luke's X-Wing, Luke's house, and Darth Vader's Tie Fighter (in black).

Elliott did say a few minutes ago, "Momma, you're the best!" That definitely makes it worth it.

Oh dear, he's getting the play-doh out. I better finish making my little Star Wars people on sticks!