Dirt/Soil Crossword

Today we are doing Science and it is going to get DIRTY. Yep today we are talking about dirt. Among other things we will be doing here is a Word Search I drew up. Feel free to use it. We are spending the majority of the day on dirt and rotting things. The Boys should love it. Here is the crossword and the Answer Key I drew up. It took for freaking ever, so I hope someone else can use it. Update tomorrow on our Science Dirt Day.

Christmas Letter

Though I know everyone's letter to santa posts are in jest, all I see EVERY time is people talking about gifts that they want. What about the gifts they have already been given? The first gift of Christmas was a child. A Child given to the world from our creator and Heavenly Father. That child was our eldest brother, and His only begotten son. How many of us parents could do that? Give our oldest child for the good of the rest of our children? Christ volunteered to be our redeemer. Christmas is in celebration of his gift to us, his life. What more could we put on a list, then that which was already given?

Fan Fight, letter sounds edition

Oh my word, that was serious fun. Days like today make me freaking love homeschool. It didn't start off that way. We have decided to dedicate each day of the week to two subjects so we can focus and internalize our subjects for the day. Our hardest subjects are Language Arts and Math, as they traditionally require a lot of writing. I have four elementary boys who detest sitting still. Naturally, Language Arts and Math are our hardest subjects. Im fairly new at this homeschooling thing so when I have a win like today it is TOTALLY worth celebrating.

Today was not a good start. We had scripture study before breakfast...and the kids were WAY too wiggly. Lots of Mom and Dad yelling at kids to be quiet, real spiritual lesson. : / Then we had breakfast, more fighting over who got what bowl, and so and so got more cereal than I did. I make them all rinse their bowls and put them in the dishwasher. While I continue to load the dishwasher and start it, the boys are playing with the fans they made yesterday. [We just accordion folded card stock and put stickers around one end to keep it together to make a fan.] I could not get them to put the stupid things away. We had to study letter sounds and practice our reading. That isn't exactly a high energy thing to do. The boys were driving me nuts so I sent them each to a corner in the room with their fans. Then the wheels started turning.

”Ok, here are the rules. You each have to answer my question. When you get the question right you may either bring an arm up [arm your self], bring an arm down for a hit, or move one step in any direction. If you answer wrong you do not move. The object of the game is to get one hit in on someone else and to not get hit yourself. If you go in for a hit and miss, then you will have to use one move to re arm yourself.” 

For the fun of it, anyone who got hit was no longer eligible to be the winner, but they could keep answering questions and get other people out. [I think being out was actually more fun because no one was after you, they were all just trying to avoid you.]

Then I would give them a letter and they had to tell me what sound it made. For the older boys I would give them a sound and they had to tell me each possible letter it could be, or combination of letters it might be. They played it for an HOUR. And, we were whacking each other with paper fans so there really was no harm done. They loved it. YAY! We actually got our entire lesson in with me asking the questions to each kid. Yeah...I'm going to be using this same game again for other questions or weekend review. The boys even got me to play a round. When it was my turn to move, they would each take turns asking me questions about whatever they wanted. I got all the questions right, but they moved better than I did, and I was the first one hit in that game. I know this game wouldn't work for some households, but it worked WONDERS for us today so I thought I would share. Happy Homeschooling!