SHOUT OUT to AMY!!

My best friend Amy told me the other day that she reads my blog every day! We just wanted to give her a SHOUT OUT and say thanks for checking up on us! We love you Amy, and we miss you!!

Cypress Gardens

We went to Cypress Gardens again last week. We thought it would be nice and quiet since school was still going on, but there was like 25 school buses with kids on field trips. Apparently, if your school passes the FCAT tests everyone in Polk County gets to go to Cypress Gardens! We still had a good time, even though we didn't stay at the water park very long because the lovebugs were really bad. Nathan is only about a half an inch away from being tall enough to ride the bumper cars. He said he was going to wear his cowboy boots next time we go because they make him taller! I do love taking them there for a few hours at least once a month, but I am not sure how much we will do this summer, I am thinking September when school is back in we will go alot!

A Pair fo Red Clogs

A Pair of Red Clogs is about a Grandmother thinking about life in Japan and buying shoes for her granddaughter. Of course, we studied the country of Japan. That was the theme of Bible School a few years ago, so they remembered how to say hello (konishwa) and Nana counted to 10 in Japanese for us.We had just been to Epcot the week before ,so I picked up some candy in Japan. We kicked off our study eating the candy. It was pretty good...very sour and gummy. They also play a weather game in the book by kicking off their shoes and seeing which way they land. We played that game too and talked about how to forcast the weather. We watched the weather on tv and looked in the paper about it, then we came up with our own forcast. For Math , it was all about percentages and that went right along with weather. We also wrote a Haiku. They turned out pretty good!

Please pray for the children of Haiti

I read these statistics the other day and I cannot get them out of my mind. In the United States, we get lulled into thinking that everything is all right in the world and then I read something like this and just wondering how I can pay so much money for food and clothes, toys and movies when there are children in such trouble. I am praying that God will open my family's heart to an opportunity to help these children...somehow...someway.


If children are our future; what contribution to the global community can we expect of our children in Haiti. Representing 70% of the 8 million people on this impoverished Island, Haiti's children endure illiteracy, child slavery, and high mortality rates. The statistics are alarming:
• 10% of the child population in Haiti will die before the age of 4.• 7% (300,000) of the children in Haiti are enslaved. They are as young as 3 years old. They often suffer sexual, emotional, physical abuse and possibly death.• 45% of the Haitian population is illiterate.• 70% of the population lives below poverty level.• 30% of the Haitian population is either ill and or underweight

Madeline

Madeline was probably my favorite book we have rowed. We studied France, the Eifel Tower, the language, the food, the landmarks that are in Madeline, and famous artist from France. At the end of the week, we went to Epcot and ate lunch in the France part of World Showcase! We had ham and cheese croisoints, and eclairs, some creme brule' too! We met a Disney worker from Paris and he let us take pictures with him. They were able to color masks and we just made a day of it. We also watched the Madeline cartoon and talked about hospitals and surgery as Madeline had to go to the hospital.We discussed germs and how they can make you sick. For Math, we grouped thing in even rows as Madeline was one of 12 little girls who walked in two straight line. All in all a fun frenchy kind of week! Cioa

I first discovered Five in a Row in January. I was looking for something that I could use to teach all three kids at the same time. The premise of FIAR is that you take a children's book and read it aloud every day for five days. Each day you pull something from the book to learn about. Geography, Art, Life Skills, Science and Math. We us lapbooks as a way to keep all our activities for each book organized and documented.

Lentil by Robert McCloskey was first. We learned about Ohio (that was the setting) and how they have a Buzzard festival every year to celebrate Spring. We thought that was kinda gross! We also learned about the different kinds of taste, taste buds and where they are located on your tongue. Lentil lived in a town, so we talked about the differences in towns, cities and rural areas. For science, we learned about sound as Lentil played his harmonica in the bathroom and we discovered that acoustics are better in there. Lentil also had a grouch that lived in his town and we brainstormed ways to be nice to a grouchy person and how to make their day brighter.

My Favorite Things

Just for fun, I asked the kids to list some of their favorite things...I loved the list!

Abby:

1. Dolphins


2. The color blue


3. Disney Cruise


4. Basketball


5. Macaroni and Cheese


6. Shopping (she is her mother's daughter!)


7. Swimming


8. Reading


9. Happy Feet


10. Tinkerbell


11. High School Musical

Nathan

1. Video Games


2. Music


3. Drums


4. Playing with Esther


5. Lord of the Rings


6. Computers


7. History


8. Stitch


9. Spiderman


10. Disney Cruise


11. The Color Blue

Esther:

1. Milk


2. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches


3. Swinging


4. Dolphins


5. Mermaids


6. The colors pink and purple


7. Angels


8. Sand


9. Books


10. The Mickey boat


11. Going to the beach

Happy Mother's Day

I had a wonderful weekend! On Saturday, Greg and the kids took me to Staples and let me pick out a printer for the homeschool room. I am soo grateful to have this. I was always having to get Greg to print things for me at work or print them at church. It is an Epson 5000 and it workd great! Then we went to Outback (my favorite) for dinner. Sunday, I had french toast for breakfast, compliments of my hubby and then we went to church and to Ma's for lunch. No church service last night meant an easy afternoon. We played monoply to 10:oo last night, in which, Nathan kicked all our booties. I just sat there thinking as we played how blessed I am to have such an awesome family!

Tree Trouble

On Sunday afternoon, we had some pretty strong thunderstorms come through our area. Greg was outside right before we left for evening church and he said the air around the house felt very strange, so he asked the Lord to protect our house through the storm. As he was praying, he heard a crack and a huge oak tree in our yard fell. The cool thing was, it fell away from our house, dug itself into the ground and did not hit a power line one or land in the road or hit our neighbors fence. Praise the Lord! It has been a job trying to clear it out this week, but I feel like God was protecting our house from that tree by laying it down gently instead of it falling during a hurricane.

Plants

We are doing a unit on plants this spring. We each chose a package of seeds or plants to work with. Abby picked cucumbers, Nathan chose squash, Essie ~sunflowers and I chose tomato plants. We have had fun watering and measuring them every week. We finally have 2 squash and two green tomatos! Nathan said that the only way we can cook his squash it to fry them! I think we might be overrun with squash by mid summer. We have about 12 blooms on our plants!

Our School Room

I am unbelievably blessed to have my very own schoolroom. We have a loft in our house that is set aside just for schooling. Greg got me this awesome desk from work and so I even have my own desk. I have been working on organizing all our supplies, books and curriculum. I also put a timeline on the wall, so that is nice to go with our new history unit, The Mystery of History. I have an old table that the kids do their work on and pait and do crafts on. We spend a lot of time in the loft!

Poetry

Abigail wrote a poem for our plant unit study and we sent it to the local paper and also to various contests. We got a letter yesterday that she was selected to be in a book of young poets. If she is in the top 10 she will also win $50! We are so proud of her. I hope she will continue to have an interest in writing. She is really quite good.

Spring
Spring is a wonderful time of year
It is so wonderful I want to cheer
The flowers feel good under my feet
And the showers always help me sleep
Beautiful butterflies are in the sky
And the bees are always dropping by
I like Spring, as you can see
What might your favorite season be?