Homeschool Recap, Week 30...

Ok, there are six weeks left of our first year attempting this homeschool adventure. Six weeks left of Kindergarten. That completely Blows.My.Mind! Here's the part where I second guess myself... am I covering what I need to be covering? Are we doing too much? Or too little? Did I miss anything important? Or super fun? Did I make the right decision? Should I have gone with a boxed curriculum to make sure we're on track? What if...? Why didn't... How about...?

Anyway, we did Eastery things this week because next week will be our Spring Break and we are going on vacation. Hooray! Once I got started gathering all the Easter activities I wanted to do this week, I realized it might be overload. There were just so many great things coming out of all the blogs I read... and I wanted to do them allllll! But... we can't. So I had to tell myself to chill. I tried to keep it simple and not over-work the boy...

Monday:

- Daily devo and Godly Character Trait: Compassionate (once we established what "compassion" meant, Preston spent the whole rest of the day doting on Callen. "Oh, baby, did you bump your head? I'm so sorry you bumped your head. Let me rub your head, you poor baby." He normally helps protect and comfort his brother, but today was just a little over the top. Haha! He's sweet.

- Found a cute Jesus/Jelly Beans poem printout here, it talks about what the different colored jelly beans mean pertaining to Jesus' life and death. I had Preston color in the jelly beans while we read and re-read the poem till he basically had it down.

Coloring the beans.

- Used a couple of printables from 2TeachingMommies' Easter unit having to do with jelly beans.  One was graphing jelly beans.  I put them all in a cup and had Preston draw them out one at a time and put them on the chart to see which color would "win."  He gets really into that and calls it like a race ("Yellow is now in the lead with white coming up right behind!").

White wins!

- The other was the Jelly Bean Observation, where he used his 5 senses to observe the candy.  His favorite part was tasting them, of course.  Especially since we had been using them all morning, but he hadn't been allowed to eat them till now!

Listening to the beans!

Tasting the beans, yay!

Recording his findings.

- I had Preston do a worksheet from Deedee Wills that I downloaded free from TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) that had him write the phrase "I love my colorful jelly beans."  He also had to unscramble the words to create the sentence and then draw some jelly beans as well.

- Preston and I both colored an Easter graphic (can't track the link down now, just Googled around till I found one I liked).  Not sure what we're going to do with those, if anything, but they were pretty... and I felt like joining in on the coloring!  While we were coloring, we talked about what Easter is really about.

Pretty!

- We read Grandpa Bunny.

- We checked on our grass and watered it.  It's definitely sprouting!!!  

One long piece of grass!

- Our apples seeds in the fridge are also starting to sprout.  And we're keeping an eye on the Snow Peas that Preston planted in a pot with Grandpa Steve last week! 

- Preston borrowed my camera and took this awesome pictures of the jelly beans inside of the cup:

Good job, Preston!

Tuesday:

- We started out the morning with a Breakfast Picnic!  I had Preston listen to the sounds of nature...we heard birds singing and the bugs (of some sort!) making their noises in the creek behind our fence.  Of course, we also heard jets and little airplanes flying 'round and 'round... the joy of living next to a municipal airport!  Haha.

Breakfast picnic.

- Daily devo and Godly Character Trait: Kind

- Preston's little friend Bolt joined us for class this morning:

Howdy, Bolt!

- What Comes Next? worksheet from here.  Preston rolled the dice, wrote the number that showed up in the box, then continued writing the numbers that come after that one.  Could way for him to practice his numbers without me just slave-driving him to write them all out over and over!

Writing his numbers.

- Then we used the free drawing template from ABC Schoolhouse on TpT to draw a bunny.  Preston made a couple of pretty cute ones!

Drawing bunnies!

- He also colored, cut out and created a Jack Rabbit from a template I found in my Holiday Happenings book.  Preston said he was a Jack Rabbit because he was wearing a JACKET!  Get it?  Get it?  He laughed and laughed at his own joke!  =)

Cutting out his 'Jacket' Rabbit.

There he is!

- We also created a Cross Box (using this).  It has John 3:16 written out inside, we colored and added a couple of Easter stickers saying "Jesus Lives!" and such.  Then, we used Easter stickers to close it up into a box.  God sent us the best gift, His Son, who died for us!  But He didn't just die... He rose again and is coming back for us!

Neat project!

- I read the Velveteen Rabbit to the boys. 

Wednesday:

- Daily devo and Godly Character Trait: Patient (whoo, boy!)

- Jelly Bean color code worksheet - you have to do the math problem to figure out what color to use on the beans.

Adding and coloring jelly beans.

- Did a fun 'Color to Order' page from my Holiday Happenings book - Preston had to draw specific designs on specific Easter Eggs.  Apparently the words "small dots" can also be translated as "large circles" to a 5-year-old.  Haha!

- I had Preston read the book It's Easter, Pooh! to Callen.  So cute!

- We attempted Yarn Eggs, as seen here.  That was a bit messy, but I had visualized it much worse so I can't complain too much.  Not many photos of that 'cause I was too covered in glue to get to my camera!

Messy!

Letting them dry over nite.

- I also threw in a couple of worksheets from Kumon and Scholastic, because they're offering 5 free books for doing 'em and sending them in.  So... yay, free books!  Click here for more information on that program.

Thursday:

- Daily devo and Godly Character Trait: Diligent

- We did another of the Jelly Bean color code addition worksheets.

- I had Preston do an alphabetical Easter Words worksheet.  He put the words in order, then I wrote them on the lines in order so we could see them.  That worksheet came from here.

- We attempted to create a neat stained-glass project with torn tissue paper and the phrase "He Is Risen!".  Once we had it all done, I was laminating it... and my laminator ate it.  Like, literally... it's been eaten, cannot get it out, cannot use the laminitor anymore either!  The entire sheet rolled into the machine, can't get it out, not sure how to take the machine apart.  I called the Scotch helpline and they told me "Yeah, it's not coming out, there's nothing you can do."  BUT!  Thank heavens there is a "but!"  But, she said they would send me a postage mailer and I could return it to them and they would send me out a replacement!  Hallelujah!  I am pretty bummed that the project is totally lost, though.  'Cause it was looking really cool!

Tearing tissue paper.

Starting to decorate.

All ready for the laminator (it's doom!)

- Since that got destroyed, we tried something different... we use the torn tissue paper glued to the construction paper and turned it into the empty tomb.  That actually came out really cute, so I guess we made up for it!

Jesus' tomb was empty!

- Preston and I took turns reading A Child's Story of Easter to each other.

- We popped the balloons we used in yesterday's Yarn Eggs to see if the eggs would stand on their own.  They did!  They weren't extremely sturdy, but they stayed together.  I looked some string through them and have them hanging above our kitchen table!  They make really nice decorations!

Popping the balloons!

Cool yarn eggs!

Friday:

- We figured it was about time to do something with our cow's grass hair.  It was getting super long!  First we put a bow in it (or the best I could do with a twist-tie!, then Preston wanted us to cut it, so I let him loose with the scissors!

Our long haired cow!

Let's cut here!

Very carefully!

Tada!

- Daily devo and Godly Character Trait: Faithful (the last of that series!)

- Finished up the Color Code Jelly Beans addition sheet.

- We created a Resurrection Butterfly, and discussed the reason why a butterfly reminds us of Jesus!

Coloring butterfly!

All done (and blurry).

- We watched An Easter Carol, the Veggietales movie.

- I read A Blessing From Above to the boys.  Doesn't have much to do with Easter necessarily, but is sweet and Springy.

One thing I am glad I did this week is that I added another place for us to show off Preston's work.  We were filling up the pantry door, but that could only display a few things (and if I went any lower, Callen would destroy it).  So, I used some thumbtacks and string to make a display above the doorway of the kitchen (to the living room).  I love it!  I dunno why I didn't think of it sooner, so simple!  It's a great way to display the work and be out of our way at the same time!

Our new display area!  Yay!