Happy Halloween!

We had a very rainy halloween tonight, but thankfully we had activities all indoors! I was so glad that we didn't have to go out in the rain. The kids got plenty at the church carnival, and had lots of fun too!

 This year we had Aaron as Harry Potter. That boy had such a hard time deciding! It was 5pm on Halloween night when he finally decided on Harry Potter. Alex was "chase" from Paw Patrol, and Aric was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

 April decided to venture out and do her own thing this year. She went with a friend the the youth church dance. She was very excited to do this as she is growing out of the trick-or-treating scene. She dressed up as Lindsay Stirling, of course.

Happy Halloween!

Remember her?

She made a come back tonight.

 My little ballerina is now a big ballerina and has decided to take up ballet again!

Watching her doing ballet tonight brought so many fun memories back that I just had to share a few from so many years ago.

But, really it wasn't so long ago...7 or 8 years maybe.

I remember how my heart soared for her when I watched her up there on that stage for each recital and Nutcracker. Momma hearts can swell so big. Giving her flowers was just so special.

Such sweet memories!

Our week: the one with 2 pumpkin patches

Life this week:

We had a pretty busy week. It included 2 pumpkin patch field trips (we are done with pumpkin patch field trips by the way), and Daddy gone out of town for half the week.

In our school this week:

In Paths of Explorations we got all of Lesson 1, Part 1 done, and were able to start into lesson 1 part 2 this week. I think ideally we are supposed to get a whole part done in one day...but we are going to move a little slower for now until we get used to it. Hopefully we'll get faster as we get more into it.

I had these books made for each boy. It's a notebook that they'll put all their notebooking pages into. I am really pleased with how they turned out. This was inspired by a blog post at The Unplugged Family about notebooking throughout the school year. I am putting all their POE notes, and nature study pages in there. I simply did as suggested, and put some thicker printer paper together with a cover that I did on the computer, and took them to an office store to have them bound for a low price.

They are copying a poem one stanza at a time right now. This is the 2nd stanza.

The first part of POE is studying Christopher Columbus so we are reading through 2 books.

We looked at moss for our Botany studies...

In our fine arts this week:

Aric is trying out some online piano lessons at Hoffman Academy. He did 2 lessons in one day. He enjoys the online lessons.

We did a pastel art project from Hodgepodge art. This was the Columbu's ship lesson since we are studying Christopher Columbus.

We did a holiday homeart studio craft. It was fun making this candy corn garland with Aaron and Aric for art one day.

In the kitchen this week:

Aaron really wanted to bake his pumpkin down that we got from our homeschool friends at the library. He wanted to learn how to do it, so that's what we did! I don't do a lot of baking of pumpkin because we don't eat a lot of pumpkin (I'm the only one that likes it). I was excited to let him do this for me.

He got to figure out the best method of getting the pumpkin cut open and ready to bake. This particular pumpkin was huge. He opted to cut it in the wedges that I showed him. It was easier to cut it down in smaller chunks for him.

We got quite a bit of pumpkin out of it. Then we made these delicious Iced pumpkin cookies! I ate a good portion of these because I'm the only pumpkin eater. Now I remember why I don't cook anything with pumpkin in it!

Places we went:

Like I said earlier we had 2 pumpkin patch field trips this week. Those were the only thing outside of our usuall lessons and outings.

On Wednesday we went to EZ orchards farm for their pumpkin patch activities with our LIFE academy co-op.

We went to Bauman Farm's Harvest festival on Thursday with our Woodburn homeschool group. They had some fun characters, and lots of great activities.

Things we accomplished this week:

Carving pumpkins! They wanted to do it immediately after the first patch trip. I said yes even though I was exhausted. It turned out to be a perfect time to do it.

I was sick the first part of the week, so I pulled out a puzzle table to work on one evening since I couldn't really read to the kids with no voice. It worked like a charm, and Aaron even made me some honey lemon for my throat.

April made this cover for her notebook with some sheet music that she accidentally printed.

Such a good week! Now onto the next!

Preschool corner week 1

Alex is my last preschooler this year. I love the preschool age, and teaching preschool. Makes me kinda sad, but made me realize that we need to make this  year special, and that I really should do a special post for him each week. I used to do special posts for my older boys when they were preschoolers, so he should get his time too.

First of all, he is very excited about his new table and chair. It's nice because it is one of those fold up tables from costco so I can just fold it up to get it out of the way (a plus for our small space), and it's just his size. He has a nice little space to work on now. It was just getting to cramped to have his preschool activities and all the big kids' work on the dining table. We definitely needed more space!

Alex had a little pumpkin theme this week since we had 2 pumpkin patch field trips on the schedule. I got all the books we have about pumpkins together.

I printed the preschool pumpkin pack at 1+1+1=1. He loves cutting lately, and took to this cutting activity really quickly.

As soon as we got home from the first pumpkin patch trip he wanted to carve his pumpkin. Instead of waiting, I decided it would be fun to just do it. Here is his carved pumpkin (with lots of Mom's help)!

The 2nd pumpkin patch trip I was able to catch some pumpkin picking action.

He counted some pumpkins (from the preschool pack mentioned above).

He colored the pumpkins. Before we started coloring though, he said "but pumpkins are orange!" I had to convince him that the pumpkins wanted to try out some new colors, and maybe even dress up as a different color for halloween. That convinced him.

He made a 'P' and a 'J' with apple/pumpkin pie playdough.

Other things he did this week (off the camera):

• Put some puzzles together at the puzzle table with me
• Played starfall, and typing tutor a lot. For some reason he really likes the typing game even though he doesn't really get it.

Garden time nature study

This garden time nature study happened back in August. Unfortunately nature studies have been few and far between lately. There is so much to do, and so little time lately that we haven't been able to get it all in. But, hoping to get out more soon.

We headed over to a local garden that we love to see if we could do one of the challenges from Handbook of Nature Study blog's August grid. We chose Find a spiral in the garden.

So, April was off with the camera. It is amazing to find patterns in nature. They are everywhere! Finding a spiral is usually pretty easy. Here's April's first find...

Then she just got some amazing shots. Like this hummingbird!

 I think this is lavender. So pretty!

 And, this honeybee. She really knows how to capture on the camera.

 Here's another spiral.

 And, of course the water of the babbling brook that always provides some soothing sound.

PeeWee soccer is over

Phew!

Alex played PeeWee soccer this Fall, and he had a blast. I was asked to be a coach because I checked the "I might be interested" box on his registration. Sure enough I got a call, and I had a blast too! I loved doing that even though it was way out of my comfort zone. It was fun to cheer all these little ones on. I learned a lot, and I might even do it again. Maybe. There's a lot to be said about being the parent that just gets to sit and watch though.

 For the most part we didn't have ANY bad weather mornings. It maybe sprinkled a tiny bit one Saturday morning, but that was it. Mostly it looked like this, Sunny and breezy.

Alex learned a lot too. I think he has a lot of potential in soccer. He just loves to play sports period. He's my high energy kid for sure!

The last game he really got in there, and had a lot of fun.

He scored some goals, and then did a funny little victory dance afterward. It was his first game to score any goals. There was a lot of good energy from all the kids at this last game.

There he goes! And, somehow I think we ended up always going toward the same goal every game. I'll have to remember to change it up next time.

Aric still has 2 more games left in his season, so I'll have to do a separate post with some shots of him later.

Our week: the one with a zoo trip

It is finally starting to look like fall around here. The leaves all look so beautiful, and they are falling from the trees like snow now. We have had some beautiful sunny days this week too, which means we took some opportunities to be out and about, which also means a lot of time NOT home.

 Our week started out on Monday with a Letterboxing adventure. Some friends invited us to go with them on their first day of school tradition to go letterboxing, and I was happy to. We hadn't letterboxed for too long. I think I would like that to happen more often. We didn't get any pictures of finding the actual letterbox, probably because we only ended up finding one. But, April got some great pictures of the trails and nature. And, her feet :)

Alex on the trail...

Some beautiful red berries of some sort...

That was followed by a treat at limeberry.

Tuesday we headed to the zoo. It was a beautiful day, and we hadn't had a chance to use our new membership yet. I was itchin' to go. The animals all seemed so lively that day. We say more of the animals that we usually do.

Proof that I was there...don't they just look thrilled?

That's better, there's some smiles!

The kids always get a kick out of this sign at the elephant ears booth. We might have enjoyed one treat.

The lanterns at the cafe looked so festive, there are no animals in this picture :)

Apparently we needed to stop and make a phone call?

We stopped and did some animal reports. Or, attempting too. It's hard to get them to slow down at the zoo sometimes.

Look how beautiful it was out! So nice and sunny. With a nice Fall breeze.

The giraffes are always amazing with their super long necks. We got some great views of them.

This is the first time we've ever seen these african crested porcupines out! It was fun to watch them for a bit. And, I just realized that Alex's shirt he wore that day had a picture of a porcupine on it. It must have been the shirt! :)

Even the tigers were out and awake. Usually they are always sleeping when we come.

Wednesday was our LIFE academy co-op. I get to teach a fun class of 4 and 5 year olds. We are having fun with a different nursery rhyme each week. Of course, the empty chair in this picture is where Alex is supposed to be. I didn't realize until now that he wasn't even in the picture!

I also finished this book on Wednesday, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. What a great book. The struggle is very real, but I like how it ends.

Thursday is our charter day. We get to go out to the boys' charter school and hang out while they do their classes. This week featured Alex as a bingo caller. He played this for quite a while. He was so thrilled about it because we just had a fun bingo activity with our local homeschool group. He thought he was pretty cool to be the one getting spin the cage and make the calls.

My homeschool Momma friend Sammy and I played around for him. Our prize was a chocolate teddy graham if we got a bingo.

We also came home with some of our curriculum order. It's always fun to come home with a new box of books!

 The boys are going to give this a try. Trail Guide to Learning, Paths of Exploration.

 Friday morning dawned, and we found a tired Mommy with grumpy kids from such a busy week. So, we started our day out with some Jenga multiplication.

 And, a cup of hot chocolate. April made this!

That wraps up this week. How was yours?

I'm linking this up with weird unsocialized homeschoolers.