A Mommy Montage

Mama's Favorite Subject

Mama's favorite subject?

Home Ec.!

Actually, Piper asked...no, wait....begged to be able to clean today!

I figure this won't last forever so I might as well take advantage now!

The thing is, having her 'help' with certain household duties sometimes ends up making more work for me!

But wiping down the bathroom mirror, sink and counter didn't seem too complicated and she was delighted with her job!

Taitum, of course, had to join in and I now have a sparkling bathroom counter!

I also got to enjoy the sounds of sisters working together...

Piper: "Tait! Don't spray me!

Tait: Pa-PUR! I wanna turn!

Piper: "AH! I got sprayed in the eye!....Mom? Can I wash the walls, too?"

NEVER a dull moment!

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We're Going On a Bear Hunt {BFIAR}

Our row for this past week was We're Going On a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.

This has long been a family favorite so it was both familiar for the kids and exciting in that they got to explore aspects of it further!

I purposely picked it for the first week of school for that very reason!

Here's what we did:

Taitum sorted bears according to color. Piper used them for counting practice.

After several readings of the story, they put these sequence cards in the correct order.

The girls showed me that they understood "over, under, through" by placing their bears in the appropriate place when I gave a direction.

Since the story involves a family, we discussed different kinds of families.

Then Piper drew a picture of her own family.

Lately she has been drawing people by making a letter P first and then filling in the person's features.

I especially like her drawing of Taitum with all the crazy hair!

We played a bear hunt game which they LOVED!

Piper is really getting into board games and such lately so this was right up her alley!

A while ago, I came across a great idea of turning "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" into a sensory play session.

(You can check it out at make, do & friend.)

We ended up doing our own version of this.

I mostly got the girls to build it although I had prepared some chocolate pudding for the mud and ice cubes for the snow beforehand.

The day we did this, I decided to put those items in Ziploc bags since I was running a fever and dealing with a pretty severe headache.

I just did not have it in me to do the clean up that would result from letting the girls get their hands in the stuff!

They still had a great time!

They came up with grass from the yard for the grassy field, a pan of water for the river, plastic trees from their dinosaur box for the forest and a container with a panda bear puppet in it for the cave and bear.

They also hauled out their dollhouse for the home that the family runs back to at the end and used the dolls that belong to it for the characters of the story!

I read the story and they acted it out with our little set up!

Another day, the girls made their own bears by painting paper plates and adding "One shiny wet nose! Two big furry ears! Two goggly eyes!" and had great fun roaring "IT'S A BEAR!"

Finally, Piper narrated the story for me:

It's about a family that goes on a bear hunt walk. They find a bear and go "AHHHH!" and close the door and go under their covers."

Although not an excellent narration, she surprised me by actually making an attempt at narration whereas she usually just shrugs and says she doesn't know.

I also asked them what their favorite part of the story was:

Piper: "The grass. I like the sound it makes - Swishy, swashy!"

Taitum: "When they go back to bed and say "WE'RE NOT GOING ON A BEAR HUNT AGAIN!"

Once again, we had a fabulous time rowing a Before Five in a Row book!

Next we move on to Play With Me by Marie Hall Ets.

Also, I'll be linking these BFIAR posts up to Delightful Learning's BFIAR link up where you'll find oodles of other ideas from bloggers who use FIAR!

Well worth checking out! Just click on the button below!

posted under BFIAR, homeschool | 0 Comments

And Then She Was Five

photo by Renee Walton Photography

Today, she's five.

I can hardly believe it.

I know everybody says things like that when their kid turns a year older.

But for some reason, five strikes me as a long time.

I kind of feel like the wind's been knocked out of me.

Maybe because five years is a long time when to me, those first few moments of her life are still so real.

I can still smell that new baby smell.

I see her all scrunched up in a mini human ball in my arms.

I can feel that feeling of indescribable joy and excitement and love.

Yes, that new mother love.

It never really goes away.

But in those first few days, weeks even, it was concentrated, intense.

I can still see the doctor holding her up in the air and proclaiming "It's a girl!".

And I can recall my shock and surprise at this revelation.

Then, that first moment of holding her close.

Who can ever forget that?

Introductions and giddiness and tears.

I sang "Happy Together" over and over that first night.

We really were.

And it didn't matter that this was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my whole life.

Caring for that baby was pure delight.

And now I have this little girl.

She now joins me when I sing to her.

She does most of the stuff I used to do for her.

I'm still madly in love.

This is still the hardest thing I've ever done.

It still doesn't matter.

Because you, my girl, still make this Mama's heart flip with love and joy and pride!

Happy 5th Birthday, Piper Grey!

{Your Mama loves you!}

posted under Birthdays, family | 0 Comments

Back To (Home)school

I was so excited for our first day of school.

Back to routine, back to normal.

Plus I had so many cool new things to share with the kids!

A new school room, new school supplies, new curriculum and ideas!

And I'll admit, it was fun but also eventful and challenging and frustrating!

Thus my "what-not-to-do-in-the-first-week-of-school' post!

1. Do not start your school year by surprising the kids with a new school room.

They will be far more interested in discovering all the new things the room has to offer than getting any work done.

2. Do not except the baby to sleep according to her usual schedule.

Bad idea.

She will instead be bothered by teething or constipation or being excluded from all that serious learning happening downstairs.

3. Do not expect your oldest to enjoy something new and challenging.

Nope.

Rather be prepared for some sighs and whines and perhaps even a very stinky attitude.

4. Finally, do not assume that you yourself will not be struck by some nasty virus that causes an awful headache and quadruples your need for sleep.

Oh the woes of an amateur homeschooling mom!

But it wasn't all bad!

Here are some of the highlights of the week so far!

Piper LOVES her Grapevine bible studies!

This works so well for her!

Each day she draws a picture of the lesson.

Taitum is so enthusiastic!

Even putting a new ice cream scoop on the cone for each color she learns causes oodles of excitement!

Piper is flying through her math workbook.

(Its just one of those ones you can buy at Walmart. We are also following the ABC Jesus Loves Me 5 year old curriculum math schedule.)

And this just makes me smile!

Two little girlies working on their math lesson together!

Tait is learning her alphabet with All About Reading Level Pre-1.

Also, that pointer she's using?

Probably the biggest hit out of all the new school stuff I had for them!

Tait is coloring her "Blue Book" from her ABC Jesus Loves Me curriculum.

I debated even bothering to print these off since I didn't think she'd care to complete them.

She has surprised me with her excitement in coloring each color book I give her!

AND she is kept nice and busy with this kind of stuff while I work on lessons with Piper!

Piper is also using the All About Reading Level 1 curriculum.

But I'll save that for a whole other post.

(Ahem, #3...)

But we're making progress which is pretty encouraging considering we've been at it less than a week.

I'll also share our BFIAR row with you in another post, too.

Anyhow, at the end of the day I'm still so happy with the choice we've made.

It's going to be full of challenges and frustrations and hard work.

But the joy of getting to learn together, to watch each child grow in so many ways FAR outweighs any difficulties we face!

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Dear Self

Summer.

Full of delights.

And yet, a time that frazzles and drains faster than the seemingly busiest parts of the year.

Stop. See. Breathe.

And thank.

The endless whir of soccer schedules.

The whiney drone of routine-less children.

The groan resulting from scrambling to concoct another grill friendly meal.

All drowning out the sweet, simple song of gratitude.

In the fleeting moments of sunshine and crickets chirping, of splashing and bicycle wheels turning.

Grasp for it.

Enjoy these small treasures that too quickly move on.

Don't waste a second more on clean or organized or planned or perfect.

Because this time calls for all of you.

It’s never the wasting of time that hurts so much as the wasting of ourselves.

~Ann Voskamp

posted under family, Ramblings | 0 Comments

Blueberries For Sal {BFIAR}

With one week left until my hubby was on a 3 week vacation, I decided to 'row' one more book with the girls before commencing our totally relaxing, care-free vacation....;)

We jumped into Blueberries for Sal since it's blueberry and raspberry picking time around these parts.

Unfortunately, it rained on the days that we were able to go berry picking so that little adventure has been postponed but we had fun with blueberries nonetheless!

First, we had a berry hunt.

I got the girls to go to their room while I hid 'blueberries' (blue pom poms) all around the living room.

They were delighted to search for the hidden berries!

Once they were all retrieved, I got Tait to fill cups labeled with numbers 1 to 5 correctly.

Piper took it upon herself to take pictures and I was quite pleased with the rare shot of me teaching one of my children!

(Tait was having trouble identifying the number 3 in this picture so I was helping her by having her count my fingers in this pic.)

Next Piper was given the task of taking the pom poms and grouping them in groups of 5.

Then we practiced counting by 5's together.

(The roles were reversed and Tait became the photographer capturing this moment.)

Another day, I introduced the literary device onomatopoeia.

I used the sound made when Sal drops blueberries in her empty tin bucket ("Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk") as an example.

I wasn't so sure Piper would get it but as we worked on the craft she's displaying below we discussed what it meant and I asked if she could think of any other examples.

To my surprise she came up with about ten!

Haha!

I'm forever underestimating her abilities!

The craft was simple -

They colored the bucket I drew containing the words 'onomatopoeia', 'kerplink', 'kerplank' and 'kerplunk'.

Then they added blueberries by dipping a pom pom in blue paint and make prints with it.

Piper enjoyed the challenge of saying the word 'onomatopoeia' correctly!

We shared a few giggles over her first few attempts but it didn't take long before she was able to say it just right!

Now both girls will say it randomly throughout the day just because!

In the story there is a mama bear and baby bear who are eating berries on the same hill that Sal and her Mama are picking berries.

Mama bear encourages baby bear to eat lots of berries so he will grow big and fat and store up food for the long, cold winter.

We went on to discuss hibernation.

The girls then pretended to be bears.

They went looking for food to eat so they could grow big and fat for the winter.

They discovered blueberry muffins waiting for them!

(They had baked them earlier themselves but I didn't take any pictures since I was directing the process and was on damage control!)

Then they went looking for a warm, cozy cave to sleep in for the winter!

Tait chose a spot in the play tent while Piper buried herself deep in a closet.

Finally, the girls enjoyed a blueberry smoothie while they narrated the story for Daddy!

That wraps up our last 'row' before we start school again on August 27th!

I'm nearly done all my lesson plans for the coming year so I'm hoping that I can maybe make myself relax a bit over the next couple weeks!

(And by relax I mean finishing a few non-homeschool projects I have in mind! Ha!)

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar {Tot School}

A couple of weeks ago, Piper attended a summer camp at a local church.

That meant that for 5 mornings in a row I was down to 2 kids!

Considering that the babe naps for much of the morning, it ended up being quite the break everyday!

It's too strange not having all my kiddies with me every day but I took advantage of the alone time with Taitum and planned a whole week of activities surrounding The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Here is what we did!

First, she created the leaf with the egg on it by do-a-dotting a leaf green and adding a marshmallow as the egg.

I put this little counting activity on the fridge for her.

Each leaf had a number and she had to put the correct number of eggs (pom pom magnets) on each one.

Another day she made the classic egg carton caterpillar by painting the egg carton strip and adding anntenae and eyes.

She then helped me prepare a game to go along with her caterpillar by cutting out the pictures of food I had printed.

For the game, she would find and count the right food that the caterpillar ate as I came to it in the story.

It was pretty simple but she loved it especially since I added eating noises as she fed the caterpillar!

(Find the food printable here!)

Next, we went to work on a chrysalis.

I thought Tait would love paper mache since she adores sensory play but she ended up being totally grossed out by the feel of the water and flour mixture and I ended up doing the grand majority of it!

Piper helped her paint it after it had dried.

It's hanging on the wall in the kitchen right now and I plan to fill it with butterfly treats to surprise them some day soon!

Likely after my next trip to Bulk Barn!

We added a little adventure to our learning by travelling out to a local fruit stand.

Taitum was in charge of finding the fruit that the very hungry caterpillar ate and counting out the right number of each.

She was thrilled to get to push the cart around and do her very own grocery shopping!

She couldn't wait to show Piper when she got home and both girls become very hungry caterpillars and gobbled it all up!

Piper joined us in our butterfly project.

The plan was to do a crayon resist painting.

Tait opted out of the crayon part and simply painted her butterfly while Piper did the crayon resist.

So there you have it!

The life cycle of a butterfly on our kitchen wall!

Now we are keeping our eyes open for butterflies and caterpillars when we're playing outside.

We did find some eggs on a leaf a few days ago!

We also watched this video which I found simply amazing!

The whole metamorphosis of a butterfly is so amazing!

I even learned some new things from the facts included in the video!

This week made me really miss our school time.

We really do have so much fun together!

I'm trying my best to chill out and enjoy these warm summer days but truth be told - I'm quite anxious for school to begin again!

Ha!

I never thought I'd say such a thing!

But I've been working hard on the coming years lesson plans and getting so excited for what is in store for me and my little gals this year!

posted under homeschool, Insects, Nature Studies, Science, Tot School | 0 Comments

I love motherhood.

We're a smiling family.

I'm a covenant keeper.

I love my husband.

I am above self pity.

I am a nation builder.

Motherhood=Adventure

Worth more than rubies.

“I am more convinced than ever that even in the midst of the mundane, burdensome, and oftentimes frustrating tasks of life allotted to me as a mother, God wants me to find his joy. He wants every single day of my life to be a celebration of his blessings, whether large or small. He wants me to celebrate life ~ the life He has given me.”

~ Sally Clarkson

A Mommy Montage

Mama's Favorite Subject

We're Going On a Bear Hunt {BFIAR}

And Then She Was Five

Back To (Home)school

Dear Self

Blueberries For Sal {BFIAR}

The Very Hungry Caterpillar {Tot School}

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