Monday, November 1, 2010

It Came!!!

My kids have been sooo excited about the coming arrival of our new dvd, and it came in the mail today!! I barely got it out of the package, with my kids jumping all over me!

Have Fun Teaching - Alphabet Songs DVD    Have Fun Teaching has videos on all letters of the alphabet. Every week, I play the video on the letters we are learning that week. My kids love them!! You can view the videos free on the website, but I can tell you, it is sooo nice to just own the dvd! My kids have been watching it off and on all day!! Now that we have the dvd, they can watch it any time, even when I'm working on the computer. So whether you are homeschooling, a teacher, or just like fun educational videos for the kiddos, this is an awesome addition!!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Saturday Blog Hops

Just Married with Coupons

Our Week

I have decided to start doing my weekly curriculum post at the end of the week instead of at the beginning of the week, so that I can add pictures of some of our activities. I should have been doing this from the start. I will also include where I find these activities and link it to that website.

Our pumpkin popsicle puzzle I found at Child Care Land.
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Fall Leave puzzle from education.com
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Frog Math from Child Care Land
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Fall Leaves Number Game- Helps to recognize and learn double digit numbers. For instruction view my earlier post http://notsoperfectmombuttrying.blogspot.com/2010/10/our-kindergarten-week_25.html
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Play School
I have decided to start taking pictures of what Crazy Man does while Diva Queen is doing her schooling. I try to involve him in what his sister does, like her letters that certain week, but he has no interest for school right now so I don't push it. He sometimes will do her coloring pages with her, but he's not big on coloring either. So I try and find fun things to occupy him with so he is learning but not knowing it LOL! He is very smart for his age. Well I think so anyways. He is 2 1/2 and he knows all of his letters by sight, even out of order. He can count to 10 and knows some shapes and colors. We are working on the last two now. He knows many animals and their sounds. His vocabulary is far more advanced than many his age, although he doesn't show it to everyone, and he has a VERY good memory. He remembers things he has seen or heard only once.
So for now, his play is his school, and maybe next year he will sit still enough for a little more structured learning. If not, no big, there is no rush. (No promises on many pictures, because he rarely sits still for long!)

Crazy Man loves his cookie jar shape sorter. He's says the shape and then puts it in the correct hole and sings to the music.
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He tries so hard to build like big brother!
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So far the flannel board I made is a big with the kids, especially with Crazy Man!! This one is of 5 Green and Speckled Frogs. The kids love this rhyme. I found the printable at Child Care Land.
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Monday, October 25, 2010

Our Kindergarten Week

Our letters this week are "U" and "V". As usual we will be using our workbook for letter practice, and the worksheets from Beginning Reading, alphabet sets 2 and 4. We watch the alphabet videos from Have Fun Teaching. All of my kids love these!!! Here is the one for U....


I found a small project we will be doing to practice putting our letters in order. It is a snake that after you glue all the letters in order, you cut out the snake, and it's a twirly decoration you can hang from your ceiling. I found this at Kizclub.com. This site has a lot of great printable games and activities for letter practice, phonics, story boards, and more!!!


We are continuing working on rhyming this week as Diva Queen is still having trouble with this. I found this great website (education.com)that offers TONS of free worksheets on many subjects, and for all grades. Many are very colorful, and fun to do. I found many on rhyming! I also found a printable rhyming matching game at Kizclub.

We are going to do two readers this week, a mini book "Halloween Night" (I can't remember where I found this one) and "Trick or Treat" from Hubbard's Cupboard. This sight has tons of emergent readers!
Our sight words are "I, a, see &

For math we are continuing working on simple addition, in which I make my own worksheets because I haven't found any I like yet, and count objects and writing the correct number. We are also playing different games to practice counting. One is called Frog Math, a printable I found at Child Care Land, A number is placed on the frog's belly, and the child counts out that amount of flies for the frog to eat! It is very simple but cute! This site has many free printables for games and storyboard. I haven't had time to check out the whole site yet. Another game we will be playing is a Fall Leaf number game. I halfway made this up myself. I got the idea from a lesson plan I saw on scholastic.com. The one I found was to use paper acorn patterns to use to learn double digit numbers by sight, where one set is numbered 1-9 and the other 0-9. You call out a number and the child makes it with the correct digits. Well I decided to do the same, but on fall leaves! I found a simple leaf template and copied it on construction in fall colors. Like the acorns, I numbered one set 1-9 and the other 0-9. Then I let my daughter scatter them all over the floor, making sure they were face up so she could see them. I call out numbers 1-20 (that's as far as we have gotten so far) and she finds them, using two leafs to make the double digits. When she finds the number we cheer super loud and do a dance. We have played this once and she loved it!! I will post a picture when we play it again this week.

For science we are learning about the 4 seasons. I still have to go to the library and find books. I have found a printable fall puzzle and a lot of fun worksheets at education.com.

Well this is the plan for this week!! Hope this is helpful to someone. I want to be able to show other mom's who want to homeschool that you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for expensive curriculum (at least for kindergarten as this is our first year). It takes a lot of time and work to find all the material for my daughter, but to me it is well worth it!!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Family Fun

It was such a beautiful fall day today!!!! And we got to make the most of it!! We went to our local Nature Center to paint pumpkins. The kids had so much fun with this!! Then we explored the inside exhibits. We have been here sooo many times, and nothing really changes, but the kids love it!! (psst..and you can't beat free!!) Then after we seen every snake, turtle, fish, and alligator, we went on a nature walk. Yay, I'm no longer preggo, so we were able to take the long trail. It was hard to get pictures, because the kids were having sooo much fun running down the trail and through the leaves, but I actually managed to get some really good ones!! (But of course none of all three of them togesther :( )So here is some pics of our day!!

Painting Pumpkins
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Exhibits
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Our Nature Walk
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Our Kindergarten Week

So this week we are doing letter's "S" and "T". We will be doing our normal writing practices and worksheets from beginningreading.com Last week I let Diva Queen make a collage of the two letters we were doing by cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them on a piece of construction paper. The paper had a line down the middle to separate it for a space for both letters. She loved it!, so we will be doing this again this week.

Our weekly reader this week is "Family Fun" from Hubbard's Cupboard. Our sight word is "can", which the story works with. We just started sight words last week, and I can't believe how well Diva Queen is doing! Last week we did "we" and "will". Even with a weekend away from home, Monday morning she remembered both words by sight, and could spell them!!! I was sooo proud of her!!

We are also starting rhyming words this week. We just started those today, and she's not quite understanding them yet. She wants them to have the same first letter Lol, but it's only the first day.

For Math, we are still practicing counting objects and writing the correct number, 1-20. We've been doing this for several weeks now, and she's still having trouble with them, but she is getting very tired of the repetition so I have decided to introduce her to simple addition. So far she likes it!! It's something new, so I don't know how long the enthusiasm will last. We used mini pom poms for counters, and tomorrow I plan on using M&Ms!!

We are also doing a lot of Halloween songs, finger play, and crafts. I plan on trying our first lapbook with all we find. I am excited!! I have done a lot research on lapbooks, and the concept seems very fun and helpful. I've been kind of reluctant to try one though, because they seem a little overwhelming trying to find all the contents for on, so I thought doing a simple Halloween one would be a good start. When it is done, I will pictures and links to the mini books.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Giving the Blog Awards

So I am finally able to pass on these blog awards!!!


Rules for accepting:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Pass this on to 13 other great bloggers
4. Contact the selected bloggers and tell them about their awards


2 Kids and a Coupon
2 Boys + 1 Girl= 1 Crazy Mom
A Trio of Boys
Cookies and Clogs
Diary of a Devil Dog Wife
My Journey Through It All
Princess Mom of 3
Mommy's Sippy  Cup
Walk With Me
Steals, Deals, and Life

Our Kindergarten Week

So now that things are starting to settle down a little around here, I am gonna try and start doing my post on what we are working on this week with Diva Queen. I pull almost everything I do off the internet on free sights that I find and list them here. Maybe someone else out there is like us, and likes to homeschool, but can't afford to buy pre-made curriculum. Everything I post is free!

So here's what we are planning this week:

Our letters this week are Q and R
I used our workbook purchased from Walmart for our writing practice
I use BeginningReading.com for our worksheets to go with each letter. Our favorites are the picture finds where she circles the picture that start with that letter, and the letter finds where she finds the letter among other. We pretend they are games, and see how fast she can find the correct ones. Here are the ones for Q. These are from Alphabet set 2 and 4 in the free worksheet section.


We also watch the alphabet videos from Have Fun Teaching. All three of my children love these!!
Here is the one for Q




We are also starting beginning readers and sight words this week, I found this great website that has free printable easy reader books, and each one focuses on different sight words. It's called Hubbards Cupboard and this link takes you directly to the sight word booklets. I haven't had time to explore the entire site yet. We are starting with the "At School" booklet, which reviews the sight words "we" and "will".

Our Nursery Rhyme for the week is "Hickory Dickory Dock".  I found a video on youtube that my kids enjoy. It's so cute seeing crazy man singing along. We'll also do a color page I found at Kids Stuff and Things. It is from the Book1 color book download. (You have to register to get the free downloads)

So far we have gotten up to 20 in our numbers, and Diva Queen still has problems recognizing a few of these. So this week we are just reviewing all the numbers and playing games to help them stick. We like to count pom poms, play memory games, and some online games. Kol Jr. has some cute games. Diva Queen really likes the Dot-to-Dots which help her with counting.

We also plan to be doing alot of Halloween crafts, which I will post as we do them.

Tuesday Blog Hops

I'm doin some blog hops this afternoon, so if your looking for new followers and new great blogs, check these out!

Tuesday Tag-Along

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BWS tips button

Monday, October 11, 2010

Mommy Brain!! and Yay Blog Awards!!

Sooo you'd think that having three children that I would be able to time manage fairly well. Throw another kid in there, and no big deal right? WRONG!! The past two weeks I can't seem to remember anything. Diva Queen has Speech and Occupational Therapy twice a week to help with kindergarten readiness, and I completely forgot that today was even Monday!! Thank God my husband thought of it, of course he didn'/t remember until the time we were suppose to be leaving. So it was a MAJOR rush trying to get the kids dressed (still in pj's at 12:30 bad mommy) and out the door. The kids had to eat ham sandwiches on the way since we didn't have lunch yet. I think "Mommy brain" only gets worse with each consecutive kid. So does anyone else out there have a bad case of "Mommy brain"?

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I received two blog awards today!!! Thank you sooo much to Liz at From Chalkboards to Strollers. Liz has a super cute blog that everyone should check out!!


Rules for accepting:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Pass this on to 13 other great bloggers
4. Contact the selected bloggers and tell them about their awards


So here are seven things about me:

1. I am a young mother of 25 with 4 children. Three are biological, but my daughter is just as much mine as
     my boys! My husband has full custody.
2. I love to digital scrapbook!!! Although I don't have much time for it.
3. I love to read, like everything!! From horror to Christian Fiction.
4. I am new to Homeschooling. I homeschool my daughter in kindergarten. So far I love it!!! I hope she
    decides to keep too it, but I told her it's her choice to continue for 1st grade. I love flexible it can be and
    how much better she seems to learn. She did good in Preschool, but they said she would probably be held
    back in Kindergarten. She does so much better with one on one, and I am able to make things more fun
    than her.
5. I just had my 4th child 17 day's ago!!!! We are enjoying every minute of him!!!
6. I love coupons!!!! And any other way to save money. Love bargain hunting!!!
7. I love to cook, and am always looking for new recipes!!

I know I am suppose to pass this on to 13 more blogs, and I promise I will, but tonight I am pressed for time. So I promise to make another post on it tomorrow.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged in this 8 question game by Lauren at Three Crazy Munchkins. So here we go.....

1.) How old were you when you had your first kid? What were the positives/negatives to having kids at that age?


I was 19 when I had my first child, I was not ready, and very scared. I don't believe this is a good age to start a family unless you have found that someone who will be a life partner. I wouldn't change it for the world though, because I love my son and wouldn't trade him for anything!!! A positive thing is I will be young enough to enjoy my grandchildren!!!

2.) What is a fun craft you like to do with your kids?

So far I think the favorite is making peanutbutter playdough!! They love making different thing and then being able to eat them!
3.) What is your favorite recipe to make for dinner?

At our house, we try to recreate our favorite dishes from different restaurants. Our ultimate fav. is Chinese, so when we can't afford to go out, but are craving Chinese, I cook sesame chicken, general Tao chicken, and white rice.

4.) What do you do to relax/relieve stress?

My favorite stress reliever is a hot bath and a good book behind a LOCKED door.
5.) What's your favorite part about parenting?
Seeing my children smile and having fun is absolutely the best part of parenting! That and seeing them accomplish something they have been working so hard at!

6.) What's the hardest part about parenting?

Time management!!! Having four kids and all going in different directions gets really crazy. That and seeing my kids sick, or hurt (physically or emotionally!)
7.) What's your favorite room in your house? Why?
Probably be the living room. That is where we all gather and chill as a family.
8.) What is one of your favorite memories you have with your hubby?
That would have to be when we first started dating. We use to go out to our local national park at dark and hold hands and walk around the entire lake just talking.

Here are my questions:
1. What expectations did you give up on with your consecutive children? (second, third, ext.)

2. What is the bedtime routine like in your house?

3. What are your best cleaning cheating tips?

4. What is your funniest new mom story?

5. What do you and your other half do to keep the relationship going?

6. What is your best dinner shortcut?

7. What do you do when the kids are driving you crazy?

8. What is you favorite fall activity to with the kids?

And I want to hear from.....

ATrio of Boys
In My Coat of Many Colors
Momma Me
From Chalkboards to Strollers
Monkey See, Monkey Do
We Don't Have it All Together.....
The 4M Project
Quick Distraction

Friday, October 8, 2010

My First Blog Award!!!!

 
 Thanks so much too Des at Chic and Sassy Homemaker! She has a super cute blog that you all should check out. She has rewarded me with this award, and to keep the good karma going, I am passing this on to ten more great blogs!!

Cheerios and Tricycles
3 Four and Under
2 Kids and a Coupon
A Ruffle in Time
Frugal on the Cheap
Mandy's Escape
Mommies 2 Cents
Mommy's Little Dinos
Nater Tot
Mommy's Sippy Cup
It has been nearly three weeks since I last post!! Sorry to those who actually read my blog, but money got tight for a while and unfortunately internet is a luxury that is expendable on such occasions. Added to that, things have been pretty crazy around here. I would like to announce that our newest bundle of joy has finally arrived!!! On September 24, 2010 at 12:35 pm Baby Jake has born at 7 lb and 15 oz. and 20 1/2 in long. It has been a crazy couple of weeks adjusting to less sleep and more laundry (Lol!), but it's really nice getting back to being able to be a mom, and not on bedrest!! The kids are all enjoying their new baby brother, although crazy man is quit as thrilled as the older two. He likes to love on him sometimes, but does not like him in our bed and wants us to put him down when he wants to be held. Other than that he just pretty much doesn't acknowledge him. It was funny one morning: normally when he wakes up early, he crawls in bed with us, but when he came in, Jake was in bed with us because I just got done feeding him. My husband told him to come lay by him, and he refused saying to put the baby back in his bed. My husband wound up just getting up with him ha ha!!!

Baby Jake
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Mr. Indepent
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Diva Queen
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Crazy Man-at first refused to touch him Lol
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Proud Daddy!!!
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Going home!!!
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