Around here lately

Just normal days around here lately.  I have 3 boys doing school every day now so the mornings fly by.  We do a Bible story together, then I start Andrew on his math and send him downstairs to his desk.  Joel, Noah, and I sit together at the table and I do math with both of them at the same time (which doesn't always work).  Aaron zooms around the house, stops for a hug or a kiss occassionally, and disappears, only to reappear later, sometimes with a sheepish look on his face.

And this little boy...

is pretty happy most of the time.  He finally cut his first tooth on the bottom, but wasn't real fussy.  He usually naps in the morning so I can get school done, but if he is awake, he is pretty happy to bounce around in his exersaucer or snack in the highchair.


A couple of weeks ago we had 9 kids at dinner time!  Good thing they all behaved!  Uncle Chris is reading them a story before bed.


Last Friday, our homeschool group had a science fair so the boys showed what they knew about the five classes of animals.  Perhaps we should start a bit earlier next time?  One of my friends, who has homeschooled for years and has a child in college, said that her oldest who is through with homeschooling said, "Mom, you're just teaching them to procrastinate!"  :-)


Lock him up,  he's too cute!  I'm certain that's what his brothers were thinking when they did this.


Luke, 1 month

  
 Luke, 8 months

The monkey hat fits a bit differently now!  (And Auntie Alice has superior lighting skills when it comes to taking pics!)

A rare homeschooling moment

One of the biggest challenges with homeschooling is keeping all the kids on task at the same time, especially when you have little ones who aren't really schooling yet, or younger ones who need/want all your time and attention. Disclaimer: This is a very rare moment in our household. And it didn't last long, but it sure was nice for the brief moment it did last!

Noah doing some Domino Parking.  Really easy activity to prep and he seemed to enjoy it.  You can find the worksheet here, as well as other domino activities (free).

Andrew doing Ray's Arithmetic (free).  He also does Xtra math every day too (free).

Joel was doing some fine motor skills development with some wooden beads I got at a garage sale today.  He likes to do school with his big brothers.

Oh, and Aaron was in the pack n play.  :-)

Dairy Adventure: Our trip to a modern dairy farm

We went on a Dairy Discovery at Swisslane Farms today!  Probably the best field trip the boys have ever been on.  Thanks so much to Janna for organizing it!

The first barn we went into was the main shelter for the milk cows.  This is the sight that greeted us.  Tipping cows!

Each cow's hooves are trimmed twice per year.  The guys come every Wednesday to take care of the cows hooves.  And with 1200 head on the farm, they have quite the job!

These ladies have just been milked and are heading back to their home.  The grate on the ground is a special cattle detractor.  The cows won't walk on it so they can keep the area open for machinery, etc, to get access to.  Annie, our tour guide, did tell us that a few years ago they had a "crazy" cow jump over the grate.  The cow no longer resides at Swisslane Farms.

Mama cow coming down the shoot from the milking parlor.

Joel was totally enthralled with every aspect of the farm.  The stuff on the ground is the cows' specially formulated food.

These cows are resting in a bed of sand.  The farm uses sand as bedding since it keeps the cows udders nice and clean.  A special machine comes through the center lane of the cows' area multiple times per day cleaning out all the yucky material that comes with having cows.

Our next stop was the barn with the heifer calves.  Super adorable!

They were quite curious.  Many peeked out of their stalls and were quite excited to see us.

Andrew, Noah, Stuart, Joel, Caleb and Kyle.

Noah feeding a baby calf some warm water.

Caleb

Joel's calf sucked the bottle dry!

Next we went on a short hay ride across the road to see the cows' grocery store.  The farm has a truck with a computer on it that calculates how much of each ingredient to mix to make the cows' food.

Joel with his straw (not hay).

Frog with one of many tractors on the farm.

Milking parlor.  These cows just finished being milked and are getting ready to head home.  The cows are milked 3x per day.  The new set of cows walked it right after I took this pic and headed straight for their spots and backed into position.

 

This mama was a bit curious and came around the side to see what was going on.

Of course, we had to have a dairy snack, milk and cheese to round out the tour.

Gevin and Andrew.

A corn box to play in.

A straw maze.

Joel loved the corn box.

The tiniest kittens I've ever seen.

Part of our group~Noah, Caleb, Joel, Andrew, Tiana, Hadassah, Caleb, and Gevin.

I can relate

Spelling Test

100 percent!

Thanksgiving Week Activities

I don't do much crafty/project stuff with the boys because 1) I don't want the mess and 2) It takes more planning and I'm not usually that ahead of the game.  :-)  But I found a bunch of neat things around the web so here is what we plan to do next week:


~Watch "Plimoth Plantation."

Source: scholastic.com via Heather on Pinterest

~Make these mini-bird feeders to hand out to family on Thanksgiving

Source: eighteen25.blogspot.com via Heather on Pinterest

~Read the story of the Pilgrims and do this craft

Source: frymanfour.blogspot.com via Heather on Pinterest

~Finish coloring these cards


~I'm also thinking of making a larger turkey and having each of the boys write something they are thankful for on it each day.

Goldfish Math (graphing)

I found this idea on Pinterest too, but I had to search for the printable.  Here's the link.

 This was really too easy for Andrew, but he had fun doing it and got to practice making a picture graph.

 Noah LOVED this activity, since fish crackers are his favorite snack!  He did a great job matching the fish to the right column too.

Joel did excellent too!  He doesn't really know the names of the colors but he can match them up right.

PS  If anyone wants an invite to Pinterest, let me know.  But be warned, it can be addicting!

Octopus Math

I saw the idea for this lesson on Pinterest.  Part of Andrew's math lesson was learning how to write the words for numbers and this was so easy to adapt for the other two boys.  I found a printable for a blank octopus and wrote the names of numbers on the arms for Andrew and the numeric numbers on the arms for Noah and Joel.  

Andrew had to read the word and then glue the correct number of cheerios, or suction cups, on each arm.

  

Andrew's finished octopus.

Noah needed a little help staying on task but he's getting really good at one for one counting.

Andrew helped Joel with his octopus.  He was just happy to get in on the big kid stuff!

Pattern Block Activity

Last week Andrew did a math page working with pattern blocks.  If you don't know what they are, these are pattern blocks.

Andrew really enjoyed working with them and has been asking me if he could do more, so today I printed out some patterns for him to fill in.  I googled 'pattern block activity' and printed out some patterns from here on card stock (click on 'Pattern Blocks Activity Card').  Then I laminated the pages since I do have 4 hooligans boys. 

Here are Andrew and Noah with their patterns.












Here is a link to more pattern block cards, some fun animal prints.  These would be great to use with younger kids since you can also print them in color.