Community Gardening Class/Field Trip

Here are some fun photo's of our field trip to Veteran's Park. We had a good time even though we were working. So proud of the kids and their hard work. 

A free slideshow design by Smilebox

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Home Based Group Valentine Party

Our group continues to grow. We had about 30 kids for our Valentine party. We had lots of goodies to eat, cupcakes to decorate, plus a game and craft. The kids were very involved in all of them. 

The girls (and boys) were given lots of papers and things to make cards or bookmarks. They really had fun of with all the fun paper. They even made some for their friends right then. 

One of Jenni's friends had a funny sense of humor and cut a piece of paper and wrote book-mark on it instead of decorating  it like a bookmark. 

Most of the boys decided to make a family crest. They turned our really cool. JC ran out of time and had to finish his at home. It is still waiting for him on my desk.

We had a wide range of ages, preschoolers to teens. They all seemed to have a great time working and visiting with each other. 

We had a fun game of Valentine Conversation Heart Bingo. We brought dollar store prizes for the winners. Then we went and ate all the goodies, some sweets and some veggies and fruit plates. 

I can honestly say that this group has been a highlight in our lives this year even more than before. We have done some really fun stuff. Plus the kids have made friends with LOTS of other homeschool kids their age. 

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Homeschool Group Christmas Party

For our homeschool group Christmas party we had a lot of fun. We all brought goodies to eat and one of the moms put together a great craft for the kids. She brought different sizes of spoons and gave them choices on what to make. They each had the different colors of paint on their tables and had foil to work on. They each had the different colors of paint on their tables and had foil to work on. We had a very large group that day. Everyone had so much fun. They had to wait for directions for the character of their choice. We had a table full of goodies plus cookies for them to decorate. All of the kids enjoyed it, young and old. They had to paint the spoon first before adding any pipe cleaners. They drew on the faces with markers when needed. Then it was time to decorate cookies and eat them. Since we meet in the gym at the church they got to play after we were done. The kids love the new air hockey table.

  

Merry Christmas!

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

                                                                                                    

Homeschool Field Trip: Public Library

We had a field trip to the Public Library. It was a lot of fun and very interesting. They kids enjoyed it very much. They got to see the workings of the library from behind the scenes. 

The librarian showed us the books they have in Braille. The kids got to feel the pages. 

He told us about the computer area and what is upstairs.

This is the room that has all the new books being sent to the different libraries around Arlington. 

The children's area was our last stop.

I didn't take pictures of each area. We first went to the area that the books are brought back and how they are sorted and returned to the shelves. We also got to see the teen section. It was just fun getting to see and hear about how the library works. 

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Dolphin Tale Unit Study Part Three

For the last part of our Dolphin Tale study we made little flip books with the information that we learned from our study. We didn't have a very large group that week but it was fun anyway. 

They had to work to find the words to fit into the blank spaces in the book. 

We loved seeing smiles on their faces as they worked together.

We even had some coloring pages for the younger kids if they wanted to do that, too. 

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Dolphin Tale Unit Study Part Two

We spent a major amount of time today in parent discussion because we had a new mom with questions. And after all, that is what we are here for, to help each other, give support and suggestions on what might work. AND to be an ear just to listen. As moms we need that time to share what is on our hearts. I love this group for that very reason. We are there for each other. We all have different teaching styles and curriculum but we all respect each other and don't think one is doing it wrong just because it isn't the way we are doing it. We learn so much from each other each time we meet. 

 

This week we had eleven kids that were able to come and stay for our craft time. We didn't have a large amount of time for the craft so we didn't do a lot of background on the Anglerfish like we did the Jellyfish. But it is my hope that it will spark an interest in looking into it further. I also printed off some extra stuff for them to do while they were there or at home. 

JC, as always, is being silly and Ryan thinks he is funny. The kids really seemed to have a good time making them. They used egg cartons, pipe cleaners, construction paper to cut out teeth, feathers for the tail and a bead on the end of the pipe cleaner for the "light".  Those two boys seem to really love the idea of the feathers for the tail. I just love the expressions on their faces!

They got to do it all by themselves except for when they asked for our help. It was a pretty easy craft but fun at the same time. They drew eyes and fins on the body with a marker. Each child got to pick from a bag of different color feathers and beads. They got really creative with the eyes and how they decorated them.

The younger AND older kids seemed to enjoy our time working together. Then the older ones had a Winter (that's the dolphin's name) word search and the young ones had a dolphin coloring picture to work on. We are so thankful for the mom's who were there helping us with the crafts, too. It makes it wonderful to have everyone working together. 

I told them if they would take a serious group picture they could do a silly group picture. As you can see, we had some happy kids who were more than willing to take a silly picture as a group. I am so pleased because they all told me how much fun they had and they were full of smiles. THAT is why I love bringing things for them to do. THAT is why I homeschool. THAT is why I love working with kids. Their smiles! 

We have one more week of the Dolphin Tale Unit Study. That will be two weeks from today. There is much more to the study than we have done or will be able to do in the short amount of time we are able to get together. Make sure you take the time to do some of the other activities at home with your kids and share how it turned out with the group. We would love to hear about it.

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.