Art Study

In Elizabeth Foss' Alphabet Path curriculum, she also incorporates art work into a study. With my two, we can't get extremely indepth with the art, but we did discuss colors that the artist used, and what medium Princess thought the artist used (Junior was off doing something else and had NO interest in art. LOL). Then, she re-created the painting herself. Since we are on "A" week, we used Paul Cezanne's "Apples" painting. I'd say Princess did pretty well for a 3-1/2 year old.

Paul Cezanne's "Apples"

Princess' Rendition

My Family Cont'd

Another project from our My Family Unit from our Little Saints preschool program. The kids loved using pictures of themselves to make a photo montage of our family.

I Believe in 1 God!

A couple of weeks ago, I was searching for a fun project to do for my church's Mommy Group that I'm trying to start. Since January is the month of the Holy Name of Jesus, I came across this activity on Catholic Icing. She created a program for her pre-school co-op, which I LOVE! I have added that into our curriculum as well. We are now slowly working our way through 3 different curriculums, choosing the things I think are the most fun for my little ones. 

This craft is based on the number one, and the Nicene Creed: 

 Sorry the pics are a little fuzzy, hubby took my car to work this day and my camera was in there. All I had was my cell phone. =(

A Unit/My Family Week 2

Since we got soooo busy last week, we ended up having to turn our "A" Unit into a 2 week unit (which I really ended up liking, so we will probably do the same with all the following units). We started the week making drawings of "My Family". Junior's is more of an "abstract" piece. ;-)

For this being Princess' first time actually drawing "people", I'd say she did a REALLY great job!

 Then we continued our Catechism lesson for the week: Love Others as God Sees You. The kids really enjoy making projects where they get to use glue. This is our Window to our heart. There is a "picture" of God the Father in the little flaps. You can REALLY see how hard Junior is concentrating on opening that glue stick:

Princess is working on letter formation every chance we get by tracing everything possible. I've been writing a LOT of stuff in pencil for her to trace lately. 

I think this picture was taken right after I found Junior sneaking bites of a chocolate chip cookie in the kitchen. Can you tell??

I'm working really hard on letting the kids work be "not perfect". It was quite hard for me to NOT fix this glue job. LOL. 

Better late than never...

With the beginning of our schooling for this year, our first Unit is on Family.

We weren't able to make it to the library due to the big kids being sick, so we weren't able to do our read aloud, but we did get to work on our unit. The kids colored "families" to use to tell a story (we didn't get to that part yet, but plan to this week).

Coloring their "families" (Little Saints Preschool Program)



 

 Princess has REALLY been working hard on staying in the lines when she's coloring. She's getting much better!

"Never too Small" from Who Am I? Children's Catechism Series

 The yellow fingerpaint didn't work out too well on the dark paper. Next time I think I'll use a lighter color for the background. :)

 Princess' finished project (she traced the wording).

Little Lambs

So...things got off to a rocky start yesterday. First, we were lost as to whether or not Princess had ballet! See, her teacher never showed up for her last class in December, and never called! I found out yesterday am (when she finally called back), that she was in the hospital for a short time (very vague) and that we WOULD be having class in the am. Soooo, with only half an hour until class, I could already tell our day was going to be rough!

Anyways, after dropping off Princess to ballet, Junior, Marshmallow & I went to the library to return (and pay our fines, I seem to have a memory lapse when it comes to due dates) a few books. Then to the playground to play while waiting for Princess, where we were sprayed by the stinky well-water sprinklers, trying to get out of the car!

In my mind, we would go home, eat lunch, take a nap, then start school for the day. Boy, was I wrong! We did get home and eat lunch, but that's where things went bad. Princess & Junior did NOT want to sleep. They ended up playing in their room for over an hour before finally nodding off. To make matters worse, they took a VERY short nap which made for a VERY grumpy Junior! We did get to get some schoolwork done from our Little Saints program. The kids had a blast sewing and stuffing their own little lambs (The theme this week is "In the Country"). We learned "Old McDonald", read a picture book and of course a poem. (Junior ended up having to take a 2nd quick nap because he was just waaaaay too grumpy!)

Here are some pics of the kids working on their lambs (you can see Marshmallow in the background just hanging out in his booster seat):

Happy New Year!

Wow! I can't believe it's already 1/1/11!! As I look back at last year, I can count all the blessings! Hubby having a steady job, Princess turned 3, Junior turned 2, the birth of Marshmallow, just to name a couple. I know that this year will be full of many more exciting things! Who knows, we may just be blessed even more this year!

We are so excited to really start getting into our home schooling now! We'll start Monday with a unit on Farms! We can't wait. I also read on my new FAVORITE blog (Shower of Roses) about a program called "Along the Alphabet Path". The program incorporates teaching letters with a fairy, a saint, plants, and art for each letter, along with TONS of activities! We're hoping to be able to get enough Swagbucks to get Amazon gift cards to help pay for some of the books. I just know that Princess will LOVE this program, and I can't wait to start it with her.

We're going to try to bake something fun at least once a week, and we're going to make personal goals as well. Princess has already decided she is determined to learn how to tie shoes. I'm going to make her a practice board with laces so she can actually practice "tying". We haven't decided on Junior's goal yet, but it will probably be something as simple as stop wetting his pants. Marshmallow's will be to start sleeping through the night, though that is more up to me than him. LOL. As for me, I am DETERMINED to try to walk at least 3 times a week, and lose these last 10 pounds to get back to being a lifetime member for Weight Watchers! It will be wonderful to be able to go for free again!

As a family, we are going to make sure that we continue going to Sunday Mass as a family, as well as start reading bedtime bible and saint stories (from their "new to them" Picture Bible, and other misc. books). I'm also going to try to get to daily Mass with the kids at least once a week. Hopefully I can work up to more than that, but once a week is a start.

Well, here's to a prosperous, joyous and blessed New Year!!

Happy 2011!

Raising in Faith

Well, I've decided to try my hand at blogging again. Hopefully this time, it will stick. I really enjoy it, but sometimes feel I am nowhere near as creative a write as some of the bloggers I regularly read.

I won't be using my childrens' real names on here, mostly to protect their identities. Instead, I'll be calling them by nicknames.

This year, I started homeschooling Princess (those of you who know me personally, know her real name.) Of course, Junior likes to tag along and participate as well. We're using a Catholic Home School Preschool Program called Little Saints. It's a wonderful program, and the kids LOVE the activities from it. It's based around reading and learning the Catholic Faith. There are 2-3 lessons in each unit, and each lesson has 3-4 art/learning activities. It's starts each day with scripture and a list of books to accompany the lesson. Thankfully, since Princess is only 3, we're not "forcing" it. I want her to love learning and reading as much as I do.

We also use a Catechism program called Who Am I? It also has wonderful stories, lessons, questions and activities, as well as workbook pages. I try to do one lesson each week from this.

I wanted to start this blog because of the journey that the kids and I are taking together through our Catholic Faith. I am learning more and more and finding that I need to learn more. I hope to someday be as well-versed in our Faith as some of my mom's sisters.

Anyways...here begins (or continues our journey)...