EPCOT...
Let's start with my mom's visit to Florida during her April vacation break. I took her to Epcot as a belated birthday gift for their annual Garden Festival. We had SO MUCH FUN! Big shout out to my hubby for taking care of the kiddos for the day so we could be kid-less. I took some GREAT photos! Unfortunately, you won't be able to see any of them because my phone crashed a few weeks ago and I lost ALL of my pictures and videos. So sad :( So you will just have to take my word for it that it was a blast and that my mom and I about peed our pants at the end of the "Spaceship Earth" ride. I am so mad that the video for it is gone. BOOOO!!!!!
*On a side note: My husband kept reminding me that I needed to update iCloud. One of the few times he has been right ;) WHOOPS!
OUR LIFE IN THE WORLD OF MATH...
Connor is still working through the math book I ordered for him. Really he's blowing through the math book I ordered for him. He has been working on shapes and learning the differences between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes. Enjoy these little photos of my budding architect...
LEARNING ABOUT OUR HOME STATE OF FLORIDA...
We have moved on from learning the states in our country to learning about individual states. Each day we would read an excerpt from a book about Florida and then fill in our Florida map. I've had him practice using symbols and a key to complete his map. No pics yet, but I'll post one of his finished product.
BLOWING A LID OFF OF SCIENCE...
Boy have we been having a good time in science! I'm pretty sure I won't be hearing from my kiddos that science is boring. We, of course, continue to take advantage of our library programs. Check out this little assortment of pics and videos from the last Super Science Monday program at the library...
Hot and cold water separating/mixing.
Candle vapor catching on fire.
Liquid using heat from hands to move through the tube.
It's a tough day of school when it has to end with fresh cotton candy :)
We've moved on to learning about sun, moon and stars. We've gotten to look through telescopes, study constellations and some of the stories behind them, learned about the planets, talked about gravity, watched videos on eating and going to the bathroom in space, amongst so many other things. It has been SO AWESOME! I found space food in the expo hall at the homeschooling conference I attended (discussed subsequently) and the kids just loved getting to eat dehydrated ice cream. At one point Connor held the ice cream in the air in front of him and said, "Look mom! It's floating!" So cute! Lack of gravity is such a fun thing to experience ;)
Connor has also taken a HUGE interest in insects. We look for worms on our daily walks. One day we collected the ones we saw that were still alive and put them in a jar to use for fishing later in the day for Family Home Evening.
By the way, worms left in a jar for the day do NOT have a very pleasant odor. YUCK! Perhaps it was the smell that scared off all the fish because we were completely unsuccessful on our fishing excursion
:(
READING AND SPELLING...
One of Connor's weak spots is in reading comprehension. He knows a lot of words and can pronounce most words he comes across, but he can't always tell you what he read about. We've been working on reading skills. I've also been using the box of phonics materials my sister sent to me to help him with spelling and blends and so-on. Here's Connor spelling words...
I love finding ways to incorporate manipulatives in our lessons. Especially for my little gremlin because he can't sit still ;)
We've also been reading through the Book of Mormon. We talk about our favorite parts of each story and talk about how Heavenly Father's eternal plan for each of us. What precious moments I get to share with my little ones!
PETS GALORE!
So every once in a while I come up with some CRAZY idea that my husband is kind enough to go along with. This time I decided I wanted a dog for Mother's Day. So off to the "pet store" (the Largo SPCA) we went to find the perfect four-legged friend. We came home with a 10-month old terrier mix we named "Harley."She is her mother's dog for sure! She just LOVES me to death. So far, she's crate trained, doing pretty well with housebreaking, plays fetch, knows "sit" and "lay down" and loves to eat the marigolds in my garden.
But we still love our LUNA!
Tired yet? Almost done...
FLORIDA PARENT-EDUCATOR ASSOCIATION (FPEA) ANNUAL HOMESCHOOLING CONFERENCE IN ORLANDO, FL
Shout out number two to my hubby for watching all three kiddos for a full 48 hours so that I could attend the homeschool conference in Orlando, FL. What a GREAT weekend! My neighbor, Tammy, whose oldest son will be ready for kindergarten in the fall, came with me and we just had a BLAST! Nor had we had such a full night's sleep in nearly 5 years and 6 years, respectively.
*Double side-note: Two more shout outs to Tammy's husband, Jim, and my dad for watching kids and getting us a hotel room, respectively. Couldn't have done it without you guys either!
First of all, you would NOT believe the number of families who were in attendance. The event was super family-friendly, and I have NEVER attended a teaching conference where the inclusion of prayer, God and Jesus Christ were talked about. How REFRESHING!
Second of all, you would NOT believe the number of vendors and homeschooling resources there are out there! It took us two days, in between sessions, to get through the whole expo hall. Check it out...
I actually took this picture for my zombie-loving gremlin. The store was near our hotel.
This company reprints out-of-print books. I took this picture for my hubby.
So many quotes hit me as good reminders during the conference, but perhaps none as much as this one.
Yep, that's right. I got to pet a gator! They're pretty soft.
Tammy and I cannot WAIT to go again next year. This time we plan to take our hubbies. They would have had just as much fun as we did!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...MEMORIAL DAY
What kind of a homeschooling mom would I be if I neglected to teach my kids about our most important holidays. We began our Memorial Day celebration last night as our church presented, "Preserve Us a Nation." What a great reminder of the sacrifices those leaders and soldiers who came before us made in order for us to be free.
We began today's festivities by watching this short video I found which discussed the history of Memorial Day:
Some friends of us were kind enough to invite us to the YMCA pool party, where we got to celebrate by eating hot dogs and watermelon...
Bryn got her first taste at swimming. (Literally, she was trying to eat the water.)
Then it was back to the serious stuff. We returned home and finished making pinwheels to put on Grandpa Lehman's grave. Both of Jason's grandfather's served in the armed forces. We wanted to commemorate their service by saying "thank you."
And of course since we were in Bradenton, we had to stop at our favorite custard shop!
And a big thanks to my in-laws for letting me ignore everyone for an hour while I updated this blog.
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!!
Me too, Bryn. Me too.
