More pics from the week, in no particular order

And the Moon theme continued:

 Oreo cookie moon phases!  Now these were a bit HIT!  

Needless to say, the girls ate MANY moons.  ;-)

 Story time at the book store from this morning...

 Coloring in and decorating Van Gogh's Starry Night.

 Alphabet hunt using dot markers!

Each letter was dotted in a different color.

 Practicing tracing her monthly Calendar from here.

This series will help her learn spelling of the months 

and solidify her number writing up to 30.

 Love our iPad, a generous gift from my SIL!!

Emilie practicing her rhyming words on one of the many awesome kid apps out there.

 This game was a hit too (even though they look terribly unexcited, LOL).  

Each person was either the moon or sun or earth (momma played) from here,

and we "orbited" around each other, singing this song:

Sung to the tune: The Farmer in the Dell

"The earth goes round the sun.

The earth goes round the sun.

Every year, once a year, the earth goes round the sun"

Then the moon goes round the earth

The moon goes around the earth

Once a month, every month, the moon goes round the earth.

 Music 101: intro to basic rhythm cards. 

I did not get into quarter notes and eighth notes, 

rather I showed them as "fast" and "slow" beats 

and they drummed along no problem! 

Divine appointments

There are some things that happen in life that are so "coincidental" and crazy that you cannot deny it is the hand of God moving.  These past few months have been FULL of these encounters, for both Jee and I.  And yes, it's all about homeschooling!  This post would be way too long to document them all, but I have to mention what happened today.  It is still blowing my mind.  I have been attending CBS (Community Bible Study) for 4 years now in Mt. Airy.  Most people who attend live in Ferderick or Mt. Airy or Damascus, i.e., FAR from where I live.  A lot of them are homeschoolers.  One gal, Kathy, invited us over today for a playdate.  Emilie and Elizabeth had a great time playing with the other kids.  I know she homeschools but I was shocked today to discover she attends the same church where my new homeschooling co-op will start meeting in February.  Not only that, when I mentioned the name of the coop (LEAP), her eyes grew wide and said, "LEAP meets at my church!  And God has been telling me the last 2 weeks to call Kim [the director] to join!!"  I was shocked because LEAP meets in Montgomery County - far from CBS and most CBS people.  I had NO idea Kathy knew anything about LEAP.  So I told her, registration was yesterday and to hurry and call the director to see if there was still room.  Kathy attends Shady Grove Presbyterian in Derwood (near Rockville) and this church has a huge homeschooling community within.  The director of the co-op is also the pastor's wife of Shady Grove Pres church - and works with my old friend Shane from MOPS who is the asst director of the co-op.  But what is blowing my mind even more is the old preschool we attended, ELF school in Boyds, Maryland, is where we met Emilie's good friends Callie and Katie.  And THEY attend Shady Grove Pres and know Kim as well!! (But they don't homeschool).   How is it that every significant person in my life at the moment knows either Kim or Shady Grove or LEAP?  And even stranger is how Shady Grove Pres has sent a few of their congregation members to the Perspectives class I am taking, which is being held at MY home church!  This is SO weird, so awesome, so GOD!  I know this is not a coincidence.  These are divine appointments.  God has led me down this path and He is orchestrating a community of homeschoolers for us to join.  It is so encouraging and so amazing that I can't stop thinking about it and had to write this looooong post.  Thanks for reading!  :)  It was an awesome day.  Thank you Jesus!!!

The Middle

Love it when Emilie starts making connections on her own.  She knows her left from her right, but I guess she never learned what "middle" was until recently!  And she learned it making connections from 2 books we have been reading and also from a math lesson.  The last math lesson we did was learning numbers up to 5 and 5 is special because it has a "middle" (imagine middle finger on your hand).  5 has a middle but 4 does not.  It was a 1 minute concept we talked about and we moved onto something else.  All last week we read The Story of Ferdinand, about a Spanish bull who doesn't want to fight.  The last scene in the book depicts Ferdinand sitting in the middle of the bull ring, and instead of fighting, he smells roses in the hair of the ladies around him.  Tonight we read The Kissing Hand, a sweet story of a racoon and his mother exchanging kisses in the middle of each others' palms to help him feel safe when he is scared.  All of a sudden, Emilie blurts out, "Oh, the kiss is in the middle, just like Ferdinand sat in the middle of the ring, and just like 5 has a middle (pointing to her middle finger)."  Wow!  Emilie is 4 1/2 and knows more than I did when I was her age.  Love it to see her learning, even if it is as small as learning a positional word! 

The best $2 I've spent all week

Germantown Library monthly book sale.  

Soft covers 25 cents, hard backs 50 cents.

Are you kidding me?!  

These reference books would've cost $30+ new.

Elizabeth loves looking at the pics in the "dolphin" book.. 

Emilie loves her pink fairy book (not pictured).

Happy kids = happy momma!

Blue's Clues

Thank you Blue's Clues, for teaching the girls about Day and Night this morning on TV!!  

(That was on the schedule for next week).  

What are the chances of that?!

Love it! 

S is for Solar System

And another day when I am just blown away by what the girls can learn!

I picked up this little model of the solar system on sale for $5 at a consignment store today.  

They are loving it! Kinda nerdy??  Totally!  Kinda fun?  Yup!

 So the sun glows in the dark so they've been hiding in the dark pantry all day oohing at the sun.  :)

 I could not tell you how happy it made me when Elizabeth said, "Look Momma!  God is the light of the world, just like the sun!!"  :)

 Getting better at her ABCs!

 Showing off to Daddy that she can write all the way up to 48!

Forgot to mention the books we've been reading.  Mostly Frank Asch's Moonbear series (they love them)... some science books on the Sun and Moon... and will post a few fun others later!

It was a fun day again and the most rewarding thing was going out later and hearing Emilie say, "Mom I love doing school at home with you.  It's fun!"  :)  

Thank you Lord...I am so blessed!

My Father's World

Our main curriculum we are using is My Father's World Kindergarten.  It is a lovely program that intertwines all subjects thematically with scripture.  This week's theme is "S is for Sun" and the accompanying scriptural concept is "Jesus is the Light of the World".  It's very hands-on and not "work-booky" at all, and the kids love it.  I switched out the phonics (as I mentioned in my previous post) and the math for something more substantial.  These are the 2 weaknesses of the program (no program is perfect) so it's great to be able to find what works best for my kinesthenic learner. 

 Making our "Jesus is the light of the world" pages.

 Art appreciation: Munch, Monet, and Van Gogh's SUN-themed works.

 LIGHT brite creative play!

 We hit the discovery room weekly at the library and this is when I introduce money concepts to Emilie.  (The red/blue thing is a play cash register.)

She's getting better at identifying coins and differing dollar amounts.

We also practice simple addition and subtraction "buying" food.  :)

 We had fun painting our own "sun".  :)

All in all it was a great week.  

So thankful to have this opportunity to do school with the girls!