The Runaway Bunny {BFIAR}

This is an overview of what we did last week.
A little late, I know.
Blogging has taken a back seat to a weekend away and a busy, busy week.
But for my own records and your enjoyment I thought it was was better late than not at all!
Here goes!

The week was filled with all kinds of little dilemmas.
I locked all three kids in the van when I was due to be at a doctor's appointment.
And another day locked all of us out of the house.
Mama brain, perhaps?
The girls kept me busy - playing make-up with an inkpad and hairdresser with real scissors.
And Tait felt pooing on the driveway made more sense than coming inside to the potty on such a beautiful day.
Ah, the life of a mother!
Thankfully, we were oozing positivity this week due to the warm weather and beautiful sunshine.
With weather like that how can one stop smiling?!
The majority of our time was spent outside exploring all the joys of spring!

We spruced up the van.


Checked out the buds on the trees.



And discovered that the bulbs we planted in the fall are starting to grow!!



Our BFIAR book this week was The Runaway Bunny.



We played an animal memory game that included many of the animals the little bunny in the story says he will become plus a few others.


Piper did an 'if, then' activity that related to the story.



In the story, little bunny says he will become a crocus in a garden so we made crocuses!
The girls traced their hands and cut them out.
Then we taped them around pencils and ended up with a lovely bouquet!


We talked about shapes this week.
Taitum learned about triangles, squares, circles and crescents.
She glued pictures from the book of things that are these shapes under the correct shape flap.
Piper learned about things that are round: spheres, circles and disks.
She also did a flap book activity to correspond with this.



(Yes, those are socks on Tait's hands!)





For an art activity, we discussed how some of the illustrations in the book are black and white and others are in color.
Then the girls made their own black and white and color illustrations.




Piper did an excellent job drawing the bunny from the book.
She then painted a picture of the bunny at the circus.
This was her favorite part of the story - when the little bunny says he will join the circus and fly away on the flying trapeze and his mama says she will become a tightrope walker and walk across the air to him.


That was our week...last week!
It was such a relief to spend so much time outside!

Next, we'll be 'rowing' The ABC Bunny and spending some time on Easter type things!














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Moments to Remember: Book Love

Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember.
The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.


In case you haven't noticed, we are really into books around here!
Both my hubby and I are avid readers and it's pretty important to us that our kids are too.
From the time they were tiny little babies we've been reading to them.
It's quite normal to walk into a room and find one or both girls surrounded by books and quietly flipping through the pages of one.
I love this!
It makes me so happy to see my girls enjoying books as much as I do!
The above picture is of Piper anxious to see what books we'll be diving into first thing in the morning.
(Books + coffee + my girls = wonderful mornings!)

The second picture just melts my heart.
Piper is 'reading' Goodnight Moon to her little sister since Tait was sick the day we started the book and so missed us reading it together.
Pipe was catching her up!
(Notice their shoes - one has sneakers on the wrong feet, the other dress-up high heels. This totally describes their individual personalities!)


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Seven

Seven years ago
I married a man who proved to be far better than my dreams
Its crazy now, looking back
We were so young
Knew so little
(Seriously, I'd never done laundry or cleaned a toilet!)
We had no money, no careers, no idea what real life was like
But we had love and a promise and a God who was greater than both
We were unafraid

Seven years later
And I haven't looked back
Not once
All that we needed
Came in good time
Of course there were moments
Of worry and stress
Moments when we didn't see eye to eye
When we wondered if things would really work out
But they always did
And we learned that
In the midst of it all
Life together is good
So good

Now as a grouchy two year old screams in the back of the van
And the four year old yells that she is hungry again
And the baby cries because she lost her soother
We sit side by side
Holding hands
Giggling together
At our crazy life
Our life together
That has turned out to be
Crazy wonderful

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Boat Float And A Science Fair

This week our science experiment was a bit more detailed than usual because....
Piper was going to a SCIENCE FAIR!
I selected a boat float experiment for her to do since I wanted something simple enough to understand and fun to do.
We were not disappointed!

First, we did some research.
Because she was unsure of what float and sink meant exactly, I took some time to explain these words to her.
Next, I gave her various items - a marble, a toothpick, a leaf, a foam toy, a crayon - and had her predict what would float and what would sink.
Then she got to work dropping each item in a jar of water to see if her predictions proved true!



She absolutely loved doing this and so I let her take her time.
She spent a half an hour dropping things in the water, taking them out and trying again.
As she was doing this we chatted about reasons why certain things floated and others sank.



And although I had not yet mentioned the fact that we would get into making boats, she came up with one all on her own!

 

After a while, we moved on to the actual experiment:
Can we turn something that sinks into something that floats?

To begin, she made a ball out of some modelling clay and predicted that it would sink.
She was correct, of course
.

I then asked her if we could change the shape of the clay ball so that it would float.
She quickly came up with the idea of making it into a boat just like she had done with some of the items in her reasearch!
Her first boat was completely flat and sank immediately.
We discussed why this happened and what we could change to make it float.




I suggested making sides on the boat since she had difficulty thinking of what to do next.
Once we added the sides to it, the boat had no problem floating.


As an extension, we asked the question:
Can the boat hold extra weight and still float?

To find out, I pulled out some marbles for her to add to the boat.
But first she predicted how many the boat would be able to hold.
She guessed 5 and then began adding marbles.


The first boat held 3 marbles before it sank!
I then asked what we could do to make the boat better and able to hold more marbles.
We ended up making one that was bigger (double the amount of clay).


Piper predicted the better boat would only hold 3 marbles.
I guess she doubted it would be any better then the last boat!
But it proved to be far better, holding 7 marbles!

 

A few days later we gathered all our data, printed photos and got to work making a poster board to present our ideas at the science fair.
I figured Piper would be rather bored with making the poster board but she was very enthusiastic!
She helped with everything!
It was so nice to work side by side on this project!
Taitum joined us off and on as well!




Saturday was the science fair.
Piper was so excited - mostly about getting to go to a school since I'm sure she wasn't really aware of what a science fair was exactly!
We set up our board and clay, marbles and water so other people could try their hand at making a boat.
The whole gym was full of kids with their projects set up and visitors were free to stop at each table and hear about the child's project.
At first, Piper was very shy but eventually she really got into it especially when other kids came by to try making a boat!


Here is her poster board in a little more detail:

She drew a picture of a bot with marbles in it.


She drew a picture of each of the items she tested during her research.

 

She printed the words 'float' and 'sink' on the board.

 

Here is Piper and Tait accepting their awards for participating in the science fair!


They both recieved medals!
They had such an enjoyable time at the fair - not only presenting their project but also checking out other children's projects.
We're looking forward to doing it again next year!


Yay! Science is fun!











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Goodnight Moon {BFIAR}

This week was a rather frustrating one.
It began with a sick child and ended with another!
Regardless, we got a ton of school work done.
I'm not sure how that happened.
It probably had to do with the fact that we were stuck at home ALL week and kids have this way of still needing to be occupied even when they feel terrible.
Quite frankly, I needed the distraction too!

Now that you've heard about the nasty part of our week, here is the happy, fun part...

We started something new this week:
Up until Christmas we were doing a circle time with calendar on a bulletin board.
It was fine but all three of us got bored of it.
So it was time for a change!
At 1+1+1=1 I saw these calendar notebooks and I thought they were worth a try!
Piper loves it especially since she gets to practice her printing every day now!





The printing is obviously beyond Tait at this point but I plan to add more toddler friendly pages in time and for now she is content to draw pictures all over her pages!
I'm finding that using the notebooks takes up far less of our learning time while still enabling us to review the days of the week, date and chart the weather.
I'm sure eventually we'll get bored of this too but for now it is working out wonderfully!



We've gotten back into our Beginning with God Bible studies.
The activities they suggest to accompany the stories are so simple yet fun for the kids and really good at helping them to understand certain aspects of the story.
For example, this week we read about Joeseph and how he worked to save food for when the seven years of famine came.
Afterwards, I gave the girls a cup of mini chocolate chips.
I told them they could eat some now but then had to save the rest for after lunch.
I was surprised with how easily they agreed to doing this!


Piper and Tait tried a new food this week - jello!
So exotic, right?
This came about as we were learning the phonetic sound for J.
As part of the All About Reading program, I was giving them riddles for things that started with the the J sound.
One was a riddle for jello and I totally assumed Piper knew what it was despite the fact that I never make it.
She guessed ice cream and pudding and finally I gave her the correct answer.
I got a blank stare from her in return!
She had no idea!
So that evening they made jello together with Daddy and had it for snack the next day.
Tait had no trouble downing it but Pipe was a little weirded out by the fact that her snack jiggled! Haha!



This week we 'rowed' Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown for our BFIAR book.


Each morning as I read the story, the girls would take turns finding and putting up pictures of the things the little bunny says good night to.
They loved doing this!
The only problem was that they woud fight over who got to put up the kittens!


In the story, there is a picture on the wall of the room of the cow jumping over the moon.
So, of course, we had to learn the rhyme 'Hey Diddle Diddle'!
Piper made her own book by assembling the parts of the rhyme correctly.


Both girls colored a page with the rhyme on it so we could post it on the wall and practice it each day.



Piper quite enjoyed this rhyme.
Here she is reciting it.
I think its adorable when she gets stuck remembering part of it!
You can see her struggling to think of it.
Too cute!


Also, in the room where the story takes place, there is a picture of the 3 bears.
The girls were familiar with the story 'Goldilocks and the 3 Bears' but hadn't heard it in a while so we used felt board pieces we had to tell the story!
They absolutely loved this!


Later I set the felt board out for them to play with and it was so neat to watch Piper tell the story all on her own to Taitum, mimicing what I had just done!




Taitum later did a three bears size sort in which she had to identify the big, medium and large things in the story.


We learned some things about the moon, too!
First, I explained to Piper about the different phases of the moon and had her color them accordingly.


Mmmmm! Such a yummy way to learn!



Then I cut out the moons she had coloured and together we assembled a moon phase wheel.



Both girls enjoyed painting the night sky with water paints.
Before painting, they drew on their paper with crayons.
I added stars so they could see them appear when they painted over the crayon drawings!




Daddy was home one day this week due to a snow day and he helped them make 'a bowl full of mush' just like the little bunny says goodnight to!


Taitum worked on her colours by finding the right colour crayon for each balloon colouring card.
I layed out all the colours she needed then would tell her what colour to find for each balloon.


We started our animal classification board this week.
This is something that is suggested in the BFIAR manual.
For each book we 'row' we will be sorting the animals we find in the story into the following categories: Fur, Skin, Feathers, Scales.
It's very simple but an important skill to learn and practice.
Piper loved it because 1 - she loves anything to do with animals and 2 - she got to tack the animal cards to the board all by herself!
;) 


The pair of mittens in the story lead us to talk about what a pair is and about left and right.
The girls each painted and printed their left hand and right hand.
Being allowed to paint a part of their body is pretty much the best thing ever as far as they are concerned!



Goodnight Moon was such a fun book!
It's no surprise that it's a classic!
The girls adored looking for the mouse in each illustration of the room and Piper was very intrigued by the change in lighting that you notice happening as the story progressed.
This made for some interesting questions and conversation!

This week we also completed a science experiment that Piper used to participate in a science fair!
She had a blast doing this!
I'll share it all with you soon!

Next week we are 'rowing' The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.

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I love motherhood.

We're a smiling family.

I'm a covenant keeper.

I love my husband.

I am above self pity.

I am a nation builder.

Motherhood=Adventure

Worth more than rubies.


“I am more convinced than ever that even in the midst of the mundane, burdensome, and oftentimes frustrating tasks of life allotted to me as a mother, God wants me to find his joy. He wants every single day of my life to be a celebration of his blessings, whether large or small. He wants me to celebrate life ~ the life He has given me.”

~ Sally Clarkson







My Hubby

My Hubby
He's my bestest.

Piper

Piper
She is my compassionate, dramatic, fun to be around 6 year old. She loves to shop, get dressed up fancy and anything else that screams girly!

Taitum

Taitum
She is my goofy, snuggly 4 year old who loves to sing and dance and smile all day long!

Renly

Renly
She is our one year old smarty pants! She does all she can to keep up with her older sisters and to keep them in line!

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