A Cookie Cutter Diva's Life

We finished up learning about the letter I yesterday with some tracing and coloring of the letter I for preschool. Brooklyn finished up week reading some more about Hinduism, learning about harmful and non harmful animals, and read Mercy Watson.

For scripture this week the girls read Matthew Chapters 2-4.



For art yesterday the girls wanted to paint bird houses! And then for Parent's Night Out at my house we started getting ready for Thanksgiving and did finger print turkeys! I love to watch how different each kids is when they are done!

I made potato soup tonight for dinner since my husband was gone for a wrestling tournament and he's not to big on soup.
6 regular potatoes diced
2 cans chicken broth
1 cup sour cream
2 cups milk
1tsp onion salt
Salt
Pepper
Shredded cheese
I cooked the first two ingredients in the crock pot on low for 4-5hrs. The last half hour I added the remaining ingredients except for the cheese. salt to pepper to taste! Topped with cheese before serving!
It turned out pretty good but I think I would like it a bit creamier!

Day two was a good day! We read a few Mother Goose poems for part of reading and Brooklyn chose her favorite Mother Goose Poem to draw a picture about! Rain Rain Go Away!

Of course one of the best ones was reading about the two sisters arguing since the two sisters here have been doing a lot of that the last few days haha
Some of our fun games we got to play to practice our short and long vowel sounds for phonics..
http://www.starfall.com/n/matching/short-vowels/load.htm?f
http://professorgarfield.org/phonics/mixmatch/mixmatch.html


She got to play a few new math games as part of math on top of her text book work! A few of the games we played.. Practicing Basic Addition and Subtraction
http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/games/mission/mission.html
Practice some fractions with this game
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/cross_the_river/
But her favorite was the Fruit Fall to practice graphing!
http://www.toytheater.com/fruit-fall.php


As Part of History we have been studying Asian Civilization and she studied about Buddah and Hiduism. We talked about the difference in the religions and she got to decorate her own Mandalla! She loved that because she loves to draw and decorate!


We took a breather and stretched out during the day with some fun Animal Yoga! Practicing different moves and pretending to be different animals! I got reminded today that we forgot to do yoga haha

For Science we learned about cells and examined the skin cells under a microscope and magnifying glass!

My youngest has been working on the Letter I! She had fun cutting out ice cream for the letter I and working on her motor skills by cutting and gluing!


She learned the letter I song and has been singing it every since!

Lyrics to "The Ice Cream Man"


(tune of "The Muffin Man")
Do you know the ice cream man,
the ice cream man,
the ice cream man?
Do you know the ice cream man
who likes to sing with me?
Oh, he loves the letter I,
the letter I,
the letter I,
Oh, he loves the letter I
and likes to sing with me.



Practiced tracing the Letter I, and playing some fun Letter I games
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/letter-i/load.htm?f

Just a few fun things from our last 2 days!

Ingredients
1 (15 ounce) cans chili beans in spicy sauce
2 (15 ounce) can dark red kidney beans
1 (15 ounce) can black beans
1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (16 ounce) jar hot salsa
1 can corn
1/8 cup red pepper flakes
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
2 pounds ground beef
Directions
In a large pot over medium heat, drain and add to crock pot.
Combine all remaining ingredients to the crock pot and cook on low for 3-4hrs

There are so many different ways to make Baked Ziti and I've tried experimenting with a few recipes to see which one I liked best and tweaked it a bit to my taste as well! Me and 3 of the kids absolutely love love this recipe but unfortunately my husband and one of my sons are NOT a fan of baked ziti at all and even more so because I stuck sour cream in mine lol maybe we will try it eventually with out the sour cream!
Ingredients
1/2 pound ground beef
1 24oz Jar of Spaghetti Sauce
Sliced Swiss Cheese
Shredded Mozzarella cheese
One pack of ziti noodles
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Sour Cream
Heat oven to 350 and boil a pot of water while browning the ground beef. Sprinkle about 1tsp of garlic powder and 1tsp onion powder on beef. Drain ground beef and add jar of spaghetti sauce and cook on low.
Cook ziti noodles for 7 minutes.
Layer in a non stick dish with half ziti noodles, half sauce mix, 6 swiss cheese slices, other half of ziti noodles, 6 slices of swiss cheese, 16oz of sour cream, remaining sauce mix and then top with mozzarella cheese!
Bake uncovered for 30 minutes!

The first day back at home went rather well! We didn't have much trouble at all falling into the new routine but the fact we have homeschooled before I'm sure helped a ton for her knowing what to expect!
With that being said.. I don't know how the heck her teacher managed her in a classroom!!! I mean I live with her every day and I know how she can be with her ADHD but it's been a year and a half since I've homeschooled her and while I have the patients for it and can block out what she does and can cater to her needs to make things fun for her and not stressful and allow her to wiggle like she needs, get her back on track when she falls off track with distraction etc.. I can't imagine how she held up in a structured classroom!! I was reassured she did well last year by her teacher but her teacher was also her dance teacher and used to her and how to deal with her as well as very fun and believed in getting up and moving and doing yoga and things through out the day which I think helped her a great deal! If/when she returns to public school we may have some things to think about to get her to focus!
While I realize it is only day 1 and things are new and fresh the more I watched her light up like I haven't seen in awhile just really reassured me that I was doing the right thing for her! The way things are falling into place with it and her therapy and not having to go on a wait list and things just falling right where they should makes me know this is where God was leading me for my next step.

For Reading we read Horton Hatches An Egg today! I guess she hadn't heard this one yet but she is a huge fan of Dr Suess books so she was really excited to hear one of his books today!
We discussed the story and she drew a picture of what she read about! She absolutely loves to draw and could spend hours drawing pictures!

We learned about George Washington Carver and she had me laughing because she was filling out a report on him and having to fill in the verbs and she had to write "George Washington Carver was.." and she put "..was the president!" it was just to cute! I said wrong George Washington hunny! Of course daddy said well that made perfect sense it was close haha She was shocked there were so many different things you could do with peanuts!
We learned about music and what the very first music instruments in the world were! Nature! She got to do a remix of different nature sounds and was amazed at how much it really sounded like music and not just being outside!
I found she is still having a lot of problems with money which really concerns me and is something I really have not been thrilled with through common core at all in public school! The lack of teaching money anymore! Course I noticed some of this starting before common core too but common core just made it worse in my opinion! All of my children knew how to count money in kinder and I have practiced with her but I thought practicing was enough because I assumed it was being taught enough! Nope! I was wrong! So that is something we will focus more on and a little more on time. She does well on time but could use some help! She's over all very bright and does very well but it's good to find some of those weak points.
My youngest got to just have a fun day off today because she had a playmate over for the day so she really enjoyed that! Once we were done with school we headed off to the park to enjoy one of our last warm days before the cold front comes in!

New batch of laundry soap some tonight and it smells so good with the new bar of soap I got from a local lady who was a vendor at our fundraising event last weekend! http://macsudssoaps.com I love this super easy recipe for liquid laundry soap!
I grate 1/4 a bar of my favorite soap into a pot and add 4 cups hot water and heat until fully dissolved!
I fill up a 5 gallon bucket half way full of hot water, then add the melted soap mixture to it and stir.
Then add 1 cup borax and 1 cup washing soda and stir again.
Lastly fill the remainder of the bucket with warm water and let set over night!
Love it! Less than $2 for 5 gallons of soap that's all natural and allergy friendly! Can't beat that!