I love homeschooling!!!!

This is one of the many reasons I love to homeschool my kids. After dinner tonight we were talking and planning our upcoming week. We are learning about apples so I want to do some cooking. I asked jaiden what he wanted to cook and he said apple candy. After a bit of conversation I figured out it was candy / Carmel apples so... We made some, tonight! We are making apple cinnamon oatmeal in the morning too! I love my life and I adore my kids! (notice the hand in the picture)
In love and light,
Stephanie

Garage sale day

I have been debating having a garage sale for about 6months now and I finally bit the bullet. Today was the culmination of a month of planning. So as we were getting ready for our sale, jaiden kept saying, "I want ..." or "I want ..." so I decided to give him an opportunity to earn his own money. I told him he could have his own snack sale. He figured out what he wanted to sell and I figured out the price. Then he made a sign! It was so well ... Cute! I knew he would get board or sleep in or all of the above but i think it was a great real life was to teach him about money (which we have been talking about lately). We also worked on coin recognition and adding /subtracting. He made about $10 but I think mast of that was Nanay buying whoopers.
The sale went well, the house is a bit emptier, and I have a little extra spending money so I can finally get my honeschool room set up! Jaiden plans on buying more legos with his new stash. Below is a picture of the 2 working their booth.
In love and light,
Stephanie

Fall nature class

As usual, this past thursday was "class" day the this week officially started our "fall" lessons so we decided to take a nature walk. We went to a local park that has a nice 1mile walking trail. I was so impressed that we held the kids attention. For almost an hour talking about birds, trees, bugs, plants, leaves and the like. Each kid had their own clipboards with a worksheet to make notes of what they saw. I also made a sheet with some of the common georgia trees and their leaf shapes. We all had a so much fun! Next week we are going to do a little apple science so that should be fun.
In love and light,
Stephanie

Apple picking

Last Saturday our group went on a little field trip to go apple picking. Truth be told we all got a groupon. ;) It was quite chilly when we got there but we still had an awesome time that included the apple cannon, the petting farm, the hay ride and finally apple picking. For the record, jaiden likes red apples and Lilli likes green. I think they ate their weight in apples before we left!
With the 1.5 hour drive up there, I decided to stop by Burt's Pumpkin Patch before heading home which was right down the street from the orchard. it's such a drive that I don't think we would do it twice in 1season... I think we were all about done by then but we did get a few pumpkins (and a few pictures). Needless to say they were both asleep within 5 min of getting back in the car. Great trip now I just need to figure out what to do with all of there apples!
In love and light,
Stephanie

Crazy busy week

It has been one crazy busy week and as I was planning out October, it doesn't look much better in the next few weeks. But the good news is we are having fun. This week we finished (or so I thought) jaidens "county fair" lapbook but when we went for show and tell on Thursday, I found a few more thinks I wanted to add. Maybe tomorrow but today we matched on. Today we went apple picking! Our group got a groups to go apple picking and today was the day. On the way up we talk a bit about apples but it was really the groundwork for the next few weeks. So there's not much"educational" in this post (not that there wasn't anything educational in the day but just not any new ideas) but there are some great pictures for the grands. I will post some pictures of the finished lapbook when it is done, or just close enough. ;)
It was a beautiful day to go to the mountains! On the way up it was 57 degrees and never got about 65 the whole day. We started with the apple cannon which was fun but for me, I wouldn't have paid extra just for that. We mover on tithe petting zoo which was great! Lots for the kids to pet and play with. After that we hit the hay ride so we could do the apple picking last. The ride was neat because we got to see to back part of the farm where they had the pumpkins and corn. After that we finally got to pick apples. The kids were awesome! I think they ate as much as they picked and that's a lot of apples. I bought an extra 20lb bag (a peck) so after the kids filled theirs, they helped me with mine. It was so beautiful up there and it was so nice to appreciate nature and all of the abundance there is really is. I will not soon forget that trip!
As if that wasn't enough, we decided to stop by the pumpkin patch too since it was right down the street. That was a quicker trip (even though it was really busy). Surprisingly the kids weren't very interested in picking out a pumpkin. They just wanted to play on the really big ones. We got a few they made the hour and a half trip home even though the kids don't remember that part. 5minuets in they were out. We came home and took a good hot shower and are now settelin' in to a nice warm bed. Life is awesome!

In love and light!
Stephanie

Fun at the big rock

This weekend, my aunt and uncle are in town. They are staying at Stone mountain park so it was a natural that we would go see the laser show tonight. I'm not sure who had more fun before the show, jaiden or Davie? Then during the show Lilli fell asleep on Davies lap! I should keep him around ;) tomorrow should be a quite day at home but we shall see.
In love and light,
Stephanie

Fair day

So today was the day we actually went to the county fair. We had so much fun! I will let the pictures do most of the talking but in review, both kids couldn't get enough of the rides, Lilli loved the cows, jaiden thought the vegetables were cool, Anna got her cotton candy and I got my funnel cake. Alyssa went with us which made our day even better and we saw lots of friends there too. The hit of the day however, was the bumper cars. On a homeschooling note, it was great to pull everything together for jaiden. We've been talking about it for 2weeks now so I think he understood the history and meaning a little better. well, here are a bunch of pictures to enjoy.
In love and light,
Stephanie

In case you are wondering, that is Lilli and Alyssa riding the dino ride. Can you tell who is having more fun? Next is jaiden on a ride then is a picture of Lilli petting a baby chick in the petting zoo. The rest are pretty self explanatory. I loved to cows because it looked like they were sharing secrets and the last one is jaiden and Martina on the bumper cars again. :)

County fair part 2

Today was "school" day and we were having so much fun I totally forgot to take pictures. We continued on our county fair theme and focused on math today. We talked about what rides are at the fair and how many tickets it would cost to ride each ride. Then we gave each kids some coins so they could really buy their tickets. After they bought the tickets, they glued them on a chart to show which rides they rode. It was great to see how each kids handled it differently.
After that we read a great John deer book about the fair. D (one of our moms) printed out mini book so the kids could color pictures of what is at the fair. We will put these in a lapbooks at some point. Then finally, they got to play while us moms talked.
This evening jaiden and I did a little more talking about tickets and money and we even did some skip counting. I did manage to take a picture of his finished chart as well as his completed leaf collage from yesterday. I'm sorry to the grands that there are no smiling faces but they wouldn't sit still long enough. :)
Tomorrow we will actually go to the real fair so that should be fun. Can you say funnel cake?
In love and light,
Stephanie

Busy day

So I didn't post anything yesterday but I'm going to make up for it today. Yesterday was a weird day but mostly very productive for me (meaning not so much for the kids...)
Anyways, we started out the day with yoga (more me that the kids but I think they will get it soon). After breakfast I knew I needed to get us all out of the house so we took a nature walk. I had told jaiden I wanted to do a craft today so I asked him what he wanted to do. He said something with glue so we decided on a leaf collage. On the walk we looked for all of the different colored leaves we could find even though there are not too many out yet. When we got home, he cut lots of little leaves out of paper (see below) then glued them down on another sheet. When that dried, he turned it over and glued down all of the real leaves we found on our walk. While all of this was happening, Lilli had her first playdough experience and loved it.
Then we went to the library. Jaiden was playing a new game called math blasters and he was very good. We haven't done any formal math yet and he got it. I was amazed. After we picked out some books we headed home for dinner. While I was making dinner, both kids thought it would be great to play in the yard with their flashlights. They were having so much fun we had to go back out after dark!
Anyways, they are both pooped! Tomorrow is "school" day so that's always fun.
In love and light!
Stephanie