Birthdays and keeping busy

We celebrated Leah's 5th birthday , I can't believe our little Leah is 5 it doesn't seem possible , she has been such a blessing , she is so sweet and loving and always smiling and makes me smile and laugh everyday .

she was waiting for Lily so we could start the party , we had her party at my moms house , everything takes place at grandma's house always :)

Job can never wait :)

found these post it note list on Pinterest that you can print out , thought I would try a to do list and a chore chart for the kids .

so glad that spring is here , I am trying to declutter and reorganize and hopefully will be done with spring cleaning soon , you know me I love spending most of my time outdoors when the weather is nice , which is why I like getting spring cleaning over with ASAP .

seen a bookcase on pinterest that I liked , this is just some of it , it actually has a bookcase on each end and then a seat in the middle so the kids can put their shoes underneath , and probably their shoes will never end up there but when its finished I am going to put the kids a poster in the center above the seat .

we just finished reading this for read aloud , I have to admit I shed some tears at the end of this book ok don't laugh I am sensitive sometimes and these kids books can make you cry .

These are some pictures I took of the kids before church last Sunday

Riley is getting so tall .

I love Leah's look in this one , and her and Job holding hands , its so sweet when Job tells Leah he loves her

this was when we got back from church , Job put his hat back on and had chocolate on his face

we have started decorating for Easter , here we are making shaving cream eggs , if you don't know about shaving cream art , check it out on pinterest its really fun for all ages even little ones .

Job can't wait until Noah is big enough to play tractors with him .

a kind family gave Job a brand new suit for Christmas , I took him last Wednesday and had his picture made at Jcpenney  I realized it has been a long time since the kids has had prof. pictures made , they have changed so much that I decided to take one of them each month until they can each get their picture made , I am not buying to many pictures because my brother is going to do outdoor pics for us this year .

1st Grade Read Aloud Review

I always make our book list so long that we never get around to reading them all , which is why I continue with our read alouds over the summer and into the next school year , but I try to review on here to help others , I get a lot of my book info from other blogs and websites like Sonlight , I order some things from them every year , I'm only going to list our favorite's , so here's the list 
1. Henry Huggins - 

2. The year of Miss Agnes - This was a good book we hope to continue with Miss Agnes and the ginger tom next year and hope it is good to . 

3. Homer Price - Riley loved this book , it was so funny , it made us laugh out loud . will continue this one next year to with Centerburg tales . 

4. Mountain Born - Another good book and next year we will cont. with a place for Peter .  

5. Understood Betsy - We loved this one so much that we will be reading it again , if you have a kindle you can get this book for .99 cents , we have a kindle that we use for a lot of our books for school , because Amazon is so much cheaper on books and our libraries don't have a lot of the books we need .

6. Owls in the family - This was another one that Riley liked and plus we love owls , she wants to read this one again .

7. No children No pets - This book was fun to read , and a good ending , I had trouble finding this book and had to order it from Sonlight .

8. Little house on the prairie - we love little house .

9. Life with Lily - The adventures of Lily Lapp , we all loved this book , when you start reading this book you really don't want to put it down and when you do you can't wait to start reading it again , it's hard to find good children's books anymore , these books are instant classics .      

10. The children of Noisy Village -  we didn't even know about these books until I found it on a blog post , we really loved this book to and just couldn't wait to read it everyday , we can't wait to read happy times in Noisy Village next year .

11. Arty's tough trail - we really loved this book and I didn't realize that this was a series and in a certain order and this was not the first book but next year we are going to read the first one . 

12. The Hundred Dresses -   

13. The Kings Daughter - we are reading this one over the summer and you can get it for kindle for free - 

        

Our First 2 Weeks Of School

We just finished up our second week of school , I guess its true that each year gets easier , we are so glad to be back on our school schedule , not that I have ever been able to keep a schedule yet but I never stop trying , I think this year will be easier than last because we both know what is expected of us.
So far we are enjoying Galloping the Globe , we have spent the first 2 weeks just studying the world , we read how to make an apple pie and see the world , did apple art and made an apple pie .  

we cut an apple in half and dipped it in paint and used markers for the stems and leaves .

 

look who got the big cone this year !

Reading Review

For reading we use teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons , I started this with Riley a year before kindergarten and we got half way through it and she just wasn't getting it , so I knew she was not ready and we just stopped , so a couple weeks before we started school last year we started over and took our time and she finally got it , I am amazed at how well that she can read now , I didn't keep up with everything she read but over the year she read 26 little books like bob books and over 15 my first readers . Some of her favorite books she read -
Mud!
Found and Apple 
llama llama red pajama 
Biscuit 
Good night moon 
busy Dinah dinosaur 
Peanut and Pearls picnic adventure .

Here is a list of some of our favorite Read Alouds we did last year - 
In grandma's attic - we loved this book and will continue with the rest of this series this year .
Little house in the big woods and Farmer boy - we will continue with this series as well .
prairie friends
Twenty and Ten
A grain of rice
Here's a Penny - we liked this except the chapter about Halloween , but you could skip it . 
Mary on horseback 
My fathers dragon - Riley liked this book so much I had to buy it for her , kind of a silly book but I guess that's what kids like 
Charlotte's web 
The Boxcar Children .

History/Math Review

Last year for math we used Horizons and we really loved it , so we are going to use it again next year . I didn't like the history I picked last year and Riley was not at all interested , so this year I am going with Galloping the globe , I have heard so many good things about it and I hope it will help Riley love history a little more .

 

additional books I bought to go with the curriculum .