Good Times

Last night Ben gave Sonora and Nate a guitar lesson.  It was Sonora's first.

Sonora's First Lesson

We had an unexpected visitor this afternoon.  Judah was SO pleased.  Later this afternoon Judah's Bible Verse said "A friend loves at all times."

Working hard

Almost got it!

Later on this afternoon I played Dog Lotto with Judah.  I told him to say BINGO after he covered his board.  Every time I would hand him a new card he said something new.  The first time it was "Bingo!"  Then, "BingDing!"  And Finally, he said "DingDong!" when he got the last one.  Harper and I laughed and laughed.

Yikes!

Good times.

The House Fairy

Guess who visited our house tonight?

THE HOUSE FAIRY!

If you have not heard of this lovely lady, she is the neatest invention since air conditioning! She visits your child's room once a week to inspect the room's cleanliness. If she likes what she sees, she leaves a small gift, if she doesn't, she just leaves fairy dust. She also generally leaves a note of some kind for the kids to enjoy. You never know when she will visit, so you ALWAYS have to be ready. My girls LOVE HER. She is a friend of The Flylady. You can find ALL about her HERE.

Here is what happened when she visited us this evening:

The girls were out shopping with their grandparents, so I think that The House Fairy seized the opportunity to check out their room.

Their eyes lit up when they realized that she had been in their room!


We saw evidence (fairy dust) of her entry at the window. This confirmed for us that The House Fairy DOES indeed have wings.


She must love tea, because she had a cup and then washed her own dishes...


She left a picture of herself for the girls, with a message for them...


The girls had a clean room, so they received a gift from her!


I have to say, I am just as excited as these two little girls! I got to enjoy their clean room, and I didn't remind them even ONCE this week to clean it!

If I could only get the boys on board...

My Apologies

As I was sitting down to listen to H~ read today, she apologized...

"Mama, I'm sorry that I used to whine about phonics. I'm sorry that I used to say 'I don't want to do that'. I'm sorry that I used to cry and get sent to my room. I'm glad that I'm learning how to read, or how could I grow up and read to my children?"

I thought it was pretty sweet. Sweet especially, because she REALLY did whine about phonics. A LOT

It was a nice surprise.

Now, to push through our last 35 days!!

Geography Fair

Oh how I wish that I would have taken our camera to the geography fair last month! A d'oh moment for sure! Ah well, we did take pictures beforehand...

Our finished board. Each of the region pockets held a state lapbook for each state in that region.


Here is the front of Oklahoma. We happened to have extra stickers for OK. We didn't use all the stickers on every book.


The inside is a map. The kids labeled rivers, mountains, and other important geological features.



The back page contains information that we gathered for that state.


The state birds/flowers worksheets I got ~HERE~
The state maps that I used, I got ~HERE~
I made up the back page worksheet myself. I've uploaded it to Homeschool Launch. Homeschool Launch is AWESOME! There is a link in my sidebar. It takes 30 seconds to upload things you make to share with others, so PLEASE SHARE! No sense in re-inventing the worksheet:)

We taught the kids the state capitals using this book:

It uses cute pictures to help them remember the state and capital. For instance, on the cover is an Ark Can Saw a Little Rock. Little Rock, Arkansas! Great way to remember!

At the actual geography fair we had a booth in which we passed out apple pie and cracker jacks. H~ also sang with her kindergarten class in front of the group. It was sweet...again, regret for no camera...

This project was actually our entire year's worth of geography for N~, Q~, & H~, culminating in the fair itself. However, from this picture you can see who helped quite a bit!