...as happy as kings

Sunday, October 20, 2013

A a Apple

"Still Life with Apples" by Vincent Van Gogh

It was a fantastic week. We learned about apples and our words to remember were "If I stay in Jesus, I will bear much fruit".

I have to say, I really like our new workbox system. It has been a great help in keeping us together these last two weeks.

Learning the parts of an apple with this neat little Montessori activity

handwriting...

math...

Reading "10 Apples Up On Top" and counting as we stack along

Roll the die and put that number of playdough seeds on the core

Cutting and pasting apples onto a grid

Claire works on her cutting and pasting skills too

phonics...

crossing out those things that don't start with "a"

picture card activity

I still need to figure out what to do with Lucy during school since she is giving up her morning nap.

nature...

playing around anchor run farm on a beautiful fall day

service and handicrafts (cooking)...

We baked "A" shaped apple cookies

We made apple scones to mail to Aunt Alyssa and Uncle Chris. Nora helped spell out the note with alphabet stamps.

"poet tea"...

We started a new thing which we all love. After nap we have a tea time and read from our poetry books. I was doubtful that it would go over well but it was a huge hit! I think well continue to try to fit it in a couple times a week. There's just something so wonderful about tea and poetry in the middle of a fall day.

sensory play...

Mini-Mommy gets Lucy ready to go outside

They made fall sensory jars

Jumping

reading...

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
A Tree is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla
Apples by Ken Robbins
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
The Season's of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons
Apples by Gail Gibbons
Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elixabeth Wallace
The Life Cycle of an Apple by Ruth Thomson
Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story by Anna Egan Smucker
How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro
Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie by Herman Parish
Apples A to Z by Margaret McNamara
Little Apple Goat by Caroline Jayne Church
Tree (Eyewitmess Books Series)
Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington
The Apple Head Doll by Elisa Kleven
A Picture of God: 3 in 1 by Joanne Marxhausen
The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall
Apple Trees by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Ten Apples Up On Top by Theo LeSieg
Johnny Appleseed by David Harrison
The Story of Johnny Appleseed by Aliki
Johnny Appleseed by Reeve Lindbergh
Poetry for Young People by Robert Frost
Poetrees by Douglas Florian

We had a visit from Nanny and Poppop Mikey who brought us a full dinner along with apple donughts and cider from Styers Orchard. Such a wonderful treat to see them and enjoy a night off of cooking. We also got to visit with Poppi and Mimi - we are so blessed to have our family near by!

There was so much in this unit that I wanted to get to and just didn't: making an apple head doll, apple sequence color and cut sheet, life cycle of apple cards, apple graph and taste testing, montessori nomenclature cards and a ton of apple ideas from here and here.

Here are some videos we enjoyed to go along with our themes:

And then the weekend....Camping at French Creek State Park with 3 other families...

This is what they did while I was busy packing for our camping trip. Nora is paper clipping my socks together while Claire supervises from the drawer. They also did other delightful things that day like dump the contents of the trash can into the toilet (thank you, Lucy) and remove the stuffing from the couch, but I didn't capture those moments. :)

Packing up the car to go

Waking up in the tent

I love this picture

Getting warm around the morning campfire

All the kids from left to right - Pippa, Payton, Romalie, Nico, Elianna, Beatrix, Nora, Janaya, Juniper, Liliana, Lincoln, Simeon, Claire, Coraline, Lucy (and Hunter and Myla are not pictured)

We had the best time. I absolutely adore these three families and it was just great to be able to camp with them. I'm already looking forward to a repeat in the spring!

Sunday, October 13, 2013

"A" is for "ADHD"

This week was supposed to be all about "A a Apple". Instead I spent the better part of it engaged in a battle with the bad parts of ADD or bipolar or whatever you want to call what I struggle with.

It's a cycle that progresses the same way every time. And every time I am surprised when I get to the end of it. It starts with me being really on top of things and excited about life with a rush of ideas and a ton of energy to accomplish them. I'm so excited about these ideas, in fact, that after a while I start to neglect the more mundane tasks that keep family life going, because really, what could be more important that spending an entire day cutting out felt leaves?

That's what I did on Monday and everything was downhill from there. I lost all my drive and energy. For the rest of the week, every room in the house stood in various degrees of hurricane:

From time to time I would manage to work up the gumption to set a timer and focus my efforts on cleaning up for 20 minutes. It was a small victory. But then I would again neglect to stay on top of things and by the end of the day we would be back to living in chaos. I just cannot function in disorder. I would be totally overwhelmed and unmotivated to clean up, so I would just head to bed and wake up to a compounded mess.

During this point of the cycle, if I can manage not to wallow in despair, I usually become very reflective and experience insights into things that I want to change which eventually ends up exciting me enough to motivate me to rise up and get back on top of things. The cycle continues somewhat normally for a while and I stick to a schedule. A very regulated sleep, exercise and eating schedule helps immensely.

Thank goodness I married an "Aspie". Our personalities and the things with which we struggle are pretty much opposite... My hero. I have to say it... He completes me. Awww. Well, someone's gotta keep this Shockey show running!

Here are the pictures of the week:

We did some activities with the felt leaves involving matching, ordering, counting, colors, shapes, etc. Not quite worth the hours that it took (I made a lot more than what is shown here) but fun nonetheless.

We had dinner with Mika and Granddad. We took this picture for Ellie Surgener who is our dolly benefactress. Thanks for passing your treasured doll collection down to the Shockey grand kids, Mrs. Surgerner! We love Manny Moe, Jack and Suzy.

We went to visit Katie. I do love that girl. I just had to take a picture of some of her Halloween decorations. How can I not want to be all creative when I have friends who set up Gothic still life in the door way?!

We snuggled a lot. I think the kids really like when I am like this. It is the only time I sit still!

Hobbit

Visiting Mommom and Poppop - a ride on the "swirly chair"

I finally got up the energy to do something fun and set up an apple pie bake shop. I got the idea here.

It didn't take her long to start painting herself with apple butter

Playing in the mud pit turned homemade creek

Sunday, October 6, 2013

L l Leaf

Van Gogh's Mulberry Tree

Leaves are the theme of the week and the words to remember are "I will live and grow in Jesus". We're going to need to extend this into next week because there are so many wonderful activities to do and we were just too busy to get everything in. Next week is A a Apple with the words "If I stay in Jesus I will bear much fruit" so the two themes mesh together easily.

Monday was our only "school day"...

We worked on handwriting - Thank goodness for the easiest letter to write. Nora has mastered Ll!! And neither of us cried! (I might try to do handwriting stations next week to make the process more fun. (Thanks for pinning such brilliant stuff, Rachel!)
In math we are working on patterns.
We did a picture study of Van Gogh's Mulberry Tree
We went outside and picked a leaf from a plant. We observed it shriveling all week and we talked about the analogy of that leaf and our need to "live and grow in Jesus". We read Psalm 1:1-3, Jeremiah 17:7-8 and 1 John 5:12.
We read lots of books about leaves. There are so many great ones. I'll put a book list at the end in case someone can find it useful.
We went for a leaf walk and collected lots of leaves to use for various activities that we'll get to next week (hopefully).

Leaf gathering is hard work. Claire takes a snooze in Nora's lap.

On Tuesday most of the girls from my MOPS table plus my 2 neighbors came for a Messy Party in our backyard - 8 moms and 17 kids. We had a blast! There were a bunch of messy stations with each one representing the 6 days of creation. The kids played so nicely together and the moms actually got to talk. I would have messy parties every week if people would come!

Day 2 Station - exploring water, ice and shaving cream
I don't have a photo for Day 1, mostly because it got eaten before I could get to it. It was finger painting with vanilla and chocolate pudding (for the light and the darkness)

Day 3 Station - making concoctions with beans, seeds, grass, dirt, etc.

Day 4 Station - making a mural of the night sky (and other things)

Day 5 Station - painting fish and birds. (Also a vat of blue jello with floating fish for the babies)

Day 6 Station - playing with animals in dirt and making mud men.
I was surprised that this wasn't more of a hit. If I was a kid I would have jumped right in.
I've always loved a good mud pit.

Ball Pit

Baby Blanket - with a basket of creation bean bags, squishy bags and discovery bottles.
See the triplets? So cute!

Lunch Time

The sand box got a lot of use. The chickens are looking on in the background.

Wednesday was library day...

The girls made masks

By Thursday, everyone (except Daddy who never gets sick) had colds so we took the opportunity to veg and watch movies until an evening birthday party for our sweet neighbor and playmate, Louis, who turned 2.

On Friday we had the great treat of getting together with my best friends from college - Phil and Amy and their three boys. They moved to Indiana years ago so our visits are few and far between. Our times together are always good and thought-provoking. By the way, if you want to hear some great, new music for the church, check out Phil's church's project: Clearnote Songbook. They are doing amazing work there. When we were helping with the contemporary service at our church we introduced two of their songs and loved them. We often listen around the house by clicking the "play audio" button in the upper right hand corner. Nora loves to sing along.

On Saturday we had two birthday parties before nap time! Hunter and the triplets were both turning one. I made discovery baskets for each family and I'm very happy with how they turned out. We had SO much fun. Apple picking at the Styers Orchard and Itsy Bitsy Spider were the themes. THEN at night we met up with Aunt Vicky and Hope and went to homecoming at Cairn University. We got to connect with a bunch of people we know and love and we had a blast on the free rides and bounce houses. The night ended with a great fireworks display. It's been a fantastic whirlwind. I'm thankful for the 7th day of rest!