It's Almost Halloween!

Even though winter is my favorite season, I LOVE fall.

October has just begun and we have already put up all of our Halloween decorations.

Our trusty dry erase board is now decked out in Halloween decor.

This picture hangs above Juan's desk. The image changes from an old fashioned looking man to a skeleton.

Our witch Susanne. She is a nasty looking! She has a sensor that makes her speak and turn her head when someone gets near her. We all hate her! Yet we keep her up for Halloween. We are weird.

Cookies for the kids (note to self- NEVER buy cookies from the Dollar Tree again! They were gross!)

Our door knocker

Hanging on the inside of our house (he glows in the dark)

Pumpkins at the door

Our scarecrow hanging off the map

Wall behind the table (note the new dry erase board!)

Another scarecrow holding fall colored leaves, sitting between the childrens workboxes

Even Jayden's baseball trophy is ready for Halloween, sporting a skeleton bracelet around his neck

The kids LOVE Halloween. They love all holidays, actually. But Halloween is the start of the holiday season so we are all excited. Hell, we look for any "holiday" to celebrate, just to decorate and have goodies!

Goodies include (but are not limited to) turning these apples into apple pie and using my small crockpot to make homemade hot cocoa.

Well actually, I send the apples downstairs to a lovely neighbor who changes them into this:

Yummy, right?

Note my school books on the side being neglected for this hot cocoa!

We will be trying some new pancakes this month!

Celebrate!

Big co-op!

I joined the kids at the "big co-op" where all of the children were making a contribution to "Kid City." Each child created typical places that you would normally see in a city (or the surrounding area!). There was a post office, a park, a beach, and even an apple tree! I didn't get to see everyone's project but the kids all had a lot of fun. I also didn't get many pictures and neither did May since we were both so busy.

Coloring a cutout Corinne from Weaving Ends made him. She is super creative!

 

Jayden's contribution to Kid City was a pizza store.

Cait made a candy store.

But she spent most of her time eating her snack.

Park

Jayden's pizza store with Corinne's apple tree and Hayzel's Post Office

The green tape on the floor represented streets.

Snack time!

Out of the mouths of babes!

As if I'm not crazy enough, we joined a weekly story time at our local library.

Miss Something or Other The librarian talked to the kids about friends, friendship, and what it all meant. She asked the children if they had friends. Cait raised her hand and said "Hayzel is my friend!" The librarian asked, "What makes him a good friend?" and Cait said, "Well, I don't know. He makes me 100 ANGRY! But he's still my friend!" (She thinks 100 is the biggest number there is). Everyone thought that was funny, except Jayden, who shook his head in embarrassment. He thinks little sisters can be embarrassing sometimes.

A little boy named Wyatt said he had a friend that had "a big tummy" which got a lot of laughs too.

The librarian read a couple of stories she selected about friendship.

She got the kids up and dancing to some songs that the kids insist we should do everyday (too bad I can't remember the lyrics!)

 Then she read a couple more stories.

Finally, she used a felt board with felt cutouts of fish and ocean plants and made up another friendship story. Hopefully the kids got the point: be a good friend or the bigger fish will eat you. Well, that was the point in the felt board story. 

After story time, we went to the childrens section of the library where Cait was ecstatic to find a rocking chair. She immediately plopped her teeny butt on it and announced, "Look mom, I'm a grandma!" I guess little sisters can be embarrassing sometimes..

Pizza Boxes and Worksheets

I know there was a reason I kept thinking I needed pizza boxes. It must have been craft related. I'm choosing not to look back at previous posts to remind myself though. For now, I'll let these faces be the reason we have "Pizza Day" every week! And yes, this is how they were dressed to go buy pizza!

"Mom, you're not supposed to see a superhero's face!"

Nom Nom Nom!

Math Quiz- Score 100%

Identifying squares

 Practicing her writing skills with the number 5

She wrote the letter "E" by herself

Jayden: top two worksheets are from the elementary Daily Notebook over at www.ConfessionsofaHomeschooler.com, bottom is a math worksheet on Fact Families from T4L.

Cait's worksheet from www.EducationCreations.com

This normally retails for over $7 and May found it at the Dollar General! It's a cool workbook. Read here about what it teaches!

Jayden's Fact Family worksheet

We are starting to work on telling time with analog clocks. Below is a paper plate clock we made together.I promised Caitlin a digital watch when she learns to tell time on a digital clock, and I promised Jayden and analog watch when he can read analog time. This has motivated each of them to work hard. Hopefully within a few weeks, each kids will be sporting a new watch!