Curriculum choices for 2012-13

I usually have at least a couple of posts dedicated to my curriculum choices for the following year. I typically change a couple of things when it gets closer to the start of the next school year, but this is what I have picked so far.

Isaac, Third Grade

Language Arts (Language, Spelling and Penmanship (cursive)
A Beka




Bible (in addition to AWANA)
Christian Light


Math
Teaching Textbooks


World Geography
Expedition Earth


Science
Creation or Evolution? by Mission Imperative


**Various online unit studies on subjects of interest

Graham, Pre-K

Still thinking about this one, but considering "All about Reading"


And "Before Five in a Row"


I have decided one of my favorite parts of Spring is narrowing down curriculum choices for next year!

Fun with watercolors

Today Graham wanted to paint with watercolors. I had some stuff I needed to get done, so I set him loose with some paper and paint.
A few moments later, he comes and finds me to proudly present to me his watercolor he says is called "Even the wind and waves obey Him." At this point, my mama heart is bursting with pride because it shows me he is listening, REALLY listening, to those Bible verses he is memorizing for AWANA!

A few minutes later, he shows me this picture entitled "Church." He proceeds to point out the pews he and his brothers are sitting in and the band at the front of the church. (So far, so good, right?) Then, he points out the spaceship off to the side and the long, long line of people waiting to get into the spaceship at church.
Ummmm, OK.

No, we are not part of the "Heaven's Gate" denomination, I promise.

Sihouettes

As our last Pioneer project before we hit the states of the Southwest United States, we did silouettes this morning. I have seen tutorials on several different websites on doing this the old-fashioned way, and they never tell you how hard it is. Trying to get a four year old to sit still enough to trace his shadow on the wall is challenging to the say the least. Nevertheless, this is what our "finished product" looked like. Sad, I know.


Because I want to do this totally awesome silhouette necklace for myself from The Nester

I decided to engage the help of good, old-fashioned technology in the way of Photoshop.
Here are the new and improved silhouettes that will be hanging around my neck (haven't done baby's yet).
Graham

Isaac

Making Butter (and other cool stuff we're doing)

We are in the midwest for our US Geography studies, and we have been learning all about pioneer life.
One of the things I thought it would be neat for the boys to do is to make butter! Well, I first tried it with buttermilk (read this on a website that I wouldn't recommend). As all of YOU probably know (and I did not), buttermilk is the product you get AFTER making butter from cream. Duh. No wonder we shook and we shook and we shook, and nothing seemed to be happening. Pioneer woman I am not. We finally got some good old fashioned whipping cream, which we shook...

and shook...

A few minutes later we had this!

Beautiful, beautiful butter. Mmmmmmm.

Our geography studies also took us to Ohio, birthplace of Neil Armstrong. We studied the moon's phases for a few days, and made this moon mobile for the boys' rooms.

For Five in a Row, we read "How to make an Apple Pie and See the World."

The story follows a girl around the world as she gets all the ingredients she needs to make an apple pie. She travels to Jamaica on a Banana boat where she says, "You can pick up some salt. Fill a jar with salty seawater...evaporate the seawater from the salt..." So we did! We mixed 1/4 cup of salt into water and let it sit in a pan for a few days. Then, we had this!