Day 143: Making a Cake

One of my favorite memories of summers with my aunt are baking lots of cakes and being allowed to lick the batter. Of course, back in the day, nobody worried about us eating the batter full of raw eggs and such. So today, the girls got to help their grandma making a cake. She had baked it last night, so the only thing left was making the frosting and decorate the cake with it. Of course, if you can't eat the batter, you've got to try the frosting.
Munchkin liked it but she said it was too sweet. Now the frosting on the cake was only half as sweet as she thought, but she sure enjoyed stirring that mixer around and around making the pink frosting that she had requested. I love making memories for them.

Day 131: Clean Girl

Trapped inside the house for most of the day, because they were quarantined for at last 24 hours, we were antsy to get some sunshine in the late afternoon. The big kids did lots of chalk pictures, hop scotches, and other games. My little Munchkin preferred to clean, including the chalk drawings of her siblings. She is a girl after Mami's heart.

Day 129: Buttons Buttons Buttons

Munchkin loves to be independent - sometimes. Lately, she has taken to dressing herself. The pants are pretty easy - two legs and put them in the holes provided, not a big deal. Now the shirts are a bit trickier but with a little help, she can manage those, too.

Her newest 'trick' are the buttons from her button pajamas. She has been practicing for a few days, but tonight, tonight she did all those buttons by herself! I won't tell you how long (!) it took her to get there. But I have to tell ya..... this girl has determination. She buttoned and buttoned, and when she realized it was wrong, she undid it and tried again, until it was all the right way.

Proud Mami.

Day 127: Summer Reading

For the summer, Coqui has to read for at least half an hour every day. For Peanut, I told her to pick one of those Number One books and we would be working on getting her to read. So far, she's been quite rejecting the idea of reading independently, even though she can...... Let's see how successful we will be when these stories are words that interest her.

After Peanut got to read her book out, Munchkin grabbed it and pretended to read, too.

Day 126: Mami's sick day and Munchkin on the Balance Bike

I feel awful, so I went to the doctor this morning. The diagnosis is, to no surprise: strep. So I am on antibiotics. Due to this, I've been in bed for two days straight and I really hope I feel better by tomorrow.

So I am going back to a picture from a few days ago. After many tries, Munchkin finally can do the balance bike. This is the same bike that my parents brought over many years ago for Coqui. All the kids learned to balance ride on this. I am excited that she can finally reach it. She was a little wobbly at first, and scared, so I had to hold her the entire time. But I know before long, she will fly down the street by herself.

Day 120: Water Balloon Fight

We met some friends at the park today. It was a hot day, so the kids enjoyed a water balloon fight. Usually, this excites my son greatly, but the girls are too shy or too timid to get in with the big kids. Not today! The girls kept going at it. When the kids ran out of the pre-filled balloons, they went into the bathroom and started filling the empty ones. What I love most of it is that the bigger girls helped my little girls with the filling. I love that homeschooling teaches the kids to rely on other kids of any age, and that they don't focus so much on peers, or what school tells them their age group is. Great experience.

Day 116: Tic Tac Toe

The Hubby was off today, so we went out for lunch to one of our favorite spots. Of course, as part of the American tradition, the kids get a kids menu that includes coloring pages and other activities. The two big kids usually get to work right away and don't need any help. But little Munchkin still wants help or color together. So I decided to teach her to play tic tac toe. She made all the crosses and I had the circles. Not only did she do a good job with the crosses, but she also beat me the second time! Kids are so much smarter than we think.....

Day 115: Writing the Letters of the Alphabet

While the two big kids get to go to PE class, Munchkin has to hang out with me. For the last five months, this has become her one-hour-of-playing-on-my-phone-time. We believe that technology has its place but we don't let it rule our live, so we are limiting our kids very much on any screen time. This hour is a treasured time for her as she only gets it once a week. (and I am not sure what she will do once PE class is over for the school year)

There are a few apps that I let her play on my old phone, mostly those are puzzles, but lately she has preferred to play letter writing games. Some let you trace, but the lines show up automatically. This one (it is called ABC Tracing) is a bit harder as the lines show as SHE is writing them, crooked and not straight at all. It was her first try today, and I think she did really well. (Proud Mami speaking here)

Now I have looked for the ABC Tracing app and I can't find it anymore - I wonder if they took it off. BUT before you sigh, there are a ton of other tracing apps that are equally good. Alphabet Tracing is free and works the same way. Little Writer cost two dollars, but is just another great app. iTrace uses both techniques, teaching connecting dots to create letters and free writing. Those are just a few, there are many more. 

Day 113: My Munchkin

We were stuck in the house for most of the day, had some friends over for diversity, but we needed to get out once Daddy was home from work. We did get a lot of school work done today. But most of it was sitting still at a table with books and workbooks. So after dinner, we went out for ice cream. This little girl grows up way too fast. I want to make time stand still. She is funny and silly, and yet so gentle and loving.

Once the sugar rush kicked in, we let them run around for a little while to get the energy out.

Day 108: Blowing Bubbles

I can't believe that she is almost three and she had never blown bubbles before. We usually don't have bubbles around the house - it's just one of those kids things that I am not a fan of, so I don't have it. Now she has seen them and I believe in her Sunday class, the teacher sometimes blows bubbles, but I don't think the kids get to do it.

So we had to practice quite a bit before she got the hang of it. But once she did, she was doing just this nonstop for a long time. The girls even had a contest. What fun times with friends.

Day 96: Blessings from Friends

This morning, I spoke at our Women's ministry meeting. I am not a born public speaker, but God had put this one theme on my heart that I wanted to share with my ladies at church. So I needed to overcome that fear of speaking in front of a group for the sake of a message that needed to be heard. My teaching was on Intentional Friendships. God wants us to be in relationships with the people around us. We need to learn to trust and rely on friends, as they can enrich our lives so tremendously. Friends can broaden our horizon, they can give us love, respect, and acceptance, but they also can lend us a helping hand when we are in need of practical help. Most of all, they can counsel us as only those iron-sharpens-iron-friends can do, in speaking the truth with love and grace, so that we can grow in our faith. Our diverse friends compliment us, as God created us all as individuals, so we need to embrace our differences. It was a good speech and I think I made a few ladies think.

I loved that I had a special guest, too. It made it more meaningful. And I felt supported by her. Thank you for being there. Forgiveness is a great healer and I love that I was able to learn to forgive and to be forgiven. God is so good. And I am excited for the future.
And the kids didn't mind going to church either, as they got to play with their friends. Here is Munchkin having fun instead of crying (going to church is not her favorite thing of the week).

Day 90: Going to church

The kids really dressed up for church today. Their aunt and uncle came with us, too. So it made for a very nice family outing. My two oldest really love going to our church, they love their classes, their friends, and their teachers. (I am one of them, ;-).)

It was an awesome morning, here is why. My Munchkin doesn't like to go to church. Yep, she doesn't like to go to her class. We can not figure out why because she used to like it, and she loves to go to our bible club class. So Sunday mornings are crazy. First we need to make it to church, and then we have a toddler who cries the moment we turn the corner of the church. We had gotten so good that she didn't cry until we stood in front of her room.

Well, today was different. Maybe she decided to become a big girl. But she refused to hold my hand crossing the parking lot. Then she marched right up to her room and went in. She did turn around and looked at me, not sure for a moment, but then she went right on playing. Wow. This was huge! We were so happy. It made going to church a lot less stressful on us. Yeah, for our big girl.

Day 88: Harvesting Strawberries

Thank goodness, it's Friday. Our weeks are quite busy again, which is a blessing, but it is also tiring. So by the end of the week, I am glad that we are only doing school for four days a week. Today, we went to a local farm to pick strawberries. It was already the end of the season, so our harvest was not great, but the kids still had fun chasing the good berries with their friends. They kept at it for about an hour and a half, which I think is great for their ages. We got two big boxes full to take home and eat. Yummy.

I was especially happy that my Munchkin left the Ergo to help harvest. Unfortunately, it was a short harvesting fun for her as she fell into the mud. She was covered from toe to shoulders - I was so thankful that her hands and hair had not gotten any of the mud. So I needed to bring her to the car, trying to take all her clothes off without getting it into her hair. I had just put a second shirt into her bag in the morning, so at least she was clothed on the top, but unfortunately, the bottom stayed quite 'naked'. So I had to put her back into the Ergo, carry her around for the rest of the field trip and to lunch, which we shared with our friends as well. She is a trooper.

Day 87: Young Photographer

At PE class, the kids got to play with this huge parachute today. They had so much fun and came back quite sweaty, which means they also got a good workout. When I went into the gym to take a picture, I was followed by my little munchkin. She just copied me shooting a picture with her phone. She is such a silly cutie.

Day 38: How to keep the toddler busy during school time

I would lie if I tell you that homeschooling is easy when you have a toddler in the house. I mean to have one of those is hard enough, but trying to get some teaching done is hard. For a while, we did school while she was sleeping. That worked great. But the older two are getting older and their work load becomes bigger. And this little cutie from the picture above doesn't always take a nap.

So we had to get creative. Sometimes it works to send her to a different room to play by herself, usually that is for a short time only. Mostly, she wants to be where we are. So coloring has helped a ton, especially if I tell her that she is doing school like the big kids. And then we have those toys that only come out doing school time! Here she sits with her Threading animals. And while she sits there, she listens and she learns. It amazes me what she knows already.

So if you ever wonder how to keep the toddler out of the siblings' Math book, try a 'new' toy, a toy that hasn't been seen for a while. They get so exciting about 'finding' it. I have heard people use a blanket with those special toys. Toddlers can be trained to stay on the blanket for a period of time and entertain themselves. Really, all they want is feeling like a part of the family, of school.

Day 23: Derby Time

Tonight, it was Derby Time. We are attending a club where the kids learn bible verses in order to earn rewards and awards. It is hard work all school year long. So once a year, this club puts up a derby race for the kids just to have some fun. It takes some time to build these cars, paint them, decorate them, and then weigh them in. This was our third year and the kids had a blast.

All three kids built their own car and ran it in different categories. And for the first time, we had a winner tonight. My Munchkin won second place in speed! Yeah. She was already so excited about racing her car, but when she won a trophy, she was ecstatic. Now she lays crashed in her bed - too much victory for one day.

Day 20: Home-bound happiness

It was a cold day here and we had nowhere to go, so we stayed in our PJs most of the day, and did school in the living room by the fire place. Daddy stayed home from work as well. It was a nice family day with lots of school - we like to take advantage of being home-bound for a day to get as much 'done' as possible, so we can have easier days when we are more busy.

Munchkin is getting better at staying busy, too. She loves to color and is getting pretty good at it. And I am hoping that whatever she hears us talk about will sink in a little, so when it is her time to go through the material, she might remember.
She also likes to do puzzles, play with Math counters, do those threading animals, or play with shapes. I keep those in the school room, so she usually only plays them during 'school time'. It makes it special and she is looking forward to it, keeping her occupied while I am doing one-on-one time with one of the older kids.

Day 18: Eating with chopsticks

As homeschoolers, we don't stop by teaching academics, we also teach life skills. Today, after spending some family quality at home, we went out to eat for dinner. We all love this Asian restaurant where they cook the food in front of you. Munchkin usually eats of mine or Daddy's plate, with her own fork. But today she insisted to try the chopsticks. Well, as you can see, without any practice whatsoever, she managed to eat her shrimp and corn. Only about three pieces fell on the floor, and only because she had to try feeding her siblings this way. What a goofy girl. And oh so talented.

Day 009: My smart Girl

Munchkin is getting so much better at entertaining herself when the two big kids do their school work. She has always loved those wooden shapes, but I had not yet introduced her to the pictures that come with the shapes. Today was the day that I needed something new for her, so I pulled them out, put them in front of her, and left it at that. Next time I turned around, she was completing the picture, without any instructions or anything. Yeah, sorry, I am sure you can tell that I am extremely proud of her. She is just so smart.

Day 004: Little Sister wearing the Crown

I was trying to figure out how to execute a 365 days shooting about homeschooling when we do not do school, technically, every day. But then again, we try to live the motto, that we DO learn something every day.

Here is Munchkin with her sister's Esther crown. Peanut had studied Queen Esther in her history lesson, and this crown was part of her craft. Sister sat right next to her and 'snatched' the crown away as it was completed. Whatever she heard and will retain in her little brain is awesome.