Happy Easter!

We started Easter a week early by coloring eggs.

Jack decided he wanted to do some "work" eggs. At our house, if something is camouflage, Jack uses the word "work" to describe it.

We had our Easter dinner at home last Sunday. You can tell I went all out on the table.

Last week we did some Easter crafts and decorated cookies.

We made this tomb look like rock by mixing paint, glue, and sand. We were pretty impressed with ourselves.

On Friday we had resurrection rolls for breakfast. I am not sure that mixing theology with cooking is a good idea in my house because my recipes don't always turn out exactly like they're supposed to. For instance, if the marshmallow is supposed to represent Jesus, are my children going to think that Mary arrived at the tomb to find Jesus obliterated just outside?

Easter morning--last year's loose dress was this year's tight one. Jack was a very good boy during church, but when it came time for Sunday school, he kept crying and trying to run away. Then the teacher brought a cute little girl to the door and he went off with her without giving me another glance.

We had lunch at Jay's parents' house and the kids had an egg hunt in the drizzly rain.

Rabbits

This week we rowed The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.

We also read several other books about rabbits as well as books with rabbit characters.

Tuesday night we even got to go to a presentation on rabbits at the library!

In Jack's notebook we completed several activities from the FIAR Fold and Learn as well as using the Evan Moor Giant Science Resource Book.

This article from an old issue of Your Big Backyard was great to use with the life cycle of a rabbit page from the Evan Moor book.

Jack also enjoyed the games on the Peter Rabbit website as well as watching the video on YouTube. His favorite thing of all, though, was getting to read Squirrel Nutkin from our big Beatrix Potter book. It still makes him wild!

Happy Birthday, Boris!

Yesterday was Boris's eighth birthday! (See here for the story behind his birthday celebrations.) During school, we read our new copy of If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. And chances are, if you read this to a four year old...

he'll want to make cupcakes for his cat!

Bobe didn't get cupcakes, but he did get some mandarin oranges, his favorite treat.

Jack's birthday message for Boris:

Happy Birthday, Bobe!
I always love you, except when you nibble.
I love it when you do those snuggles at night.
They're cute.
Signed,
Jack

Raising a Reader

Every parent has one deep fear about their child. They may worry that they can't provide for them, or that they won't be a good athlete, or that they'll run off and join the circus. My fear has always been that my child will not like to read. If he couldn't read for some reason, it would be okay, but if he didn't like to read? That's a completely different story.

As a classroom teacher, I encountered a few parents who bemoaned the fact that even though they had read to their child when they were little and they could read just fine, they still didn't like to read. I can't remember what I told them, most likely because any time I heard something like this, I would start to feel queasy and worry if this was something that was catching. It just got worse after I actually got pregnant.

As Jennie Nash writes in Raising a Reader,

"Reading is a particularly slippery passion to want to pass along because it's a skill that most parents would agree their children have to master, to one degree or another. It's part of the basic kid curriculum; so if you're pushing reading, you're not being a pushy parent, you're just doing your job."

But I'm trying to take it easy. And so far, it's working. Jack loves books and he loves words. And I'm trying to make him love meeting authors and illustrators. This morning we went to a book signing to meet Mike Wimmer and get his new book.

I got to sound like a big freaky stalker when I told Mike Wimmer about going to his house twelve years ago and how we had so many of his books. I'm pretty cool.

Hopefully Jack will continue to love books and reading, and I'm just hoping he's better at reading for detail than I am. Below: the bracelet I put on Jack when we arrived at the museum. Any guesses as to who was wearing the CHILD bracelet?

The Duchess Bakes a Cake

Our FIAR book this week was The Duchess Bakes a Cake, by Virginia Kahl. This is the story of a duchess who decides to bake a cake and keeps throwing in extra yeast to make sure it rises--and it does. It is written in rhyme, so Jack really enjoyed listening to it multiple times.

We used some of the same books that we used last year when we learned about knights and castles. We added a couple of new Good Knight books, which are some of Jack's favorites.

Thanks to the workbox system we've been using the last month (and that I really am going to post about at some point), we are doing more felt board activities. I made this one to go over alliteration.

Another change we've made recently is to put all of our things in a notebook instead of using file folders for individual lapbooks. It is easier for Jack to look back through the things he's done this way and for some reason I seem to get the items glued in more quickly than I do with a regular lapbook. Jack decorated the pages we did this week with some of the leftover stickers from our unit last year.

Some of the art lessons we did.

A few other items. I used the printables from HomeschoolShare.

We also baked our own cake from scratch. I originally had an idea to build some ornate kind of 3D castle cake. After a bit of thinking, I decided I would maybe just cut the cake into the shape of a castle and we would frost it and decorate it. Then I couldn't get the cake out of the pan, so I thought I would draw a castle with icing and we could go from there. I finally came to my senses and let Jack frost it (he got tired after doing a small section) and decorate it how he wanted to, which probably averted fits for both of us. We also made fancy "goblets" by gluing plastic jewels onto clear cups. He thought this was pretty cool.

We wrapped up our week with a trip to the Medieval Fair. He really enjoyed this last year and decided about a week ago that he was going to wear his knight costume.

As soon as we got there (which was after a really long walk from the parking area) he found someone to challenge to a fight. Yes, that's our stroller you see there. Thankfully I was smart enough to realize that at seven months pregnant I did not want to carry a tired four year old or even the belongings of a tired four year old. I did have to do some heavy lifting to help him get out, though, because his legs are much longer than the last time we used it--which was October of 2007 if the magazine I found in the basket is to be believed.

Showing off his new hat.

We listened to these musicians while Jack ate his sno cone.

Later, we watched jousting...

...and sword fighting while Jack ate a giant corn dog. It's a good thing I passed my glucose test, or I would have had to feel bad about the funnel cake and Dr. Pepper I had for lunch. You just can't beat that olde medieval foode.

Of course, Jack found dogs. He always does.

Story Dice

We have a new toy here I'm eager to try out! Last week these story dice were posted on The Toby Show, so I'm not sharing these to show off my creativity, but rather to show how easy they are to make. After all, if I can make them with the paints and pitiful brush assortment I have in my closet (not to mention my complete lack of detailed painting skills), anyone can do it.

The idea is that one person rolls one of the cubes and starts the story. Then the second person provides the middle of the story with their roll, and the last person wraps it up. Jack doesn't really have any problem making up stories, but 99% of them have to do with He-Man or Kung Fu Panda, so maybe this will stretch him a little bit.

They will be making their appearance next week, so I will have to let you know how the story goes!

Coming Soon!

Coming soon: Other posts! Really!

Things have been pretty busy here lately and I haven't had much time to post, but I have plans (I've even written them down!) for several posts, which you will hopefully see up sometime this weekend. There won't be one about Jack's drama class yet, though, because I have no pictures or anything. The skinny is: Jack started a drama class yesterday.

So check back this weekend and you will actually see something new up. I promise!