Christmas Day at Home!

This was the first Christmas that we have not had to go anywhere or have anyone over on Christmas Day. It was nice to be able to spend it at home with just the 3 of us. I made waffles for breakfast and then we opened gifts. I made a big pot of chili and just let it simmer on the stove all day so we could eat whenever we wanted for lunch and dinner. We mainly just spend the day playing with Samuel's new toys, watching a couple of new movies, and just having fun family time.

V-Smile Games

Could this be what I think it is?

Yes! Finally, he got Monsters vs. Aliens

The gift Samuel picked out for Daddy all by himself --- Legos! Samuel told Adam that they could play with them together and share.

Christmas with the Grays!

Christmas Eve we all had to sing in the service at church - Adam and I in the choir, and Samuel with his children's choir. Nana (Adam's mom) went with us to the service. Afterwards, we came back to the house and Aunt Wendy, Uncle Kevin, Jacob and Sarah came over to open gifts. Samuel was very excited about all his gifts and is looking forward to more tomorrow! We've had to remind him several times that presents are fun, but that Jesus is the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

Getting his stocking

With Sarah Beth

Yay! A toothbrush! Honestly this kid is obsessed with brushing his teeth.
Cars!

Remote control R2-D2! Thanks Nana!

I don't think I've ever seen him this excited about clothes.

Box Day!

In the homeschool world, the day you get your much-awaited order of school supplies for the coming year is known as box day. Today was our Box Day for all of our Little Hearts for His Glory stuff. Samuel was so excited to get a box just for him and couldn't wait to look at everything. He wanted to do school right away but I told him he would have to wait till after Christmas. We can't wait to get started!

Samuel digging in to the box

All the great books we get to use this year!

School Changes

We've decided to make a few changes in our school when we start back after the first of the year. I really like Sonlight, but it seems that Samuel is more of a hands-on learner. He doesn't seem to have as much fun just reading, and doesn't seem to be retaining much of what we read. So, we have decided to switch back to Heart of Dakota. We both loved it, it was easy for me to teach, and Samuel still remembers most of what we did while we were using it. We will be using Little Hearts for His Glory. We may return to Sonlight in the later years, but for now we're sticking with HOD. Samuel has been doing well with the Sonlight LA program we've been using, so we will continue with that until we finish it at the end of this school year. HOD actually uses the same handwriting program we've been using so that won't be a big switch. It also schedules in the Rod & Staff Workbooks we've been using for readiness skills so that won't change either. HOD includes all of our other subjects so we will not need to add anything else to it. We will continue to read the Sonlight books we have since we haven't finished all of them yet, but will use them more for fun reading and not for school.

PreK - Week 16

This week I completely forgot about taking pictures. We finished the Bible we've been reading this week (just in time for Christmas break!) with stories about Paul. We've been working on the letter I. We also read several different stories about Christmas that we got from the library. Now we are officially on Christmas break until after the first of the year!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Samuel's choir Christmas program was Sunday night. They sang 7 songs and he did a great job. Here's a little sample of what you missed.

PreK - Week 15

This week we read about Jesus going back to heaven, Pentecost, and the disciples beginning to preach to all the people. we've also been working on the letter S. Samuel already knew how to write S because it's in his name, but we practiced anyway. Our reading this week didn't really have a theme. We just read a lot of fun stories.

Samuel also read another book and got another sticker for his reading chart. He was super excited!

Snow!

We got the first big snow of the season on Saturday. I'm not sure exactly how much we got, but it was enough for Samuel to get out and play in. Adam and Samuel even built a snowman.

Getting ready to throw a snowball at me

Trying to catch the snowflakes

Adam and Samuel with their snowman

After playing in the snow, we made brownies. I think that Samuel may have liked them even better than the snow!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

We finally got around to putting up our Christmas tree. Usually we do it the Friday after Thanksgiving, but since we had family in we didn't get a chance to put it up until Sunday afternoon. We didn't actually decorate till Monday though. Samuel was so excited to put all the ornaments on the tree. Now, he can't wait for Christmas and keeps asking me how many more days till Jesus' birthday.

PreK - Week 14

This week we read stories about the disciples after Jesus resurrection - the women finding the empty tomb, Peter and John running to see Jesus' grave and finding it empty, Jesus appearing to the disciples and showing his hands and feet. We started the letter P this week and have also started doing our LA program at full speed as of this week. That means that we will be doing both upper and lowercase letters in one week from now on. Samuel has been doing well with the extra work. We also read some stories and did a few activities about Thanksgiving.

Practicing writing P's

This was a turkey puzzle. He had to cut out the pieces and then glue them together correctly

Thanksgiving

We hosted two Thanksgiving dinners at our house this year. First, Adam's family came on Thanksgving day. Then on Saturday we had Thanksgiving with my family. Samuel was super excited to see his cousins again. He also loved helping out with all the Thanksgiving cooking. Over the course of the weekend he helped make pumpkin bread, yeast rolls, pumpkin pie, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, and mincemeat pie. There may have been a few other things that I missed. Every time I looked up, he seemed to be in the kitchen helping somebody.

Helping make a mincemeat pie

PreK - Week 13

This week we read about Peter denying Jesus, Jesus' death, and Jesus' resurrection. We began learning to write uppercase H. We also read stories and did activities about chickens. We read The Little Red Hen several times and Samuel loved it!

Working in his Explode the Code (phonics) workbook

Working in his Rod & Staff (readiness skills) workbook

Practicing writing H

This was a little booklet he made after we read the Little Red Hen. He had to match each animal in the story with the sound that they make.