ECC Week 4 Day 5, and a sad farewell

Oh the knees...if you are a runner, you know...the knees are the window to your world. Well, your running world that is. I think I have been over zealous and have done too much too soon as my knees are a *little* achy. Not bad, just a little niggle. So I am going to start running only every other day, and not do 2 days in a row-as I have been (sometimes 3-4 in a row). It is going to be hard as I am SERIOUSLY addicted to running. I map my runs, I map new running routes, I think about where I would LIKE to run, what time do I need to go to bed to get UP for my run, I DREAM about my runs...you get the picture. So taking it down a peg is going to be tough, but I dont want to risk injury.

SCHOOL

This was our last day for our North America Unit. We will taking a week off for fun stuff before landing in Mexico for 2 weeks. The girls really been enjoying this last month in My Father's World and I am SO glad we found it. What a blessing!

The girls wrote thier 'fancy verse' today. Our memory verse was Matt 1:23 and I was surprised that our 5 yr old could say most of it from memory as well. AND she said the John 3:16 verse as well! Proud momma moment.

Our Geography vocab words for this week were 'butte' (how DO you pronounce that?), and 'badlands'.

And here's what they did when school time was done. Ariel built them this 'fort' and they all got in to watch Barney with their little brother.

Good times.

I will be back next week once or twice to let you know what we are up to, and I will post my school schedule as well. Also, next week starts the 'Not-Back-To-School' Blog Hop. Learn more about it here. I'll be participating. How 'bout you?

Put it under lock and key!!! And ECC Week 4, Day 4

Discoveries I have made today: there are certain foods that will be eaten in abnormal quantities if left anywhere within the 4 walls of my house. Among them: Pringles, Peanut M&M's and oreos. What foods do you have a self control problem with?
Discovery #2: The first mile of my run is S...L...O...W....I dont even know HOW slow when compared to the rest of my run, but tomorrow I am going to time mile 2 as it seems my shoes grow rocket boosters at that point. At miles 0-1 and 1-2 I think the cute older people out for a stroll can pass me.
Seriously, its' bad.
Moving on...

ECC Week 4, Day 4
Tomorrow will be our last day in North America. My older 2 girls know pretty much all the states (thanks to Sheppardsoftware.com!), my 6.5 yr old knows a few, and my 5 yr old thinks every state is called South America =)
Today we read Matt 2:12 and had to find some key places in the bible on the map (Israel, Jerusalem, Bethlehem). So I showed the girls the map in the back of my bible and they hunted them out.
We worked on our memory verse (Matt 1:23), and learned about Farming and Industry in the US. I was surprised to learn that the interstates that go north and south have an odd number and the ones that go east and west and an even number. Never knew that!
We are going to read the Kingdom Tales story here in a bit. The girls are really captivated by the stories in there. If you are thinking of skipping this part of ECC, dont. Trust me.

There really wasnt anything too exciting today, but the girls are still pretend playing shoot offs of our Kingdom Tales story from Tuesday which was Princess Amanda and the Dragon.
Savannah made the egg below for Skylar. I asked why it was in 2 pieces and she said the dragon had hatched. I asked where the dragon was and she said 'invisible!' Clever.


Josh doing what he usually does for a portion of our school time-'Blanket Time'. I bought four lidded clear containers and numbered them. I filled them with toys and books that I knew he would like. He gets one tote a day ONLY to use during blanket time. Friday doesnt have a tote yet as our school is so short on that day that he usually doesnt have blanket time.
But this has made our school time SO much smoother. Any tips/ tricks you have used to make school time better?

ECC Week 4 Day 3

ECC Week 4, Day 3

Today in school we read about Harriet Tubman in Hero Tales and the older 2 copied the character trait in their bible notebook. Its interesting how much of Harriet's life story they already know from books they have read in the past.

We did the flag work sheet below, coloring the flag and listing some facts below it.
The one below is Skylars, age 6.
Jaidyn wasnt paying attention when we were going over the colors of the US flag.
OBVIOUSLY.

In Science we looked up different trees online and the older 2 drew the leaf and the leafs 'fruit', or seed.

For our nature walk, I let the little people play in the backyard as I just wasnt feeling up to a walk this morning, but hey. Our backyard is nature, and they DID walk around, so... 'check'.

Some leaves they collected

Doing a little bark rubbin'

Ran a nice 3.51 this morning. For some reason it always takes me about 2 miles to get into the 'groove' and after that I feel like I could throw down with Forrest Gump. Next week I start a 1/2 marathon training program, so we'll see how THAT goes.

Have a wonderful day!

Day 1 back in the saddle and ECC wk 4, day 2

I am sure you all lost a good 2 or 6 hours of sleep last night wondering just HOW my ride was this morning. Sorry 'bout that. I actually cheated and took it out last night for about 20min just to see how she rolled. I really enjoyed it. My quads definitely need to be a little stronger for me to feel like I can make it up the hill without making embarrassing noises. But all in all, I rode for 45min this morning, 7 miles total, a few too many hills and I came home quite sweaty, which to me, is the sign of a pretty good workout, no?
Going to hit the pavement tomorrow runnin' and then will bike again on Thursday. I am SLIGHTLY suspecting my bike may be a bit too big for my vertically challenged size, so I am going to have hubby watch me ride tonight and see what his not-so-expert opinion is.
Anyway.

SCHOOL
ECC Week 4, Day 2

Today we were challenged to use 4 colored pencils and color in the states without any 2 colors touching. I could see all sorts of frustrating emotions flying out of this activity so I took it down a level and let them use 5 colors. My 9yr old, who loves a challenge, LOVED this activity and wanted more like it. My 8yr old on the other hand just did it because she was suppose to.

In 'Kingdom Tales' we read 'Princess Amanda and the Dragon' which prompted my 9yr old to draw a picture of this fire breathing, uh, horse?
What can I say? The girls LOVES horses.
For Art we made a quilt design board and learned about the early American women and their quilting bees. I bought a pack of asst. fabric at WalMart and cut little sqaures out of them. Then they arranged their designs on a piece of 8x9 cardstock (cut to size) and we glued them on.
Then we cut ribbon to make a pattern down and across to hide the imperfect edges of the fabric due to their mommy being a little scissor-challenged.
They LOVED this project. You can click on the pictures to see them larger.


SAVANNAH age 9.5


ARIEL age 8

SKYLAR age 6.5

JAIDYN age 5...who was feeling a little camera shy, until......

she looked down and realized the colors in her 'quilt' perfectly matched what she had on.

Yeah, she thought that was purty cool.

All my happy girls! (and the head of my boy)

Hola internets!

Hello dear friends! I hope you all had a refreshing and fun weekend. Mine was fun and a bit busy.
So, Saturday I asked my parents to come over so the hubs and I could go shopping for some 'official' running clothes for myself since I was previously running in cotton (*Gasp!*) and some ill fitting Nike shorts from my more, ahem, 'substantial' days.
The shorts still fit, but I have to do an adjustment job every 4.4 seconds to ensure my modest status would not be demoted to something less desirable.
The shirts were comfortable, just cotton cami's, but as I am starting to run more, I am noticing that the presence of sweat drenched cotton against my skin is not the most pleasant of situations.
So.
Hubby and I went to every sports store in a 10 mile radius, and managed to find me a few new shorts and a couple pairs of new shorts. He also bought a camera for the girls as they have been DYING without one (the older 2 used to have thier own but they died a slow agonizing death from all the 'oopies' they suffered). Below is the girls and I trying to take our own picture. Look. We're so angelic, we glow.
Feast your eyes on the next picture. Oh sweet bike-wheels Batman, I am ONE happy gal. I have been wanting a bike for YEARS, since we sold ours many moons ago. But I have only REALLY begun to want one the last few weeks as I have become more serious about running and subsequently, wanting to find something to cross train with that I find just as enjoyable as running. Here's my ticket to more fitness excitement!! Lets hope I dont wipe out on my first time out tomorrow. Oh and icing on the cake?
It matches my fanny, er, I mean HIP pack.

SCHOOL:
ECC week 4, Day 1
This is our last week of school before we take a week off for fun stuff. I am planning a playdate or two, a trip or two to some parks around town that we dont go to very often, a trip to the zoo and a trip to the library. It's gonna be a full week, folks!

In Science we learned more about temeperate forests and the older 2 had to fill out a worksheet based on what they learned.



Savannah completed another sheet from the World Geography book, this time on Mountains of North America. Let's pause a moment so I can show the colors of my mommy-with-a-fried-brain syndrome.
So, we are studying N. America last week and this week. At the TOP OF THIS WORKSHEET it says, 'Mountains of N. America'. We were to find out how tall each was and list them in order from tallest to shortest. We get about 1/2 way thru and I say OUTLOUD 'Gee, isnt it funny that all these mountains are in North America?'
Yeah.
Thankfully my sweet daughter either didnt hear me, or didnt want to make me feel bad by commenting.



Savannah doing her math drill on the Math U See site, I love all the free sites we have bookmarked for this kind of stuff.

Enjoy your day. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow SANS any road rash.

Pray for me.

=)

ECC Week 3 Day 5 and some stiff competition

Light Fridays ROCK! One of the 2, 476 reasons I love My Father's World =) Today we did minimal work. Everyone did Language Arts and math. For 'together school' we read Hero Tales, learned how to look things up in the bible and did our vocab cards, which you can see below. We did isthmus today and forest. They are having 'free play' right now for about 10min and then we will do 15min of quiet reading with the book basket books. This afternoon will be read aloud time with Kingdom Tales and 10min each for Savannah and Ariel to read aloud to me (Skylar did her read aloud with me during school.

As far as running, today was a rest day as I ran 2 days in a row (Wed and Thurs) and will be doing my long run tomorrow (4.5-5 miles). I love that I am able to see the changes in my legs already, just wish my pooch would get the memo that its time to pack the bags and make like a tree and 'leaf'!
Last night, there was a run on my job! Ariel decided to start her own school for the 'little girls'. Here they are at the 'desks' she made them. She wrote a sentence on the white board and they are busy copying it....

Savannah (who was the teachers assistant) is pointing out letter formation...

Checking their work...

Skylars copywork:

Jaidyn's copywork:

Then she had me print out a coloring page for each of them.

Teacher, teacher's assistant, students and completed coloring pages.

she told them next week they would 'study' whatever they wanted, to the answering shouts of 'Kittens!' 'Turtles!' 'Pandas!' to which she answered 'Sure, whatever you want, we can do it!'

Seriously, how am I going to compete with that? Looks like I am going to have to bring out the big guns of ice cream and cake to keep them on my team. *insert evil laugh*

Running, ECC Week 3, Day 4

Happy Birthday! To my dad that is =) He turns a whopping 67 years old today. And to celebrate he is having a play day with my kiddos. My oldest and him just got done with a very animated game of Yahtzee. They are currently adding up the scores to see who won. Grandpa got a Yahtzee (whoppee!!!) so I am thinking he's got a good chance of going home with the bragging rights. *update: they just added up the scores and she beat him by 12 points. Way to go, Savannah!

Running: I ran 3.61 this morning. It was very humid out at 6:30 this morning so I took it a bit slow. BUT I still got the miles under my belt, so I'm a happy camper. Or runner, rather.

SCHOOL
ECC Week 3 Day 4

We were to make bookmarks that say 'Matthew' in Greek, given that was the language it was orginally written in and that is the book we are mainly focusing on this year. So they wrote Matthew in Greek....and then we thought it would be fun to see what THEIR names were in Greek. So we went here to find out and they wrote their names in Greek on the backs of the bookmarks, as they are showing below...

Then Savannah (my oldest, age 9.5) thought it would be fun and oh so funny to write Daddy a letter in Greek. It says 'Dear Daddy, I love you, PS Grandpa came today, it is his birthday....xoxo Savannah'

Here she is gathering all the words she needs for the letter....

Playing Yahtzee with Grandpa

Running, Dinner and ECC Week 3 Day 3

Wednesdays are a busy day for us here. Its what we like to call our 'chores-til-you-drop' day. I don't know how Wednesday became so bogged down with work, but it has, so we delegate and get it done.
Running: After my shin splint incident on Monday, I decided to start off REALLY slow and easy today. My right shin in particular was feeling a little testy but after about 1.5miles, she seemed to ease up. I went for 3.61 total today and did some more fartleks which really made me feel like a super hero. I could almost hear the Eye of the Tiger song playing SOMEWHERE just for me...

Anyway, in addition to being nosy about what other people read, I also like to know what they eat. So I decided to post some of what we had for dinner last night.
The girls had Potato Chip Chicken. They all like it, and no one is allergic to it and its SUPER easy.
I had purchased 2 packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts. One was used for the potato chip chicken and the other I was going to use to make teriyaki chicken for hubby and I's supper later that night (he had to work late). BUT I remembered that I had a bag of frozen Asian Stir Fry in the freezer (just a mix of frozen veggies that, when they are together, morph in Asian ethnicity)...ANYWAY, I took some of the chicken I had diced up to be used later and fried it in the pan with some oil. Then I took it out after it was cooked thru and put in the veggie mix with some teriyaki sauce. Cooked that thru (7-8min), add the chicken back in, a little more teriyaki sauce and cook an additional 5-7 minutes.

Served over rice, it was SOOOO yummy and I felt a little bit of my healthy ninja coming out.

Oh, and dont hate on the plates. They're a throwback to my childhood. I am SURE they will make a come back some day like the My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcakes have...now if ONLY they would bring Popples back....

SCHOOL

ECC Week 3 Day 3

Skylar, age 6.5, has really been enjoying the Complete book of Animals. Today, we learned about Beavers.

Savannah refreshed her States knowledge by playing this great game at sheppardsoftware.com GREAT site with lots of free stuff.

This was our 2nd day to read Hero Tales and we are reading about Dwight Moody. The girls are really enjoying this book.

The older 2 also had to copy the character trait at the end of todays reading and will continue to do so on this same piece of paper for the rest of the book, whenever they appear.

Used this map to review where the states are (for the older 2) and learn where some states are (for the younger 2).

Savannah decided to help Jaidyn out with her phonics today. She helped her with this lesson review and then when they were done, Jaidyn read it to me, they were both quite proud.

We didnt finish our Coup Sticks today. JUST as I was going to go out and fetch some twigs it started to POUR and I'm talking DRENCHED within 2 seconds of going outside kind of rain. But it only lasted about 10min. Anyway, the sticks were super wet so I think we may finish it tomorrow or just be safe and use popsicle sticks or something. My 8yr old is dealing with some WEIRD contact dermatitis on her hands right now. Its like little bitty baby blisters ALL over her fingers, part of the back of her hands and all over her palms. Thankfully, and oddly, they are not itchy or sore....this started LAST Wednesday and we think it may have been from some roses that a friend gave us, so I am leary to bring any more variables into the house right now (especially something she will be touching), until it heals up. So this project will have to be in 'to be continued' status for a bit....

Ecc Week 3 Day 2

Hello folks. Hope you had a restful nights sleep last night. Ours was briefly interrupted by some crazy loud thunder. Thought maybe God had dropped his trophy collection. YOWZA it was loud!
And somehow I forgot to set my alarm on my watch to wake up this morning so I missed my morning run. HOWEVER, I DID work out the elliptical for 35min. The poor girl was starting to get a little flabby after her 4 week vacation. It was the least I could do.

ECC Week 3, Day 2
In Science today we read about Temperate forests. Then we were to color code a map indicating where the different forests are located (deciduous, evergreen and mountian), using the map below as a guide.
I think I may have let out a whimper when I read that, given our LAST experience with trying to do this. So I made it VERY clear that this didnt need to be perfect and they could just color in the general areas. It went MUCH better this time and I still have all the hair on my head.

Meanwhile, Jaidyn worked on her Handwriting without Tears book....

Ariel worked a bit in her Primary Language Lessons book.....

For Art we were to make a Coup Stick. The girls went ahead and made the pictures today and we will attach them to their sticks tomorrow.

Here are the older 2 girls pictures....

Here are the younger girls' pictures.

They had a lot of fun drawing and coloring the pictures and telling each other the 'story' of their pictures. Making memories!