We got a pretty late start today with our home-based homeschool activities.  In the morning, we went to Friday morning Bible study.  The boys went into their own class.  Then, after lunch, we met up with a friend of mine, Lisa, and her two boys, J1 (age 5) and J2 (age3), at the park.  The boys rode their bikes on one court while we played tennis on the other.  The rain and the attention spans of our children made for a short game, but we still had fun, nonetheless.

We officially started Sonlight Core B today (our new curriculum)!  I really should have waited until Monday, but I was too excited to start.  The boys were pretty tired and I could tell I was on borrowed time, but I plugged along anyway.  We did not finish everything, though.  It was just too late to start structured activities for us (around 3:30pm).  We need to do this in the morning.

Memory Verse for the Week
Proverbs 4:20: "Pay attention, my child, to what I say.  Listen carefully."
We talked about ‘attentiveness‘ (which is a bit ironic, considering they were half-asleep!)

Read Aloud
Old Mother Goose rhyme
The Mouse and the Lion
The Poky Little Puppy
A poem from Eric Carle’s Animals Animals

Science
We learned that there are four seasons in a year
that there are twelve months,
and that the first day of the year is January first.

Social Studies
We read from a page from ‘Things People Do".  We learned about many different occupations people have to run a city (mayor, council members, sanitation workers, engineers, etc.)

 Music
We sang "This Land is Your Land" in the car.

Fingerplay
"what do you know?"

Bible Story
Acts 9:23-27, Acts 16:25-31
Children’s Bible-Paul escaped the city in a basket and Paul and Silas were in jail

Dramatic Play
I placed rectangular step stool, a square basket, a triangular paper towel, and a circular bowl of blue water on the ground.  This represented the city that Paul escaped.  The boys had to pretend they were Paul, tiptoeing around the items, "rowing" by the water, and "Sleeping" on the triangle "Tent".

Letter Activity
I ran out of paper and was only able to have one worksheet.  The boys each took one letter to find.

I took wooden blocks, shook them up in a bin, and tossed them on the ground.  They boys had to line up the alphabet blocks in order from A-Z, managing five at a time.

Social
We had MOPS in the morning, then we enjoyed lunch with my friend Linda, with her three kids, C1,2,and 3.  They came back to our house and played for a while.

Fingerplay
Zip!Zap!Zing!
What do you Know?

Bible Story
Acts 8:26-31, 35, 9:1-3, 9:3-8
Children’s Bible: Philip did what God said. Saul/Paul hurt Christians, then became one.

Math Activity
We divided graham crackers into one, two, four pieces, and ate them…

Art Activity
I drew four lines to represent rays coming from heaven.  The boys used "teamwork" and fingerpainted a picture together.

Letter Activity
DH quizzed ‘R’ on the alphabet flashcards.  He missed D, J, C, G, M, Q
We worked with ‘A’ on digraph and letter blend puzzles.
The boys chose a letter, drew it with a pen, applied glue (with assistance for ‘R’), and placed cotton balls on it.

Hide and Seek ‘z’:

Bible Activity
The boys made mad faces and stomped around saying mean things…

Then, they smiled and said nice things…

We talked about which way they preferred to act/feel.  We also talked about when Paul hated Christians and was filled in hate versus when he became a Christian.

The boys acted out the story where Paul was walking on the road to Damascus and he and his friends heard Jesus, who blinded him for three days.

I gave the boys a piece of paper.  The boys had to follow my directions, ot direction at a time.  First, they dre a rectangle on the left side of the page, then a question mark on the right, then a blue wavy line in the middle.  This represents the story about the Ethiopian man reading the Bible with Philip.

Active Exploration
I put a sticker on the rigth hand of each boy.  They lined up behind me and we went on a tour of our home.  I asked them when I wanted to enter a praticular room, if we had to turn left or right.  They had to look at theoir hands and figure out which direction we were to head.

jmj403  introduced this website on her blog.   What a fun and engaging (and humbling) way to learn about the periodic table.  It is too old for my kids right now, but not for exercising my own gray matter!

Fingerplay
Zip!Zap!Zing!

Bible Story
Acts 12:6-11, 6:8, 7:54-60
Children’s Bible: An angel freed Peter from prison/Stephen was stoned to death

Art Activity
The boys drew Peter and made aluminum foil bars for prison.  The yellow represents the angel’s light.

Letter Activity
The boys played with cars on the letter ‘Z’. (‘R’ is pouting in "time out").  They also practiced writing the letter ‘z’ on lined paper.  ‘A’ makes them more like an ‘S’.  ‘R’ needs a dot to dot format.

Dramatic Play
The boys pretended to be Peter in jail.  I was the angel who freed them.

Devotional Activity
Luke 19:5 "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.:
We read the story about Zacchaeus.

Bible Activity
We talked about missionaries and what going on a mission means.  We talked about how we can support mission trips through financial support and prayer.  We prayed for our high school kids in our church that will be going to the Domincan Republic this summer on a short term mission trip.  We talked about those missionaries who put their lives on the line to share the gospel.

Reading
‘A’ read the Bob Book volume 1/ Book 11, titles "Lad and the Fat Cat
He struggled with this one.  We will repeat tomorrow.

Read Aloud
I Spy: An Alphabet in Art by Lucy Micklethwait
I Spy a Freight Train by Lucy Micklethwait
On Market Street by Arnold Lobel (‘A’ recognized the author’s name from the ‘Frog and Toad’ books!  I LOVE THIS BOOK!  The illustrations, by Anita Lobel are stunning.)

Fingerplay
"Zip! Zap! Zing!"

Bible Story
Acts 2:4-8, 36-38, 3:6-10
Children’s Bible: Peter talked to the crowd and a lame man was healed

Dramatic Play
We pulled out the atlas and found the world map.  We found where we live and pretended to fly to other parts of the world.  Once we landed, we shared John 3:16 with the people of that country.

Letter Activity
The boys colored in the letter ‘Z’ (I love how different they turned out)

Bible Activity
The boys took turns pretending to be Peter and the lame man who was healed.

Reading
‘A’ read Bob Book volume 1/Book 10

Read Aloud
Our last day reading from the Henry and Mudge series

We  attended "Mom’s Time Out" at our church today.  The moms take turns watching each other’s kids in an indoor playground setting.  We had lunch with friends at "Old McDonalds" after and came home.  Once home, ‘A’ broke into a 104.3 degree fever.  So, on to round two…  we still did a scaled down homeschool day because they wanted to.

Fingerplay
Jesus is Alive
Zip! Zap! Zing!

Bible Story
Acts 1:9-11, Acts 2:1-3
Children’s Bible: Jesus went to heaven, and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit

Devotional Activity
"You are my friends if you do whatever I command you" John 15:14
We read a story around this verse and talked about how Jesus is our friend and what that means.

Art Activity
The boys painted a paper plate to look like the "Fiery tongue" of the Holy Spirit.  I cut them in a spiral to represent a tongue and hung them.

We will start up with Sonlight Core B, The Easy Spanish, and Singapore Earlybird Math in September.  Little Hands to Heaven will be over next week.  So, from May through August, here is my plan…

R1= Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Days
R2=Reading with Bob Books
RA=Read Aloud from the Charlotte Mason Book List for Year 0
B=Bible Story and scripture memorization (Not sure what I will use yet)
CT=Character Training and manners (365 Manners Kids Should Know)
P=Poetry memorization (Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization)
Sp=Spanish (custom vocabulary lists and simple conversation)
H= Nature hike (Best Hikes with Kids:Western Washington and the Cascades)
S=Science (Fun kits and experiments)
M=Keyboard Lesson (Kindermusic)
FT=Field Trip

Park Playdate (will not be on the schedule, but will be common through the week)

(It may look like alot, but the focus will be light and fun! )

Mon: R1,R2,RA,B,CT,P,Sp,H
Tue: R1,R2,RA,B,CT,P,Sp,S
Wed:R1,R2,RA,B,CT,P,Sp,H
Thu:R1,R2,RA,B,CT,P,Sp,M
Fri:R1,R2,RA,B,CT,Sp,FT

Also, here is a list of the summer season of fairs and festivals:

5/12 Backyard Wildlife Festival in Tukwila
5/12-27 Remlinger Farms Country Fair in Carnation
5/19-20 U District Street Fair in Seattle
5/25-28 Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle
6/1-3 Edmonds Waterfront Festival
7/18-22 King County Fair in Enumclaw
7/28-29 Scottish Highland Games in Enumclaw
8/9-12 Pierce County Fair in Graham
8/10-12 Jefferson County Fair in Port Townsend
8/16-19 Pend Oreille County Fair and Rodeo in Cusick
8/23-26 Douglas County Fair in Waterville (Warren Barfield plays 8/23)
8/23-9/3 Evergreen State Fair in Monroe
9/6-10 Chelan County Fair in Cashmere
9/7-23 Puyallup Fair

Camlann Village in Carnation
Pioneer Farm Museum and Ohop Indian Village in Eatonville
IslandWood on Bainbridge Island
Marymoor Park
Woodland Park Zoo
Northwest Trek
Pacific Science Center
Revolution Gallery in Issaquah
The Children’s Museum-Seattle and Factoria
Lakeshore Learning Center Craft Saturdays 11-3
Seattle Aquarium
Kelsey Creek