Wings!

had to share an awesome shot I got while watching our new friends.....I guess this one is Jill :)

We have Butterflys!

We had been watching.....waiting and finally this morning Emily came and woke me up she was soooo excited "Mommy the butterfly's hatched" So we came upstairs to check it out. Sure enough we had one butterfly and a second that had JUST come out :) So we went and got them some fresh orange slices to drink on when they are ready. Sure enough while Emily was sitting watching her butterfly learn to use its wings, another one came out! She was sooooo excited to SEE it "hatch"! Then we watched as it opened its wings of the first time, and we watched as it learned to use its legs and tongue (aka Proboscis, which DID you know that an elephants trunk can also be called a Proboscis!)

So amazing and wonderful to be able to watch it all and too see the excitement on her face as SHE watched it!

3 more to "hatch"!

Butterfly UPDATE

ok so they were all officially in thier chrysalis' today so we moved them into thier new home. This is where they will hatch and live until we release them!

This is them in the postition they go into before/while they spin thier chrysalis.

Here they are all moved into one big house.

How to tune it all out!

Stephanies solution to tuning her sisters out while she does her work :)

Workbox AWESOMENESS!

SO I gound a great system to help keep us organized. Its Sue Patricks Workbox System.

The idea is great. Each night I load the boxes with what she is to do. Then she can work through the boxes. Certain boxes will have work then a few boxes down it may be a game, or snack ect. We tried it out last week and it worked really great! She went right to it and got started 2 days in a row without me having to tell her to get started! :) We are going to add some new elements to it and pep it up and keep it fun! I know once I start putting a "go swimming" card in the box she will be super motivated!

NO sub?!?!

Ok so today I learned one really sucky thing about homeschool today......when you are sick there is no sub.....and even worse there is no "take your kids to school all day" place! So I woke up with a BAD BAD headache and thankfully Bob was able to work from home to help out in the morning with the kids, but alas no REAL school work got done today! Oh well, we will make it up another day.

On the plus side I did get an email from our homeschool group and found a great program that Kumon and Scholastic are doing. If you complete the activities you can earn up to 5 books for FREE!!! So we printed those out and got going. Emily is DONE! That kid is AMAZING!!!

We actually have her enrolled to go to Kinder @ Mirage (where the Fausett kids go and my mom volunteers in the K class) but the more I work with her the more I think she will BLOW those kids away! We will see.......

So while we worked on our activity pages, Sarah wanted something to do also. So I gave her a cutting/triangle assignment....she loves to cut!

And Steph was flying through her pages, until she started to read Babymouse (BTW if you have young girls this book is a FUN one to get them reading, comic style)....


On to our caterpillars.....we moved them into a new home last night with LOTS of new food for them. Today they have been super active and fun to watch! Here is a picture of "Climby" he is one of Emilys, along with Hungry and Wormy. Steph named her's Jill, Jenny and Jake. Sarahs are Climby, Chick and other Climby! LOL Here they are in the new house, and a close up of Climby and Wormy!

Caterpillar Science!

Love this time of year and all the little wonders of nature! We were SO lucky to find a friend who BREEDS butterflys! :) So she got us 4 caterpillars for each girl......unfortunatly each girl lost one....so now they have 3 each.....wierd how that worked out.....anyways here are pic of them from the day we got them and now. They grow fast!

Can you see them?? There are 4 in there (one is hiding down in the crack) the best one to spot is on the top of the picture.....TINY little black caterpillar!

and here they are 6 days later!

They will be painted lady butterflys.

Finally getting a routine!

So its been a few months, 3 1/2 to be exact....but who's counting! We FINALLY seem to be getting the hang of this homeschool thing! We are getting into our routine and system which is working well. We get up, breakfast, get dressed and get to school work! I get Steph started on her work then I have been working with Emily this week. She is making a "word" book, so the first page is an "at" page....words like cat, bat, rat ect....today she did an OG page.....I had to keep reminding myself "she's just a 5 year old, this is just kindergarten". She kept getting side tracked, wanted to write both uppercase and lower case letters for dog....so it looked like this
DdOoGg LOL I let her do it because its great practice writing the letters! I have such a hard time telling them "that's wrong" hate to discourage her in any way. She wanted the Mommy letters to be with the baby letters......there is a REASON to her systems ALWAYS! So then I explained to her that this time I wanted her to write the mommy letter at the beginning and all of her babies after that :) Seriously she is going to be SO MUCH FUN!!! Love her imagination!!!! Oh and then she wanted to be a leopard and write with her "paws" (after I wouldn't let her write with her mouth).

Ok off to get some updated pics of our caterpillars!

The first post!

Ok I am going to add to the agenda to come here WEEKLY! Really wanting to blog our homeschool experience! And have a great place for dad, grandma, aunts ect to check in on us and see what were doing!

This week is BUTTERFLY'S! So much fun! We have lapbooks planned and REAL caterpillars that we are watching and waiting to see transform!!!

Pics soon!