Mishevious Mig

A lot of people wonder what Mig does while I am homeschooling Gabe (and Selah). Well....I have been keeping my camera handy this past week to catch him in action. To sum it up, Mig finds mischief and he is very good at it!

He pulls out various game pieces and scatters them here and there (and everywhere):

He starts out coloring a picture, but then decides that it is actually more fun to throw the crayons on the floor:

If you look in the background of the above picture you will notice a small, purple arm-chair turned over. A few minutes before I took the picture he had knocked the chair over and was standing on it to reach my printer. He loves to turn my printer on and off - it makes a wonderful chime sound! He also loves to reach inside the printer and take all of the paper out to join the game pieces and crayons on the floor.

He has also found out that if he pushes the button on the carbon monoxide detector, it will make a shrill alarm that scares everyone in the room:

"What, Mom? I would never do something like that!"

Of course, most of the time when I hold up the camera I get this "cheeeeese" face:

Or this one:

Or this one (he really loves hamming it up for the camera):

He keeps me on my toes all day long! But he is also a sweetheart and a cuddle-bug (he gives the best hugs EVER) and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Mig's Haircut

Mig had his second haircut last weekend. I didn't get any pictures of his first haircut. I know - bad mommy! But, his first haircut was kind of a last minute, hey, let's go get Mig's haircut thing and I didn't have my camera with me. (Daddy got a few pics on his phone, but they weren't the best pics). We took him to Super Cut's for his first haircut and he was so good - he sat perfectly still and quiet. So, Byron decided he could probably cut Mig's hair at home.

So here is Mig with his second hair cut - but Byron's first time cutting his hair. (OK - now I'm just trying to make myself feel better for not having pictures of his first real haircut. )

I love this "what is Daddy doing to me?!?" face:

What a handsome boy!! Daddy did a great job!

A Special outfit!

Byron's mom passed away from kidney cancer in 1997. Byron was 18 years old and just a few months away from graduating from high school. I didn't know Betty very well, but I was able to spend some time with her before she died. I do know that she really liked to sew and craft. When Byron's Dad gave Byron and I their house, he also gave me all of Betty's crafting supplies. I never really got around to going throug it all (there was a LOT of stuff!) . Then, when we moved to Colorado, we hired movers to pack all of our things. In Colorado we had a small storage room off of our garage and we decided to store some boxes in there to "unpack later". Betty's craft supplies were part of those boxes. We never got around to unpacking those boxes in Colorado and when we moved to Fort Worth, we just stored most of our things in a seperate garage because we didn't have room for everything in our little apartment. Again, the craft box did not get unpacked.

Our move here has been the first time we haven't had the option to store things, so everything got unpacked. Finally, the crafting supplies were opened and gone through. I remember that for awhile, Betty and her sister Tupee were having the best time making  "Time-out" or "Pouty" dolls that, when finished, looked like 2 year olds standing in the corner. In the craft box was materials to make a doll - including an outfit to dress it in. Well, it just so happened that the outfit is the perfect size for our little doll!

I pulled out the little outfit and told Selah about Grandma Serna and how she bought this outfit for a doll, but she can wear it and think of Her grandma in heaven.

Selah is so proud of this outfit. Since I unpacked (and washed) it, she has worn it at least once a week....and I can't help but think that her grandma smiles each time she puts it on.

It's not everyday you get a gift from heaven.

Selah is learning to read!

 On one of the days leading up to Christmas, Selah came into my room with her Bible story book and a confused look on her face and asked in her sweet, soft voice, "Mommy, will you please teach me how to read?" Who could say no to that request!?! So I promised her that when we started school back up in our new house, that I would start teaching her how to read!

During the last year and a half since I have been schooling Gabe, Selah also wants "school work" to do. So she and I have been working on letter recognition and sound/letter correspondence. Letter recognition did not come as easily to her as it did to Gabe, but she can now identify all of the letters and knows their sounds, too! We mainly used the great FREE printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Selah absolutely LOVED the activities from that site. We also used worksheets from Kidzone to fill in some of our days.

Now that she knows her letters and sounds we have moved on to a phonics program. I love the FREE resources from Progressive Phonics. You sign up for free and get printable booklets and activities.

On Monday we will read the booklet together and go over the sounds being worked on.

Tuesdays we do a sound worksheet that comes in the activity pack and re-read the story.

Wednesday we do a handwriting activity

Thursday we do this cut and paste activity. She uses shapes to make the letters we are working on and the letters to make the words. 

I never print the booklets. I download them on our iPad and we read them from there and we read the story each day. I read the black words and she reads the red.

On Friday we do flashcards with all of the words she has learned and she bulds the words with the letters she knows.

On Friday we also review some of the past week's stories.

She is doing so well and is so excited at starting to read!! GO SELAH!

100 Days of Homeschool!

YES!! We survived 100 days of Homeschool!! Friday, Jan. 27 marked our 100th day and we really celebrated!!

We made 100 glasses

We danced for 100 seconds and did 100 seconds of silence. We counted to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's. We also walked 100 steps....Gabe and Selah were surpised at how short of a distance they traveled in 100 steps.

We traced their feet to make the signs they are holding. Originally I was going to have Gabe write where he traveled in 100 steps, but then decided to just photograph where he was at 100 steps.

I had them bring me 100 cents (with whatever coins they wanted) and I exchanged it for $1. We then celebrated by going to McDonald's for lunch and they used their $1 to buy a dessert.

We did a 100 piece puzzle:

At the end of the school day we sang:

"It's the 100th day of school today,

It's the 100th day of school today,

It's the 100th day of school, it's the 100th day of school,

It's the 100th day of school today - HOORAY"

(to the tune of  "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain")

and then blew out the 100 candles on our cake!

Before bedtime, I recieved the following note from my sweet 1st Grader:

(This was the best 100 day of school ever)

I think it was a success!!