1st Day of School

Well, the first day of school was a success! I think we had a huge learning curve last year with what works and doesnt work at home. Plus, the boys are older-which helps! We are excited about an exciting year full of discoveries!

A major part of our curriculum is History this year, which is sort of the core. Then the other subjects we learn tie in. Not neccessarily our math and phonics, but everything else does. So you will see the main theme this year is WORLD HISTORY. We are so excited about it all.

Today we started off with how do we know/ how have we obtained history? Archeaology was a BIG word used in our home today. Hopefully by the end of the week the girls will be able to spell it, it is the bonus word in their spelling list. ;)

We checked out a discovery box from a local childrens museum about Archeaology and had so much fun with the resources! We will not only learn more about history, we made our own time capsule for someone in the future to know about our history. (Although, we will be the ones to dig it back up!)

Here are a few pics.

Welcome sign with welcome gifts. (Journals for the year)
















For some reason this is their favorite place- Its a place with their desks and their walls. This is where they do all their reading and writing.











Our archeaology dig. What a wonderful experience we had with all the tools-thanks to the Discovery boxes!



















These discovery boxes also have artifacts to touch and lots of great books, movies, and craft/game/project ideas. I was able to set up an entire center with it all. Its gonna be a GREAT week!

Mom and daughter communication

Ive noticed that my girls constantly need more opportunities to talk deep with me. To express the things on their hearts, to share a situation, or get advice. Its hard to find the time to talk, or even to communicate uninterrupted.

So a while back I started these "Mom and me" journals. Its a journal that we write to eachother. After each entry, we place the journal under the other persons pillow. The journal is kept private and between the two writers, (except I got permission to share this on our site). Its been a really precious dear thing.

We have shared jokes, talked about spirituality, asked personal questions, an most of all, Ive been purposeful about the opportunity to build up and encourage them. Well, recently, Ive gotten these two entries. One from each girl.


From Kayla(click on image to enlarge and read):
























From Emily(click on image to enlarge and read):











These girls have also taken the opportunity to build up and encourage their momma. I love- love- LOVE these girls! Proverbs 31:28a NLT "Her children stand and bless her..."

SWEET!

God is so SWEET! Just testifying to His goodness, and how being apart of the church body is so so so important!

We buy groceries twice a month. I had $20 budget to get the groceries we needed for this week. You know, milk, bread..those kind of things today.

I had cereal on my list, but I decided not to buy any- just thought I could save the money, we still have half a box left of cherrios and we would eat toast if need be.

Well, a sweet family friend was in the cereal aisle today and felt like he needed to buy the Stricklands some cereal! HA!

So he brought by cereal! It wasnt just plain cereal, it was the good- yummy stuff that we hardly ever buy! So guess who had cereal for dinner? :)

Play Dough

As we are getting the Strickland School ready, we have been gathering and organizing our supplies. (Check in on the Strickland School Site on the sidebar to see how the school prep is going)

We have especially been gathering up our preschool supplies. Our boys need to be engaged in activities and I want them to learn as well while the girls are learning.
We decided to make some fresh batches of play dough. I wanted to post our favorite play dough recipe. (Located at the bottom of this post) In this recipe, you add the sugarless koolaid packets in it. This give the dough a wonderful smell and great color. I like that this dough is made out of flour, non toxic, wont get stuck in your carpet or ruin your clothes. I store the dough in reused coffee cans. I wash, air out and save these coffee cans, they make great play dough jars with labels added on them!















Some of the reasons why I think playing with play dough can be beneficial to a child: ~Stimulates the senses
~A stress relief
~Allows for creativity
~Developmetally- Manipulation develops the child’s large and small muscles and fosters eye-hand coordination.
~Educational- Add shape, number, or alphabet cookie cutters.


Funny, everytime my girls play with play dough, they want to take pictures of their creations. These are just two of the many pictures I have of them with play dough! For Family Night a few weeks ago, we did playdough for a couple of hours! Joel had fun doing the hair salon- you know, the little people who grow the play dough hair then you cut it off? It was hilarious! Even our dad can get creative!










Here is the recipe. HAVE FUN!!

Kool-Aid Playdough Recipe

10 min | 10 min prep

1 batch dough

• 2 ½ cups flour

• ½ cup salt

• 2 packages unsweetened Kool-Aid powdered drink mix

• 2 cups boiling water

• 3 tablespoons oil

1. Mix flour, salt, Kool-Aid and oil until blended.

2. Add boiling water, mix with spoon until cool enough to knead.

3. Continue kneading until color is blended.

4. Store in air tight bag or container in the refrigerator.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

We got a new horse swing made out of a tire (thanks Forester clan) and the kiddos are just lovin' it! We decided to hang it on the big tree in the front yard. Its good to give them some things to do while we are up front. Here are a few pics of our sweet Tator Tot swinging! Love that boy!