A is for "Abba"

One of the main reasons I homeschool is to teach my children about our wonderful creator. I was praying because this week I will be studying the letter A and B with my Kindergartener. I had spent hours searching for the perfect bible curriculum online for my children and after exhausting all my resources and wasting way too much time, I prayed. Backwards, right?

Anyway God told me to teach my kids first to pray and seek Him and He will teach them all things. Brillant. So I spent more time online looking for curriculum until I realized God gave me everything I already need, His Word!! I really like the idea of a certain curriculum I saw that went through the Bible A-Z and taught serving and other great things but I had no rest that buying it would be right this moment with our budget.

So I sat down with my Bible and asked God to lead me to what I am to teach my kids for the letter A. Our God is so faithful. The Spirit led me to Galatians 4:6. The Bible version I use with my children is an NIrV and this is what it read,

Because you are his children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. He is the Holy Spirit. By his power we call God "[Abba.]" Abba means Father

So this week I am going to starting a prayer journal with my children where they can color and write and we will be memorizing Galatians 4:6. I will keep you updated how all this really goes.

Free Sight Word Bingo Printables 1-50

Since I am a new homeschool Mommy I am trying my best to stretch my resources. I do a lot of searching for freebies online. I found a sight word bingo game on ebay from Sonlight and thought to myself I could make that. Here is my first attempt at creating a printable. These bingo cards only contain words 1-50 of a list containing 100 sight words.

It was recommended to teach 5 sight words at a time and once those are mastered add 5 more which is why each bingo card only has 5 words. When I have time to make words 51-100 I will share them with you all.

I think I will use these as a small daily Bingo game and for Zi to work independently in matching. The first set is meant to be the actual Bingo card and the second set is meant to be cut into pieces and used either as cards for drawing while playing bingo or for Zi to work independently and match them himself.

Enjoy and feel free to share these with anyone. Please comment if you use these free sight word bingo printables, I would love see if anyone actually finds their way to this side of the blogosphere.

Here is the link to download the free sight word bingo cards
http://www.momneedsgrace.com/Files/sightwordBINGO.pdf

Just starting out with Homeschool

My Dad is coming down Monday and taking the kids to Disneyland. Turns out Monday is the first official day of homeschool for us so we decided to make today day 1. Today turned out better than I expected it to. For one we didn't have enough money this week to purchase any counting bear manipulatives but I did have some photo paper and enough ink to print these Free counting bear printables out. I cut them out and everything really turned out great. Both Zi and Ni enjoyed using those counting bears.

I also have not finished the Saxon math Calendar. I am still trying to figure it out but once I get my area officially set I will upload a pic. I spent the last week going over curriculum and trying to get organized. I created a schedule for our home and a weekly schedule for curriculum in word and am also working on a Home Organization Binder which I found the idea for on another Blog called keeping the home. Once I get everything officially done and picture worthy I will share it with the blogging world.

I was nervous how today was going to flow but Zi and Ni were excited about doing work and begged for more. Cario was content most the time with a marker, paper, coloring book and some counting bears of his own. He went down for a nap when he got too antsy and finished up with Zi and Ni. I would have to say today was a success.

Bow Giveaway

This new shop that makes really cute bows is giving one away free. They are called Crossin My Heart. Visit their blog for more information!

http://crossinmyheartcreations.blogspot.com/2009/05/grand-opening-giveaway.html?showComment=1242402660000#c7614549792609751697

Rebel Art

We have been accepting donations on behalf of a marine that works with my husband. She is opening her home and becoming a foster parent. So many of our generous neighbors have donated lots of wonderful toys and clothes to help her out. However every box of toys that has came through the house has not failed to be carfeully analyzed by my own children. Yestreday a friend brought some toys by. I hid them, or so I thought, in the laundry room. Yesterday during nap time Zion walked out of his room to show me something he had made. Apparently on his way to nap time he stopped by the laundry room and grabbed a toy from the box I hid. At first I was upset that he disobeyed me and, behind my back, grabbed a toy from the box I asked them to leave alone. I had every intention of disciplining him but he started to explain the picture he drew. He said, "Mommy look! Its Julie and her friend!" My heart melt...these are Zions first drawings of little people and I thought it was the cutest thing in the world so I had to take a picture before confiscating the toy and sending him back to bed.

Just to add Zion does have a doddle pad of his own...but everyone elses toys are always more exciting. We all know how that goes.

vacation

I had to schedule a day to hang out with friends and the kids. I have been so busy filling orders the last 2 weeks. I was happy to declare a day off. Me and the girls went down to Mission Bay with ALL our kids. It turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL day. There is a park next to the water where you can see boats and jet skis zooming by. We had a picnic and let the kids play...it was so much fun. The laugh of the day came when we were cleaning up. I saw little Nathaniel helping pick up shoes but I didn't see where he was putting them. It was time to get everyone's' shoes on and most of them were missing. Cassie and I finally figured that maybe little Nathaniel put them in the trash...Sure enough we looked and there they all were. Such a fun day and a really big laugh at the end. When we were leaving we had a bunch of happy moms and sleepy kids...who could ask for more? Cant wait for our play date next week!