A Look at May

Wow... the month of May flew by... I can't believe I didn't make one post in May. I'll blame it on the 3rd trimester tiredness! We have just over 3 weeks until my due date! I thought I'd better post something before the baby makes an appearance :)

Here is a glimpse of how we spent our May...

JDF & I had a wonderful time away at the beginning of the month. The marriage ministry at our church had a retreat at Historic Banning Mills in Whitesburg, GA! We had 4 days without the kids!! (thanks Granny & Grandpa, Ma & Pa) It was a great time for us to reconnect, spend time with some other couples and just rest. We enjoyed the ministry of Michael and Amy Smalley, walks around the creek each day and some delicious southern food. Some of the other couples enjoyed the thrill of a zipline, horseback riding and kayaking... I will definitely have to go back to enjoy some of those activities!

We attended our first Homeschoolers sports day. It was a great day that brought together many homeschooling families on the island for some fun competition. The kids loved it although Buttercup didn't like being cheered for... in almost all her races she burst into tears just steps from the finish line!

Buttercup turned 3 ...

She wanted a pink bike and to have a princess party... she has really turned into a girly girl!

We had one of her friends over for a princess dress up / tea party. Her grandparents came as well so we had a nice little party. I think she enjoyed being the center of attention for the day!



We did get to some school work in May too!

LiLi made it to Z in our alphabet curriculum so we celebrated with a alphabet cake. I have now started him with reading prep... he loves to try and sound out words and is recognizing many sight words. We are using the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and Bob Books and he is catching on very quickly. He also enjoys Starfall which is a great online resource for learning to read.




KaiKai is working on a Ocean Animals lapbook as we finish up our study on creation. They all painted coral reefs and have enjoyed learning about life in and around the sea.
I also stumbled upon a GREAT site for Spelling... Spelling City... it allows you the parent/ teacher to load in your own spelling lists (you can also access other public lists) and then the child can go on and play games and do activities using those words. It also has a Teach me component and Test me component. KaiKai is loving it and I no longer get complaints from him when it is time to use his spelling words to make sentences! We are using the free version for now but in September I think I will purchase the full program ($25 per year) and it will keep track of all his test scores and activities he has worked on.

Buttercup continues to enjoy tot school activities and has also become much more independent in her playtime. This makes life easier as she will entertain her self for long periods of time allowing me to focus my attention on teaching the boys. She also gets one on one time with Mommy and lots of attention from her brothers. I am gearing up for the fall when I will add some more focused activities to her workboxes using the help of a curriculum I downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler... if you have a preschooler check it out!



Enjoying the outdoors...




We have started having Wacky Snack Wednesday... I try to find a creative snack (sometimes healthy... sometimes not :) that I can prepare for them or they can help me to prepare. Here they are enjoying making cookie pizzas....




I made sugar cookie dough and they shaped it into little pizzas and baked them. Once they cooled we used vanilla pudding with red food colouring for the sauce and the toppings were crasins, chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles. They were fun to make and even more fun to eat!


So that was our May. For June we are winding down the school year and I am busy planning for next year. I am going to post about our curriculum choices for next year and how I have developed as a homeschool mom over this year very soon. Other than that stay tuned for baby news in a few weeks!!