Buttah! (Butter)

One of my favorite memories in school was making homemade butter. We shook and shook and then enjoy delish butter!! So I was very excited to see in our My Father's World curriculum that we were going to make butter as we studied early American Pioneer Life!  

We simply put some heavy cream in a Mason jar and all took turns shaking!

I got my arm workout in for the day for sure! It tasted Ahhmazing!!!

This was a great memory in our class of 3!

Summer Fun at St Louis

One of our favorite summer fun weekends was spent in St Louis.

The boys chose to do a weekend there for their birthdays and it was one of the best memories we've made.

The highlight of any trip for the boys is the hotel stay. We love the Drury Hotel in Arnold Mo.

The boys swam for hours!! We spent the evening in downtown St Louis. The boys even met a fury friend.

We ate supper at one of our favorite St Louis spots- Fitz's! Love their root beer and it's so cool to see it actually being bottled there while you eat!

Ms Whitney made amazing St Louis cardinals cookies for their birthday treats.

After a fun night at the hotel the next day we hit Six Flags!! This was the boys first time there and they were soo excited! We used our Read to Succeed Free tickets we earned this past school year from reading books! The homeschool teacher even earned one! Awesome!! It was an amazingly beautiful July day! Very mild and sunny and just perfect! This made the entire experience so much better! Evan rode his first big roller coaster with dad. First the Screaming Eagle, then The Boss!

If I could have a picture of Michael and Evan's face after they got off The Boss Id pay big money for it! It was priceless! Lane, Jace and I played it a bit safer!

We loved the Log Flume and the Big Ferris Wheel!

All the boys were excellent! It was just a fun fun time! Jace was a trooper and held out for nearly 10hrs at Six Flags but at the end of the evening he finally gave out.

It was hands down one of the best family weekends ever!! Fun weekend celebrating the boys! 

Multi-sensory play

It's a nice, slow cloudy fall day and we are taking advantage of it. We made cinnamon play dough, the smell is amazing!!!

It's nice and warm and we are shaping and molding and using our leaf cutters.

Tchaikovsky is playing in the background. It's lovely. Have I mentioned how much I love fall?

American History

We are loving our American History studies this year using My Fathers World Adventures! This week we are learning about Thomas Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence. History is hands on and fun using a quill pen and berry ink to practice how Jefferson himself wrote the Declaration! 

Aa Apple!

Our favorite fall tradition is visiting Eckerts in Belleville Il for apple picking!

We chose a beautiful September day for our trip. We had lunch at the restaurant and it was Oh so good! Fried chicken and apple butter rolls! Amazing! After we had our lunch we boarded the wagon and took the tractor ride to the orchard.

We picked Jonathan and Golden Delicious.

Daddy had to help get the high ones!

It was a blessed family day!! Love fall!! 

Our Homeschool space

We love our homeschool space downstairs! It's a great place for our maps and timelines and we have a nice home library and large chalkboard. While this is super fun place, most of the time our classroom and our learning happens upstairs around the kitchen table! Still this is a fun space and I love to show it off! One of my favorite things is the boys artwork! Masterpieces for sure! When we school upstairs my IKEA cart has been a lifesaver to stow all our books and art supplies. I love it! Getting our classroom set up and organized is one of my favorite homeschool things to do! I love creating a nice space for the boys to do school! 

It's a new year!!

Somehow time has gotten away from me and we finished up 1sr grade and I now have a 2nd grader and a Pre Kindergartener!! Our first year of homeschooling was a lot of fun and a lot of learning but after just a month now into our second year I feel so much more confident. I think a huge blessing was the My Father's World curriculum that we are using this year. It has been great keeping all of our subjects tied together and just rich with history and bible. I love it! Evan is using Adventures which is an amazing year full of US history! Lane is using Gods Creation A-Z and as he works his way through the Alphabet he is learning wondering Bible points like S-Sun , Jesus is the Light of the World , and A-Apple, If I stay in Jesus I will have much fruit. Along with MFW we also use and love Math U See for math and Explode the Code for phonics and Evan is using Primary Language Lessons for English and A Reason for Handwriting. Mr. Jace, although not pictured, is learning right along beside them! The other day he told me that Meal Armstrong (Neil) went to the moon and that Christopher Columbus came from Spine (Spain). Little minds soak it up!! I hope to blog more regularly this year and capture our fun that we are having so that the boys have a nice end of the year yearbook. Soo , here's to a new homeschool year! 2014-2015 :) 

If I were President,....

We celebrated Presidents day learning about two of the most famous presidents in our history, President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln.  We read some really interesting books that told about each of their childhoods and lives through their presidency.  It made us proud ot learn about their morals and accomplishments that helped make America a better country.  We 

Evan got to write about what he would do "If I were President,....".  I think he has my vote!!

Love is all you need! Happy Valentines day!

Evan's super neat Valentine he received from his piano teacher Ms. Diane!

making our playdough hearts!

Valentine goodie bags for our class party!

We had a sweet day celebrating  Valentines day with our homeschool friends!  We exchanged Valentines and talked about how we love because He first loved us!  God has blessed us with a great group of friends and it was special spending this day with them at our Valentines party!

Bones!!

 Mr. Bones has been adopted as our class mascot!! He is always hanging around in our class!!

 We learned alot about all the different bones in our body. Jace was really interested in helping bro put the skeleton together.

We labeled the bones on Mr. Bone and sang the infamous "hip bone connected to the leg bone" song!!  God has done an amazing job creating our bodies and it is always fun to learn about how we are made!

Snowstorm in a jar!

We have had a wet and snowy winter this year!  It has given us perfect opportunity to do some learning inside our cozy, warm home!!  The boys love hands on anything, so this "snow storm in a jar" was a perfect experiment!  I love the reaction on their faces observing the "storm".  This is my preferred snow day play!!!

Animal Classifications

We did a great study on all the awesome animals that God created and learned about each classification. We studied birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.  We had fun looking through magazines and cutting out pictures of all the different kinds. I think my animal lover Lane especially enjoyed this project!  Mr Jace can even tell you now all about reptiles!! A fun learning experience at Class of 3!

Slime!!!

Evan LOVES to do experiments!  When I saw this concoction of Borax, glue and hot water to make Slime I knew this would be right up his alley!! It turned out awesome!!! All boy!!!