Last Day of School

Today is our "official" last day of school.  As usual we had a breafast/mid-morning celebration.  This year we went to a new place on Cave Creek called "Coffee & Cupcake Bar".  Micah got a red velvet cupcake and Lilly got a triple chocolate cupcake.
We spent time talking about our favorite parts of the year, and also areas where we struggled and want to improve next year.
Micah's favorite part of the year:  "cursive"
Lilly's favorite part of the year:  "handwriting"
Mom's favorite part of the year:  The Miller family chapter books

Please update your bookmark for the continuation of our homeschooling adventures to:  http://richhomeeducationgrade4kindergarten.blogspot.com/

Meet my "KINDERGARTEN" and "4TH GRADE" students for the 2013-2014 school year!!

"Snow in Summer"

So many of our flowers are blooming.  It's so pretty in the backyard.  The most 'fun' name is a cluster bush of white flowers called - 'snow in summer'.  Yes, it's still spring, but we have had enough days in the 100 degrees that we can feel it coming.


Snow In Summer



Rose Bush

Lantana

Piano Recital - Micah

Thursday evening Micah had his 3rd piano recital, via his teacher Mrs. Amy Cline.  He played 2 pieces:

• Moonlight Sonata Op. #27, No. 2
• Beethoven
• Arr. Margaret Goldston
• Sonata in C K. 545 (1st Mvmnt)
• Mozart
• Arr. Margaret Goldston

We thank all the family and friends who were there to support him - Aunt Alice & Uncle Charlie Rice, Jim & Kelli Taggart, and Phil & Janice Cook.

Garden Make-Over

In speaking with our neighbor, Dave, we devised a plan to enclose the garden area by the house.  Our goal - no more critters eating the fruits and vegetables.  Dave was thrilled to have a project and he began measuring and nailing at 7:45am on Monday morning.  He built a structure, hung netting to roof it in, and put in a 'screen' door (with a handle and latch).  He spent a few hours each morning through the week and we had a final product on Friday afternoon.  We had a SOMA (Dave calls it Sitting On My A**) time early Friday morning with Kit-Kats and Reese Cups.  Here are a few pictures.

Orange Tree

We have an orange tree!  Dave donated it to us, it was a gift to him after Ruth's memorial service.  He doesn't have any room in his yard.  We have put it along the wall between our homes.  Once it gets big enough, we'll lift a limb over the wall and he can have all the oranges he wants.  Great deal!
This week we took a few days to plant the tree.  Here she is.

AZ Game & Fish Expo

Today we took an Eastside Explorers' field trip to Ben Avery for the AZ Game & Fish Expo Youth Day.  It was a gorgeous day and perfect to be outdoors walking around.  This was our first year to attend - we are looking forward to next year.


Micah's favorite activity - archery



Lilly's favorite activity - crayfish catching

Most impressive activity- Lilly petting the anaconda

Spirit Week

Lilly liked having to wear green for St. Patrick's Day, so she declared Monday "Blue Day".  It has become a whole week of silly things to wear - our own Spirit Week.  Maybe you can join us.  If so, take a picture and send it to us.

MONDAY - BLUE DAY (or you get a spanking)
TUESDAY - PURPLE DAY (To cheer on the Rockies - Micah's baseball team; game at 5pm)
WEDNESDAY - PAJAMA / SPORT DAY (am/pm - since we have PE in the afternoon)
THURSDAY - CRAZY HAIR DAY (North Valley Gymnastics is doing this all week)
FRIDAY - HAWAIIAN DAY (Dad's choice)

Another Invitation

Today after Lilly's gymnastics class, coach Zach and coach Jenna, handed me a slip of paper.  It was Lilly's invitation into the "Flyers" class.  She's moving up again!  I was shocked and excited and proud.  The "Flyers" class is by invitation only, so that's a huge accomplishment on her part.  They were looking for handstand, cartwheel, and chin pullover.  We will begin the "Flyers" class on Thursday March 14th, 11:30-12:30pm.  CONGRATULATIONS LILLY!!!!


pullover with coach Zach

By Invitation Only

Lilly has been practicing her handstands in, and out, of her 'Flippers' gymnastics class diligently.  On Valentine's Day, she was invited to the "Handstand Party" by her teachers at North Valley Gymnastics.  The party was today, Saturday (2/23/13) from 1:30-2:30pm.  They had 'open gym' for half an hour and then snacks upstairs for the second half hour.


Lilly and Coach Jenna

Art Fair

Both of the kids had entries for the Eastside Explorers' Art Fair this year.  Entries age 7 and under are for display only, but it was a terrific experience for Lilly to prepare.  Micah had 2 entries:  painting (acrylics) with his "Evergreen" and photography with his "Sleeping" photo of Lilly.  Lilly had 3 entries: jewelry design (using her pop beads), painting (she painted ceramic horses to look like 'my little pony characters'), and sewing (she designed and did some sewing on an outfit for Nibbles - her Build-A-Bear rabbit).
This year we had a professional, contemporary artist come in and do the judging.  Her name is:  Misty Mulleneaux (www.mulleneaux.com).  One of her creative outlets is producing adorable doggie and kitty Christmas ornaments, the sales of which benefit the Humane Society. She works in various mediums, including painting, sculpture and jewelry design.

 

Geronimo Stilton - Editor of 'The Rodent's Gazette'

Micah and Kevin (neighbor friend) were talking one day.  Kevin was telling about some books he was reading.  Micah was talking about his study on newspapers.  Kevin had just finished a book within the Geronimo Stilton series entitled "The Phantom of the Subway".  Geronimo Stilton is a mouse, he is the editor of 'The Rodent's Gazette'.  We borrowed the book and really enjoyed it.  The boys got to talk about it several days when they got together to play.  It is a fun series and was just up our alley with our newspaper study.

12.12.12

Today is a unique day.  The past twelve years have each had one month where the date was the same number for the month, day, and year.  (01.01.01; 02.02.02; 03.03.03; ...)  I asked the kids "when will be the next time a year does that?"  Wow, not for 88 years and 19 days.  The next questions we wanted to answer was how old would each of us be and is it possible we'd be around for it.  Jodie - I won't be around; I'd be 130 years old.  Micah - Might be around; he'd be 97 years old.  Lilly - might be around; she'd be 93 years old.  They thought it was neat that they've both experienced a 'unique date' for each year of their lives so far.  Then Micah said "We'll still have cool dates.  Next year there's an 11/12/13."

Ollie The Trolley

On Saturday night, while the boys were performing, Lilly and I attended our Eastside Explorers' Christmas Party.  It was hosted at one of the local assisted living homes, owned by one of the EE families.  Throughout the evening there were two shifts of two trolleys that took us around town to see Christmas lights.  We had lots of hot chocolate, cookies, and fun!  Learn more about: Ollie the Trolley.

SBC's "Winter Wonder"

This past weekend was our church's "Winter Wonder" Christmas Program.  Matt and Micah were both part of the action.  Matt was a shepherd in the nativity scene.  Micah was in - the large children's choir, a small group of children who did hand motions to a song, the 'hot chocolate' dance crew on the '11th day of Christmas', and a robe carrier for one of the Wise Men in the nativity scene.  There were a lot of practices, so the boys were out quite a bit and Lilly and I had several 'girls nights'.  Lilly and I went to watch the program on Thursday night (family night performance) and took Dave, our neighbor, with us.  The boys had five performances all together.  It was really neat for several of our family members (IL, OH, FL, and IN) to watch the program 'live' online - thanks to our tech crew.  Great job everyone!

Advent Jesse Tree

It's December and time to begin our Advent Jesse Tree.  We have a devotion each day from December 1st through Christmas that takes us from the time of creation through Jesus' birth.  Each devotion has an ornament that coincides and we put it on the tree.  This is our 'big' tree this year.

Genre: Newspapers

A major form of communication in our society is through the newspaper.  Our verse to go along with this study is:  "All scripture inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" 2 Timothy 3:16
Let us compare that to how our media uses the paper to teach, reproof, correct and train us and all generations.  Since we just finished learning about Comic Books I introduced newspapers doing a Venn Diagram of "The Daily Bugle" and "The Daily Planet" (Spiderman & Superman). We used our story elements to help us fill in parts of the diagram (who; what; where; etc.)

On The Edge Gallery

Micah's Saturday acrylic art teacher, Mrs. Amy Whitehouse, is part of a new gallery that had their grand opening today (11/1/12).  She invited us down to visit and so we took a roadtrip this afternoon to Old Town Scottsdale. 

All of us (Micah, Lilly & I) were interested in the entire gallery.  It was neat to walk around (from beginning to end) and read the names of the artists, talk about the materials & mediums they use, and see the detail so close-up.  It was a most terrific lesson!!!

More information:  www.ontheedgegallery.com
40 artists from the Phoenix Metropolitan area and 15 artists from the Fountain Hills Artists' Gallery are represented.

Predictions

I Love teaching, but it's moments like this that make me laugh so hard and appreciate the differences between my kids.  It is such a priviledge to be their teacher, to watch their lightbulbs go off, to reach milestones ... and to hear comments like these come out of their mouths.
In Language Arts, Micah and I have been working on the main idea and details.  Today we did an activity with 'prediction'.
Here is the lesson:  Read the following part of a story, think about what might happen next, draw a picture of what you think will happen next, and write about what you think will happen next.
Here is the story:  The puppy knows he should not sit on the new chair.  He has been told many times.  But one day the puppy is home alone.  He wants to take a nap.  The chair looks so soft.

While Micah is working on that, I go over to do an activity with Lilly.  I come back over and look at Micah's responses.

Micah's drawing.

He wrote:  but sidny sits on the floor.

So, knowing their personalities (Micah respects 'the line', Lilly tests 'the line') I had Lilly come over.  I read her the story and then asked "What do you think will happen next?"
Lilly immediately responded (with a look of 'of course') "the puppy's going to jump up on the chair and take a nap."

Candy Math

November 1st, the day after Halloween, is our traditional "Candy Math" day.  Today was no different.  It is fun to me when the kids work on one project continuously for hours.  There are no breaks, no interruptions, no asking for snacks - it's full on concentration.  My favorite kind of learning - when they don't realize the extent of their "fun inquiring" as one task leads to another question and digging for an answer.
They each dumped out their bags of candy and sorted them out in bowls.  Then they compared what each other had - same, different.  Of course they have to know 'who had the most' and 'how many total pieces of candy' were collected.  As they sorted, counted, calculated, and categorized they also read, alphabetized, recognized letters (Lilly), multiplied (Micah) and divided (Micah).  Their teamwork got them to the grand prize answer:  131 total pieces of candy!
Then they each got 10 for their special bowls.

My favorite activity:  They alphetbetized the 'candy bar' category.  Then Micah divided the white board into 10 equal sections and then wrote the names that Lilly spelled out (Lilly ready the letters of all 10 types of candy bars).

Halloween Night

We had our traditional trick-or-treating around the neighborhood with the Meigh’s and Kaplan’s – Kevin, Kaitlyn (Scott Meigh) and Aaron, Ben (Jessica & Joel Kaplan).  Afterward we had pizza and playing at our house until 9pm.

Costumes this year:  Matt – Spiderman; Jodie – Dorothy; Micah – coffin; Lilly – Tooth Fairy

P.E. class begins

Micah did a trial Physical Education class in the spring and really enjoyed the structured games.  So, we signed up and began today through the SportsKidsAZ program with Coach Jonathan.  There were over 40 Eastside Explorer kids involved.  Class will be on Wednesday's from 1-2pm.  (Lilly & I will be having some play time on the playground.)

Piano Lessons begin

 Micah's piano lessons will be on Tuesday at 12:30pm.  We go to Mrs. Amy Cline's house for his 1/2 hour lesson.  Today Mrs. Cline introduced the eras of music - Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th Century.  Micah will be memorizing some of the artists of those time periods.  He will also be memorizing all of the scales: beginning with C Major and G Major.  This is the beginning of his 3rd year.

SCHOOL'S IN!

Today was the first day of school - Micah (9 years old) 3rd grade; Lilly (4 years old) preschool.  Lilly was telling everyone she could last night that she was starting school.  She had such a big grin on her face and her eyes lit up!  At the beginning of summer she was asking to start and talking about it often.  We re-arranged the 'school room', organized her desk, purchased new school supplies for both of them and today it became official.
Micah & Lilly's teacher asked them to bring two of their stuffed animals with them to their first day of school.  Micah selected:  Baxter (pillow pet) and Sydney.  Lilly selected:  Ladybug "Sunshine" (pillow pet) and Sparkly Bear.  During circle time they both introduced their animals and told why they selected them.
We had our 'first day of school' pictures, Jesus Calling & prayer journal, calendar, emptied backpacks (that were full of new school supplies), drew self-portraits, wrote a summer entry in their journals, read books, and they each had some one-on-one instruction time.
Micah had an orthodontist appointment and his first piano lesson with Mrs. Cline.  We celebrated with lunch (and ice cream) at Chick-Fil-A.  We watched one episode of 'Little House on the Prairie' for our quiet time and then they played with Kevin & Kaitlyn Meigh for a while.
Tonight we'll "show off" to dad!