Family Field Day

We kicked off our Stewardship Konos unit with a Family Field Day!

TotSchool Week 1

Nathan (40 months) had fun with this awesome little Fall Dice Game.

We are studying Nutrition with our big brother, so Nathan helped sort the food into the 5 food groups.





We explored symetry with reflective objects.

Corn: is it a fruit, vegeatble or grain? Your guess is as good as ours.
Logan (20 mohths) played in a ball pit at his brother's party.

Tried some lacing (and then threw them at me)
Got the hang of this puzzle!

Tried to steal his brothers markers! (SNEAKY)

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Weekly Wrap-Up - Konos Style, Part 2

Our Konos Character Trait this week and for the next 4 weeks is Stewardship and our unit is NERF (Nutrition, Exercise, Rest and Fun). (Am I the only one who didn't know what that meant?) We had a light Konos week (mostly because I was recovering from Dylan's party), but we did manage to learn the 5 food groups and have an intense debate about corn. Is it a fruit, vegetable or grain?

If you aren't familiar with Konos it is a HANDS - ON approach to learning. In that spirit, KONOS suggests emptying your fridge and grouping everything into the food groups. While I think that is a very exciting thing, not happening here. Besides not wanting to be paranoid that one of my food allergy kids got hold of something, the idea of dragging my meat and dairy products onto the floor....ewww. We compromised with pretend food and a handful of boxes from the recycling bin. I think to make it more concrete for the boys we might go through and label all of the food in the cabinets and fridge during Logan's nap, but I am so not dragging all of the food out.

Sorry KONOS.

Corn, What is it? Fruit, vegetable or grain? Anyone?

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Aaarrggghh!

Dylan celebrated his FIFTH birthday with his 12 favorite Buccaneers!

I am so lucky my husband goes along with my crazy plans, like building a 48 foot pirate ship around the play area.

Walk the Plank!!! (By far everyone's favorite game.)

I CANNOT believe he is FIVE!!!!

(Lack of) Cozy Reading Corner

Teaching My Little Bookworm has started a new blog link up. Check it out!

I have been tyring to find some special "reading nook" in our house since my kids were born. You know, a secret little cozy corner with cute kid-sized chairs and a bakset of books. Somehow, it just never works out and my kids always end up here in this oversized chair that gets moved all over the house because it doesn't really fit anywhere. It is pretty cozy!

My favorite part of reading in our house is our "nonfiction" section. All (okay, almost all) of the books are labeled and the kids are always taking (and putting back) books off of these shelves. This system has saved so much of the "Well, I know we have a book about that somewhere.....", proceeded by tearing apart all the bookshelves to find that one book!

Weekly Wrap-Up - Konos Style

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This was our first official week homeschooling! We are studying Attentiveness ala Konos. We learned all about the ear....



Then found some parts to make our own crawl through ear.....

Enjoyed some lunch in the ear.....

We also made some signs for our Attentiveness unit study. If it ever stops raining here (actually, I am very grateful for the rain right now) we are going to take our signs outside and make an obstacle course for the powerwheels.

It was a great week. We (okay, mostly I) learned a lot. I have a whole list of changes to make this weekend!

Chore Charts

I am a HUGE fan of having kids help out around the house. Every few months, I come up with some new system and I really like this one. Around here, anything works for a season and then we need to have some new twist to make it fun again. Our Race Track is loosely based on Vicki Bently's Everyday Family Chore System and Accountable Kids. Basically, each child has three "checkpoints" and once they reach a check point, they put a sticker on a chart. After they earn 25 stickers, they get to go mini golfing with Dad.

The great part for me is that I don't have to remember who hasn't brushed their teeth, put on their clothes or had breakfast. I can just ask, are you at Check Point 1?