March 11, 2012

Sunday School - 45 minutes
AWANA club - 2 hours



Day #113/175 Days

March 4, 2012

Sunday School - 45 minutes
AWANA Club - 2 hours


Day #107/175 Days

February 26, 2012

All

• Sunday School - 45 minutes
• AWANA club - 2 hours

Day #104/175 Days

February 19, 2012

All

Sunday School - 45 minutes
AWANA Club - 2 hours


Day #99/175 Days

February 12, 2011

All

Church - 1-1/2 hours
AWANA club - 2 hours


Day #93/175 Days

February 5, 2012

All

AWANA Club - all (2 hours)
AWANA Grand Prix

The Double Barrel Shotgun is Happy's.

The shotgun shell in the top row is Pilot's.

My favorite part of every Grand Prix is seeing all the fantastic designs. 

Day #86/175 Days

January 22, 2012

Today was Sunday School (45 minutes) & AWANA (2 hours).


Day #74/175 Days

January 15, 2012

Today was Sunday School (45 minutes) and AWANA (2 hours).



Day #68/175 Days

January 8, 2012

One thing I realized I have not been counting this year, is our AWANA club meetings. Previously they were held on Thursday nights so they fit well into our regular school week. This year, however, they are now being held on Sunday afternoons. The two younger boys participate in the club and the rest of our volunteer. So from this point on, I will be counting this as a day of school. Added to this the time spent in church (or Children's church) and Sunday School, it's a full day of learning.

Today was church & AWANA.


Day #63/175 Days

Day #92/175 Days

Today was the AWANA Grand Prix. This is very similar to a Boy Scout Pinewood Derby. The boys have been working on their cars over the last few months. There were over 60 cards raced today. None of my boys ended up placing this year. They still had a great time. Here are some photos from the day.

All the awards lined up and ready to go.

A selection of the cars. I'm always amazed at some of the designs. So very creative!

LOTS of yummy food!

Conductor's car is on the red track.

Check out these designs! Don't let the snowman fool you - he was fast!

In motion!! Lego-Man's car is on the red track. 

Yes, it's running backwards. He had so much weight in the back it was

having a hard time keeping the nose down!

Happy's car truck is on the yellow track.

Lego-Man keeps ducking the camera lately.

Here he is getting his participation ribbon. 

Day #59/175 days

• PC
• Wii Fit
• AWANA Club (2 hours)

Day #24/175 Days

• India Study (we are really enjoying this and it's free!)
• Piano Practice
• 4-H Money Camp
• The kids have been working on prototypes of their products. We are signed up for at least one craft fair at this point and looking at doing a couple more. The kids had a chance to show how they would present their product. We talked about customer service, manners, and professional dress. I think it was very good and I'm very thankful we chose to do this camp. The kids have had a great time with it.
• AWANA (2 hours)

Day #20/175 Days

Today the boys did their piano practice in the morning.

In the afternoon we had Money Camp. We are really having fun with this. Today we talked about marketing and packaging. Debra had some cookies there in a couple of different packages - just local grocery story bakery cookies. The kids talked about which type of packing worked better and why.

They she broke them up in to four groups. Each group was to take two cookies and create a package and a name for them. There was a bunch of craft things there such as markers, tape, containers, doilies, and plastic wrap plus a lot more. They were given only fifteen minutes to come up with their completed concept.

It was a lot of fun to watch them work on problem solving this. We will be meeting next week as well plus bringing a working prototype with us. We are going to work together to help troubleshoot and problems and give some tips on improving the product, package, and marketing of it.

The kids will then have a table at some of the local craft fairs to sell their goods. This all counts as part of their 4-H program as well.

We ended the day with our AWANA club.

Day #9/175 Days

Our first “official” day at home. I’ll be honest though – I still haven’t planned out everything. Even though, we still had a nice productive day today.

• We began our day with a walk. We went about two miles total and a lot of it was up some pretty steep hills. A good workout and a nice way to start the day.
• Lego-Man & Conductor took a Spelling Placement test. I do this 2-3 times a year. I use Spell to Write and Read as our spelling basis and they have a very good spelling diagnostic test. They boys are making slow progress but definite progress.
• Happy & Conductor both took turns trying out a review product for the TOS Crew. We’ll be reviewing Talking Fingers next month.
• Happy is the guinea pig for another TOS Crew product from Greek n’ Stuff. We’ll be learning the Greek alphabet. This will be interesting since Happy still hasn’t even learned how to read English.
• I started back to reading aloud. We’ve been working through the Little House on the Prairie books. We’re currently on By the Shores of Silver Lake.
• Happy & Conductor worked on their AWANA verses. Happy is working on memorizing all the books of the New Testament.
• They all practiced their piano.
• Conductor & Lego-Man took some time to work on Mathletics.
• Conductor took a trip to the Rainforest via Digital Frog. Another TOS Crew review project that I’ll be reviewing next month.
• We ended our day with AWANA club.

Day #132/175 Days

The boys were at AWANA tonight for two hours. Our club goes from 6-8pmish. It typically goes later. We're on the home stretch of our year. 

And yes, this is all the school we accomplished today. I spent most of the day enjoying the Schoolhouse Expo - an on-line homeschooling conference. That is my plan for tomorrow too so the boys will have it off.

Day #65/175 Days - AWANA Grand Prix

The boys have participated in AWANA since Conductor was a Cubbie (age 4). It was hit or miss there for a year or so but now they all go regularly. Happy has been a Cubbie (preschool - ages 3 & 4) & is now in Sparks (grades K-2). While Conductor is now in T&T (grades 3-6) & Lego-Man helps out with the Cubbie group since our AWANA group does not continue past sixth grade.

AWANA is a great program and we average about 45 kids each week. I know all of our boys really enjoy it and hubby & I enjoy helping out as well. I am a secretary and he is the games director.

The children meet weekly & memorize Bible verses to earn awards for their uniforms. There are also some fun activities that occur each year. One that is highly anticipated every year is the AWANA Grand Prix. It's very similar in nature to the Boy Scout Pinewood Derby. The children buy a car kit (a block of wood with four tires and axles) and then go to town creating their fastest and most creative design.

My boys were bummed this year that none of them won design or speed trophies but they still had fun. Children are encouraged to create as much of the car on their own as they can. We really encourage that here. My FIL cut the rough shape of the cars for the boys but Lego-Man and Conductor did all the work for their cars plus helped Happy with his. I did some minor painting for Happy. Other than that these cars were all of their own design and creation.

Lego-Man's car crossing the finish line.

Happy's Car is #33, Conductor's car is #50, and Lego-Man's car is #98.

Day #24/175 Days

Just AWANA club....

Happy completed his first section towards earning his rank & earned his uniform tonight.
Conductor is continuing to work on his gate.
Lego-Man is still doing a great job with the Cubbies (3-4 year olds)

(I'm sure there were more educational things they did this week, but I didn't write them down so I'm only counting this.)