First Day of School

We’re finally back!! We got a little busy at the end of August with a 10 day trip to Disney World. When we got back from our trip I was making our final preparations for school to start, and just ran out of time for blogging.  Anyway, we started school last week- our first day was on Thursday.  Here are some pictures from our first day:

Hailey all ready and excited to start her first day of 2nd grade.

Hunter all ready for tot school.

Posing with her lunch box.

Going back inside to start our day 🙂

Hunter and Hailey

The backpacks

Hailey at her desk, ready to work.

Hunter at his desk, ready to work.

Hailey working in her calendar notebook.

Hunter with his calendar notebook.

Hunter “working” while I was working with Hailey.

Hailey doing a first day of school paper.

Hunter doing his first day of school paper.

We had a great first day!  When Rich got home from work we went out to dinner to celebrate the start of school.  It’s going to be a fun year 🙂

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Ocean Animals Tot Book

Over the last month we have been learning all about the ocean/beach.  Hailey made a lapbook about dolphins, so I decided to have Hunter make his first lapbook too- or a tot book, since he’s a toddler.  I knew just where to go to find a good tot book to make for Hunter.  When Hailey was a toddler she made her first tot book about Veggie Tales using 1+1+1=1, so I decided to look there to try to find something to make with Hunter.  Of course, I found a perfect Ocean Animals Tot Book!

The cover for our Tot Book

Here is the completed Ocean Animals Tot Book.

Hunter colored the different ocean animals different colors for the accordion book part of the tot book.  This was the only part of the tot book where he had to do anything before I put it together, the rest of it was just me cutting things out and putting them together.

 Hunter seemed pretty pleased when he looked inside.

These are the cards from “Match the Animals.”

 Hunter handing me the card that matched the one I showed him.

 Looking through the letters in the “Ocean Animals ABCs.”  This does not include the entire alphabet- only 8 letters- which is perfect for a toddler.

 Hunter loved the counting book “How Many Animals in the Sea?”  He counts to 3, so he enjoyed doing that.  The book goes up to 5, which again is perfect for a toddler.

Hunter looking over the colors in his “Coloring Ocean Animals” book.

This Tot Book was a lot of fun and Hunter really enjoys it!  I have left it out where he can get it and I have found him looking at it several times.  I made the cover for it, but you can get all of the other printables to make it from 1+1+1=1.

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Our Homeschool Classroom

We have been excitedly setting up and getting ready for our first year of homeschooling.  Although our first day of school isn’t until September, I am pretty much ready to start.  We are going on vacation soon and I want everything to be done before we go.  I still have a few organizational type things to do, but for the most part we are all set.  Here is a peek at where we are planning to have school everyday.

This room is in the downstairs of our house, off of our family room.  It’s not a huge room, but I think it will work for us.

This is what the room looks like from the doorway.  The window made it really hard to get a picture of this wall, but this wall has our calendar and calendar board.  I have another post coming that shows what we are using on our calendar board.  We also have our flag and some maps on that wall.  There is a window shelf where I am keeping a few of my supplies.

Along the very top of this wall where there the flower boarder is will be where we will display our artwork.  I have a post in the works for that, to show how we made it.  Then there are shelves that display some of the Lego creations Hailey has done.  She loves to put them together and then display them.  This wall has magazine holders full of books.  The magazine holders are labeled for different types of books (fall, Christmas, winter, Dr. Seuss, Disney, science, etc.)  We also have a “USA Animals” board where we will put pictures of the animals we learn about while we do Road Trip USA.  Then there are some bins where I will keep my papers organized. There is also a shelf that has some oversized books that wouldn’t fit in the magazine holders and well as some bins.

This is Hailey’s desk.  We will probably share it, but for the most part this will be Hailey’s workspace.  There is also a Word Wall on her desk.

Here is a close up of the Word Wall.  Hailey and I looked through Pinterest and she found an animal print that she liked.  It’s free 🙂 on Tpt.

Here is the last wall of our classroom.  This wall has our white board.  Above the white board is our weekly Bible verse and our weekly poem.  The little table is Hunter’s workspace.  He already loves to sit there and work, so hopefully that will continue when we actually start school.  You can also see our Chicka- Chicka- Boom- Boom tree that my mom helped me make a few years ago when Hailey was learning her ABCs.  On the far left is Hunter’s ABC wall.

Here is a close up of the alphabet I am using for Hunter.  When I found these Zoomin Moving ABC Wall Cards over at Royal Baloo I was so excited!  Hunter loves anything with wheels so he was really happy to see these when I put them up.

We will also spread out into our family room where there are some comfy couches, perfect for snuggling up in with a good book.  I’m sure there will be art projects done in the dining room so I have easy access to the kitchen.  In other words, we will probably homeshool all over our house, but this room will be our main classroom.  I hope you enjoyed the little tour of our homeschool room.

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Tot School

Hunter is 19.5 months old.

Well, several weeks have gotten away from me again without a Tot School post.  That’s what summer vacation will do to ya!  Anyway, here is what Hunter did over the last few weeks.

 Our color for the month of July was purple, so Hunter got to use the do-a-dot markers and make a purple picture.  I definitely slacked in the color teaching department though and we didn’t do very many purple related activities.

Our theme during the month of July was ocean/beach.  Here are some of the projects we made:

Hunter painted a whale.

The whales turned out cute!  You can see the whole post here.

He painted some popsicle sticks to make a fish.

Hunter’s finished Popsicle Stick Fish- see the whole post here.

Next we made jellyfish, and Hunter had fun painting his paper bowl.

I turned around for a few seconds…

and Hunter had fun painting his face.

I guess he wanted to make sure I knew how the paint got there.

Our completed Jellyfish- see the whole post here.

We made a fish craft snack, which Hunter ate before I could take a picture of it 🙂

Here are the ones that Hailey and I made- they were cute and yummy.

Hunter loves when we do activities and crafts.  When he sees me getting things out, preparing to make something, he has to look and see what I’m doing.  Then he’ll say, “Paint” and “Coat,” which is what he calls his smock.

Hunter and Hailey working on painting to make a Killer Whale.

Completed Killer Whales- see full post here.

Hunter loved feeling the stickiness of the contact paper for our Fish Aquariums.

Completed Fish Aquariums- see full post here.

Stop by 1+1+1=1 to see what the other tots were up to this week.

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