Lunch Boxes

My friend Jolene at Monsters Ed has started what she calls "Monster Munchies." This is just packing healthy lunch boxes for the family in order to provide nutritious meals as well as save time during the busy school day. I decided to jump on this bandwagon & see what my family would think of it. It has been a HUGE success here! My kids are getting much better meals, I actually saved money at the grocery store, and I'm saving myself a lot of time during the school day since I don't have to stop to make lunch. We just grab them from the fridge & go. Naturally something will have to be reheated occassionally, but popping something in the microwave for 30 seconds is much better than waiting 30 minutes for something to cook. So here are our lunches from this week. There are only four since we just started Tuesday. ;)

Tuesday: chicken salad, crackers, cheese sticks, and no-cook S'mores

For the S'mores I simply took 2 graham cracker squares, spread one with marshmallow cream, spread the other with Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread, and put them together as a sandwich. They were fabulous!

Wednesday: pizza quesadillas, baby carrots w/ranch dressing (not pictured), and Dirt cup.

 

For the pizza quesadillas, I buttered one side of a tortilla & placed it butter side down on my griddle. I then spread a bit of pizza sauce, sprinkled with some shredded mozzerella cheese, and placed a few pieces of turkey pepperoni on one side. When the cheese was melted, I folded the tortilla over & removed it from the griddle. Very yummy! For the Dirt cup, I simply put chocolate pudding in the lunch box & sprinkled crushed chocolate cookies on top. Another big hit.

Thursday: ham salad, crackers, sliced pickles, and a rice krispie treat

Friday: DIY nachos and nilla wafers

For the nachos, I just put some tortilla chips in a baggie, gave everyone a serving of taco seasoned beef, refried beans, and shredded cheese. I crushed my chips & mixed everything together (with added sour cream & minus refried beans) as a taco salad.

To see what other kids are eating click HERE.

Some Science Fun

In science last week, the boys were learning about measurements, specifically measuring in inches and centimeters. Our science kit came with 2 little capsules that we were to soak in water for a few seconds, measure, and repeat until it was fully "grown." The boys really enjoyed this.

Afterward, they had fun finding things around the house to measure.

We've also been playing with magnets this week, but sadly I didn't get any pictures. Yes, I'm ashamed of myself, but I may have to just catch them playing sometime & sneak some pics then. lol They enjoyed finding things around the house & testing them to see if they were magnetic. We took some ring magnets and made one "float" above the other on a pencil while learning about the poles on a magnet. The boys were quite fascinated with that! We taped a bar magnet to the top of a toy car & "pushed" it by using another bar magnet & trying to put the like poles together while learning about attraction (opposite poles) and repulsion (like poles). Then we made a compass by taping a bar magnet inside a small container, marking N S E and W, then floating the container in a larger bowl of water. Next I had each of the boys take turns holding the compass and following my directions to go to different rooms in the house. They did very well! Hopefully when they grow up they'll have their daddy's sense of direction and not mine. lol

Happy Birthday, Jack!

Ok, so this post is going up a bit late, but better late than never, right?

My oldest baby (though I better not let him hear me say that) turned 11 on July 27. I don't know where the time has gone. He grew up overnight, it seems. The next thing I know he'll be driving & then graduating. :( I'm not ready for that! But in the meantime, I'll just enjoy the time I have with him still being young. He's been a blessing to our family & I couldn't ask for better.

It's All Good

We are really having fun with our current school year! I'm so glad I made the changes I did. They were the right changes to make for us at this time. Of course, that's subject to change on any given day. lol

Jared & Justin really do seem to like Shurley English! They are both doing level 1 this year since neither of them have had a very good foundation in parts of speech. They think the jingles are lame (which they are!), but they still have fun with them. Yesterday, they went on a "noun hunt."

They thought it was fun & I thought it was a great way to instill in them what a noun is. Jared was in charge of hunting for nouns that name people.

Justin was in charge of hunting nouns that name things.

I hunted for nouns that name places. It was a little more difficult. lol

They had a blast doing this!

Jack is still enjoying his math, although he has slowed down to doing just 1 lesson per day. They're getting a bit more difficult, but still not hard for him. Just a little more time consuming. I think the novelty is wearing off. It's becoming more like school & less like a game. lol

In history we've been enjoying our study of Native Americans in North America. We've been learning about the Inuits of the Arctic. One of the ways the Inuit found food was ice fishing. So the boys each made a fish & hook to pretend to go ice fishing like the Inuits.

Jack & Jared thought it would be fun to go "cat" fishing with Diego. lol

Diego had fun, too. :)

Just a little randomness....Justin has been finding all kinds of creatures outside lately. Most recently he's been catching & bringing in the house these teeny tiny frogs.

They're so adorable, but um....really don't want them in the house. lol So I make him take them back outside after he makes me take pictures. :)

Another successful day!

The only thing I can ask for now is for it to go a little faster. lol But as long as everyone's happy, I'm not complaining...too much.

In  history we started our study of Native Americans. We started with the Inuits of the Arctic.

Also known as Eskimos, they prefer to be called Inuit. We learned that they didn't farm for food, but instead hunted & fished for things like seal, walrus, whale, fish, caribou, and polar bear. They not only ate these things, but used them for clothing & shelter as well. During the winter months, they lived in tightly-packed snow "brick" houses called igluviaks (igloos). The whole family lived together: parents, children, grandparents, aunts & uncles, etc. They must have been pretty large. In the summer months, the igluviaks would melt & they then built tents made from animal skin. Now, to me, this begs the question, why even bother with the igluviaks? If they're just going to melt, why not live in the animal skin tents all the time? lol I suppose they had their reasons. lol

Jack is still really loving Teaching Textbooks.

I've only planned 1 lesson per day for the school year. He has other plans, apparantly. He completed 2 lessons the first day and 2 lessons yesterday during school. Later in the afternoon I caught him messing with my computer & I asked him what he was doing. "Trying to play that game," he said. I had no idea what game he was trying to play, so I asked. "Uh! That MATH game!" was his reply. He just couldn't believe I didn't know what game he was talking about. LOL So, he thinks it's a game. Ok, we'll go with that. :) We got the disc going & he proceeded to complete 3 more lessons AFTER school. So in 2 days, he has completed 7 math lessons. He's now at the end of Chapter 1 and ready for the quiz.

Jared is doing cursive handwriting this year. He's loving it! And doing really well. Here's a sample of what he's done so far.

Last night I asked each of the boys what their favorite part of school is so far. The results:

Jack--math, duh!

Jared--spelling!! Big surprise there since last year he struggled with it so badly that we stopped a couple months into it.

Justin--history (Aunt Teresa would be so proud.)

1st Day of School 2010

A new school year has begun!

We were "supposed" to start yesterday, but for various reasons our first day was postponed until today.

Jack is soon to be 11 and is starting 6th grade! I can't believe I have a junior highschooler!

Can you see the white in the front of his hair? No, that's not paint. He really has gray hair!

Jared is soon to be 9 and is starting 3rd grade.

Justin is 7 and is starting 2nd grade.

We usually start our 1st day of school off with a special breakfast of "cookie" pancakes (aka chocolate chip pancakes). Since we thought yesterday was going to be our first day, we had that then, so today was just cereal. Oh well. They were happy that they still had their precious cookie pancakes. :)
I made the boys up a new chore chart & they got started on their chores right away. We like to start our school days off with a nice little walk, but we were already getting a late start, so no walk today. Once chores were done, we headed outside to take the pictures shown above. Then it was time to get to work. I was changing some things up for this school year & everyone seemed to like the changes thus far. The one thing that remained the same (and is still just as hated as before...lol) was Explode the Code. Here Jared is working on his.

Jared & Justin are the only ones doing ETC & they really don't care for it at all. But I want them to have some form of phonics instruction & this fits the bill, so....there ya go.

We just had a light introduction to our new history program. We're sort of using Beautiful Feet Early American History, but I have tweaked it to the point that it really isn't recognizable as BF. lol I've taken things out, added other things in, and rearranged the order a bit here & there. We are still using the books suggested in BF, though. lol One thing I added in is an 8 week study on native americans. We took some time today going through that section of their notebooks, just looking over things and getting accustomed to the layout of their new notebooks. They all decided they would rather have notebooks than workboxes this year. Hey, it saves me some space!
Jared & Justin both started Singapore math today. They were all using Math-u-See, but I had been noticing a lot of gaps and so switched. Justin enjoyed the Singapore so much that he ASKED to do an extra lesson! When we put it away, he looked at me and said, "That was fun!" :) I'm so glad he likes it! He's never said that about math before. He usually hates math, so I know that this was a good change. Jared enjoyed it, too. He also thought it was fun, but he's always enjoyed math.
Jack's math has also changed. He's using Teaching Textbooks this year.

He looks thoroughly bored in this picture, but he really did like it. In fact, later in the day he asked if he could do some more math. lol Like I'm going to tell him no? I'm just thrilled. My kids have never asked to do more school.

Another change I've made this year is switching to Shurley English. We just had a light introduction day, but I think it went over pretty well. Jack didn't argue or complain about the vocabulary as I thought he would, and in fact seemed to enjoy learning the new words. The one part that Justin didn't care for (and I knew he wouldn't) is the jingles. He absolutely hates things like that. When I sang the first one, he looked at me as if I had just sprouted an extra head. lol Once I told him he didn't have to sing and could just say the rhyme, he was fine with it.
Just a couple more pictures to share.....
Justin doing his handwriting.

And Jared doing his spelling.

Spelling Power is yet another new addition this year. Only Jack and Jared are doing it this year. Justin will start in 3rd grade. I was nervous about Jared starting this because he's had trouble with spelling in the past, but he did very well on his first lesson. Out of 10 words, he only missed 2. I was quite impressed. We did the 10 step study process with those 2 words afterward. We'll see if he remembers them today.

And that wraps up our 1st day of the new 2010-2011 school year! Thus far it promises to be a good one!

Camping

We went camping with my family for 4th of July weekend. We had a great time! I really enjoy spending time with my family, and I enjoy camping, so this was a double bonus. :)
The first morning I woke up to find 3 doe & a 4 point buck right behind our shelter.

The picture quality is terrible. I had a hard time getting good pictures.

The next morning I woke up to 6 doe, the same buck, and a fawn behind the shelter. That must be their regular feeding area.

Another great nature photo op....We saw a cicada coming out of it's old husk. It was pretty neat!

Just hanging around the campsite....
Playing dominoes (42)

Justin waiting to go swimming. I just LOVE this picture!

And of course....swimming!