Our Month Of SNOW Fun!

The first month of the new year is nearly gone!! My commitment to simplify my life is coming together, but takes a lot of work to get it there. I suspect by spring it will be working it's self out.

This month Luke and I have discovered the world of snow. Every week we have explored many different aspects of snow. It has been so much fun!! I am going to summarize the month in bullet format below because I have been so busy I haven't had time to blog weekly!!

Topics and activities we have enjoyed in Jan. 2009

Week 1: " The Three Snow Bears" by Jan Brett

Social Studies: (SS) The Inuit Culture and the Artic Circle

Language Arts: (LA) Discussed setting of the story and how it effects the story. Rewriting the story in Luke's words, and speaker tags in the story

Art: Facial expression, watched online video of Jan Brett drawing a baby polar bear and giving it a try ourselves! We played the "eyes" game where we covered everything but our eyes and tried to guess what emotion each other was acting out. Luke also worked on his fine motor skills by cutting out some Jan Brett book marks from our story.

Bible: We discovered the many Arctic and Antarctic animals and their special characteristic that God created them with.

Applied Math: Comparing sizes, big, bigger, biggest as in the 3 bears

Science: Polar Bear study; their family names, where to find them, their anatomy, diet, classification, and many other facts.

We continued with writing practice, and our lessons in Reading Made Easy (RME) both are coming along slow but steady

For Math we continue going through Math U See (MUS) at a steady pace. We also used the pattern blocks and copied patterns off the Internet discussing the geometric shapes used.

Books we read:

"The Mitten" Jan Brett

Books on Polar Bears (nonfiction)

"Face to Face with a Polar Bear

"Jacob and the Polar Bears"

"Polar Bear Night"

"The Snowy Day" Ezra Jack Keats

Luke also picked out many nonfiction books on cats and dogs this month. Hos favorite was "Gretchen The Bicycle Dog". A book about a wiener dog that had a back injury and got a special wheel chair for dogs! It was very cool.

DVD's we watched: National Geographic's "Polar Prowl"

Week 2: "Katy and the Big Snow" by Virginia Lee Burton

SS: Street signs, cardinal sign review, discussing the compass, map skills

LA: Vocabulary; bulldozer, steamroller, drizzle, water main, emergency, three alarm fire, patient

Listed details given about Katy in the story

Review of the personification in this story and others we have read this year

Read site word book "Go, Go, Go!" throughout this week.

Art: Discussed the different ways the illustrator used detail in the pictures through color, action, and personality. Luke did a personification drawing of the moon. He named it "mooney"

Applied Math: Began the concept of counting by 5's

Bible: Studied the character traits patience and responsibility as it was use din the story and also through the Bible story of Joseph.

Science: We discussed and recorded the weather patterns in out town. We read a book called "50 Weather Words" and discussed what each means. To take care of our cold weather birds we created bird feeders with pine cones, peanut butter, seeds, raisins, and berries.

We continued reading with RME and math with MUS.

Books we read:

DK book on weather

"I Drive A Snowplow" by Sarah Bridges

"If I Had A Snowplow: by L.S. Jean Patrik

"Best Little Wingman" Janet Allen (our fav. of the week)

Week 3: A Penguin Study

SS: Discovered where the North and South poles are on the map. Discussed the Arctic and the Antarctic the differences and similarities. We also went over more map skills and Luke created a map of his room complete with a Yettie and a Jedi on hid bed!

LA: Review of days of the week and months of the year. Vocabulary words were; exploration, tundra, Arctic, Antarctic. We read a chapter book named, "To Antarctica or Bust an Egg" where 3 boys are transported through time to Antarctica to study penguins and their eggs.

Art: Luke used water colors to create penguin pictures. He was very creative and painted 3, even though he was only required to do one. We looked through many penguin pictures where the artist used water colors. In Luke's black and white painting of a penguin he decided to paint the belly yellow because "he was standing in the sunshine"!

Math" We counted the moths of the year, weeks in a month, and days of the week. Luke numbered penguin cut outs with the months on them and placed them in order.

Science: Penguins!! We discovered how many different breeds there are, their food chain, anatomy, why they are black and white, how they babies are cared for, and much much more. Now, Happy Feet makes a little more sense.

Luke also helped in the kitchen this week learning to pour his own drinks and help peel carrots with a veggie peeler.

We watched "Reading Rainbow" a lot this week and learned all about sea cows aka; manatee's and Russian egg painters. Luke insisted on blowing out and painting his own egg after that show. He also got out his 2 stuffed manatee's and acted out the stories shared on that show!! I love that imagination and the ability that homeschooling affords him to act on it!

In RME this week LUKE read his first sentence! We both jumped up and down and shouted!! This was an awesome mile stone for us!! It was, "A cat sat."

Book List

"Me On The Map" Joan Sweeny

"Penguin " Frans Lanting

"Penguins Puffins and Auks" Art Wolfe

"My Season With The Penguins" Spohie Webb

"A Mothers Journey" Sandra Markle

"Penguin In The Snow" Doug Allen

"The Emperor Lays An Egg" Brenda Z. Guiberson

""Stuart Little" from the I Can Read Seriese

For math we continued daily in MUS and added a snowman dot to dot. (his favorite)

Week 4: Snow and Mittens

SS: Proper dress in the cold weather. Calendar review, Learning Left and Right hands and directions.

LA: Continue reading & writing the RME sentences and word pages. Snowman tracer pages. for writing and fine motor practice. Record a story Luke creates about a day in the snow.

Art: Decorated mittens, built a hexagon snowman, make a puffy paint snow picture.

Science: A snow study and making snow play dough

Special Activities this week: Out to eat with Mama Jan & Big Popa for MaMa's birthday. Grandjo spent the day here with Luke, Homeschool group on Friday to play and learn a song using American Sign Language.

MUS: Counting by 2's

Book List:

"The Mitten" Jan Brett
"The Hat" Jan Brett
"The Missing Mitten Mystery"

Reflecting on 2008 and looking ahead to 2009.

Here we are January 4, 2009! It is so hard to believe 2008t has gone by so fast. It has gone by so quickly because it was full to the brim with happenings. I was happy to say good bye to 2008 for I had so many mountains to climb and tears to cry. So many heavy loads to bear some times feeling like I needed to come up for air. All the while Lord Jesus was with me every step of the way and without him and the prayers of friends and family I could have thrown my hands up and said "What's next?"I keep a calendar of events and blessing throughout the year and how God is there during them. I wanted to share some of those things that life threw my way in 2008 just so I can read this in the end and go WOW! What an amazing Lord to carry me through!!


On January 1 my Mom's Aunt May died who had suffered from Alzheimer's. She was the last living out of her Mother's siblings. It was very very hard on her. And a sad day remember from now on. My Daddy who is in a facility in Black Mountain NC began to have more agitation and restlessness and dislocated his knee cap. He too has Alzheimer's and Aunt May's funeral was a forecast of what we will have to do with Daddy unless Jesus raptures us all. As the winter rolled along Luke and I both were sick for 6 to 8 weeks in January and February. Luke's asthma ragged on during this time. My younger brother, Brian also got strep throat, became dehydrated and was transported to the ER after passing out on my Mom. He was hydrated and given some high powered antibiotics and released. Luke had to see an ENT for consultation for a tonsillectomy. I got a nasty double ear infection requiring lengthy treatments. I also received a consultation for my "female issues" and was scheduled for a uterine ablation. I went first in March and in early April Luke had the tonsillectomy. That was the worst day of my mothering life! I had a headache so bad I could barely walk!! The stress was nearly too much for me to bear! His recovery was harder than I imagined, and I was even warrened that it would be. There was a risk that when the scabs came off he could bleed, 7 nights later HE DID! OH MY! I have never been so scared in all of my life! We went to the ER in a panic, but once we arrived the staff was too calm! this meant more needles and blood draws for Luke, which for him was worse than the surgery. He did stop bleeding on his own. This set him back to the same pain as if he had just had the surgery! He was pale and had no energy. I had to give him liquids for a medicine dropper to get him to drink. It makes me weak kneed to think of it now. My older brother, David ended up in the emergency room with food lodged in his throat which led to a series of GI test that diagnosed his with Barret's espohagus. Also during this time my Mom began to have these "spells" as she calls them and the worsened to the point of an ER visit where her blood pressure was 170/100!! She was checked out and sent on her way. This got the ball rolling for a cardiologist appointment of which we waited 4 or 5 months on! She was treated for anxiety during this time and that did help. Summer rolled around and the out door activities began. We purchased a small above ground pool to stay cool in. It provided hours of fun in the sun for our family. It also provided us with another ER visit! Luke aspirated pool water and became lethargic and finally coughed it up along with blood. Again he was checked out and released. This was almost to hard on this Mommy's heart. During the Summer month Brian returned again to the ER for abdominal pain and GI issues he could not resolve with over the counter melds. In September he underwent upper and lower GI exams as well. This took care of some polyps that seemed to take care of his problem. Finally the time had come for Mom's visit with the cardiologist. This landed her in a Doppler study of her thigh which concluded she had a blood clot dangerously close to her deep veins. She had to do blood thinners and compression hose as well as have weekly blood levels checked. After five weeks of treatment Mom's blood clot was completely gone. This amazed everyone involved in treating her! It was a miracle! There were also some family and personal issues that arose in the month of November that have hurt me deeply and shown me many things through that difficult time. They were tough lessons causing me to evaluate myself and the relationships I have. In December, the month of hope we had our family trip to Walt Disney World. This was the highlight of the year!!! It was a dream vacation with magical happenings everyday! This was the trip we had planned to take last December, but Travis accident had put that on hold. I think Travis and I both realize dhow blessed we were to finally get this trip. We also thought about what would have happened had the results from his accident not been so positive. As we returned home from our awesome trip it was time for Christmas! We were ready except for a few last minuet things. We each took turns getting sick as the holidays approached. Travis was sick all day on Christmas day and in bed with a fever most of the day. We made the best of it and even had our regular "Christmas Day Night" family gathering one week and 2 days late! New years eve rolled around and Travis and I were still struggling with illness so that interrupted our New Years Eve celebration with the Degears. I stayed up alone while my sick boys slept and watched the big million dollar ball drop. As I gladly kissed 2008 goodbye!!
I have blogged this entire year and highlighted the many tough times for a few reasons. Most of all to say God never left me during this time. His spirit was always there to comfort me. His word was always there to encourage me. He taught me that people will always let you down, but HE never ever will. For "Jesus is always the same." I share all of this to tell you that despite all the heart ache Jesus is still worthy of all praise and that HE is the only hope in this world. He is the only true peace and HIS promises are true. He is coming back one day to set this sin sick world straight and in heaven there will be no more pain, suffering, or heartache. There will just be endless days of praising Him! The one and only God creator of all!!