Still at it

M in her Heritage Girl uniform!

We have completed more than fifty days! The kids are very excited about this since we are planning on having a 100 day celebration. Honestly, with only the three of us I'm at a loss as to what to do! I think I will bake a cake and put a 100 candle on it, do a few count 100 items activity...but after that I'm not sure. I suppose I will spend some time on pinterest for ideas.

So far, on average everything has been going relatively well. Don't get me wrong C has had a few major meltdowns when he hasn't wanted to do work. I have had to explain to him it doesn't matter if he doesn't want to do it, he has too. I have found overall my patience with the kids has really grown. I've gotten to the point, "well go throw your fit and when you are done you can join us." Seems to have worked.

One thing I did notice is I'm not allowing for as much fun as I had originally planned too. To some extent it is hard, I mean I still have a house to run and there is still work to be done. Yet at the same time I don't step away from the worksheets and allow them to learn in other ways. This is something I am planning on changing. Don't get me wrong most days will still be worksheets, but I want to pull out some fun activities I've come across.

My husband, who is musical, works with them once a week for a music lesson. He started teaching C the recorder and worked with M on the piano. He has also been playing with them on Djembe drums (using a metronome), campfire songs, and playground clap songs. They really love music time!

We do have lots of time to do artwork (thank-you pinterest!) There are so many fun things to make this time of year! I would love to make everything, but I'll be honest with you...I hate all the added mess. I know that is wrong. I am working on having C and M help more with clean-up, but I still do the bulk of it. I still try to do at least one project a week plus they can pull out stamps or beads anytime they want. I should try to do a little more with them. I will add the links to the great sites I found these projects on if you would like to do them with your kids (all pretty easy).

How to draw a scarecrow
Toilet paper ghost 

The pumpkins were just a combination of ideas. I just used paper plates and let the kids paint them orange. They made faces with black construction paper and cut them out and glued them. We also have a stencil (I've been buying them at Hobby Lobby makes my life easier for art, lol) of leaves, so they picked the leaves, traced on green construction paper and cut. Voila!

The trees were just some printed trees (I can't find the link I used). I then let them pick finger paints for fall leaves and they put finger print leaves on their trees (I have also seen this with q-tips instead of finger prints).