BFIAR: The Red Carpet

This week we rowed The Red Carpet by Rex Parkin.  Although it is a very difficult book to find (I finally found it through Interlibrary Loan), it is completely worth the search!  The story is about a doorman who unrolls a red carpet for a very important visitor, and the red carpet keeps rolling through town causing chaos and even a police chase! The pictures switch between black and white (with red carpet) and full color.

To start the week off, I surprised Joshua with a new toy... a Duplo Police Car! It fit perfectly with our unit on police officers and I couldn't resist!

Our companion books with a police officer theme were:

• Finnegan and Fox: The Ten-Foot Cop by Helen Wilbur
• Police Officers on Patrol by Kersten Hamilton
• Bug Patrol by Denise Dowling Mortensen

Other companion books were:

• Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook
• Red Car, Red Bus by Susan Steggall
• Walter the Baker by Eric Carle
• Busy Busy Town by Richard Scarry

After reading the book on Monday, we made a town and rolled the red carpet around. Joshua chased it with his new police car and enjoyed acting different parts of the story out.

We also did a red carpet maze and played a Domino Parking Lot game for math. Joshua loved making sound effects as he drove each "car" into the correct parking place. Then he pretended they were "flying cars" when they had to be stacked. I loved seeing his imagination grow!

For a fun snack, we had Fruit by the Foot! He enjoyed unrolling it like the carpet.

On Tuesday, we read the book again and Joshua looked for some of the signs in the book. It was cool to see him find the sign and mark it off his list without me even asking him.

Next we colored a traffic light signal. Joshua knew what each color was for! Under each color, he pasted the words "stop," "go," or "slow."

We finished our work early and so we all cuddled on the couch and watched The Prince of Egypt. Joshua is learning about Moses, Pharaoh, and the Israelites in Cubbies so he was excited to see a movie about it. This is one of the things I absolutely love about homeschooling - if our work is done, and we want to snuggle up and watch a movie, we can! 

On Wednesday, we read the book for the third time and noticed details on each page. Then Joshua did his handwriting pages, we are studying letter E and number 5. He also got to draw the red carpet rolling through town!

Our fun snack for today was peanut butter stop lights! I let Joshua make his own and to say he loved it would be an understatement.

On Thursday, we did a unit on police officers. We talked about how they keep us safe and solve crimes. That same morning, my brother-in-law's tailgate was stolen so I was able to talk to Joshua about how the police would figure out who did it. He was very interested! We also made a police hat, stop and go signs, and a police badge. Then he made a book about the different things policemen do.

On Friday I took the boys to the mall for a giant pretzel! One of the pictures in the book showed a pretzel cart being overturned. 

I thought it would be fun to let Joshua taste a giant pretzel. He was so excited! I had been looking forward to this all week and the look on his face when he saw what his treat was made it completely worthwhile. We also read Walter the Baker which is a really cute story about how the pretzel was invented. And who doesn't love Eric Carle!?

The Red Carpet was a fun row and we made many awesome memories learning about policemen, fingerprints, and traffic signs... and especially trying soft pretzels!

BFIAR: Prayer for a Child

This week of homeschooling was pretty uneventful. Sadly, there weren't many activities for this book.

We rowed Prayer for a Child by Rachel Field. It is a BEAUTIFUL book! The pictures are gorgeous and the prayer is so sweet.

Our companion books were from Chick-Fil-A about children from around the world.

We talked about our sweet baby girl, Mercy, from Naomi's Village.  She is a year younger than Joshua.  She started preschool in January just like him! We've set up a Skype call with her on February 14. We talked about the types of questions he could ask her. I explained that she lives in Kenya, very far away. Joshua keeps asking if she can come jump on his trampoline with him.  I showed him a map and explained we'd have to get on an airplane and fly for two days to see Mercy, but in a four year old's mind, that's just no big deal.

We did a color-by-number sheet. He did better than I thought he could! Then he made a page of things he's thankful for... brothers, grandparents, dog, food, clothes, toys, church, etc.

We also made homemade bread. We talked about how important it is to be "exact..." not too much, and not too little. He also learned yeast can never touch water so we had to make a well. And of course, with everything going on, I forgot to add the salt! So... we had to start over... from scratch! But hey, it was a good learning experience... don't do what I did! It was fun and really yummy!

On Friday we went to the arboretum with our cousins. The weather was gorgeous, especially for January.  The kids ran and played and found secret hideouts and had a blast! We are very blessed to live close to family and have such great relationships with all of our siblings. Kenny and I hope to instill that love for family in each of our children. I know it's not coincidence that they grow up wanting to live close by and hang out with each other.

Leah (7) Joshua (4) Jonah (8) and Bonnie (4)

With each passing week, I fall more in love with this curriculum. It truly does instill a love for learning. I'm looking forward to next week!

BFIAR: If Jesus Came to My House

This was not a normal week for me, but it was reality. Frustrating as it was, it truly needed to happen. I've always known one of my biggest struggles in homeschooling would be flexibility.

I am a planner.

I like my schedule.

I like routine.

And I don't like change.

But that's not life... and if I refuse to change, homeschooling will never work.

This week the weather has not cooperated (which affected my plans and my mood), we had a field trip, and an *almost* emergency trip to the ER.

Monday started out cloudy and cold... the perfect storm for mommy to battle depression.  All I want to do when it's cloudy is snuggle on the couch under a blanket.  How realistic is that?!?!?  Even if it's not raining or cold, it's cloudy way too many days out of the year to let this affect my schooling. But today it did. All we accomplished was reading our book. We rowed If Jesus Came to My House by Joan Gale Thomas.

Our companion books with a shadow theme were:

• The Shape of Me and Other Stuff by Dr. Seuss
• Moonbear's Shadow by Frank Asch
• Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow by Ann Tompert
• The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers

On Tuesday, the weather was still cloudy... aka not good for learning about shadows. So we read our book again and I had Joshua build a castle for Jesus with his blocks. Of course I didn't get picture, because that would've been too cool. <sigh>

On Wednesday, we went to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra! We had box seats so that was really cool. Joshua loved it! I thought the music choices could have been better... they did an American theme, so music by American composers. I thought it would've been better for Joshua to hear music by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninoff... or at least songs that were familiar! But it was still a great experience. I'm sure there will be many more symphonies in our future.

Joshua LOOOOVED the organ! 

By the time we got home, I was exhausted and no school was completed.

On Thursday, we read our book again and discussed rhyming words. This is still quite a difficult concept for Joshua to grasp. The other day he told me "turkey and turkey rhyme!" He said it with such excitement it was hard to tell him that wasn't exactly true. We'll keep working on it.

We experimented with shadows inside and matched animals to their shadows.

We also added some more animal classification cards: kitten, dog, elephant, cow, rabbit, bear, and butterfly.  Joshua enjoyed learning the animal baby names (kid, lamb, calf, cub).  I had him match the card to the animal in the book.

On Friday, I was determined to get more accomplished. But our emergency changed all of that.

By Saturday, the sun finally came out and the weather was warm enough to be outside! Thank You Lord! We traced Joshua's shadows at 10, 11, 12, 1, and 4.  It was cool to see them move and change from long and skinny to short and wide. This was a great activity!

I so enjoyed this book. The thought of Jesus coming to play is such a great analogy to teach little ones kindness toward one another. The pictures were beautiful and it's written like a poem, with stanzas and rhyming words. This will be a treasured book in our home for many years to come.

my first *almost* emergency room trip as a mom

I know as a mom of three boys that trips to the ER are inevitable. But I don't think any amount of experience or knowledge could prepare me for how scary it is. My emotions become involved so quickly, everything seems to escalate, and before I know it fear has completely taken over.

Here's how it went down:

I was making the kids breakfast while Kenny fed Anchor his bottle. I noticed he kept gagging and I thought it was odd but didn't pay much else attention to it. After Anchor finished, he kept choking and seemed to have trouble breathing. I noticed a rash around his mouth and neck. I showed Kenny but he didn't seem concerned, made comments about how I was overreacting, and went to work.

8:52AM

I took off Anchor's amber teething necklace and posted this picture on my Stone Soup Group Facebook page hoping someone knew what it was.  Meanwhile, Anchor kept gagging, choking, and acting like he couldn't breathe. I became really concerned but had no idea what to do. Then he started vomiting... and didn't stop! I finally realized Kenny had given him raw cow's milk instead of the goat milk. (He refused to apologize for it which escalated into a fight, so now we weren't talking.) I felt better knowing what it was, but still didn't have a peace about doing nothing.  I put him in the bathtub and texted the picture to Janette.  The rash was quickly spreading and Anchor continued to vomit. I called my pediatrician (who is 45 minutes away!) and the nurse said she needed to ask the doctor and would call me back.

8:19AM

Janette saw this picture and said take him to the ER. She had been texting a friend of hers who was a nurse. This really freaked me out... the rash was spreading so fast! I had the boys, Kenny was mad and headed to work, how could this be happening!?!? I called Melissa, but she didn't answer. Great, the boys now had to go with me. The doctor's office called back and said to bring him in. I responded that they were too far and I was on my way to the ER. I threw the boys into the car - Joshua was in shorts and no shoes, Maverick was still in his pajamas. Neither had coats and with the windchill temps were in the 20s!

I told Janette I didn't even know where the ER was... (awesome, I now sound like a complete idiot to my mother-in-law). She texted a location and I just started driving. Kenny met me there (much to my surprise). I went in and they told me there was an hour and a half wait! I told them this was an emergency and they informed they were not an ER.  I felt completely humiliated and asked them where one was.

We got back in the car and headed five minutes down the street to the *real* ER. By this time, Anchor's rash had greatly improved, he wasn't vomiting, and had actually fallen asleep. Kenny asked why were even taking him in and I told him because his mom and our pediatrician said to. Kenny again explained that I was overreacting since we knew what this was from. He said to give him Benadryl and take him home.

Thankfully, by the time I got home, his rash was almost completely gone and I never had to give him Benadryl (praise the Lord)!  And the lesson we all learned: Anchor can't have dairy! At least not now, and we'll have to do some allergy testing. I'm praying he won't have an allergy. What a nightmare that will be!

When all was said and done, I realized I'm thankful for Kenny's wisdom and ability to think clearly when all else seems to be falling apart. I learned I need to pray for peace and not allow fear to take over. I don't want to be a weak, incompetent, fearful mom who becomes a wreck the moment something bad happens. I'm so grateful this situation was nothing worse and that God protected Anchor from a more serious allergic reaction.