Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Day 2

Preschool was a little bit more rocky today. My boys were in a poke/pinch/hit/kick mood, and generally not getting along very well. I'm sure due to the fact that yesterday we didn't have naps. Because of that, I ended up cutting a couple things out and having an early nap time today. But the things we did were still fun.

We did the normal routine chores, read aloud, calendar, pledge of allegiance, and then starting into our CCBB stuff.

After reading the book, I asked why they thought the author chose to use the words Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Lincoln's first response was, "because he liked it!" But after thinking about it a little longer decided that it was because boom rhymes with room. (The line in the story goes, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, will there be enough room?") I also asked if he thought the story would have turned out differently if it had been a banana tree instead of a coconut tree. Linc said, it couldn't have been a banana tree, because then the letters would have to stop and eat bananas. :) We talked about how some of the names of letters rhyme with the word tree, and some do not. And I had the idea that I should make a chart where Linc could sort the alphabet into categories according to whether or not they rhyme...we'll see if I have time. We also talked about "tag-along K" and what tagging along means. It was a good day for discussion.

In the book, all the lowercase letter climb up the coconut tree, and when they fall out, "Everybody running to the coconut tree. Mamas and Papas, Uncles and Aunts, (in other words, the capitol letters) hug their little dears, then dust their pants." So we played a matching game. Lincoln had to pick a capital letter out of the box and match it up with the lower case letter on the coconut tree. Ivan and I used some other letters on the front of the fridge and put them in ABC order. I think Lincoln heard us doing this, because he put his letters in order too after he'd matched them. :) I also think it's funny that both of my boys, when they ran out of room, instead of starting a new line chose to go down, and then to the left. I did not tell them to, that's just how they did it.

After letter matching, we made coconut tree art projects. It's my old stand-by, hand print art project, but my kids still loved it. We painted their hands green and their arms brown and stamped it on the paper. We used their thumbs and the extra brown paint to make coconuts. Then using some alphabet stamps and ink pads I got out of the Target dollar bin, we stamped the letters climbing up the trees. There are not as many letters as there might have been because the boys were having a hard time sharing the stamps. When they started throwing them at each other, I had to take them away. This was also the time that I decided it was time to call it quits for lunch and nap time, so we didn't get to do our fun song or our poem. Another day perhaps.

(L) Ivan's (R) Lincoln's

$2 Tuesday

Field trip today. Thanksgiving Point does admission to any of their venues for $2 every Tuesday in August. Not to mention that 2 and under are free, so I only had to pay for Lincoln and I. This was the last Tuesday and we wanted to take advantage. I'm so glad we did. It wasn't even crazy packed or anything. I wonder if it's because school has started most everywhere, so people weren't bringing their kids. Either way...we had a great time.

 Feeding the chickens. Lucky for me, I had two quarters in my wallet, or we would have missed out.

In the morning we met some of our friends from Provo and went to Farm Country. If you're looking for a stroller-friendly, mud free, and relatively small animal smell approach to exposing your children to farm animals, this is the place to go. It was perfect for us today. I think when the kids get a little older and I can go without a stroller and a diaper bag full of stuff, I'd like to take them to a real farm. This place was more like a farm animal zoo, because the animals were all fenced in and pretty spread out, and there were sidewalks all around. But my kids LOVED it. And the boys got to go on a pony ride AND a wagon ride, so they really were in heaven. 

 Carson, Ivan, and Lincoln. Carson is right in between Lincoln and Ivan age-wise, so the three of them get along great.

 Ivan on the pony ride. When I put him on he was really excited until the pony started moving, then he said, "I'm done! I'm done!" But luckily after I kept my hand on his back for a little while, he got used to the motion of the pony, and then really enjoyed himself. 

 Cowboy Lincoln. He knew exactly which pony he wanted to ride...good thing we were first in line that round, so he got his wish. He kept trying to convince me it was a horse though.

 Carson and Lincoln on the wagon ride.

This is the best shot I could get of Ivan, Adelia, and I with Adi squirming in my lap.

Round two. After Farm Country, Misty and Carson headed home, and we Swans headed over to the Children's Gardens to meet up with our home school group. I'd never been to the Children's Garden, and I thought it was a really cool place. My kids said they liked Farm Country better, but their vote doesn't really count. 

The Children's Garden has a huge Noah's Ark Fountain right after you come in the main gate. In my opinion, that alone was worth the $2 admission. We could have stayed there all day, but since it was $2 Tuesday, they had it divided into 20 minute time slots, so we only got to play for a short time. But we had a blast. The rest of the Gardens were cool too. As you walk along the path, off to the sides are different activities you can stop and do. One was a stream that you could float foam boats down, one was a giant sand box, one had a bunch of wooden toys, etc. My kids' favorite was the bear cave, complete with fake bear statue that almost scared Ivan to death. They also have a maze made out of shrubs, and jumping fountains that follow you down the path for a little while. 

 Cave man Rock Band :)

Inside the bear cave were some tunnels the kids could climb through.

The jumping fountain caught Adelia off guard...she got a nose full.

On Your Mark...Get Set...GO!!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: Day 1

We started our first unit study today. Mostly because I asked Lincoln what he wanted to do today and he said preschool stuff, and because I was pretty much all ready to go with this unit. Put the two together and today seemed like the perfect day to start.

So we took Aaron to work, and read our scriptures along the way as usual. When we got home, I set the timer for 20 minutes and told Lincoln it was chore time. I did dishes and rolled a ball back and forth with Adelia for those 20 minutes.

Then it was read aloud time. I told the kids to pick out some books they wanted to read while I set the timer again, for 30 minutes this time. (Can you tell we love our timer? Lincoln especially does.) And we read for 30 minutes, Lincoln and Ivan took turns picking out which book to read next. About 25 minutes in Adelia was loosing it, so I took a small break to put her down for a nap. Then came back and read for 5 more minutes. It was a lot easier to read out loud for 30 minutes straight than I thought it would be, and the kids could have gone a lot longer. Things of note: Lincoln sounded out the word bug all by himself without any help or prompting from me while we were reading The Alphabet Tree.

Next I told the boys that they needed to help pick up all the books while I got things together for our next activities. They did without too much complaining. Yay!

I taught them a days of the week song. It goes like this, sung to the tune of Adam's family.

Days of the week *snap, snap*
Days of the week *snap, snap*
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week *snap, snap*

There's Sunday and there's Monday
There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday
There's Thursday and there's Friday
And then there's Saturday

Days of the week *snap, snap*
Days of the week *snap, snap*
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week *snap, snap*

We sang it two or three times, so they could get the hang of it. We'll continue to sing it every day before doing the calendar until we get the days down. Meanwhile, I'm looking for a months of the year song to take it's place eventually.

This is the preschool calendar we have hanging on our preschool wall. It's magnetic, which Lincoln loves. So from now on we'll go over the calendar every day. We talk about what day of the week/month of the year/date/season it is, and what the weather outside is like, and put everything in it's appropriate place. (Note: the seasons and days of the week, do not come with their own magnets, so we just use a circular magnet that we can move around from one season/day to the other. This one probably the best cheap choice for calendars that I could fine, it was around $11. Some were up around the $50 range, they were nicer, but in my opinion not worth the price.)

After the calendar, we did the Pledge of Allegiance. I have a little flag hanging on our preschool wall, so we faced that, put our hands over our hearts, and the boys repeated after me. When they get familiar enough with it, hopefully we'll just be able to say it all together.

Then we did our first reading of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (CCBB). We talked about what the front cover of the book looked like, and who the author and illustrator were. I asked them a few questions, but they seemed mostly unsure why we were spending so much time talking about the front of the book. I'm hoping as we get more familiar with our method that they'll do a little bit more critical thinking, but for now I'm just happy that they were good. :) We also talked a little about the title page. Then we read the book. The boys seemed to enjoy it. Which is good, because we'll be reading it a lot of times this week. :)

Next we made our coconut tree. I had made the separate pieces out of construction paper and laminated them last week, so they kids and I just had to put the pieces together today. We taped it up to the side of the fridge. It looks so cute. (Here is my pattern).

We reread the story, but during this reading I had them put magnetic letters up in the coconut tree as we read about that letter.. The boys thought this was a great game. We have the wooden magnetic letters from Melissa and Doug, which I love because they are safe to have around Adelia (as opposed to the plastic ones with the little tiny magnetic pieces in the back that fall out easily and become a chocking hazard), but you could use any kind, or even make your own out of paper. I chose to use magnetic ones because the side of our fridge is in a handy place. Of course, when we got to the end of the story, we knocked all the letters off the fridge. Then we lined them up in alphabetical order on the kitchen floor, and then put them back up in the tree.

After that it was time for wiggling. I played them the song Alphabet Medley by Louis and Bram Sharon, on their album Sing A to Z. It's kind of a goofy version that mixes the regular ABCs with some nursery rhymes. It was a song they suggested in the Peak With Books textbook, I couldn't find it at the library, but I found it on itunes.

For our last thing we read the poem Our Tree by Marchette Chute. I explained that we'd been talking about a coconut tree in CCBB, but that there are lots of different kinds of trees. This poem is about an apple tree.

When spring comes round, our apple tree
  Is very full of flowers,
And when a bird sits on a branch
  The petals fall in showers.


When summer comes, our apple tree
  Is very full of green,
And everywhere you look in it
  There is a leafy screen.


When autumn comes, our apple tree
  Is full of things to eat.
The apples hang from every branch
  To tumble at our feet. 


When winter comes, our apple tree
  Is full of snow and ice
And rabbits come to visit it...
  We think our tree is nice.

I read the poem to them and we talked about the seasons. Then I had them repeat the poem after me. I think I'm going to print it out and hang it up on our bulletin board. If I get really ambitious, I might make a picture of an apple tree in each season so that we can hold them up as props while we recite our poem. I think that would be fun.

But anyways, I think we'll call day 1 a success. Here's to the rest.

I Didn't Know...

Wow...I didn't know how much I needed this today.

http://lds.org/pages/mormon-messages-gallery?lang=eng#good-things-to-come




But judging by the fact that I just bawled my eyes out...I guess I really did need it.

Lincoln Liners/Ivan-Isms July and August

Lincoln

"Mom, I want you to make me laugh off my head."

"Whoa, I'm kinda trippy." (Meaning he was tripping a lot.)

"Some bugs have bowgausgus, it's like a straw that come out of their mouths to drink things."

Aaron pulled up the sign in page on Facebook, L watching over Aaron's shoulder, "Wow! Lines to everybody who is on the Earth!"


I: "It's huge!"
Me: "What's huge?"
I: "Daddy's work."
L: "Ya, it's like 4 feet tall!"


"When I'm the boss I want some kids. I want 5 kids. They have to be born somewhere, like maybe Washington."


"Maybe I"m just going to stick my head out there and tell that rain to stop."


"Mom, we kind of just stole this chair. It's not ours."


"Well, I'm just going to sit over here in this chair and wait and if you come around and want to snuggle me, then you can."


L: "Mom is Johnny Appleseed still alive?"
Me: "No."
L: "Why?"
Me: "Because he's dead."
L: "Why's he dead?"
Me: "Because he got old. When you get too old, then you die."
L: "Is he up in Heaven with Jesus?"
Me: "Yes."
L: "Well, Jesus makes everybody alive again, so Johnny Appleseed isn't dead anymore!"


"I'm not Lincoln, I'm just a soccer practicer."

Ivan

"Mom! Look what I made...a straight line!"

"I'm not a boy anymore, I'm a baby and I need milk!"

Me: What's your brother's name?"
I: "Lincoln Aaron Swan?"
Me: "And what's your name little boy?"
I: (giggling) Lincoln Aaron Swan too!"
Me: "What?! I thought you were Ivan Erastus Swan?"
I: "No..I not Rastus Swan (more giggling), I'm Lincoln!"

Sample Chapters

I've mentioned that I'm going to be using Peak With Books, for preschool with Lincoln this year. While I was looking up some resources online, I found a PDF of a few sample chapters from the book, so those of you who have asked about it, if you are interested, here's the link and you can take a look.

http://webtools.delmarlearning.com/sample_chapters/0766859487_ch001.pdf

Oh the Thinks You Can Think

-I've been working on getting the "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" unit ready to go. It's turning out so well. I'm excited to use it. While I was working on it today, I had the day dream that I should make patterns of the things the I do in these units, so that others can use them if they want. I even day dreamed that some day I might write a book. More likely though, if I make patterns, I'll at least be able to easily replicate everything when I do it again for the other kids.

-I love the freedom of homeschooling, mostly because I'm not ready to start school this week. We're waiting until September.

-What are your thoughts about callings? I've never been in a postition in the church where I got to discuss which people to give callings to, until now. It's been really interesteing to see the process. Sometimes you know someone who would be great for a calling. And other times you feel like a certain person should have a certain calling, but they don't seem like they have the personality/time/ability for it, but you call them anyway because you feel like you should, and then you get to watch them grow into the calling. Or, there are the times why you wonder why a certain person is supposed to have a certain calling, and you may never know. Anyways, I've just been finding out recently how it all works, and it's kind of cool and stressful all wrapped up in one.

-Lincoln got his first ever wasp bite at the park today. It was traumatic. Sad day.

-I think Adelia has grasped how to sign "milk" and that it actually means milk. That's great, since we've been working on it ever since her birthday. She won't sign it when she wants it though...only after I give it to her. I try making her sign it to me before I give it to her, but then she throws a tantrum. Any thoughts?

-If anyone out there is making plans for their Christmas shopping this early in the year, you can mark me down for a laminator. It sure would save me a heck-of-a-lot of time. I am currently laminating with contact paper. It gets the job done, and keeps me with in my school budget, but boy-oh-boy does it take FOR-E-VER!

-Have you seen the little boxes of flash cards in the Target dollar bin? Oh I have. I've bought probably every kind they have. My plan is to laminate them, punch a whole in the top, and stick them on a ring, so the kids can look through them during quiet time, or at their leisure, or maybe so I can throw them in the diaper bag and they can look at them while we wait in the Dr. office. I just finished laminating the space ones today. I was going to take a picture, but the battery in my camera is dead.

-So many tomatoes in my garden! I'm loving these fresh vegetables, and I haven't even gotten sick of squash yet. Melissa and Ryan are coming over tomorrow night to can some salsa with me. Yay!!

-Our book club is reading The Hiding Place for September. I've read it once, and I'm really excited to reread it. Classic.

-I'm excited to get our paycheck this Friday and pay all our bills, so I can see how much money we have left over, so I can tell if we've managed to save any extra for a downpayment on a house. Yes. I'm obsessed. But I've tried everything I can think of to make sure we save money this month, and I am very curious to see if it's made any difference.

-If you were to discribe me to your friends, would one of the adjectives you used be "weird". No, seriously. I want to know. I'm not offended. You see, I've recently had this epiphany that I am weird. If the definition of weird is "someone who does things differently than most people" then I'd have to agree on my weirdness, simply based on the fact that we don't have television, and that we homeschool. I should also add that based on the definition already mentioned, weird is not a bad thing. Somewhere along the line the word weird got a negative connotation attached to it. Hmmm...

-Who invented laundry anyway? If the norm were for everyone to be part of a nudest colony, then no one would be grossed out by it, and we'd save ourselves countless hours of gathering and sorting and folding and putting away. Not to mention cut down on energy costs and free up 4 square feet of space in our houses because we wouln't need laundry rooms.

-Does anyone else like to peel skin after a sunburn? I do. Sick. I know.

-I think...correction: I know I'm addicted to chocolate. Now where did my secret stash go?

-I have this fantasy sometimes about all our families from both sides living really close, and all the cousins playing and everyone getting along and being friends and just living together in harmony. However, since we live in Springville and are currently unwilling to move because of Aaron's job, it would be ideal if everyone would move within about 15 minutes of here. Would you guys get working on that please? :) It would be fun, I promise.

-Sometimes I lie awake at night remembering things from the past. Sometimes I lie awake at night making plans for the future. Either way, I'm always irritated because in the present I should be sleeping!

-We haven't mowed our lawn in like two weeks. Oops. Guess we should get on that.

-When I was a freshman in college I took a Family Processes class. The teacher divided us up into pairs and gave us each a little balloon. He told us the balloon was our marriage, and we had to pass it back and forth between each other and not let it hit the ground. Then he added another balloon and told us we'd had a child and now we had to pass both balloons back and forth without letting them hit the ground. Then another balloon, and another. somewhere around five balloons no one could do it anymore. I never really understood, until I look back on it now. Some days feel a lot like that. Today being one of them.

Well, there's more in the brain, but it's time to go pick up Aaron from work. I guess I should probably do that.

Bear Lake 2011

We spent this last Thursday-Saturday up at Bear Lake with my family. All the siblings were there except Tanya and Nelson and their boys, we missed you guys!

Thursday night we got in late, so we basically set up the tents and went to bed. Well, except for Adelia. She screamed most of that night. Sorry campers.

Friday we woke up and had a nice breakfast, played in the water right next to our tent site for a little bit, and then headed down shore a little to where there was more sand. Kyle and Kelsey borrowed two jet skis from Kelsey's parents. We all took turns going out on those, while those not riding sat on the beach and played in the sand, snacked, and watched the kiddos.

 Bryan Sparks, Tanner Lemmon, Lincoln Swan, Aaron Swan, and Kirk Hilton

 Penelope Sparks

Ivan Swan

Friday night we came back to camp and had an awesome dutch oven dinner. Then we sat around the fire, roasted S'mores and chatted. A little later we eat a dutch oven caramel apple dessert to celebrate Tanner's birthday. Adelia slept from 8pm-8am and totally redeemed herself.

 Adelia's makeshift high chair.

 Adelia's sandy goatee. I'm afraid she ate a lot of sand this trip. 

 Penny

 The sand was a big hit with the kids.

Ivan and Lincoln let Uncle Kyle and Aunt Stephanie bury them in the sand several times.

Saturday morning we got up and ate a quick breakfast and then started taking down camp. We had to be out by 2pm so we wanted everything packed up before we went back out on the lake.

 This is our campsite. Our tent is the tanish green one furthest away. The person is me.

 If I were to turn around in the picture before this, this is a picture of the view I would have. We were really close to the lake.

 Kyle throwing rocks in the lake.

Lincoln throwing sticks in the lake.

We all got a little sun burned on Friday, so on Saturday we were kind of sunned out. But luckily Mom and Kerry and brought a canopy for the adults and a sports tent for the kids. So there was some shade. We had hoagie sandwiches for lunch, and had fun taking turns on the jet skis.

I love this picture of Penny playing in the sand.

She was supposed to be taking a nap...

Lincoln's favorite thing to do was to go out of the boogie board and swim with Aaron. Aaron and Kirk liked to dive down to look for fish.

My brothers: Jackson, Kyle, and Tanner. What a bunch of studs.

Gramma Tam and Ivan Boy. Ivan LOVED the jet ski. I was so surprised. When we were on it he'd say "Go faster, faster!"

Kyle and Tman out with Tessie (the red jet ski)

Juicy B on Bruce (the blue jet ski). I was so happy Jackson came up for the trip. I haven't seen him in awhile.

My brothers

Linc. He didn't really like riding on the jet ski, at least not the going fast part or the jumping part. He only wanted to go slow and look for fish.

 Adelia didn't get to ride on the jet ski, but she was pretty happy in the sand.

 Jackson, Brooke (Jack's girlfriend), and Kelsey catchin' some rays.

 Gramma Tam and Papa Kerry with Penny and Isla.

 Aaron went out on the jet ski with Bryan, and this is his crazy after hair.

 Penny, Bryan, Tanner, Lincoln, Aaron, and Ivan, with the sandcastle they made.

After we left Saturday afternoon, we went to Mom and Kerry's house in Hooper for a hamburger dinner. Tanya and Nelson and their boys came over for a little while, so we were able to get a picture of all the grandkids together. We stayed the night, and half of Sunday in Hooper so we could spend time with everyone before Bryan and Emily had to go back to San Diego.

Burke, Graham, Ivan, Adelia, Penny, Isla, and Lincoln. All the grandkids on the Lemmon/Sparks side.

We had such a great trip. I think we should make it an annual thing. Any takers?