1st grade homeschooling here we come!!

So I thought it would be fun to take some pictures of Monster before we started our first year of homeschooling! I can not believe Monster will be a first grader! This kid is my world! He is my everything. I am so lucky that I will get to stay home with him this year and teach him. He is very excited about it too! I have my curriculum. I have been working on lesson plans all week. I have been to the store a few times getting last minute supplies. We are ready. At least I hope we are. We will start on Tuesday. I have been so worried about if I am planning enough for him to do or if I have planned too much. I guess this is normal for a 1st year homeschooling parent to be worried about.  I don't want to fail my kid! I know he will do so much better in a one on one setting and won't be bored. He did tell me the other day that he was going to do one worksheet then go play, then one worksheet then go play. He thought this was how it would work. Silly kid! 

I wanted to do the whole chalkboard look but this was the best I could come up with. 

I love this shirt! I thought it was perfect for his pictures too! I got it at Crazy8! I love that store! It was on sale for $4. 

What we have been up to...

Monster and his cousin were in a fashion show. Here is Monster walking the "catwalk" lol. I loved these orange pants! 

Here is his cousin! She loved being up in front of everyone! 

Monster went to his first Lowes build and grow workshop! He made Dusty from the movie Planes! 

THIS WAS A BIG DEAL THIS WEEKEND! We went to a birthday party of one of the boys in my husbands church group he leads Saturday nights. Monster really wanted to jump off the diving board but every time he got out the end it would move (bounce) he would freak out and come running back. Finally one of the older boys who Monster loves to be around told him he would jump off one side and Monster could do the other. And there they went! Monster jumped off! He did have to wear a life jacket because he could not swim in the 13ft of water that they were jumping into! They did have life guards on duty at the birthday party too which I thought was great since it was at a aquatic center where they usually hold practices and swim meets. 

There he goes with one of the other kids. It was her older brother who got him to jump in the first time! Monster kept doing it over and over after he jumped the first time! 

Here is Monster at swim lessons Monday. He is doing so great and his teacher is awesome! He is working on his arm strokes now. 

They teach them to roll over and float when they need air! 

So this week I will be finally ordering our curriculum ( Horizon), we have a church huddle tomorrow, dinner with friends on Thursday, birthday party this weekend, as well as a charity event on Saturday night. Needless to say, we will be busy the next few days! And... today I was offered a chance at an amazing product review and giveaway. So stay tuned for it because you will love the product! 

Monster's Daily Learning Notebook!

So again, while browsing Pinterest, I found this awesome free learning notebook. This is a morning activity that can be done while doing calendar time. I found this over at: Confessions of a Homeschooler. I have loved her blog since way before I decided to homeschool. I have followed her blog for quite some time now :) 

This daily notebook includes several activities for your child to do. The first three pages you need to put in a page protector (I haven't done this yet). I am very excited that I found this to use with Monster. I think this will just add some extra fun to our calendar and morning time. Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler for creating this and letting us print this for free!!! 

I put everything in a green binder I had already :) 

So this is one of three pages that will go into a page protector for him to use a dry erase marker on everyday! You can click on the pictures to make them bigger so you can see what all comes on the page! 

2nd one that will be in a page protector!

3rd one that will be in a page protector! 

Calendar and weather tracker for each month!

Making tally marks each month for how many days we are "in" school.

Writing their name each month to see how it changes.

Marking each day till we get to 100 days of school!! I already have some fun things I want to do on the 100th day of "school"! 

If you print this out please be sure to leave her a comment and thank her!

Reading folder

September 3rd is coming and coming fast! That will be our official start date for homeschooling. I have been getting everything I can ready to start. I got my planner, have printed off several extras from awesome websites I have found (through Pinterest mostly) and next week we will be ordering our curriculum! I have less than a month left. Some of the things I have found online have been great and I have been working on getting them put together and ready. Here is his reading folder I have ready. 

This first folder is his reading folder. I found the print outs for each month at: 123 Homeschool for Me. Its perfect for Monster too. It has a space for the book title, author, genre, #of pages, start and finish date, and a spot to check if a book report was done. Which takes me to the next picture.

 Book reports. I remember in school doing book reports. This one is simple for 1st grade level. It asks for the title, author, and a rating. Then it asks for a quick summary, favorite characters and why, where the book takes place, best part of book and why and then asks if they would recommend the book for a friend. On the side they can draw a picture of their favorite scene! I love it. So simple. I found this page here . There is no link to click just click on the picture. It will print normal size not small :) 

Stay tuned. Next I will be posting an awesome Daily Learning Notebook I found! 

Target Toy Sale!

So every year for the last couple of years, Target has been known to put their toys on clearance right about now. I saw some did it last week and when I went to my Target the guy I asked said they didn't do that. I told the guy they did it last year. He tried to act like they always mark stuff down but never at a certain time. Whatever. 

So today I saw some people posting again so again I went to our Target. They had some stuff on clearance but not how they did the last few years :( I got some great stuff though for Homeschooling and games to have! 

Melissa and Doug Decorate your own Dinosaurs: Original Price: $7.99 Clearance Price: $2.38

Play-Dough Swirling Shake Shoppe: Original Price: $17.39 Clearance Price: $5.21

Catan Junior: Original Price: $29.99 Clearance Price: $8.98

Crayola Activity Center: Original Price: $14.99 Clearance Price: $4.48

Space Checkers: Original Price: $ 12.99 Clearance Price: $ 3.88

Learn to Read (Tag Book) Leap and the Lost Dinosaur with 15 interactive cards included: Original Price: $13.99 Clearance Price: $4.18

Original Total Price WOULD OF BEEN: $97.34 without tax

Total I spent was: $32.90

That is a $64.44 SAVINGS!!!! 

Swim Lessons with Monster

This summer we joined Lifetime Fitness. We love their pool that they have and its great fun for Monster. Although he is not allowed on the slides yet, he still enjoys the rest of the pool. Since Monster is getting to be old enough to swim without any floating devices we wanted to make sure he was ready. Lifetime offers swim lessons so we signed him up! The first day he went (which I totally forgot my camera) I was so impressed. The swim teacher got him to swim under water just by catching a bubble and going under. This was huge because before Monster would only go under if he covered his ENTIRE face with his hands! I was very happy she got him to do this on his first lesson! She would also throw these rings and they would sink and he would actually go and swim under water to get them...he had never done this before! ALL ON THE FIRST LESSON! So this past Saturday we took him to his 2nd lesson and he did great. He floated on his back when she asked him too. He swam under water to her. He has a little trouble swimming on top of the water cause his little bottom just wants to sink back down. After swim lessons this weekend we let him go to the big pool and we threw some sticks in for him to go under and get. The water here is 3'6 and while Monster can touch its still enough for him to swim under and get the sticks and come back up! We also took him to the 4'6 area and threw some there too and he does great there too! 

Here you can see the sticks and him swimming under to get them.

Here he was checking out where Daddy threw them.

He is going to get them again.

Seeing again where the other one was. 

Under water getting the sticks!

He went under and his bottom started floating upwards! lol

swimming.

Going under! 

He got them! 

I just love him! 

Just wanted to share a picture I took the same day of our beautiful skies we have been having! Monster has 6 lessons left and I can not wait to see what he learns! I am hoping before they close the outside pool down for Winter that he will be able to go down the slides once. They will only let you if you can come down the slide and swim over to the side alone. Monster just isn't there just yet. Working on it though!!