Proverbs 31 woman - week 1

Proverbs 31:10-12  
This week we had to ask ourselves the questions -are you a virtuous and capable wife more precious than rubies?  Does your husband trust you, and do you enrich his life?  Do you bring him good everyday?  and then write about something you would like to change about yourself, and something you love about yourself. 

There are 2 main areas I am focusing on changing this year - first I want to take more time to do the things I like. This is a hard one for me because between work, schooling, church and housework I have very little time left, but I was impressed by a fellow blogger who takes 1/2 and hour each day to do something and although I can't manage each day I am determined to take an hour or two each week to catch up on the long list of things I would like to do/make.
Second is to improve on exercise - embarrassingly DH and I did a kick boxing DVD and after the 10 min warm up I was ready to quit !
Until that point I hadn't realised how little stamina I had. My focus for the next two months is to get up before the kids (bearing in mind that the latest they stay in bed is 6:30am) and spend at least 20 mins building up my stamina.

I love that I am capable of turning my hand to anything - be it sewing or DIY or tax - if a problem arises DH and I sit down and think of a way to solve it - for example this week we needed to fit a new chimney flue as we were putting a wood burning stove in the dining room. Neither of us had done any roof work before but with a little help from you tube, lots of rope and even more prayers we managed to fit the flue and as I write I am toasty warm sitting by the fire :)

DD4's week

Shes had a fun Valentine inspired week. We are working some more on the letter 'M' as she had a few problems forming this letter last week.

So whats been in our boxes?
Valentine numbers game - she also played this again later in the week and decided to put the cards in numerical order.

creating the letter M with hamma beads

Valentine dressing game - they almost came to fisticuffs over this, both DD2 and DD4 were convinced it was theirs and didn't want to share - that's an extra lesson all on its own.

Various selection of letter M worksheets from confessions of a homeschooler including letter artwork.

I love that DD2 wanted to help and had to pass her each flower :)
Letter M sandpaper card, sand box and sound box. We used the sound box twice - once for her to identify which objects started with the right sound and later in the week as a 'find it' exercise where she had to find items beginning with the right sounds from around the house. (she 'found' music, mummy, monkey, mouse and money. She did insist that my foot had to go in the box as all of me wouldn't fit))

She also joined in on a number of activities with her big sisters - her favourite was the valentine sweet game :) 

Suffix

Again a fun and easy presentation to explain the concept to DD6.

Hold up a toy train and ask what is it – can a real train move – why (it has a powerful engine) (would work better if you had a wind up train but I don't)

Hold up the toy carriage and follow the same process.

Did you know the carriage can move if it is attached to the train – look.

Label the train ‘root’ and the carriage ‘suffix’.

Ask them if they remember what a root word is – discuss

Ask if they know what a suffix is – explain it is the letters fastened behind a root word to change the meaning, just like the carriage fastens to the train.

Bring out you root word strips and lay underneath the train and your suffix word strips under the carriage.

 Push them together so they can see how the word changes.

Suffix comes from the Latin suffigere which means to fasten behind/below.

Next I showed a list of suffixes (available on my download page) and used the moveable alphabet (made from fluffy pipe cleaners) to recreate one line from the chart. DD6 then had to recreate her own line.

And to finish off she had a worksheet where she had to circle the suffixes in the sentences.

 DD8 also worked on suffix - I got a great idea from Jimmies Collage she used old magazines to create 'ransom note' root word and wrote the variations underneath highlighting the suffixes.

Valentine taste games

DD2 helped me make some heart cookies. We divided the dough into 3 lots and added a different flavour to each - ginger, orange and vanilla.

From this we created two games

• Taste ID - could her older sisters guess each flavour. (if they got stuck they were allowed to sniff one of the flavour bottles)
• Heart Snap - 2 cookies of each flavour mixed up on a plate, taking a small bite from each can they match up the cookies of the same flavour.

They had great fun although DD6 decided she didn't like orange flavoured cookies :)

DD2's week

DD2 is feeling much better now and really back into school

Practical Life - She has been sweeping glitter hearts (although she got a bit bored and started picking them up with her fingers - oh well I'm sure fine motor control is better than practical life) rolling, mixing, spreading and baking.
She also got involved in chalkboard washing, dusting, setting the table and folding clothes (but not very well).

Fine Motor Control - picking up valentine glitter (unplanned but I think it should still count),
peg board games, inset shapes (drawing around them) and stickers

Sensorial - touch tablets, smelling bottles, fabric heart match, sensory tub (great idea from Counting Coconuts) and our pink tower (made in natural wood)

Math - counting claps and counting jumps (doubles as exercise)

Exercise - walking a straight line, yoga (control of movement) and climbing (tip to a local park climbing up to the slide) - still unsure if knowing how to climb a ladder is a good idea for a 2 yr old :(

She also enjoyed playing with her dressing heart.