Themed Activities | The Sweet Life of Reagan, Emmy, & Max

December ’13….

June 25, 2014 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

Rea’s Art from TC-

Our elves have made it a tradition of showing up on Emmy’s Birthday, Dec. 1st!

She did her own make up for church.

Here are the kids writing their letters to Santa. Reagan only asked for live animals.

Emmy putting lipstick on Max-

Her art class won an ice cream party at TC-

The girls and I went to see The Nutcracker ballet.

Reagan did a project on Polar Bears for her Critters class. We worked really hard on it!

Making gak!

We made polar bear cupcakes for her class!

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The kids were so glad to see Aunt Kay back in TN! She always gets a special sort of welcome from them!

The kids were fixing my hair and making me into a princess.

First Meal Prep Experience-

Mary and an angel is the Christmas Play at Long Hollow-

Our 3rd annual Christmas Craft night with Lauren-

Max helping wrap presents-

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Filed Under: 1st grade, All Together, Birthdays, Emmy, First Grade, Holiday, Homeschool, Kindergarten, Literacy, Max, PreK, Service Learning, Teaching God, Themed Activities, Videos

November ’13

June 25, 2014 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

Reagan’s art from TC-

Max wrote “mom” for the first time.

Home school in the kitchen floor? why not??

I put each letter on a fish and would have Emmy catch them with a fishing rod (using magnet and paper clip). Rea did the same game with sight words.

Eating clean-

The girls tried to convince me to let them bring home this kitten.

The Knoxville K-9 Unit visited Rea’s TC Critters class! There was a bit of excitement because the officer first showed up without the dog and apologized that his dog was called in at the last minute to apprehend a criminal! The officer came in and talked to the class and after about 15 minutes the dog and another officer showed up to do demonstrations. They had not caught the criminal, but the officer was covered in mud from a chase on foot in a swamp with the dog!

The officer in the padded suit trains all of the police dogs in Knoxville. We were very privileged to get to hear him speak because he is so knowledgeable. Notice the dog in mid air! We also got to see the officer hide drugs and watch the dog locate them. We were allowed to look inside the police K-9 vehicle to see where the dog is kept. It was nice! The K-9 cars are equipped with special sensors that monitor internal temperature so that if it gets too hot the sirens will sound and fans will automatically turn on inside to keep the dog from over heating.

Police dogs in Knoxville are trained to detect 12 different illegal drugs. They also can detect bombs, missing persons, and criminals on the run. K-9 officers that apprehend drug dealers are allowed by law to keep any money in the drug dealers car as well as the car itself! These dogs are amazingly great at their jobs and love to work! They are purchased in Europe for $6,500 untrained. The pressure per square inch from these dogs’ bites is 150 lbs. and can break bones. Many of them live with the officer they work with. The “pay” these dogs receive after doing their jobs is to play with the officer. They live for this! Students were allowed to try on the bite suit. It was so heavy, many could not lift it!

The November Birthday girls (Dixie 2 yrs, Reagan 7 yrs)

The kids took notice of a beautiful sunset.

Reagan did a research project on Betsy Ross for her TC Early Modern World History Class. We were able to make a model flag with the help of Papaw & Gran.

And November brings the beginning of Christmas decorating….. yay!

1st snow of the season!

Thanksgiving at Uncle Rick’s House-

Max seeing the Spiderman inflatable at Gran’s house for the first time.

Fantasy of Trees (a yearly tradition)!

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Filed Under: 1st grade, All Together, Birthdays, Emmy, Family Day Out, First Grade, Health, Holiday, Homeschool, Kindergarten, Literacy, Max, PreK, Reagan, Sight Words, Themed Activities, Videos

Reagan goes to Zoo Camp!

August 16, 2013 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

The first week of June, Reagan went to the 1st grade summer camp at The Knoxville Zoo. I took all three kids over there five days in a row! I felt like supermom to actually survive the week.

The kids had a fantastic time. Emmy, Max, and I played in the zoo everyday until Reagan was ready for pick up. We got some fun time with one of my good friends and her children. We also got to bring my cousin Brycen along one day and some friends from church, Sharon and Dylan.

Reagan said that “this was the best year of her life!”

All 3 kids napping should be a testament to how exhausted we were every afternoon!

And some video footage from the week (Budgie Landing & Chimpanzees)-

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Filed Under: All Together, Family Day Out, Homeschool, Kindergarten, Reagan, Themed Activities, Videos

Thankful for all my April blessings

May 2, 2013 By Rebekah Leave a Comment

We started off this week by going to The LaFollette Public Libary’s storytime. We have gone to Caryville’s storytime several times (which is wonderful, by the way), but thought we’d try LaFollette’s since it is more convenient. We love both libraries and visit them weekly! The girls enjoyed getting lost in crafting and creating things.

It happened to be Earth Day so I colored this while they crafted. I was also thankful that the storytime lady talked about Earth Day a little bit since I didn’t plan anything. (oops!)

I braved up and took the kids to the zoo again by myself! You might as well call me Super Mom! haha

Our hands-down favorite part of the day was some up close interactions with the baby chimpanzee George.

He pressed his mouth (full of food) against the glass for a funny face. You should have heard the laughter erupt in that moment. It was priceless.

He held the pose for me to get a shot.

And a smile-

After some playtime, he went up and began to nurse! We didn’t even know it was his mom or that he was still young enough to be nursing. It was incredibly sweet and funny altogether. The mother kissed him and groomed him while he nearly nursed himself to sleep. I’m not sure that we will ever witness anything as cool as that was ever again at the zoo. Lucky us!

Rea playing vet! The “Wee Play Zoo” is awesome for open-ended, hands-on play!

A nice evening outside at Gran & Papaw’s riding-

Meanwhile…..Reagan was enjoying some cake batter-

Online spelling test (super cool at readingeggs.com)

Me trying to figure out what curriculum I want to use with Reagan for 1st grade next year! You would never realize how many choices are out there until you start researching! I’m still not completely decided, but feel like I’m almost there…

Slowly, but surely enjoying my time reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp-

I found a new, fun way to help Reagan lean her blends/chunks on Pinterest. I say the sound and she throws the ball at it. She loved it.

2 kids + 2 dogs = 4 bodies altogether in the spaceship (now that’s some math!)

One things that I’ve done with Reagan to practice sight words is using this spiral bound index card book. Each card has a word. If she gets it right, she gets to add a sticker. She mastered her first book of words so we just started another one a few weeks ago. We might do this once a week. She almost knows all the 2nd list now!

One afternoon, she passed this note to me during homeschool. She said, “Mom, this is for you.”

Wow. I didn’t know whether to be offended or proud. haha

Bedtime reading-

We got each of Reagan’s teachers a fabulous cupcake from The Cup for teacher’s appreciation day! Yum. Best cupcakes EVER. These are the ones we picked out for us.