Some Of Our Favorite Books

My favorite homeschooling activity to do with my children is reading out loud with them.  More specifically, reading fairy tales, fables, myths and legends.  Children are naturally drawn to creative make believe stories, but more importantly, even though the stories are completely fantastical, they teach profound truths.  Tonight as a family we read from Aesop's Fables and The Very Best of Aesop's Fables

Our favorite fairy tales lately are the familiar stories, with a twist.  For example, there are so many Cinderellas!  We love The Egyptian Cinderella and Cinderhazel.

At the library today we found this beautiful book, Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel.

In A Fairy Tale Feast after each story, is a related recipe.  For example, after reading Snow White, we followed the recipe for, and ate, baked cinnamon apples, then after reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, we cooked porridge.

Math Games

We have our Math-U-See books for our Math curriculum, but I know that if I was more confident and capable with my math skills, I could teach my children math without using any kind of bought curriculum.  If you are creative enough, there are plenty of inexpensive math games and math activities for kids, around the house, online, and even at the grocery store that you can play together. Just this morning I helped Sylvia make a birthday chain to help her understand how many more days until her birthday.

Here are some of our favorite math games.  (yes, cereal.)

What are some of your favorite math games or activities that you do with your kids?

Ten Things I Like About Myself

This morning I was reading Fairly Happy's blog and decided to copy her idea of having my children write down ten things they like about themselves. In case you can't read Luke's "special" writting...

1.  I like to read. 2.  I like arthropods. 3.  I like to draw. 4.  I like my appearance. 5.  I like my family. 6.  I like my friends. 7.  I like the color of my eyes. 8.  I like my long hair. 9.  I like my imagination. 10. I like my home.

Once again, in case you can't read Isabel's special fancy writing...

1.  I have green eyes. 2.  I have brown hair. 3.  My birthday is April 6th. 4.  I have two sisters and one brother. 5.  I'm not allergic to anything. 6.  I'm organized. 7.  I love math. 8.  I'm good at memorizing things. 9.  I fly in a lot of my dreams. 10.  I have a great family.

Sylvia drew a picture of what she liked about herself.  She explained to me that it is her imagination and in this picture she is imagining huge mushrooms.