This weekend I will be heading up north with my parents to see my dad get inducted into his high school's hall of fame for basketball!  I'm so excited for him!  I am looking forward to the trip and I am blessed to have such a wonderful husband who will be with our children while I get some time away to see my dad receive recognition for his great career on the basketball court.  I hope to blog about my trip when I get home from the weekend.


Speaking of basketball, I wanted to share some ideas I came up with to motivate my children in their lessons that is centered around a basketball theme.  My 6 year old uses Math-U-See (MUS), Alpha and she always says she wants to play a fun game because she sees my son play lots of games with his RightStart math program.  So I made up the following game while she was filling in her MUS worksheet.
I took the math problems on this sheet and wrote each problem on a sheet of orange paper and then I wrote the answers on separate pieces of paper like this:



My daughter picked one problem from the pile, answered it using her MUS blocks if she needed them then wrote the answer on her worksheet.  She then found the answer from the pile of numbers.
She balled up the piece of paper that had her answer on it to turn it into a "basketball".  Then we taped the problem to the edge of the wastepaper basket, she said the problem and answer out loud, and then she tried to shoot the basketball in the goal!
Here she is tossing the ball ( paper) into the goal (wastepaper basket, which is located to the far left of photo):
Oh my goodness, I didn't realize how messy the room was until I uploaded this picture!  Oh well, I'm keeping this post real since you can now see a glimpse of how our classroom looks for the majority of the time while I'm teaching!
It did take much longer to fill out her math worksheet while playing this game of "basketball", but she loved it and it was much more fun to do it this way vs. sitting at her seat the whole time.

The idea of this game came to me a few months ago when my son was doing a lesson from Shurley English Homeschooling Grammer and Composition book. (Level 2, Teacher's Manual, page 56).  I don't have pictures of him doing this game so I hope I can explain it clearly.....

There was an activity that was teaching the different types of sentences (Declarative, Interrogative, and Exclamatory) and instead of their suggestion, I did a slight variation of the lesson by having my son play "basketball" with the different types of sentences.  I wrote down different sentences, one sentence per slip of paper.  He picked a sentence from the pile and  had to decide which type of sentence it was.  After deciding the sentence type, he then taped either the word Declarative, Interrogative or Exclamatory onto the edge of the wastepaper basket depending on his answer.  He balled up the sentence and tossed it into the wastepaper basket that had the correct sentence label on it.  My son got really into his "basketball" game and was trying to dunk his "sentence" ball and make all sorts of moves while scoring 2 points for his grammar game :)

These games were simple to set up and great to get them up and moving while learning!  I just wish I had the time and energy to make learning math and grammar fun like this everyday for all my cupcakes!  :)  

I'm linking this post up to Lynda's "A Day in Our Life" Blog Hop

Click button below to join Lynda, Anna-Marie and I for the No Ordinary Blog Hop for the entire month of January:) The blogger who posts the most will be spotlighted next month and be given a Star Blogger Award. Come join the FUN!!

I'm linking this post up to Lynda's "A Day in Our Life" Blog Hop

Click button below to join Lynda, Anna-Marie and I for the No Ordinary Blog Hop for the entire month of January:) The blogger who posts the most will be spotlighted next month and be given a Star Blogger Award. Come join the FUN!!

Where I live snow is a BIG deal since we don't get it all too often!   Traditional school officials closed school's for today by calling parents yesterday before the inclement weather even began.  When it comes to snow in our coastal area, I have the attitude,  "I won't believe it until I see it" because meteorologists had let me down one too many times as a young child when they said it would snow and it didn't :(  But, today we got 4-5 inches in my area!  WooHoo!

So when I got in the shower this morning at 7:15 AM it wasn't snowing, then when I got out 10 minutes later my children were hollering, "It's snowing!"  and "That means no (home)school!"  Yes, I do give my children days off from homeschooling when it snows because I want them to enjoy it before it's all gone!

Snow days are alot of work though!  My husband went into work before it started snowing so I was home with my children and neighborhood children.  My husband did get to come home early because of the icy road conditions.  So I had children in and out all day, wanting hot chocolate and also wanting to get warm.  I was throwing wet clothes in the dryer while they sipped on hot chocolate.  In and out, wet and dry, cold and warm, excited and tired....it was a whirlwind of a day, but a fun, blessed and beautiful day at the same time!
Here are a few pictures of "a day in our life", Monday, January 10, 2010

Click button below to join Lynda, Anna-Marie and I for the No Ordinary Blog Hop for the entire month of January:) The blogger who posts the most will be spotlighted next month and be given a Star Blogger Award. Come join the FUN!!


Also, to start off the new year, Angela at Blog Mommas is starting over and collecting submissions to her directory for blog mommas and blogging dads too.  If you would like Angela to include your blog,  go here and submit your information.  She also has a directory for businesses too!  Angela does a wonderful job highlighting all the great blogs out there!  Be sure to spread the word about Blog Mommas to all your blogging friends!  And for the new year, Angela has a Facebook page for Blog Mommas!  So if you have a Facebook account be sure to "Like" Blog Mommas HERE

Lynda at my Heart's Desire is doing a new blog hop, A Day in Our Life.  Please join her and link up a post about a day in your life!!!

Today started off early as all 6 of us had to be ready and out the door at 8:15 AM!  Not a fun time to be out the door on a Saturday morning or any morning (since I homeschool it's an exception, not a rule to have to be anywhere before 9 AM on any given day.)

We dropped off our son at a neighbor's house since he had his first basketball game this morning at 11 AM.  I had a friend come pick him up for his game from my neighbor's house since we were leaving at 8:15 to be at a local church across town and we didn't have time to get him to his game early.

Three times a year, my husband and I give a 30 minute presentation to about 25 engaged couples who are preparing to get married in the Catholic Church.  These couples are from all walks of life and many of them are interfaith couples (one person is Catholic, while their fiance is from a non-Catholic background).  My husband and I have been giving our presentation on Natural Family Planning (NFP) since 2001 to engaged couples, where we present what NFP is/is not, the Church's teaching on family planning, and then we tell them the many benefits of living the NFP lifestyle and how it has positively impacted our marriage.  We have been certified teachers of NFP since 2003.  This is a ministry that my husband and I have a heart for and we have been blessed with this knowledge and want to share it with all those that are open to hearing about NFP.

Then after we gave our presentation we headed back across town to meet up with our son at his game by 11 AM.  I have to add that our oldest daughter was supposed to be at  a Girl Scout Cookie Kick-off during our presentation, but she has been sick today with a fever, headache, fatigue so she reluctantly tagged along with us and even had to miss her first basketball game tonight because she wasn't feeling well. :(  I felt bad that she had to be dragged to our presentation and then her brother's game, but this was our only option under the circumstances.

After our son's great first game (he played awesome defense against one of the best players on the other team), we headed over to my in-laws who live close by and had "Bambi Biscuits" (our family name for venison biscuits) for lunch.  Yum!

When we got home I visited some blogs from the No Ordinary Blog Hop that I am co-hosting with Lynda and Anna-Marie.    It's been so fun to "meet" other bloggers and read their great posts.  One blogger that I visited was Steph and I read her post, Just what does 'sick' look like???.  In this post, Steph spoke from her heart about the struggles she has with living with chronic pain.  She posted beautiful pictures of herself on the blog and explained that although from the outside she looks healthy, she is battling many things when it comes to her health.  I was deeply inspired by her post and really thought about how much I take for granted.  Sure, I'm tired alot, but I do not have chronic pain as my cross so Steph inspired me to step back and count my blessings, no matter what.   Steph's post reminded me of this saying that I think is profound:


Click button below to join Lynda, Anna-Marie and I for the No Ordinary Blog Hop for the entire month of January:) The blogger who posts the most will be spotlighted next month and be given a Star Blogger Award. Come join the FUN!!

I'm also linking up this post to Lynda's "A Day in Our Life" Blog Hop

We had snow flurries and nothing stuck on the ground the day after CHRISTmas this year, Sunday, Dec. 26, 2010.  I snapped this picture just before going into our church while my hubby was home sick and had our 3 year old.  The kids were disappointed more snow didn't fall and my son kept asking why we had to go to Mass when the snow was falling.  I told him he would get extra graces for attending Mass while the flurries decorated the sky! 
Happy Wednesday everyone!

Just click on the button below for more details about the fun and relaxed blog hop that Lynda, Anna-Marie and myself are co-hosting for the entire month of January!  The blogger with the most links ups this month will earn a blogger award so link up as much as you want and visit great blogs along the way!