Wildlife in our neighborhood

A couple of weeks ago, while on our evening walk, we noticed woodpecker holes in a dead palm tree.  As we approached, we saw an adult woodpecker leaving the tree and I told the kids to go up to the tree and see if they hear babies.  Sure enough!  We could really hear them chirping away.  We hung around for a while looking and listening carefully.  A couple nights ago we stopped back by to check on them and my husband put his camera in the hole and took a  quick photo.  Looks like there are 2 live babies and one that didn't make it.  We'll keep an eye on the tree/nest.  I love seeing wild life and nature right in the middle our neighbor here in South Florida.

Happy about our new/used table for the school room

We are fortune enough to have and extra room in our house that we call the school room. We do lots of our activities in there. I have the room set up so the kids can find lots of hands on things to keep them busy. They have buckets of blocks, legos, coloring books, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, hole punchers, and stencils. J has magnet Dolls. There are puzzles and marbles, books.... you get the idea. A couple weeks ago, I just happened to walk into a thrift store and saw a wood table and 6 chairs for $39. The table has 2 leaves and was perfect for our needs. I bought it, and love it! We have been using a large folding table but it's just too big. Now, I just need to figure out where the kids can put their personal stuff. I keep thinking it needs to be at arms length but that might not happen. Don't look too closely at the mess. Hehe, the kids just left the room. :) 

Almost the end of our swim lessons

We only have 2 more weeks of swim lessons left and we'll be missing one of those to go to our local homeschool convention next weekend. We have loved learning water safety and the basics of swimming but it's a 12 mile drive each week that I'd like to avoid. I wanted J to be comfortable in the pool before we stopped that we've accomplished that goal. Very exciting!!! We have a pool in our back yard so we'll be swimming most afternoons this summer. We'll probably do some school work in the morning then swim and relax in the afternoon if we aren't out and about or with friends.

Our Scholastics Warehouse Sale

Do you have one of these sales near you? It's pretty neat. Lots and lots of book. Most you don't NEED but there are some great educational finds as well. This is the second one we've made it to. Fun!

B is under the weather

We've been sick a lot this year. Probably more than any other year. Yesterday B had a 103 fever before bed and he's had it on and off this morning as well. We'll be taking it easy around here for a couple day. Hopefully no one else gets it.

April Showers class at a local nature center

Some homeschool friends took a little class at the local nature center today where we went out and collect 5 flowers for a book we'd make then press the flowers. It's a great book we can add pages to in the future. This is right up J's alley. At 3 1/2 that's all she wants to do. Every time we go outside she's looking for flowers to pick and bring home. I have a little bud vase she put them in. We keep it on the kitchen table a lot. Many times we woken up to a dandelion seed explosion all over the table. :) 

Also in the class today we learned about spring showers and how the water cycle works. We have been going over this at home so it was a perfect time for this class. The kids seemed to really enjoy it.

Accountable Kids

In January we started using a program called Accountable Kids and we LOVE it. The program helps us gently remind the kids of what's expected of them daily. There are 3 sets of reminder cards; morning, afternoon, and evening.

Each set of cards completed earns the child a ticket that allows them to do a privilege like watch a TV show or do something on the computer (anything that works for your family).We only have them do simple daily chores that they should do anyway; make they beds, clean their rooms, clothes into hampers, get dress, brush teeth (with our help). The tickets can also be taken away for discipline for not listen, name calling etc. It's really worked out well.   We don't expect perfectly made beds but sometimes they do extra well and over time, we hope, it will stick with them and realize that it's nice to have a tidy area to play and live. Over time we can start to pay them for extra chores completed like taking the trash out. a reward for 10 days without loosing a ticket your child can get a date with whoever they choose. Here, J went for ice cream with Mama