Focus on Lucas John

I had mentioned a while back that I was going to from time to time do a post that would focus on one of my children and a special interest or talent they have.  My youngest is a wildly energetic boy who absolutely without a doubt loves Pigs.  He has yet to meet a pig he doesn't like, and yes that includes liking to eat them.  He collects stuffed pigs and wanted me to show off his collection.  I hope you enjoy Lucas John's 


Parade of Pigs

A new addition to the School Room

Before he left for a week at sea, Matt helped me with my latest project.
I always hang "counting our way to 100 days" chart for our school year. Unfortunately the one I picked for this coming year was a poster that was 38" wide and needed to be on a magnetic surface because the pictures you add to it are actually magnets. My magnetic whiteboards (for extras) are only 36" wide. I didn't want to put it on my large white board because I use that for teaching grammar, math and other lessons on. So I went on a quest at home depot for some magnetic metal sheets. I found 16" x 36" panning in the duct work section. Dh and I bought 3 of them, some finishing washers and some screws, came home and screwed them to the wall. It was so easy and now I have a 36" X 50" magnetic surface on my school room wall. It took us about 10 minutes to put it up. I used a nail set to punch holes in the panning (it's very thin so one good whack made a small hole) and used the finishing washers to give it a nicer look. It has a bent up edge on one short side of the panning, but you can either cut it off or leave it. I decided to just leave it on and just made sure that edge was always on the top of the boards when putting them up.

Here's some pictures. 

The 100 day poster I needed to come up with a solution for is on the bottom and I hung another poster on the top for safe keeping until I figure out if I want it there or somewhere else.

Each panning sheet cost $5.44, the screws were $1.06 and the finishing washers were $2.56, so it the whole thing was under $20.

Last Day of School 2010-2011

Yesterday was the official last day of school for this year.  We were very happy to be able to go on our traditional last day field trip to the Children's Museum of Virginia in Portsmouth.  We were unable to do this last year because they were closed for a huge remodel.  It was well worth the wait, the kids had a blast!


Enjoy the slideshow and see you in the fall.  I have made our curriculum picks for next year but will post about that closer to the start date of our 2011-2012 school year.