easter countdown

Last year I decided I wanted Easter to be more about Christ and a little less about the Easter Bunny. 

It ended up being a lot less about the Easter Bunny and I was surprised by how much it added to not just my Easter, but each one of us.

Of all the ideas I came across, read through and heard about I had two definite favorites. 

One is a one week walk with Jesus.  You spend the week up to Easter talking a little bit about the week leading up the Jesus Crucifixion every day.  We did this idea because of the two I loved, it was the only one that fit into our timetable.

The second idea is a 30 day countdown (which is why I couldn't do it last year, I found it too late) using The Living Christ.  It's really pretty awesome.  Each day has a mixture of activities, videos, or music to participate in, bringing your family closer to Jesus.

I love that both ideas give me the opportunity to talk about Jesus with my children a little more consistently.  To share with them my love of the "good news" of the gospel, that He lives!!  He suffered for all our mistakes, He chose to die and then be resurrected so that every single one of us could be also. 

Every single one!!

My favorite teachers throughout my life have always been those that love what they're teaching.  I could always feel their excitement as they shared their joy with me.  This is how I want my kids to remember about how I teach them the gospel. 

I hope each of you have a wonderful Easter!

Leah

What a Wonderful Valentine

I know it was last week and all, but I have to share with you how well our Valentines went. 

The reason it went so well?  I had very little to do with it. 

Well, that's not entirely true, but I did make myself stand back and not participate other than to say things like, "That looks awesome!" because I have a tendency to think everyone is doing things wrong if it isn't the way I'd do them. 

Before we got started (minutes before, while my kids were outside on lunch recess) I got on Pinterest so I could copy and paste some starting off points.

This is what I ended up with. 

As they came back inside, I told them they could make whatever they wanted.

After they got over the shock (maybe some slight exaggeration), they ran to get some crafting supplies and dug in.

They all sat there for MORE THAN TWO HOURS!  Every one of them (ages 4 through 12) LOVED making various heart animals, naming them and creating elaborate back stories for each and every creation (okay, that last one was mostly just the 12 year old). 

I couldn't believe how little work it was for me and how darn much fun they had.

To keep myself close enough to nod enthusiastically at their creativity, but far enough away to allow for it to happen, I made some sugar cookie dough on the other side of the kitchen.

As it was rolled and ready, they came over and cut out various heart shaped cookies, because, you know, it isn't really a party unless there's food involved. 

I'm sorry, but it's true.

We'd planned to decorate them after they'd cooled, but my super amazing husband came home early and took me out.  Surprise!

A few days later, as I was going through the pictures on my camera, I found this one...

I guess they decided to decorate a few without me. 

So, the moral of the story is, structured creativity (is that a real thing?) is good for my soul, but letting the kids take off on their own is pretty darn great...as long as I'm not too close.

Hope you had a FANTASTIC V-day!

Leah

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Before I get started, I need to have an honest moment.  

I've been slacking on the project front for months.  My kids love them, but for some reason, I just procrastinate putting them together until, almost all of a sudden, it's been 3 months without a project.

My goal for the rest of school is to plan one, simple project each month.  Plan and then DO (I'm pretty good with the planning). 

Okay, now that we're clear, HAPPY GROUNDHOGS DAY!!

I started off on my new goal right away by finding this cute Groundhogs Day craft on Pinterest and then getting it ready for my kids to do the same day.

For each child you'll need:

2 sheets of blue construction paper (or whatever color they decide the sky should be)

1 sheet of green construction paper (again, or whichever color they'd like the ground to be)

2 groundhogs

1 groundhog shadow (trace groundhog on black paper)

1 sun, clouds and possibly some snow (yellow and white construction paper)

Scissors and Glue

1. I used a math compass to draw circles as big as would fit on each sheet (you'll need 2 blue circles and 1 green for each child).

2. Either draw your own groundhogs or print these ones like I did.  I printed them wallet size and they fit perfectly.

3. Trace one groundhog on black paper for a shadow.

4. Cut out a circle for your sun, a few white clouds and maybe even a mound or two of snow (or use cotton balls for the clouds and snow, I just didn't have any).  You can also cut out some small flowers or draw them on like we did.

5. Put them together by cutting the green circle in half and gluing one half to each blue circle.  Fold the blue circles in half leaving one half green and one half blue on the inside.  Glue the two blue circles together so you can flip back and forth between the groundhog seeing his shadow (sun, shadow, and snow on one circle) and not seeing his shadow (clouds and flowers).

He sees his shadow and we get 6 more weeks of winter.

It's cloudy, there's no shadow to be seen and SPRING IS HERE!

(can you tell which one I voted for?)

Here you can see how we glued the two blue circles together.

While I know there are lots of wonderful parents out there who love projects just as much as their children, just in case there are a few of you who end of having to make yourself (even when you like it after getting started), I have some advice.  Pick something small (even if it's the week after the holiday!) and then, just do it.

Hope you've had a fantastic Groundhogs Day (even though Punxatawney Phil predicted 6 more weeks of winter). 

Leah

Simply Fun Thanksgiving Crafts

A few weeks ago I wrote about how I plan and organize our crafts.  At the end of the post I mentioned that I'd show you how our planned Thanksgiving crafts went and so, here they are.

Most of them.  We're still planning to make the thankful pac-man during our family night tonight, I wanted everyone to be able to get in on the grateful action.

This is James after I asked for a normal smile.  I suppose normal is relative, especially when you're talking to/about a 6 year old.

There, that's a little better.  He was the only one who wanted to make the turkey headdress, I love how much he loves to do projects.

I also love their pilgrims.  After getting them done, though, I should have made the heads a little bit bigger, a little more like a bobble head (although these are still cute). 

My favorite thing about them is that they can go anywhere.  I turn around and there's a pilgrim staring at me.  They've had them on the school room table, stuck to our white board (where they are in this picture) and on the bookshelf.  

This is the only project that everyone's made so far.  The rest of the turkeys are hanging on the chandelier in our dining room.  Because you get to choose what colors you want for the "feathers," each turkey turns out differently, and it's interesting how much their choices show their personalities.

My favorite thing about each of these projects is that they don't take a lot of time, supplies or skill.  My kids love projects they can do all or mostly on their own (and so does their mom) and after I sketched a couple templates, these were perfect.

I would love to hear about what you've been doing, what's been your favorite Thanksgiving project?

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving week!!
Leah

Book Report Quilt

A few months ago, I let the kids choose the next book for us to read together.  Makenna excitedly convinced her brothers to pick Fablehaven and even though it was a little rough getting into the first book, they absolutely love it now.  No, I'm not still reading the first book, we finished it some time ago and are now in the middle of the 3rd (I didn't realize I was signing up for 5 books when we got started).

After finishing the 2nd book, I thought it would be fun to do a group book report and after looking through the ideas I'd found earlier this year, I picked out the perfect one.

I found this quilt book report on the internet, copied the instructions and saved them in my book report folder.  Unfortunately, I did't save where I found it so I can't give correct credit, if someone knows who came up with this brilliant idea, let me know, I'd love to acknowledge them!

I think it turned out pretty darn good!  Each column is the work of a different child and each row has a different theme.  Our top row is all their favorite characters (Vanessa, Seth and Kendra).  The middle row is their favorite part and the bottom row (from left to right) is the setting (he chose one part of the larger setting of Fablehaven), the plot and the conclusion.  One of the things I love is the opportunity to customize, you can have your kids make any kind of square(s) you'd like!

As you can probably tell, I adapted it a little for each child's ability (although it was still pretty easy for my 6th grader).  James only wrote a sentence or two, Ben wrote a litte more and Makenna wrote a lot.  They loved making it and love showing it off to anyone who comes anywhere near our house (okay, I might be exaggerating, but only a little bit).

We only have one more book report left until our school year is over and we'll be getting started on them this week (I'll show them to you when we get'em finished).  Do you have a favorite book report or activity?  I'd love to hear about them!

World Penguin Day

Last Thursday was World Penguin day and we celebrated by watching a few short videos on YouTube (done by BBC, they were AWESOME!) and working through a few projects. 

The kids favorite, by far, were these little penguin guys.  I love that each of my kids put their own spin on every activity they do. 

This is Josh's picture and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of him.  At 3, he traced my pattern, cut out all the pieces and glued it together all on his own.  He's definitely my most independent child (I hope it stays a good thing).

James loves to do whatever everyone else around him is doing.  He followed the pattern pretty close, until he saw Makenna making a baby penguin and then he had to get in on that action too.

Ben walks to the beat of his own drummer.  He's not in your face about wanting to do things his own way (like Josh), but if you give him the chance, he'll take any project in a direction that never would've occurred to me.  These are his ghost penguins (I guess you don't really need feet when you're a ghost).

Then there's Makenna.  She takes any project and makes it better.  Does more than required (especially when it comes to any sort of art) and it always turns out adorable.  I had already taken a picture of her penguins when she asked for a second one showing how the baby sat on it's daddy's feet.  I couldn't help put this one up instead, you can see how excited she was.

We hope you had a fantastic World Penguin Day!!

Planet Pinteresting

We're just finishing up studying the planets and I was looking through my some of my boards on Pinterest when I came across a pin for a simple planet project. 

Perfect.

You can find the instructions and a planet template on the Busy Bee Kids Crafts website.  The one thing I thought about doing, but didn't in the name of simplicity (and slight laziness), was make my own planet templates so they would be the right sizes in relation to each other.  They really aren't, but my kids didn't care.

I was thinking we might make our own later (next week?).  I could set up a project for my 6th grader to decide how big she wants earth and then figure out how big every other planet should be in relation (a good use of math skills).  Then, we can cut them out and hang them on our wall (go teamwork!).  Although, we might need to hang them outside our schoolroom (it's sorta tiny) depending on how big she goes.

I'm still amazed at how much fun my kids have doing any sort of craft project.  It reminds me how important it is to plan ahead enough to get them ready.  Huh, I think this calls for a little more Pinteresting. 

April Holidays

After reading, consistently referring to and really loving the post on Homeschool Classroom talking about all the crazy different holidays in March, I thought I'd do a little of my own reconnaissance for April.

Oh my heavens.  There are a ridiculous number of recognized days, weeks and different things we're supposed to be "aware" of for the entire month.  A lot.  I really mean it.  I'm going to mention just a few here, but if you want to see the whole list, go to Holiday Insights.  It's a pretty fun website.

April is....

National Humor Month
I would suggest going to the library and picking out one of the many, many joke books (or one for each member of your family).  Then, pick out your favorites and have a joke-a-thon night.  A comedy night.  Host your very own comedy club in your home, taking turns to see who can get the biggest laughs.

Looking around, I also found this really fun book called Just Joking by National Geographic.  It not only has fun jokes, it also has some pretty cool animal pictures and facts.  My soon to be 12 year old loves silly jokes almost as much as she loves animals and I'm thinking this would be a perfect birthday gift. 

National Poetry Month
We've been reading poetry every day for the last month or so and I've been wanting to have my kids pick out and read some of their favorites, I'm thinking April will be the perfect time for this.  I'll check out a few different poem compilations and have the kids read in them for 10 minutes-ish every day.  Fridays we can take turns reading our favorite finds from the week.  I think it would be even more fun if my kids try to get into it, I'm always trying to get them to read with emotion and this would be a really fun way to do that.

There's also a pretty great website called Read Write Think where you can print out some simple worksheets for a few different poem types that work perfectly with my simple and easy approach.  Although, if you want to dig a little deeper, they have that too.  There is so much information on all kinds of writing, making this website a really great resource.

Stress Awareness Month
I am a natural stresser.  It's sort of what I do, in fact, my husband will often tell me to "just not worry."  I'm pretty sure it's not possible, but I am much better than I used to be (not with not stressing at all, but with forcing myself to let go...most of the time).  Even though I do know some ways to relieve my stress, I've been thinking about learning more about other methods and I think it would be fun to use April to work on that with my kids.

My kids aren't overly stressed that I've noticed, but life is stressful and it's something they will face as they grow up.  Like any other emotion, I want them to learn about how it can be both good and bad and different tactics to deal with it.  So, we'll talk about stress and practice ways to relieve it: talking, exercise, yoga, meditation, prayer...  If you have any favorite books or websites about any of these, I would love to hear about them!

1 April Fool's Day
This is going to be so much fun, I can't hardly wait.  I've never done much for April Fools before...that's about to change.  There are so many fun ideas out there.  I found a blog on Pinterest that has lots of fun ideas, like covering every item in your fridge with eyes, so when you're kids open the fridge, everything is staring back at them.  Hehe, it makes me laugh just thinking about it.

2 Children's Book Day
Read your kids favorite books.  Better yet, have them make their own children's book!

7 Caramel Popcorn Day
Um, yum!  I love caramel popcorn.  I love caramel.  Unfortunately, caramel does not love me.  I'm a pretty decent cook.  I can make just about anything with a recipe in my hand.  Not just make it, but make it taste good.  I can.  Really.  Everything except caramel corn.  I don't know what it is.  I just can't do it (it crystallizes every time).  Luckily, my husband can.  In fact, he makes some pretty darn good caramel corn with the recipe in our old falling apart Better Homes and Gardens red and white cookbook. 

In case you're like me and can't make caramel corn you can join me in making trying out some 6 minute microwave caramels my sister has been eating for days.  She's told me they're amazing and because I'm so trusting, I'm willing to give it a try. 

9 Name Yourself Day
Now, this one's just funny.  Have your kids pick a name, any name.  A funny name or their real name or just another name they like and then call each other by your "name" for the day.  You could even make name tags and pretend you're meeting for the first time (or for mom's like me, so you can remember their new name).

10 National Siblings Day
This is a perfect day for simple acts of kindness and love.  Challenge your kids (and yourself) to make everyone else feel great for one whole day. 

13 Scrabble Day
Play scrabble!  Or one of the scrabble-like games floating around out there.  We have bananagrams and my kids LOVE IT. 

Or you could take your scrabble tiles (if the game is lying around with dust on it because you never use it) and make it into something else.  A tile pendant, coaster, frame or something else fun.

14 International Moment of Laughter Day
This would be the perfect day for your comedy club night.

16 National Librarian Day
We LOVE our local library and it just so happens that this holiday falls on our normal weekly library day.  We'll be doing something nice for our librarian.  Something simple like a thank you card and maybe some homemade treats.  If you have any good ideas, I would LOVE to hear about them!

22 National Jelly Bean Day
I love jelly beans.  Not the colored but all taste the same variety, the ones that taste like stuff.  Although, I'm not a huge fan of jelly bellies because you have to eat those one at a time (I'm not that patient).  Have you ever noticed there are some flavors that really don't go well together?  My favorites are the starburst and lifesavor variety.  I'll go pick up a few bags after Easter when the candy is getting clearanced. 

We'll also learn how they're made by watching a video on youtube.  My kids are obsessed with how to videos.

25 World Penguin Day
We'll watch another video or two about penguins like this one on youtube and check out books on and about penguins.  My kids love all animals, so this holiday will be a winner!

A few months ago I came across a really great website call Confessions of a Homeschooler.  She's amazing and very creative.  She made a unit study with a lap book to go along with the book Mr. Popper's Penguins.  It would be fun to read the book, watch the movie and do some (or all) of the activities leading up to World Penguin Day.

26 National Pretzel Day
The crispy pretzels are good, but my favorites are the soft variety.  If you're not a fan of cooking, you can buy the frozen sort from the grocery store, all you need to do is heat them up and add butter, salt or cinnamon and sugar.  Yum.

If you like cooking, there are tons of recipes that use pretzels, soft or crunchy.  Oh my heavens, I can't wait to make these.  They look AMAZING!!

If you're craving something sweet, I'd go with either Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies or Caramel Pretzel Brownies.  They both sound amazing.  I bought ingredients to the cookies a few weeks ago, but I keep forgetting to make them.  Crazy, I know. 

If you're not much of a sweets person (or if you like everything like me), you can go with Soft Pretzel and Cheese Sauce or Ham and Cheese Pretzel Bites.  We'll probably turn the ham and cheese ones into pepperoni and cheese because we're pretty big pizza fans around here, but you could stick just about anything on them and I bet they'd turn out yummy.

There's also a fun video on YouTube about where pretzels came from and how they're made you can check out.

30 Hairstyle Appreciation Day
One of the things I miss getting to do with my kids now that they're not in public school is crazy hair day.  I love doing their hair in all sorts of nutty styles and they think it's pretty fun, too.

 

 

These are from a few years ago and I'm excited to try something new and crazy at home this year.

 

That wraps up my favorites from April, did I miss one your yours?  What are your favorite April holiday/recognition days and what do you usually do for them?



Potato Chips

In case you were unaware, yesterday was National Potato Chip day.  All I can say is, YUM!

We found out about it when I was perusing the Homeschooling Classroom a few weeks ago and I KNEW this was one day of recognition we just couldn't let pass by un-well-recognized. 

Did you know that potato chips began with an irritable customer and a fed up chef?  This grumpy customer kept sending back his french fries claiming they were too soggy until finally, Chef George Crum had enough.  He sliced the potatoes so thin that after frying them, you couldn't eat them with a fork.  "Ha," he thought as he sent them out, "that'll show him."  And it did.  They became so popular Crum added them to his restaurants menu!

All I can say is, thank you grumpy customer!  We need more people like you (just don't tell my sister I said that, she spent years in food service and might do something mean to me).

Since then potato chips have become just a smidge popular.  So popular people keep experimenting trying to find the next best flavor.  I know invention is a good thing, ingenuity and all that, but every once in a while, do you just wonder why?  Why would someone go to the trouble of trying to make a chip taste like Haggis and Cracked Black Pepper?  Why?  To check out some more weird flavors, go here.

We celebrated by watching a video on YouTube over and over and over.  My kids were sort of obsessed.  There are probably better videos out there, but I didn't take the time to look around, if you watched a fun one, shoot me a link so we can check it out.  Although, my kids didn't mind, they thought it was so cool they watched the video about 5 times while they ate homemade potato chips.

This recipe is so darn simple.  Really, really simple.  And they even turned out really good.  Good enough I'm definitely going to make them again.  All you do is cut a potato really thin (that was my job), drizzle a little oil in a zip loc baggie, throw the potatoes in with the oil and moosh it all together really good.  That was my kids favorite part. 

After they're good and covered, lay them in a single layer on a plate and microwave them.  Yes, I did say microwave.  Yes, it does work.  It took ours about 9 minutes (check after 7-8) until they were browning, which means crisp. 

I took them out (don't forget a hot pad, I didn't use one the first time and it didn't end well for my fingers), dumped them on a paper towel and sprinkled salt and pepper all over.  YUM!

Here are my kids, watching the potato chip video for probably the 4th time, eating yummy chips and finishing up their leprechauns from yesterday.  A pretty great day, if I do say so myself.

March Celebrations

Okay, the title might be just a little bit misleading.  Not totally, but a little. 

A week or two ago I read a blog post on The Homeschool Classroom talking about all the days declared holidays or days of recognition in the month of March.  I was flabbergasted.  I still am.  Is it like this every month?! 

After reading through it, I decided to choose some we can talk about and do projects on this month.  The only two we were already planning on was St. Patrick's Day and Easter and I'll post about those later this month (if I did it here, this post would be crazy long...even for me).

March 3rd was National Anthem day.  Today we read through the anthem and talked about how it started as a poem.  After reading it, I went back through and asked them what some of the words and phrases meant trying to help them paint a picture of what was happening when it was written.  Then we listed to Whitney Houston's version of it on YouTube.  Short, sweet and fun.

Today (March 6th) was the start of Purim and so we watched the short video (my oldest thought it was strange, but the boys all loved it) linked to on The Homeschool Classroom.

Tomorrow we're going to celebrate the fact that it is both National Noodle Month (who comes up with these?) and National Craft Month by making noodle monsters.  They're so darn adorable!!  I'm excited to see what my kids come up with, they always surprise (and sometimes confuse) me with their creativity (check out Ben's groundhog to see what I mean).

Next week we'll start our preparations for St. Patricks day, but on Thursday (March 14th) we'll take a break while we celebrate Potato Chip Day.  How absolutely cool is that?  A day celebrating yummy potato chips.  Mmmm, if I hadn't just finished breakfast, I'd be salivating.  We'll watch a video showing us how potato chips are made and then we'll make our own.  I've never made any, so we'll be trying out a new recipe, if you have a favorite, I'd love to hear about it!

March 18th is Rubber Band Day (and I go back to my earlier question, who comes up with these?!) and we're going to watch another short you tube video, this time about how rubber bands are made.

 

Then we're going to make one or more rubber band instruments, depending on what scraps I have around the house (you can use old Kleenex boxes, Ziploc boxes or plastic container...).  It's going to be so much fun.  My kids are going to LOVE it.

 

March 19th is Bubble day and we're going to try our hand at making our own bubble solution.  Maybe even a few different ones that we dye different colors with food coloring.  Do you have a favorite recipe?

 

In addition to March being Noodle and Craft month, it's also Nutrition Month.  So Wednesday or Friday next week we're going to talk a little bit about nutrition and color a few pages talking about the food plate (whatever happened to the food pyramid by the way?).

 

Did you know there's a World Poetry Day?  I wonder who decided to call it that and if it is, in fact, celebrated around the world.  I should look that up before the 21st, or even better, have my daughter do it.  Makenna will get some great researching experience and can then present her "findings" to the rest of us (and she really loves to teach her brothers).  We've been reading poetry in the mornings for the last month or two and have really been enjoying it.  For World Poetry Day, I think we'll have our very first reading jam session.  I'll have the kids pick out their favorite poems and read them to us.  We'll also write a poem or two of our own, The Homeschool Classroom linked to a fun acrostic poem worksheet even my kindergartner could do.

 

We'll spend the last week of March working on Easter.  Decorating the house and doing craft projects and talking about our Savior.

 

I'm pretty excited about using holidays, recognition days, awareness days (or whatever they're called) to lead some extra learning in our home.  Are there any strange or different holidays you celebrate? 

 

Have a creative March!!