Posted in Thanksgiving

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in Thanksgiving

Are you busy baking today? It's funny that I should be the stuffing on that little quiz...I don't even like stuffing!  But I have plenty of other things to be cooking today. So, what's cooking at your house?

turn on Christmas music

2 cheesy potato casseroles

crush corn flakes for casserole topping

pumpkin pie - can't find evaporated milk in the cabinet - will have to wait til someone can run to the store

chocolate peanut butter bars

chex mix

mop floors

clean both bathrooms

break up fights between children

break up more fights between children

turn up Christmas music so I can't hear fights between children

Posted in Thanksgiving

I saw this funny little quiz over on Dawn's blog and had to post it here. Mostly because my results made me laugh outloud! HA! Well, if ever I was self-conscious of what people thought of me, at least now I know why. hee hee hee Click on the quiz to see which part YOU are!

You Are The Stuffing

You're complicated and complex, yet all your pieces fit together. People miss you if you're gone - but they're not sure why.

Posted in Thanksgiving

Today a few moms got together with our kiddos and headed to the nursing home! A few years ago we made this Blessing Mix and I thought it would be fun to try it again! The kids get to help make the little goody bags to take to the residents and then they get to hand them out as well. HERE is where you can find the recipe for this blessing mix. I love this idea!

We had a wonderful time at the local nursing home.

Each time I go I come away thinking that I really *should* go more often. We do see my mamaw fairly often, but this was a different nursing home, the residents are in a true nursing home setting as opposed to the homey/retirment home setting where my mamaw is. So, we saw lots of very elderly people with different ailments, some in bed sleeping, some could not have treats, some could not have visitors. It breaks my heart. Why does life have to end like this for so many? I don't understand it...I mean, I *do* understand it, but it still breaks my heart. So many lonely people in this world.

So, at least for a few minutes, our children brought cheer (and a Blessing Mix bag) to these lovely people just down the street from us.

Will and Isaac were our top huggers! Oh how it made me smile to see these boys run up and hug these ladies and gentleman! And most of the time they were eager and did not mind at all! My girls are more on the shy side...but that is ok. They saw the smiles on the  residents faces as we gave them the goodies and hugs...I'm just praying that seeds of gratefulness and giving to others are growing in their little hearts.

I see these pictures and once again am reminded that THIS is what life is all about.

Posted in Thanksgiving

This is an idea that I saw in Family Fun that I thought was so cute! And ours turned out just as well as the magazine picture - that can't be said for all crafts!

The kids and I went outside this morning and found various nature items from our yard to glue on the letters. We also used beans on 2 of the letters, which I had seen on another version of this same craft.

When I get a chance, I'm going to punch holes in the top and string these so that we can hang them up! I love how it turned out! And the girls loved doing this pretty craft!

Give thanks with a grateful heart...give thanks to the Holy One...give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ, His son!

Posted in Thanksgiving

Today we did our geography lessons with our Thanksgiving unit. (We used several resources that can be found at the homeschool share site under Goody O'Grumpity or Cranberry Thanksgiving.)

We learned about where the New England States are and we colored them all on a map. We also learned that the Plimoth Plantation was in Massachusetts, and we placed our story disk for Cranberry Thanksgiving on the map as well.  

And finally, today, we had some more art time and learned what warm and cool colors are! We noticed how in Goody O'Grumpity the illustrator used mostly WARM colors. We found this color wheel of warm colors on homeschool share as well. (As soon as I find my brads I w/ill cut it out and hook it together. Has anyone seen my brads? I've been looking for days now!)

Posted in Thanksgiving

Happy November 1st! Can you believe it is already November? I love the beginning of a new month...especially one with a beloved holiday included! Today we let the thanksgiving festivities begin!

~ We started our Thankful Tree! ~

~ We made a paper chain to countdown the days until Thanksgiving! ~

~ We started our book all about pilgrims from the History Pockets, which we will be doing all month. ~

~ We sang Give Thanks together! ~

~ We read through Psalm 100, as we will be memorizing it this month. ~

~ I found THIS page of wonderful Thanksgiving poems from Ambleside and am going to choose this one to read throughout the month, we will do different things with it.

We Thank Thee

Posted in Thanksgiving

Here are a few excellent links full of Thanksgiving ideas, songs, books, crafts and more.  And if you come across a great site with lots of good ideas, please share with me, too!

Thanksgiving Resources for Christian Teachers

Annie's Thanksgiving Page

Martha's Thanksgiving Crafts

Family Fun Thanksgiving ideas

Posted in Thanksgiving

Here are some of the wonderful Thanksgiving books and units we will be reading and working on in November!

This first title is Goody O'Grumpity, which is a cute, short, rhyming book about pilgrims. There is spice cake involved, too, so this will be a fun week with cooking involved! There is a wonderful unit to go along with this book on the homeschool share site. Click HERE for the unit! There are a lot of printables and lapbooking components to go with this book, which always makes it a great week for us, with our crafty-hands-on girls! I love the units that have all those fun things to go along with them! And Ami does such a fabulous job of creating all of those - and lets us use them for FREE! What a BLESSING!

This next title, Cranberry Thanksgiving, is a beloved Five in a Row title. We rowed this book last year, and possibly the year before, I can't remember! But, as long as I have rowers in my home, this book will probably be a November tradition! The week we row this book we enjoy doing lots of cranberry things! Reading books about cranberry bogs, tasting cranberry juice, making cranberry centerpieces and crafts as well as a cranberry recipe or two.

I cannot even remember where I heard the raving about this book, Eating the Plates, but after I got it from the library I saw why they were raving! This will be our read aloud for the month of November. It says on the back that it is geared for ages 7-11, but it really is cute, and I think it will hold my girls attention! It describes the real life of pilgrims as they rode the Mayflower over, it describes what they ate (bugs, oh my!) and talks about the manners they used. It is a fun read aloud! So, with this book we will be entertained, but will also learn a lot about pilgrims life! There are also a few real pilgrim recipes in the back, not sure if we will be brave enough to try any of them, some of them are a bit interesting! Fresh corn soup, red pickled eggs, hot indian pudding, succotash stew, bannock cakes, bearberry jelly and more! The chapters are very short, so I think this book will really work well for us this year! I hope so!

And, finally is a book called This First Thanksgiving - a Counting Story. This book does not have a unit with it, however, I love it when I find new books for go-alongs with our units that are simple, rhyming books that we will enjoy! This one rhymes and counts up to 12 describing different things about Thanksgiving. And I really love the illustrations on this one too!

Posted in Thanksgiving

I am really excited about our November schooling plans! Of course I LOVE the holidays...so I love finding fun things to do with the kids surrounding this time.

Beginning on November 1st we will start adding leaves to our Thankful Tree. We have done this the past few years and I really love it! Last year I cut out their handprints in fall colors for the leaves. This year, I have a bunch of construction paper leaf shapes already cut out, so I'm planning to use those. Each day each girl tells me 1 thing they are thankful for, we write it on the leaf and tape it up to our tree. Last year it was on a closet door in our kitchen/dining area. This year I am pondering putting it on a window in our play/school room, we shall see!  Here is a picture of our Thankful Tree from last year!

Something new we are going to do for our schooling this year is called History Pockets by the Evan Moore company. There is one set of these all about life as a pilgrim. I looked through this and thought the girls would LOVE it! We will be making a Mayflower ship, a pilgrim quilt, trying some of their recipes, seeing how they learned at school, looking at the inside of one of their houses, etc. There is a lot of cutting and pasting, which the girls LOVE, so this will be right up our alley! There also are vocabulary words for each week, which I love, as sometimes I want to introduce new words and don't know where to start! Here is what the books looks like. And HERE is a link where you can actually look through the teacher booklet and see each page. (if you scroll all the way to the bottom there is a place to click on "flip through entire book.")

 Here is a craft that I would like to do with the girls. I first saw the idea in the Family Fun magazine and so I found the picture online to share with you. Isn't this cute? I am not sure we will be able to find the variety of nature items that are in the picture, but I think I want to try it! I just love the way this looks! HERE are the directions if you would like to look more closely.

We will also be memorizing Psalm 100 beginning November 1st. Also, we will be learning the songs Give Thanks and Count Your Blessings (the hymn) if I can remember to do those 2 songs during our morning Bible time each day! Sometimes I forget, but I really want to try and get those 2 songs in this month!

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Psalm 100 (NIV)