Thursday, July 2, 2009 - July 4th Homeschool Fun...Free Activities!!!
There are so many resources on the net that homeschoolers can access and use... I am always looking for fun and CHEAP!! things for the kids to do... Here are some of the things I have found for July 4th..
Thursday, July 2, 2009 - Homemade Laundry Detergent...
I have been trying to do better about the cleaning agents I have been using... I have been making my laundry detergent for some time now... For several reasons...
1. It is certainly cheaper!!!
2. I know what is coming in contact with my family...and that they are harmless products...
3. It helps to cut down on the amount of chemicals I expose myself and my family too...
Here's the recipe I use and with great results...
12 cups Borax
8 cups Baking Soda
8 cups Washing Soda
8 cups Bar soap (grated) I use Kirk's Castile which you can buy at any grocery store...
Mix all ingredients well and store in a sealed tub.
As homeschoolers, sometimes we are not able to participate in all the things we would like to...
I was wanting to attend one of the Tea Parties going on around the US today... Unfortunately, I don't have child care and do not wish to take my little ones out, so I am gonna be watching from around the country on the PJ coveragehere...
This year instead of taking a week to study a holiday, we have been taking just a couple of days to reinforce what the kids have already learned...
So here is what we did for Easter...
We of course had our Resurrection Eggs... (here is a website where you can learn more on how to make your own or you can do like I did and just buy a set) and then we watched the movie "The First Easter" and read several books:
1. The Legend of the Easter Egg
2. The Story of the First East
3. Easter by Aileen Fisher
4. Benjamins Box
and we also read about the "Three Trees" online..
and then to top it all off, the Easter Bunny visited on Sunday morning and filled the kids baskets... and I celebrated and ate a Cadburry Egg - gotta have one every year..
We have had a wonderful holiday weekend...DH was up early to go to the Sunrise service... the kids and I slept in and went to church later... We stayed up to watch "The Ten Commandments" (which is one of my favorite movies)... DD was bothered that there was 2 kisses in the movie - she said "there wasn't any kissin' with Moses in the Bible"... *LOL*
But the kids loved watching it and when the parted seas collapsed on the Egyptians, DS said "that's what they get for not setting the people free"... *L*
Sometimes it's the things kids say that makes everything so memorable...
One Easter tradition that we stick to every year is to color Easter Eggs... This year we only colored 12 eggs, but the kids actually did it on their own with Paul and I watching..
We made our own dyes using food color and vinegar... It was fun and science all wrapped into one...
Food coloring dye
Food coloring
hot water
white vinegar
small bowls or cups
slotted spoon
For each color measure 1/4 tsp. food coloring in small bowl. Add 3/4 cup hot water and 1 tbsp. white vinegar to each color. Add eggs and allow to sit until they are the desired color. Remove with slotted spoon.
Saturday, April 11, 2009 - Celebrating Easter with Friends...
Today we went to some great friends of ours and celebrated Easter with lunch and an egg hunt for the kids...
We had so much food and fellowship...it was wonderful...
Each family brought a dozen eggs per child and of course they were filled with candy... the adults had as much fun hiding them as the kids did finding them...
This was wonderful and hopefully a new tradition has been started... Definitely get-togethers like this should be done more often..
Friday, April 10, 2009 - Adventures with Dinosaurs..
We have just finished our unit on Dinosaurs... It was a long one, because there are so many wonderful resources out there... The only thing left to do will be a field trip to the "Gray Fossil Museum" ...
Here are some of the wonderful books and movies that we used for this unit...
Here's some more:
This is one of the fun things we did..The kids got to be "junior palentologist" using these wonderful kits..They get to "excavate" a dinosaur skeleton...Fun but a little on the messy side...*L*
Friday, April 3, 2009 - Little Hands Art Group - April
Our Little Hands group studied Tessellations this month..
My friend Kim taught the lesson and she did a great job...The artist name was M.C. Esher (you can find out more about him here)...Anyway, a tessellation is a collection of figures or shapes that fill an area with no overlaps and no gaps... it was neat and the art form relates to math and there were so many avenues to research about it as I had never heard of Tessellations before... but after the lesson I came home and found some great ones online... you can find out more about them here...
Here are some examples of the art form:
and here is how we did it...we just cut a shape from cardstock (or any other firm material) and traced patterns back to back to fill in all the empty space... The kids did a great job with it...
Every year, our church goes to Bristol for a Nascar Race... We have a great time... This year, I decided to stay at home with DD and let DS and DH go...
They came home and told us all about the great time they had!!
March and time for the kids to have their testing for belt advancement...
This time DS is graduating up to another class... He has learned all his Little Dragon forms and is excited to move to the next class... DD is go her purple belt... and this was my nephew's (who has just turned 4) first time at testing..
We are doing good so far with our daily Lent activities...
For Day 9 - DD selected making / sending cards to someone... So they made a card for a friend who had been sick and I got my St. Patricks Day cards signed and addressed ....
For Day 10 - we discussed "The Gift of Immanuel" and made cross-shaped paper bookmarks to give to our friends... (I'll post some pictures of them later today)...
DS got a "Chia Pet" for Christmas this year... We grew it a couple of weeks afterwads and had great success with it... We are trying it again... So here are our first pictures after getting some little green heads growing...
Here's the total view...Yes, it is the donkey from Shrek... *LOL*
Here is a close-up view of the little buds poking their litle heads out...
Our Cub Scout pack had it's Pinewood Derby... There were some fabulous cars in the race...DS raced his car several times and a couple of the races... The winner who will go to the district race is one of his BFF's (as he puts it).. *L*
They had a great time and it was alot of fun to see all the different cars and watch the kids wace in a non-competitive way...
Friday, March 6, 2009 - March Little Hands Group...
Today we had our Little Hands Art Group meeting...Michellechose to teach our lesson on Michelangelo...It was great... She had sent out an e-mail on who the artist was and a link, so we could research it beforehand..(you can chek it outhere) ... I was so surprised by what my kids retained and were able to answer when she was teaching today... even my 6yo DD could remember "The Last Judgement" and that a particular sculpture was of the Virgin Mary and Jesus... I also used agreat book as a resource... It talked all about his life from birth to death and some of his more famous works..
For our activity, Michelle had planed 2 art projects... The first one was to tape paper on the underneath side of tables and to draw pictures under it in a position simliar to that of Michelangelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel and the 2nd project was sculpture and the kids got to carve their very own sculpture out of soap.. They loved it.. and DD is carving another bar of soap right now as I type.. She may be my budding artist... =)
So far we have been faithful with our activities for Lent... We draw a slip of paper with an activity out of the bowl every morning..
For Day 5 - We acted out the parade of "Palm Sunday" , I was the crowd waving mt make-shift palms towels) and DD was Jesus and DS was the donkey... We talked about "Hosanna" and the meaning.. and how the crowds opinions turned within the week...
For Day 6 - We discussed "fasting and abstinence" and how that is a traditional Lent activity... So both kidlets decided that we should also give up something... They chose "candy and cookies" and I chose french fries (my weakness)...
For Day 7 - We took a nature walk and gathered items that couild remind us of the life Jesus... DD gathered acorns and we talked about how they could represent "new life" as they are the beginning life of the tree and DS gathered sticks and he wrote "Jesus Lives" by breaking the sticks and spelling it out..
For Day 8 - We talked about "repentance" and how we need to say we are "sorry" for things that might hurt someone else and that all we have to do is ask for forgiveness from God and that we should also remember to do that in our lives with friends and family as well... We played a game where we bumped into each other and had to say "Excuse Me" or "I'm Sorry"...The kidlets loved this..they ganged up on me...*L*
DS drew out the activity today... It was talking about how Jewish families typically cleaned before the Passover celebration... This was great, we discussed Passover and I got my breakfast nook window cleaned!! WOOHOO!!
and as an added bonus, while we cleaned, we talked about how Jesus "washes" away our sin and it all worked out beautifully!!
While they were cleaning they decided that this was fun and DS asked if they could do this again?
Sunday, March 1, 2009 - What's cookin' at our house...
Yes, I am back to the weekly menus...Not only do I do better with time management, I always know what we are having and I can shop more effeciently and CHEAPER!!!
So, here's our plan for this week.. (I may tweak it a few times, but I am trying to use only things already in the pantry or the freezer this week)
Monday, March 2 Cereal
Grilled Cheese Snowflakes (using tortillas cut into snowflakes and shredded cheese) apple slices, carrots
Chili (good cold day food)
Tuesday, March 3 Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast,
Peanut butter sandwiches, chips
Stuffed baked potatoes (using left-over chili)
Wednesday, March 4
Monkey Bread
Turkey and cheese roll-ups, applesauce
BLT's, tater wedges, carrots and apple slices(church)
Thursday, March 5 Chocolate Pop Tarts (on the go breakfast)
Lunchables for the kids, peanut butter and crackers for me (CO-OP day)
Beef Stew (slow cooker meal)
Friday, March 6
Homemade waffles with fruit
snack plate (cheese, apples, banana slices, crackers, ham and turkey) Hamburgers, homemade onion rings, corn on the cob
Saturday, March 7
I work today so the DH is taking over!!
Sunday, March 8
another day at work for me.. DH has it covered... =)
Sunday, March 1, 2009 - Some thought-out decisions...
Well, this year has been a BIG struggle for me... I haven't been as focused and I have been worrying about the kids and their education...
Am I really doing what needs to be done?
Are they getting what they need?
Is there education going to be adequate?
These are all questions that have been running through my mind this year... In years past, I have truly enjoyed homeschooling and had no worries, but this year had been a toll.. I had been stressed and I just didn't feel good... I felt like I was always on a timeline and that if I didn't get things completed, we were failing what we needed to accomplish..
So after much in-depth prayer, soul-searching, and discussions with my DH.. We have decided to go back to our easy-going laid back eclectic style...Even leaning more on a delight-directed with a touch of "unschooling" approach...
We are going to continue to homeschool year round, but with the focus on family, fun with learning, and less stress...I truly think this is the path for us and I welcome comments from those of you who currently pursue it...
Saturday, February 28, 2009 - Homemade Pretzels...
Lent 3-
Today DD pulled out "make homemade pretzels" for our Lent activity. The twisted shape suggests "arms crossed in prayer"...
I googled several recipes (I have never made pretzels before, but I love Auntie Anne's =)
So here is the one I went with. Laura , the blog owner, put step-by-step instructions in with pictures and they turned out great... I saved what we didn't eat in Food Saver bags and put them in the freezer... Laura said they freeze well and just need a little reheating in the oven... We will definitely save this recipe to use again...
Hi!! I'm Lisa... Homeschooling mom to 2 wonderful kidlets and this is a journal to share our family life and learning adventures with you...Have a great day and thanks for sharing it with us!!!
