For nearly 2 years now I have been making out a weekly dinner menu every weekend for the next week. This is SO helpful to me! Honestly I don't mind cooking, but I don't like deciding what's for dinner. So having "What's for dinner?" planned out in advance (And posted on the fridge.) is a huge help to me! But after 2 years of doing this I started getting tired of trying to think up what we should eat for the week. So the family is now planning out the menu! What we do now is each week, each member of the family gets to chose one dinner meal. This gives us Mon - Friday scheduled out. (On the weekends we eat leftovers, eat out and/or my husband cooks.)
The family has been doing the menu now for a couple of months. One thing I noticed was that the kids kept picking the same meals over and over. So I sat down and made a list of all the things I could think of that I cook. I printed the list out and put it in a clear page protector on the side of the fridge. Now we can all review the list before we make our choice for the week.
This has been a great help because we are not eating the same handful of things over and over. Like last night my youngest son picked Turkey Asian Lettuce Wraps and we hadn't had them in over 2 years!
Organizing is a constant companion to homeschooling. The better the house runs the more time we have to have fun with our homeschooling!
Well, we finished reading The Little House in the Big Woods and completed our lapbooks! This was SO much fun! I was thrilled when we read the last page of the book and my 6 year old little man said "When can we start the next one?" YAY! This is the first chapter book he has really, really listened to every word of. He LOVED it!
So here are our lapbooks!
The covers...I bought these checkered file folders a couple years ago and this is the first time we have used them. They were perfect for this lapbook!
Folder number one. The heart booklet is the poems that were on the candies the girls were given when they visited the store in town for the first time. There are also booklets about Pa's gun, churning butter, what food is stored in the attic, and a smokehouse, complete with a dot of liquid smoke to make it smell authentic.
This side has....Our origami pigs bladder, sewn pocket from when Mary rips her pocket in the story, Pa's fiddle, animals in the Big Woods,cheese wheel, soap whittling booklet and our fires we marble painted.
Here you can see a second pic of what's in the attic and the smokehouse. On the other flap we have our booklet on their nightly prayer, a booklet on lying and a booklet on what things were done in each season.
Lastly we have the kids drawings they did about Pa and the Bear in the Way.
We all loved, loved, loved doing this lapbook and all the great activities that go along with it! You can find the free lapbook HERE.
My kids and I are about to do a study on the human body so I thought I would pass along some of the freebies I have found that I am going to use with them. You know me, we are going to start with a free lapbook! But, I have also found worksheets, videos and a quiz. Oh, and be sure to read all the way to the bottom of the links to find out how to get your free Uniball Superink pen that prevents check fraud.
Last month the theme of our monthly homeschool meeting was organizing. One of the more organized mom's spoke and gave us all some great ideas. We also went around the room and each person shared a organizational tip that works for their family. This was a very well received meeting and it inspired me to make some changes in how our family does chores and keeps the house clean and organized.
For the first time ever my kids have an actual chore chart and I think we can stick to it!
It's very, very simple.
Here is what we are doing.
Dishes:
15 yo son dishes - M-W-F- Sunday
8 yo daughter dishes - T- Th- Sat.
Laundry:
Mom - Monday
15 yo son - Tuesday
8 yo daughter- Wed.
6 yo son- Thursday
Dad - Friday
Household stuff - Sat. Sun.
Chore Sticks:
15 yo son -2 per day
8 yo daughter -1 per day
6 yo son - 1 per day
Tidy Up:
Everyone - Daily as needed.
Clean Your Room:
Everyone - Saturday
Honestly in the past our system has pretty much been "Just do whatever I tell you when I tell you." method. So this is WAY more structure than what we have had before! My oldest son did do all the dishes. He has been doing that since he was 9. Part of the inspiration for this change is that my second oldest will be turning 9 this month, so I decided it was time to split the job between them.
Before this new schedule the littles jobs were:
8 yo - keep downstairs picked up.
6 yo - clean off the table and bring all dishes to the kitchen & pick up all shoes and put them in cubbies in the garage.
They also had to do tidy ups as needed and clean their rooms and do whatever chores I said. (It was all kinds scattered and left lots of room for arguing! LOL)
I posted about the chore stick months ago, but I never got around to implementing them. This
is an idea I stole from my grown niece that has kids my little ones ages. I took craft sticks (The big ones that are like tongue depressors.) and wrote 20 chores that need to be
done each week.
Here are the jobs:
Vacuum upstairs
Vacuum stairs
Sweep and mop downstairs
Clean downstairs bathroom
Clean upstairs bathroom
Wipe upstairs woodwork
Wipe downstairs woodwork
Dust upstairs
Dust downstairs
Clean all trash out of car
Clean front and back door windows. (Dogs nose makes them messy on a weekly
basis!)
Tidy Pantry
Tidy Laundry Room & wipe down washer and dryer
Clean all mirrors
Clean out fridge
Sweep front walk way
Tidy up back yard
Vacuum sofas (We have futons so the stuff doesn't fall through like it does on sofas!)
Empty all trash cans
Wipe down all kitchen counters (Moving everything and cleaning behind it.)
Each day my oldest draws 2 chore sticks and my littles draw one. I obviously have to help the 6 year old with most of his tasks. (Yesterday he got sweep and mop downstairs. The biggest job IMO. So he and I did it together.) The kids balked at first, but now that we have done it for a few days they seem to like it. They like knowing what is expected of them instead of me just yelling out orders all day! LOL The randomness of this seems to take the arguing element out too.
Having everyone be responsible for there own laundry is a new thing for us. I have struggled for years with how to get the kids doing their laundry without us fighting over the machines. I am SO glad I asked one of the mom's at the meeting how she handles this. The answer was SO simple! Give everyone a day of the week to do their laundry! Brilliant! I caught up mine and the household stuff Monday and I can't believe I don't have to do anymore laundry until the weekend! Whoo hooo! (Okay, I will have to help my 6 yo today, but helping one 6 yo with laundry as opposed to doing it all is a cake walk!) My husband gets Fridays because he has every other Friday off and he can go into Saturday and Sunday of he needs to. He doesn't like me doing his laundry. (I turned his whites pink a few times and I got fired! Oh, and there was the "sparkly shirt incident" of 2002. LOL After 20 years of marriage both know it's best for me NOT to touch his clothes. ;^)
One thing that has been an invaluable tool in all this transition to new responsibilities for the kids are the Clean 'N' Flips from Trigger Memory Systems! I have been using "Laundry for Kids" and "The Zone Cleaning for Kids" to train my kids how to do the laundry and clean the kitchen and bathrooms. There is something about having a little flip book to hand them that makes the lessons a lot more interesting! I like that I don't have to think about what I need to tell them. (And did I forget anything!) Not only that I really like that they can keep the Clean 'N' Flips handy to refer back to if they need to be reminded how to do the jobs. These are working out great!
The really great thing about this new system is that all 3 kids are learning how to do everything! So instead of just "getting the chores done." They are all actually getting trained how to take care of the house! Hopefully my future son-in-law and daughters-in-law will love me for that! ;^)
So it's Thursday and my house is looking better than ever! No one feels over worked and I am not doing it all myself! WHOOO HOOO!!! I am thinking we may finally have a system that works!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
If you are interested purchasing the Flip 'N' Clean products click on the graphic below.
To read my review on the Clean 'N' Flip Bedroom Cleaning for Kids Click HERE.
This week at American Girl Club the girls pieced a little pillow, made butter that they ate on rye bread and worked on their rag rugs. It was a great week!
Making the pillows...
Bread and butter...
Working on rag rugs...
The pillows are made from four 4'X4' squares that the girls sewed together by hand. Then I machine sewed their front to a backing piece that was cut to match the front. Then they turned it right side out and stuffed the pillows. Sew shut the hole and viola!
Godzilla peers over the town of Pepin....(Notice all the Lego town's people have already fainted with fear!)
Arghhh...total destruction! LOL My little man is pretty happy with this, as you can see!
Just in case you thought we were all school and no fun around here! LOL
From Little House in the Big Woods - Chapter 10 - Going to Town.....
Pa stopped the horses, and turned around on the wagon seat. He pointed ahead with his whip.
"There you are, Laura and Mary!" he said, "There's the town of Pepin."
Laura stood up on the board and Pa held her safe by the arm, so she could see the town. When she saw it, she could barely breath. She knew how Yankee Doodle felt, when he could not see the town because there were so many houses.
Right on the edge of the lake, there was one great building. That was the store, Pa told her. It was not made of logs. It was made of wide gray boards, running up and down. The sand spread all around it.
Behind the store there was a clearing, larger than Pa's clearing in the woods at home. Standing among the stumps, there were more houses than Laura could count. They were not made of logs either, they were made of boards, like the store.
Laura had never imagined so many houses, and they were so close together. Of course, they were much smaller than the store. One of them was made of new boards that had not had time to get gray; it was the yellow color of newly-cut wood.....
......."Well, that is Pepin" Pa said.
On the back row we have the blacksmith, church and one room school. On the lake is the general store. The 2 rows toward the front are the houses. (As you can see by the one house that is crooked we left the buildings loose so the kids can move them around and play with them.)
The littles couldn't believe that the girls had NEVER been to town before and had NEVER seen a store before! We had fun figuring out what places we go are about 7 miles from our house. (Which is the distance the Ingall's lived from town.) Then when we finished our town they tried to figure out where in our house they needed to put our pretzel log cabin to make it the equivalent of 7 miles from our town! :^)
Last week I posted about what we had done through chapter 3 with our Little House in the Big Wood study. Here is what we have done for chapters 4 through 7.
Soap whittling was the BIGGEST hit of the week! The kids LOVED it!
I had no idea how easy it would be to carve soap. I bought a 6 pack of Ivory and we used pencils, spoons and butter knives to carve. It was really fun and satisfying to see the block turn into a cute shape right before your eyes. Plus my school room floor was cleaner than ever once we mopped up all the soap powder that spread everywhere! LOL (If you don't want to clean your floor afterwards you might try this outside.)
Here are our finished projects!
Another hands on project we did was making paper lanterns. This is super simple, but it was fun for the kids to pretend they were like Laura encountering a bear in lantern light! Here are the instructions to make a paper lantern. (You may notice in this pic that he crochet hearts have now spread to the school room! I can't stop making them! LOL)
We also worked on our lapbook pages. One of the favorites for the kids was designing a tree that looked like a bear! (Pa encounters a bear in the woods that turns out to be burned out tree.)
The other booklets we did were: Pa and the Bear in the Way, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, Soap Whittling and Fiddle/Pop Goes the Weasel.
The plan is to finish up the rest of this book and lapbook next week. Then we will move on to Little House on the Prairie book and Lapbook!
Just had to share that my 6 year old read his first book yesterday, quickly followed by his second book! Hooray! The day they "get" reading is the BEST day ever for a homeschool mom! I just happened to be baking brownies when he read to me. So I told him we would have brownies to celebrate. He looked at me and said "Today I read a book and tomorrow I will write a book!" I like his confident attitude! I wonder what he thinks he might get for writing one? LOL
Wow, it's hard to believe we are already half way through Kirsten! But, this was week 3!
The book we read this week was the Christmas book. So I thought it would be fun for our craft to be something a pioneer child would have gotten for Christmas. So we made a Chromatrope Toy.
To make this I printed THIS PATTERN on card stock. Two circles for each girl. Each girl will also need a piece of cardboard to put in the middle of her two colored pieces of card stock. (I cut up a pizza box.) Once they have their 3 layers glue sticked together you will use a nail to poke two holes in the middle. This is the hardest part. You need to get them centered like it is a button hole. I made one that worked well and then used that one as a template to mark all the others. (I tried to mark them on the pattern but couldn't get them in the right place on the computer screen. So sorry.) Then you need a piece of yarn (about 2 1/2 feet long) and a yarn needle. Put the yarn through the holes, tie into a loop and start spinning!
My daughter coloring her chromatrope.
Learning to spin!
One of the mom's helping the girl's learn to spin.
We also did our Geography Notebook pages for Minnesota this week for Kirsten. Here is the link to the pages the girls filled out.
For snack we had Skansk Grot (Swedish Rice Porridge) This was YUMMY! Of all the snacks we have had at American Girl Club this was probably my favorite. I will be making this in the future!
So that was night three. After the girls had the Skansk Grot they worked on their rag rugs some more. They are coming along nicely!
During our Josefina study in the Fall I decided it would be nice for the girls to put together a notebook with pages from each of the States that the different American Girls live in.
Here is the notebook we are adding to as we study each girl.
Map for the girls to mark the State that each girl lives in.
One of the 4 geography sheets they will fill out about each State.
Here are links to the printables.
Waaaayyyyy back in October I taught a "How To Begin Lapbooking" class for the kids in our homeschool group. I have 30ish kids on a waiting list for another one I hope to teach in March or April. So I decided I better write down what I can remember about the first one I taught before I forget it all!
We started out with all the kids in one room having a brainstorming session. The age range was from 3 to 15 so we had a wide variety of ideas. I started out showing them a lapbooks of different levels my kids have made. After I had showed them lapbooks for all ages I had them start to define what a lapbook is.
Here is what they came up with:
A way to record information
A learning tool
A way to review
A way to "show off" what you have learned
A way to have FUN learning!
Next they all took turns throwing our ideas for lapbooks. Here is what they came up with:
Soccer
Bees
Horses
Unicorns
Butterflies
Weapons
Football
Navy
Dogs
Electronics
Volleyball
Helicopters
National Parks
Donkeys
Tornados
Track/Running
Black Holes
Basketball
Space
Once we had a good list of topics we picked on to further investigate. They chose horses. Then we brainstormed about booklets we could make to learn about horses. Here is what they came up with.
Work horse do
Types of horse
Unique features
How to care for them
What do they eat
How to ride them
History of Horse Medicine
How they act
Horses uses in History
Wild Horses
How they came to the USA
Effect on the Native people of the USA
I wrote everything on the board as the kids came up with the ideas. You can see that here:
I also talked a little about the RULES of lapbooking. What are the rules? THERE ARE NONE! The kids really like this! I told them that this was a tool for them to use to learn things. They could do it any way that they and their mom's agreed would work. There is no right and wrong way to do it which is what I love best about lapbooking!
I also gave them some basic tips. Like what supplies to have on hand.
(folders, paper, scissors, pencils, markers, stapler, paper brads, glue sticks)
After our brainstorming session we spent some time putting together a lapbook for them to go home and fill in later with the topic of their choice.
We made 7 different mini-books that I got the templates for from Homeschoolshare.com. Here is the page with all their blank templates. the ones we used were the Matchbook - regular, Flip Flap with 3 Flaps, Octagon Shaped Fan - skinny, According Book Octagon Shaped Fat, Wheel Book 4 Divisions, Triangle Fold, Interlock medium size.
Here are a few of the girls putting their lapbook together.
Since we had 40 kids in the class I would have gone broke printing all these. So what I did is print one to use as a template. Then two of the mom's graciously pre-cut 40 copies of each out of construction paper for us. (Except the Wheel Book 4 Divisions. That one I printed 40 copies of since I think it's more likely to line up and work if you use a printable.) This worked really well because this way all the kids had each of the booklets in a different color. I could say "Get out your pink piece of paper." and we were all working on the same booklet.
Basically I had them fold their red folders and then we went through the booklets one color at a time and put them all together. I also gave each of them a ziploc bag to take home the booklets in so they could fill them in before they glue them into the lapbook.
Another shot of the kids working on their lapbooks. :^)
It was a lot of fun and I am very happy to report that we have A LOT of families in our homeschool group now that are loving lapbooking! I love hearing about the lapbooks being made when we all get together.
As much as I LOVE Math-U-See there is one weakness can see in the Primer book. The lack of teaching the kids the proper way to write the numbers. With my other kids I didn't use Primer. I just bought the little workbooks at the store until they were in 2nd grade. But, my youngest REALLY wanted a REAL math book like his brother and sister have. (They both do MUS.) So I got it for him. Instead of having the numbers with the start point for them to trace the numbers are just an outline for the kids to fill in. My little man is having a hard time translating that to writing the numbers on his own. So my original idea was to just get him a workbook to work on his numbers. But, of course that would not be "real" math and he wants "real" math! LOL Luckily I found the answer!
Follow the Dot Number Stamps!
These were $10.00 at Lakeshore Learning.
The thing I like about them is that I can just stamp them right in his MUS workbook!
The thing he likes about them is that after he find the answers to his math problems HE can stamp the answer and write the number himself! This is BIG fun when you are in Kindergarten!
I also like that I can just give him the ones to work on that he struggles the most with. (4, 5, 6, 9) and that we don't have a second book to keep track of. I can also see myself using these to make additional math problems for both my littles when they need extra practice. (Oh, and how cute would these be on a scrapbook page about school? LOL)
And for those of you wondering it all this working on math is worth it.... Here is a pic of my oldest who happened to wander downstairs while we were doing math. (He does school upstairs.) When he saw the MUS blocks were out he had to join us at the table and play! LOL
Then he started telling his brother and sister about his favorite "math book" Math Curse and he got it out and read it to them. Of course the littles look up to him and were thrilled to have a little impromptu math lesson from their big brother.
It seems like it's rare these days that I get to do a craft that is just because I want to do it. Over the weekend my grown nieces came to visit and we got to sit around a bit and work on "big girl projects".
My oldest niece is the one that taught me how to crochet. So this visit she taught me how to make hearts!
And here is how they look on my fireplace.
I just LOVE the way these sweet little hearts brighten the place up! By Valentines Day we will probably have the entire house draped in them! LOL
Last night was week 2 of Kirsten. In the book we read this week Kirsten has to memorize a poem to recite in front of her classmates. I figured this was a great opportunity for the girls work on their public speaking! So, I emailed all the mom's 2 weeks ago and asked them to have their daughter memorize a poem or Bible verse to share with the group. I am SO proud of the girls! Every single one of them memorized something and presented it! They did an AWESOME job!
Here is my daughter doing hers. Here is the poem she chose...
I Must Remember
By: Shel Silverstein
I must remember,
Turkey on Thanksgiving,
Pudding on Christmas,
Eggs on Easter,
Chicken on Sunday,
Fish on Friday,
Leftovers on Monday.
But, ah me I am such a dunce.
I went and ate them all at once!
For craft this week we made a Midsummers Wreath. These are they wreaths that they decorate and put on the majstång (Translated into English as the Maypole, although the celebration is NOT in May.) in Sweden to celebrate Midsummer. (Or the day of the year when the sun never sets!)
Working on their wreaths...
Lots of flowers and ribbons = lots of FUN!
Pretty smiles!
After our craft we had Swedish Meatballs for snack. (Thanks to IKEA! LOL)
Then the girls started their rag rugs. The rag rugs will be our ongoing project for the whole 6 weeks. I bought 38 yards of fabric for 20 girls. So they should be able to get a decent size rug made. To make these they braiding three 1 inch strips of fabric together then rolling it into a coil and stitching it into a rug.
One of the mom's ripping fabric into strips. I am SO blessed to have all these wonderful mom's who help me SO, SO much!
Girls and mom's working together...
Girls working together....
Girls working with their feet! LOL
My daughter working on her rug.
It was another great night of American Girls Club!
I have never been to Haiti, but since the earthquake I sort of feel like me heart has been there and I have been here. No, that's not entirely accurate. The actual day of the quake and the next day I had a migraine and I was barely functioning. I honestly don't think I knew about the earthquake for a full 30 hours after it happened. But, the minute I heard one name came to my mind...R*****. You see my friend R***** is a missionary in Haiti. She is actually an online friend I met through an online Mom's group I have been in for 10 years. Pretty much everything I know about Haiti I have learned from R*****. So when I heard, and I got my wits about me, I ran to my computer and started searching emails, blogs and anything else I could find for news on R***** and her family. Since I came into the whole thing so late after the earthquake within a half hour I read the wonderful words "We are alive!" I can't tell you what those words meant to me at that moment! There were many, many tears.
So once I knew my friend and her family were alive what could I do? I prayed. I prayed and prayed and prayed....I am still praying. Of course that is a lot, but it's not enough! Once I had a Paypal link to the Christian school where my friend and her husband work I emptied out my Paypal account into theirs. (It wasn't much, but it was a little thing I could do.) And I continue to pray....
Meanwhile the next day my daughter reminds me that one of our friends from American Girl Club is going any day with her Dad to pick up her new brother and sister from Haiti! More frantic emails and more prayers later we learn that our friends adoptive children are also safe! Praise the Lord! But, they are stuck in Haiti! Yes, they are legally adopted. (Soooooooooo close to coming home.) And yet they do not have visas, so they are stuck. We are praying, praying praying for them too! Right now we have heard that they are safe, they have food and water and their adoptive parents are working feverishly to get them home. Please join me in praying for them!
With all this said I wish like anything there was more I could do! Last night I was reading my emails and I got one from one of my favorite blogs Skip to My Lou. She is feeling the same as me. I can do so little. But, she came up with a great idea! If you send her an email and tell her what you have done to help Haiti she will send you an adorable valentines cupcake decorating set. You can learn all about it HERE.
If you have not yet made a donation to help in Haiti I have an offer for you! Please go the website of the school where my friend works and make a donation. They currently have a hospital set up in the school, are housing orphans, passing out water and food and touching the souls of the Haitian people. I promise you the money sent to them will get to the people of Haiti! Then you can email Skip to My Lou and get your free cupcake set!
Most of all please continue to pray. The one thing that resounds in my heart through all the stories my friend has told me about the Haitian people is that they are strong, loving and resourceful. I have to believe that God is going to bring great things out of this great tragedy.
Here is what we have done so far with out Little House in the Big Woods study.
We have read the first 3 chapters of the book and started a lapbook. (These are my youngest sons booklets. Both of the littles are doing their own lapbook for this one.) These booklets are: Papa's Gun, In the Attic, Animals in the Big Woods, The Smoke House, Pig Bladder Origami, and The Log Cabin.
It is fabulous! Not only do you get the lapbook but there is also a teachers guide that gives you activities to do each day that coordinate with what you just read!
One of the funny things the lapbook guide suggests is to make a origami "pig bladder balloon" . In the book the kids are thrilled to blow up the pigs bladder on butchering day and have a new toy to play with! We made this one out of paper and pretended it was a pigs bladder! LOL The kids thought this was a bit odd! We also made 2 extra to include in a library pocket in their lapbooks.
Another thing we did was paint a "fire" with marble painting. The kids LOVED this!
My little man said "You don't get to paint with a marble everyday!" LOL (As you can see in this picture my daughter also got out her Wildlife Fact-File and read to us about owls. There are owls in chapter 3.)
Here are their finished products. These will be cut down and included in their lapbooks.
We also made butter!
Shake, shake, shake! For snack on Friday we had beef jerky, bread and homemade butter. And don't forget the pretzel log cabins we made and our fiddle music that I already blogged about.
Since we are reading the Kirsten Series and the Little House series I wanted to find some activities to go along with them. There are sooooooooooooooooo many possibilities that I just started compiling my own wish list. Here is my VERY ambitious list of things I would LOVE to do with the kids while we are studying Pioneer times. :^)
Pioneer Times Study
Do a Venn Diagram that compare – 1600’s Pilgrims – 1800 Pioneers- 2000 US!
Have a Pioneer Party and Frontier Feast! Prepare authentic foods Pioneer times including pancakes, maple cakes, oatmeal, sandwiches, popcorn balls and fresh cold milk! Play pioneer games like Hide the Thimble, checkers, marbles and hopscotch!
Listen to “the fiddle” and dance! (Done:^)
Little House in the Big Woods Lapbook http://www.lapbooklessons.com/LittleHouseintheBigWoodsLapbook.html This FREE lapbook is awesome and includes a day by bay guide of things to do to go along with the story. Lots of fun things like making butter, dissecting an owl pellet and more! We will be doing many of these activities too!
Like I said it's ambitious! LOL I honestly don't know how long we will spend on this study. So far both of the kids LOVE the first book we are reading. If they continue to stay interested we may read the whole series. Oh, and we have borrowed the first season of the Little House TV series from a friend. So at some point we will start watching those too.
Since we are reading the Little House books for school right now one of the things I really wanted to do was for the littles to hear someone play the Fiddle. Lucky for us my friend Faye's son came for a visit and brought his violin! We were blessed to not only have him play us a couple of fiddle songs but he also did and Irish song and a classical piece so we could hear the difference. The kids LOVED it and now my little man wants to play the violin!
Tuning up!
Fiddling!
The classical piece. :^)
The moral of the story here is that if you go to visit a homeschool family, even if you arrive at 9 p.m., you may be asked to perform! LOL Especially if said family is reading the Little House books! Thankfully he is a homeschooler too, so he understands. :^)
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
P.S. Oh, and once the concert was over we DID let him play a little!
Riding the wiggle cars with my daughter...
Video games with my oldest once the littles went to bed.
We have homeschooled our children from the start and we love every minute of it! This is my place to share my thoughts on homeschooling, my kids and living for the Lord. All the while being a little outside the box!!
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but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 6:23
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"I have come that they may have life,
and have it to the full." John 10:10
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An extremely dense, vertically developed cumulus with a relatively hazy outline and a glaciated top extending to great heights, usually producing heavy rains, thunderstorms, or hailstorms.
On the back row we have the blacksmith, church and one room school. On the lake is the general store. The 2 rows toward the front are the houses. (As you can see by the one house that is crooked we left the buildings loose so the kids can move them around and play with them.)
To make this I printed 
This is BIG fun when you are in Kindergarten!
Here is a pic of my oldest who happened to wander downstairs while we were doing math. (He does school upstairs.) When he saw the MUS blocks were out he had to join us at the table and play! LOL
Of course the littles look up to him and were thrilled to have a little impromptu math lesson from their big brother.
Here is the poem she chose...
These booklets are: Papa's Gun, In the Attic, Animals in the Big Woods, The Smoke House, Pig Bladder Origami, and The Log Cabin. 
In the book the kids are thrilled to blow up the pigs bladder on butchering day and have a new toy to play with! We made this one out of paper and pretended it was a pigs bladder! LOL The kids thought this was a bit odd! We also made 2 extra to include in a library pocket in their lapbooks. 
(As you can see in this picture my daughter also got out her Wildlife Fact-File and read to us about owls. There are owls in chapter 3.)
For snack on Friday we had beef jerky, bread and homemade butter. And don't forget the 
