My daughter and I hosted a Christmas Party for our American Girl Club Tuesday night. It was FUN having all the girls and their mom's over to our new house. It feels a little more like home now that we have had so many great friends here!
Here are my daughter and I all ready for the party to start!
To keep things simplke for me we asked for each family to bring a dessert or finger food to share and one wrapped ornament for each person attending.
Here are all the pretty girls as they arrived at the party.
To keep the girls busy while we were waiting for everyone to arrive we played a little game. I had pre-written name tags with the names of all the historical American Girls. (Addy, Felicity, Josefina, Julie, Kaya, Kirsten, Kit, Molly, Rebecca and Samantha.) As the girls came in I put a name tag on their back without them seeing it. Then they had to go to the other girls and ask them questions that could only be answered with Yes and No to try and figure out who they were. Since we are still working our way through the books I also made a poster with the name, year that the historical girls stories take place and one other piece of info about each girl.
Here is what my poster had on it.
Addy 1864 Civil War
Felicity 1774 Revolutionary War
Josefina 1824 New Mexico
Julie 1976 San Francisco
Kaya 1764 Nez Perce
Kirsten 1854 Pioneer
Kit 1934 Great Depression
Molly 1944 WWII
Rebecca 1914 New Your City
Samantha 1904 Industrial Revolution
After each girl figured out who they were they came to me and I gave them a piece of candy. This worked really well to keep everyone busy and entertained during the arrival time
Once we were all here I had another game for the girls. This was my daughters idea. (She said she played it at a birthday party in Las Vegas.) We had all the girls sit in a circle. I had wrapped 4 gifts with 8 to 12 layers on each gift. (Yes this took FOREVER! LOL) Mixed into the layers I also put 3 post-it notes per gift that said something like...Give to someone wearing pink. Give someone wearing glasses. etc. The game was played by unwrapping one layer of paper and then passing the gift to the right, unless there was a note telling them to pass it somewhere else. With 4 gifts for 18 girls everyone got to open a layer, or two. The 4 girls who took off the last layers got to keep the gifts. For the gifts I had gotten some neat American Girl Pop-up books at Borders and some American Girl stickers at Michaels.
Here they are just starting to open all the layers.
And here is the BIG pile of paper towards the end of the unwrapping!
After we cleaned up all the paper if was time to swap the ornaments we all had brought. I wanted to make this into a game too. Luckily I found this FUN idea online to swap gifts. What you do is write a story to be read aloud that has the words RIGHT and LEFT used over and over. Everyone sits in a circle and holds a gift. As they listen to the story they have to pass the gifts RIGHT and LEFT when they hear those words. Here is the story I made up:
Once upon a time there was a wonderful group of American girls who LEFT their homes every Tuesday night to go RIGHT to American Girl Club. The first time they LEFT their homes they LEFT on a beautiful warm Fall evening. After getting RIGHT to American Girl Club all the girls met each other and it was all RIGHT! Soon they got RIGHT to learning History together. They were happy that their mom’s where RIGHT there with them and had not LEFT them somewhere to learn History alone.
Week after week the girls LEFT their homes to get RIGHT together. Each week they got RIGHT to discussing the stories and they LEFT having learned a little more history. The crafts LEFT no one disappointed and the activities they did together were just RIGHT!
The club started with Samantha and went RIGHT to Kaya. Then they went RIGHT to Felicity and that LEFT Josefina. Next they will go RIGHT to Kirsten!
The best part of all is that the girls have friends to the LEFT and the RIGHT of them and both the mom’s and the girls have become the RIGHT kind of friends!
Thank you God for bringing these awesome girls and mom’s RIGHT together!
This was VERY fun and there were a lot of sweet giggles from the girls as they watched the gifts go around.
Next we got to EAT!!!
After eating we played one more game. Believe it or not I Googled "American Girl Bingo" and found free printable bingo cards! I printed them out and we used marshmallows as our markers. We played several rounds. I started out calling out the names of the American Girls. Then I did the years they lived. Then I did a basic fact about each. After each round the winners got a piece of candy. The girls had a lot of fun playing Bingo!
Here are the girls playing American Girl Bingo!
At the end of the night I had a little goody bag for each of them. I wanted to have a Swedish theme to the party since we are studying Kirsten next. So I went to IKEA and got the napkins, candles and little paper cones to use for the goody bags. In the cones each girl got 2 little Swedish straw ornaments, candy, and eraser and pencil.
You can see the cones in the picture below behind my daughter. (Doesn't she look cute in her new Christmas dress?)
After all the games and activities I had planned were over the girls wen in the family roomand played duck-duck-goose.
It was a very fun night and a great start to the Christmas season!
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Thank God for dirty dishes; They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry, We're eating very well.
With home, health, and happiness,
I shouldn't want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence, God's been very good to us.
Author Unknown
My mom reminded me of this poem yesterday when I was less than enthusiastic about cleaning up the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner. My paternal Grandmother has this hanging in her kitchen when I was a child. I think I will type it up and frame it for my kitchen too!
This month I decided to write down one thing each day that I am thankful for. It has been an interesting experience. What I have learned is that the "things" I am most thankful for are not "things" at all. They are mostly people, relationships and blessings. Here is the bulk of my list. Some are more private things that I didn't want to share with the whole world. :^)
Today I am thankful for my family. What a wonderful husband and children I have been blessed with.
Today I am thankful for my dog Elvis. He is so loving and devoted to me. A consistent reminder of how I want to love God and others.
Today I am thankful for freedom. God bless all the veterans past and present who have sacrificed to give us freedom. God bless America!
Today I am thankful for our church home. Wow, what an awesome church home God has blessed us with! A place where we can serve, as well as be served. A place for friendship, encouragement and deep commitment to spreading God's Word.
Today I am thankful for homeschooling. What a blessing homeschooling has been to our family! I know that the time and energy I have invested in my kids will pay back dividends their entire lives!
Today I am thankful for all my homeschool mom friends. Each of you have encouraged, supported and loved me on my homeschool journey. You are each a blessing to me!
Today I am thankful for my husbands job. He enjoys the work and the people he works with. The kids and I enjoy that he has nights and weekends off. (Something we missed A LOT the 6 years at his last job.) It's a winning combination for a happy home!
Today I am thankful for AWANA. Our family has been involved in AWANA for 13 years, in 3 States at 7 churches. Each and every one has been a place that has brought us closer to God. Over the years we have hid His Word in our hearts, made friends and found a place to serve others through AWANA. What a blessing!
Today I am thankful for my new house! It's been 6 weeks since we got the keys and 4 weeks since we spent our first night here and it totally feels like home. :^)
Today I am thankful for my job at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. I get paid to write, which is a dream come true for me. I get to write about homeschooling, which I love. I get to work my own hours, from home, with my kids underfoot. It's a win-win!
Today I am thankful for our new homeschool parent support ministry at church. My friend and I started it this year. I have been so blessed to get to know and grow with so many great homeschool parents. I am especially thankful for my friend who is my ministry partner in both Awana and the new homeschool group. She is an amazing blessing to me!
Today I am thankful for our friends M, A, I and C. It has been so great having "old" friends in a new place! Getting to be close to our "nephews" has been wonderful! I am so glad to have adopted family close by. :^)
Today I am thankful that my mom taught me to sew when I was young. I love to sew. Sewing relaxes me. Being able to save money making or fixing things instead of buying new has been a great blessing to our family over the years. :^)
Today I am Thankful that my mom arrives this afternoon to spend Thanksgiving week with us. I have some excited kids on my hands!
Today I am thankful for my parents and my sister. :^)
Today I am thankful for my "PAMily". You know who you are! ;^)
Today I am thankful for my blog. It is a blessing to me as a creative outlet as well as a place to connect with other homeschoolers all over the world.
Today I am thankful for my American Girls! (And their mom's.) American Girl Club has been such a blessing to me. I look forward to learning American history with my girls for a long time to come!
Today I am thankful for John 3:16! "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son that whoever believes in Him will no perish but have ever lasting life." The ultimate free gift!
I pray that each and every one of you have an equally wonderful list of blessings!
One of my friends made this for our Pumpkin Party earlier in the month. It was SO yummy I had to get her recipe. I am hoping to make this today to share with my mom who arrived yesterday to spend Thanksgiving week with us. :^)
Pumpkin Dump Cake
1 can pumpkin (29 oz.)
1 C sugar
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz.)
3 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C melted butter
1 C chopped pecans
Combine pumpkin, sugar, evap. milk, eggs, spices, and salt in mixing bowl. Beat well. Pour into greased and floured 9x13 glass pan. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over mixture. Sprinkle the pecans over the cake mix. Pour melted butter over all. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes. Watch closely, burns easily. (Knife inserted in the middle of cake should come out clean when done.)
If you are looking for a new yummy Thanksgiving recipe you might want to give this one a try!
Our First Thanksgiving Dinner was Friday and it was AWESOME! We had 40 kids from 18 families attend for a total of 60 people in attendance. (Just a few more than the 53 Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving!)
Here is the day in pictures...
Here I am with my 2 youngest. (Oh, come on you knew you would see me dressed like a Pilgrim at some point! LOL My costume was just a black shirt and skirt I had in my closet. Then I wore one of the hats I had made and added a collar and apron made from white felt. Super simple!)
Here are some of the Indians and Pilgrims arrving.
My handsome Indian teenager! His shirt is a white t-shirt we tea stained and then fringed the edges with scissors. It was super easy! (I boiled about a gallon of water and then seeped 7 tea bags until it was pretty dark. Then I removed the tea bags and soaked the shirt for about 30 minutes. Then I put the t-shirt through the spin cycle of the washer and ran it through the dryer. Once it was dry we fringed the edges with scissors. You could add beads too.)
After everyone arrived and got their hats on I spent a few minutes talking to the kids about the first Thanksgiving. Here are some of the kids listening to me talk. I asked them lots of questions too so they all got to tell what they know about the first thanksgiving.
Here is my daughter reciting a poem she memorized as the blessing for the food.
The First Thanksgiving
When the Pilgrims
first gathered together to share
with their Indian friends
in the mild autumn air,
they lifted the voices
in jubilant praise
for the bread on the table,
the berries and maize,
for field and for forest,
for turkey and deer,
for the bountiful crops
they were blessed with that year.
They were thankful for these
as they feasted away,
and as they were thankful
we're thankful today.
Author Unknown
She did an AWESOME job. I was so proud of her!
The FOOD! We had turkey, fish, deer stew, fruit, nuts, cheese, corn chowder, potatoes, cranberry salad, apple sauce, and a lot more! Yummy!!!!
Pilgrims and Indians eating together.
Lots of yummy food!
We also played games. Here are a few of the pilgrim girls heading out to play games.
And my WILD Indian boy!
3 Legged Races!
Corn Toss
The Turkey Shoot!
There was also a corn hunt (Similar to a egg hunt except dry corn was thrown in the grass and everyone hunted for it.) and pumpkin races where the kids pushed a pumpkin with a stick, The games were great!
And lastly we made our craft (Which the kids LOVED and I didn't get any pictures of.) and then played Thanksgiving Jingo!
It was an awesome day. I can't wait to do it again next year!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Click HERE to read my post on planning out this party. :^)
This Friday our homeschool group is having a First Thanksgiving Dinner. I am SO excited because this is something I have wanted to do with my kids for years! As you can see above my littles are ready to go! My little man is SO, SO excited about getting to dress up as an Indian! (Can you tell from the picture?)
So here is the plan for the dinner.
Everyone has been invited to come dressed as either an Indian or a Pilgrim. For kids who don't come dressed we will provide either a Pilgrim hat or Indian headband made from felt. (If all the kids come dressed the mom's will get to wear the hats we provide!)
Here are the instructions for the hats we will be providing:
We will also be eating without forks for pepper because those were not used at the first Thanksgiving. (Spoons and knives were used and pepper was cooked into food but not used on the table.) Desserts will be served right along with the other food, not at the end of the meal because that is how it was done in the 1600's. Of course their desserts would not have been sweet since they didn't have sugar! (I am betting our pies will have sugar! LOL)
I am also hoping to have the kids make a Wampanoag Toss and Catch Game to take home and play with. Yesterday I spent the day making 72 hats so if I can catch my breath after that I will work on collecting the materials for these.
The other night my daughter came to me with her Awana book and said "It says in here that in the 60's the Astronauts read from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve from the Moon. Is that true or something Awana just made up?" I happened to be sitting at the computer so I played this for her...
I am assuming I don't remember this from the original airing since I was only 3 in 1968! But I do remember hearing it before. It is quite touching to listen to and somewhat sad to think about how much our world has changed in the last 40 years. I can't imagine something like this happening today and obviously neither could my daughter since she thought they had made it up for Awana.
I am praying for a revival for America! How awesome it would be to NOT be surprised to hear prayer in this country! How wonderful it would be for my children and grandchildren to live in an America that honored the one true God! Please join me in praying for our country.
On Oct. 1st the kids and I were in the car headed to the pumpkin patch! They were all dressed in fall t-shirts and I was ready to take some great pictures! Then it started raining...I pulled over and made a few quick calls to the homeschool friends we were suppose to meet. We all decided to go another day. Little did we know it was going to rain for 30 days straight! (I am exaggerating a little here, but honestly this is the wettest Oct. I have seen in my life!) Meanwhile we were in the middle of moving. The rain meant we were moving in the mud and the last thing I wanted to do was trek out into a pumpkin patch and collect even more mud. As the month headed to a close I started to realize a trip to the pumpkin patch was not going to happen. So I did the next logical thing...I decided to have a Pumpkin Party! LOL
What is a Pumpkin Party??? Honestly it's something I made up. But, we had our first one on Nov. 2nd with 97 people in attendance! Thankfully the rain finally stopped and we found a park with lots of concrete to keep us out of the mud. The party was a huge success and a LOT of fun! Here are the highlights....
We started out with the kids each decorating a pumpkin cookie.
Then they ate their cookies while waiting for the pumpkin story to start.
Next we listened to the Pumpkin Gospel You can read all about the story at the link below http://ginaconroy.com/ginablog/wordpress/2007/10/30/the-pumpkin-gospel/
Then we played pumpkin games!
Pumpkin Parachute Game. I got a package of Fun Foam Pumpkin and made a smiley face on one with a marker. Then they would put all the pumpkins in the parachute, throw them up in the air and the person who found the smiley face got a piece of candy. Repeat until everyone wins!
We also had Pumpkin Hot Potato.
And we had Pumpkin Relay Races!
We finished off the party with lots and lots of pumpkin food! Everyone brought a pumpkin dish to share. We had pies, breads, cakes, cookies, pumpkin dip. The food was amazing!
It was a great day and I am sure we will have many more pumpkin parties in the future.
It just so happens that all five of the people in our family have birthdays in a six-month period. So from mid-August to mid-February it feels we are constantly in birthday mode. Tomorrow is my husband's birthday, so that got me thinking about what birthday freebies are out there. I found some great ones, including a list of restaurants that give free food on your birthday! There are also free printable cards, cake ideas, and much more!
I hope you enjoy this week's birthday freebies!
Family Fun has a wonderful selection of birthday cake ideas you can easily make at home. I have made many of these for my family, and they are always a big hit!
This is a neat website. You can see a time capsule of the day you were born. Find out what bread cost, or how much you would have paid for a car. Learn what the minimum wage was and lots of other fun information!
Perhaps the most recent use of homeopathy in a major epidemic was during the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. The Journal of the American Institute for Homeopathy, May, 1921, had a long article about the use of homeopathy in the flu epidemic. Dr. T A McCann, from Dayton, Ohio, reported that 24,000 cases of flu treated allopathically had a mortality rate of 28.2% while 26,000 cases of flu treated homeopathically had a mortality rate of 1.05%. This last figure was supported by Dean W.A. Pearson of Philadelphia (Hahnemann College) who collected 26,795 cases of flu treated with homeopathy with the above result.
The most common remedy used was Gelsemium, with occasional cases needing Bryonia and Eupatorium reported. Dr. Herbert A. Roberts from Derby, CT, said that 30 physicians in Connecticut responded to his request for data. They reported 6,602 cases with 55 deaths, which is less than 1%. Dr. Roberts was working as a physician on a troop ship during WWI. He had 81 cases of flu on the way over to Europe. He reported, "All recovered and were landed. Every man received homeopathic treatment. One ship lost 31 on the way."
Several people have asked me if there is a homeopathy remedy for the Swine (H1N1) Flu. If you have read my homeopathy post you know that homeopathy is not a one remedy fits a diagnosis type of thing. However there are remedies that will fit most of the symptoms of the flu. These are the ones I am making sure I have on hand this flu season...
Oscillococcinum Overall flu symptoms (Fever, chills, body aches and pains.)
You can click on each of the remedies above to read more about the symptoms that it relieves.
Here is a really good article on Homeopathy and Swine (H1N1) Flu. (I highly recommend you read it if you are considering homeopathy for treatment of the flu. This is great information!) It includes history on the use of homeopathy in epidemics and also has information on what remedies cover what in regards to the flu.
I was unpacking some boxes today and I came upon something that really blessed me, so I had to share.
Last spring I did a Women's Bible Study at church. One of the things we did was write down things we needed to give to God and put them in a box. One of the girls brought us all boxes that looked like a flip flop. Very cute! So I stuck mine on a shelf and forgot about it, like I was suppose to. Today I found it. I smiled when I saw it because I knew most of the things I had put in the box God indeed had taken care of. But, just for fun I took off the lid off and started opening the little slips of paper to see the words I had written. One by one I saw that they were all handled by God! Then I opened one I honestly do not remeber putting in there. It was just one word...space. WOW! Did I really put that in there? Yes, our last house was too small, but I had NO intention of moving. I really, really wanted to stay until our oldest was through high school. (3 more years.) We had even thought we might even try to buy it so we could add on to it at some point. We had even looked at those sunrooms you can have built on as a possiblilty for more space in the future. Now as I am sitting in my new house (which is more than 50% bigger than where we were when I wrote the word "space") I cannot help but just be amazed. It was just a fleeting moment. Write something down they said...Okay, give me space. And He did!
God is good!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
P.S. Unpacking is going well! I would say we are 75% unpacked. Here is my very happy daughter in her totally unpacked room! YAY!!!! She is one happy girl to have her own "space" now! :^)
Freebie Friday Oct. 30, 2009 - Explore World Cultures Through Food
Welcome to Freebie Friday!
This week I am feeling inspired by food. One thing I have learned while teaching my kids is that if I put food into their lessons I really hold their attention. Recently I was stumbling around the internet and I came across a site that teaches about cultural diversity with a steaming bowls of homemade soup! This got me curious about what other food related cultural lessons I could find and the results of search will be revealed on this week's freebie links page. I hope you enjoy eating your way around the world!
Teaching with Soup http://kidbibs.com/learningtips/lt34.htm is a fun site that was the inspiration of this week’s topic. At this website you will find 7 different soup recipes that will give you a "taste" of different cultures. There is also a list of children's books about soup. This would make a great trip around the world if you had several families join together each making a different soup and giving a presentation on the country their soup represents.
Next I searched for bread recipes from around the world. Whats4eats.com http://www.whats4eats.com/breads has a great collection of amazing recipes! You will find everything from Venezuelan Arepas to Jamaican Bammie to Yorkshire Pudding from England.
Rice is a staple food in many places around the world. At the Ricegourment.com http://www.ricegourmet.com/Recipes.htm you will find a mouthwatering variety of rice recipes from all over the world.
Teaching Kids about Cultures Through Food
http://gomestic.com/family/delicioso-teaching-kids-about-cultures-through-food/ is an interesting article written by a mom who uses dinner each night to reinforce what her children are learning at school during the day. She shares some great ideas for putting together meals, adding decorations and costumes and just having fun with food and family!
Hi Everyone! I thought I would say hello and let everyone know that we have made it into the new house. We are still in boxes, but we have everything under our new roof! YAY!!!!
Here is what we have been doing (between packing, carrying, and unpacking) over the last 4 weeks...
Chillaxin between helping dad carry in loads to the new house.
Relaxing in her very own room! (Who cares if it's just mattress on the floor? LOL)
Helping clean the kitchen before we unpacked our dishes.
Getting in to EVERY box and exploring! Doesn't everyone wear a hoodie with a bow tie and suit jacket???
Hanging out with our firends at American Girl Club...
We have made several trips to IKEA for all the things you need when you move.
We went on field trip to a pizza parlour! FUN!!!
Mom taught a How To Begin Lapbooking class for our homeschool friends. :^)
Big and small, everyone made a lapbook to take home!
Everyone seemed to enjoy the lapbooking class!
We went to a construction themed birthday party!
We went to a Mad Science demonstration at Chick-fil-A. I LOVE Mad Science!
We learned how to weave at American Girl Club.
Here is the cardboard weaving my daughter did.
We got our costumes for Fall Festival.
We have watched the leaves change colors.
We had our Awana Grand Prix races!
Awana Grand Prix is FUN!
Both my boys actually won 3rd place in their division! (My daughter got 7th in hers.) The middle car with all the googly eyes is my 5 year olds! LOL
So as you can see, we have been busy, busy, busy! The one thing about life is that even when you try to take time to focus on one thing (like moving) time marches on! As the Amy Grant song says...
Time carries on;
I guess it always will,
But deep inside my heart
Time stands still.
The one thing I have learned as a mom is that no matter how busy life is the memories keep piling up. I always pray that God will help me not to get too caught up in what "has to be done" because I don't want to miss the little blessings of life.
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
P.S. I know I promised to continue to post about American Girl Club, and I will. I just honestly have not had any time. But, stay tuned and I will hopefully get those written in the next week or two.
Fall is my favorite season of the year and Fall is truly in the air! This week I am bringing you freebies to help you celebrate Fall. You will find crafts, unit studies, a lapbook and lots of things to do with leaves and pumpkins and apples!
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. - George Eliot
Looking for a Fall lapbook for older children? This Squidoo site has one with lots of resources including ones on trees, leaves, pumpkins and other Fall items. (NOTE: This site does offer one link to a Halloween Lapbook.) http://www.squidoo.com/fall-lapbook
This week I am going to share freebies with you to Study Pioneer Times with the Little House on the Prairie books as well as the Kirsten books from the American Girl series. Both of these series offer ample opportunities to study pioneer times with lots of hands on activities. I hope you and your children enjoy these freebie!
Little House
Here is a unit study using the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a basis. You will find a book list and all kinds of ideas for hands on crafts and projects.
http://home.att.net/~cattonn/pioneer.html
The Little House on the Prairie Lapbook from Homeschool Share is a great way to learn about Pioneer times. You will find booklets to go with every chapter of the Little House on the Prairie book!
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/little_house_on_prairie.php
About.com has a Little House Story Sack that is loaded with great ideas like making a covered wagon from a milks carton and making a corn husk doll. There are also lots of great free links to instructions for things like making butter and ice cream!
http://familycrafts.about.com/od/homemadebooks/p/sslittlehouse.htm
Easy Fun School has a wonderful Learning with Little House Index of Lessons on their website. The links at the top of the article are for books you can buy. But, if you scroll down lower in the page you will find free time lines, trivia, word searches, recipes, the list goes on and on!
http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1496.html
American Girl - Kirsten
Homeschool Helper Online offers free ideas for a Kirsten Unit Study. This website includes 3 or 4 activities to go along with each of the six Kirsten books. There are also links to sites to learn about Kirsten's Swedish heritage.
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/units/american_girl_kirsten.htm
Homeschool Share offers American Girl Lapbook. This set of templates (Which happens to have template design ideas credited to me!) are opened ended so you can use them for any of the American Girls but there are also 9 minit books that are specific to Kirsten. This is a fun way to dig deeper into the American Girl series!
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/American_Girl_Lapbook.php
Don't forget to visit the Kirsten section of the American Girl Website. There you will find games and other things to help you get to know Kirsten better.
http://www.americangirl.com/fun/agcn/kirsten/
Misc.
It is always fun to dress up like the period you are studying! Here is an Apron/Bonnet Pattern that would make a little girl very happy!
http://sunbonnetsue.com/april2001.html
DLTK has a good selection of simple pioneer crafts. You can make a covered wagon, make Grandma's Quilt Paper Craft or create your own farm animals.
http://www.dltk-kids.com/pioneer/index.htm
"Home is the nicest word there is."
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
Me standing in front of the Donner's Pass Monument.. Imagine, the winter the Donner Party spent stranded on this site the snow was as tall as the stone portion of this monument!
Welcome to Freebie Friday's!
Since my family lived on the West Coast for many year we have been able to visit many of the places along the Oregon Trail. We have crossed over the Sierra Nevada Mountains (In a car of course!), visited Donner's Pass, seen Patty Reed's doll at Sutter's Fort in Sacramento and visited the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretative Museum in Oregon. We have even stood in a rut made by the thousands of wagon wheels that traveled the Oregon Trail! Seeing so much of the Oregon Trail has made that period of history come alive to us! However, if you don't live near enough to experience The Oregon Trail for yourself there are abundant free resources online to bring the trail alive for your family!
So load up your Conestoga wagon, pack your supplies and get ready for some great freebies to take your children on an adventure along the Oregon Trail. All for free of course!
Easyfunschool.com offers a free Oregon Trail Unit Study. This is a excellent overview and includes general resources, a reading list, lesson plans, web resources, cooking and arts and crafts. http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1086.html
Lapbook Lessons has a free Oregon Trail Lapbook. While completing this lapbook your children will learn vocabulary, geography, Bible verses and handwriting. They will also learn about animals, routes taken, children on the trail, trading for goods and much more!
http://www.lapbooklessons.com/OregonTrailLapbook.html
Cooking on the Oregon Trail was a big part of daily life. Find out what you might have been eating when your resources are "200 pounds of flour, 150 pounds of bacon; ten pounds of coffee; twenty pounds of sugar; and ten pounds of salt." This website also includes information on what other items you would have packed in your wagon. If anyone tried the Vinegar Lemonade please let me know how you liked it! http://personal.my180.net/thesmiths/oregontrailrecipes.html
Patty Reed's Doll was one of our favorite books we read when we did our Westward Expansion study. You will find a free Teacher's Guide to go along with the book Patty Reed's Doll HERE.
http://pattyreedsdoll.blogspot.com/
Last, but not least, I wanted to let you know that there are many online sites that offer a free the original version of the Oregon Trail computer game. I am not going to link to one specific one since everyone's computer needs are different. But, if you are interested you can search for "free Oregon Trail online game" and find the one that is right for you. My kids love this game! You get to load up your wagon with all the supplies you need, find travel companions and then set out on the trail. You will experience all kinds of joys and hardships along the way!
I hope you have enjoyed this week's journey on the Oregon Trail!
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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"For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 6:23
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16
"I have come that they may have life,
and have it to the full." John 10:10
Click below to hear GREAT Sermons, from an awesome Pastor I love!
Want to further investigate the claims of Jesus CLICK HERE
For Video Podcasts from Lee Strobel
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.
His shirt is a white t-shirt we tea stained and then fringed the edges with scissors. It was super easy! (I boiled about a gallon of water and then seeped 7 tea bags until it was pretty dark. Then I removed the tea bags and soaked the shirt for about 30 minutes. Then I put the t-shirt through the spin cycle of the washer and ran it through the dryer. Once it was dry we fringed the edges with scissors. You could add beads too.)
I asked them lots of questions too so they all got to tell what they know about the first thanksgiving.
We had turkey, fish, deer stew, fruit, nuts, cheese, corn chowder, potatoes, cranberry salad, apple sauce, and a lot more! Yummy!!!!
Boys Pilgrim Hat:
Girl Pilgrim Hat:
Indian Headband:
You can read all about the story at the link below
I got a package of Fun Foam Pumpkin and made a smiley face on one with a marker. Then they would put all the pumpkins in the parachute, throw them up in the air and the person who found the smiley face got a piece of candy. Repeat until everyone wins!
The kids loved this! I got the idea here: 
Doesn't everyone wear a hoodie with a bow tie and suit jacket???
FUN!!!
I LOVE 
The middle car with all the googly eyes is my 5 year olds! LOL 
