• Dec. 8, 2008
Gingerbread Houses

At our house today we made gingerbread houses.  Instead of using real gingerbread we used graham crackers.  We (my daughter and I) enjoyed ourselves so much that I think we will make this a family tradition.  Maybe next year I will get brave and try real gingerbread.  I made royal icing (powdered sugar, cream of tartar and egg whites) and substituted meringue powder and water for the egg whites so if she wanted to eat it she could. 

In the beginning stages.

We had to let the sides dry before putting them all together.
Here is the next step.

Now we can start decorating.

I told her she should do all the sides of the house the same and she told me that was boring.  So I decided to let her do what she wanted.  It was creative.
From the front.
From the side (notice the 3 bears sitting around the campfire bottom right)

And here is a picture of mine and Mackenzie's.  As you can see her's is the one on the right that is not boring. :)

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• Dec. 1, 2008
Christmas "kiss" Advent

Today we read the book Annika's Secret Wish by Beverly Lewis.  This is a book about a Swedish Christmas Eve Tradition.  We discussed our traditions as a family.  One of our traditions is to make a "kiss" advent.  It is made from candy kisses and the idea is for the child to exchange a "kiss" each day with mom or dad until Christmas.  They must give you a kiss before they can have the chocolate kiss.  Mackenzie has fun counting down the days until Christmas and having a "kiss" each morning.
Just count out the kisses and place them down the middle of a piece of saran wrap.  Fold the saran wrap over the kisses and tie ribbon between each one.  When you are ready just cut the ribbon and get a "kiss".
This is a close up of our "Kiss" Advent.
 
We will be doing a unit study on the 12 Days of Christmas and hopefully starting some new traditions this year.  We will be making  gingerbread houses so stay tuned for those.

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• Dec. 1, 2008
Winter Days

We woke up to a  couple of inches of snow yesterday and decided to go out in the afternoon and take advantage of the snow because it may not last long here in Indiana.  The weather was nice and the snow was packing great.  Here is our snowman.

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• Nov. 19, 2008
Australia/Marsupials

The last few weeks we have been doing unit studies on Australia and then just completed a study on marsupials.  We read the book The Pumpkin Runner which was inspired by Cliff Young, a 61 year old farmer from Victoria, Australia, who defeated younger opponents in an 875-kilometer run between Sydney and Melbourne.  He won $10,000 for winning the race, which he split with the other runners.
Here is our picture of our Pumpkin Runner lapbook.


And here is our Marsupial lapbook.  Except instead of using a file folder I am using a spiral bound book which can be purchased through Bare Books.  I got this idea from my friend Ami. 

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• Nov. 19, 2008
Telescope

We have been doing Apologia Science this year and are completing  astronomy.  This week and last we have been studying the moon.  We were to make a telescope to view the moon with.  The only problem is that it has been cloudy and we have not been able to see the moon after making our telescope.  Here is a picture of our telescope.