Just Call Me Jamin! - Homeschool Blogger

Adding Scrapbook Pages To Our Lapbooks

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:22:00 -0600

Sometimes when we are doing a study that includes a lapbook we have a lot of other projects/experiences that aren't flat and or small enough to fit in our lapbook. In a couple of our lapbooks we have included scrapbook pages with pictures of the things we have done. One example of this was the American Girl Lapbook my daughter did for Felicity. After we ended up going to Colonial Willamsburg we decided to add pictures from our trip.

For this we printed pictures from my Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook program and then put them in 8 1/2'X11' page protectors. On the folder that is the back of the lapbook I marked the 3 holes on the page protector, hole punched them (I used my scrapbooking eyelet punch to make the holes.), and then I used ribbon to tie the pages into the book. (With about 1 yard of ribbon thread from the back to front through the top and bottom holes. You will go through the folder and the page protectors. Then from the inside both ends of the ribbon will go back through all the layers to the back again through the middle hole. Once you get back to the back of the folder you can tie it off and you are done!)

The backs will look like this when you are done.

On the Felicity lapbook we added 4 page protectors for a total of 8 pages of pictures!

For our Little House in the Big Woods lapbook we also wanted to add pictures. This time I uploaded the pictures to the Walgreen's photo website. Then I had them print a collage page. This is the one I had printed for my daughters lapbook.
This was nice because I could fit a lot of pictures on one page and I could pick the background color to match our lapbooks. The program online at Walgreen's automatically places the pics and you can keep switching them around until you get them the way you like them. You can also add a title bar if you want to the bottom or top of the page.

The collage pages from Walgreens cost around $3.00 each. It's a little confusing because as best I can tell they don't have a place to just go make the collage pages. You have to upload your pics, then when you try to go check out it will pop up automatically. Once I made one I had to put it in my cart, sign out, re-click the pics I wanted for the second one and then the collage generator came up again.

I also had a 5'X7' printed for my daughters book of her in her Pioneer times costume.

My daughter loves to get out her Felicity lapbook and look through the pictures. Then she also looks at the lapbook and reviews what she learned while doing our study on Felicity. I know both of the littles will enjoy seeing the pictures in there Little House in the Big Woods lapbooks for years to come! Review is always good!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

What's For Dinner?

Tue, 9 Feb 2010 08:42:00 -0600

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.

Here is our list:

Dinner Ideas

Turkey Crockpot Lasagna

Spaghetti

Baked Spaghetti

Porcupine Meatballs

Ravioli

Asian Cabbage Salad

Deli Style Sandwiches

Baked potatoes with broccoli and Cheese

Turkey Chili

Vegetarian Chili

Potato Soup

Baked Potato Soup

Macaroni and Cheese Casserole

Kraft Mac Casserole with ham, peas and sour cream mushroom sauce

Chicken and Han Roll-ups

Chicken and Rice One Dish Bake (Campbell’s)

Asian Stir Fry

Fried Rice with Chicken and Peas

Asian Lettuce Wraps

Captain Crunch Chicken

Tacos

Taco Salad

Chicken/Noodle Vegetable Soup

Turkey Meatloaf

Three Cheese Cannelloni

Chili Rellenos Casserole

Apricot Chicken

Crunchy Onion Chicken

Black Beans and Rice

Grilled Chicken Shish-K-bobs

BLT’s

Waffles

Pancakes and Bacon

Breakfast Burritos

Bean Burritos

Chicken Enchiladas

Pizza

Chicken Fajitas

Bacon wrapped chicken with Alfredo sauce

Fettuccini Alfredo

Fettuccini Alfredo with ham and peas

Turkey Burgers

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!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Little House in the Big Woods Lapbook

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 08:28:00 -0600

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.

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

This Just In...Godzilla Attacks Pepin!!!

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 07:33:00 -0600

Ah, face it you knew it was coming! LOL

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

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

American Girl Club Week 4 - Kirsten 1854

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 09:52:00 -0600

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!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

American Girl Club Week 1 - Kirsten 1854
American Girl Club Week 2 - Kirsten 1854
American Girl Club Week 3 - Kirsten 1854

Chore Changes

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 07:17:00 -0600

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.

Going To Town - Little House in the Big Woods

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 08:06:00 -0600

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! :^)

You will find the free printables to make your own pioneer town at http://www.hoover.archives.gov/LIW/pioneertown/activities_pioneertown.html

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Here are my other posts on The Little House in the Big Woods

Pioneer Times Study

Little House in the Big Woods - So Far

Little House in the Big Woods - So Far Part 2

Pretzel Log Cabin

The Fiddle

P.S. Just to show that they are indeed playing with their little town...

:^)

Freebie Friday - Feb. 5, 2010 - The Human Body

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 08:23:00 -0600

Welcome to Freebie Friday,

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.

Free My Body Lapbook
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/my_body.php

Videos about how the body works! (Very cool!)
http://kidshealth.org/kid/closet/movies/how_the_body_works_interim.html

Human Body Worksheets http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/science/human/

Human Skeleton Quiz
http://quizzes.familyeducation.com/body-parts/human-biology/62373.html

Human Anatomy Online
http://www.innerbody.com/htm/body.html

The Yuckiest Site on the Internet - Your Gross and Cool Body Section
http://yucky.discovery.com/flash/body/

Free Uniball Pen
http://www.uniballsuperink.com/

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

HE CAN READ!

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:02:00 -0600

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

It was a wonderful homeschool day at our house!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

American Girl Club Week 3 - Kirsten 1854

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:31:00 -0600

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!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

American Girl Club Week 1 - Kirsten 1854
American Girl Club Week 2 - Kirsten 1854