Whispering Pines | |
Christmas Productsmake custom gifts at Zazzle Christmas ResourcesWow! Time is going so fast. I can't believe it is almost December!!! I don't know about you, but I usually start adding Christmas into our homeschool right after Thanksgiving is over. I am hoping to do an interactive notebook this year of Christmas Around the World, but I will have to see if my printer is fixed in time. Unfortunately, it started leaking. Ugh!!! Well, I wanted to share some resources that I have put together for Christmas.Here are my homeschool Christmas resources: Christmas Lapbook Christmas Around the World with Children Christmas Unit Study Reindeer Animal Study Here are some other resources for Christmas: An Organized Christmas Gift Giving Guide- Do you still need to get a gift for someone? Here's help! Make Christmas Cards Hot Chocolate for the Holidays I hope these resources help make your Christmas more enjoyable. Click in the graphic for more details! Neat Homeschool ProjectI just wanted to let you all know about a a neat project some of my friends are doing on eHow. Several of them are going to be sending a doll around the country and taking the doll to different landmarks and places in their community. They will be taking pictures and writing about the adventures. The project can be followed at this link: http://www.squidoo.com/ehowdollysgrandadventure This would make a really good geography project. I will say, though, a couple of the people sometimes have a uhm... colorful sense of humor, so I would preview it before showing it to your kids. lol!!! Just in case. Dolly is about to arrive at her first destination which is Maine. This project will be going on through the winter and possibly into the spring. Each person will be adding their adventures as they do them.Free Thanksgiving & Christmas Holiday Sampler from TOS Magazine!
Swine Flu!Ugh! I've had a rough month! My 2 sons came down with the Swine Flu on Oct. 7th and I followed on Oct. 8th. My kids are doing ok. I am still fighting to get well. That is why I haven't written at all for so long. I've been very sick. I've seen the doctor's 4 times and had to get chest X-rays. They say if my cough is not better by the end of the week, I may be getting more X-rays. *sigh* I was having trouble eating and couldn't keep my food down. I lost a total of 12- 14 pounds and I was getting dehydrated. If I hadn't started keeping my food down over the weekend, my husband was suppose to take me to the hospital on Sunday night. Luckily, I started keeping it down!!! I think I am finally on the mend, but I still have a ways to go, so my post may be light for another week or two. Hopefully by then, I'll be doing better.Lake Michigan
Holland State Park, Holland, Michigan
New Buffalo, Michigan
New Buffalo, Michigan Make Homeschooling FunSchool does not have to be a drag! There are many ways to jazz up your homeschool, allowing your child to have fun and get a good education. Here are some tips:1. Use living books instead of textbooks when possible. Children can get into stories much easier than they can a dry textbook. Use the living books as a jumping off point to learn more about the subject. You can build an entire study around the book. 2. Make lapbooks or an interactive notebook to go along with your studies. Most children love colored paper, stickers, colorful markers, cutting and pasting. Use this love to do something creative, fun and educational. 3. Use puzzles. Puzzles require thought and so they are educational, in among themselves, but if you do a puzzle of the United States, the World Map, fine artwork or something, then you have an added benefit. By studying the pieces, your child is learning the parts of the map or is studying the fine detail of that makes up the artwork. 4. Go on nature walks. Studying nature not only teaches your child about the world around them, but it helps them develop important observational skills. 5. Play games. There are some games, like Made for Trade  , that are made to be educational even though they are fun. Then there are games like, Monopoly that were not made for educational purposes, but still have many educational components. Games are a wonderful way to have fun, but learn also.6. Add movies and videos to your school day. Ok, I know this is a controversial one, but I truly believe there are some awesome shows and movies that teach. A few that my son loves are Word Girl (teaches vocabulary), Cyber Chase (math), Magic School Bus (science), Liberty's Kids  (American History) and Between the Lions (Reading). Now obviously, you don’t want to try to watch them all in one day, but one or two of them a day a few days a week is a good balance. Kids love the idea of getting to watch tv in school and a lot of the educational shows are packed with information. It’s a good use of the 30 minutes.7. Make sure art, nature, music and physical activity is a part of the daily activities. These extras are fun as well as good for your child. 8. Make scrapbooks for learning. These can be for history, science, geography, or even art. It’s a fun and educational way to display what your child learns and they can get creative putting it together (if they are old enough). I hope these tips help you make your homeschool fun as well as educational! A Craft Apron and Craft Bag you can order for your child: Don't Miss This One"Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it." ~Theodore Roosevelt, regarding the Grand Canyon
This week, we've been enjoying The National Parks, America's Best Idea, a film by Ken Burns on PBS. Totally worth your time, if you love the great outdoors. Now more than ever, I see the value of parks and am so thankful that a few people, long ago, saw to save some of America's best features. Indiana is blessed to have a national forest, a lakeshore and one small national park, which offer Jr. Ranger Programs for which we are thankful. This summer our kids earned several patches and badges, learning much along the way. If you live near a park, you might consider this as it is a good hands on science program for free. (You know how I like free!) I think they even offer online options if you don't live near a park.
Swearing In Ceremony
Mummies, Flowers and Blue Dolphins Ok, it's been a few weeks since I have posted about our school work. We've had some unorganized weeks, but I finally feel like I'm on track again. Here is a sampling of what we have done. In the School House: I finished the Magic Tree House book Mummies in the Morning with Little One. Then we made an interactive notebook page for the story.  I am really liking the format of an interactive notebook for the Magic Tree House series. We basically just do enough minibooks to fit in a two page spread (or a two page spread with flap) and when we are done, I glue them in on a page labeled with the title. This allows us to extend the study to include other things like geography without spending a lot of time on it. I try to do 1 book every week to a week and a half. Since there are so many books in the series, I don't want to spend a ton of time on each of them. That is why about 5-7 minibooks for each book is ideal. I try to find stickers to go along with the studies (if I can) to make the pages more colorful and stand out. They are not necessary, but since I am a scrapbooker and have tons of extra stickers, I might as well use them. If you would like to do you own study of Mummies in the Morning (or just an Egyptian study) here are some resources: http://www.squidoo.com/magictreehouse--mummies-in-the-morning-studyguide http://www.squidoo.com/magic-tree-house-study-guides (this has a directory of other MTH books) http://www.squidoo.com/interactive-notebook Both of the boys did some indoor nature studies since the weather has not been cooperating lately. I brought some wildflowers in from our garden for them to draw. Prince Caspian's Drawing:  Little One's Drawings:  and  Here are some resources for your own nature studies: http://www.squidoo.com/naturestudywithchildren http://www.squidoo.com/homeschool-nature-studies Prince Caspian was reading the book Island of the Blue Dolphin and he was to notebook what he read. Here is a page he did:  The notebook page is a part of the Basic Primary and Regular- Lined Notebooking Pages set by NotebookingPages.com. You can find them here: Notebooking Pages I love notebooking with older children. It gives them more practice in writing and it involves more thought than just circling a,b or c. Being a WAHM: I've also been busy working! I've gotten some of my Christmas line out on Zazzle. Here are a few examples: to see more, go here: http://www.squidoo.com/christmas-zazzle-dazzle I plan to add a lot more in the following weeks. Well, that was our wrap up. To see more wrap ups, check out: My Heart's Desire Have a great week! Autumn ThoughtsFor man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. ~Edwin Way Teale
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Holland State Park, Holland, Michigan
