Jesus Loves Me This I Know

Nov. 5, 2007 - Circus Night - End of NERF Unit Wrap Up

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For our Circus Night we put on "The Greatest Show in Our Home" for both sets of grandparents. One of the wonderful Konos Online Coop Moms shared a couple of her files on the yahoo group with everyone and so I got that title from her along with her schedule and her circus program to hand out to the guests. So, we just updated it to fit our family and it saved us a lot of time. So, thank you to you!! Another one of the moms posted about the music that they used for the different acts from the CD "Best of the Millennium - Top 40 Classical Hits" which was a huge help as well. We used some of those along with the CD "Do It Yourself Kids Circus" which had great circus music for different acts, which we used for most of them. First, Jake & Leah greeted the guests at the door and welcomed them to the circus. Jake handed out the programs while Leah handed them a ticket for 1 Free Popcorn and then they led them to their seats. Sam then "sold" the popcorn and took the tickets and offered them Lemonade & served it to them.

Our youngest, Leah, was a Princess Clown (which was how I convinced her to be the clown since she didn't really want to be a clown. She was to entertain the audience while I helped the kids change costumes. I was the ringmaster and announced the acts and both my husband & I did the music and took pictures. Luckily we were able to borrow a tripod for the video camera, because there is no way we could have done that too.

Our 1st act was Soaring Samantha as an Acrobat/Tumbler to Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. So, in between every act Leah the Princess Clown reenacted whatever performance was just done; with a little prodding from Daddy.

Next was our Jiggling Jugglers, Daddy & Jake (who actually was a plate spinner).

Then came the Tightrope Trio, Sam, Jake, & Leah. Sam & Jake were on the coffee table with batons, while Leah was on the ground walking on a piece of masking tape (very carefully) with an umbrella.

Then came our Daring Royal Rider & her horse Starlight: Sam & her horse, Daddy.

Next was our Muscle Man the Mighty who lifted weights over 2000 lbs and bent a steel bar to R. Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathustra. Jake had balloons in his (my) shirt for his muscles and did a good job of acting like the weights were really heavy.

Then we had our Lion Tamer and her Lion Leo: Sam with Jake the lion to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. We had a hoop of fire (hula hoop) and he did other tricks and Sam shook his hand, rode on his back, and stuck her head in the mouth of the lion (he put his head down in the lion costume so she could stick her head in all the way).

Lastly, we had our Clown Act to Offenbach's Cancan with Sam, Jake, & Leah all performing a clown act. Sam kept trying to throw a ball to Jake and he kept acting like he was ready and then when she threw it, it would knock him over and he would get upset and then the threw and she went after it and he sneaked up on her and kicked (lightly) her on her bottom and then she chased him around and then Leah was supposed to run into them but didn't want to participate which was fine since she had made it through the rest of the show. Then they just were being silly and having fun.

I said the final words and had the kids come in to all bow.

After we finished we had the kids recite/sing their memory verses from this unit and then Sam read some jokes out of a circus joke book and you can see that they were thirsty from all that hard work!

Then, it was time to eat our meal we had planned for the guests. We decided to make it simpler and changed our original menu to Sub Sanwiches, veggies & dip, chips & salsa, and smoothies for dessert. It was also Halloween that night and so after eating the kids got to hand out some candy.

It was a great night and tiring!

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Nov. 5, 2007 - 2nd Konos Unit - Stewardship: NERF (Nutrition, Exercise, Rest, & Fun)

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Well, we ended our NERF unit last Wednesday with a Circus Culmination night with the grandparents. With this unit, we definately took it a little easier but we also ended with a bang! So, overall I was happy with what we accomplished and with what my children learned. Our main focus, again, was the character trait of Stewardship (of the body) and we learned bible memory verses, such as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 - "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. ". We always try to put our memory verses to a familiar tune since my children are so young and so we sang this one to "Mary Had a Little Lamb". It really does seem to help with remembering them. We talked about privilege and responsibility and read about how Daniel was a good steward of his body. We learned all about nutrition and how we need to take care of our bodies and the food we put into it (we are still working on this one-more so me with the sweets-when the kids are sleeping of course). We made up the four food groups on the floor and seperated them by tape and I did get pictures, but they are on my sisters non-digital camera. The kids then raided the kitchen & pantry to put all the food into the correct food group. They loved it. We then studied the individual groups on different days and located their origins on the map,

made macaroni collages,

bean bags, bean sprouts, tried different seeds & nuts, made a vegetable sculpture,

made tropical smoothies,

made a food chart

and visited the grocery store many times to learn all about the groups, nutrients, labels, additives, etc. We also made a meal that went along with that day's food group. We learned about the glycemic index, calories, and did a hike with heavy backpacks to show how much harder it is to do things with extra weight like you would have if you take in too many calories and don't burn them. We also studied exercise and how it is good for your body, by exercising. We did some workout videos, we ran around my room through the kitchen in a circle so many times, we did stretches, etc. Here the kids are doing fun exercises like the the inchworm, wheelbarrow, gorilla walk, etc.

We created a physical conditioning course in our back yard. We learned about the muscles of the body and dissected a chicken to see the muscles, tendons etc. We learned about getting enough rest to help our bodies function, the different stages of sleep, and consequences of lack of sleep. And the best part was planning & performing our Circus Night to wrap up our unit; the FUN part. It was a lot of work but so worth it and so precious. A night we definately won't forget! I will post about that next. Here are some of the books & videos that we really liked:

Nutrition - Good Enough to Eat by Lizzy Rockwell / Pyramid Pal series/ Learning Your ABCs of Nutrition/ Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From/ Fresh from the Family Farm (vhs)/ Magic Monsters Learn About Health/ A Cow, a Bee, a Cookie, and Me by Meredith Hooper

Exercise - Exercise by Sharon Gordon/ You Can't Make a Move Without Your Muscles/ Get up and Go!/ The Busy Body Book/ Move 'n Groove Kids (VHS)

Rest - Sleep is for Everyone by Paul Showers/ A Good Night's Sleep by Sharon Gordon/ Sleep Well-Why You Need to Rest by Kathy Feeney/ Wide Awake Jake/ How Do You Sleep

Fun (Circus) - Kids Love the Circus (VHS)/ Clowning Around - Jokes/ Circus Time!/ At the Circus (Better Homes & Gardens)/ If I Ran The Circus by Dr. Seuss/ Circus by Roxie Munro/ The Performers - Circus Stars/ A New True Book - The Circus by Mabel Harmer/ Do It Yourself Kids Circus (CD)

Picture Books - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs/ Jamberry/ Stone Soup/ The Gingerbread Girl/ By the Light of the Moon/ Richard Scarry's Just For Fun/Princess Bee and the Royal Good-Night Story/ Close Your Eyes

Easy Readers - Mary Clare Likes to Share/ The Pizza that we Made/ So Hungry!/ Lunch Boxes/ Good Food/ The New Red Bed

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Nov. 1, 2007 - First Konos Unit - Attentiveness: Ears/Sound/Music

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This year for school we still are using Konos Unit Studies, but I am also participating in the Online Coop available through Konos and it is great. Our first unit was Attentiveness studying Ears/Sound/Music. So we learned about being attentive, especially to God and the kids dramatized Samuel & Eli from the bible and learned about Mary & Martha too. We studied a different bible memory verse each week too. They had to listen carefully for me to whisper to them & then come right away throughout the day. We played games that require concentration such as Simon Says, Duck Duck Goose, Hokey Pokey, and Memory. We learned all about how the ear works and built a crawl through ear.

We kept the crawl through ear up for a number of weeks and the kids especially loved sitting in the comfy brain (a bunch of pillows that were connected to the ear by nerves). We were supposed to visit a hearing aid dept. but that didn't end up happening. We performed a bunch of different science experiments, which didn't all work the way they were supposed to but the kids at least understood what was supposed to happen. In these pictures we are recording a hacksaw blade vibration and how length & speed affect sound or vibrations by drawing sound waves with a pen.

We took apart a telephone and researched Doppler effect, wavelength, ultrasonic sound etc. We learned all about Helen Keller and watched the Miracle Worker and learned some sign language. We listened carefully to a hidden timer beeping and had to find it with our eyes closed. The kids liked this a lot and liked hiding it for me as well. My oldest dd kept on pretending to be Helen Keller all the time and still does. We learned all about the piano and got to see inside of Grandmas. We listened to lots of classical music and learned about different composers and the orchestra. We made different muscial instruments and learned about how thickness or size and length affect the pitch of the instrument. We took a field trip to a music store and the kids even got free shakers from the gentleman giving us the tour. We learned about whole notes and half notes, etc. And we made a lapbook about all the different things we learned. One other fun thing for our unit was a language arts activity where you take sticky notes and label them with different adjectives and then the kids have to stick them to something that fits that description and so my daughter stuck the sticky note that read "Itchy" on her face on top of a mosquito bite and so of course I had to take a picture.

I wasn't that pumped about this unit, since I have never been musically inclined, besides liking to sing and listen to music, but we had a lot of fun and we learned a lot.

Here the kids are pretending to be a Bride & Groom while listening to Mendelssohn's "Wedding March". You've got to love unit studies, especially when the main focus of Konos unit studies are on the character. We started out every day with our bible study and going over the character trait that we were on and it made such a big difference (lots of the time more for me even

than the kids) and put our focus where it should be. Last year I didn't emphasize the trait like I should have and this year it is making such a difference and I am thankful for that!

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Jan. 31, 2007 - Kings & Queens Unit Study Fun #2

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While studying Kings & Queens we had an English tea party and had made Queen Cakes(Marie Antoinette) for it. The kids dressed up and we had little cutout sandwiches and tried to decorate the table fancy. Sam had drawn a teapot and cut it out and said that it was decoration for our table too.

It was cute. We made some tea which none of us liked (I am not a tea person) and drank out of "tea", coffee, cups.

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Jan. 31, 2007 - Kings & Queens Unit Study Fun

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Here are some of the fun things we did while studying Kings & Queens. We made "tapestries", even though we painted them instead of using yarn to make the picture. So, I guess they could be banners instead. Anyways, we discussed how cold the castles got and how they used tapestries to cover the "windows" to keep it warmer. Sam had started this while Jake & Leah were napping and then Jake joined in after he woke up.

Here the kids are making their royal scepters out of styrofoam balls and dowels. We(I) spray painted them and painted the dowels. Then we added sequins to them and hot glued the dowels inside the balls. This project was done over a week's time actually. Not that it takes that long, we just had to wait for the different steps and then we got involved in some of our other projects. You can see too that Leah was just content to be playing with glue.

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Nov. 26, 2006 - Cowboy Cookout-End of Horse Unit Wrap Up

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We had a lot of fun at our Cowboy Cookout. We invited the grandparents to it. We made "wanted posters" of the grandparents, daddy, and the kids which were adorable. You can make them here for free: http://www.glassgiant.com/wanted/. We also used our horse poster and a red/white checkered tablecloth that we already had. We used tin pie pans for plates. We would have liked to done it outside, but it was too dark and too cold. We considered doing a fire anyways, but ended up not. We made "Son of a Gun" Stew, homemade biscuits (which I used baking soda instead of baking powder and they tasted disgusting), beans, apple cobbler, coffee for the adults, and rootbeer in bottles for the kids. We set up a table to showcase the books we've read, some artwork, pictures, and Sam's lapbook. We sang some songs and had the grandparents try to lasso the grandkids and played a cowboy game called "thimble rig" (where you have 3 thimbles -we used cups-and you hide one item and then move them around and you guess which one has the item under it). Then we just relaxed and the kids ended up making it into a dress up party and decided to dress everyone up. It was a nice night. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that besides ruining the biscuits, the apple cobbler leaked all over the edges of the pie pan and started smoking and my mom suggested putting salt on the part of the stove that had the food leaked on it to stop the smoking. Well, it started smoking furiously then and the whole house was covered in smoke, so we had to open all the windows and doors. So, we at least go to have the feeling of it being outdoors!

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Nov. 21, 2006 - Quarter Horse Racine/Branding "Irons"

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During our last week of our unit study theme of Obedience/Horses we studied the Wild West. One of the activities we did was to make our own branding "irons" from potatoes. The kids drew a design on the halved potatoes and then I cut them down to make a stamp and then they inked them on an ink pad and stamped them into a little branding booklet I made. We had first read about branding and running brands. After they finished stamping then I had Sam write the name of the brand on the same page and on the next page she made up a name for the Ranch it belonged to. At the end she stamped all the brands again and altered them to create running brands and named them as well. We put this booklet into our Lapbook, which I hope to post some time later.

Here, Jake was dressed up as a Knight, like usual. It's either that or a dragon. The kids are also racing the quarter mile race, like Quarter horses. They were disqualified if they crossed into the other horse's lane and as you can see, Jake thought it was a lot of fun to get disqualified. Sam on the other hand wanted him to stay in his own lane, but once she realized that she won, she got over it pretty quickly. We just used masking tape to make these racing lanes. The Konos book suggested doing it outside, which is another option. I don't remember why we didn't do that.

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Nov. 14, 2006 - Bike Horses/Fun/KONOS

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Here we attached our horses to our bikes with duct tape(it does leave sticky marks though). The kids thought this was pretty neat "riding" their horses around the neighborhood. Again, Leah was feeling left out. Poor Leah. Actually she didn't mind, she got to ride in the wagon with the chalk. We all went to the park where they have a cement area for the basketball court and we drew, with our chalk, a big oval racetrack and the kids, even Leah but not on a bike, raced each other. I even got in on the fun! I had a whistle with to start the race and we also had been blowing the whistle throughout the day and whenever the kids heard it they had to come right away, since we were studying obedience as the main focus and horses as the subtopic. Surprisingly, the kids loved this and for the most part came right away, running. I thought I should start using this all the time!

I should probably mention that we use Konos character curriculum. It is a unit study approach using character traits as the unit and different themes as the subtopics, such as Obedience-Horses/King&Queens/Light/etc. I think it is wonderful so far and we have only been using it since August. Their website is www.konos.com.

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Nov. 10, 2006 - Grooming/Steeplechase

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Here the kids are "grooming" the "horse"(Jake) and we used different combs/brushes, etc for all the different grooming tools and had Sam & Jake do them in the correct order and of course Leah wanted to help too.

Here the kids are at their cousins' house completing the jumping course they helped us set up and then they got paper ribbon awards that I printed off from the web at

http://www.billybear4kids.com/show/awards/certificates.html. It was a lot of fun. And Rylee decided to ride Jake who was pretending to be a horse. They also prentended "farm" for quite a while. It is nice to have family close by.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Last night was our Cowboy Cookout, so we are officially finished with the horse unit, but I still have other pictures to post before the cookout ones. Have a blessed day!

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Nov. 8, 2006 - Horse Saddle/Bridle

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Here we used our stick horses stuck through a little kid's table to learn how to saddle a horse, mount and dismount, and the verbal, rein, and leg aids a rider uses. We also used their bikes to mount & dismount. We even practiced at our Walmart on their coin activated horse to mount & dismount properly. Sam thought that was pretty cool. It was actually her idea. As you probably have noticed by now, Sam likes to dress up alot and Jake as well but not quite as often. Leah just loves shoes; any and all shoes, especially boots.

Jake here is showing off the "bridle" Sam & I made for her stick horse. She had to list off the 6 straps and the areas they went on while we did it and we of course had to refer back to the book a couple of times. I pretty much have been learning right along with her. And boy have I learned a lot! It's amazing what you can learn from kid's books.

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Nov. 6, 2006 - Draft Horse Racing/Puzzle Fun

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Here the kids are a having a draft horse pulling contest and you can see them showing off their "feathers". They had so much fun doing it in the back yard that they decided to try it again in the front yard using something lighter of course.

Sam loves puzzles, so I was happy to find this one at a yard sale just in time for our horse unit.

Today our Homeschool Group has Enrichment classes and so Sam is there for 3 hours doing Beginning Public Speaking (show&tell/fingerplays), Ballet, and Gym class. There are so many classes to choose from and all of them are just volunteer homeschool moms and dads. It is wonderful! There are some fees involved, but you can spend as much or as little as you want or can afford. Well, it is almost time to pack up the kids and pick her up. Usually my hubbie is home in the afternoon these days so I don't have to wake up my other 2 from naps but he called to say he won't make it in time today. Poor little things will have to get woken up!

I hate having to do that.

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Nov. 5, 2006 - Stick Horses

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This was probably the best activity for studying horses. We made these stick horses and our kids have used them over and over and over again. They just love them! Plus you can use them in so many ways to learn about horses and in a way that is fun and memorable for the kids (and the parents). We have used them to learn the different gaits or paces of the horse while demonstrating using them. We have rode them to learn different racing events. We have attached them to the kid's bikes to learn different racing events, games, mounting/dismounting, and more. Plus they have been used endlessly for pretend play. But they did require a little bit of work to put together and since they have been used so much they have had to be taped up a few times.

You can see Leah(the littlest) is wondering where hers

is. Sorry hunny, but you are going to have to take turns

with the older ones.

Mommy, I can't wait any longer!! (Leah)

Sam's horse

Jake's horse - I drew but he colored some of it.

He's not a big fan of coloring.

Finally, it's MY turn!! (Leah)

Children truly are a gift from the Lord!

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Nov. 4, 2006 - 2nd Unit - Horses: Pin the Tail on the Horse

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Our kids had a lot of fun playing this activity and it even can be used to review the anatomy of the horse by asking them which part they put the tail on or where they

got it closest too.

Samantha

Leah

Jake

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Nov. 3, 2006 - 1st Unit - Light & Lighthouses

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We have been studying the Character trait of Obedience and our first subtopic unit under that trait was Light/Lighthouses. We spent about a week and a half on this unit and could have spent a lot more but we were excited to move on to horses.

Coffee Filter Art - their hands look just

like the filters!