Keeping It Simple

I plan on not posting until after the first of the year-- not that I post all that often at any rate! :) We are going to spend some time reading Christmas books, playing games, wrapping presents, watching Christmas movies (Muppets Christmas Carol is top on my list and I am going to make the kids watch it with me!!;)), driving around looking at lights, spending time with family... and enjoying it as much as possible!! Praying that everyone has the most blessed holiday season!! Merry Christmas from our homeschool to yours! :)

The post I read on this craft had a warning that it might be addicting-- I can only tell you that it is true!! You can go here for step by step directions.   Materials needed are: strips of paper from old catalogs or magazines (we found the glossy covers of catalogs make the nicest bows), brads and a small hole punch. We found it easiest to hole punch the center of each bow piece before putting it on the brad (this will make sense when you read the directions linked above). When we first started, I cut the paper strips for the kids. Eventually, everyone over the age of 10 preferred to choose their own paper and cut it themselves. The younger ones were happy to have me do it.   Erin, 16, is addicted!! She has not wrapped her presents yet, but she has gorgeous bows to put on all of them when she does. :) I used this activity as a filler at a co op class that my kids attend. I'll share my experience-- the girls loved this craft. The boys-- not so much. My boys, who usuall...

A surefire hit for box activities around our schoolroom are math games. This Number Ladder is one of the very simple ones that we use from Peggy Kaye's Games for Math . The numbers on this ladder are strategically chosen so that no problem adds up to more than 10 (for James 1st grade). We have a more difficult version (for Mark 3rd grade). Both game pieces are placed at the bottom of the ladder. The first player rolls the cube and adds that number the first number on the ladder. If the player gives the correct answer he moves up a space and it is the next players turn. In our game, if one player (the student) catches another player (mom) in a "mistake", the player who made the mistake has to go back to the beginning. I remind James at the beginning of the game to watch out- I almost always make mistakes. ;) * our number cube is 0-5 -if you had regular dice, some of these would add up to more than 10

Another Thanksgiving project was our Pockets of Time to go with the book "Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims" by Clyde Bulla. Every few years (as the youngest child in our family is old enough to appreciate it), we read about Squanto. It really is an adventurous story- a perfect "boy read". The older two boys love this story- this was the first time we read it while James (6yo) was old enough to really "get it", and I have to admit that it was just too much for his tender heart. :( I am such a chicken that I finished reading the book to the older boys while he was asleep- I don't think he could take it that when Squanto finally got home, his family was all gone. * The thing that made this time around different were the Pockets of Time by Fortunately for You Books . There are several reasons that these are perfect for us- first, as is often the case with boys, mine do not like writing! This hands-on activity involves no writing- plus #1! Second, my ...

In the craft box for today: cardstock stars crayons markers glitter string scissors hole punch (wound up using a thumb tack instead- the hole was too big) Using directions from Crayola , the boys made these lovely stars!

This week's boxes have been filled with Thanksgiving projects. The main one that we have been working on is a lapbook to go along with our FIAR book, Cranberry Thanksgiving . We printed the mini books from homeschool share . Workboxes definitely keep our lapbooks moving more smoothly, but trying to finish by Thanksgiving put us under a bit of a time crunch even still! James, my 6yo, is usually the only one who does Five in a Row now, but his big brothers joined us for our Cranberry Thanksgiving row. About mid-day today, Mark and James were too excited about Thanksgiving being tomorrow to be of much help finishing the assembly of the lapbook. Paul, my very kind  11yo, didn't abandon me, but stepped up to help complete it. We still have a few things to fill in, but figured it would be best to get it put together and be done for the day!   Something to be thankful for! Big kids who do help...sometimes. We did not do many extras for this book. We watched a cranberry h...

You can find the this challenge and more at Delightful Learning blog. The original challenges were submitted each week. Since then the links have changed so I have removed them from this post. Visit  here to see more about these fun challenges .  Yes, we are at it again. This week's (actually, last week's) challenge is to build a boat. The boys had eight minutes, a box full of supplies--styrofoam cups, string, crafts sticks, mailing labels or, in our case, name tags (you gotta improvise sometimes), chenille stems,..-- and their brain power to make an object that will float and move across the water. Then they had two minutes to get the boat across the tub. Paul was excited when he first put the boat down- the wind pushed it halfway across! Then it died down and the boys started blowing. :) There is a scoring system. Based on that, I'd say the boys got full credit (20 pts) for working well together and having a boat at the end of round one (10 pts)....

You can find the this challenge and more at Delightful Learning blog. The original challenges were submitted each week. Since then the links have changed so I have removed them from this post. Visit  here to see more about these fun challenges .  We did not participate in an officially, but we did the "Up for a Challenge?" activity for last week. It was a blast!! I am not sure we followed the rules exactly, but the boys put a nice effort in to their bridge building. It was fun to hear them discuss their strategy and see them work together (just one or two small disagreements) to complete their project.   Part I- in 5 minutes, using only a pair of scissors (as a tool- not part of the bridge) and a deck of playing cards, build a bridge from one 8 in. square to the other (no cards touching the table between) that will hold weight. Working hard on it!   Did it!! Part II- two minutes to add weights. How many weights (nails) will it hold- time ends when ...

Well, we have been using The Boxes since March-- 7 months or so. In more than 15 years of homeschooling, I have seen quite a few fads come and go. I was a bit skeptical that "the boxes" would be just another one of those-- however, for us, the boxes have turned out to be a practical, uncomplicated method of organizing and implementing our homeschool assignments. I would consider them a success! :) The boxes are just that- boxes. Although many people use drawers, files, magazine holders and other things that they have on hand, the boxes, as explained in Sue Patrick's book, are just plastic shoe boxes. (about $1 each at our local Target) The idea is to have a bank of boxes (up to 12 of them) for each child. The child's work is then sorted in to the boxes- each box holding an assignment or project to work on . It is like a giant, hands on check list. How it works for us: I use a planner form to decide what we will have in our boxes. I have tried more detailed day by day...

So, I have had not time to post anything of my own, but this is so cool! Free art videos! As an artistically impaired parent, I appreciate these types of finds! You can view more at The Young Artist Workshop . Have fun!

I am a bit unsure of what to title this post. I have been reading blogs (lots of 'em) about "living math", "math journals" and such. Of course, I always want to wait until I completely understand a concept before I jump in. Heaven knows, I don't want my kids to do a math journal "wrong"! Well, in attempt to get over my fear of not doing it right, we started today. Yes, I just grabbed some $.99 notebooks that I purchased for something a while back, and we started. On the recommendation from this post over at the Pumpkin Patch blog (the book titles are slightly different, but it is the same series) I had ordered a few of these math books from our library. So, with journals, pencils and books in hand we began. The boys enjoyed reading about the baby Panda-- they were most interested in the fact that this newborn panda weighed about as much as a butter stick. Then the work began. While I don't have pics of all three of the boys (the lighting was to...

This post could just as easily be titled "good summer plans gone bad". :) Not really bad, but certainly awry. Starting out the summer with the best of intentions, I thought my boys and I would have a great time studying baseball and the history of the sport. I had saved a "History of Sports" unit study for just that moment in time when I knew my boys would love it! I got online and ordered books-- lots of fun books from the library about baseball, baseball players and other aspects of the game-- we planned on taking in a local game or two as well... then, just the week that we were to begin, dd#3 was hospitalized for a few days. Oh, well- priorities certainly change in these situations. We put off starting for while. There was recovery time that required my attention... and my beautiful grandson was born, and then... life got the better of us. But still, there was this wonderful basket of books just waiting to be enjoyed. So, at night before bed we read abo...

For our notebook, we used the FIAR Fold-and-Learn pretty much as is. It was just the perfect amount of work for James and it fit well with the lessons presented in the FIAR manual . Cover page: Things you might need in a Salamander Room: Life Cycle of a Salamander: Scavenger Hunt Check List, Vocabulary Words and Picture of a Tiger Salamander: Picture drawn by James (6yo) and Lilly Pads Seen on Scavenger Hunt: Pictures from Scavenger Hunt that big sister, Michelle, took James and his brothers on: View of Open Notebook (you can spy the blank animal report page in back- still working on that:)) We had a great time with this book. We had a few fun read- alongs (see previous post), watched Bill Nye's video show on Amphibians, and had fun frog hunting (rather, amphibian hunting) in our back yard. I found that we were much more efficient at completing our notebook because of the workboxes . I just placed the notebook, the printout for the day, s...