Keeping It Simple

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 ...