Look what my minions made

So, we always seem to have toilet paper tubes.  You too?  Anyway, one day we needed a craft.  Upon seeing the toilet paper tubes, I issued a challenge:  What can you make with this?  And this is what the littles came up with - Minions.  I thought they turned out cute :).

Ivory Soap School



 

Today we added a little clean fun to our school day.  We put a bar of ivory soap in the microwave to see it grow!  We also read a little bit about the history of soap.  Then so as not to waste the soap, we crumbled it up.  It fell and looked like snow - ivory snow :).  I made some mint tea that we added to the "snow" and kneaded it into a dough.  We molded the dough into some cookie cutters to dry.  Now we have some fun soap bars we can use in the bath tub.  We could of added some food coloring to make them prettier, but I like to use natural dye, and we are all out at the moment.

 

Tea Tuesday - Herbal Tea Playdough

 

This was so fun.  We made playdough with Summer Berries herbal tea.  The tea smelled so good and the color from the tea was beautiful.  We are going to make some orange spice playdough and who knows what else. 

 

We used a recipe that I pinned on my Tea Pinterest board.

Oatmeal - Grain of the Month

 



Picture and recipe from www.recipe.com
 

January is National Oatmeal Month.  I love oatmeal.  So this holiday works for me.  Rolled oats with brown sugar are my favorite.  I also love oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  To celebrate oatmeal we are making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies using our waffle maker. 

Did you know there is a Grain of the Month every month?  I think we may just add this into our homeschool lessons for fun this year.



Picture and link from www.wholegrainscouncil.org

 

Happy 2015!

Ringing in the New Year with a cup of tea!  And I'm ready to begin celebrating National Hot Tea Month.  Would you like to join me?  Grab a cup of tea and join me on Tea Tuesdays when I'll be posting about all things tea!

 

Here's a couple of National Hot Tea Month links to share:

About Food:  31 Days to Celebrate Hot Tea Month

January is Hot Tea Month

 

Here's some other fun days to celebrate this month: 

National Oatmeal Month

National Soup Month

3rd Festival of Sleep Day
6th Epiphany
8th Bubble Bath Day
15th National Hat Day
18th Thesaurus Day
18th Winnie the Pooh Day
19th National Popcorn Day
20th Penguin Awareness Day
23rd National Pie Day
24th Compliment Day
25th Opposite Day
28th National Kazoo Day
29th National Puzzle Day
29th Kansas Day
31st Backward Day


 

Our Jello Cell

 

We are studying biology this year.  This is our attempt at making a cell with Jello.  The slice of hard boiled egg is supposed to be the nucleus.  All the other items are supposed to represent another part of the cell.  Lila seemed to learn a lot by watching Newton's Workshop Cell-abration.  Lila wrote notes in her journal and colored pictures of animal and plant cells.

Preschool Curriculum

From Hubbard's Cupboard, Bible and Rhyme

Here are some free sites for preschool curriculum that I have used over the years:

Bible and Rhyme - 3 year old curriculum

Everything Preschool - theme activities

First School

Perpetual Preschool

Rainbow Preschool

Homeschool Creations

Preschool Education

Preschool Express

Starfall

Of course there are others.  I'd love to know what online resources you have used for preschool years!

Field trip to Home Artisan Flour Mill

We had a great field trip to a local artisan flour mill.  Grain comes to the mill from local farmers.  The grain is milled here and then baked into many different kinds of bread.  We were able to try several samples.  The family was wonderful to welcome us and share how everything is done.  They said they will be making pizza this summer at our farmer's market.  We will look forward to enjoying pizza since we like to eat dinner at the farmer's market. 

10 More Ways to Add Movement in Your Home School

1.  Leaping for Measurement - Kids leap and then measure how the distance of their leap.  You could graph the leaps as well.

2.  Bowling over Fractions - Play bowling and then shade in bowling pins that fell over with each throw and write the fraction of pins that fell.

3.  Moving Adverbs - Play like Simon Says by say, Hop Slowly or Walk Quickly or Stomp Quietly.

4.  Numberline Locomotion - Create a number on the floor and call out math problems such as:  two minus one or jump up two numbers, gallop to an even number, etc.

5.  It's Getting Loud in Here - Move to a drum beat: if temp is fast, move quickly; if temp is slow, move slowly.

6.  Act out stories or nursery rhymes.

7.  Learn about jump rope games from around the world and try them.

8.  Twister with a Twist - Play twister in Spanish and using all different body parts.

9.  Active Musical Breaks - If you feel the kids are losing focus or have the wiggles, take a break and do Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes or the Sit Down Stand Up Song by Rick Goldin.

10.  Take a Walk outside every day!

Recent Homeschool Field Trips

 Besides all of our adventures on vacation we have also visited a local Maple Sugar House and the local newspaper. Both were great!  It is sugaring season where we live and the sap is running.  Many of our friends are in the sap making business.  We toured the sugar farm of a local home school family and then had a sugar party with consists of sugar on snow (syrup poured on snow and twirled on a fork like taffy), a donut (for fun), and a pickle (take a bite every now and then to cut down on the sweetness so you can eat more syrup).  We still had snow, so then the kids played.  There was a hint of spring in the air which was nice.  But I also had my cup of tea to cut down on the chill in my toes.

We visited the local paper with a different home school group.  I have always wanted to take the kids there.  I used to want to work for the paper.  When I was in high school I was on the newspaper staff and I also wrote and worked for a couple of local area papers.  So, it brought back memories of those days.

One of these rolls stretches out 5 miles.

These are the negatives - the plates used for printing.

Cody liked the Big Machines!

Spring is field trip season for us.  We are ready to get out and about again.  We are hoping to tour a flour mill, a vet hospital, and the airport yet this spring.

What field trips does your family do?

Linked with Top Ten Tuesday, Read Aloud Thursdays, Works for Me Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Miscellany Monday, The Better Mom, Beauty in His Grip, Gratituesday, Mindful Mothering, Mop it Up Monday, Mama Moments Mondays, Mommy Link-up!, Women Living Well, Hip Homeschool Hop, Thankful Thursday, Winsome Wednesday, Courtship Connection, and Gratituesday, Only a Breath, Titus 2sdays, Teach Me Tuesdays, Weekly Wrap Up, Share It Saturday.

Movement and Learning 2

You can add movement and physical education in all the subjects of school.  Getting the kids moving in math and history and science can actually help them learn these subjects as well as get some exercise.  Here is a list of some of the activities that sound like fun to try in our homeschool lessons:

1.  A Wild Rumpus Dance after reading Where the Wild Things Are
2.  Dribble a ball while practicing spelling words
3.  Play Verb Charades
4.  Simon Says Action Words
5.  Line up people or toys alphabetically
6.  Label house with Spanish words
7.  Scavenger hunt for simple machines in house (science)
8.  Play games from around the world
9.  Throw or kick a ball using different adverbs - slowly, softly, quickly, etc.
10.  Body ID - name different body parts to touch with partner - elbow to tummy, chin to knee, etc.

I'll post 10 more next week :).

Linked with Top Ten Tuesday, Read Aloud Thursdays, Works for Me Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Miscellany Monday, The Better Mom, Beauty in His Grip, Gratituesday, Mindful Mothering, Mop it Up Monday, Mama Moments Mondays, Mommy Link-up!, Women Living Well, Hip Homeschool Hop, Thankful Thursday, Winsome Wednesday, Courtship Connection, and Gratituesday, Only a Breath, Titus 2sdays, Teach Me Tuesdays.

Movement and Learning

I am taking a class to renew my teaching certifcate called Get them out of Their Chairs:  the Power of Movement.  It focuses on how movement facilitates learning.  I chose this class because I thought it sounded fun, but I have also been learning about how movement and being fully present and experiencing life with your whole body is especially good for adoptive kids.  It's actually great for everyone, and it helps with stress.  So, I thought I would somewhat journal about the books I am reading in my blog.

The first book was Start Smart:  Building Brain Power in the Early Years by Pam Schiller. It talks about many areas that affect the brain to reach full capacity and make connections and memories such as aromas, colors, emotions, exercise, laughter, hydration, music, patterns, and movement.  Small muscle movements help learning such as finger rhymes, clapping, playing piano, knitting, etc.  The small muscle movements help us to be alert.  We are hands-on learners, all of us.  Even playing with silly putty or shelling peanuts while listening to a story can help us remember.  I know my 14 year old likes to click a pen or play with a clothespin while she reads.  She thinks it helps her remember and focus.

The author also mentions how having an active time in the afternoon helps our brain develop.  Other tidbits I liked:

Aromas
*peppermint, basil, lemon and cinnamon help mental alertness
*orange and lavender relax
Add these scents in your day with foods, scented playdo, scented hand lotions, bean bags with herbs
Colors
*blue and green are calming
*reds and yellow are energizing and creative
*brown reduces fatigue and relaxes
Hydration
*schedule water breaks to keep from feling drawsy and listless
Cross-lateral Movement
*hand rhymes and activites that cross the midline help boost the brain
Music
*can boost memory, attention, and motivation
*can lower stress, activate both sides of brain, enhance mood
Novelty
*changing environments and toys increase interest and learning
Patterns
*finding patterns in clothing, books, nature, routines, seasons

-Don't overload kids schedules
-Provide feedback and encouragement, focus on process not product, and encourage progress

These are just notes I took as I was reading.  I will be using my readings over the next couple of weeks to incorporate these ideas, particularly about movement, into our homeschool lessons.

We already tried doing jumping jacks while saying the definition of a verb.  Lila loved it!

Linked with: Works for Me Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Miscellany Monday, The Better Mom, Beauty in His Grip, Gratituesday, Mindful Mothering, Mop it Up Monday, Mama Moments Mondays, Mommy Link-up!, Women Living Well, Hip Homeschool Hop, Thankful Thursday, Winsome Wednesday, Courtship Connection, and Gratituesday, Only a Breath, Titus 2sdays, Teach Me Tuesdays.

Christmas Around the World

I just found a good ebook for Christmas around the World.  It includes great pages for kids to make a book and links and book recommendations to learn about all the countries.  We were planning to focus on how Christmas has been celebrated throughout American history this year, but we may do around the world after finding this great resource.

Happy Columbus Day!

 

Malaria Bites - Bite Back!

We have been studying insects/bugs in our homeschool this month.  We started with our butterflies.  We've looked up close at centipedes, spiders, beetles, ladybugs, fireflies, bees, ants, dragonflies, oh my!  One of the bugs we most dislike are blackflies here in New England.  Every year as soon as the weather is getting nice - after our LONG winter, when flowers are blooming, and we are dreaming of days outside - the blackflies come to spoil the fun!  Blackflies are like gnats that bite big.  Blood trickles down from the bite soon followed by intense itching and swelling.  They love to bite around your head - by your eyes, ears, neck - places that are hard to cover with bug repellent.  The first year I lived here my eye became swollen shut from a bite.  I don't seem to react as bad anymore.  Or maybe I just don't go outside during blackfly season.  This year we hardly had a blackfly season.  We found out this was because of Hurricane Irene that came through last summer and flooded all the rivers.  The eggs were washed away.  I am guessing that is why we didn't see any mayflies this year as well.  One positive of blackfly bites is that they don't carry any disease.

One insect we are learning about is the mosquito.  And mosquitoes DO carry disease - deadly disease.  So we decided for our Scattered Gifts last month (June) we would bite back and give to help end malaria and help save lives.  When we were adopting our daughter Lila from Liberia we were told she got malaria in the orphanage while we were waiting for her to come home to us.  Thankfully, she got medicine quickly and was a "tough little girl."  We know other babies that died from malaria in her orphanage.

We are giving to Compassion's Bite Back project to donate nets to help save lives.

Here are a couple of malaria facts:

350-500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide each year.

Malaria causes 20 percent of ALL childhood deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

90 percent of malaria deaths occur in Africa—nearly 1 million people.

Malaria kills 2,000 children each day, almmost every 30 seconds.

Courtesy of Compassion International: http://www.biteback.net/get-informed/#ixzz203Xpzuva

This is part of our Scattered Gifts mission of our family. As we learn about different organizations, maybe God will lead us to give to some on a regular basis, go on a mission trip, or who knows what God will have us do!

Would you like to join us each month? Do you have organizations we can learn more about? I will be posting at the beginning of each month what our project will be. Some months we will be learning about more than one.

Past months:
January - Sweet Sleep
February - Shoes for Orphan Souls
March - Vision Trust
April/May - Clean Water

I'd love to hear about ways other families are giving and serving!

Linked with: Works for Me Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Family Time Tuesday, Miscellany Monday, The Better Mom, Beauty in His Grip, On Your Heart Tuesdays, Mommy Link-up!, Women Living Well, Hip Homeschool Hop, and Gratituesday.

Ten Favorite Summer Picture Books

1.  Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco (One of my favorite authors)


2.  Come on, Rain! by Karen Hesse


3.  The Summer Night by Charlotte Zolotow - this is one of my favorite since I was a little girl, and I read it to my kids every summer.  It's hard to find now.










4.  God's Quiet Things by Nancy Sweetland


5.  Night Driving by John Coy


6.  Oregon's Journey by Rascal


7.  Blueberries for Sal (and Make Way for Ducklings) by Robert McCloskey


8.  Fairy Houses by Tracy Kane


9.  Hide and Seek Fog by Alvin Tresselt


10.  Wind Says Goodnight by Katy Rydell


Linked with Top Ten Tuesday, Family Time Tuesday, Works for Me Wednesday, Women Living Well, Raising Homemakers, Winsome Wednesday, Miscellany Monday, Read Aloud Thursdays, Hip Homeschool Hop, Monday Madness, Friday Favorite Things, and Better Mom.

Picking Strawberries

We had a wonderful day picking strawberries with friends.  Cody and Lila ate more than they picked, I think.  We brought them home and made strawberry shortcake and smoothies.  The rest we decided to freeze.

Our Butterflies

Letting them go!

Every couple of springs we like to order some Painted Lady caterpillars from Insect Lore and watch then turn into butterflies.  The caterpillars come in the mail less than a centimeter long.  They grow very fast in about a week.  Then they crawl up to the top of the cup and hang in a "J" and start to form their chrysalis.  It is fascinating to watch.  They stay in the chrysalis for about 7 - 10 days and then come out as beautiful butterflies.  We usually keep them a day or two and feed then sugar water or oranges, and then we let them go!

Also linked with Weekly Wrap-up and Hip Homeschool Hop,Works for Me Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Wordless Wednesday, What We're Learning, and Friday Favorite Things.