Blog
Flight! – Airplanes and such
Science Kids Flight Lesson Plans
Homeschool Bytes – why planes fly
Franklin Institute – flights of inspiration
Making a helicopter (whirl a gig thing like on Timothy)
TOS December sales
Check out the homeschooler bunders from The Old Schoolhouse.
They are priced at $99, and excellent way to get some good product for less. 🙂
The Old Schoolhouse® is committed to serving your bundles of joy who are growing up into fine boys and girls, men and women, and with that commitment in mind, we have an announcement of their own—the arrival of six New Homeschooler Bundles™—six collections of handpicked products and resources for brand-new homeschooling parents.
The Old Schoolhouse® wants to serve you by providing you with resources
that will strengthen and mature your “roots.” TOS is confident that these Homeschooler Bundles™ can help you thrive. Each of the TOS Homeschooler Bundles represents a value of at least $500, but TOS is offering them to you for only $99!
ALSO you can save over 65% on a subscription to The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine! Until midnight PST on December 31, you can select from three subscription deals. Each has its own free gifts too!
Option A: $7.95 subscription special Purchase a one-year subscription for just $7.95 and receive your choice of any TOS digital Planner for free!
Option B: Purchase a one-year subscription for just $19.95 and receive a Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bag, and E-Book: Cranberry Christmas for free. Enjoy great savings on The Old Schoolhouse Magazine with the holiday Cranberries & Cream subscription sale
Option C:$37.00 subscription special Purchase a two-year subscription for just $37 and receive a Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bag, any TOS digital Planner, and E-Book: Cranberry Christmas for free.
Merry Christmas!
Suncatchers and the Nutcracker
First off…how to make suncatchers/borax crystal things. I want to do this with Justin. 🙂 Found that blog through the homeschool carnival.
anyways, today we went to see the Nutcracker. I’ve never been to a ballet before and I found this just fun to watch. Wow… never expected ballet dancers to sound so loud. 🙂 I enjoyed watching the students put on this performance. They didn’t do it perfectly but they did it good enough for me. 🙂 Justin had brought his paper and pencil as he’s apt to do when going to new things he’s not sure he’ll like. He put them away and watched. he asked questions and was curious. he thought it quite interesting and fun. It was put on by the Dance Steps Studio of London. Jim attended with us.
Afterwards we dropped off some bunnies, then went to the mall as we were supposed to meet someone there. Then went to Mcd’s for lunch where we unexpectedly met up with a couple of homeschool moms and their children. Justin had fun playing with them. We had wanted to dine at the Mandarin but they are on holiday pricing now so they’ve jacked their prices up. I dislike that practice, but what can one do? Simply refuse to eat there.
Then we went to Costco to pick up items for our open house on the weekend.
Upon return home we made a gingerbread house and that for the most part summed up our day.
Christmas Bureau
Today we helped out at the Huron County Christmas Bureau.
We were there for about 2 hours. Justin did a fabulous job helping sort mittens, hats, socks, slippers and underwear. he had FUN ripping off price tags and then sticking them in mommy’s pocket to take home to play with later. he walked around with another lad (looked about 6-7) collecting garbage. He was a very busy, very helpful boy and at the two hour mark said “MOMMY, Can we go home now?” Figuring he had done an excellent job and knowing that I had said we’d be there 1-2 hours I was happy to take him home (after we did some shopping first).
I see volunteer work as an important part of schooling and life and was absolutely delighted that he was allowed to come and help out. It’s good to develop a servant’s heart in a person. It really is.
Anyways… What else did we do?
Oh, this morning we did day one of the Creative Camouflage unit study from DownLoadNGo.
The lad found part of it interesting, but he was more interested in being able to do “other stuff”. So we worked on it together. He found it interesting that zebras used stripes like tigers do. He found the walking stick insect just TOO confusing. Walking sticks are used by old people to walk around with, they AREN”T INSECTS MOMMY! BUT he did find it fascinating that they are observed in order to help build robotic times. I enjoyed the study, but think easier studies are more fun for the lad overall. 🙂
And tonight before bed we finished off part of the Currclick Trains mini lapbook. There was a section there for counting that the lad hadn’t finished off yet. It gave him good practice remembering how to write out the different numbers from 1-10.
Library book – December 7
Farm fresh cats – scott santoro
The lad just LOVES this book, and I have to admit, it’s a good read for me too. If you have a child who likes cats..get this book out. If you have a child who likes the unexpected…get this book out. It is a fun read. We get this book out over and over and over again, and everytime we read it he’s right there looking at the pages and listening actively.
Justin says “I love cats! There is too much cats in it!” (with a huge grin)
Meow – Judy Reinen
Justin says “I love the cats in it”.
And this book is full of cats, some in funny places. Makes a lad smile. 🙂
have you seen birds – by joanne oppenheim
I got this book out because the illustrations were done by barbara reid, and she lives up to her standard. BUT it ended up being a good book. Inspired the boy child to act out the different birds using his stuffed animals.
Justin says “there are too many birds. That it starts with a cat!”
I am Canada – heather patterson
Not a bad book at all. Introduces children doing different things in this beloved country of ours. As Justin says about this book “I AM CANADA”. 🙂
Room for Rabbit – Roni Schotter
This book was oft requested. It’s about a child dealing with the after-affects of divorce. Wasn’t sure about introducing that topic to Justin but overall he was more curious about what rabbit had to say to his little girl.
Justin says “that rabbit says there’s not enough room”
Wish Come True Cat – Ragnhild Scamell
Sometimes wishes come true in ways we don’t expect.
Justin says “that a cat goes thump on a window” 🙂
The other goose – judith kerr
This book is a fun read about a lonely goose. It performs a good deed and gets an interesting reward because of an observant little girl.
Justin says “that the goose things there’s a goose in the car!”
Spring Thaw – steven schnur
this book makes me think I could make a unit study or lap book out of it. A decent book with different observations about a spring thaw.
Justin says “there’s a horse in it”.
Snow Day
We were supposed to go to Gymnastics this morning. But since we had two feet of snow today with continuing squalls. Gymnastics was cancelled.
We played in the snow this morning instead. 🙂 Digging, sliding, and just having fun.
Then we made cookies. They were good. 🙂
These are the cookies that we made (we cut the recipe in half)
Oneta Lyon’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups softened butter
2 2/3 cup brown sugar
2 2/3 cup white sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla extract
24 ox chocolate chips
2 cup flour
4 cup flour
nuts are optional
Cream butter and sugars. Beat eggs, add salt, b.soda and vanilla.
combine the above ingredients and slowly add remaining ingredients. Mixture will be fairly stiff.
Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased and floured cookie sheet. NOTE I couldn’t drop them. I just rolled small balls and put them on the cookie sheet – secondary note: parchment paper is LOVELY to use as are those silicone cookie sheets.
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Do not overbake. NOTE: I found 14 minutes to be perfect, it gave me a mostly hard, but slightly chewy cookie.
Store in an airtight container with one slice of bread on top. This will keep the cookies fresh. Makes 8-9 dozen.
Munched on cookies rather than have lunch.
And then I got to work putting together a trains unit study. Not so much on trains, but using trains instead to teach basic kindergarten concepts. came from Currclick Trains mini lapbook.
we learned the sign for Train, and train gone. 🙂