05:48 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

Homeschool History

Eli the Mummy, prepared for burial along with one of his favorite treasures.
As you can see, we are studying Early Egyptians right now.  As I have said before, we use Mystery of History as our history curriculum.  And we love it. It gives great ideas and lots of good information.
Here the children and I are constructing a pyramid.  The one 'we' made is only 2000 times smaller than The Great Pyramid at Giza.
Fun times!
Next week, once we get our time line caught up I will share pics of that. I went looking for a sewing board and found one at the flea market for $1!!!
Yeah! :)
Now to transfer our work to the board.
Have a wonderful day!

07:23 - Friday, March 20, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

Cooking with Kids

Including my children in everything I do is not always easy, but when I do, it heaps many rewards.... most of the time in the form of smiles, hugs, kisses and I Love You Moma!  Certainly the best gifts ever! :)
Yesterday I gave the children...all the children a cooking/baking lesson.  I found a very easy cookie recipe online and printed it off for them to read.  Each one had a job but they all had to understand each step before we moved on.
For example I had a big 2 lb chunk of butter... how many equal parts do we need to cut it into so we would have 1/2 lb pieces.
And how many 1/2 cups do we need to get 1 1/2 cups of flour?
Fun stuff...
Result= math at its finest and happy kids who are just giddy to know they accomplished this mostly on their own.
My Cup Runneth Over...

08:59 - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment

S is for 'Stained Glass "Valentine's Hearts

I try my best to include arts and crafts in our homeschool activities.  My children LOVE to make things. 
Yesterday, being the first school day in February we made some 'stained glass' hearts.

All you need is some old crayons, a crayon sharpener, wax paper, scissors, a dish towel and a warm iron.
Shave the crayons with a knife or gather the shavings from a crayon sharpener. Lay the shavings in between two sheets of wax paper. 
Place a dish towel over the creation and iron gently with a warm iron.
The crayon shavings will melt and make a lovely swirl of colors.
Cut hearts out of the multi-colored wax paper and tape to windows and let the light shine through...Have a great day...
My Cup Runneth Over...

08:35 - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - comments {9} - post comment

More schooling fun with the littles

The biggers will be having some extra fun school assignments... ok, how geeky am I? haha... but really.  We have some FUN stuff coming up in school time and so I have been trying to find some really fun stuff for the littles also.
Beans!
Who knew beans could be so much fun? :)
I have a mixed bean jar and I poured them out into a plate for the two youngest children.
I gave them bowls to separate the beans.
They both wanted to do it twice! :)
FUN!
My Cup Runneth Over...

02:47 - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Schooling the Littles

Sometimes I get busy with school and forget to spend a little one-on-one time schooling the littlest of my littles.  What a difference it makes when I do.  They are SO excited to have their own one-on-one School time with Moma. :)  So much so that afterwards, I hear... "Moma, is it our school time now?" quite a lot. :)
Now don't get me wrong, they school right alongside the older children, while we are having school time they are coloring or learning the Presidents or writing their letters... but it helps a lot to spend a little time to work with just them, one at a time.
What a blessing it is to me, to be the one who sees their children learn new skills, what a joy it is to be the one who is there helping them, teaching and nurturing them and watching them learn.  There just is NOTHING like it. 
Enjoy them being close to you, being with you, so much so that it is an ache in you to be away from them...
Children are a gift, given to US... from the Lord.
Cherish, Enjoy, Treasure every moment.
No, it is not always easy for me to do that either, but when I realize that the next time I blink my eyes that they will be grown, it makes it a lot easier for me to slow down, breathe deeply and know how incredible my life truly is.
I hope you have a great day and enjoy time with your littles, big, small and in-between. :)
My Cup Runneth Over...

09:11 - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

We made butter

One day last week I remembered that I had bought some heavy cream over the holidays for Moma's Favorite Cookie, which I am GOING to post the recipe for! REALLY! :)  Well, I thought with this much cream, it would be a good time to show the children how to make butter... well the easy way to make butter.
We pulled out the ole food processor.
Poured in all that cream and turned it on...
There were a few different stages that I told them we would see...
First of all we saw it just as a liquid, as it is as cream.
We would start seeing the cream slowly becoming thicker, until we had it at the whipped cream stage.
They all tried it at this point and sneered... sadly they thought it would taste like cool whip.  Pitiful, huh? I told them at the enormous amounts of 'stuff' added to cool whip and this was so much better, and that we could add a little sweetner if we wanted whipped cream, but we want butter!
Keep it moving, keep it moving...
FINALLY!
BUTTER! :) HURRAH!
Please forgive the skunk stripes down my child's hair... our New Years Party got a bit crazy! :) haha
Mmm... this butter is good, Mom!
We even took the buttermilk and put it in a jar to use later and washed the curds with ice water to help get all the milk off so the butter would last longer.
Now a solid. How crazy are we? Doing school when we are supposed to be on holiday? haha... so is the life of a homeschooler.
I hope you have a great day friends.
My Cup Runneth Over...

08:33 - Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - comments {7} - post comment

Interesting...

Good Morning!  Lately I can't seem to blog about anything but my kids... I can't help it, I love them.  They are SUPER! Each one so unique and precious and lovely in their own ways.... BUT, they do have one thing that is the same. It is quite interesting too.  Let me show you some pictures...



Do you see it?  No, it isn't their intensity in their work... hahah! I have 4! lefties!!!!  Yep, 4!!!  Shannon and I are not lefties, but all of our children are.  I think that is pretty interesting. 
I am so pleased with how our schooling is going.  There are some things I am seeing that I want to change up a bit, I think I have too big a workload on us, but one thing that I am pretty excited about is our new 'curriculum'. 

We are learning chronological history, history that is intertwined with biblical history as well! It is so AWESOME! I am enjoying planning and teaching.  We also have a timeline that helps with all of us visual learners.  I will take a picture of that as we add some more facts to it, as of right now we have just talked about creation and the fact that dinosaurs were created on the same day as the other sea and land animals.
 You didn't know that???
 Maybe you should look into this curriculum!
Well, my bunch is ready to be educated so I must go feed their bodies and their minds. 
Have a GREAT day!!!

07:52 - Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - comments {6} - post comment

A Trip to the Pet Store

Hello there!!! We set up our aquarium over the weekend and had to wait 48 hours to get fish.  So yesterday evening we went to PetSmart to buy fish.  The pet store is almost always an exciting trip.  We got to look at the fish and the birds, reptiles and rodents... The kids always ask plenty of questions and it is a fun time.
Here the children are looking at a ball python and a bearded lizard.
Abram had a blast with the parakeets, on the front the cage is glass and on the side the cage is open.  When one of the parakeets would fly over to hold on to the cage, Abram would yell, "Hey! Whatcha doing?" And the bird would fly away, he LAUGHED and LAUGHED!
What we came for... the fish.
We went home with 2 angel fish, a sucker fish, 2 shark with black tips called bela sharks, and one albino shark.  Needless to say we stayed in the semi-aggressive tropical fish family.
Here is just a sweet picture as we were finishing up our trip through the bird aisle...
And YEP, it was counted as school!
My Cup Runneth Over...Chas

08:15 - Wednesday, August 13, 2008 - comments {2} - post comment