December in Review and Looking Ahead...

December was a bit of a rough month for us as we all came down with something over Thanksgiving, and it just seemed to hang on for weeks afterward.  :(  However, we still managed to slip some fun in  after everyone began feeling better.

We enjoyed a life-size game of Candy Land (sort of) with a friend who came over.  In order to move ahead to the spot listed on the card they picked up, the kids would have to answer a review question (depending on the child it could have been a math fact, historical question, sight word, etc.).  This worked well for catering it to the different age levels.

(By the way, the target on the door is what my son uses for his bow and arrow practice and is not related to the Candy Land game.)

In an effort to have the kids encourage each other, I made it clear that they could not enter the "Land of Sweets" (our own little twist since we were also having a Nutcracker movie day) at the end of the rainbow walk until everyone had arrived.  Once the kids made it there, they were allowed to enter through the candied door and then headed to the kitchen where a small (but delightful) tasty spread had been laid out for them.

They feasted on cupcakes, nuts, and warm peppermint milk while watching a movie to end our fun day together.

We also managed to sneak in Gingerbread Day before Christmas!

After breakfasting on a gingerbread puffed pancake, the kids visited "The Little Gingerbread Store" where they practiced some math in a fun setting.   They enjoyed buying all sorts of items for decorating their paper gingerbread figures...

And had fun putting it all together!

Later in the day, we cut out gingerbread cookies and the kids decorated them.

We ended the day by putting together a gingerbread village kit the kids had chosen.  Let me just say, I had not anticipated the many steps involved where my help would be needed (call me naive).  My dear husband sweetly stepped in, so I could make dinner.  The evening might not have ended as well if he hadn't.  By this time, my son was showing signs of being "ginger breaded" out so my daughter ended up doing most of the decorating herself and did an amazing job!  :)

In addition to the above activities, we enjoyed days of making cookies, visiting family, and trying to stay on top of school work (talk about a juggling act).  I love Christmas, but it sure is a busy time of year.  

Speaking of year... the new year is upon us!  :)  After much, much, much deliberation it looks like I will be taking a several month blog break (although I might slip in a post or two).  Plagued by a major health issue,  I am hoping that a few months in low key mode will help my body get back to where it needs to be.  In the meantime, if you have not hooked up with "The Nature of Grace" Facebook page, you may want to do so as I sometimes post updates and other little tidbits there.  

Wishing you all a very happy homeschooling new year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy (belated) New Year!

I must say that this Christmas season did not turned out exactly as planned.  Illness, cancellation of a highly anticipated trip, more illness, ice storms, a middle of the night emergency sending my FIL to the ICU, and other difficult issues cast a bit of a pall over the holiday joy.

As if that were not enough, Christmas Eve I locked myself and my kids out of the car in a parking lot.

About that time, as I was standing in a store waiting for the locksmith to arrive with two little ones at my side, I found I just couldn't muster much Christmas spirit.   Fortunately for me, God was about to use my circumstances to point me back in a "Christmas" direction I had not really considered much before but now found myself in a perfect position to contemplate.

Shortly after the car incident, I was truly blessed with a reminder (via this wonderful article) of two simultaneous views regarding the very first Christmas - one earthly and one heavenly.  

That time of life for Mary and Joseph was full of difficulty and unexpected trials.  Our hardships, though nothing compared to theirs, suddenly gave me a unique perspective into what they might have felt that first Christmas as they suddenly had to leave their home and ultimately ended up in a stable the night Mary gave birth.  Not ideal for any pregnant woman, and I would imagine distressing for Joseph as well - a far cry from the joy we anticipate during the Christmas season now.  

However, in contrast, how the heavens must have rejoiced that night!   Salvation and hope for mankind had finally arrived in the form of a tiny newborn!  I wonder if the angels could barely restrain their anticipation as they watched the events unfold and were allowed to be a part of it by declaring to the shepherds what had happened in Bethlehem.  

Thus, instead of feeling despair at how this holiday did not turn out as planned, I was awed by an alternative glimpse into that first Christmas.  :)  It was a wonderful reminder of how God is present and always working out His loving will, even when we cannot see it with our earthly eyes.  

Now, dear readers, lest you fear we experienced little fun this season,  I want to set the record straight.   We DID have plenty of enjoyable moments amid the setbacks, and I thought I would share a few things from December...

Here is a glimpse of our advent calendar this year.  I made this using some leftover square envelopes which my daughter and I decorated with a red marker.  I then stacked them up on the wall in Christmas tree form.  

We set out milk, cookies, and a letter to St. Nick on St. Nicholas Day...

and the following morning made the exciting discovery of full stockings and a reply from St. Nicholas!

For those of you who don't know our family traditions, we let our kids know from the beginning that Santa Claus was once a real man who was known for showing God's love through acts of kindness.  We also let them know that he is NOT alive today, BUT that we still love to pretend (after all, God did give us imaginations!).  St. Nicholas Day is when we do that "pretending" (putting out milk and cookies, etc.).   

I like this because it gives the kids a chance to enjoy Santa Claus for a day while also encouraging them to consider the historical man's example of showing God's love to others.   It becomes yet another great activity which ultimately points them toward the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Gingerbread Day is a special time I plan close to Christmas.   (You'll have to forgive the poor coloring job on the sign - my printer ran out of red ink so I was trying to compensate by coloring in the browns and reds myself).

This year we started out with gingerbread pancakes for breakfast.  Here is the before picture...

and one of the after pictures.  (I used a cookie cutter to cut the shapes out of pancakes).

Later in the day, I sent the kids on a hunt for individual paper gingerbread men I had hidden.  They would exchange the gingerbread men as they found them, for candy to use when decorating their gingerbread house that afternoon.

Speaking of gingerbread houses, here is a photo of the finished project.  I thought they did a great job!  But I AM their mom so maybe I am just a teeny tiny bit prejudiced.  ;)

For dessert that night, we also had homemade gingerbread stout cake with lemon cloud frosting (kind of a combo of two recipes).  It was delicious!!!  (Sadly, I have no picture of it).

Another evening, I surprised the kids with a Christmas movie night in our bedroom.  They feasted on white chocolate peppermint popcorn while watching some Christmas shows and then camped out in our room for the night.  

We had some other fun things we did together, of course - wrapping presents, reading Christmas stories, baking Christmas cookies, passing out candy canes to strangers in lines, etc.  However, I did not take pictures of everything.  :)  Some days are like that - you just set down the camera and enjoy the moment.  

And on that note - may YOU and YOUR family have a wonderful new year filled with treasured moments, reflecting on God's love and special gift of Jesus Christ - Savior, Hope, and Light of the World!

Lesson Theme: Hot Chocolate!

The last few weeks of winter seemed to stretch out further than I wanted to plan.  Cold, cheerless...well, maybe I am being a bit overdramatic.  But cold, definitely cold.  A vision of hot chocolate kept coming to mind - wouldn't a cup of that be nice right now... I couldn't seem to shake the unbidden thought.  So I decided to meet it head on by incorporating the idea into a unit about said steaming mug of chocolatey goodness.   Could something so delicious be educational as well?  Yes, dear readers - it could...

Right about now you are probably thinking,  are those dice marshmallows?

Y-e-p.

I used food safe markers to write the numbers on the sides and tops of two miniature marshmallows (I think larger marshmallows might have been better but we didn't have any larger ones on hand).

If you have large marshmallows, consider drawing pictures or writing words on them to use for story dice.  :)

We used the dice for our "Roll the Ultimate Mug of Hot Chocolate" activity.  Once Miss A acquired all the pieces, she helped to glue them down and wrote number sentences for what she rolled.

If you homeschool or have permission to bring in the ingredients for making hot chocolate in your classroom, something extra fun would be to roll a REAL mug of hot chocolate.  I wanted to do this but didn't get it together in time - plus, we had more than enough hot chocolate this week on other days.  :)  One more cup might have been over the top...or brim...;)

We made two kinds of hot chocolate (one from scratch and one from a mix) and taste tested both.  Miss A wrote comparisons and contrasts and documented which one she liked the best.

She also helped me make the hot chocolate from scratch, so using the "First, Next, Last" model, I had her write down directions for how one makes the perfect mug of hot chocolate.

We also played an activity I came up with called "The Hot Choc Spot".  Just like chocolate and milk combine to make a great cup of hot chocolate, different parts of speech combine to make a great sentence, right?  :)  Here's what we did...

Miss A trained to become a Master Hot Chocolate Maker.  The training consisted of sorting hot chocolate related words into mugs for different parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives).


Once she did that successfully, I gave her a certificate documenting her ascension to the rank of Master Hot Chocolate Maker.



She then took a job at "The Hot Choc Spot" where she helped complete orders for parts of speech mixes (an order might be "1 verb, 2 nouns", and she would have to find a verb and two nouns from the hot chocolate words to fill the order).


As her "supervisor" who wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing, I had her write a sentence using the words from one of the orders.  She chose to make it a silly sentence which was fine - just as long as I could see she knew how to apply the words appropriately in a sentence.

Have you ever wanted to be a marshmallow bag checker in a factory?  Well Miss A had the opportunity this week to be one at The Marshmallow Factory.

Again, as her supervisor, I would write a number at the top of her work station (paper) for the day.  She would then have to check the marshmallow bags (I put the "marshmallows" on beforehand) on the paper to see if they equaled that number.

If they did not, she was responsible for adding or subtracting enough marshmallows to/from each bag so that the correct number for the day was achieved.  She also had to document her work by writing corresponding number sentences showing what she had done.

When she completed balancing all three bags successfully for the day, I would "pay" her wage for the day into a small bag to give her at the end of the week on PAY DAY.  Her wage for the day = one pink heart marshmallow.

By the end of the week, she had enough heart marshmallows collected to top off one very yummy mug of hot chocolate for our dessert night (see bottom of post)!

Speaking of marshmallows....

Miss A graphed some of the mini-colored ones and then used the answers to finish up some math sentences.

These little guys also came in handy for spelling and sight word practice!  :)

During the week, we also practiced some of our math facts by matching some "stir stick" (popsicle stick) math sentences to the answers on the mugs.

Each stick had two math sentences - one in black on one side and one written in blue on the other side.  We would do the black math sentences one day and switch to the blue ones on another day.

We also had some fun measuring two different types of stir sticks (peppermint and cinnamon) and making observations about what would happen to each one once placed in some hot chocolate!

We discovered what kind of hot chocolate toppings some people in our family prefer by using this Venn Diagram.  Download it for FREE here.

We used a mug picture I made to create a bar graph showing what kind of hot chocolate people in our home prefer (mix or homemade).  I guess you can tell what our family's preference was - no contest there!

Not only that, but we could again see what people's favorite toppings were on this graph based on how they decked out the top of their hot chocolate (added cotton for whipped cream OR white pom poms for marshmallows OR both).  :)

I LOVE how this picture turned out!  I had seen a cute art idea (link is here), and wanted to do something similar.  This unit seemed to fit right in so Miss A went to work painting, and I glued some mittens (found on clearance) to her painting for a multi dimensional effect.

For the final day of our hot chocolate unit, I surprised Miss A with a hot chocolate bar for dessert night!  I used the bar graph to determine what kind of hot chocolate to make for the family!

So, you see?  Educational AND delicious!

Many of the games and items I used for this theme are available in my TPT store under the Hot Chocolate Mini Activity Pack.

Speaking of hot chocolate...guess who paid us a visit!  We found a little green mug topped with green marshmallows on the counter (and a bit of a mess too).  Now I wonder who that could belong too?  Guess we must have surprised someone in mid slurp because it doesn't look like he finished much of his hot chocolate!

Time to put on our leprechaun-catching thinking caps before the mischief gets out of hand!  To help keep track of the clues our little green-loving troublemaker leaves behind, I created a Leprechaun Detective Journal.   If you have any leprechauns about that need catching, you might want to print this for your kiddos as well!  Download for FREE here.

BTW - Don't forget to snap up your FREE Educents (educational materials) gift certificate before they are no longer available prior to their launch in April!  Click here to go to my post with the link to the site.

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Lesson Theme: Christmas!

Merry (belated) Christmas!  :)  Hope your holidays were filled with fun and loved ones!  :)  Here are a few things we did during school before taking a Christmas break...

In our home, we tell our children about the St. Nicholas of old and have chosen to let them know that Santa Claus is pretend like fairies, elves, etc.  Kids love to pretend so we have lots of fun with this!

This year I found a pattern online for making a pair of paper clogs - I adjusted my pattern so it would be more the size of my kids' feet (click here for an article on how to make these and the pattern at the bottom of the article).  The kids decorated their shoes and laid them out on the eve of St. Nicholas Day along with a letter (what a great time to teach letter writing skills!) Miss A had written to jolly old St. Nick and a platter of festive cookies.

(Speaking of baking, Miss A had lots and lots of time to practice measurement because of all the cookies she helped make this year!  Christmas and Valentine's are great times for measurement practice in the kitchen.)

The next morning the children were rewarded with little presents and sweets inside their clogs (or behind) and a letter from "St. Nick".  ;)

I found a cute little Santa Claus activity here, and I added in some math addition practice using a few dice.  Miss A would roll the dice, add the numbers together and put that many cotton balls on Santa's beard or hat.

Where would Santa be without his reindeer, right?  We had fun making these silly symmetrical characters by placing globs of brown paint on one side of a folded paper, closing it, rubbing the paint around, and opening it once more to reveal the finished product!  

After the reindeer faces had dried we did the same thing with antlers for each one.  Finally, we added google eyes, noses and Miss A decided what to name each according to "Twas the Night Before Christmas".  (As many of us know, Rudolph was not a part of that story but a pretty important reindeer all on his own, so he deserved a place among our pictures as well).

Have you ever wondered what the reindeer do the rest of the year to stay in shape?  One might imagine they have races across the world!  If you are learning about the seven continents - this easy game might just be for you!

I printed out a map of the seven continents (found online or just use a world map of your own) and used some snowflakes (blue and white) for markers.  I also purchased two wooden reindeer pieces (I think they were only like $0.30 a piece (?) at Michael's or another craft store) - which my kiddos happily colored.

I placed a blue and a white snowflake marker on each continent (each player was one color).  Each player would roll the dice and add the numbers together for a total (yep, more addition in our play).  The player would then check our list to see what continent corresponded to that number and remove their snowflake from it signaling that their reindeer had successfully made it to that continent.  The first reindeer to collect all their snowflakes (having touched down on each continent) was the winner!

(Side note:  if a player rolls a total they have already collected - it is tough cookies - and the reindeer has to wait it out until the next turn before having another chance to leap to a new continent.)

We also spent some time practicing spelling words related to the season.  This was one activity where I glued some sentence strips together in the shape of a Christmas tree.  Miss A would write out her spelling words (we divided them up over more than one day as it could become tedious for young children otherwise) and add "lights" with her markers so the spelling words became strands of lights on the tree.  

And what is a Christmas tree without a star on top, right?  So we saved that special spelling word for the tip top of the tree, complete with lots of gold glitter!  :)

And on that note - here's to a beautiful new year full of the sparkle of learning.... 

2013 - here we come!!!  :) 

(As always - if you blog about one of my ideas or activities, please be kind and include a link back here!  Thanks so much!)

More Christmas....

It has been CRAZY around here!  Not only is Christmas only a few days away, we are in the process of moving AND have kids sick, sick, sick including one with an allergic reaction to the antibiotic he was on.  SOOO, needless to say, blogging has not been a top priority for me the past couple of weeks.  However, the kids are now asleep for a few minutes, so I thought I would hop on and post some things we had done before a bunch of the chaos descended once more.  :)  Enjoy!

A fun and festive snack for the holidays!  :)

Snack Details:

Christmas tree:  slices of green pepper and pear with a pretzel trunk and a cheese star.

Muffin cups #1 and #3 (sides of tree):  apple and pear circle ornaments for the Christmas tree and green/red M&M's to be used for ornaments as well.

Muffin cups #2 and #4 (top and bottom):  mini marshmallows and string cheese circles for snow under the tree (or more ornaments for the tree).

Garnishes:  gingerbread men marshmallows and winter edible confetti.

Originally I had intended to post this fun little book as a freebie on my Teacher Pay Teacher site, but unfortunately I made it on a program that apparently does not change over well to the format supported by Teacher Pay Teacher.  I would have spent more time trying to figure out an alternate method to post it or remake this in pdf but alas, the craziness and sickness in our house has not allowed me much time for that sort of thing so perhaps it will be available in time for the holidays next year.  

I love this picture of how my daughter helped the elves find the missing presents - that is her finger pointing to them off to the side (barely visible).  Ah, if only the elves had thought to look by the Christmas tree...

This was what my daughter drew under the gift flap on the last page of the book - notice there was not sufficient room for the head of the mermaid doll at the top so she improvised.

We call this "Sweet Spelling" - I gave my daughter a jar full of different types of festive candy or sweets and allowed her to use them to form her spelling words.  If she did it correctly, she would get to pick one of the pieces from the word to eat.  I must say, it was not hard to get her to practice her spelling when this jar was part of the process!  :)

I'd love to post more, but I must be off to work on some more moving stuff before the kids are up and about.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!  :)

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