Snow Day!

We are all four home today for a snow day. Schools all around our area are cancelled due to a big ice/snowstorm that moved through last night. We are lucky that we didn't lose power. The DH took the boys out to sled this morning. We have a nice little sledding hill in our front yard. Since the snow has a layer of ice on top, the sledding was SPEED sledding, and DH had to be at the bottom of the hill to make sure the boys didn't slide into our bushes or into the road! I ventured out to snap some photos of the wintry fun. I have good memories of sledding when I was a little girl. It was so fun to get bundled up and head out into a winter wonderland. It's so calm, quiet and peaceful in the pristine coldness after a snowstorm, especially out in the country where we live.



Both boys are now old enough to pull their own sleds up the hill which is nice. The sled in this photo is a plastic one I bought about 5 years ago at a garage sale for 50 cents!! Best 50 cents I ever spent.



Here is our adopted dog, Magic, whose anonymity is not protected on this blog. :0) He loves to be out in the snow with us.



Our steps were totally ice-covered and treacherous. Luckily, we don't have to navigate these steps to get outside.



Our trees all looked so pretty covered with a thin layer of ice and frost.



I thought it would be fun to show you what I was wearing when I went out to snap the photos. I just pulled my boots on over my pajama pants. Notice the frayed cuff on the left leg. When my preschoolers asked me what I wanted from Santa, I told them I needed a new pair of pajamas.......they thought that was so funny! Another funny thing just happened in the middle of me typing this very paragraph. There was a knock at our door and our mailman was on the porch with the mail. He brings it up to the house if there's a package, and we did have one from Amazon. So........I left the computer and ran to the door in my unshowered beauty (sarcasm here) with my PJs still on. Same ones seen in above photo. He commented that he noticed both cars were home and there must be some "goofing off" going on. Astute observation, sir!! Anyway, maybe I'll post this and go take a shower. It IS past 1:30 p.m. after all!

My Father's Dragon Lapbook

Several weeks ago we received a note from my oldest son's Montessori school that they would be reading My Father's Dragon as a read-aloud. They encouraged parents to read the book at home with their child as well. Luckily, we had a copy, pulled it out and started reading it. The other great thing is that this coincided with our Thanksgiving break AND I had just recently found out about a fantastic website with lots of free printables for lapbooking called Homeschoolshare. AND..............they had a totally great set of printables just for this book. So, we started the lapbook over Thanksgiving break. My son LOVED it. There are printable activities for each chapter of the book, and he was very eager to finish each chapter and do the corresponding activities. For the link to this particular book's activities, click here. I cannot say enough about this amazing website and the resources available, but I WILL say more about it at the end of this post. :0)

My son finished his lapbook a few weeks ago, and he looks at it each day. It is a really special product that he will always have to remember a very special favorite book. In honor and recognition of his hard work on this project, I wanted to showcase it here on the blog.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Here is a photo of the book. There are two more books in the series and we have already ordered the next one. The third one is available in our public library.



The above photo shows the cover of his lapbook. He enjoyed using my scrapbooking alphabet stickers to put the title on the front. I am new to lapbooking, but I think the correct word for how we folded this book is a shutterfold. For the base of this lapbook we used one regular manilla file folder, opened it flat and folded each side to the center fold to make the "shutters." On the inside I cut another file folder in half and taped one half to the top and one to the bottom to increase the amount of space for projects.



This photo shows the lapbook fully opened. The flaps sticking up on the top and bottom are the two halves of the second file folder that I cut apart and taped onto the original file folder. You can see that we also used the inside of the shutter-flaps to attach projects.

This photo shows the lapbook with the inner vertical flaps folded in. You can lift up the center flap (the one with the dragon and knapsack) to reveal more information on the underside.

This photo shows the top flap (described and shown in the previous photo) folded up to reveal the information on the underside of the bottom flap. If this is confusing, refer back to the fully open photo and it might make more sense.

This didn't photograph well, but I wanted to show a map my son drew of the islands from the book. He drew things from each chapter and labelled them on the map according to what went with each chapter. He totally initiated this on his own tonight. This kid would be completely happy with a stack of blank paper, a pencil, some crayons or colored pencils and his favorite books. I'm serious. That's one of the many things I love so much about him. He gets completely absorbed in something and his creativity is unstoppable.

Tonight he also pulled out some of our toy animals to represent the ones from the book and acted out each chapter. Again, completely self-initiated. I was downstairs for a bit talking to the DH, and my younger son was playing down there. I heard my big boy yelling upstairs and went up to investigate. He was just acting out part of the story where the wild boars are yelling about the evidence of an invasion they have found on the island. It was totally cute and so typical of how he plays. I am so grateful I started this blog to preserve some of the memories of the little wonders like this that go on in our household each day. Now we'll never forget our weeks of being in love with a great book and all the extensions and creativity that resulted from that.

OK........now a little more gushing about the Homeschoolshare website. One thing I am doing for the boys for Christmas is buying them each several new books. Homeschoolshare was instrumental in helping me choose which books because they have a TON of printable resources for the Five in a Row book study series. If you are not familiar with Five in a Row it is worth checking out. I bought the original Five in a Row manual at a homeschool book fair a few years ago. The concept behind this is that you choose a book (the manual lists several) and read it to your child each day for five days in a row. And each day you focus on a different aspect of the story and therefore cover many curricular areas all related to that one book. For example, one day you might study geography by finding the location of the book's setting on a map. Next, you might learn about art by carefully studying the book's illustrations. The Homeschoolshare website has lapbooking resources for many of the Five in a Row (FIAR) titles. (Click here to see the resources they have for the Papa Picolo lapbook.) And that is how I selected which books to buy the boys. For each book I am giving them, we will be able to do a lapbook project. I am WAY excited about this. I haven't decided yet how I will give them the books. On a blog a while back (I can't remember which one, which drives me nuts!) I loved the idea someone had of wrapping each book separately and then tying them up in a stack with a ribbon. What I am thinking is that I will do this, but have the boys open their stacks sometime AFTER the craziness of Christmas. I may even date each wrapped book so they can look forward to opening them gradually over time. I will definitely be doing a post here soon about the books I've chosen for this. What I am really excited about is that I found books that I never would have considered or even known about otherwise. Jane Claire Lambert, the author of the FIAR manuals, has really carefully thought out the books she highlights in her manuals. And I appreciate that so much because I am sure we will make some new book friends and favorites that way that we wouldn't have otherwise!

Advent Activity--Day 17--Beaded candy canes and wreaths

For our 17th Advent activity, we made candy canes and wreaths using propeller or tri-beads. This is such a classic Christmas craft. I remember doing it many years ago when I was a Girl Scout or Brownie. To do these, you simply take a pipe cleaner (I cut them in half first) and slide the beads on in either a red/white pattern for the candy canes or a green/red pattern for the wreaths. My two boys both wanted to make candy canes. They were very patient and worked carefully. I was really impressed with the focus shown by my three-year-old. He said his pattern out loud and kept track of it the whole way: red-white-red-white. It was very cute to watch him. He was really precise. While the boys beaded their candy canes, I decided to bead a wreath. It was fun. It's nice to be able to actually complete a project in a short period of time. What a feeling of accomplishment! The DH even got in on the action. He rarely crafts anything with us, but I invited him to join us and he made a little wreath ornament. He said he had never done that type of craft when he was little. And he seemed to enjoy doing it with us. At any rate, I think it was great for the boys to see Daddy creating something just like them.



Big boy hands



Little boy hands




To keep track of the beads, I gave each boy a muffin tin with the beads divided by color. This helped a lot and we only had a few end up on the floor.



Here is a finished candy cane on the tree.



And my little wreath on the tree. I used a pattern of five greens, then one red.

Advent Activity--Day 16--Montessori Elementary Program

Our Advent activity for Day 16 was attending my oldest son's Montessori Elementary Program. I wrote about it a little bit in the post just prior to this one. It was a really great evening. My parents went along with us which was nice. My big boy did a fantastic job reading his report on the jawless fish. He was not nervous at all about standing up and using the microphone in front of an audience, and he read his part flawlessly. We were very proud of him! It is amazing the things he is learning in the private Montessori school he attends. His program was called "A Ride Through the Eras" and it showcased what his class has been learning about the different eras of life on earth. He and his classmates truly have a much better understanding of this than any adult I know, including myself!! The older Elementary 2 class presented a program about "The Amazing Cell". Each child dressed as a part of a human body cell and presented information. Their costumes were really great and, again, their understanding of the subject matter was amazing. My husband teaches human physiology to college students and I seriously doubt they could have done better than those fourth and fifth graders at conveying the information. If you have stumbled onto this blog randomly and are interested in learning more about Montessori education, head over to my other blog, My Montessori Journey, where you can learn more about the Montessori method of education. Tonight we will be doing a fun Advent activity that I'll post about in the morning. Have a great day!!

Frigidly cold weather makes me grumpy!

I am so serious about that title. I HATE to be cold. And we are in the middle of a big chill here in the Midwest. I am writing this curled up under a big quilt. I just got home about an hour ago from my oldest son's Montessori Elementary Winter Program. It was really cool. The Elementary 1 class (1st-3rd graders) presented "A Ride Through the Eras." Each child had a small speaking part and took on the role of a different part of one of the eras of time. My son was a jawless fish from the Paleozoic Era. He did a great job. We were so proud of him. The Elementary 2 class (4th and 5th graders) gave an completely amazing program about the parts of a human body cell.

When we returned to our van following the program, it was so cold that all I could think about was how miserable I felt. My hands were so cold they hurt, even inside my very warm mittens. I was just plain cold and I didn't like it one bit. Of course our van warmed up on the drive home (we have about a 40 minute commute one-way to his school), and as I warmed up physically, I tried to warm up mentally to being cold. Does that make sense? What I mean is I tried to force myself to think about the "good" part of being so cold.

It wasn't until I was home and had put both boys to bed that I started to understand a potential benefit of being uncomfortably cold, at least in a figurative sense. I asked myself why I hate being cold so much. I instantly realized it is the discomfort of it that I dislike. It just feels so much better to be cozy and warm. And as cliche as it may sound, I realized that without the contrast of cozy versus cold, there would be no appreciation for the comfort of coziness. And then it dawned on me that in life our best learning opportunities occur not when things are cozy and comfortable, but when we are forced into the discomfort that lies outside our comfort zone. As a Christian, I think that God's wish is for us to draw closer to him in times of discomfort. Just as a cold and weary traveler yearns for and seeks the light and warmth of a fire, so we must yearn for and seek the light of God in our lives. The next time I feel irritably cold, I am going to try to remember to turn towards the light and place my inner focus on God. In the meantime, I'm keeping the quilt pulled up!!

Advent Activity--Day 15--Reindeer Bites

Making reindeer bites is an annual event in our home. I found the recipe a few years ago and have made it every year since. Oftentimes this is called "Holiday Pretzel Treats"; I am not sure why I call it reindeer bites, but I do. This is a really yummy and easy treat to make. This year we made up a bunch to give to Sunday school teachers, bus drivers, etc. Both boys were involved in helping out. Their main job was to remove the wrappers from all the Hershey's kisses. Then they placed the kisses onto the waffle pretzels. It is essential to use the waffle type of pretzels. I don't think these are always available year-round in grocery stores, at least not where we live. However, I've always been able to find them at Christmastime. Below is a photo of the brand we use.



Like I said, the boys both helped to peel wrappers from the kisses. They stuck with this for a long time as we used three bags of kisses: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and peppermint. I like to use a variety of types of kisses. However, I have found through experience that the melting times of the kisses varies. For example, the peppermint ones melt fastest, followed by the dark chocolate, then the milk chocolate. For this reason, I would recommend putting each type of kiss on a separate tray when baking.




Basically what you do to make these is place one kiss on each waffle pretzel. Then you bake them in an oven at a low heat. We baked ours at about 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Check them after 5 minutes. When they are ready to come out, they should be shiny and you should be able to easily push an M&M into the top of them. If they are too melted they will spread out too much. If they aren't melted enough, the kiss won't be soft enough to stick to the pretzel and will then pop off easily, which you don't want.

As soon as you remove them from the oven, gently press an M&M into each one. You can see from the photo below that the candy cane (peppermint) kisses melted faster and thus spread out more.

We packaged these in tissue paper in some little treat boxes I had bought at Hobby Lobby. These make a great little gift and they are GREAT to snack on, so be sure to make extra for yourself!

Here is what the little treat boxes looked like after they were all made up.

I am sure we'll be making these again next year. I like having special food we make every year. It creates nice memories for the boys. I remember, with fondness, two treats that my mom always made at Christmastime. She made these totally awesome peanut butter balls. She also made (and still makes) rice krispie marshmallow balls. She is the only person I have ever met that makes these. They are really yummy. I also remember my dad mixing up a HUGE bowl of hot chocolate mix almost every year. I think my parents gave this as gifts to their friends. I have some vivid memories of him sitting at our kitchen table patiently mixing all the dry ingredients together. He wasn't often found doing things in the kitchen other than eating, so perhaps that is why I really remember him doing that each year!!

What are some favorite food traditions in your family? I'd love to have a bunch of you send me a comment sharing your memories. It's so fun to hear about other people's traditions.

Advent Activity--Day 14--Handmade Soap

For our 14th Advent activity my oldest son and I made soap. I had purchased the supplies at Hobby Lobby way back in the summertime. I couldn't find any really good directions, but I just followed the ones on the package of soap chunks. I've wanted to try this for quite a while. I thought the soaps would make nice gifts for some people on our gift list.



The photo above shows our supplies. I bought the opaque type of glycerin soap. You can also get clear. I also bought a mold for rectangle shaped bars, three little bottles of various scents: lemon verbena, wild berries, and green apple, and a package with red, yellow and blue dye. The scents and dye are both made especially for use in soap-making.



The first step was to melt to soap chunks. The package said you could do this in the microwave or on the stove. We did microwave. You just heat it in 30 second increments until it's melted. We started with three chunks (only 2 shown here) and it took about 90 seconds to melt them.



Here is how the soap looked when it was melted.



My oldest son squirted in the dye and the scents for each soap. We did them all different.

Once you have all the soaps mixed and poured, you just leave them for about an hour and then pop them out of the molds. That's it!!

Here are our finished bars of soap ready to be packaged and given to some stinky and special people on our gift list. (I'm just kidding about the stinky part; that's just my sense of humor!!)

This was a really easy project. I am sure we'll experiment with it again. We have some soap chunks left over. It took about 3 chunks of melted soap to make each bar. And the bars are the size of a standard bar of soap.