Elf on the Shelf Takes Up Residence

We didn't realize when Rudy took up residence here that he would be quite so mischievous.  Seems that having an elf in the house is a bit of a tricky proposition!  We never know what we will find first thing each morning.

Tuesday......

Rudy decorated our pantry door and built a snow princess for us.

Wednesday....

All eyes were on Rudy!

Thursday.....

Now, this one was especially challenging.  I stayed up half the night Wednesday into Thursday working on a computer project, and I completely underestimated just HOW BADLY I would need a caffeine fix early in the morning.  Rudy and I had a little negotiating to do so that I could make a cup of coffee (or two) before Emma came downstairs!

Friday....

Rudy took a joy ride down the stair case and into the den.

I snapped this picture of our cat, Leo, trying to figure out what in the world was going on!  He was really giving that toilet paper the stink eye.  :-)

Looks like we are in for a busy month.  Elves sure do make fun houseguests!

Dawn of December: Elf on the Shelf and Truth in the Tinsel

December First!!!  HOORAY!!  I absolutely love the holidays, and I'm looking so forward to a month of fun, food, fellowship, friends, and family.  This year we are doing Elf on the Shelf for the very first time.  Our elf, Rudy, arrived this morning and we celebrated with a North Pole Breakfast.  

We had snowballs (donut holes), homemade hot chocolate with chocolate dipped marshmallows, and cinnamon twists.  Rudy brought a few surprises to town with him....an elf plate and a monogrammed ornament.  Emma bit into a snowball and lost yet ANOTHER tooth!  It's crazy.  If she keeps this up we are going to have to put dentures in her stocking! 

Our distinguished guest.......naturally.  Although, Rudy told us in his letter that he is scared of dogs.  YIKES!  Penny is sure to win him over.

Rudy is very fun, and I have found lots of cute ideas on Pinterest for elf mischief.

HOWEVER...

Preparing our hearts and minds to observe the birth of the Christ child is our TRUE reason for celebration around here.  This year I downloaded an advent study from Truth In the Tinsel.  That study will be the main focus of our homeschool this month.  Each day, we will do the devotional together, then make an ornament to hang on our advent tree.  We are also reading applicable stories from our various children's Bibles.  I will share more about our advent tree in the next few days.  Our advent focus will most likely replace FIAR studies for the next few weeks.  (I'm still debating about doing one book.)

We also started a new read aloud today....The Boxcar Children. Such a beloved classic!

A tremendous cold snap blew into town this morning, so we stayed inside ALL day, reading and crafting.  I even skipped a Faith Keeper meeting tonight.  (No guilt, which is rare!)  I was so incredibly wiped out from Thanksgiving that I just hit a wall late this afternoon.  The boys had a meeting tonight, so Emma and I stayed home alone.  We curled up under a fuzzy blanket by the light of the tree and watched Winnie the Pooh Christmas and made foam snowflakes.  (Thanks Oma, for the ornament kit!)  IT WAS DIVINE, and I said a little prayer that the peace and relaxation and gratitude that I felt tonight would set the stage for the next 31 days.  :-)  

I tend to get energized by the chaos of the holidays.  I know not everyone loves the extra bustle, but I delight in the baking and crafting and decorating socializing and list making.  I think it is super important to keep Jesus at the center of it all and put the brakes on (like tonight) if it stops being fun and starts to feel overwhelming.  Otherwise, I relish the arrival of December the first and gladly slip into the vortex of the Christmas storm!!

FIAR: The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

I'm glad to be back online after a long absence.  Our computer broke and went into the shop, and once we got it back, there was a long line of family members waiting their turn to hop on and get caught up with life!  I have several posts to do in a row to get back up to speed, so here we go....

We rowed "The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge" by Hildegarde Swift during the weeks of October 20th and 27th.  Because we are picking up some extra content in science and reading and those areas are taking up more time in our day, I have spent two weeks on each of the last several Five in a Row studies we have done.  There are only so many hours in a day!  I have mixed feelings about that pace....I find so many creative, hands on ideas for each book, as well as baskets full of add on books from the library.   I want to spend enough time with each FIAR title to include as many of those fun "extras" as possible.  However, I also have a long list of books I would like to cover, so as I plan for next semester I need to evaluate how many activities we do and how fast we want to move.

Anyway.  SO much good stuff and so little time to cover it all.  That's the upside/downside of homeschooling...there's always more to learn!

This was a wonderful story written in the 1940's that we enjoyed very much.   The little red lighthouse is an actual lighthouse in New York City on the banks of the Hudson River.  It is not functioning today (it is part of Fort Washington Park), but it is open to the public for tours.  It's demure size pales compared to the George Washington Bridge towering beside it, and this charming story captures the thoughts and emotions of the little lighthouse as the bridge was built.

The internet is a fabulous resource for this row.  There are videos available on you-tube of the story being read aloud.  There is also a Reading Rainbow episode of Keep the Lights Burning Abby, which is a wonderful go-along with this title.  We "toured" several lighthouses online, including the actual red lighthouse in Fort Washington Park.

There is a fun and easy "How To Draw A Lighthouse" tutorial available at ArtProjectsForKids.

We covered concepts like horizon line, foreground and background, and how to use curved lines to make our lighthouse appear rounded.

In real life, lighthouses are any combination of red, white, and green.  I never knew that before.  I made her limit her choices to those three colors.  We used tempera paints for this project.

New York City is on my bucket list BIG TIME.  I have never been there, and my husband has zero desire to go.  I hope the Lord provides an opportunity one day for me to visit.  My oldest took a trip there last year as part of the fine arts department with her college.  (She is a photography minor.)  Emma and I went back through all her photos from that trip, and also read several books about New York from the library.

Of course, we added our story disk to the map.

We also read many books about bridges, and chose a few structures to study more closely.  We engineered some of our own bridges using building toys to see which ones were the strongest and why.

These experiments were a pleasant surprise in that she expressed quite a lot of curiosity!  She was genuinely interested in which bridges would hold the most, and she herself kept coming up with ideas for how to try more of them.  I had to drag her to the table this day to get her started (ugh), but once she got going, she was unstoppable!  A good lesson on not judging a subject matter before you know how FUN it can be!!

It was a gorgeous day outside the day we studied bridges, so big brother took her down to the 

"log bridge" over the creek behind our house.  He even sent me pictures!

Have I mentioned how handy it can be having helpful, wonderful older kids around???  :-)

Our big project for this row was building a lighthouse from a red plastic cup.  I gave her a roll of Washi tape to make the lighthouse stripes, which ended up looking really junky, but she had a blast with that silly tape!  Used up almost the entire roll!!  I asked her to make the first lighthouse according to the directions I gave her, and then promised her a second cup and set of supplies to make one however she wanted.  This is a good compromise for us from time to time.  I want her to learn to follow specific directions, but I also love to see what she comes up with on her own because she is so outrageously creative!  Since I tend to have a few control issues with crafts (clears throat), making two often keeps the peace.  ;-)

The top of the lighthouse is a battery operated votive candle. They come two to a pack at the Dollar Tree.  (Another reason why making two houses was handy!)

I thought these turned out DARLING, and she LOVED turning them on each day.  They sat in the middle of our homeschool table all week, and she even took them upstairs as night lights one night.

One of my favorite memories from this row......

Emma invited me into the homeschool room one night, long after we had finished school and it was dark outside.  She had our little lighthouses glowing and a snack sitting on the table.  She asked me to read aloud to her by the dim light in her cozy setting...absolutely a heartwarming moment!!

That brings me to the topic of reading.

We have used a lot of Sonlight through the years in our homeschooling.  I absolutely love Five In A Row and it is a great fit for us this year, but there are some really fabulous Sonlight books I don't want her to miss out on.  Also, FIAR titles (from the first three volumes) are shorter picture books, and I want her to develop the discipline of sitting through longer books with more complex story lines.  So, I've tried to incorporate even more read aloud time in our days.  This is a challenge with so many library books that coordinate with our FIAR studies, but I'm trying to find a good balance.

Anyway, Light at Tern Rock is a STUNNING story, and one of my all time favorites.  (I don't think Sonlight currently uses it, but they have in the past.)  I loved sharing this story once again with my youngest.....it brought back sweet memories of early homeschooling days.  I had to text my daughter at college and tell her that, true to form, I started crying so hard at the end of this book I couldn't continue to read aloud.  Emma was looking at me like I was nuts, and I had to explain to her that "it's just this thing Mommy does with almost every Sonlight book"!  This one tugs the heartstrings.

It's also fun when I can get readers that are spot on with our studies.  This was a fun one.

I had a few more activities planned that we didn't have time for.  We talked about compound words quite a bit, but I didn't use my compound word flashcards to play games.  Also, I found some fun printables about personification that we did not do.  I set those aside in hopes there is a future FIAR title with a good personification theme.  Lastly, I bought New York City stickers from the scrapbook section and was going to have her decorate a map of New York for our notebook.  I'm saving those stickers!  Maybe someday I will have my own photos from a Big Apple trip that I can scrapbook!  Ha!

Yet another sweet story under our belt and more fun times spent together making memories.  This book was a winner and gets thumbs up from us both!

Oh Dread... The Computer Is Dead!

My Mac is sick, and being held hostage at the Apple store waiting for a part to come in. Losing the family homeschool computer is like losing a limb! :-(

Rest assured we are still here...and still plugging. Last week we finished Little Red Lighthouse and this week we are rowing Ping. We also love Apologia Zoology and are having lots of insect fun.  All of our ladybug larvae have hatched and we have 18 ladybugs!!

Hopefully we will be back up and running in the technology department soon.....posts and pictures are coming! In the meantime, we are staying in and staying warm....a major cold front arrived this morning.  Makes for good snuggling and read aloud time! Happy schooling!!

FIAR: Lentil

We spent the last week (and a half) rowing Lentil, by Robert McCloskey, one of my very favorite authors.  I normally row a book a week, but since this past week had both Columbus Day and a field trip day, I decided to let Lentil spill over into a second week.  It turned out to be a good decision because we found lots of fun things to do to keep us busy!

Lentil is set in fictitious Alto, Ohio.  It is the story of a boy named Lentil who learns to play the harmonica and is given an opportunity to shine.  The themes associated with this story are:

Ohio

Pennies

Lemons (and tastebuds)

Patriotism, citizenship, and the American flag

Harmonicas and Instruments

Onomatopoeia

On day one, we read the story for the very first time.  Young Lentil saves up his pennies to buy a brand new harmonica.  I asked Emma if she would like to save pennies to buy a harmonica too, and of course her answer was YES!  So, I got a big stack of (filthy dirty) pennies and set them on our homeschool table.  During every subject, Emma had the opportunity to earn more and more pennies.  By the end of the day, she was excited that she finally had enough to "buy" her harmonica!

(This was a cute copy work exercise she completed.  I hot glued a real penny on the front of this and put it in our lap book.)

Emma eagerly handed over all her pennies........only to be told that I would only take CLEAN pennies as payment.  :-)  So, into the kitchen we went for a little science fun.  Cleaning pennies!

FINALLY she was ready!  I found this cute harmonica on amazon several months ago and have been saving it for her.

It has a very pleasant sound, and a limited number of notes, so it is very beginner friendly.

We practiced our harmonica in the bathtub, just like Lentil, to check out the acoustics!

I don't always share the lap book projects that we do for FIAR.  These are not really the focus of our book studies, as the authors of FIAR intend for it to be a very conversational and hands on style of learning.  However, we do complete some seat work with each row, and I assemble card stock pages that I add to a GREAT BIG notebook, which is a lap book scrapbook of our FIAR studies.  Some of the printables I use come from homeschoolshare.com.  Others are "Fold and Learn" packets directly from the FIAR website.  Still others are just great ideas I gather from other creative FIAR users.

Emma loves to color and enjoys things that are crafty.  So, we have FUN with our notebook.  However, my boys would have hated doing this, so I never would have pushed it.  I only throw that out there because I see online that many people turn FIAR into  a major lap book curriculum.  It certainly can be used that way, but it doesn't have to be.    

That being said.......here are some things we created for our notebook during this row...

We read a few books about Ohio, the state where Emma's Aunt (who she adores) is from.  Then, we chose a few facts and made a little Ohio book of our own, in honor of Auntie Kaylyn.

I just love her enthusiasm for illustrations.

This next one is one of my favorite things we put together.  I love how this illustrates the concept. 

Again, she spent some significant time on the artwork.  Well done, Emma!

Lentil attends a homecoming celebration for a town hero, and the citizens all hang out their flags. This row was a great opportunity to practice the pledge and learn about how to properly respect the American flag.

The most fascinating thing we did was learn about Robert Heft, the man responsible for the arrangement of the fifty stars.  Heft, who did not love school, completed his design as part of a school project. His story is inspiring, and I love that a young person contributed to our nation's most prized symbol!

Emma already knew the pledge, but we rehearsed it every day.

We put together a small booklet of new vocabulary words.

And speaking of new words.....

We had more than a few laughs trying to remember "onomatopoeia".  Every day when I would ask her for the word, she would make up something super silly....."olliemolliepoopoo".....

It IS a hard one to remember! 

Then we laughed some more finding all the onomatopoeia's in the story!

I found a great book version of this song at the library by Emily Coplon.  We sang/read it every single day, then made our own little version for our lap book.  (Except we took OUT the page about killing the old red rooster when she comes.  NO WAY were we putting that page in our book!  Ha!)

One day we talked about how the illustrator used the expressions on the character's faces to really help the author tell the story.  We had fun drawing very simple faces to express certain emotions, then I asked her to pick one and draw it for our book.  Here's happy.  :-)

I used these Fruit of the Spirit cards this week while studying lemons, and also the last two weeks while studying apples.  We have been going through them during Bible time, and working on Galatians 5:25.  I wish I could remember the site where I found them.  I printed and colored them, then mounted them on card stock and laminated them.  We will use these frequently as this is a lesson we all need to focus on again and again.  (Especially me!)

The characters in the story pucker from the lemons.  This led us to a study of taste.  I pulled several human body books from our home bookshelves, and checked out a few more from the library.  I even found a fun one about how animals taste, which was a fun spin.

This was a funny 3D tastebud activity from our Easy Make and Learn Human Body book.

I made a simple map of the tongue, and we marked the areas that detect sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.  Then, she drew an example of each of those sensations.

Lemons are very acidic, which led us to an acid/base study using a cabbage juice indicator.  I got this idea from Michelle at Delightful Learning.

Here's my little scientist recording her observations.

We then squeezed lots of extra lemons......

.....and made lemonade!  Homemade lemonade is best if you make a simple syrup by boiling sugar and water together.  That way, you don't get any grit from the raw sugar.

We also enjoyed a delicious meal of lemon chicken.  This was a new recipe, and it was a winner!

Lemon Chicken Recipe

Melt 3 T of butter in skillet and sauté sliced mushrooms until tender.  Remove from pan with slotted spoon and set aside.

Melt another 3 T of butter in pan.  Dredge chicken breasts (or tenders) in seasoned flour, then cook about 5-6 minutes per side, until golden. Remove from pan and keep warm.

Add one cup of chicken broth to pan and scrape up all the bits off the bottom of the pan.

Bring to a boil and reduce to about 3/4 cup.

Reduce heat, add 3T fresh lemon juice and 1 cup heavy cream.

Return meat and mushrooms to pan and simmer for about 15 minutes, until sauce is thick and chicken is fully cooked.  Serve with egg noodles.

I found a tempting recipe for lemon cake too, but we never did get around to making that one.  I'll have to file it for future use!

Our biggest treat for this unit was a field trip to the symphony!!  My older kids have been more times than they care to count.  They are now officially old enough to refuse going, so I'm delighted to have a new victim attendee.  (I love the symphony!!!)

We prepared for our trip by checking out some books from the library and watching some videos on you tube to learn about how the orchestra works and a bit about instrument families.

I made a quad-fold chart to help us categorize the instruments.  I googled to get clip art instruments to print, and we cut them out and added them to our book.  She loved this, and it made her excited to go hear the music.

The day of the symphony was a lovely day.

My Mom attended with us.

We got second row seats!  Score!

She liked the violins and flute the best.  (Which was funny since this particular youth orchestra performance highlighted brass instruments.)  She has actually talked about violin quite a bit lately and we are thinking about taking up lessons.  The concert master sat directly in front of Emma and waved to her several times during the performance.  She was an eloquent and distinguished looking woman in a long, formal satin gown.  That pretty much cinched the deal on Emma liking violin!

On our way home from downtown, we stopped in at the American Girl Store.  A big treat!  Right inside the doorway there was a display for what else?  Doll instruments!  Perfect!!!

She dutifully looked at all the pretty dolls and clothes, but her real motivation for being there was to get to these..........the very best part of the AG store!!  :-)

Lentil was a wonderful row for us.  I wanted to get up to Nana and Papa's farm to raise and lower a flag on their real flag pole, and learn how to fold one.  We still need to do that one day soon.  We had wonderful talks about patriotism during this row, and emphasized the bravery of those fighting for our country today.  This is what I love so much about Five In A Row....such a wonderful spread of topics and opportunities every week.  We cover so much ground, and in such a fun way.

One last idea I wanted to share.....I saw this at Hobby Lobby for a very reasonable price ($4).  I thought it was too advanced for Emma so I passed this time, but if anyone reading here has older children, this is a cute idea to put to use with lemons!

Thanks for stopping by to share in our Lentil learning.

This week we are on to The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge!