December Grandview Program and Art Co-op

This month at Grandview, we did something a little different.  Usually we do an educational program about a specific topic (mammals, birds, fish, fossils, etc..) and then do a hands on activity related to that topic.  For the holidays though we thought it would be fun to do something different.  We did a program on crafts that could be made with things found in nature.

There were several different things available for the children to create their Nature Crafts such as pine cones, acorns, tree cookies, pine branches, sticks and twigs plus craft items like jingle bells, pom poms, paint, pipe cleaners, etc.. to turn them into an ornament.  There was even scented wax they could dip some creations into, and my boys figured out they could make their stuff smell like pine by slipping some pieces of the branch underneath their trees. There were several different ornaments displayed as examples of the types of things they could do, but they were encouraged to use their imagination and create whatever they wanted to create.  Some of the children made several different things, and some just worked on one project the entire time (Anthony worked on one the whole time.) They were very creative and came up with some very good projects.

After our lunch break we moved on to art.  Our artist of the month was Alexander Calder.  The project was to make a mobile using pipe cleaners and foam shapes.  We did a Christmas theme and the children made six different shapes that reminded them of Christmas such as snowflakes, dove, present, candy cane, star, stocking, tree, etc..  We used tape to secure the shapes, or just poked the pipe cleaners through the foam.  This was a fun project and turned out really cool.  The hardest part for the children was connecting the 6 pipe cleaners together, but once that was figured out it was pretty easy.

Happy Homeschooling

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Review: Love Without End

Description:

"Chet and Kimberly have both failed when it comes to love. Will they risk their hearts to love again? Chet Leonard's life was forever changed when his seventeen year old son died and then, soon after, his wife walked out on their family. Over two years later, all he wants to do is hold onto his horse ranch and raise his remaining sons to be honorable men. Kimberly Welch, widowed mother of Tara, a rebellious fifteen-year-old, has reached the end of her finances and nearly the end of her rope. She and Tara come to King's Meadow to try to piece their lives back together again. Kimberly has no intention of become involved with the residents of this remote mountain community and certainly not with any man. When 84-year-old Anna McKenna returns to King's Meadow and to the Leonard ranch, she becomes an agent of change and healing for the two hurting families. With her help, Kimberly and Chet's families at last discover a love without end."

Robin Lee Hatcher is one of those authors that I jump on the opportunity to review books for.  I saw her newest book, Love Without End, and grabbed it while I had the chance.  I did not know that there was a book that took place in King's Meadow called A Promise Kept, that was written in 2014.  I have not read that book, but I really enjoyed Love Without End.  In this book Robin Lee Hatcher is telling the story of two different sets of people.  In the present we have the story of Chet and Kimberly, their families, and their attempts to recreate their lives when the unexpected comes their ways leading them in different directions then they had planned.  Along the way they both go through many changes and have to learn trust God and take the chance to love again.  We also have the story of Anna McKenna.  Her story of how she came to King's Meadow and her life there is shown through flashes of the past.  Through her life, lessons learned, and experiences, she is able to help bring hope and peace to not just Chet and Kimberly, but their children as well.  The transitions from the past to the present flowed very smoothly and help to create a wonderful story of Love Without End.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance to FTC regulations.

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 15

When of the things I love most about homeschooling is flexibility.  I know I have said that before ;) 

This week did NOT go as planned, but I am glad that we can take off when the children do not feel well or doctor's appointments come up and we can make it up some other day.  We did not get very much accomplished this week school wise.  Lillian was still not feeling well and did not get back to herself until Wednesday (she did insist on doing some school work and I will talk about that in a minute.)  Monday after our morning work, Christian went up to play LEGO while I made lunch.  I went up to see what kind of sandwich he wanted and he wasn't playing he was laying in his bed.  He was running a fever.  He did no schoolwork at all until Wednesday afternoon.  Because he wasn't feeling well enough to do afternoon school work, that meant Anthony got out of reading/spelling too. Then Tuesday Emmie started not feeling very well and snuggling with her took precedence over afternoon schoolwork Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday Alex had to go back to the doctor to get his finger checked so I made an appointment for Emmie too.  She ended up on medicine for a sinus infection and we had to go get Alex's finger X-rayed again.  It took forever at the hospital for the x-ray and then there was a mix up with Emmie's medicine.  I had left the house at 8:45 and did not get back home until 1:15.  By the time we ate lunch I declared it a school free day since there were chores to be completed and I had a 4 H meeting to get ready for that night.

We did get a little work completed though.

Week 15 in Our Homeschool

Bible: We finished reading our biography on Mary and have moved on to reading a biography on Jesus.

History: In Mystery of History Vol III we finished lessons 34-36 on William Tyndale, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Bartolome de Las Casas.  We completed the memory cards and timeline figures as well.  There is a LOT of heavy reading during this time in history, although honestly it occurs all through history. I am glad the lessons include some lighter things like the lesson on Nicolaus Copernicus.

Science: We started reading Chapter 9 of Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics on the Speed of Sound.

Not part of our science curriculum, but Chelsea sent us a picture of the panda bears at the Atlanta Zoo when she went there on Monday and the children wanted to see more.  So we have been watching them on the Panda Cam on the website.  They have twin pandas there right now. They have been fascinated with it!  Then Chelsea brought the girls home stuffed pandas, it made their day!

Grammar/Writing/Literature-Nick and Alex completed Lesson 14 of Fix It! Grammar and started Lesson 11 of IEW Medieval History Writing Lessons.  Christian and Anthony did not do Lightning Lit this week.

Spelling/Reading-Never got to it

Language: We finished Lesson 9 of Word Up!  Anthony wants to know when the next DVD is coming out because this is one of his favorite parts of the school day!

My Father's World Exploring Creation From A to Z

This week we started D for dinosaur.  Lily was still not feeling well, but she really wanted to do some school work so we did some but kept it on the light side.  A few years ago I did a dinosaur study with Nick and Alex using a free lapbook from Homeschool Share.  I printed out a copy to use parts of it with this unit.  So far in this unit Lily has made her picture cards for the letter d, completed a handwriting page and sound discrimination page, made a dinosaur badge, and colored pictures of dinosaurs.  We also read What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs by Ken Ham and watched some creation based dinosaur music videos by Buddy Davis on Youtube.  I also read through another dinosaur book that we have leaving out the evolutionary parts. We made some homemade Play-dough to make dinosaurs out of, but the girls made lots of other things instead :)  We will finish up the dino unit next week.

Other Activities This Week

We had our 4 H Christmas Party on Thursday.

Friday we had our homeschool group pizza party.  Our little group is growing.  I counted 58 at the party and there may have been more that I missed since people were moving around.

Saturday we put up and decorated our tree.

We also made some ornaments by melting peppermints I saw on Pinterest.

I hope you had a great week in your homeschool!

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Nature Seekers 4 H Christmas Party

For the last several years, my 4 H Club has done pretty much the same thing for a Christmas party, but the children request it, so we keep going with it.  We do a pizza party, make an edible Christmas craft, a craft to donate to the nursing home, and one other craft.  One year I added in some games too and was planning on it this year, but forgot and ran out of time.

Our party was yesterday.  I had 16 children plus parents, two older siblings, and one baby.  It was a really good group.  Since the building we usually hold on meetings in is all decorated for Christmas, we usually have our Christmas party at my church in the fellowship hall.  There is a pizza place not far from my house that sells large cheese pizzas for $4.99 and one topping pizzas for $5.99.  I ordered 6 pizzas and brought 4 two liters of soda.  A club member made some cake pops and cupcakes for dessert.

After eating pizza we made the edible craft.  It was one we made many years ago but the only ones who made it that are still in the club were Nick and Alex and they didn't mind doing it again.  We made Santa on his sleigh.

We were going to split the Twizlers, but they liked them like this

To make this craft we needed: small candy canes, graham crackers, teddy grahams, frosting, licorice, pretzels, a chocolate wrapped Santa, and a paper plate.  I also got some Hershey kisses to put in the back of the sleigh for a present.

Using the frosting as "glue" we stuck the candy canes to the plate.  Then stuck two pieces of graham crackers to the canes, and stood up a third graham cracker to create a seat.  Using more frosting we stuck pretzels on the sides to make the side of the sleigh.  Then we used frosting to stick teddy graham reindeer to the plate.  We put Santa in his sleigh, gave him licorice reins, and put a Hershey Kiss in the back of the sleigh for a present.  Then they ate them!

Next we made foam door knob hangers to donate to the nursing home.  I got peel and stick foam kits from Oriental Trading, no glue needed!

Then we made pine cone bird feeders. We have done this craft many times in our club, but for some reason it never gets old and they want to do it every year.

I was very thankful to have lots of parent help for the clean up.  We were finished up in no time!

It was a great party!

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Thanksgiving Break

We took the whole week of Thanksgiving off, but like most things in life it did not go as I had planned.

Monday Christian, Lily, Emmie, and I went to the annual 4 H Holiday Craft workshop.  Lily and Christian made several fun crafts and had a great time!  Emmie wouldn't make anything, but she had fun anyway.  I took a bunch of pictures but since my camera is broken I had to use Chelsea's and she has it out of town right now.

This week since Art was off he took the opportunity to work on the living room upstairs that has been empty for a long time.  Every time it seemed like we would have a chance to get something done in there, something would come up like other major things breaking and it had to be pushed down on the list of priorities.  But, it is now painted and the floor is in!  The fireplace still needs to get finished, the trim needs to be put back on, and the new ceiling fan needs to go up, but it is getting there!

Tuesday night Nick and Alex were wrestling around and Nick kicked Alex in the hand.  We iced it down and gave him Motrin but it still was hurting a lot Wednesday morning, so I took him to Hot Springs to the Urgent Care Clinic.  He has a chip in the knuckle of his little finger.  He is wearing a splint for a week and then getting it rechecked.

I had lots of little helpers getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Anthony made chocolate pie.

Lily made cherry pie and dinner rolls.

Emelia made pumpkin and apple pie.

Chelsea helped quite a bit in the kitchen too.  That night Art had to take her to Little Rock to catch a bus to Atlanta for National 4 H Congress.

Also on Thursday Lily complained of a headache and sore throat.  Sure enough she had a fever.  Friday she still didn't feel well but wasn't any worse.  By Saturday though she was much worse.  Her fever would not stay down, her glands in her throat were very swollen, and she was having trouble swallowing.  Also her left ear hurt.  So I headed back to Urgent Care with her.  She ended up on antibiotics for a double ear infection.  Saturday night and Sunday was really rough for her but she started feeling a little bit better Sunday night and thankfully started drinking willingly and ate for the first time since Friday.

Today we were planning on getting back to a normal routine, but Lily is still on the couch and Christian started running fever too!  We have two Christmas parties this week and they want to get the decorations up so hopefully everyone will be feeling better to do all that.  The children stay fairly healthy but usually once or twice a year (Nov/Dec and Feb/March)  we get something that goes through all of them.  Praying it will not hit anyone as hard as it did Lily and it will pass quickly!

Happy Homeschooling!

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