Advent with the Penguins

We love Christmas at our house! The entire month of December we listen to old fashioned Christmas Carols. (I mean the ones like: The First Noel, Oh, Come All Ye Faithful, Hark! The Harold Angels Sing, and even The Little Drummer Boy) we make and eat lots of yummy goodies, and we await the coming of the Christ Child in our own unique way. Around here, we love, love, LOVE tradition. (Well, 5 out of 6 of us do, the other one patiently humors us.) So we do the same things each year, but, each year, as the kids get older, I add things because it just simply gets easier to do crafts and things as they grow out of things like "Oh! Let's squeeze the glue bottle until nothing else comes out!!!!" or "I think it's much more fun to finger paint on my sister's face than on my paper!!!" or "Let's whine about the color of crayons I have; the way my brother isn't looking at me; or just because no one is taking my other whining seriously enough."

So, here are the things that we have done formerly:
We play with our flannelgraph Nativity
We use our Advent Calendar
A calendar that we draw, I found the idea here, but instead of using small objects, I give them a "calendar" which is actually a blank grid and they draw a picture of the item each day. It leaves us with a very cool keepsake. :)
These candy canes are always a favorite.
I like to provide a basket of "props", blankets, animals, etc. for them to act out the Nativity story and put on plays.
We always decorate cookies, of course.
And we hang 24 candy canes and eat (share) one every evening. This is a fun way to count down to the Special Day!
We do lots of coloring pages, because I have kids that absolutely live to color.
We pick an evening as soon after Thanksgiving as possible and we watch The Peanuts Special, while sipping hot chocolate and eating popcorn.
We always drive around and look at Christmas lights. We usually take popcorn and hot chocolate with us.
We have Christmas books and Christmas movies that the kids only read/watch during this time.

And, some new things I plan to do this year are:
Actually work on memorizing the Christmas Story.
Make a verse a day chain
Make candy canes with pipe cleaners and pony beads
Color a "Happy Birthday Jesus" book
Make some presents for the kids to give away
Probably do some more stuff from Hubbards Cupboard Christmas Activities List

What do you do while you are preparing for the celebration of Jesus' Advent?

Something to look forward to

I was excited to be approached by CSN stores to do a review of one of their products. I was startled at the selection they offered! Tons of items on many different websites. I am looking forward to reviewing their products, the trouble is going to be picking one!
You can check them out or go look at coffee tables while you wait for my review!

The Monkey and the Motorcycle

For "m" week, we had a visitor in the schoolroom.

I Don't Even Know What to Call It

Kaytie writes her numbers backwards. She always has. At first, I thought it was because she was young and she would outgrow it. Then, I thought that if I corrected her every single time she would start correcting herself. Now that she is nearly eight, I'm starting to get concerned.
I tried googling (well, swagbucking, actually, it pays better) dyslexia but came up with nothing but stuff for sale. I tried dysgraphia (although I don't really know what that means) and fared no better. She has no problems with letters. She reads fluently, well above her "grade level" and she is always reading. She writes her letters correctly. She does fairly well with math (we are almost finished with Math U See Beta), although she doesn't care for it. She does sometimes read double digit numbers backwards-- turning 12 into 21 for example, but single digit and triple digit numbers are fine.
If I stop her right before she writes the number, if she stops and thinks about it, if she copies a number she can see, or if she writes it with her eyes closed, she can/will write it correctly. Also, if I tell her, "Some of your numbers are backwards, you need to find them and fix them," she can do that. So she can tell by looking (if she does stop to look) that they are backwards.
A friend of mine suggested that we do a lot of hands-on, 3-D letter formation activities, so I devoted an entire workbox to this. I made some large number cards and every day I put something different in the box with the cards. She has made numbers with glass pebbles, nuts, beads, playdough, animal manipulatives, math cubes, Bendaroos, and string. I don't let her form the numbers on the card, she has to do it beside it. Today, I gave her felt, paper, and a large tack to pin-punch letters on paper. She really enjoyed that.
We have been doing this for a few weeks now, there was, initially, an improvement, but her numbers are still backward when she doesn't stop to think about it. So I am looking for suggestions or ideas on how to help her fix this.

TOS Review: Corps of Rediscovery

Kaytie is my "crafty" kid. She loves to draw, paint, color, write, to create in any medium. So when we received a coin pouch kit to review, I knew she was the logical person to try it out.
I originally intended to hand it to her, instructions and all, and let her have at it. But the pictures in the instructions were a bit much for her, since she had never done anything like this before. So I read the directions and showed her what to do. She took it from there.

As you can see, she thoroughly enjoyed this! It took her about ten minutes to sew her purse, and then she and Abbie spent the next hour arguing over to whom it should belong.

This kit came from Corps of Rediscovery, a family company designed to help kids "rediscover" American history. This site is full of different kid-friendly crafts intended to enhance history studies. This is a great way to round out a unit study on the Pioneers, Pilgrims, or American Indians. I wish I had known about this last year, when we were studying the Colonial times. And I will definitely keep it in mind for the next time we travel through this period of history.

The product we received consisted of two pieces of leather, with the snap already in place, and the holes for stitching pre-punched. It also had the lacing, and instructions.

Kaytie's opinion of this product was: "It is wonderful. I enjoyed making this and I would love to do it again. I would definitely recommend this to other mommies for their kids."

Find out what other Crew members have to say here.

This product was sent to me, as a member of the TOS Review Crew, free of charge, for the purpose of this review. All opinions expressed are honest and are mine and Kaytie's own.

Taking Environmentalism to a Whole New Level

Nate tried to convince me this morning that vacuuming is bad. Because we shed skin cells that fall on the floor and that is what dust mites eat.
It took me five minutes of circular conversation concerning the value of dust mites to convince him that, although I personally have nothing against dust mites, I'm not sacrificing the cleanliness of my floors to ensure their food source.
So now he is off figuring out another way to keep his dust mites from starving to death.

TOS Review: Collectorz

One thing that homeschooling families seem to have in common is a love of books. Most homeschoolers I know have shelves and shelves of books and are acquiring more all the time. This often leads to the complaint that "I found the exact book I needed for our study... three weeks after we finished it!" or "I have three copies of this book because I keep forgetting we have it and buying a new one!" If you have ever found yourself uttering these words (or even thinking them) our latest review product could be for you.

It's called Collectorz and it is a program that allows you to enter the ISBN number of your book(s) and then  know exactly which books you own! Your own personal library catalog is accessible from anywhere you have Internet access. It's just that simple.

The Standard is $29.95, the Pro version is $49.95, and you can try it free for a month before you buy to ensure that it is right for you.

That's how it works, now for how it worked for me, personally...

This is the first review I've had that was not a roaring personal success. Honestly, my book collection falls into two parts: books that I have had for ages, so I know what they are, and books that we have bought for the kids that we've, naturally, only had a few years. The majority of the books that we use for school I pick up from our local library. So this product was not something I could really make good use of. It seems super cool, but the time it would take me to enter all of the books we own would be more than the result would be worth.

This product was given to me free of charge for the purpose of this review. All opinions expressed are honest and my own.

Boo at the Zoo

The obligatory group shot.

Pocahontas on the warpath!

When Kaytie said she wanted to be an Indian Princess for Halloween, Mommy said, "Oh! Sure! We can make a costume for that easily!" But what she really meant was, "Daddy can pull that off!"

So, yeah, Daddy made her costume and she was very pleased.

Nose Nose the Clown

At one point in the evening, he told a joke. Then commented, "I'm as funny as I look."

Yes, you are, Little Man, yes, you are.

Mr. Train Engineer. He says, "Thomas is #1!"

He did briefly consider being a cowboy, but then decided to stick with driving Thomas.

Princess Abigail.

No doubts here! Not only did she definitely want to be a princess this year, she has no plans on EVER being anything else.

Mr. Pumpkin. 

The kids provide the inspiration. Daddy wields the knife. Mommy leads the discussion about how we are like the pumpkin and God cleans out the yucky sins inside us and then we shine the Light of Christ for all to see. We recently learned the verse, "Let your light so shine before all men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father in Heaven." 

Daniel keeps putting all the dress up hats on this guy, so we have had an engineer pumpkin, a princess pumpkin, a Sir pumpkin and a builder pumpkin. Unfortunately, I have not been catching pictures of him. :(

We took the kids to the zoo to admire the animals, collect candy, play some games, and show off how adorable our costumes are. :) The weather was perfect, a delightful fall evening with just enough warmth and sunshine. The kids always enjoy seeing the animals: lions and wallabies and monkeys and bears. My personal favorite was the lemurs. Wow! Those guys can jump! Nate informed me that God gave them flaps of skin under their arms to act like "wings" and that is why they can jump so far. The most humbling aspect of homeschooling is how quickly your kids become smarter than you are.

 Looking at a Hissing Cockroach. Nearby, a costumed roach was handing out treats. Yum! 

Petting the spider. Everything really is bigger in Texas!

I had to take a picture of the Four Little Penguins getting candy from the Penguin!

Nate telling his tale.

Daddy and his monkeys watching the monkeys eating their treats!

Wow, that Princess can bowl a pumpkin!

Because when you are four, the easy way is never an option.

Nate looked at the bear and the bear looked right back. I think Nose Nose was inviting him to join his show!

Pocahontas found herself some buffalo! If only she hadn't forgotten her bow and arrow, we'd have had us some supper!

I think Papa needs to give him some lessons on how to hold a club? He was rather irritated when the lady "helped" him.

Funny Abbie story for the night... There was a costumed bunny sitting next to a live bunny that the kids could pet. I told Abbie, "Oh! go pet the bunny!" And she headed over to the person in costume! I stopped her just in time, but the mom just behind us told her son, "You want to pet the bunny?" And she was not quick enough to stop him. I burst out laughing and the lady holding the live bunny said, "He's been petted a LOT tonight."

We came home and walked around the block with the Alex cousin... way too dark for pictures, but they had fun with their flashlights in the dark. Then we had orange pancakes and I passed out chocolate chips, whipped cream and cherries. I am not going to attempt to spell the "m" word that describes the cherries. I just don't have the mental energy. Sorry.

Kaytie's funny face

Daniel's funny face

(does it look a little like Rudolph to you?)

Nate's funny face

Abbie's funny face

All in all, it was a most satisfactory holiday, and the kids went to bed planning out their costume ideas for next year!