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Showing posts from November, 2014

Small Graces

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving week. Ours ended well but started out a little rough. I dropped my phone and the screen went black. It had been put through the ringer, so honestly I was a little surprised that it lasted as long as it did. I ended up dragging all four kids to the mall...surprisingly it went very well! We checked out some Christmas displays, stopped by the Lego store, enjoyed some mall food, and the kids got some individual i-pad time at the Apple store. Apple's consumer service is amazing - even though I admitted that I had dropped my phone, among other things, they replaced it for free! This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with some friends from our church. We all had a blast and I enjoyed only being charge of mashed potatoes. The day after Thanksgiving we did our annual tree cutting tradition . Big Buddy was so excited this year. He's getting so big! He tried his hardest to cut down the tree by himself, Jeremy had to help a little bit. Plus

24 Exceptional Picture Books to Carry You to Christmas

We are so excited that is now officially the Christmas season. Our tree is up and decorated and we slowly adding a bit of adornment to the rest of house. Jeremy created a Jesus Story Book advent tree for the kids a couple years back - they are so excited start it again this year, they've been asking for it every night! Since the kids and I are home all day though, and we already in the habit of reading in the afternoon, I thought it be fun to do a picture book advent. I have all my books picked out, now I just have to find the time to wrap them...or maybe I'll just find a cute box to store them in. We don't do Santa at our house so most of these books are focused on the Nativity or classic carols/stories. There also a few gems, that will hopefully remind us that Christmas is about much more than consumerism and stuff - it's about a sacrifice, thankfulness, generosity, and love.  1 -  The Christmas Star  by Marcus Pfiser - using similar foil inlays

Crazy, Funny, Beautiful Kids

These three bring me so much joy. They challenge me and push me to the brink of frustration...but they also have the sweetest smiles and the best hugs. Plus they make me laugh with their eccentric creativity and silly observations. Big Buddy about ready to introduce Mini Man to the Harry Potter audiobook: "This story is awesome literally awesome!"  "I don't like bright chocolate, I like dark chocolate!" shirt: target ( similar ),  jeans: gap ( similar ), boots: target ,  sweater: target, shirt: ( similar) ,  pants: gift ( similar  or similar ) We were discussing spider-man and how great power comes with great responsibility. Mini Man's response: "God's given me a great power, the power to hold on to people!"  After asking me to zip his coat:  "you are the queen of zippers!"  shirt: hand-me-down ( similar ), vest: hand-me-down ( similar ), skirt: gift ( similar  or similar ), tights: targe

Literature Based Kindergarten: Stone Soup

Primary Literature Stone Soup by Marcia Brown , this is a delightful retelling of a classic folktale. It's a Caldecott medal honor book - the illustrations are delightful and charming. It tells the tale of three traveling soldiers who stop at a village looking for a bit food and a place sleep. The villagers, however, are stingy and lie to the soldiers, saying that they are short on food. The soldiers use trickery to get the villagers to contribute to their delicious and magical 'stone soup'. I chose this book for November because I thought it be a great way to implant the message that I want my children to take away from Thanksgiving; for them to be grateful and generous with the blessings they have been given. I also had plans this to delve deeper into Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas and The Pilgims' First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern  but life got bit crazy and so we had to settle for just reading them.  Vocabulary Words to

Literature Based Kindergarten, Heckedy Peg

Primary Literture Heckedy Peg by Audrey and Don Wood . This was our last October book, I wanted something a bit scary to go with Halloween. An evil witch, Heckedy Peg, tricks seven sweet children (all named after the days of week) in to letting her enter their house while their mother is away. Once inside she turns them all into food. Luckily, their mother is able to rescuing them with a few tricks of her own and some cleverness. The book's painted illustrations are stunning. They contain just the right amount of darkness which adds to the suspense-fulness of the book.  Complementary Literature The kids memorized 'A Week of Birthdays' from The Real Mother Goose . We chose to use  Sunday instead of 'the Sabbath day'.  Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace; Wednesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go; Friday's child is loving and giving, Saturday's child works ha

Autumn Wind Chimes

Lately, my kids have been in to making 3D art projects. They enjoy molding with cla y. We also use plaster-of-paris and silicone molds to make shapes/ornaments. Last week we used some autumn themed shapes to make wind chimes.  Supplies - clay pot,  plaster-or-paris , silicone molds , straws, paint brushes,  acrylic paint ,  Mod Podge , scissors, fishing line, jingle bells/keys, and a large washer/button.  You will want to make sure you use acrylic paint since plater-of-paris is very porous. If you use tempera paint the colors will be very dull.  Since the plaster-of-paris doesn't really make a sound we attached some jingle bells/keys. 

Small Graces

A weekly reflection inspired in part by Bob Bennett's song "Small Graces". These are the small graces, little moments when the miracles come... Small graces leading me to the larger one... Last week was filled with so many good things:  a day out with friends,  crisp fall weather, halloween... On Tuesday we met some friends at the Discover Center Museum . It had been awhile since our last visit so the kids were excited to revisit some of their favorites exhibits, like the shadow room. They also had some new exhibits. The kids were especially pumped  about the Build It/Make It room.