Fun Christmas Snacks

We are having our homeschool group's Christmas party today!!  I made these little cuties to take!!

These are very easy to make. Just take a piece of bread and cut the crusts off (or don't, it really doesn't matter).  Spread some peanut butter on your bread square and then add a cherry for the nose, raisins for the eyes, and broken twist pretzels for the antlers.  (I also used a small piece of pretzel to "anchor" the nose to the bread so it doesn't roll off).

These would be fun for any Christmas party!!

Gingerbread Men

We had fun making our gingerbread men today!!

The boys had fun helping mix the dough (which I didn't get a picture of - we were too busy mixing).

They then helped cut out the gingerbread men.

And then they of course helped decorate them.  I was lazy and didn't get out my icing piping supplies...just used a ziploc bag with a hole cut in it.  But that's ok...they covered the icing in m&m's anyways!

(And Aaron kept making sure his finger would touch the icing so he had to lick his finger!  He's so funny!)

 Don't they just look so yummy!!!!  We are going to enjoy eating them after dinner tonight!

Oh - and I made two small gingerbread men.  During our reading lesson Seth got to enjoy one as he was learning the words, make, eat and ate.  He liked that alot!!  (Aaron got to enjoy the other small one when he awoke from his nap.  Alyssa got the round cookie made from the left over dough.)

Our Nativity Pictures

This morning was one of those very special moments for a mom!  A moment when a new milestone is reached!  :-)  Now this milestone this morning might not have been an "official" milestone but in this momma's heart it is still a special milestone!

Aaron had his first intentional drawing!!  A drawing where he was specifically drawing something...not just scribbles.  Of course it is still scribbling but it is INTENTIONAL scribbling and I am so very proud!!  (I know you may not see as much need for hoopla and hooray in this as I do, but just indulge me for a moment if you would!)

I had the kids draw nativity pictures this morning.  Aaron did his picture with such excitement and then brought it to me and explained what everything was!!  I labeled the picture for him!  This is the prettiest nativity picture I have ever seen!!

And of course I can't forget Seth!  I am very proud of his drawing as well!  He really took his time to do the best he could!  He also wanted me to label his picture as well.  :-)  This is also the prettiest nativity picture I have ever seen!

As I write this I am smelling our gingerbread men cookies baking - YUM!!!

Our Christmas Lessons

I have decided, since this is our last week of lessons before our Christmas break, to pause from our normal curriculum and do a week of Christmas lessons!  It has taken me all morning to prepare them (that's what I get for last minute planning - ha!)  But I am really excited with what I have come up with!

For the most part we will be very relaxed this week but I still want to make sure we get in some good reading and writing lessons for Seth :-).  So I changed around our sight word schedule a bit so that this week we could focus on words that go with our Christmas theme! So here is what I have come up with.

Today our focus was 'The Polar Express'.  I had the boys watch the movie this morning (so that I could get some planning done!).  We then did a couple of coloring activity sheets that went with the movie.  This afternoon during our reading/writing lessons (while the little ones sleep) we are going to work on learning the words 'boy', 'girl' and 'friend'.  I have also found quite a few Christmas printables dealing with handwriting practice, counting, patterning, etc... we will be going through these through the week.

We are also planning on reading The Polar Express this afternoon as well and talk about how it is alike and different than the movie.

Tomorrow we are going to have a gingerbread day!  We are going to make gingerbread cookies in the morning and then I have some fun Christmas cutting practice pages that I found that the boys can work on (they both LOVE practicing cutting with scissors).

During our afternoon reading/writing lessons we are going to learn the words 'eat', 'ate' and 'make' and continue to work on our other Christmas worksheets!

Wednesday we are going grocery shopping so we will only be doing afternoon school.  We are going to learn the words 'mother' and 'father' on Wednesday and again continue to work on our worksheets!  We will also probably watch a Christmas video Wednesday afternoon as well.

On Thursday we are going to work on finishing making the Christmas gifts from the kids to family members (and of course if we still don't get finished we have next week to finish since we won't be doing school).  In our afternoon reading/writing lessons we are going to learn the words 'give', 'gave', 'get' and 'got' and finish our Christmas worksheets!

Friday morning we have our Christmas party with one of our homeschool groups!  The boys are really excited about that!!  :-)

It is going to be a fun, relaxed week of school - and then we get two weeks of a break from no school! WHOO HOO!!  :-)

I will try to post what pictures I can get during the week.  I realized this morning that we went through our entire insect lessons last week with no pictures!  (but that is not important part, right?!?!)

Here are some of the links where I found printables at:  (I also made a few of my own)

Polar Express Printables
1+1+1=1 blog
Confessions of a Homeschooler Blog

Having Fun With Water

Things are super busy right now.  I have to admit with all of our Christmas decorations up and all of the upcoming events that we are planning for it is hard for ALL OF US to keep focused on school.  But we are doing the best we can :-)  We are not getting as in-depth on some of the science portions of our curriculum right now..but we are making sure that we are giving our reading, writing and math lessons the focus they need :-)

In the curriculum for the water lesson they mentioned a book entitled "Splash! All About Baths".  I actually found this book for very cheap on Amazon (a used library copy) so decided to go ahead and purchase it.  I am glad I did.  We were able to get most of the water experiments that were mentioned in the curriculum done while we were reading this book - in one school session!!  And we had a blast with it!  Here are some picture highlights from that session.

The book talked about water having no shape so we poured water into different shaped containers to see how it became the shape of a container.  We then took small blocks and put them in the same containers and noticed how their shape did not change.

The book talked about the water taking up space.  We made a bathtub for our little Tad leapfrog and noticed how when we placed him in his tub the water level rose.

 The book talked about how some things float and some things sink.  So we experimented to see what would float and what would sink.

The book also talked about water vapors and gave an idea of an experiment of putting a mirror in a refrigerator and then taking it out and breathing on it to see the water vapor.  It was cold enough this day that we just had to place the mirror outside for a few minutes (and as you can see from Seth's  sweatshirt it was pretty cold in the schoolroom as well...we are still trying to figure out how to get that room warm! I think we need a bigger heater!)

At the firs of last week we put water in two jars and marked the levels.  We then put a lid on only one jars.  We then observed a few days later the water levels (and due to the cooler temps not much had evaporated from the open jar...but at least some did :-) )

We then took those jars of water and added salt to one and oil to other and observed how the salt dissolved but that the the water and oil did not mix.

Look at Seth's face.  He really wanted that oil and water to mix!  He tried really hard...but of course to no avail :-)

We are doing insects this week (I HATE BUGS!)  It is going to be an interesting week :-)

Seeking Jesus this CHRISTmas Season

I recently purchased 'My Faith Box' for each of my children!  If you have not heard of this click here to find out more!  This is an AWESOME notebook put together for you to journal your children's spiritual journey!

This notebook has a section on wonderful ideas to do at the different holidays during the year.  I fell in love with one of the ideas in the Christmas section and we started a new tradition this year!

One of the ideas was an idea to help keep the true focus of Christmas - seeking the Christ child.  The idea is to, at the beginning of the Christmas season, put your nativity scene up.  Make this a family event.

Focus on the Baby Jesus and why his birth is so important.  Emphasize that he is the reason for the season.

And then every day during the Christmas season hide the baby Jesus and have your kids go find him.  It is an every day reminder that we are to continually seek Christ during this season.

(our first hiding spot)

As soon as I read this idea in that book I knew this was a tradition that we were definitely going to start!  What an awesome object lesson!!

And I wanted to go ahead and blog about it today in case you would like to start this tradition this year as well!  :-)

God bless!

Our Start to the Christmas Season

From the time my kids were born I have had a desire to make sure that they know the true meaning of Christmas, that they realize that Christmas is a whole lot more about giving than it is getting.

So, to get us off on the "right track" this Christmas season we did a project yesterday.  I gave the boys a big black bag and told them that since they were going to be getting a bunch of new toys for Christmas it was time to clean out their current toys.  I told them that there are boys and girls that don't have any toys and they needed to go through their toys and figure out what they would be willing to give up and give to children that were not as fortunate as them.

I have to say I am very proud of my boys!  They did an awesome job with this and we ended up with a full black trash bag of toys to give to kids less fortunate!

Way to go boys!