15 December 2012

ABC Scripture Book

A few months back while I was scrolling through
my pinterest stuff, I found a book for 
kids that had scriptures that started with each letter of the alphabet.
I was pretty excited, since I thought it would be useful to use 
in our homeschool and preschool activities.
But when I went to the site, she did indeed have 26 different scriptures, but
they didn't all use the King James Version of the Bible.
Which is kind of an issue for me.
So I decided to make my own.

And since I love a free printable as much as anyone,
I'm putting it here to share.
What I did with mine was laminate them, cut them up, and then
punch a hole in the top left corner, then stick them 
on a big ring.  We keep them with our other homeschool stuff and
use each scripture for one week.

Oh, and since I made my own, I included scriptures from the Book of Mormon.
And they are not in order.
But each letter is there.
You can find them HERE.
Enjoy!
 
Also, this is my first time providing a printable.
If you encounter a problem, please let me know
so I can fix it.

What will you use them for?

14 December 2012

It's Sinking In

I've read enough homeschooling blogs to know that every now and then 
something happens and you know that your 
kids are understanding what they are learning.
And not the letters/numbers stuff, but the retention of history and other things that
aren't as tangible.

My first major insight into this phenomenon was today,
just a few minutes ago.

I was vacuuming the house, which takes awhile, since half of it 
is carpet.  And the girls were upstairs/downstairs doing whatever they were doing.
Then as I turned off the vacuum and headed to the next room,
I heard my 5-year-old say to the 2-year-old that
they needed to run from the Nazis.

This morning we read the last chapter of the book 
Twenty and Ten by Claire Huchet Bishop,
which is an historical fiction book about 20 French school children
who hide 10 Jewish children during WW2.

I highly recommend it.
It's only 5 chapters long, nothing too traumatic happens
(we are doing a Kindergarten curriculum), and a really good read.
Before we read it, I just told the kids a sentence or two about Nazis, 
about how they weren't very nice and tried to kill people, even children.
And we read it a chapter or two at a time, as we followed along with our curriculum.

Thank you, Sonlight!

12 December 2012

Rainbow Birthday Party

I tried to avoid it.
But when my daughter came up with the theme of
rainbows for her birthday, I gave in.
And of course it was fun.
I'm not sure why I didn't want to do it, but I'm glad that I didn't try
to talk her out of it (well, at least not much).

And it's kind of embarrassing that it has taken me so long to 
post the pictures, since she's been 5 for a couple months already.
But my excuse is that I forgot my camera and had
to use a friend's phone to get pictures (which is why we only have some
before pics), and then I forgot to download them
to the computer after they were emailed to me.

But here they are, without any further ado...

 The food table

 The cake table

 The top cupcake, for the birthday girl

 The whole scene...my parent's backyard

 The birthday banner I made a few years ago & the rainbow paper chain

 Rainbow cupcakes in a jar (her choice) and some rainbow
Rice Krispie treats in a jar for the gluten/dairy free crowd

 Daddy's special birthday cake

 Rainbow water bottles

And the rainbow pinata!
I made it out of a shoe box.
And since I'm not a big fan of beating pinatas, I made it a pull-tab one.
And since the kids were all little, we made sure that they each had a ribbon 
to pull on at the same time.
We filled it with fruit snacks and homemade gluten & dairy free cookies.

03 December 2012

December holidays

Tomorrow is
National cookie day!
We are celebrating by having some
friends over to decorate and eat some cookies.
And since it's also
National Cookie Cutter Week
We are making cutout cookies.  I think we will go with
gingerbread and sugar cookies.

Wednesday is
Bathtub party day,
so I guess if you can't celebrate cookie day you 
could have a bathtub party.

Friday is 
National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.