Is he cute or what?

Talking to Papa!

Ancient Egypt....YUM!

In history, we have been learning all about ancient Egypt. So we decided it would be fun to make a cookie dough map of all the places we have been visiting.

The boys really enjoyed this project!

We used blue frosting for the Nile River and the Red Sea.

The green frosting was the fertile "black land" created by the inundation.

Hersheys Kisses=The Great Pyramids & Sphynx

M &M's= different cities along the Nile

Chocolate Chips= The Valley of the Kings

Noah's finished product, which as soon as this photo was taken, decided to add to it to make the imaginary village of "Acatare"! LOL!



Here is Micah's masterpiece....as you can tell by the chocolate on his face, he ate as much as he placed on his map!

Blubber Experiment

We have been learning about polar animals for the past couple of weeks. I found an experiment about blubber in Janice VanCleave's Science around the Year Book.

We put shortening (blubber) in one hand and placed ice on top. Then we put ice in our other hand with no blubber.

Guess which hand was the first to get cold!

The polar bears, penguins, and whales are in good shape.

Isn't God smart???

Grandma's Been Babysitting!

Snowflakes

Today we read all about snow and made some coffee filter snowflakes. Didnt they turn out pretty!

After dinner, we made snowflake tortillas. You cut the tortilla just like a paper snowflake and then fry it.

After it is done, you spray it with a little butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Yum!!!!!!!!

And just for us, this is what it has been doing outside all day long!



What a great way to start our Polar Lands & Animals Unit!!!

Snow

Here are few books we have been reading about snow.

This book by Janice VanCleave has several experiments with snow. It has lots of fun and easy ideas to try! We also are going to try a couple of experiments later in the month on Polar Bear Paws & How Penguins Stay Warm.

My Word for 2009

Some of the ladies over on the FIAR and HSS message boards decided instead of making New Years Resolutions to choose a word to focus on throughout the year.

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So after much deliberation, I have decided my word for this year with be

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PURPOSEFUL

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I have spent alot of time over the last several days thinking about what it means to be purposeful.

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Here is what the dictionary has to say:

to intend, resolve, or plan; to resolutely aim at a specific goal; not meaningless

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Okay, so then I checked it out in the Thesaurus.

Synonyms for Purpose : aim, aspiration, goal, intention, objective

Antonyms: accident, fate, hazard

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Alright so I began to think of some adjectives to show what I wanted my PURPOSEFULNESS to look like.

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Vigorous, Persistant, Steadfast, Forceful, Stubborn, Tenacious ohhh, I like that last one....so I did a little word study

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Tenacity-Persistant in maintaining, adhering to or seeking something valued or desired.

Synonyms for Tenacity: Perserverance, Persistance, Steadfastness

Antonyms: idleness, Laziness, Sloth

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Alright, so I want to be Vigorous, Persistant, Steadfast, Forceful, & Tenaciously

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Purposeful in

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My Relationships

Our Home

Our Homeschool

Our Health

Our Finances

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So now I am the process of looking at what our purpose in each of these areas really looks like and what God has to say about it.

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I mean you cant be purposeful unless you know exactly what your purpose is. Right????

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I think this will be my verse for the year. I think it goes along perfectly with what the Lord is trying to teach me this year.

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1 Corinthians 15:58 (New American Standard Bible)

58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

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Wow, this is going to be good!

Polar Lands & Animals

We are going to be spending the month of January studying Polar Lands & Animals.

The first week we will be learning all about the Arctic Circle, Antarctica, Alaska, & Canada.

Here are a few of the books we will be using:

We will be rowing this title from FIAR.

We will be using The Three Snow Bears unit from HSS

The Polar Animals Lapbook from HSS


The Baby in the Basket Unit from HSS




We will spend one full week learning about Polar Bears.

The following week we will be finding out more about Penguins.

Some other resources we will be using are:

Enchanted Learning
Jan Brett's Website

DLTK's Winter Games and Puzzles

North Pole Igloo Cake

Arctic Info for Kids

Candace's Alaska Unit

Happy New Year! Pt 2

Bag #4 had M&M's inside and some game pieces.

Let’s go to the table ... Now please stay awake, How about some sugar for goodness sake! Let’s play a board game for a minute or so, Only 6 more hours to go!

We opened the next bag at 9pm.

By now it’s time for some laughs and a movie. Has this been fun? Has this been groovy? Let’s all grab a spot and start the show, Let’s eat popcorn…. 1, 2, 3 … GO!

This is the movie we watched:

At 11pm we opened the next bag. Here is the clue:

2008 is almost gone and it has been great, write down some goals and a memory to celebrate!

Inside was a list of questions to fill out.

We did this last year so we talked about our previous years answers.

Josh’s List of Favorites 2008

Favorite Book: __________________________________________
Favorite Movie:_________________________________________
Favorite Song:__________________________________________
Favorite TV Show:_______________________________________
Favorite Memory:________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Something I Learned:_____________________________________
Something I am Thankful For:______________________________
_____________________________________________________
Something I Would Like to Do this Year:_______________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
My Word for 2009 is:__________________________________

I am _________tall and weigh________pounds.

The final bag was opened at 11:45. Inside was noisemakers, necklaces, fireworks.

The time is finally near! We ring in the New YearWith balloons, confetti and cheer! So get out yourNoisemakers, blow up those balloons, 2009 will be here soon!

Happy New Year to you and yours!!!!

Happy New Year!!!! Pt 1

This is the second year we have done used this idea on New Years Eve. The boys loved it last year and wanted to do it again this year.

I printed off some clock faces and labeled them for every hour. Each bag has a riddle and some goodies inside. We had a total of 7 bags.

This is the first bag they opened. Here is the riddle:

The countdown is on 10, 9, 8….this day is going to be just great! Can you guess what we’re making to start off the fun?The ingredients include Pepperoni, sauce and cheese. This combination is sure to please!

In the 2nd bag, there were beans, markers, paper plates and sparklers.

It’s time to get loud, its time to get brite, or we might not stay up for this long, happy night. With markers and beans a noisemaker we will shape, and then with the sparklers we will celebrate!

Bag #3 had chocolate syrup and cherries inside.

Chocolate, Strawberry, Carmel, & more
Lets share either sundaes or floats
and memories galore!

To be continued!