Ideas for November

Today between trying to convince a three year old that learning to read is both fun, and important, convince a seven year old that finishing his "school" work early leaves him the rest of the day for playing, and reading, I am printing out next months unit studies we are going to do two A Thankful Thanksgiving and 25 Days of Thanksgiving lapbook, I am reading Sakuntala and Indian play, I am making dinner crock-pot potato soup, and finally I am looking for some great ideas for a whole month of Giving Thanks. It is a lot more multitasking then I can really handle so as long as you don't look into the fact that cleaning is not on the list for today I think we will be fine on this little adventure. Besides it is all of November school work for both boys, so everything works out nicely.

 I found a neat craft here http://thecraftingchicks.com/2010/10/thankful-tree.html called the Thankful tree. You gather some pretty branches and put them into a vase decorated or not (I am going to buy some pretty autumn leaves from hobby lobby, and maybe some ribbon. Maybe I will buy some pretty ribbon and tell the boys in my life That Moms are girls and we like pretty things to look at.) then you print out leaves, or buy some already printed leaves and have the whole family write what they are thankful for on a leaf and tie it on the the branch with ribbon or tape or maybe just glue it. I love the idea that the whole family does this together. I will take pictures when I get everything together. Maybe I can be Thankful for the Whole month of November.

The units studies and lapbooks, I am excited to start these. Everyday is a bible verse about being thankful, and everyday the boys will get to think of things that they are thankful for for 25 days. This is the lapbook. The unit study is about pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to doing both of these with the boys. Here is the link to where you can find them http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=43106&it=1&filters=0_30558_0_0_0_0_0
http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=25801&it=1&filters=0_30558_0_0_0_0_0
Right now Currclick is having a trunk or treat sell where you can find deals for up to 75% off on a lot of wonderful unit studies and lapbooks. http://www.currclick.com/index.php

Back to Sakuntala for me. I hope you have a wonderful week filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

It's a pirate life. . .

Having boys is like being on a pirate ship, there is always an adventure to be had, fighting, screaming, weird songs, and most of the time a buried treasure. So when homeschool became a chore and Captain Damian no beard would cry and fight and poke out his own eye to wear an eye patch I decided it was time for a break. Then I had a brilliant idea (sometimes I do that. it is rare but it happens.) Pirate Week which turned into two weeks of my kind of learning. Damian was excited to do his lessons every morning, he was more then happy to read all of those seafaring adventures that you find in Classic literature. For awhile the peace was kept among all of the crew. It all started with an email from http://www.currclick.com/ and it had pirate unit studies and as soon as I saw that email I knew what to do. I ordered two unit studies one for both boys.

This is what homeschooling looks like around my house.

Damian working on his unit study. Cutting out, coloring, and answering questions based on his book.

 This is James matching capital letter pirates to their lower case letter parrots.

 These two buccaneers know how to work together.

 My only complaint about the preschool unit study I have is that it focused on counting. Only one letter activity, and a million number activities.

 James filled in the blanks to complete the number line.

 With a little help from his brother.

 This is what Damian's finished lapbook looked like.

 As you can imagine he is very proud of it.

I only wish he had colored the pictures in but it was his decision.

Yesterday we started back with the old curriculum and it wasn't fun. It was work. More importantly Damian regular "school" work is an online curriculum. I missed seeing him being excited about doing his school work, and willing to read classic stories. Most of the time I feel very seperate from his online schooling, really I just check to see what he has done, and how he did. So I downloaded another unit study or two. We are starting Charlie and the Chocolate factory by Roald Dahl which is set up as notebooking. Twenty chapters, twenty lessons in twenty days. I will let you know how I like notebooking when we finish.  James is going back to learning a letter every week or two. This week he starts C. He is making a letter book one page at a time. I do love homeschooling! Now to get Damian to practise piano.

I hope your week is filled with happy learning, love and laughter!