All Saints Day 2013

Finally posting our wonderful All Saints Day party!  Every year I say it was the best one yet :)

Captain - St Thomas More

Rex - Blessed Jose Luis

Tot - St Juan Diego

The boys had a blast!  We added some new games this year and the night was wonderful.  We began with Mass for the Holy Day on All Hallows Eve, then had a yummy potluck.  Afterwards we always do 'guess the saint' then the litany of the saints...

Some of the games...

 ***always a favorite!!

 Tot couldn't hack not grabbing the doughnut!

 Rex's face looked like this the rest of the night :)

 St Peter's fishing booth (candy on the end).

'Practicing the virtues of the saints" - different little activities to do at each station...(each one had a sign, such as "Clothe the naked like St Martin de Tours" , 'Give drink to the thirsty like Mother Teresa" with a pitcher and water)

 "Give money to the poor like St Nicholas"

 "Help build the church like St Francis"

 "Feed the hungry like St Elizabeth of Hungary"

Tot couldn't clothe the naked, so he just was hugging her :)

 St Anthony's lost and found...

One mother did a wonderful jack o lantern activity with the kids....she compared the process of carving it to the process of being sanctified....clearing away the filth, filling with God's light, etc :)

Beautiful!

...and Tot ended the night with St Maxmillian Kolbe's glasses on :)

First lapbooks of the year!

The boys have each finished their first lapbooks of the year and wanted to share.

Tot did a Hermie and Wormie tot book :) He loves the Max Lucado characters and their movies!

Rex did a Knights lapbook...

 He really liked lining up the timeline...

Captain is doing Confession of a Homeschooler's Scientists and Inventors study this year.  We take about a month for each inventor and complete the lapbook. We purchased all of the books for each (he LOVES this series.  They are very informative and have funny cartoons too.  He reads them over and over.  We used them for artists last year and are using the composers for co-op this year.) We finished the first one last week...

That's all for today!  God bless :)

Montessori At Home: Land, Air, Water

We started to do some Montessori activities this year and I'm hoping to add many more as the years go on.  The more I learn about it, the more I love it.  My goal is to make one Montessori DIY project a month.  There are many good websites to learn from.

Here's one I put together last month.  It's a Land, Air, Water mat.  I pieced it together out of the yards and yards of scrap felt I have in the attic.  It seems so simple...almost unnecessary. But as tot plays with it, I realize all the little things he's learning from it.

I only put some animals from the Down Under Safari LTD toob in and some puzzle pieces we have of vehicles.  He places them where they go. 

It's fun to talk about it as he does it....watching his thinking patterns and improving vocabulary.

I also printed out some Land, Air, Water cards from Montessori Print Shop.  For only 2.79 they're nice.  I laminated them for future use.  We took 3 jelly jars and went outside to fill one with land (dirt), one with water and the 'empty' with air.  He was very interested.  Then I lined them up and he placed the correct cards under the correct column.

Also a great time to talk about each item.

 

We've pulled it out a few times since.  It's neat to see the mistakes he made in the beginning and to watch his understanding now :)

Asia Continent Box and challenge!

Last year I tried to put together some continent boxes and study one continent per month.  Well, it only lasted about 3 continents!!!  Such is life.  So this year I'm hoping to accomplish it!  I saw Carissa's Continent Box Challenge and thought the kids would love it....and was I right!  So much more exciting to have a 'challenge'!  They can earn prizes for filling in X number of boxes.  I didn't want to spend money on prizes so they're easy like "2 hours computer time", "candy bag" (to eat as fast or slow as they want - put together by mom of course), and the highest is "2 nights up late"!  They LOVED it :)  Funny how exciting the little things are :)  I couldn't get Carissa's pdf's to be rewritable, so my husband made me blank templates to fill in.

I would love to collect items from various continents over the years, because we don't have any now...just books and activities...

Captain has to fill in all boxes to get the top prize, and Rex less.  The boxes range from super easy (find on globe, color a flag)  

to more time consuming (completing pin map).

I got most of my printables from Montessori Print Shop and some others elsewhere free online.

Tot always wants in on the action so here he is matching up the Asian animal 3 part cards.

That's all the pictures I got of our Asia study :)  I am using it alongside Erica's Expedition Earth for Captain.  We love it. They even get a passport with their picture on it and we stamp each country we 'visit'  Each week we focus on a different country and the continents last about 6 weeks so it's perfect! It helps involve the other two in learning about the continents.  Honestly, if I tried to get them to do "extra school" without the challenge, no one would want to! Of course :)  But the challenge makes it exciting to earn prizes :)  It's some work on my part, but I'll keep it from year to year so it's worth it! Fun, fun, fun...

Fall fun!

I thought I'd post two more fall activites we did :)  A fun, easy craft and our little sensory bin.  I have so many posts I'd like to do.  We have next week off, so I'm hoping to catch up for a few days!

I found this craft at www.1plus1plus1equals1.net and thought it looked easy (and cheap!).  It was! The kids loved it and it only cost $2! Yeah!  It's also my prettiest fall table decorations yet!

We started out with a little cardboard for the base, a paper towel tube sliced at the top of bottom, and brown paint.  I hot glue gunned the tree on the cardboard....the top slices are branches.  They painted the tree brown and let it dry for a few hours.

Then we glued on our leaves (two packs from Dollar Tree).

Captain got to use the hot glue gun for the first time.  He sure liked that.

Voila!  

Here's our sensory bin... very simple.

Separating chestnuts and acrons.  We've since put them out on the porch and fed the squirrels for the winter!

More to come soon...promise ;)