Advent Night 1

We found a great Advent reading to use this year.
Anyway, since the budget is tight this year I decided to use what I had for candles, 3 burgandy and 1 white. After dinner we all sat at the table while Mike read John 1: 1-18 and the boys squirmed alot. Mike got so into the reading that he kept going. I told him I thought he read too far and he laughed and said he could never read too far in the Bible (good point). Anyway, we talked about "The Light of the World" and then sang some Carols around the piano. Tomorrow we will do a couple of Light themed art pictures and a copy-work from the scripture for school, then read night 2 after dinner.

Christmas Shopping or rather planning for..

Today I met my mom in town and she took the boys for the weekend, so I decided to do a little Christmas Shopping/ planning.. I stopped by 2 local stores and spent almost an hour thinking about what I could get for some of the family.
The art store seemed like it had something for so many people on our list... It was fun to try out the different pens, look through the art instruction books as well as the Dover books, and check out the various paint mediums... I enjoyed visiting with the mom of the owner... I then ventured next door to a wonderful yarn store... While I did not purchase anything I did look at several books on crocheting that would be great editions to my collection and found a fun instructional book for the boys (yes my boys want to learn to crochet and I will teach them... they can learn to make their own hats and socks... why not???)

Anyway, it was a fun afternoon thinking about things that will bless our family through art and craft..

Hanukkah 2010, Advent Activities, and our #workboxes

After I posted our plans for Advent calendar activities I started searching for a couple things and had the idea I should be searching for Hanukkah things as well to save myself some time. Then the streamliner in me thought I should blend the school activities and include the Hanukkah activities in the Advent calendar pocket chart...So now I'm searching for Messianic themed Hanukkah activities.

I think I've found a couple good ideas... I will gather pennies (I think I  can put the boys onto searching the house for pennies) for driedel games.  I found 3 recipes (beef brisket, cheese wafers, and potato latkes) that the boys can help make (might even try our hand at jelly donuts).  I found some good coloring pages and have some Creative Memories stickers from my past life as a consultant (2 or 3 different styles) that I can have the boys use to make ATCs as well as some other art projects.   I would love to find some good verses for them to work on as well..

I am going to create 2 word lists for their journal work and them some count down math activities and such... I think we will go back and work on +8 facts for Hanukkah and then combinations that add up to 24 (I'm not sure on that one though.)

It will be a fun filled month though.. and probably more schooling then we have done in a while..

Advent Calendar Planning and workboxes.

(if you are a subscriber I'm sorry for the multiple postings today, but I'm playing catch up)

I'm planning activites for the boys for the Holiday Season including Advent Calendar activities. I'm thinking that I will have several different ones going and incorporate them into our workboxes. We've been pretty relaxed in school the past couple weeks  (the boys and I just weren't getting into the way we should  have, so I basically worked with an unschooling mentality for a couple weeks...)

I received a link to another blog with a great list of activities for Advent.. The Activity Mom has great printable and downloadable activities for the Advent season.

I am printing the cards 1/2 size and on my shipping labels, the boys will be able to attached the card to a piece of card stock (another workbox activity) and help with the prep work for the "calendar". I think we will make a paper Christmas tree and "hang" the ornament cards on it...

We will also using a Playmobil Advent calendar, I'm thinking I will also get them a Santa Playmobil character, although I had thought of getting the Nativity, but still undecided...



 

I do know we will be working through the current Hands of a Child  $5 special, Symbols of Christmas, we will do a couple vocabulary each day and 1 or 2 additional activities. If you are interested in doing this unit, grab your copy before Wednesday the 17th when it will go back to the regular price.

Veteran's Day Special

Hands of a Child is offering a great Veteran's Day Special. I haven't completed this units but I'm considering purchasing them for our library to work up later with the boys...

In Honor of Vetrans Day we would like you to enjoy three great Project Packs,
Unites States Air Force, United States Navy, and U.S. Army First Infantry Division. Use this coupon code: VETERANS 2010 and recieve 40% off. Hurry and do it soon this Coupon Expires 11/15! Hope you enjoy and have a great weekend!

 



and don't miss the currently weekly $5.00 project pack, Symbols of Christmas (we will be working on this one next month as part of our Advent Activities)

Project Gutenberg

 

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

If you haven't tried Project Gutenberg yet, you need to try it... With HTML, PDF, EPUB, and even TXT formats you are bound to find a format that will work for you..

Most if not all the books listed are public domain and are a wonderful option for the tight budget that so many of us are on.



When I was blessed with a Nook during e-book week earlier this year I started uploading all kinds of pdf files to my new toy... Tonight I realized if I uploaded EPUB format I could use all the features of the NOOK. I was even more excited to find several books I am currently reading (The Desire of Ages, The Great Controversy, and several others) all available in EPUB format.. now I can read the books and make notes without carry a huge book bag everywhere.

Rainy Trip to the Beach.

Today my husband and I headed to the beach for our anniversary (10/20).. It started out ok, overcast, but ended up windy and rainy (not uncommon for Oregon beaches in October)... Anyway, we made a day of it stopping in Lincoln City at my friend's scrapbook store (Stacy's Scrap Shack), then heading south stopping at most of the view points along the way to enjoy the waves and views. We stopped in Depot Bay and watched the spouting horn for a while, then countinued down US 101... We detoured off the highway onto the Otter Crest Trail and stopped at the Lookout and Gift Shop, where I got a history lesson... Cape Foul-weather (yes that is it's name) gift shop (it was built as as Gift Shop in the 1920's) was actually used by the US Navy as a lookout during WWII and at one point what was thought to be an enemy sub was fired on from a Navy blimp (turned out to be a grey whale... poor guy)...
We continued our journey down 101 to the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport before turning around and heading back to Lincoln City to meet up with some friends (we did meet up with them for a couple minutes in a rainy parking lot...)
Long story short, I am excited to start planning our unit study of WWII with an Oregon Twist... There is so much WWII history in Oregon..