Boggle Jr. Games

So I am planning for next week's return to workboxes and serious school time. While I was writing up plans last night I decided to focus on word families a little more in hopes of helping Cameron with reading and inspiring fun learning for Nathan. We are starting out United States unit that will last about 25 weeks (2 states per week).  I finally decide to do the states in Alphabetical order for simplicity and also to work on Alphabetical order with the boys.  Alabama and Alaska will be the first 2 states. I decided we will do word families _at  and _ad during the week as well.  I had planned on making word family cards using Sherwin Williams paint swatch cards I picked up while dreaming on new house colors (they already had a hole punched in them for a block). I traced the word family letters onto 2 of the cards and began playing with the Boggle jr cubes.  After a couple of minutes Nathan joined me and told me it would be easier if we just used the game board that comes with the blocks.  So the Boggle jr. game 'board' is now housing --at and --ad blocks ready for next week's lessons.. ( I picked up Boggle jr. at Goodwill and actually ended up with 2 games so each of the boys will be able to work on the word families at the same time. Might even make a game/ contest out of it)

Other than traditional Boggle jr. rules, have you played games using the cubes or the board? I would love to hear any other uses for these fun blocks and boards.

400th Unit coming soon giveaway

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time you probably know we love In the Hands of a Child. I love their project packs in both lapbooking and notebooking, mostly for the fact that I don't have to do the research to teach the unit, everything is there for me already. I also have a Lifetime Super Membership and love getting 2 free units each month. I know I won't use every single unit, but the variety is great and the differing levels make it possible to use some of the older graded items to add to the younger units.

To celebrate the upcoming 400th unit In the Hands of a Child is offering a giveaway to one lucky reader.  One lucky reader will win a bundle pack of their choice from In the Hands of a Child.

Here's what you need to do:

Head over the In the Hands of a Child and sign up for their newsletter (you can also download the current freebies while you are there..)

Come back and comment here that you did that. (1 entry)

Next create a wishlist of your top 5 choices and comment here with the list. (1 entry)

Drawing will be held on January 3rd. All comments must be in by January 2, 2011 .

Advent half way point.

Since I only bought one Advent calendar from Learning Palace I decided to hold it until 12 nights before Christmas so each boy will open a door tonight.  UnvlDad picked the advent calendar out when we went shopping last month and picked the Knights and Dragon one (not Mom's first choice but the boys are excited).

Last night we added another element to our Advent evenings, A Hymn of The Week from Raising Real Men, Melanie has a wonderful daily lesson to go with a Christmas Carol, this week is  "O Come All Ye Faithful", a wonderful song. She has a classical piece of art to go with the lesson as well as all the verses in English and Latin.  After our reading last night I moved us to the piano and played the song for the boys then read the lesson and showed them the picture... They weren't as excited as I had hoped but they are only 5 and 8 so I can only hope this will set a foundation for years to come. During our reading last night  Cameron actually took part in the discussion and added his only little angle to the readings from Isaiah. It opened the door to further discussion that I hope will continue tonight.

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.