Preparation Education – Page 25 – Preparing for higher education in the school above.

A New Family Member!

December 17, 2008November 4, 2010prayingmother

My husband and I have been dragging our feet for years about getting our kids a pet. I’m already so busy, you know. Well, we finally gave in and agreed for the grandparents to get them a pet for Christmas. They and she safely arrived yesterday and we’ve had constant entertainment since. The kids are in love with her. They even went and bought her some outfits. So now they can see if she’ll be agreeable to dress-up. But she’s not a cat, she’s a dog, so they’re going to have to work hard at it. She’s not just any ole’ laid back dog either, she’s a Jack Russell, and let me tell you she has energy.

Now don’t you think she’s the cutest thing you ever saw?

Here are some pictures of three very happy children with their new pet. (They had just had grape juice before these were taken, hence the smiles.)

John Deere Boy loves the dog, but he’s getting over having a little fear, because she knows how to nip his toes. He loves to play with a little ping-pong like ball with her.

G’tums is excited to hold her and play with her, but he isn’t quite sure what’s okay and what’s not. He finally decided it was okay for her to stick her nose on his cheeks so they’re going to make it now, I think.

Zippy is thrilled. She was has been telling me for a week that the only thing she wants for her birthday is a dog. That’s not until March, so she got it even earlier. She’s pretty sure she knows everything about dogs, since she’s been wanting one so bad. She’ll be busy because she’s the one who will have to feed and water the dog and take it out and all that kind of stuff.

Oh, I almost forgot, her name is Sadie.

Let it Snow!

December 15, 2008May 3, 2012prayingmother

I live in a place where the almanac claims that it supersedes 90F 4 days a year and it stays below freezing 4 days a year. Well, I can’t always understand the whole global warming thing, because since we’ve lived here, the almanac has been about right on the over 90F part, but we’ve had more freezes than that. I know global warming is a complicated theory and I’m looking at it simplistically, but let me just say that it’s freezing here right now. It’s the 3rd day in a row to not get above freezing. So we’ll see if the almanac proves true this year, but the weather better cooperate soon! With all that said, we don’t get a lot of freezes probably not more than two weeks a year and it doesn’t stay below freezing all day long all of those days either, so maybe the almanac is right, I don’t know. Anyway, according to our kids we don’t get near enough snow, so when it comes, it is very special. It snowed here Friday night and we still have snow. And we’re supposed to get more later in the week.

The only problem with this whole pictures is that my in-laws are supposed to be driving half-way across the country this week to see us, and I wish the weather would smile on them. We’re all so anxious for them to arrive.

Since we are having fun in the snow, here are a few pictures.

Let me tell you what I discovered yesterday about this weather–it is very time consuming. Since we get it so rarely the hats and the mittens and the snow pants are all packed away and not necessarily together. And then since we don’t have it too often we don’t have a dedicated spot for this stuff that is handy to get to, so I either leave half of it on the floor in the entry or I put it all way back. So yesterday, when the kids went out to play, it took me 1 hour to get them all dressed and my toddler was cold within 30 minutes after going out. Oh, well it was worth it!

Here is my toddler all bundled up.

Let it snow!!

Thanksgiving Lapbooks

December 10, 2008November 4, 2010prayingmother

I’m finally getting our Thanksgiving Lapbooks posted on here. Thanksgiving came at the right time this year! We had just finished studying Jamestown so studying about the Pilgrims was the next chronological thing.

The books we read on this subject were Squanto And The Miracle Of Thanksgiving, Stories of the Pilgrims, The Thanksgiving Story and we continued reading This Country of Ours.

The books we got most of our printouts from for our lapbooks were History Pockets, Life in Plymouth Colony and Easy Make and Learn Projects: The Pilgrims, the Mayflower and More. We got one printout from daniellesplace.com and we used some of the timeline figures from Amy Pak. We also used some stickers that we picked up at Michael’s in the scrapbook section.

Here is Zippy and her Thanksgiving Lapbook:

Be sure to check out her whole set of pictures on Flickr as she has some really neat pop-ups in this lapbook that she did a really great job on. You can see her set by clicking here.

Now here is John Deere Boy and his Thanksgiving Lapbook:

We hope that you will be able to take the time to see his pictures, at least his interactive map on Flickr. You can do that by clicking here. He is very fortunate to have had his lapbook displayed on the Thanksgiving Lapbook lens on Squidoo by Jimmie.

And because I know somebody is dying to know what his shirt says, since it shows out from under his lapbook, I will tell you. It says: "When it comes to education, there’s no school like home." We got it at our homeschool convention last summer.

Birthday Boy

December 8, 2008November 4, 2010prayingmother

We had a very happy birthday in our home this weekend. John Deere Boy turned 6. His Grandma and Grandpa were able to drive all the way over from the other side of the state to spend the weekend with us then celebrate with us.

He received gum from his sister. An educational game from his grandparents and lots of Legos from his mommy and daddy and his other grandparents. He got to go to the Lego store and pick out his present this time. That was real highlight! He’s been busy building his town ever since.

Happy Birthday John Deere Boy!

To the Zoo with Cousins

December 3, 2008prayingmother

We were privileged to get to go to the zoo with family the day before Thanksgiving. (This is getting up late, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.) I never know which is more fun at the zoo: watching the animals or watching the kids. They had so much fun especially since they had cousins to go with.

One funny thing happened. I was hanging behind with my husband because he was trying to take some pictures of the ducks and all the kids (six, ages 8 and under) ran ahead with my sister-in-law. A mom with one child came through the doors as we were going out. They had just seen our little mob. The little girl was looking up at her mom saying, "Mom, why does that lady (my sister-in-law) have so many kids?" I had to chuckle.

I still had to regularly count all the kids to make sure that we had six of them with us. G’tums has this very bad habit of wandering off. Sometimes I can be standing there calling and calling him, but something else has his attention and he doesn’t hear me. Anyway, even though we did have to chase him down a few times, we had the best helpers–his older cousins. They kept really good track of him.

The favorite thing at the Portland Zoo is feeding the Lorikeets. The kids love it. I’m not too sure about it, because there is no shelter to hide from the birds and I’ve been bombed before in their cage. This time we all made it out safely.

This is one of the pictures of the ducks that my husband managed. It’s my favorite shot from the day.

Smith Rock–a walk with Daddy

December 1, 2008prayingmother

Our vacation was enjoyable and refreshing. In fact, a couple of days ago I was introducing myself to a lady who knew one of my siblings and as I chatted with her, she asked me if I had started a family yet. I told her that we have three children and introduced them to her. She said, "Oh! You’re so young!" I decided my vacation must have done a lot of good, if I look too young to have started a family! I’m not going to ask anybody else for their opinions. Thank you very much!

I want to share a few of the things we got to do while we were gone. (Besides doing math in the car.) We went to walk at a really neat place called Smith Rock. It is located in Central Oregon and is a favorite attraction for rock climbers. Actually, it’s considered the birthplace of modern American sport climbing. It has climbing faces for every expertise and has miles of trails that wind around it. The Crooked River runs around the bottom of it. We’re not much of rock climbers, but we like to take walks in nice places and this definitely qualified.

G’tums fell asleep right when we got there, so I stayed in the car. So it turned into a nice time for Daddy and the two big kids to spend together.

They hiked for quite awhile and got a nice view of this massive rock. They got to climb in a little cave.

Why is it that hiking somewhere far from home is so much more fun than at home? It always is. Someday maybe we’ll learn how to be rock-climbers and go back! At least, that’s what JD Boy hopes.

Impromptu Nature Study — Wood Ducks

November 25, 2008prayingmother

We’re on vacation! Yeah! That’s why not a lot is getting posted on my blog, but we’ve had some really nice learning opportunities while on vacation. We always do. Maybe it’s because we’re more relaxed, so we notice when the learning opportunities just pop up. Anyway, my husband discovered that one of the parks here had a family of Wood Ducks in it. I’d never seen them before and neither had the kids, so we were very excited to go see them.

Wood Ducks are one of the most amazing birds. If you’ve ever seen any video about them, you already know how fascinating they are. They build their nests in hollows of trees and then their ducklings have to jump out of the tree and walk/waddle sometimes up to a mile to where the water is. That can be a very dangerous trek for the little ducks, but they’re not extinct, so it must work. We were already interested in these birds from seeing them on the outstanding Life of Birds video series narrated by David Attenborough. (Not a Creationist series.) Now we got to see them in real life in their natural habitat.

Here is picture of the kids and me at the park:

A picture of one of these absolutely beautiful birds:

JD Boy said after we were done watching them, that he wishes he could always do nature study. Me too!

Zippy drew a picture of the Wood Duck to add to her nature journal. Here it is:

Toddler Painting

November 17, 2008February 27, 2012prayingmother

I just have to share this. My toddler made his own first painting. I’m not usually into modern art, but I just think this is so pretty. He loves to do things when his big sis and big bro are. He always wants to “do school”. For about five minutes, that is. Anyway, they were painting the other day and he made his own.

Here is his creation.

Pocahontas & John Smith Lapbook

November 16, 2008November 4, 2010prayingmother

These lapbooks were simple, but they were especially fun because the children came up with what they wanted in them themselves. I, of course, had to help, but I let them design them and choose everything themselves. We just searched in Google images for most of the clipart and we had fun. (Unless noted artwork was from Google images.)

The books that we read on the subject were This Is Our Country, Pocahontas by Ingri and Edgar D’Aulaire, What If You’d Been at Jamestown? and The Double Life of Pocahontas by Jean Fritz.

Here is the cover of John Deere Boy’s (age 5) lapbook. It is a picture that he colored out of the Pocahontas coloring book by Dover Publications.

The inside:

His map: (from knowledgequestmaps.com)

Jamestown book cover: (from US History Little Books: Famous Places)

The inside of his Jamestown book is a photo of him holding the 3-D model that he made of Jamestown. (From Homeschool in the Woods. I can’t promise that link will always work as it was for the Jamestown anniversary.)

All of the rest of his mini-books were accordion style. Here is the one on John Smith. (The pictures in this were taken from the Pocahontas coloring book by Dover Publications.)

His book on Chief Powhatan:

His book on the Powhatan Indians:

Last but not least, is his book on Pocahontas. It is long. (I hope it fits on the screen.) He found several pictures to put in it. He carefully put them all in chronological order.

This is a drawing that he did on the back of his lapbook. It is a whole story, so it doesn’t mean so much if you can’t hear him explain it. Zippy says that he draws like he tells stories. You’d just have to hear him tell you the story of what is going on in this picture. He’s only five, but he’s a consummate story teller. It is the story of Pocahontas saving John Smith’s life.

If you’d like to see his whole set on Flickr! click here.

Now for my 8-year old’s: I wanted to make sure that she had some copywork in hers, so she designed it knowing that prerequisite. If you’d rather see the set on Flickr! click here.

Her cover: (She drew the pictures herself of Pocahontas rescuing John Smith.)

Her lapbook layed open:

Her shaped book on the starving time. (Sorry it is hard to read those glitter pens that she likes so much. It says, "When Jamestown was starving, Pocahontas brought food and corn. She saved them from starving to death." )

Her book about John Smith: (The cover and the piece pasted on the inside were from the History Pockets, Colonial America.)

Her map showing where Jamestown is located:

Her Jamestown book (from US History Little Books: Famous Places) and her note on the bottom explaining why she put beads all over her lapbook.

Inside of the Jamestown book with picture of her holding the craft she made from Homeschool in the Woods.

Her book on "Pocahontas, the Indian Princess": (The inside picture is from the Pocahontas coloring book by Dover Publications.)

Her book about Pocahontas’ wedding: (Picture on the inside is again from the Pocahontas coloring book by Dover Publications.)

Thanks for looking!

Early Christian Church Lapbook

November 14, 2008November 4, 2010prayingmother

Another lapbook! This one corresponded with our children’s Bible class on the life of Paul and Peter after Jesus’ ascension to heaven. The lessons we studied were from My Bible First and they were the Year C, quarter 2 lessons of the My Bible Says set. And once again many of the booklets are from Homeschool in the Woods from her New Testament Activity Pak.

This time I’ll do Zippy’s first, since I’ve been doing her’s last normally.

We made her cover out of clipart from lavistachurchofchrist.org.

You wil notice that we didn’t fold the lapbook the usual shutter fold style. That was because we wanted to get this extension about the armor of God to fit in this lapbook. And this was the only way I could figure out how to make it work. Here is the inside:

The armor of God is made from two pieces of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock taped together at the back. As you can see from the previous photo, the armor is all removable. It is attached by velcro. I just took her picture and printed it out and she cut that out for the face. This was from the Homeschool in the Woods New Testament Activity Pak.

Next is postcards from Paul, with a different postcard summarizing each of the letters that he wrote. This is also from Homeschool in the Woods.

This is a mini coloring book that I put together on the events of Paul’s conversion. This is another minibook that my long necked stapler came in very handy for. I got the pictures on the inside from searching on Google. Now I can’t find the source. They were a free download though.

I made this one too. It is for Peter’s Ladder found in 2 Peter 1:5-7 I just took the ladder from Microsoft clipart and layered two of the ladders on top of each other to produce the right amount of rungs and then typed the words in so the children could color them. Then we folded it accordion style.

Then we spent awhile tracing Paul’s routes. This one took awhile to do. It also came from Homeschool in the Woods. It is an accordion style mini book.

This is the cover with it closed.

This is what it looks like opened up.

Here is a close-up of one of the maps. (You can see more of them on the set on flickr.)

A Bible verse that she copied down just to fill up some empty space:

A matchbook about Peter’s vision about the unclean animals with a verse copied inside explaining what the vision was about. (This is the first minibook I ever created on my own, so I was excited about that.)

You can see a few more pictures of Zippy’s lapbook by clicking here.

Now here’s Mr. John Deere Boy’s lapbook. He didn’t join with us for all the same studies so it’s not quite as full. Some things that look the same as hers, I’m not showing here, but if you’d like to see every detail of his lapbook you can by clicking here.

His cover is a picture of Paul’s shipwreck when he was a prisoner on his way to Rome. We got the picture for free from lavistachurchofchrist.org.

Here is the inside.

His armor of God:

His mailbox that contains the postcards from Paul:

His one minibook that he made different from his sister. It is on the verse in James 3:5 about controling the tongue. We modified this from the book Easy Make & Learn Human Body.

He pasted in a quote on the subject from the an old religious youth magazine: Youth’s Instructor, 7/26/08.

His Peter’s Ladder extended:

You can see all of our lapbooks here.