Tag Archive | Dr. Seuss

March-ing Right Along…

And at a fairly brisk pace for once! I am determined to hit current BEFORE 2017 begins. Let’s see – March – creeping up on spring weather, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, my brother and my dad’s birthday month. Wow, thinking back that is quite the list of special days for our family.

Easter is always a bit of a deal. The girls get new dresses and hats if we can manage it. We go to church as a family, take photos, have a nice dinner… OH and the Easter baskets. This year we did our own egg hunt as well. The weather was far from perfect so we did it indoors. You just have to make it work, right?

At church

At church

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Baskets

Baskets

Egg hunt

Egg hunt

dscn14891We had a fun and rather special craft… dragon eggs. Styrofoam and thumb tacks. All thanks to Nana. Even Echo got in on the fun, though then you had to glue down a few extra tacks to make sure nothing comes loose. dscn14691

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We decorated traditional/conventional eggs as well.img_20160326_181006

Of course we did our monthly free Home Depot project.imag2615

Emanuel and I had to miss the scout’s mom and son dance so instead we went out to Mom and Son ONLY lunch at Dairy Queen! Talk about fun! dscn14791

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Emanuel did make it to his Scout field trip to a police station. imag2712

We actually had a few good crafts this March. Marshmallow and toothpick structures.dscn14661

dscn14731dscn14771And making more relaxation bottles using glitter and glitter glue. Sparkle Sparkle!dscn14711

We even managed to get in a visit with the Novaks. dscn14651

And spent plenty of time at the YMCA.

Post swim curls

Post swim curls

Celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday with a themed lunch.imag2607

img_20160302_123854All in all a good month. This has really been a pretty good year as we look back! dscn14961

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Christmas In Our Homeschool

We have always based a lot of our curriculum around the seasons and holidays and Christmas has always been a month long unit for our family. This year I took a bit of a different approach. While the little ones still did the group binder with its worksheets, drawings and colouring pages the twins were in charge of their OWN notebook. Surprisingly enough, with some whining and complaining we still managed a project that we ALL feel proud of. Lots of independent mini reports were written up and even ideas of things to paste in their books on their own were brought forth!

Of course I have a long list of resources and I am going to share them for my benefit as well as others… Movies first!

  • the Muppet Christmas Carol, I found a great worksheet set thanks to IPA Productions that deals with the original story for the twins that tied in nicely with the movie. We used the movie as an accessible medium to introduce the story and then they read the condensed version in these worksheets HERE. There is a cute colouring page for the movie HERE from Coloring Wallpapers.
  • Veggie Tales – Saint Nicholas, A Story of Joyful Giving
  • Veggie Tales – It’s a Meaningful Life
  • Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Books! (sorry no links… but hopefully with name and author you can stumble upon them… this post is simply too late as is!)

  • The Legend of Saint Nicholas by Demi. This was a great introduction the origins of Santa without ruining the magic for anyone as the book ends with the tradition being continued on after Saint Nicholas’ passing by a boy in the village who was chosen to continue his work.
  • Christmas by Trudi Strain Trueit
  • Christmas Around the World by Emily Kelley. We love this book, each of the twins chose THREE countries and summarized the traditions they have into on brief paragraph that I spell checked and then they copied into their notebooks.
  • Christmas by Natalie M. Rosinsky
  • O Christmas Tree by Jacqueline Farmer
  • Christmas by Alice K. Flanagan
  • Celebrate Christmas by Deborah Heiligman
  • A Short History of Christmas by Sally Lee
  • Merry Christmas Everywhere! by Arlene Erlbach and Herb Erlbach
  • Twelve Days of Christmas in Minnesota by Constance Van Hoven
  • Christmas Traditions Around the World by Ann Ingalls
  • Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett… this was a random mid unit find at the library. The art is AMAZING!
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
  • The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
  • What Star is This? by Joseph Slate
  • City of Snow, The Great Blizzard of 1888 by Linda Oatman High
  • The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear by Stan and Jan Berenstain
  • A Child Was Born by Grace Maccarone
  • The Heron Christmas Carol by Frances Tyrrell
  • My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
  • What is Christmas? by Michelle Medlock Adams
  • The Christmas Story by Jane Werner
  • A Very Shiny Christmas by Debbie Guy-Christiansen
  • A Pussycat’s Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown
  • Santa’s Snow Cat by Sue Stainton
  • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Barbara Shook Hazen
  • Santa is Coming to Texas by Steve Smallman
  • A Porcupine in a Pine Tree by Helaine Becker
  • Christmas Is… by Gail Gibbon
  • A Kenyan Christmas by Tony Johnston
  • The Nutcracker by Bethany Snyder
  • The Gingerbread Man by Dawn Bentley
  • Recordable storybooks read by Gammie – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Night Before Christmas
  • And a lovely British book mailed by a friend of Favourite Christmas Stories from Brown Watson publishers

Hanukkah, while not the most important Jewish holiday IS the one closest to Christmas and the best known generally so we did cover it briefly. Here are our books.

  • Hanukkah by Rebecca Pettiford
  • Hanukkah Around the World by Tami Lehman-Wilzig
  • Hanukkah by Lisa M. Herrington
  • Chanukah Lights Everywhere by Michael J. Rosen

You can find some terrific printables on Teacher Vision HERE and a Hanukkah mini book thanks to Family Education HERE.

Of course we covered Polar Express, both the book and the movie. The little ones did parts of a lapbook I had purchased years previous but we supplemented with worksheets… pages from a party kit by Houghton Mifflin Books HERE, Scholastic.com had some resources HERE, and activities and lessons by Busy Teachers Cafe HERE.

  • The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

We covered a lovely range of topics from symbols to world traditions and including Santa Claus and reindeer. A supplementary fact page about reindeer HERE thanks to Kids Play and Create. I also have some resources I have acquired from Currclick:

  • The History of Candy Canes HERE. We also watched how candy canes were made on The Kid Should See This HERE
  • Christmas Symbols Lapbook HERE

Want a little info about Boxing Day? We got ours from Ducksters HERE.

 

I hope these links are helpful… late as they are posted!! IMAG1959

March of Days

Well well we have made it to March and the countdown to spring. Of course with it being slightly warmer I had to take advantage and photograph the kids! I have been lax in doing this of the whole group.IMAG1695

IMAG1730It was nice enough that we were able to photograph a couple of my completed crochet projects outside! Again check out Kristen’s Kords HERE!! She rocks!!!

Tinker Bell!

Tinker Bell!

We had the Schwartz kids over again to watch while their folks were busy. Visits with them with parents or not have become a highlight of our weeks!IMAG1870

102_0344102_0345102_0347Miss Echo has totally embraced all sorts of creative imaginative play. Tea parties are so exciting for the stuffed critters and dolls in this house!102_0350

We finally opened our Chinese New Year lucky candy holders. That yummy strawberry candy is a family favourite.102_0351

102_0352We also have a new family member… Hugo Bear Dog generally known as Bear Dog… he joined us thanks to Amy Sue, the amazingly talented seamstress who is creating dresses for Shandai’s wedding! He is an instant hit and has become Echo’s new favourite snuggle buddy. I have to share her page HERE. I absolutely cannot wait to see how Shandai’s dress and my own turn out! They are going to be spectacular.IMG_20150330_120204

School has continued on swimmingly. I am so proud of the kids for trying their best to expand their knowledge and try to face the hard stuff with less and less whining and complaining.IMAG1665

IMAG1641Don’t forget about Dr. Seuss’ birthday! We had a added experience for the girls – Dr. Seuss themed activities at Lakeshore.IMAG1568

IMAG1682And food that suited our theme… red and white fruit to represent the Cat in the Hat’s hat… One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish jello with gummy fish… and eggs and ham (trust me… GREEN eggs does NOT go over well). I also had each of the kids write their own RHYMING book. Ken, Karyn and I worked out our own book. Talk about fun. Though the kids struggled a bit. You can find our resource post HERE.IMAG1601IMAG1604

IMAG1603IMAG1605IMAG1607IMAG0703Snow…IMAG1624

The igloo

The igloo

Home Depot…IMAG1673

Lakeshore Saturday crafts…IMAG1682

A brief foray into pet ownership with the short lived TRIOP!IMAG1744

Movie night with popcorn at the YMCA! (101 Dalmations!!)IMAG1887

Don’t forget St. Patrick’s Day lunch (we did a minor unit this time… previous years have burned us out a little on that theme) but any chance to have a themed meal! You can find our resource page HERE.IMAG1833

Leprechaun escaped our trap once again!

Leprechaun escaped our trap once again!

Themed craft

Themed craft

End the month with… EASTER EGG HUNT!IMAG1935

IMAG1945And it was a well rounded month. March is always that little bit more packed when Easter is early April… Let’s see… Dr. Seuss, Home Depot fun, St. Patrick’s Day, early Easter activity… I think we can say we kept good and busy!102_0328