Christmas Bucket List

1. Decorate 

2. Make a Snowflake 

3. Buy Presents 

4. Read Nativity Story and Set Ours Up 5. Felt Tree 

6. Make Ornaments (Maybe this or this)

7. Angel Tree 

8. Zoo Lights 

9. Movie Night 

10. Make a Present 

11. Picture with Santa 

12. Wrap Presents 

13. Send a Package to a Loved One 

14. “Camp” by the Christmas tree 

15. Make Fudge 

16. Drive Around to Look at Lights 

17. Make Playdoh 

18. Bake Cookies 

19. Donate to a Bell Ringer 

20. Ballet Recital 

21. Gingerbread House 

22. Listen to Christmas Music 

23. Watch Home Movies 

24. Make Birthday Cake for Baby Jesus 25. Open 1 Present on Christmas Eve

I am SO excited about Christmas!!! I can't wait to do these activities with Cricket. 

Blessings,

Katie

Truth in Tinsel Review

I have been following the blog Impress Your Kids for awhile now. When I saw Amanda's post about her upcoming e-book and the opportunity to possibly review it for her I jumped at the chance. I knew based on her description of the book "I literally have tears in my eyes now writing this post because I can clearly see kids and families using this book and getting to know Jesus this Christmas. And maybe this will be their year. THE YEAR. The one they understand that Jesus loves them. The year they “get it” on their level and ask Jesus to be their very best friend."  that it was exactly what I have been looking for.

Really, I have been searching the internet, blogs I love, and Pinterest for ideas on how to make CHIRSTmas about Jesus (not santa) in a meaningful way for a four year old. I still wanted it to be fun though, and in our house craftiness equates to big time fun.

Amanda gave me (and a few other bloggers) the opportunity to preview the e-book in exchange for posting an honest review of the book on our blog. I was so excited when I received it that I read the whole thing immediately, but before I got through the Author's note I was in tears - literally crying. Truth in Tinsel was speaking to my heart and ministering to me in a way that I truly hadn't expected. I can not wait to share this book with my daughter!!!

The basic idea of the e-book is that each day during Advent you read a part of the Christmas story and make an ornament based on that part of the story. Amanda was absolutely right in how this creative activity will engage little ones and reinforce the story! The ornaments are all simple to make and I had most of the items needed already (there is even a handy list to help you out).

Here is another thing I love, she provided options up front if you know there is no way you could do this everyday. Amanda provides 4 alternate schedules for using the e-book in a simpler way. She also provides in the e-book two great options for Advent calendars to accompany what you are doing. You can see them and other suggestions for use in her blog post here.

This fabulous e-book Truth in Tinsel goes on sale today! The regular price for the e-book is $4.99, but for today only you can pick up the book for $2.99. 

I highly recommend that you snag a copy and join in the fun. There will also be challenge going on at the Truth in Tinsel Facebook page for us to talk about how we are progressing and how our kids are responding.You can also see what others are doing on Twitter by following @impressyourkids or hastag #TruthTinsel

Blessings,

Disclosure of Material Connection: To comply with new regulations introduced by the Federal Trade Commission, I must post that I was provided a free review copy of the book for publishing this post. I also must say that the opinions are all mine. I must also say that I joined the Affiliate program for the book, so if you purchase from any of the links on my page then I will receive a percentage of the sale.

Egypt Books and More

 

To go with Expedition Earth for Egypt:

Prince of Egypt: Dreamworks Classics Collection - This was a little long for Cricket, and not a Magic Treehouse book. So I summarized once she started losing interest. 

The Mystery of King Karfu - This was a perfect book for Cricket. It had enough about Egypt to be meaningful, but was also a storybook. She loved all the clues and the way it allowed her to also be an investigator.

Ancient Egypt - This was an educational and factual library find, which Cricket had no interest in at all. 

Pleasure Books: 
Countdown to Thanksgiving - This book was a great math and seasonal add on. It reinforced the backwards counting we have been working on and Cricket enjoyed it. 


Dolphins at Daybreak (Magic Tree House, No. 9) - If you have been following our blog you probably already know that I have a huge Jack and Annie fan on my hands, but this was her favorite story yet. I think the kids riding on the dolphins pushed it over the edge! We have been talking about submarines and pretending to go undersea ever since we read this one.

Bedtime Books:

The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Vacation
Curious George and the Dump Truck

You should also see what others are reading this week at Mouse Grows Mouse Learns. 

Thanks for visiting,

Thankful Tree, Egypt, and a great week

I think last week might have been our best school week so far this year. Cricket did really well with everything we worked on AND we actually made it to all of our classes: ballet, gymnastics, advanced gymnastics, and choir/bible study. Cricket even threw in a couple of impromptu puppet shows for me.

We moved forward with our work from 1+1+1=1 and Cricket was more responsive to reading attempts this week. I think that in part was thanks to our LeapFrog TAG Reading System

Cricket is still enjoying our Horizon Math program, we normally do four lessons a week. This week I also shared this add on worksheet about fractions and Cricket loved it. She insisted on coloring the pies orange though to make "Punkin" pies. 

 

Cricket really responded to our work on Egypt. I think introducing it along with the story of Moses really helped. We read and watched The Prince of Egypt together and she loved it. We also did an overall review of Africa, and incorporated our Tag Reader into this as well.

We have continued to track our weather everyday and graph it as well. This week we finally had variety in our weather and Cricket was very excited by that.

We have been working on our Thankfulness Tree all month and I am in love with how it turned out. Cricket has really enjoyed doing it too. She has a leaf for family members, a couple of friends, God, Jesus, and some of her favorite things. I tried to write them in her words and some of them are really cute.

I

We are very hopeful that we are back on track and have BIG plans for Christmas School!

Thanks for visiting,

Check out what others are doing at this amazing site:
 

Books we won and more reading

 

To go with Expedition Earth for Africa:

The Village of Round and Square Houses - This was an interesting story about a villages beliefs and how and why their people are housed the way that they are. It also led to a discussion about our beliefs, since they were not worshiping as Christians.

Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions (Picture Puffin Books) - Cricket did not want to READ this entire book, but I read the headline for each letter. We discussed the pictures and I read more of the ones that she was interested in.

Pleasure Books: 
A Plump and Perky Turkey - This was a rhyming style Thanksgiving book and both Cricket and my husband thought it was silly (I'm not sure if they meant that as a positive or a negative though). 


Missing Mittens (MathStart 1) and Bug Dance (MathStart 1) - We won both of these books in the Curriculum Clean Out hosted by Homeschool Creations from the blogger troutwife. My daughter has really enjoyed these books and a highly recommend them for some basic math concepts and just a good book. Cricket really enjoyed the dance in Bug Dance!

Bedtime Books (That we haven't already counted):

I'm No Turkey!

You should also see what others are reading this week at Mouse Grows Mouse Learns. 

Thanks for visiting,

Playing Catch Up

I am SUPER behind on well everything school related. Cricket and I took turns being sick for about three weeks total, and this threw a big 'ole wrench in my school plans. We are literally about a month behind on actual work, and I'm about three weeks behind now on posting work that we have done. Since I'm playing catch up anyway I'm going to do two weeks in this post. These weeks were actually done around the end of October, hence the Halloween goodness you will see. Now, on with the show!

Cricket has been going through a little bit of an "I can't do that" phase that includes reading. If we are playing a game or having reading fun she will read fine, but if I ask her to read something I get "I can't read" without even a try. I am trying to regroup and explore reading in fun ways, and to deflate that defeatist attitude. She does still enjoy doing her words each day, maybe because she gets to walk around on the table to do it.

Cricket is progressing with her addition and doing a better job of performing simple calculations in her head.
 

We continued our study of Africa with Nigeria and Morocco. Cricket really enjoys coloring the flag each week, and discussing the language card. 

Her favorite part by far is the animals though. I had to re-arrange our boards this week, because so far we have had primarily mammals and I was running out of room.

Cricket did well with this sheet, but she was NOT a fan of exploring the pumpkin. She put her hand inside once and she was DONE. Other than that we had a great time with our pumpkins!

She absolutely loved making art with the pumpkin seeds. I had a really hard time getting the seeds to take color, but her sheer enjoyment made it worth while. 

Cricket played with these simple foam stickers for such a long time. She made this picture plus a bunch more. She also quickly got the hang of peeling the stickers by herself, which was great fine motor skill work. 

We are very hopeful that we are back on track and have BIG plans for Christmas School!

Thanks for visiting,

Check out what others are doing at this amazing site:
 

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

I have been a huge Shutterfly fan for years. I love their photo quality, and having worked in a photo lab I am a bit of a snob about this. I have also ordered my Christmas cards from them ever since my daughter was born, this will make year number 5.

I think this year I'm leaning towards this design. It's simple elegance will let the beauty of the picture shine through. {This is shutterfly's image not mine}

For the past few years I have also created my favorite Christmas present, for myself. Even though I know what I'm getting I get to appreciate and love my calendar all year long. I really like the feature they added last year, which allowed you to put a picture on the date as well.

This year I'm also thinking of adoring photo Thank You cards, I think Cricket would love sending these.

Whatever you pick I'm sure you will be pleased.
Blessings,

 
Disclosure of Material Connection: To comply with new regulations introduced by the Federal Trade Commission, I must post that Shutterfly has provided me with 25 free cards for completing this post. I also must say that the opinions are all mine.

Get a Melissa & Doug 25% Off Coupon When You Take the North "Poll"

Melissa & Doug want you to tell them which of their educational toys you think is the best! Just click on the image below to place your vote in the North "Poll!" You'll Get a Melissa & Doug 25% Off Coupon** to use at MelissaAndDoug.com just for voting!

Blessings,