What are you doing for Thanksgiving

This week we are going through a mini study of the Pilgrims I found on Currclick for free. The Pilgrims Mini Unit is not free anymore but for $1.00 its still a great deal!!!! We are also working on memorizing Psalm 100 to recite at our Thanksgiving Meal.

Psalm 100

Be Thankful, A psalm of thanksgiving.

Shout triumphantly to the LORD, all the earth.

Serve the LORD with gladness;

come before Him with joyful songs.

Acknowledge that the LORD is God.

He made us, and we are His 

His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving

and His courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him and praise His name.

For the LORD is good, and His love is eternal;

His faithfulness endures through all generations.

How about you? Are you doing anything extra along with your normal lessons, something special instead of lessons or just taking a nice break to enjoy Thanksgiving? How ever you are planning on spending this week, be blessed and give thanks!

A Country Notebooking Page

We are still working our way through Missionary Stories with the Millers. This time through I have decided to try a recipe from each country, do a mini study on the flag of that country and just added mapping the location of the country to our notebooking page. Don't forget that I am linking up our progress through MSM in my right column. Happy Homeschooling!!!!

Photo op with a worm?!?

So thankful McRuffy Math has amazing customer response and took the time to explain this lesson to me!

Independent reading!!!!

That is a black widow and it WAS huge!!!!

Not sure what type of spider but I do know that is a tangle web!!

Free Ideas

When I first started homeschooling FREE was the magic word!!!! Here are some free things to get or do on the web. Do you have a resource not listed? Feel free to add to the list in the comments.

Science and Math Simulations - All Grades
Touch Typing - Middle/High School
Star Fall - Phonics and Reading
Multiplication.com - Games to Master Multiplication facts
CurrClick - Has a Free items weekly

Simple Day

We have been so busy and fallen a little behind in our schedule but learning is still occurring!!! One unexpected way was our first ever booing outing. I have to say I am NOT a big Halloween fan but this appealed to me because it helped the boys and I to get out of our comfort zones and make ourselves known in the community. Here JJ is putting the final touches on our packages to deliver.

Here LJ is working on his Hiragana characters. This is a slow process but we are still hanging in there. I pulled out our First Thousand Words in Japanese by Usborne and I think they had fun trying to find all the Hiragana they knew. LJ went around the house naming objects in Japanese. Self motivated learning at its best!

And here is CJ finally interested in math again!!!!! I take an interest only approach for my children until they turn 7. Not that I have to wait that long before they are doing lessons but there is no demand of doing a scheduled work load before then.

So there you have a Simple Day at MorningStar Academy!

Homer Price

The second book we read with Sonlight Core B with Grade 2 Readers is Homer Price. The kids really loved it and sat still with their quiet time activities so I could read. It wasn't a struggle and E-V-E-R-Y time I thought they were going into la la land, I would as a question about something I had just read and A-L-L my kids were able to answer them!!!!! Now the Instructor's Guide does come with a list of items to talk about, but we don't use it. Just don't have the time and reading comprehension has never been an issue so I want to keep reading fun and not make it a chore.

Speaking of fun, our activity for this book was a big winner. We even invited some friends over to enjoy the fun as well. (They homeschool too!!) A couple of things to know. We didn't give the dough the full time to rise the two times the recipe call for, time just wasn't our friend that day and I forgot the shortening. The later explains why the dough was so sticky,lol. But even with those two errors, the doughnuts still turned out great and I think everyone had a wonderful time cutting out and eating their doughnuts!!!

Our neighbor friend and JJ working on the dough.

Even princesses can get a little dirty too but hey this is Snow White so she use to the mess.

We used a spice cap to cut out the holes.

Working with LJ.

Snow White just waiting to play with the extra dough.

Frying up the doughnuts, which took almost NO time at all!!

Making our own little holes, it was cool for even me to see the dough cook.

Enjoying the fruits of our labor. 

I'm not sure what Snow White is dumping her doughnut in, lol.  This is the same child who eats ketchup with her pancakes so there is no telling!

See mom, its really good. Ahhh boys!!!!

Well that is about all the excitement we could have with Homer Price, I wasn't going to try to rob a bank or get a pet skunk and no super heroes were in the neighborhood but I think making doughnuts was a whole adventure in its self. Thanks neighbors for joining in the fun!!!!!

Busy Book

I have a couple of blogs that I try to keep up. L2L is my main blog that I just kinda blog what I'm most interested in at the moment and that just happens to be sewing right now. So for one of my posts I put together a busy book for CJ and then had to come up with some ideas of how to fill the thing up, lol.

I found these huge colored paper clips at Dollar Genenral for a $1 and decided to use them to help her learn how to recognize her color words.

So in "pockets" 1 and 2 I have the color paperclips and a calculator that I picked up at the $1 Store.( I haven't meet a Pre-Ker that doesn't like to play with a calculator!!!)

In "pockets" 3 and 4 I have a puzzle I made by printing off a colored picture, laminating it and cutting it into 6 pieces. ( You could do fewer or more depending on the ability of your child and it is an easy activity to change with the seasons.) and playing cards. I drew a 1 on the Ace card and then have her put the numbers in order from 1 to 10.

"Pockets" 5 and 6 are stuffed with a mini composition book and pencil as well as a simple bracelet craft. I picked up both at the $1 Store. The mini composition books came in a pack of 3.

And finishing up the book in "pockets" 7 and 8 are some doll magnets and a outline with CJs name laminated and a dry erase marker.

I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out and can't wait to try my hand at making a busy bag for the boys!!!

Charlotte's Web Week 1

One of the things I really like about Sonlight Core B are the readers. Our first reader of the year is Charlotte's Web and it is a great way to ease into notebooking. We have adapted notebooking, as most things, to our liking. I got each child a Composition Book and have cut and pasted different things into the books. We call them our field journals and for Charlotte's Web we have added pages on:


Embryology

parts of a chicken and what the grade of an egg is.

And we a mini study on spiders as well.

I took a break from notebooking for Homer Price but do have a fun activity to share next week!!!!