We're Goin' Crazy for Cornucopia's!

Although we have been listening to Christmas music since November 1st and have already put up our Christmas Tree we have not forgotten about one of our favorite holiday's...THANKSGIVING!! We have had a lot of fun making Cornucopia's! This first one came from one of our favorite sites, to print out your own template click HERE! My original plan for these was to decorate the front window, but both of my kids decided to give theirs away to their Grandparents!


B-Bop's Cornucopia...
Buddy's Cornucopia...

The next one we made out of a paper grocery sack. We started by cutting out one large side of the bag. Then (leaving about a one inch border) we cut slits going across lengthwise. We then cut out the other large side of the bag and cut it into one inch strips going across the short length. We colored those short strips using a brown crayon. Then we took the short strips and weaved them into the long slits...

When we were all done weaving and gluing down the strips that stuck out on the ends, we thought it looked like a nice place mat (maybe another project for another day)! The possibilities are endless, can you imagine how cute these could be out of scrapbooking paper?! My mom also reminded me that to "laminate" them you can use clear shelf paper!

Then I got really sidetracked and started arranging our colored cornucopia's on it to see how cute it would look as a Thanksgiving Day place mat! Buddy's...

B-Bop's...

Alright, back to the actual project! Once it is all dry, roll it up into the cornucopia shape and staple, then we took an extra brown strip we had left over and glued it across the top to cover our staples...

B-Bop did a great job on this and is planning to fill it up and give it to Grandma as a Thank You Gift for hosting our Thanksgiving! I have been looking for other fun Cornucopia projects, we are planning on making a few more. One of them will be out of fruit and vegi pictures that we have cut out of magazines, and the other out of waffle cones and candy fruit! If you have any other fun ideas, PLEASE SHARE!!

Shakin' it Up!!

B-Bop LOVES Math and she does well with it. Now that she has been introduced to all of the different ways to find her answers I wanted her to brush up on her memorization skills. We started today with dice! She would roll them and whatever numbers they landed on she would write down the equation...that turned out to be easy peasy so we moved on to just yelling out the answer as quick as we could when the dice hit the table... Again that was way too easy...

So we moved on to dominoes (they go up to 12 + 12). As she would build her rows to tip over she wrote down the equations and figured out the answers, again our goal being memorization! She made all sorts of swirls, shapes, zigzags, and my personal favorite...SANTA'S SLEIGH!...

I left her for a few minutes to play on her own and I came back to this...

Although I will never expect her to have a quick recall of what 93 + 29 equals, it totally made my day:)

She obviously does NOT get it from me!

This morning B-Bop and I were studying the paintings of the French artist Henri Rousseau (we are having an Art-A-Thon because we are a little behind on our Art curriculum through K12)! She was in the midst of creating a tropical rain forest using the overlapping method taught in the lesson and she needed to create some jungle animals to go in the scene. I attempted to show her how animals are basically made out of different shapes and how you can lightly draw the shapes and then outline them and erase the shape lines to help your animal look more realistic. It took me a solid five minutes to demonstrate for her.... Ya, it's okay to laugh! Mine was far from realistic (obvious...LOL!!). What is that anyway...a giraffasoarus? She looked at me and I could tell she wasn't feeling up to using my method! She proceeded to whip this out in about 20 seconds flat!....

My flash actually washed out the color, it appears much more vibrant in person! You should see the things she can draw when she actually applies herself and takes her time. Seriously though, someone should fire her Art teacher!!!

Election Day Fun!

For the big Election Day we put together a fun activity to teach the kids about voting. We invited our good buddies down the street over to join in on the fun (I have cute pictures of the group but Buddy is wearing our state's college gear, being that this blog is public and I'm paranoid, I'm not posting the picture). We started off by talking about the story of the 3 Little Pigs then we read the Wolf's Side of the Story! The kids made these Wolf and Pig puppets to act out the story... We then cast our ballot on which story we thought was the true one...

The Pig's WON!!...

Our friends brought these yummy treats! We voted on which cookies we wanted to eat...

And the Sugar Cookies WON!!...

And as if we didn't have enough sugar in us already...Grandma joined us for dinner and brought these festive cupcakes!!...

We talked about how the outcomes could have been different if someone chose not to vote. We taught them that every vote counts and that they can voice their own opinion through voting. Our K12 teacher emailed us a lot of great ideas, including activities and lessons that could be used for older children (things like the Electoral College that I didn't feel up to teaching a 7 and 4 year old)!

To view or print your own puppets click HERE!

To view or print your own Uncle Sam Ballot Box template click HERE!

To view or print your own "Wolf's Side of the Story" as well as additional Election Day lesson plans and activities click HERE!

Santa's Blog!

I was just checking my friend Shantelle's blog and she had a link on there for Santa's blog...way too fun!

www.thenorthpoledaily.blogspot.com

I pull the naughty and nice list card on my children quite often...this should make my bribery (or threats) even better! Thanks for the tip Shantelle!

Leaf Art

Last Sunday we went on a family Leaf Walk! Buddy rode on daddy's shoulders to get the leafs that were high up and B-Bop hunted for the ones down low. We got them out today and the kids made leaf pictures. Buddy didn't want his glued down...he wanted to be able to make multiple pictures using the same leafs. This is one of many pictures he made, it is a T-Rex (he also made a lizard and a bat)... B-Bop used glitter glue and made this scene...

It is a tree in the middle, with a turtle in the lower left corner, and a tree on the right that has lost it's last leaf! She added a couple of little glitter clouds in each top corner:)

BTW, we put the Spelling City website to work today and it did wonders for B-Bop's Spelling Assessment!

A Day With Grandpa!

B-Bop had the opportunity to spend the day with Grandpa yesterday. We happen to pass him on the street and he stopped and asked what B-Bop had going today. We told him that we were just headed home to start school. He asked if she would like to go with him to the bird refuge. She has done this type of thing with him before and thoroughly enjoyed it! Grandpa is a professional wildlife photographer and very knowledgeable about wildlife. I had the privilege of going on many trips like this as a child and they are priceless. In the past she has come home just full of information about birds and other animals. So we quickly packed up some snacks, grabbed her hiking boots, and a jacket and off they went! They left around 10:00am and returned at about 10:00pm! She took her drawing pad with her and sketched several pictures to tell us all about her adventure when she returned home. It was full of sketches of geese, turkey tracks, deer, a puppy, and the city they passed through! Most importantly she got to spend the day with the man I grew up with admiring and loving so much...it doesn't get much better than that!

TIP OF THE DAY!

http://www.spellingcity.com/ At this website you can enter your child's spelling words for the week and they can play games, practice spelling, and take practice tests using their own spelling words!