Weekly Wrap-Up/Homeschool Mother's Journal

It's been about a month since I wrote up a Weekly Wrap-Up post. I can't believe it! I have some posts up in between this time so instead of a 'weekly' wrap-up I can do a 'monthly' wrap-up. (I'll make it quick so I don't bore you!)  ;)

• Christmas was great for us. It usually lasts about a month since we have so much family that we can't get together with all at once! You can read all about that here & here. 

• We started back to school this week. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! Usually it takes a day or 2 to get things back in order after taking time off but we were in full swing Monday! 

• J12 started working on a Victorian Era unit (at her request) so I was able to throw together a Webquest for her. It's my 1st one ever & so far she loves it! When I heard, "Mom, you made this?!", it kind of made me feel awesome!! She has until the end of this month to finish it & has to come up with a Powerpoint (unless she can think of another way that we both agree on) to show all that she learned. She is reading The Importance of Being Earnest,  Sherlock Holmes, & The Time Machine. You can find all of them FREE for Kindle!

• L8 & M6 are continuing on with our Story of the World studies. 
  

• And also their science. I found an old 2nd grade textbook recently in my garage & thought I should put in some more 'formal' science lessons. I added a little lapbook to go with our chapter on plants. You can find that here ------Pinterest. And I found a cute little copywork book of a poem about plants but can't remember where I found it! :/

• J12 is still working on her Money Doesn't Grow On Trees Lapbook from Knowledge Box Central.

 

     I have been splitting my time lately between family, homeschool, housekeeping, & blogging a TON more! I'm still trying to get into a routine that works somewhat for us! Along with this blog, I also have my deals blog at Daily Deals From A Nerd Mom AND I am now blogging on freetailtherapy.com!

Thanks for stopping by!

Until Next Time,

 

Our Doctor Who themed Christmas

J12 just received this Doctor Who The Card Game as a Christmas gift the other day. We haven't played it yet because, while reading the instructions, realized we have no clue how to do this EVEN WITH the instructions in front of our faces! LOL....

I will be searching around on Youtube for a video tutorial so we can figure it out. We want to play! It's fun enough looking through all of the cards though. :)

If you know how to play this please leave a comment!

We bought each of the kids a Doctor Who shirt & their own Sonic Screwdrivers! 

Do not ask how we don't have any good pics of them in their shirts OR their Sonic Screwdrivers....especially since we received a new camera for Christmas! 

M6's shirt. For some reason I can't find the youth size anymore on their site.

L8's shirt

J12's Shirt.

M6 

L8

J12 - (River Song's)

Another thing they received from my mom was an Underground Toys Doctor Who - In Your Pocket Talking Voice Keychain.

!

J12 also received Doctor Who: Summer Falls and Other Stories by Amelia Williams . She hasn't started reading it yet (surprisingly) but she will be very soon. 

(Here's a still of it from the show.)

The next book that we both want is Doctor Who: The Angel's Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery. Amazon has it right now for Kindle for only $2.79!  

(Still of the Doctor reading it on the show.)

Last, but not least, L8 received the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special: The Day of the Doctor dvd!

You can also read about our DW Graham Cracker T.A.R.D.I.S.es here.

Geronimo!

 

Our Graham Cracker House & T.A.R.D.I.S.s!

Since we have all been battling colds & even bronchitis (M6), we haven't been feeling up to doing many Christmas-y things. The hubs made the trip to the store for me to buy our goodies for our graham cracker houses. He came home with white frosting so after a bit of searching I found a recipe that says to use 1/4 teaspoon of Cream of Tartar to 1 Cup frosting & it should stiffen it up. I didn't really see a difference &, as you can see, the hard candy didn't stick all that great to L8's & slid down.  *Update - the recipe DID work but it took a while for it to dry hard.*

L8 still isn't feeling all that great so it took a bit of nudging to get him to join in. He did as much as he could before having enough. Here is his masterpiece:

The girls decided to make T.A.R.D.I.S.s (from Doctor Who) instead & Christmasfied them up. I just added blue food coloring to the frosting. Because I snipped the hole too big on the ends of the baggies for the frosting, it came out too thick for the windows...oops. But they were still happy with the end results.

J12

M6

(btw - we cheated & used a black Sharpie for the Police Box sign.)

Add some confectioners sugar & you have instant snow!

I had it planned to do a large gingerbread T.A.R.D.I.S myself but like I said, the sickness took over & that idea was scrapped. There's always next year....at least we have mini ones!

Next up....Doctor Who cookies!

Happy Holidays!

Victorian Christmas Unit

Yesterday, I posted in my Weekly Wrap-Up/Homeschool Mother's Journal post that I was putting together a Victorian Christmas unit for J12 & that I would post those at a later date. Wellllll....it wasn't until after I posted it that I realized just how close Christmas was! So here is a quick list of some of the links I have found.

~A Charles Dickens mini-unit
-Read A Christmas Carol. You can find it  online here along with reading comprehension questions. You can also download it for Kindle or Nook here. (You can download the FREE Kindle Reading app to read it on other devices such as your PC.)

-Here you can find a biblical lesson of A Christmas Carol.

-Make copywork from each chapter.

-Watch Charles Dickens animated biography.

-Watch video on what London was like during Dickens' time.

-Play Survive Dickens' London.

-You can get more great ideas here.


~Victorian Christmas
-Old Fashioned Victorian Christmas has tons of great links for activities & crafts.

-Make Your Own Victorian Christmas - 25 activities to do at home. And while there you can check out the history of Christmas.

-Victorian Christmas: Games & Activities. Scroll down to the bottom of that post to find links to Gifts, Food & Drink, Decorations, & Crafts!

-Here is a collection of resources from TeachersFirst.com.

-If you would like an all-in-one Victorian Christmas unit, NIA Unit Studies has one for $12.99! Included are crafts/projects, cooking, online games, literature, movies, & open ended researching for hands-on ideas. Also, includes notebooking pages & ideas for your own Victorian Christmas party! 


J12 is obsessed with the Victorian Era. So even though this year is supposed to be "everything Medieval" she will be studying this time period on her own. I will post about all those other finds later!

For more free Christmas resources check out my other posts here & here!


Happy Holidays!

Weekly Wrap-Up/Homeschool Mother's Journal

This week was a crazy week. Between the hubs hurting his arm/chest & missing a few days of work, to me waking up with a sore shoulder & not being able to move it for a whole day (getting old I guess), M6 & J12 getting sick, & now me....we hardly got anything done!! 
Oh yes...almost forgot that I had run out of ink for my printer over the weekend & wasn't able to print anything until Wednesday morning!!

We were eventually able to do some free Christmas printables that I found online. You can find those:
-FREE Christmas Resources Round-up
-More Great Christmas Resources For Free

On Monday we received a package from our lovely friends from England! All sorts of baking gadgets (Doctor Who themed!!) & a few things were put away for M6's birthday party next month. She has been planning a Doctor Who party so these couldn't have been more perfect! We were all hoping to be able to use them but we haven't yet for reasons stated above. Yes, we will Christmas-up these cookies! Doctor Who & Christmas just go together. There is also a gingerbread T.A.R.D.I.S. in the plans. ;)

J12 has been wanting to do a Victorian-themed Christmas unit so I have been finding a bunch of goodies for that. I will post those at a later date when I have it all organized. Also, I am planning a Grinch unit for M6 & L8 next week from a blog post I found recently at Lemon Lime Adventures .

One thing that did get started this week was our review of Keyboarding Classroom. 

I set L8 up with this one & was surprised when he took to it & actually liked it! He's the one who fights me the most on school & lately it's been the worst. I only asked him jokingly if he wanted to do it & he said yes so I ran with it! As of now, my review copy is a single-user license but when he is finished with it I can use it for the girls if they wanted to. They do have options to buy dual or more licenses & the finger guards are free! (Which honestly our 1st thoughts were that they were disposal razors! haha)

I finished up my review for Write From History earlier this week. That was a lot of fun & we are planning to continue using that this year since it fits so perfectly with our history study!

I also started another Facebook page: Daily Deals From A Nerd Mom. You can find that & this blog FB page on the right side up top. ---->

Hopefully next week I will have some Christmas-y goodies to blog about! I cannot wait to get started on our cookie & T.A.R.D.I.S. decorating...plus I found a cute idea on Pinterest to make mini graham cracker houses! This would be a neat way for each of the kids to decorate their own house.

Happy Holidays!

More great Christmas Resources for FREE

(Post contains affiliate links.)

These 12 Days of Christmas printables are to be used with children from 2 to 8.

     Plus has a HUGE list of resources for a unit study!

Easy DIY Advent Calendar from Annie's Adventures in Homeschooling

   More free Jesse Tree printables

Educents.com

School Express has 5 Christmas worksheet sets!

 

Ministry-To-Children has a free Advent coloring book

   HomeschoolShare.com has a Christmas Around the World Unit Study & lapbook

  Great list of ideas & resources to turn holiday baking into lessons!

     This Christmas Printable Pack (geared towards ages 2-7) is only available from now until the end of December for Gift of Curiosity email    subscribers. If you are not yet a subscriber you can do so on their site!

Educents.com

brightideaspress.com

SimpleSchoolingClassroom.com

 Instructions on how to make a recycled Christmas/Holiday house.
Click here for more Christmas activities from Fran's World of Discovery.

  StillLearningSomethingNew.com has a great list of free Christmas themed teaching resources.

Also, check out the Special Days in December post while you're there!

Watch live as Santa feed his reindeer! Times are Mon-Fri 11am, 6pm, & 9pm. Weekends are 6pm. (Eastern Time)

To find more great free Christmas resources, click here.

Happy Holidays!