Volcano Project

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  To go along with the Ancient Rome theme (Pompeii), we had our volcano eruption Monday! It was so much fun! Each of the kids took a turn mixing in the ingredients.

  J12 started out but we had a dud. Well, not really but the top of the volcano was too tall above the bottle inside so dad had to cut the top off.

  L8 cracked us up by being over-dramatic....as you can see by the bottom right pic!

  After we were done, the kids came in & journaled a bit about what happened & drew a pic of it erupting. We found the pages for free from NotebookingPages.com.

 To make the 'lava' we mixed 4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 C warm water, 5 drops dish soap, 5 drops red food coloring, & 1/2 C white vinegar last.

  We are going to try it out again later today but this time I want the kids to use different measurements of ingredients & see if it still 'erupts'. They will journal again with their findings.


Hope you have a great day!

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Works For Me Wednesday, Inspired Wednesday

Weekly Wrap-Up/Homeschool Mother's Journal

Linked up with SoYouCallYourselfAHomeschooler.com

  We made it through another week! We did a few fun things together. I met a few awesome new friends that have given me some great advice. There will be a few more changes to J12's lessons to try to challenge her more in the upcoming weeks. This girl exhausts me but its fun!

   They had free drawing time. J12 is always, always, always drawing. She uses www.dragoart.com. It has free drawing lessons. L8 decided to use his time to write a letter but he did color the whole paper afterwards...which is strange because he HATES coloring! M6 drew 3 pics....a huge rainbow eyeball is one of them..lol.

   I thought we were done withe Ancient Rome studies but then decided to make a volcano project because of Pompeii. It was made with flour & water (equal parts, I used 2 C each) & brown paper bag. We will be painting it later this weekend & setting it off. Can't wait!

  Thursday, L8 surprised me by waking me up, made my coffee (!!) & toast w/ jelly, & even straightened the living room up for me! While I was eating, he looked at me & said, "Mom, I'm going to be really good today for you." My heart melted. He kept his word & even caught himself a few times before arguing with the girls! I kept hugging him & praising him all day when I would catch him doing something awesome. <3

  I have also noticed with L8 that the best way to get him to write is to write letters or notes to people. We have been working on his capitalizing & punctuation. Another thing all the kids love are mad libs. It's a great way to work on grammar skills! It has introduced nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc. to M6 & we've made some crazy mad libs! One site we like is www.madtakes.com.  I went through my stash of homeschooling goodies & found a file folder games book. I made a few of them Friday for M6 & L8 (fractions, nouns, & a phonics one.) but forgot to take pics! oops

  Oh & almost forgot! I was complaining in my Facebook homeschool group, Schoolin' Swag, about my calendar. I hated having to pin & unpin it each month. So Friday I came up with a solution. All of my pocket charts are used so I couldn't use them for it. I hole punched each day card & they fit perfectly over the push pins! (fellow Whovians: take note of Nov. 23rd!)  ;)

Hope everyone has an awesome week!

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FREE Thanksgiving Resources Round-Up

(Contains affiliate links.)

  I still can't believe that Thanksgiving is right around the corner! Here in FL we are *just now* starting to feel a bit of the Fall weather. Just the other day it was in the 80's, yesterday was 63, today is 73, & then right back up to the 80's tomorrow & the rest of the week! It's hard to get into the holiday spirit with weather like that. So to help me,  I've gathered a ton of freebies from around the internet for Thanksgiving. Here is a list of what I've found:


~Printable Thanksgiving Placemats, Pilgrims Unit Study (1st - 5th grade), Thanksgiving Unit Study (PreK - 5th grade), Coloring pages, & "What I'm Thankful For" Write & Draw sheets from In All You Do.

~Contented At Home has a list of free classical Thanksgiving Kindle books.

~Scripture Place Cards from The Road to 31

~The Road to 31 also has 5 free unit studies (1 has 4 full unit studies!) & lessons to cover the meaning of Thanksgiving from every angle!

~7 free Pilgrim Themed Kindle books 

    

~Amanda Bennett Thanksgiving Lapbook (scroll down for lapbook)

~Homeschool Freebie of the Day has 3 e-books:
  -Pilgrim Stories I - From Old Homes To New
  -Pilgrim Stories II - The Wild Land & Thanksgiving
  -Pilgrim Stories III - Little Pilgrims & The Red Men (plus Teacher's Guide)

 

~Thanksgiving Q-tip painting from 1+1+1=1

~Printable Thanksgiving Prayer Cards from rachelwojo.com

~Thanksgiving Unit Study for Little Ones from the Modest Mom

~T is for Thanksgiving packet for little ones from Oopsey Daisy

~Plimoth Plantation Virtual Field Trip! from Scholastic

Thanksgiving Printable Pack includes 60 activities for kids ages 2-7 from Gift of Curiosity.

Thanksgiving Turkey games & activities from Fran's World of Discovery.

~Currclick has some free Thanksgiving themed resources. Check prices before downloading!
   -November Daily Assignments---Mini-Helper
   -Pumpkin Mini Helper
   -Turkey Mini Helper
   -Counting, Cut, & Paste-Numbers 0-10 (Thanksgiving Theme)
   -Counting, Cut, & Paste Numbers 10-20 (Thanksgiving Theme)
   -Thanksgiving Notebooking Pages
   -Cornucopia printable
 
~Turkey Fun mini-pack from Homeschool Giveaways & Freebies

~Thanksgiving Mad Libs! from Are We There Yet?

~Printable verses about thankfulness with activity ideas from Creative K Kids.

~Thanksgiving PreK pack from Confessions of A Homeschooler.

~Thanksgiving Bible Crafts & Printables from Christian Preschool Printables.

~More Thanksgiving Bible activities & Crafts from Bible Story Printables.

~Mosaic Cornucopia craft from Confessions of a Homeschooler

~Paper Bag Turkey craft from Homeschooled-kids.com

~Handprint Turkey craft from Meet the Dubiens

~Pilgrim Shape Craft from 2 Teaching Mommies

~T is for Turkey multi-age pack from All Our Days

~Thanksgiving Unit from 2 Teaching Mommies

~Printable Timeline from 2 Teaching Mommies


Enjoy!

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Thanksgiving coloring book FREEBIE!

(Contains affiliate links)

Right now Educents has a FREE Thanksgiving coloring book! Click the pic above to gets yours!

*15 pages.
*Perfect for all ages. (younger ones especially)

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Weekly Wrap-Up/Homeschool Mother's Journal (11/11/13)

   Not too much went on this past week. We mainly did a lot of our Ancient Rome study so we could finish that up before this week. We did a lapbook & activities I had found online. J12 is still reading Beowulf & L8 is trying out his first chapter book. He gets frustrated after a few pages so we take a lot of breaks.

   Our truck has been broke down since before Halloween & we thought we would have had it fixed by this weekend. That didn't work out so *fingers crossed* & lots of prayers that it does next weekend!

   This past weekend I decided to reorganize & rearrange the dining room/classroom.

This is an old pic & for some reason I cannot find a more recent one. Just imagine the playhouse gone & the dining table in its place like the 'after' pic below!

I love it this way! Now with the love seat in there we can cuddle while checking things out together on the pc or reading. (Ignore the pc on the floor next to the love seat....the hubs was working on it.)

      I need to put our world map back up & move the dry-erase board over from behind the tv to over by the bookshelf. I have a lot more wall space now!

      I broke out my rotisserie that has been put up for about 2 years! I forgot just how much we loved cooking chicken in it! I made a special spot on the counter so it's easier to get too..lol.

      This week, I want to look for a lapbook/file folder game, or something along those lines, for the different measurements of time for L8 & M6 to work on together. They have ideas but we need to get that down. If you have any ideas feel free to let me know in the comment section below!

       I also need to start planning the Thanksgiving dinner. I can't believe it's so close....we are still wearing shorts & flip flops here in FL so it's hard to get into the 'holiday spirit'.


Hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

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