Book-n-Craft Advent Activities

I have been reading across the Internet what other people are doing for Advent. I drool over their ideas and their resources. But I have decided this year to do my own thing. We are going to read a book each day and do an activity or craft related to our story. I went through my Christmas books and I had just enough for twenty five activities. The books might not be considered the best choices but I have to use what I have. English books are hard to find here, as well as extremely expensive. So I am using all of the Christmas books that we own. So, starting in December, our school activities will be holiday related. We will still be doing our daily bible, math, and language arts but we will put Five in a Row on the shelf until January to enjoy the holiday preparation (and not stress me out). Wish me luck, because some of the books were hard to find crafts relating to them. We will just have to use our imagination.

One great link that I would like to leave you with is Walking by the Way has some great math and phonics games for Christmas. I am planning on playing these along with our holiday activities. They look like fun. Maybe you can find some inspiration!

Monday's Discovery

Last week was quite a week. First, I found out that my DS hurt his foot and had to have surgery. I couldn't be there, which just about killed me. Then, Kaleb decided to climb on J's toddler bed and climb off, only to get his foot stuck in one of the side panels. He twisted his leg. We spent about two hours at the hospital. It isn't broken but they put a splint of sorts on his leg. The doctor asked me to keep him immobile - just how do you do that? We put a large sock on it so he couldn't take the splint off. He will have it off in a couple of days. I think it adds about ten pounds to him and he was heavy to begin with!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Oh, how I miss Thanksgiving in the states! We always had Thanksgiving with our special friends and after a great dinner, we would sit around the table and talk. I miss watching the parade in the mornings and setting up the Christmas tree. I miss my family and my friends but know that I am thinking about you and that you are in my heart! I am thankful for all of you. Just know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Happy Thanksgiving!! Love you guys!!

J's Birthday Surprise

A couple of weeks ago, we studied dinosaurs and then we found out that there was a Dinosaur Land here in one of the malls. We thought for J's birthday celebration that we would take the family to see the dinosaurs!

Here is J on one of the animated dinosaurs. It wasn't quite a museum, I would say it was more of a small attraction but we had fun. The dinosaurs were animated and made funny sounds. We weren't allowed to take any pictures - sorry.

After seeing the dinosaurs and having a lunch at Arby's (what a treat!!!), we drove home. I made J some pink cupcakes complete with pink frosting and she opened her presents.

Her favorite was a Fur Real pet dog. She also received a cat from her sister. These Fur Real pets are handheld and move kinda like a pet (but without the poop). She truly wants a real animal, I just can't see having one inside an apartment in the city! This is about as close as she will get for now. I think she had a good birthday.

The Glorious Flight

We are still working on The Glorious Flight this week. Our sight words for the week are I and see. So J worked on stamping and writing the words.

She worked on an airplane dot to dot with numbers up to fifty.

This story takes place in France so we worked on a mini book about France. She wrote the answers that I spelled for her.

Over the weekend, I made these cubes from some rainbow fabric that I found in my mother's cabinet. They resemble the photo cubes. I put different pictures in the pockets and we took turns rolling it. We then graphed the pictures that ended up. They were easy to make but the vinyl was a pain to sew. I think they will do for our graphing projects and games.

I printed an airplanes version of Go Fish game and this is our game of the week. It goes with our learning about planes and flying.

We made pictures using a template that I found at a sale here. She traced airplanes and colored a scene around them.

This week, we will finish our book and work on more Thanksgiving activities. We will have a mini Thanksgiving dinner with the teachers and we will celebrate J's birthday. Have a great one!

My J is Five!!

It seems just like yesterday that we brought J home from the hospital in a crazy taxi ride. She has been a joy to my life. I have enjoyed seeing her gow up and learn new things. She definitely has a mind of her own. I still call her my "teenager" but it has been fun. Happy birthday, J! I wuv you.

She loved the color pink from the beginning!

She is so beautiful. Happy 5th birthday, J!

This week's book is The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen. It is a book about a man's determination to fly. He built eleven flying machines and attempted to cross the English Channel. We have many activities planned. Here is what we started with:

I used two diaper boxes and alot of tape to build this plane. Keke was estatic that I was recycling (her new thing right now due to her Environmental Science class). It is definitely not Kaleb proof and I don't see it hanging around for long. But J enjoyed playing pilot and we will use it later to reinact the story.

We started a new bible story book and we are learning about Creation. We read the story and placed the days in order.

We are working on adding right now. I found this autumn math mat with apples. She would choose two number cards and add the numbers together.

This week and next, we will be reading about Thanksgiving and working on some Thanksgiving art projects. This was one of them. J fingerpainted leaves onto this tree. It turned out really cute but it was difficult for me to get her to place the leaves on the tree. She informed me the leaves should be on the ground since it was autumn!

Since we had the finger paint out, we went ahead and fingerpainted pumpkins onto the vines. She will cut them after they dry and make it into a fall number book. This is just the start of our week, we have many things planned. Our school had a fall fest this weekend and I leave you with J painted with a butterfly.

She had her face painted, her nails done and her hair braided. She had a good day.

Monday's Discovery

J was studying dinosaurs last week and she was digging for dinosaur bones in our balcony sandbox. I thought Kaleb would enjoy the sand as well. So, I placed a towel on the ground since it was quite windy, dressed him in his hat and coat, and let him discover sand.

Well, he reached right in and, of course, he had to taste it. Why not? That wasn't the problem. After tasting it, he kept going back. The pictures aren't the best but I think you get the picture.

Runny nose and all, I still think he's cute!

Kurban Byram (Sacrifice Holiday)

Where have we been the last few days? We have been busy meeting with friends, having a 9 (yes, nine) girl sleepover, avoiding the sacrifices (of cows and sheep) on the streets, and going through a depression (short lived) because I thought some very important people to us were not going to visit this Christmas. (I am happy now because that has changed ;)! DH and DD had a super long weekend - no school until Thursday. I had ambitious plans to have school with J regardless of them being home. Well, best laid plans....that didn't work at all. So we just enjoyed that long holiday and will start up school next week. I plan on working on some Thanksgiving crafts these next two days to decorate the house, as well as plan a quick birthday party for J. But I will leave you with some super cute pics!

I recently bought a car rug from IKEA in the markdown section. We have a neighbor that has been complaining about toys hitting the floor so I have been searching for rugs to "quiet" the offending noise. I found this car rug for a really good price and couldn't pass it up.

J is driving the cars on Kaleb and he just loves it! Have a good day!

Monday's Discovery

Every morning I pretty much follow the same routine - start a load of laundry, make the beds, empty the dishwasher. Kaleb always comes running when he hears the dishwasher open. He loves it! I have to hurry and take out all of the items that could hurt him so he can "help" unload the dishwasher.

He expecially loves the plastic plates....maybe he's checking for left over food...

In case you noticed...or if you didn't, I had to cut his bangs. I didn't want to do it and I got alot of grief from other family members. But the poor guy couldn't see. He was always looking through his hair. I still think he's cute.

I don't know what it is about dishwashers but all of my kids loved them. Happy Monday! 

Week of the Dinosaurs

We had to return our book of the week so we are left with a concentration on dinosaurs. We have been watching dinosaur movies and reading every book we have on dinosaurs. We have learned alot about dinosaurs.

We are working on higher number recognition and since it is fall, I made this board. I would say a number and she would cover it with a foam shape.

We are also working on making patterns. J made a pattern using foam shapes on our dinosaur.

We worked on the sight word the. She traced it, colored it, and cut it out.

We learned to draw a dinosaur. I found a step by step chart on Making Learning Fun and we practiced following directions.

J played a pinkasaurus. I made this cape over the weekend since I was finishing Keke's cape as well. Not too bad for having no pattern.

Can you guess what Kaleb found in Keke's bedroom? He is covered in it. I can't believe he got the cap off!

It is on his toes, hands, pants. I am lucky he didn't stick it in his mouth. Oh well, off to another learning adventure! Breathe Deep, Fly High - quote from Dinotopia (by Hallmark).

Cranberry Thanksgiving (quick n easy)

Our book for part of the week is Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin. It is a cute story where Grandma learns that it is not what is on the outside that makes a good person! This is one of the few books that I did not buy for Five in a Row. The reason I did not buy it because it was out of print. I was lucky that this was the only book that our school library had on my FIAR book list! Out of print books can be soo expensive and it tends to be a problem with some of the FIAR titles. This reason alone will probably be the main reason I will not continue all the way through the FIAR curriculum. I try to find the books while in the states but sometimes, it is just not that easy. I have to return this book since I have had it for two weeks, so we will be doing a short row with it and then move on to our Science learning - dinosaurs.

We read the story and J drew a picture about what we read. She drew Mr. Whiskers holding up the recipe for the cranberry bread.

She practiced her handwriting, writing a quote from the book. We discussed the characters from the book and about Thanksgiving. We talked about the Pilgrims and Indians (who we will study more later). We would have made cranberry bread but I have yet to find cranberries here. So, maybe later. We moved on to our study of dinosaurs which will be our focus for the rest of the week.

We filled out our dinosaur chart with facts that we already know. Then we will add to our chart when we read our dinosaur books.

We had the chance to go to our school consignment sale this week and I scored a dinosaur skeleton as well as a dinosaur card game. I put the skeleton in our sandbox on our balcony. I had J dig up the bones with her shovel and detail brush. It was pretty windy and cold out there but she had fun.

She found a skull and some rib bones. These dinosaur bones also glow in the dark!

J painted a dinosaur with water colors. We will finish this tomorrow.

Our game of the week is the Dinosaur card game that I found at the sale. I only paid 1 TL and even though there were 2 cards missing, we can still play. We played memory first.

I love this face. We then took our knowledge about meat eaters and plant eaters and separated the cards.

After that, we separated our plastic dinosaurs into plant and meat eaters.

J and I discussed her birthday since we are now in November. She asked if her birthday was tomorrow. So, to help her visualize when her birthday will be here, we made a paper chain. Each day she will remove one of the links and she knows when the chain is done, it is her birthday.

She cut the pieces of paper and stapled them together with alittle bit of help.

Here is J with her birthday countdown!

I leave you with a picture of Keke and her friend who dressed up as the wolf. That's my cape that I made from two polar fleece blankets and two knit sheets. They were both single size. Not too bad, huh? Keke is such a ham!