Best Day Ever

Apparently I am the best mom in the whole world.
What makes me the best mom in the whole world, you ask?
Well, let me tell you.

It was one of those days.
Those days where you have to go from one thing to the next.
There is hardly room to breathe, let alone fix dinner.
The Dr. Daddy is doing some doctoring all night long.
The fridge is empty.
There is $5 and some change in your pocket.

What to do for dinner?

In between piano lessons and swim team,
you make a Sam's Club run.
Sam's Club hot dogs.
Yep.
According to Bryce, that equates to me being "the best mom in the whole world".
Hot dogs for dinner.

Guess what makes it "the best day ever".

Getting a package in the mail from Baba and Dedo...

containing rock candy.

BEST

DAY

EVER.

I had a pretty good day too.

I made something.

Christmas finger puppets.

You know you want some...

I mean your kids want some!

Come and get them at my TeachersPayTeachers store.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Christmas-Finger-Puppets-1000270

or my etsy shop.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/171165516/christmas-finger-puppets?ref=shop_home_active

Giving Thanks

The Family School, Literature 1.7

The Thanksgiving story is definitely one of faith, strength, perseverance and gratitude.

The pilgrims were devoted to God.

They showed that devotion even in the midst of great trial and hardship.

One of their favorite songs to sing was Psalm 100.

When they were finally able to get off the Mayflower, this is what they sang.

How incredible that they would want to sing a song of thanksgiving and praise when things were so difficult!

We watched a short clip of the First Thanksgiving.

You can find it here.

Then we talked about our many blessings.

Of course, we watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

and The Mouse on the Mayflower.

I made some gratitude cards with my rectangle doodle frames, circle doodle frames and Thanksgiving clip art.  The kids colored them and wrote their "thankfuls" on them.  It is our privilege and responsibility to show our gratitude!  Let's be thankful!

I made some cards for those who would prefer to just write and not color.

You can get the PDF of these handouts at my Teacher Pay Teacher store for free.

You can find them here. (The pictures of the handouts on the blog are just thumbnails, so the quality is not very good for printing.  It is definitely better quality in the PDF).

If you download them, I would really appreciate it if you would rate it for me!  

Thank you so much!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Eat a lot!

Cinderella

The Family School, Literature 1.6

What is true beauty?
Is it the way you dress?
Is it the way you do your hair?
Is it the color of your eyes?
What makes a person glow?
What makes a person smile?

Beauty is something that everyone seeks.
Even if you don't realize it, you are seeking beauty.
We seek beauty in our surroundings.
Our homes.
Nature.
Art.
We seek beauty within ourselves.

The beauty that is worth the most?
Lasting Beauty.
Beauty that is kindness.
Beauty that is honest.
Beauty that is cheerful.
Beauty that is compassionate.
Beauty that you can see even when it is dressed in rags and covered in soot.

What fairy tale did we read?
You guessed it.
Cinderella.

You can read The Blue Fairy Tale version here.
Or you can go to the library and find as many versions as you can!

We had a lot of fun reading Cinderella from cultures around the world.

Here are the handouts I made for the kids notebooks.

We read the talk "True Beauty" by Elder Lynn G. Robbins.
You can you read it here.

Handout number 1.

I also gave them a quote by David B. Haight.
Hand out number 2.

We watched another Adventures from the Book of Virtues episode.  The last tale on this episode is a native american version of Cinderella, called The Rough Faced Girl.
You can watch it here.

I made the kids this coloring page.
Handout number 3.

They colored it while they watched the Disney version of Cinderella.

Just because...

You can get the PDF of these handouts at my TPT store for free.

Hop on over and get it here.

If you download it from there, it would be wonderful if you would rate it for me!

Once again, if you would rather not get the PDF from my TPT store, let me know in the comments and I will make it available on my blog as well.

I hope enjoy it!

The Emperor's New Clothes

The Family School, Literature 1.5

Have you ever read President Benson's classic talk called, "Beware of Pride"?

You can read it here.

It is excellent.

We discussed it for this lesson.

I made the kids a handout for their notebooks.

Then we read "The Emperor's New Clothes"

What a funny fairy tale!

You can read it here.

Pride makes us want to be better than others.

It leads us away from truth.

The Emperor wanted to be better than everyone else.

He was so prideful, he could not see the truth.

This ended up being rather embarrassing for him!

I drew this for the kids to color.

While they colored they watched this.

We did this lesson for family school, but I think it would be an excellent Family Home Evening too!

I hope you enjoy it!

You can get the PDF here at my Teacher's Pay Teacher's store (it's free).  

If you would rather not get it from my Teacher's Pay Teacher's store, let me know in the comments and I will put the PDF on my blog as well.

And here are my cool-o-roonies.

Molly made this picture for Baba and Dedo.  

She insisted that I take a picture and put it on the blog.

Have an aimless daze!

Dogs

Do you have a dog?
We sort of have a dog.
Her name is Bella.
She is our neighbor.

Johnny (all of us actually) have been walking her for almost 2 years.

Can you believe that he gets $5 every time he (we) walks her?

And we walk her 2-3 times a week.

Even when it is below freezing.

My 9 year-old makes more money than I do.

Today was a perfect walking day.

We even stopped at the park.

My kids really want a dog.

I always thought we would have one.

Then something happened to me.

My dog wanter turned off.

We do not have a fence.

I use that as an excuse.

No fence.

No dog.

For now,

I really like "sort of" having a dog.

Do Better

Here is some more word art for you.

I used this with The Family School, Year 1, History Lesson 7

I hope you like it!

Doodling

I'm a doodler.
I always have been.
While taking notes at school.
I doodle.
While listening to a talk.
I doodle.
While writing in my journal.
I doodle.

I know something is really important to me if it has a lot of doodles with it.

Likewise, I know something was really boring if it there are a lot of doodles.

That being said,
I think everyone should have a chance to doodle.

As I was giving a lesson during Family School, I saw my two youngest getting a little restless.  I completely understand that.  Some of the things we learn are challenging for them.  But I love that we are together so I don't want to send them to another room.  So I had a thought.  When I was in school, I doodled.  Why not find a way for them to doodle while I teach?  Then, perhaps they will be able to listen a little better, or if nothing else, they will not distract the older two.

This is what I came up with.

And guess what?

It worked!

Not only did they sit quietly through the entire lesson,

but they also actually heard what I said and learned something!

I also made sea life creatures.

You can check it out at my TPT store.

They are begging me for more, so be on the look out for more "Doodle and Draw" creations.

I also put up some doodle frames and some more free clip art.  So go on over there and see what you think.

Thanks!

Have an "aimless daze"!

Noah

These handouts can be used for Family School, Year 1, Lesson 6.

We read some more in Moses 7.

I got to do another scripture study sheet and scripture inserts.



We read the story of Noah.
Everyone knows the story.

Noah.
Righteous.
World.
Wicked.
People.
Warned.
Ark.
Animals.
Flood.
Destroyed.

In just a few words.

Think of how much courage it must have taken Noah to obey the Lord.
Do you realize that he was warning the people and building the ark for over a hundred years?
That is some serious dedication!

"Obedience makes you spiritually strong."

Every time we obey, we are building spiritual muscles.  The more muscles we build, the easier it will be for us to obey things that are hard.  Just like Noah, we can be obedient and the Lord can protect us.

I made this for our history notebooks.

Obedience is power!

Molly Dolly Pattern

I did it!

I finally finished the Molly Dolly Pattern and it is in my etsy shop.

Come on over to my etsy shop and get a pattern!

You have plenty of time to make a Molly Dolly for your special little girl for Christmas.

If you do get Molly Dolly Pattern, let me know and I will send you some Thanksgiving journal cards.

Thank you!!!

Enoch

These handouts can be used for The Family School, Year 1, History Lesson 5.

 How did Enoch remain righteous in such a wicked world?
How was he able to influence so many others to also choose righteousness?
How can we follow Enoch's example?

Those are the questions that we talked about in one of our history lessons.

I made a scripture study chart for the kids.



I was surprised by how much they enjoyed the study chart!
They loved marking their scriptures with purpose.
They loved writing key words in the margins.
They really loved gluing the quote into their scriptures.
I think that I will be doing a lot more of these.
It is very rewarding to see those kiddios really absorb the Word of God!

Moses 7 can be found here.

Butterflies

A few weeks ago,

we released our butterflies.

I have to say,

it was a very cool experience.

First of all,

we missed the first four butterflies breaking out of their chrysalis.

It was tragic!

The kids would wait and watch,

wait and watch.

Then it would happen...

When we were sleeping!!

Why???

There was one left.  

When this chrysalis was a a caterpillar,

it could not climb to the lid to make its chrysalis.

It formed its chrysalis on the ground.

Lucky for us!!!

We were not going to miss the big event.

We gathered around the table.

I read from our book,

and read,

and read,

and read.

Probably 2 hours straight.

Then Molly shouts.

"it's cracking!"

This is what we saw.

So incredible!

Then the day came to release them.

Notice Molly's face? That butterfly may have pooped on her...

We will definitely do this again!