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!

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"!

The Tree of Learning

I love that with family school, we are incorporating the gospel with all of our learning.  One of our lessons was on the Tree of Learning.  Parly P. Pratt said this,

"Theology is the science of all other sciences…the very foundation from
which they [all other sciences] emanate. It includes, philosophy, astronomy,
history, mathematics, geography, languages, the science of letters, and
blends the knowledge of all matters of fact, in every branch of art and
research…originated by this science [theology] and this science alone, all
other sciences [subjects] being but branches growing out of this root"

All that we learn emanates from God.  That is what is so exciting about learning and understanding.  The more knowledge that we gain from the world around us, the more knowledge we gain of God.  If we seek truth, we will find it.

I love the symbolism of a tree.

In family school we talked about how all of the subjects we are learning can be likened to a tree. This lesson can be found for free in Family School Foundation: A Parent Guidebook, lesson 3.  I drew a tree for my kids to color as we talked about what it means.

I also made a color version.

I also gave each of the kids a list of the subjects and their definitions.

4 Ring

This is our sixth year of homeschooling.
We have tested and tried many different methods and curriculum.
We have found a lot of amazing ways to learn.
We have also found some very dry and boring ways to "sort of" learn.

We are so excited about Family School.
We are learning with enthusiasm!
It is just what we needed.

This is how we learn.
First, we Research.
We need to acquire knowledge of what we are studying.  We are trying to do this from really good books.  Last year we tried to do our learning from a textbook approach.  We actually used textbooks.  You know, the kind you had to wrap in old paper grocery bags or used wrapping paper. Ya, that kind.

Well, that was a mistake.

We don't love textbooks.  So we research through "living" books.  It is a lot more enjoyable.  "The better the source, the better the reasoning and conclusions that are drawn from the source." (Family School Foundations: A Parent Guidebook)

Not only do we read from great books, but we also use all of our senses to experience what we learn. We want to acquire as much truth as we can.

Second, Reason.
The kids are expected to think about what they learn.   We aren't just attempting dump information into their brains so that they can throw it up on a test, then forget it.  We want them to think about the why's and how's.  This is where they get to reflect and ponder what was researched.

Third, Relate.
Why do all of this learning if we aren't going to use it?

Last, Record.
"When we write about what we have learned, we make it our internal property." (Family School Foundations: A Parent Guidebook)

Each of the kids have their own notebooks for each subject.

Sometimes they grumble about the recording.  Then they pull out their notebooks, look at their hard work, and get so much joy from seeing what they have accomplished.  It is so rewarding.

Awhile back I got a Bamboo Wacom for school.  I love to doodle.  I thought it would be fun to make my own coloring pages for the kids.  I have finally gotten to use it!  It is trickier than I thought.  It isn't exactly high tech.  My sketches look a little "wiggly", if that makes sense.   I'm not a fantastic artist.  But, I'm starting to get the hang of it.  I made this for the kids when we did the 4 Ring lesson.





If you are also doing Family School, here it is as a fill in the blank for the kids.




We love the 4 R's!
Learn more about the 4 R's of learning in Family School Foundation: A Parent Guidebook.