Monthly Archives: July 2011

July 31, 2011

Summertime States Project

We found this great states sticker book last week and decided that making our own states book would be a great little project for us over these last few weeks of summer. Elliot has been obsessively soaking up as much info as he can about things like states and presidents, so much so that he will spend hours in his room copying information from books onto his Magna-Doodle just because he wants to write it somewhere. Needless to say, he was thrilled to have been given a project where he could collect all this information and put it together. We also plan to add to it over time, as we come across fun facts about a state.

I love that he gave me credit for helping.

He’s been working on this every chance he gets. He has spent hours at a time doing it and has completed 38 states in just a few days!

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July 15, 2011

What we’ve been up to lately…

The last couple of weeks we’ve been learning about some very important inventors, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Elliot has been soaking it up and he has told me on numerous occasions after reading a book about one of them, “This is making me want to invent something!”
While reading about Alexander Graham Bell, we also came across some tidbits about Helen Keller, who he worked with, so we decided to start reading about her as well. We’ve learned a lot!
We’ve got just four weeks left of summer until we start back up with our next official homeschooling year! We’re trying to make the most of this free time to learn about whatever interests us.

Because all the people we’ve been learning about lately are from around the same time period, we decided to put them all on a big timeline today so we could get a better understanding of what order it all happened in. Elliot was all giddy when he realized they were all alive and must have heard about it when the Titanic sank.

He also completed a writing project about Helen Keller. After he finished his picture of her, he explained to me, “She looks a little sad because she’s sad she’s blind and that she’s deaf. But she is very happy to be a human! She wouldn’t want to be a dog because all the dogs in her neighborhood are very fierce and chase after people.” I have no clue where that came from! I’m just happy he can understand looking on the bright side and counting your blessings.

And this is what Elliot has been reading lately. We were reading the Nate the Great series but he was really ready for something more challenging, and The Flat Stanely series is perfect for where he’s at. It is a challenge for him, but he has been really impressing me with all the words he figures out all on his own.

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July 8, 2011

Recipe of the Week

My kids are a little picky about eating eggs, so I’m always looking for ways to include more of them in their diet. Crepes are a great way, and it’s even better if you can make them with a more nutritious flour. We like to fill ours with berries and occasionally we’ll treat ourselves by adding a little
Nutella.

Spelt Crepes

6 eggs
1 1/3 cups milk
4 T butter
4 T raw honey
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup freshly milled spelt flour (Whole wheat would work too. I just like to mix things up with grains since we use whole wheat with so many things.)

Combine eggs, milk, butter, honey, salt,and vanilla and beat with a hand mixer until well blended. Sprinkle in the flour and beat until combined. Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour or in the refrigerator overnight.

Brush butter on the bottom of the crepe pan and set to medium heat. When hot, drop 2 T batter onto pan and quickly tip to cover the entire bottom. Cook until edges start to brown, about 1 minute. Flip and cook about 30 more seconds. Transfer to a warm plate and do remaining crepes, re-buttering the pan if necessary.

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July 4, 2011

Home Church

We attend a wonderful church which we love and we feel it’s especially important for the kids to be involved as much as possible, but on those mornings when, for whatever reason, we are unable to go, we try to do what we call “home church”. My husband is an excellent leader in this area and he comes up with the Bible story or lesson to do with the kids. As usual, he did not disappoint yesterday morning (after we overslept and I woke up with a headache).

Black stands for our sin.

Red stands for the blood of Jesus (She meant to draw a sad face under “sin” but accidentally made a smile.)

White stands being washed white as snow and green is for the way we grow.

Yellow stands for the streets of gold in heaven!

Josh also made up game where the kids tossed bean bags at three different targets, and according to which one they hit, they would get asked a question to answer and then were rewarded points for answering correctly.

The three categories were “Jesus”, “Family” and “Serving Others”.

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July 2, 2011

Geek Dad

Josh got a great book with activities for Dads and kids for his birthday. They tried out their first one today…a treasure hunt complete with a “real” map.

The name says it all. We’re totally geeky, so it’s perfect for us.

Over the river…

through the castle…

And up the mountain to go find the treasure!

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