Very Last First Time

 I wrote a little last week about Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews and Ian Wallace. We filled a bowl with water and put it in the freezer until the top was frozen over. Then we cut a hole in the ice to allow the Lego girl to go in. This helped the kids understand how the girl in the story could go in to collect mussels.



Notebook pages- all of them came from Homeschool Share



Here they are with some books open:



On the left side:

Under the picture of one person, they wrote Inuk for the singular and under the picture of three people, they wrote Inuit for the plural.   

Canadian flag

Do people live in igloos?

They had to put the steps for building an igloo in order and glue into the book.



On the right side:

Temperature book comparing our temps to those in this area of Canada.

Map showing where Canada is located.

Type of clothes the Inuit wear.

Book with questions about Inuit people.

They also drew a picture of an igloo using Draw Write Now.



Colin often makes something with Legos to go along with what we're studying. This time he decided to make an igloo and a sled. I liked that he included a clear Lego piece for a window. In the book we read about building an igloo, they used a large piece of ice from the ocean for the windowpane.  

Caught a rare moment

I walked into the living room to find these two sitting like this on the couch. I'm glad my camera was right there because it's a rare thing to see them this close without fighting.

Igloo Salad

To go along with our study of Very Last First Time, we learned about igloos today by reading a book and watching a video of one being built. We also made igloo salad.     

Ingredients:

1 (15.25 oz) can fruit cocktail, drained

1 (11 oz) can mandarin oranges, drained

1/2 cup flaked coconut  (we left this out)

1 3/4 cups whipped topping, divided

2 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows, divided

In a bowl, combine the fruit cocktail, oranges, coconut, 1 cup whipped topping and 1/2 cup marshmallows. Spoon into two balls, one 5-1/2 in. and one 3-1/2 in., on a serving plate, with smaller ball in front of larger ball. Spoon out some salad from small ball to make a doorway. Cover with remaining whipped topping and marshmallows.

I should have made the front part a little smaller.

The kids liked sticking the marshmallows on. They ate some of it and said it was good.

Getting back on track

Since the move, it's been hard to get school back on track. There just hasn't been enough time between that and holiday breaks. We have been doing math, spelling, grammar, phonics, and handwriting regularly. I had hoped to start some other stuff this past Monday. Well I was sick for a week so that didn't happen. Finally, today we started a study of the Five in a Row book, Very Last First Time.

It's about an Inuit girl who walks on the bottom of the ocean to collect mussels. It's the first time she's ever done it alone.

Colin and Caleigh were really interested in the story and I hope they'll enjoy the activities I have planned to go along with it. Today we read about Canada and found it on the globe. They also made a Canadian flag.

We'll work on it some more tomorrow and Monday - Thursday next week. We'll be taking Friday off for Caleigh's birthday and then be on vacation the next week. So in 2 1/2 weeks, I'll be trying to get us all started back again.

 

Happy New Year

On New Year's Eve, we had pizza, fruit, punch, and cupcakes for dinner.

Everyone had party hats, necklaces,



and noise makers.







There was also dancing







and sparklers.



Colin made his own ball drop from Legos.



The kids were determined to stay up until midnight. At 11:00, it didn't seem like the girls would make it.





They did make it to midnight and got to see the ball drop. I should have a picture to put here, but I was tired and forgot to take one. Then we watched fireworks for a little while out our windows.

More Christmas

Kids with the cookies they made.



On Christmas Eve, we went to the beach for a little while. It was very windy. We found some great shells though and it helped to distract the kids from asking about opening their presents.



Christmas Eve



On Christmas morning, Colin was in our room at 7:01 am. Chad had told him not to wake anyone before 7. The girls had decided they would rather sleep and said not to wake them. Colin got to go see what Santa brought and talked loud enough to have the girls up not much later. Molly went right to the gifts. It took Caleigh longer to get woken up though.

Christmas Day

Favorite Christmas Books

School for December was mostly just the basics and reading Christmas books. There are so many good books that I have trouble fitting them all in during the season. Here are some of our very favorites:

We just found this one last year, but it's already on our must read list.



Everyone gets in pajamas to read this one and then we watch the movie. For the last two years, I've made tickets for them and punched them like the movie.



Sadly, we didn't get time to read this one this year. I made sure to buy it the other day so we will definitely get to it next year.





We love Santa here and read many books about him and the reindeer, but I also try to choose books that show the real meaning of Christmas. I really like that this book has Santa explain that Jesus' birth is the reason for Christmas.



We've been reading this one for a while. It was out of print so we had to get it from the library. It's now available again and we gave it to Colin as his Christmas book this year.





We love Jan Brett books. My kids think all the books about the gingerbread man, baby, boy, girl, cowboy, etc. (we've read a lot of them) are fun.





There are many other books we read every year, but these are the ones that came to mind when I tried to think of the ones we like most. 

Christmas pictures

This one just makes me smile every time I see it.

Gifts

While we were putting up the Christmas tree, the girls decided to lay down under it. They said they were the presents. They have no idea how true that is.

Holiday Happenings

We've been checking out holiday events in the area.

We went to see a play, A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas. I thought it was really good.

We went to a tree lighting where they were making fake snow to cover the ground. The kids enjoyed making snowballs.

We went to a craft show, where the kids got to see Santa.

We saw a live nativity called the Living Christmas Story. Instead of just one scene like these usually have, they had 19 different scenes including Gabriel coming to Mary, different parts of Bethlehem, and the nativity.

We also went to a drive through light display.

They had a place to get out for a gift shop, Santa, a sand sculpture

and a trail to walk through with displays.

 

Our New Town

Along with unpacking, work, school, and holiday preparations, we've been trying to get out and see our new town.

One really cool thing is that we're very close to the beach. The kids love that.

It felt kind of strange to go to the beach the day after putting our Christmas tree up, but it was nice to be able to go play in the sand for a few hours.

We spent a day looking around downtown. Here is the pineapple fountain at Waterfront Park.

Here you can see the Ravenel Bridge in the background.

We also visited the Market Hall and went to the Christmas parade while we were there.

 

Thanksgiving

We spent November going back and forth between our house and an apartment since Chad had already started his new job. We didn't get to do everything I had planned for our Thanksgiving study, but I think it was pretty good that we were able to do a lot of it.

In the First Thanksgiving- inside they wrote about who, when, where, and why. Under that are Thanksgiving words with letters missing that they had to fill in. The other books are about where the Pilgrims landed and where was Plimoth Plantation. There is a map to show the path the Mayflower took. For the blessings pocket, they drew pictures or wrote what they were thankful for and put the pages inside. We used Draw Write Now to draw pictures of the Mayflower, pilgrims, Squanto, and other Thanksgiving related things.

We talked about why the Pilgrims left England, their journey on the Mayflower, what it was like when they arrived, the Wampanoag Indians, the Mayflower Compact, and the first Thanksgiving.

 

Duchess Bakes a Cake Notebook Pages

 I just realized that I never came back and posted these. I had planned to get some pictures of the kids dressed as knights and at the Renaissance Festival to add to the pages before posting them. I still haven't done that and with so much going on, I'm not sure when it will happen. So I'm going to go ahead and put them up. There will be blank spaces where the pictures will eventually be placed.

These are Caleigh's:



On the left is a map of where knights lived and a castle you can open to see a list of characters from the book. On the right is a paper piecing of a knight she put together and colored. There is also a list of weapons knights used. She glued pictures under the flaps to match them.



You can open the label the knight booklet and she put the names of each piece of the knight's armor. On the left is a castle with the parts labelled, a book about yeast, and a book on the progression to becoming a knight (page, squire, knight).

Here is part of Colin's:

Molly funnies

The kids were having an argument. It kept going and going so Chad told them to just drop it. A few minutes later Molly says, "I'm trying to drop it, Dad, but it's still in my head."

On Thanksgiving, Molly asked us if turkeys know they have chicken inside them. Yes, she confuses her birds sometimes.

Been busy

We moved a couple weeks ago so I've been busy unpacking and getting settled in along with holiday preparations. I'll try to post soon about the things we've been doing lately. We got started back with school this week even though I haven't finished unpacking all the school stuff yet.