The Biggest Lapbook Ever

Olivia took a break from her regular studies around the time of Thanksgiving to complete Amanda Bennett's Thanksgiving unit study. She had to copy many interesting quotes as well as Bible verses. She also got to practice her dictionary skills many times over as she defined selected words from the study. She looked up information about many interesting people involved in the story behind Thanksgiving. She did map work. And at the end of it all, she had to write a story as though she was a character on the voyage and arriving in the New World during that first year. She did a great job! Then we put it all together in the biggest lap book ever! She has done many lap books since the beginning of her schooling but this one takes the cake for sure. We mostly stick to note booking now-a-days and this may show you why. But this was fun. :)

Thanksgiving

The kids love Thanksgiving every year.

They love playing with the Little People Mayflower.

And the 1st Thanksgiving Set

They also love visiting with family. This year we went to the Baldwin side of the family and had a wonderful day with Rebecca's grandparents, dad, aunts and cousins. Olivia played some piano pieces she's been practicing for her recital. If you look closely, you can see another thing the kids like doing... There's a paper chain of all the things we're thankful for draped on the piano. :)

Of course, Grandpa was more like a toy than a person.

The whole family. It's funny to see our kids peppered throughout the crowd. :)

Our own growing family.

The Baldwin cousins: Hunter, Mallory, Rebecca, Patrick and Matthew

Emma in her adorable turkey shirt. :)

FIAR: A Cranberry Thanksgiving

With Gabe doing the Five In a Row program this fall, we jumped ahead a little and did A Cranberry Thanksgiving in time to coincide with the holiday. It's a fun story that involves a suspicious grandma, her sweet granddaughter, and a hairy fellow that exudes "an aura of clams and seaweed", which happens to be a favorite phrase of Ezra's now.

We studied all about New England and what it's known for: shipbuilding, lighthouses, beautiful fall colors, Colonial and Cape Cod architecture, maple syrup, and of course, clam chowder. We also got to learn about cranberries and how they are grown and harvested. The kids thought it was so cool how they flood the fields and float the cranberries to be harvested.   

 We also did a few activities related to the First Thanksgiving, which was also in New England. 

We all tried to guess how many cranberries were in a 12oz bag. We were all way off... There were lots more than we thought.

Then Gabe had to guess whether they would float or sink.

Turns out, they float! (of course, he knew this because we had talked about how they harvest them...:)

Then we cut one open to see why. There are four big seed chambers! Well, now that it's popped, it should sink right? Nope! Turns out, the berry itself is almost spongy and so it floats, even in pieces.

Lastly, we tried seeing how high one bounces. the highest one bounced up almost 9 inches!

Part of the story involves baking cranberry bread, so we showed Gabe how baking soda makes breads rise by mixing it with some vinegar in a bag and making a baking soda "bomb". You'd be surprised how fast that bag swells when you're trying to zip it. :)

For an art project, we made a silhouette of Gabriel, just like they have in a couple of pictures in the book. (I swear, I didn't pose him with an open mouth for the picture just to make him match the sihouette...)

And in the end, Gabe helped bake the cranberry bread recipe that's in the book. The kids loved it!

Family Time Fitness

We've been using Family Time Fitness for more than a year now as a PE curriculum and the kids love it. They each do the excercises as they are able .

Even Emma tries her best to do them! Her favorite exercise is to bear crawl around the room. It is just precious. She also loves to try to do head, shoulders, knees and toes. 

Ezra can be a challenge to keep focused, but he's gotten much better over the last few months and will do nearly all the excercises. :)

FIAR: The Rag Coat

With Gabe, we did The Rag Coat, which is a story about a girl in rural Appalachia who gets a coat sewn from quilting rags. 

  The story tell of how her dad, who was a coal miner, had always kept her warm by wrapping her in an old feed bag, covering her with a quilt and holding her in her arms. Sadly, he died from "miner's cough" after working in the mines for most of his life, and the other moms wanted to make her a coat from their scraps of fabric. Each piece was special to the particular family for one reason or another and she learned the story behind each one. They lined it with the old feed bag and she wore it to school where she showed it to everyone and told them each of the stories, all of which were about them since it was old scraps from each of their families.

We looked at the Appalachian Mountains and what coal is, how it's mined and what it's used for. 

To show the kids what quilting was, Rebecca used a bunch of scrapbooking paper and let them make "quilts".

Then they took a ride to Hagan-Stone Park where they have an old one-room schoolhouse just like Minna went to in the book. 

They wrote on slates.

Olivia had to be put in the corner.

Terry, the ranger, showed the kids all the neat things to see, like the teacher's desk.

Dinner at Nana and Pop-pop's

We had dinner at Nana and Pop-pop's house a couple of weeks ago and, as always, had a great time. :) 

Olivia showed off her climbing skills in their 8-foot doorways.

Nana surprised the kids by making caramel apples with them.

Irene wants one.

Ezra had some difficulty with the stickiness of his.

But Nana came to his rescue.

This really should not have been posted...

Irene Is...

...just too cute. There's really no other way to say it. She's growing up bit by bit and is showing more and more personality. She loves to laugh and smile. 

She loves to bounce in her jumper

She started eating baby food two weeks ago.

She gets very excited when the spoon is near.

Of course, Emma is a very attentive big sister.

She has such focus and intensity.

Her exersaucer is another favorite place to play

Emma loves when Irene is in her carseat because then she can play with her without Irene getting away. :)