Well, it seems my online life has been full of lemons over the last few weeks.  But, as I have come to expect with God, He has taken the lemons and is making some wonderful lemonade! So here is what is going on with me…

I am making progress at getting my blog back up and running.  It’s been a challenge, but the work I am doing is something I have wanted to do for a looong time and now it’s getting done.  I am praying that in the next few weeks I will have everything back up and running on my blog and will be able to post again on a regular basis.  I will let you all know the minute that happens!

Here is the wonderful news though! I have a new online job!!!!  I am now posting on the Trigger Memory Systems Facebook and Twitter.  It is a blast! So if you want to get great freebies, read my thoughts on creative homeschooling and chit-chat back and forth…this is your chance!  Just search for Trigger Memory Systems on Facebook or Twitter and click LIKE.

I hope to see you there!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

I got the official word today from Eric at HSB that the organizational changes I made to my blog using HTML coding will not be returning.  I thought that was going to be the answer, but I was still hoping I was wrong.  :^(  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate Eric and the time he took to understand the question I was asking.  I know I made it tricky since I had gone “outside the box” as usual and used my own HTML coding.

To try to cheer myself up I bought a new domain name!

http://www.justcallmejamin.com

I have the new address set to transfer here when someone types it in now.  So the good news is when you want to tell your friends how to get to my blog you can tell them to go to justcallmejamin.com! :^)

Prayers for my peace of mind as I process all this would be appreciated!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

MY SUBSCRIBERS ARE AMAZING AT PRAYING!

I sent out an email over the weekend to let my subscribers know about the problems I have been having since the HSB updates. I got hundreds of responses that they were all praying! Then today I finally had time to click around the templates and get creative AND I found a temporary fix for my blog! I found a template that allows me to set up something called “PAGES” in those “PAGES” I was able to post a link to my old manual categories that I had set up. So if you visit my blog you will now find:

* Who Is Jamin?
* Homeschool Helps
* Why Homeschooling?
* Outside the Box Ideas
* Crafty Things
* Fabulous Field Trips
* New To Homeschooling??
* All My American Girl Posts
* All My Preschool Posts
* All My Little House Posts
* All My Boys Book Club Posts
* All My Mad Science Posts
* Our Lapbooks
* Tributes
* Subscribe To Jamin’s Blog
* SUPPORT JAMIN’S BLOG
* MAKE A DONATION

They are not as nice and fancy as they were before AND you will have to click two places to get to them. But they are accessible again! YAY!!!!

It’s been an exhausting weekend, but I am heading to bed feeling a little less sad than I have been for the last week. I am still not sure what I am doing in the future regarding my blog. There is MUCH work to be done before all is back to “normal” for my blog. The end of the school year is a super busy time for us and I just don’t have time to really deal with all this. But, at least I can find things now when I need too. I am thinking about setting up another blog that mirrors this one but is owned by me. Then I will have a copy that can’t be changed unless I decide to do it. Of course I have NO CLUE how to do any of that! LOL So only time will tell.

ALSO I am testing to see if Feedburner will now send out my posts.

I am hoping my subscribers are reading this via email!


Thanks for all those prayers subscribers!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Breathing in, breathing out…..Trying not to FREAK!!!!

Okay, in case you don’t know homeschoolblogger.com is in the process of making some BIG changes! I signed on today to find that ALL my organizational efforts I have put in over nearly 5 years are GONE. I keep thinking of the Six Million Dollar Man…

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.”

But, can I rebuild my blog? I don’t know. I do know that I probably put too many of my organizational eggs in my homeschoolblogger basket. I have used my blog to organize everything! From meal planning to notes to someday scrapbook, I had it all in one place. And now I can’t find any of it! For now I am just going to take a break and have a good cry. I need to let them finish whatever it is that they need to do. I can’t assess how much damage has been done until it’s done.

It’s been a rough day! I am trying to keep it all in perspective. I just keep thinking…Is it God or the devil that is saying it’s time to stop blogging? I need to spend time in prayer about whatever my next step is.

I will let you know…eventually….

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Last night I tried a new recipe for dinner and it was AWESOME!  As a matter of fact it got a 100% approval rate from the family!  This is rare, usually there is at least one dissenter to whatever I cook. 

• 1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion
• 5 tablespoons curry powder
• 2 cups plain yogurt
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes (drained)
• 1 rotisserie chicken
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in  large skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook, stirring for 7 minutes.  Sprinkle with the curry powder and cook for 1 more minute.
2. Add the yogurt and cream.  Simmer for 3 minutes. Stir in salt and pepper and add tomatoes.
3. Slice or shredded the chicken.  Discard the bones and skin. Add the chicken to the sauce mixture and cook 4 more minutes to heat chicken through. 
4. Serve over Basmati rice and top with cilantro.

Next time I hope to make this with the Rice Pilav that my mil use to make.
Happy Homeschooling,

Math Emergency Sale!

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My 2 littles were in a play yesterday at church.  The play was all about God’s promises and at the end each of the kids was suppose to say the name of a person in the Bible and the promise God gave them. My 6 year old’s line was "Abraham – I will bless you and make you a great nation." Saturday night right before bed my little man is practicing his lines one last time with me and he says…"Abraham Lincoln – I will bless you and make you a great nation…Aaaachhhoooo!"

P.S. Here is one pic that a friend took and sent me.  Don’t they all look SO cute!

I keep waiting for the veggie garden to be "finished" so I can post pics of it.  I realized last night that this is probably going to be a constant "work in progress", so here is what we have so far!

In the raised beds we in the front we have beans, squash, carrots, onions, peas, watermelons and probably other things I am forgetting.  The "tomato towers" have tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and herbs.  The raised bed (in progress) against the fence goes almost all the way to the back fence.  It will house 15 tomato plants, zucchini, pumpkins, etc, etc. etc.  There are also topsy turvy’s on the patio with strawberries and I think more peppers.

President: Barack Obama
First Lady: Michelle Obama
Vice President: Joseph R. Biden
Chief of Staff: Rahm I. Emanuel
Sec. of State: Hillary R. Clinton
Sec. of Treasury: Timothy F. Geithner
Sec. of Defense: Robert M. Gates
Attorney General: Erick H. Holder, Jr.
Sec. of Homeland Security: Janet A. Napolitano
Sec. of Interior: Kenneth L. Salazar
Sec. of Agriculture: Thomas J. Vilsack
Sec. of Commerce: Gary F. Locke
Sec. of Labor: Hilda L. Solis
Sec. of Health: Kathleen Sebelius
Sec. of HUD: Shaun L.S. Donovan
Sec. of Transportation: Raymond L. LaHood
Sec. of Energy: Steven Chu
Sec. of Education: Arne Duncan
Sec. of Management: Peter R. Orszag
Sec. Environmental Protection: Lisa P. Jackson
Sec. of Veterans Affairs: Eric K. Shinseki
Ambassador to UN: Susan Rice
All Branches of the Armed Forces
U.S. Supreme Court ~ All Judges

It’s that time of year again!  Time to dress up my squad of geeks and travel back in time….

The littles ready for some geeky fun!

The littles with the King, Queen and Bishop of the Fair.

My oldest son was quickly dubbed "Lord Brown" by all the people in character at the fair. 
He has outgrown his renaissance costume so he THOUGHT he wasn’t dressed up! It never occurred to us what a crossover there would be between renaissance fair geeks and comic book geeks!  LOL Everywhere we traveled we heard "Good Day Lord Brown.", "Lord Brown wherest is thou dog Snoopy?", etc.  LOL  My son said "Truly I am amongst my people here!" hehehe

This was a weapons demonstration.

Yep, he took down an empty Knight suit with a wooden sword!  ;^)

Little King of the Castle!

The Bird of Prey show is always a family favorite!

Seeing an Eagle up close was pretty cool!

My favorite demo of the day was seeing glass being blown.  This guys was VERY good and gave all kinds of info on how glass in blown and the history of the trade. We have been to A LOT of Renaissance Fairs and this is the first time I remember seeing glass being blown.

My family can now say that we have been to Renaissance Fair’s in 3 States! Wow, I am thinking our geekiness factor just went through the roof!  LOL

Jamin

Okay,  so waaaaayyy back last year when we started American Girl Club we started with Samantha (1904).  After we finished with Samantha we decided to go through all the books in chronological order and work our way through them all.  So that is what we have been doing, and we have made our way back to Samantha!   To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to teaching Samantha again.  We had done 10 weeks on Samantha and that was pretty much all the ideas I had!  Thankfully one of the other mom’s offered to teach our 3 weeks of Samantha.  (We are just doing 3 weeks for the girls that didn’t start with Samantha and to put Samantha’s time period in chronological order for the girls that have been in it since the beginning.)

Here is my daughter working on her frame.

The girls used markers to decorate the frame under their shells.

After 42 weeks of American Girl Club we had a first this week!  We had an American Dad come to club with his daughter!

For snack we had these yummy jelly cookies!  They were great and also made by one of the dad’s! So I guess it was kind of "dad week" at American Girl Club!  LOL

Happy Homeschooling,

I LOVE it when I get to have a date night with just one of my kids at a time.  Saturday night I got to have a take out youngest son for some mother/son time.  Here are a few great things I learned Saturday night on our date.  :^)

Whew, things have been busy here and I haven’t had time to put a coherent post together in a few days….

1. We are working on putting our vegetable garden in.  We have 2 tomato towers and a raised bed area.  There will also be Topsy Turvy’s for peppers and strawberries.  Lot’s of work!  I mostly point and give direction.  But, I have gotten some dirt on my hands once or twice!  :^) I can hardly wait to eat….tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers, hot peppers, green beans, carrots, zucchini, cilantro, basil, rosemary, and squash, pumpkins, watermelons and strawberries all grown in our own backyard!  We haven’t had a really good garden since we left California in 2004.  So, I am ready!  I will post some pics when we get it all set up.
   
2. I bought the kids one of those little sand/water play tables to put under the new play structure we got them.  I was worried after we put it together that they might be too old for it, but I was wrong!  They LOVE it and have been out playing with it for hours on end! 
3. We just started week 1 of 3 for Samantha at American Girl Club.  And I am NOT teaching!  It was fun this week to show up and just be a mom!
   
4. I am ready for the school year to end.  I get this way every year about this time.  Still 4 or 5 weeks of school to go and my brain is already on vacation!

My posts may be sporadic in the coming weeks.  The weather is GREAT and we are spending as much time as we can outside.  Not much time for blogging!

Jamin

Another year of Awana is drawing to a close!  Last night was the last night of regular club for the year and next week is Awards Night.  Both of my littles finished their books for the year.  I am proud of them!  They have worked very hard and have learned a lot of Bible verses this year.  :^)

It just so happened that the one night I thought to bring the camera my daughter got to present the American flag!

You can see both my daughter and my little man saluting the Awana flag in this shot.

My little Sparkie!

My daughter with friends!
My daughter with her sweet leader.  :^)

Hanging with a friend!
Music time.

It’s hard to believe our family has been doing Awana for 13 years now!  I am so grateful for the Awana program and how it has positively impacted our family over the years. 

Jamin

Last night was our last night of Addy!  Wow, that 6 weeks went fast!  We finished up our Addy study by having a potluck like Addy had to celebrate the end of the Civil War.  We read the Emancipation Proclamation aloud.  We also learned about Jubilee and Juneteenth celebration that still happen today to celebrate slavery being abolished.

Here is our potluck table.  We had …watermelon, biscuits, collar greens, sweet potatoes and goober peas!

Here are the girls working on their Ida Bean Dolls.

My daughter filling her doll with beans.

My daughters doll ready to get hair sewn on.

Sewing on hair.

Girls concentrating on their dolls.

It is SO fun to see how the girls make the dolls their own.  Each doll had it’s own personality! Love the hair on this one!

Another one with awesome hair!  I have no idea how she did it!

My daughter with her completed doll! :^)

So that is it for Addy! Next week we will start a 3 week review of Samantha.  I started American Girl Club last year with Samantha.  I had no idea we would end up doing all the girls back then!  Now we have made our way through all the girls up to Samantha.  One of the other mom’s has graciously offered to teach the 3 weeks of Samantha to give me a break.  So I am very much looking forward to getting to go and be just one of the mom’s!

Jamin

Twenty one years ago today I was a bride!  I have NO idea where 21 years have gone….But, I am very blessed to have a wonderful husband who loves me and still makes me laugh every day!

For your viewing pleasure here is our engagement picture…
Yes, my hair is hysterically funny!  LOL  Wow, that was some serious 80′s hair!

Jamin

One of the only crafts the girls in American Girl Club have ever requested is an Ida Bean doll! In one of the early books in the Addy series Addy’s mom makes her a rag doll filled with beans.  Addy named it Ida Bean, and the girls have been wanting to make one ever since! So this is the week! 

Meet Ida Bean!

I am very excited about making these with the girls tonight!  This is the 4th type of doll we have made in American Girl Club.  For Kaya we made a cornhusk doll, for Felicity we made a clothespin doll,  and for Kirsten we made a yarn doll. But, of all the dolls we have made this one is the most huggable!  I think it is absolutely adorable too!

So here are the steps to make the doll:

1. Cut 2 layers of black fabric into the doll shape. This doll only has a head, arms and a torso.  It was very common to make dolls without legs because they were usually made out of scraps of fabric and the legs didn’t show under the skirt anyway.  I used white chalk to trace the pattern onto the black fabric.  Then I sewed them together, cut them out and brushed off the chalk.  At this point they are ready to give to the girls.
2. Once the girls have them they will need to turn them right side out.  I am going to have them do this BEFORE I give them beans.  It seems every time we do a project that needs to be turned someone forgets to do that step and they end up unhappy with the seams on the outside of their project.
3. Fill with beans leaving enough space to fold over the bottom and sew it shut.  They are going to need to fold it over before sewing it.  Otherwise beans will eventually squish out between the stitches.
   
4. Fold up bottom and sew closed.
5. Now it’s time to put on the face.  I used French Knots for the eyes and a Chain Stitch for the mouth. This may be a bit challenging for the girls.  But, it’s always fun to teach them something new!
6. For the hair I bought a bulky black yarn that looks a lot like hair.  (I learned my lesson about trying to braid yarn together to make hair on our yarn dolls!) All the girls will need to do is cut off a length of yarn and sew it to the head with black thread.
7. Now it is time to dress your doll!  I cut 2 pieces 9" X 3" to go over the shoulders and pin below where the waist will be.  Tri-fold the long strips and place over the shoulders so the seams side are facing the doll.  Then I cut them skirt 6 inches long and 17 inches wide.  Run a basting stitch along the long edge and draw it up to gather. Wrap it around the doll and secure temporarily by tying the strings together.
8. Cut 3 pieces of yarn long enough to tie around and hold the skirt of the doll and make a cute bow on the back.  Once the skirt is secured remove the pins you used to hold the top straps on.
9. The fabric we used frayed nicely so I frayed the edge at the bottom to give it a nice finish.  If your fabric doesn’t fray you might want to cut it with pinking shears to give it a fancy edge.
10. That’s it!  Your bean doll is ready to be loved!

You will find the pattern for the doll body HERE. 

Jamin

Our latest Mad Science class was all about taste! 

Here are the kids mixing up some blue food coloring to…..

….use to dye their tongues! 
This was to help make their taste buds more easily visible so they could get a good look at their partners tongue.

After examining each others tongues the kids learned about how taste and smell are connected. 

Here they are passing around different beakers to smell.  They also learned about wafting scents to protect their sense of smell.

Now how about making your own soda pop!  Yep, the kids got to mix up their own soda and carbonate it!

My daughter tasting her soda without using her sense of smell.

The kids lined up for a lifesaver taste test.  Each of them had a partner and they opened and fed a lifesaver to each other without telling what color it was. The kids had to guess what flavor they got without seeing the color.  It was really hard!
My daughter got green and was sure it was cherry!

Jamin
 

This month for Boys Book Club we read The Adventures of Wishbone Salty Dog.  This is a retelling of Treasure Island as only Wishbone can do it!  Since the weather is great right now the mom that leads the book club decided we would have it at the park!  It was a GREAT idea!  She also invited the boys to come dressed as Pirates!

Here is our narly crew of Pirates!  Arghhhh….

Only during a Pirate themed book club is it okay to shoot your neighbor during the book discussion!  LOL
After discussing the book the boys were split into 2 teams.  They were each given a treasure box to go hide in the park.  After they hid there treasure they came back to the tables and drew out a map to guide the other team to go search for the treasure. 

Here is one of the teams heading out to hide their treasure!

The other team hiding their eyes while the treasure is being hidden.

Here is our team with their map ready to give it to the other team.

Here are the two teams meeting up to swap maps.

Arghhhh!  We found our treasure ye scurvy dogs!
 
For snack the boys each got a fruit roll up to roll out and "draw" a treasure map on it with white icing. Here is my little man working on his.

My son decided that since this month Boys Book Club was at the park that he wanted his sister to come too! I thought it was VERY nice of him since he stays home every week while she goes off to American Girl Club.  I have made a really big deal about this being his special time with mom.  But, he knows that several of his sisters friends are there since they all don’t have a teenage brother to stay home with.  What a sweet boy to want his sister to come along!

Here is my daughter helping her brother with his snack.

Last, but not least, the boys got to take home their share of the Pirate booty! There was a bag for each of them with chocolate gold coins, candy necklaces and bracelets, Ring Pops, super balls and gold nuggets (aka: rolos!)

It was a very FUN book club! I think next week we will read the Magic Tree House Pirate book and guide.  We might try to do a Pirate lapbook too!

Click HERE to read about Boys Book Club – Wishbone – Beowulf
Click HERE to read about Boys Book Club – Flat Stanley

Here is how I solved the "problem" of my rent-a-kid taking too many good pics of my kids!

I love it!

I also framed 5′X7′ pics of each of the kids in Black and White with their siblings peeking out behind them…

and this one in black and white too….

Yep, I love them all!

Jamin

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Our April Kid’s Day with our homeschool group was a Resurrection Party.  We had a Disciple Egg Hunt, games and the Resurrection Egg story.  Then we had a HUGE potluck lunch!

Here are some pics…

The story

Egg Golfing….Plastic eggs filled with beans and taped shut replaced golf balls.  The kids LOVED it!
Egg Toss Game…Same eggs we used for golf replaced the bean bags.

My little man running in the egg relay race.

Parachute Game…The kids tossed fun foam bunnies in the air and then raced around looking for the one marked with a flower.  The one who found it got a prize.  Once everyone got a prize the kids switched to tossing plastics eggs around in the parachute.

Once we were done with the games we moved on to our Disciple Egg Hunt!

My kids on the race to find their eggs!

It was a fun day! 

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

I never thought I would write a post about mowing….but then again I never thought my 9 year old daughter would LOVE to mow!  LOL  I think it’s similar to the way I LOVE to iron.  (Yes, I LOVE to iron!)  There is just something satisfying about taking something messy and making it look good again! 

Here are some pics of our little princess mowing!

And yes, as you can see we do NOT have a power mower!  This is by choice.  We LIKE our reel mower.  It is as easy to use as a gas or electric push mower, but it’s not LOUD and it doesn’t stir up dust the way the power ones do. (You can see my girl is getting a good workout too!)

I thought this picture was funny because the neighbor kid is driving his little electric car for fun and my daughter is pushing a mower for fun! LOL  It’s all in how you train them I guess! 

The reel mower also becomes a conversation piece with the neighbors.  We have had neighbors come over and offer to loan us their power mower!  They just can’t believe we chose this one!  LOL  Little do they know how many out-of -the-box choices we make! (Homeschooling, Home Birth, homeopathy, etc.)

Last week for Mad Science we learned about Rockets!

Here the kids are learning about the parts of the rocket.

It was fun having my rent-a-kid here for Mad Science.  His family hosted Mad Science for 2 years when my oldest son was younger. So the boys have LOTS of good Mad Science memories.

Here are the kids racing balloon rockets! There was a fishing line strung between 2 chairs with a straw strung on it.  Then the Scientist taped a balloon on each straw and the kids let go!

You can see my little man LOVED it!
After getting to assemble a rocket as a group everyone headed outside to launch our rocket!

The kids waiting anxiously!

WE HAVE TAKE OFF!
Where did it go?  It was amazing to see how high it went and then we saw the parachute release and it floated down into the street behind out house. 
You can’t see it in this picture.  I was sure hoping I would get a shot of it in the sky though! Made you look!  LOL

Once the rocket was launched the kids took off to play on the new play structure!
So here are the lessons we learned:

• We learned what makes rockets fly and how to launch them safely.
• We learned about thrust by racing balloon rockets.
• We learned the parts of a rocket and their functions.
• We witnessed the 3 parts of flight. 1. ignition, 2. time delay, 3. ejection charge.

It was another great week of Mad Science!

Read my other posts on Mad Science:
Mad Science Kid’s Day
Mad Science – Light and Color
Mad Science at My House – Watt’s Up?
Mad Science – Dry Ice
Mad Science – SLIME!

Happy Birthday Addy! For week 4 of Addy we celebrated Addy’s birthday by learning about the toys and play of 1864.

We started out the night playing with Jump ropes like Addy did in book 4…

My daughter jumping!

Two girls turning the rope for one of their friends.

Then we sang happy birthday to Addy and I read the girls a Brer Rabbit story.

For our craft we made a Hobbie Horse…

Girls stuffing socks to make the head.

They start to look like horses pretty quickly!

Sewing on the ears.


One of the mom’s with the horse she helped her daughter make. :^)

My daughter with her finished horse.

For snack we made our own ice cream!

Getting our bags filled…Bag 1 – ice and salt. Bag 2 (inside bag 1) milk, sugar and vanilla.

Shaking!

Yum!

This was a BIG hit with the girls.  It just so happened it was also one of the girls in our group birthday that day.  So she  brought cupcakes to go along with our ice cream!

1. With an approx. 2 yard piece of yarn use clear tape to make one end stiff like a shoestring for threading.
2. Tie a BIG knot on the end that isn’t taped. (I tied it 5 times in the same spot to get it BIG enough.)  Then thread on 4 spools and tie a knot on the other end.  You need to leave a 3 inch piece of yarn in the middle of the 4 spools so you have something to tie onto for the next step. (Cut off the excess to be used in the next step.)
   
3. Now fold the string in half so the knots become the feet and the spools the legs.  You should have a yarn U in the middle facing down. Tie your yarn around the middle of the yarn U and thread on one more spool.  Push the spool down toward the legs.  Hopefully you now have a little loop sticking out of the top half of the body. 
   
4. Take another piece of yarn about yard long.  Then put on 1 spool for an arm, thread through the loop and put on the other spool. Now take the ends of these pieces and secure to the rod you are using to control the puppet.  Tie the arms on as near to the ends of the dowel rod as you can. 
   
5. Now tie one more piece onto the loop (Unless you didn;’t cut the piece off from attaching the body.  Then you can just use that.) and put on one more spool for the head.  Push the head down so it sits between the arms. (This is when it will finally look like a puppet!) Take this piece of yarn straight up and tie to the middle of the dowel rod. 
   
6. That’s it!  Clear as mud right?  LOL

You will just have to play with it if you want to make these.  We used 8 spools per girl, one 12" dowel and yarn. Then the girls used markers to decorate them however they wanted. (I bought the spools on the wood pieces aisle at JoAnn’s.  They didn’t carry very many in each store so I had to go to 3 stores to get enough. But, I needed over 100 spools.)

So that was week 4 and 5.  Only one more week of Addy!
Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

American Girl Club – Addy 1864 – Week 1
American Girl Club – Addy 1864 – Week 2
American Girl Club – Addy 1864 – Week 3

One of the things we did during Spring Break was to celebrate Passover.  This is the 4th year we have observed a Messianic Passover Seder, and the first year we have done it on our own.  I am very glad we had the chance to attend other Passovers before we did our own.  I was a little bit intimidated with the amount of prep work there was to do,  but well worth it in the end.

Here is what we ate:

Matzo Ball Soup – Made by my 15 year old
Italian Baked Chicken – Made by myself and my daughter.
Grilled Asparagus
Baked Potatoes
Kugel – Made by my rent-a-kid.
Pineapple
Charoset – Made by my kids and rent-a-kid.
Matzo
Dessert – Chocolate Covered Matzo

If you would like to learn more about celebrating the Messianic Passover you can read a Haggadah HERE. (The Haggadah is the order of worship for the Passover.  It takes you through step by step.)

Yesterday before we took my rent-a-kid to the airport we stopped by the park so he could take some pics of my kids.  They came out AMAZING!

Here are a few of my favorites…

1

2

3

4

5

6

Now for some black and white…

I am telling you the boy has talent!

My rent-a-kid leaves today.  :^(  Our week together went super fast!  But, we had a great time and I am SO glad he got to come and spend Spring Break with us!

The kids right after church.

Me with my big boys!

My rent-a-kid is a great photographer.  So I took advantage of him and had him get a family pics of us.

He even took pics of me! (Which is a rare event around here since I am the photographer of them family!  Not to mention I am MUCH more comfortable behind the camera.)

We did A LOT of fun things over Spring Break that I will be posting about in the coming days.  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter too!

Jamin

I LOVE APRIL FOOL’S DAY!  I think all year about what FUN prank I can play on my kids!  Here are pics from this year!

Before my oldest son and my rent-a-kid (aka: oldest son’s best friend.) woke up I lined 200 styrofoam cups up in front of their bedroom doors!

I wish ! would have gotten 100 more cups because then I could have covered the whole hall!  LOL

Then I got my accomplices to make a LOT of noise!

BANG! BANG! BANG! It’s not every day that mom asks you to bang on pots and pans!

My little man really got into it!  Here he is showing us his moves while banging the pot lids behind his back! :^)

My sleepy teenager emerged first!  What is going on out here???

My rent-a-kid got us back because he didn’t come out!  LOL  I had to send my oldest in to get him.   He was hiding behind the door!  But, he wasn’t expecting the cups!  You should have seen his face when he stepped into the hall crushing cups everywhere he stepped!  LOL
As you can see a FUN time was had by all! 

Then we cleaned up the cups and headed out for day 4 of our SPRING BREAK! 

We have been having a SUPER busy and FUN week!  I will post all about what we have been up to when our Spring Break in over!

Jamin

Whoooo Hooooo!  We are one SPRING BREAK this week!  To make things even better…my rent-a-kid is here for the week!  YAY!!!!!  The weather is suppose to be gorgeous all week and we have TONS of things planned!  So I am taking a blog Spring Break too!  I want to enjoy every minute I can with my kiddos this week!

I will leave you with pictures of what we did over the weekend…

Yesterday I was working on making the sample craft for next week’s American Girl Club.  My daughter came by and said "Is that a Hobble Horse?"  I said "It’s called a Hobby Horse."  "Oh, HOBBY"  she replied "Like my hobby is beading and your hobby is being a mom?"  LOL

Yeah, like that! 

Here is my little man trying out the one I made.

Here are the directions to make your own Hobble/Hobby Horse.  :^)

• 1 one inch X 36 inch dowel
• 1 wood cap for the bottom of the dowel. (I just tried different beads in the wood section of the craft store until I found one that fit.)
• 1 mens crew sock (You want the kind with a built in heel.  Not a tube sock.)
• 2 buttons for eyes
• Yarn for mane
• white felt for ears
  
• Fiber fill to stuff the head
• yarn needle
• white glue
• hot glue
  
• thread and needle (To sew eyes and ears on with.)
  

Step 1:

The head

The mane

The ball on the end that will drag on the floor as they ride.

That is it!  Have fun riding your Hobby Horse!

Happy Homeschooling,

This week we read the Christmas book in the Addy series.  One of the things that happened in the book was that Addy saw a red scarf in the window of a second hand store that she wants to buy for Mama.  She decides to save up her money and buy it as a surprise.  However, as time passes she feels conflicted because she also wants to spend the money to help other newly freed slaves.  I won’t tell you what happens, but the story inspired us to make scarfs for our Mama’s!  We actually had 2 "planned" crafts this week.  Another part of the story was that they had a shadow puppet show as part of their Christmas celebration. So for our second craft we made a shadow puppet! I said we had 2 "planned" crafts because the 3rd craft the girls came up with themselves!  They noticed I had some extra red polar fleece so they asked if they could use it to make scarfs for their dolls. 

Here is the night in pictures….

My daughter working on her shadow puppet.

For the scarfs I gave the girls a 42"X7" piece of polar fleece.  Then they cut fringe on each end and tied the fringe in a knot.  Here is a finished one.

Girls working on their crafts.

One of the puppets put together.
For the puppets I traced the body onto a manilla folder.  (There are 5 pieces.  The body, 2 upper arms and 2 lower arms.)Then they girls colored the dress portion and cut them out.  Then we punched holes to connect the puppets with mini-brads.  (We used the ones you find in the scrapbook dept.) Then we glued 3 dowel rods to the back.  (On in the center and one to each hand.)  Then the girls went to town decorating them!

One of the mom’s wearing the scarf her daughter made for her.

A finished shadow puppet!

My daughter showing her scarf she made for Addy.

Our YUMMY snack!  Sweet Potato Pudding!

The girls lined up to accessorize their shadow puppets.  I brought fabric, pearls, ribbon and lace and the mom’s helped them glue them on.  Each one became quite a masterpiece!

This puppet matches the girl who made her!

My daughter helping one of the little girls make a scarf for her doll. :^)

Making a doll scarf.

2 finished puppets with their creators!

After all our crafts were done we all gathered around and sang 2 of the songs mentioned in this weeks book.  Joy to the World and This Little Light of Mine.

My daughter with her puppet.

So that was week 3 which means we are half way through Addy!  Wow, these weeks go FAST!

Jamin

American Girl Club – Addy 1864 – Week 1
American Girl Club – Addy 1864 – Week 2

I was sitting at the table working on Math with my daughter yesterday.  She was dawdling and complaining.  Finally I said to her very seriously "Look, you need to pay attention and get this work done.  We have to finish this book this school year."  My daughter looks at me and says innocently "Why?"  I replied (with much aggravation in my voice) "Because this is a 3rd grade math book and you will be in FOURTH grade next year!"  Without missing a beat my daughter looks me right in the eye and says "You’re kidding me! There’s MORE!?!?!"  LOL

This week for Mad Science we studied SLIME! 

Bouncing Silly Puttty

Getting the news to print on Silly Putty.

We created a chemical reaction by combining polyvinyl alcohol and sodium borate — making our own SLIME!

We played with our slime by stretching and squishing it!

The little kids had their own fun playing with Play-doh and hanging out with some of the mom’s.

It was another great week of Mad Science!

Jamin

Read my other posts on Mad Science:
Mad Science – Light and Color
Mad Science Kid’s Day
Mad Science at My House – Watt’s Up?
Mad Science – Dry Ice

The boys book club my youngest son joined last month met again yesterday.  The boys are now going to be reading the Wishbone books!  I am very excited about this because I have such great memories of reading them with my oldest son. Although these books are now out of print, my oldest son LOVED them so we own many of them already.  If you have kids over the age of 10 you probably remember the PBS show Wishbone.  The premise of the show (and the books) is that Wishbone, a cute little dog, imagines himself as  the main character in classic stories.  He also has a current day story going with his owner Joe that follows the same theme as the classic story. 

A note from my daughter…

In case you can’t read it in the picture it says…

Why I Love Home Shcooling

I love homeshcooling Because it is fun! We Get to read cool Books & do Kid day’s and hav Mad Science.  it is so much fun!  i love my mom. the End!

:^)

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Awhile back I gave a quick 15 minute talk about organizing lapbooks at our monthly homeschool meeting.  I have been meaning to post the info here too, so here it goes!

Week 2 of Addy was SUPER busy!  We started out the night with a Spelling Bee!  I had emailed out a list of spelling words last week for the girls to study.  Since the girls range from Kindergarten to 6th grade we split them in 2 groups.  (K-3 and 4-6)  We did a double elimination so that the girls wouldn’t be out if they missed only one word.  They all did really well!  It was nerve wracking for many of them, but I think overall it was a good experience.  I made certificates of participation for them at this website:

http://www.123certificates.com/makeit/spelling.php

After the Spelling Bee I read to them from the book If You Lived at the Time of the Civil War and Welcome to Addy’s World: Pages 8 – 11 and 28 – 33.

Next I showed them the abacus I made and explained to them a little about how it works.  We also passed around a little slate like Addy would have used in school along with her abacus.

The girls working on their pillows.

Stuffing!

A few of the finished (or almost finished) projects!

For snack we had Black Eyed Peas and Buttermilk Biscuits. They were great!

American Girl Club – Addy 1864 – Week 1

In book two of the Addy series Addy goes to school for the first time.  One of the tools she uses at school is an Abacus.  I wanted to girls to get to experiment with an Abacus, so I thought I would make one for them to try out.

I found the directions to make this HERE.  I followed the directions pretty much (Which is odd for me.) although I added an extra bar for support.  I also used hot glue instead of wood glue.

Our much anticipated Soups Around the World Kid’s Day was last Friday and it was a BLAST! 

Here is a summary with LOTS of pictures!

We were part of the China table.  Here are my littles with two of their friends who are from China.

Our whole China group.

Love, love, love her  and her outfit and jade necklace!

A few things from China on our table.  A Chinese paper cut, fan and a piece of the Great Wall.
I can’t believe that the ONLY display I forgot to get a clear picture of was our China one!  The kids did such a great job putting it together.  Many of the items we had displayed on it where from the China Learning Kit we got from Jimmie last year. It was really fun for them to have so many real things from China to share with their friends. What we did was split the items between the kids and then have each of them write a little bit about that item.  So we had info on the flag, pandas, paper cuts, and red  money envelopes right along with the actual items.  Then we had a lot of other items on the table.  One of the family in our group has been to China twice, so they had GREAT things to share!

Trying out Egg Drop Soup at the China table.

One of the members of our group passing out lucky red money envelopes to the kids who came to our table.

Next we have Africa!
This group did a great job of representing a whole Continent!  They had info on Nigeria, Madagascar and Egypt .  Plus they had info on Missionaries to Africa and LOTS more! They also had a great soup that was a sort of corn chowder.  YUM!

One of the girls wore a outfit from Nigeria.

Hawaii!
Hawaii had a lot of fun information and a great soup!  The soup was a pumpkin pineapple soup served with whipped cream mixed in.  It was warm/cool and sweet and yummy!  Very different than anything I have every tasted before and it was WONDERFUL!

Alaska
Alaska had lots of fun info I didn’t know before and a great fish soup.  One thing I really loved was the map in the middle of the board that has Alaska superimposed over the USA to show how BIG it is.  We always see it reduced at the bottom of a map to make it fit in.  This really gave us a good idea of how BIG Alaska is!

Here are some of the kids checking out the Alaska and Hawaii tables.  Each table had a soup and a stamp for the kids passports.  The kids were given a passport when they arrived to get stamped at every table.  They really enjoyed that!

Welcome to Mexico!
The Mexico table had a lot of great hands on things.  Like a relief map, paper flowers, and a Aztec Temple made of Legos.

A few of the kids learning about Mexico!

There was also corn to grind by hand!

Italy!
Italy did a great job and I wish I had gotten better pics.  They had all the kids make different things in Italy in Mosaic.  They were on the front of the table.  You can also see a little of the Leaning Tower of Piza they made in this pic near the bottom. :^) They had a lot of info on the famous people of Italy and the food of Italy.  There soup was YUMMY too!

Here is a shot of all the people who came in costumes from their locations.  From left to right we have Nigeria, Mexico, Hawaii, China (Including a dragon who led our Dragon Dance for China! LOL), and Egypt. (Egypt is wearing a belly dancing hip scarf.)

After about an hour of traveling from table to table we all met together for each group to give a presentation.

We started with Africa…

Mexico went next…

Italy was 3rd…

Alaska was next…

5th was Hawaii…
I was so proud of all the kids.  Almost every single one of them got up front and presented something to the group.  Even the littlest ones took a turn holding up a picture they had drawn and told the group about it.  It was a neat experience for all of us!

Our China group went last because our presentation was going to wind the audience up….We started out with a couple of the girls reading reports about the history and origins of the Dragon Dance. Then 2 of the girls showed a short video of a Dragon Dance Parade and talked about the parade.  (Almost all the kids in our group had gone to a Dragon Parade this year for Chinese New Year.)
Then we had a demonstration of a blooming Jasmine tea…

Cool! (And it was very tasty too!  I LOVE tea and am going to have to get some of this for our next tea party.)

Then we finished off with our own Dragon Dance Parade!

Yep, I think they are having fun learning!

No Dragon Dance Parade would be complete without a drummer!

The procession continues down the halls and through the rooms!
We finally made our way back to the room we started in. That was the end of our fun day!  The kids and parents had a great time!  I know that this was one of my little ones favorite Kid’s Days we have had.  We will have to see what we can come up with next year to top this one!

Today our homeschool group is hosting Soups Around the World for our monthly Kid’s Day.  We will be having 6 tables with soup and information from 6 different locations. Alaska, Africa, Hawaii, China, Italy and Mexico.  (More info to come later!) We are part of the China table so I thought I would have the kids do a Ancient China Lapbook to display on our table. 

Here it is….
We used 2 sets of resources for this lapbook.  I copied the China pages from a book we have called History Pockets – Ancient Civilizations and we used a few of the free printables from Homeschool Helper Online. I decided to go with Ancient China to make the lapbook manageable.  There is just SO much information on China we could have filled a dozen lapbooks if we wanted to! 

Folder #1 has kites we designed, Chinese Lanterns we made with the numbers 1 to 10 on them in Mandarin, a Dancing Dragon Puppet that has info on the dragon dance, and some vocabulary words from Ancient China.  (calligraphy, chopsticks, peasant and emperor)

This section has a picture of a women in a traditional outfit, info on The Great Wall of China and a little booklet with a few facts about current day China.  (The only current day info we have in the lapbook. I just wanted to kids to see how amazingly big China is today!)

In this part the kids wanted to draw some pictures of their favorite things about China.  My daughter did a Panda, the Great Wall and a China Flag.  My youngest drew pictures of his favorite Chinese food…rice, chow mein and orange chicken.  He also drew the Great Wall.  Each of the kids also made a full size page of the China flag. (HERE is how we added the clear page protectors to our lapbook.)

Here we have a little booklet on Chinese food, Chinese animals, a map of China and postcards from ancient China.  The postcards are written like the kids went to Ancient China and wrote a friend to tell them about it.  :^) (The map below is from HERE.)

So that wraps up our China lapbook! We are SUPER excited to share it with our friends today!

For week one of Addy we started out with the question "Why do we study history?"  The girls threw out a few good observations and then we talked about this quote:

Addy’s shell necklace is given to her by her mother as they were in the process of escaping slavery.  It was a reminder that the love she carried in her heart would help to give her strength and courage.  It was made from a shell handed down from her great grandmother who had it with her when she was kidnapped into slavery from Africa.  In the book the necklace was strung on a shoestring that belonged to Addy’s older brother who had been sold along with her father.  (The catalyst that sent Addy and her mother to escape.) So for our necklaces we kept them simple too.  Each girl got a cowrie shell and a yard of thin black leather cord.  We put the cord through the pre-drilled whole, tied the 2 cords in an overhand knot right above the shell.  Then we used adjustable knots to finish up the necklace and make it adjustable. The only took a few minutes to make, but the girls will really enjoy having them I think.  I made one for me too and have been wearing it as a reminder to pray for the girls as we work through our study of Addy.

After we made our necklaces I read the girls the book The Listeners.  This is a book about 3 slave children that help out their parents by listening to what is going on in the masters house.  They spend every evening, after a long day at work, sitting outside the window of the big house.  Then they carry important information back to their parents.  I also showed the girls pictures of some slave quarters I found HERE.

Next I read to them the book Under the Quilt of Night . This is a book about the Underground Railroad.  It is beautifully written and illustrated. I also read to them the first 7 pages of the Welcome to Addy’s World book.  This talked about slavery, the Civil War, The Battle of Manassas, and the promise of Philadelphia for escaped slaves. 

My daughter with her Addy doll that she picked out for her birthday last month.

This week we will start our study of Addy in American Girl Club.  This week will mark the 35th week that we have met for American Girl Club!  (We did 6 weeks each on Kaya, Felicity, Josefina, Kirsten and 10 weeks on Samantha.)  Out of all the studies we have done together Addy is going to the the toughest.  Honestly, I have been wondering about how exactly to handle teaching Addy since we started American Girl Club last year.  The problem is that slavery and the Civil War are just a really difficult period of American History.  One of the beauties of studying American History through the American Girl books is that the girls get emotionally attached to the characters in the book.  Which is great, except in this case it makes the subject matter even more difficult.  Our club has a wide range of girls from different backgrounds.  Plus our girls range in age from 6 to eleven. I have been struggling for weeks on how to teach this material in a sensitive and appropriate way. 

Last weekend I sat and read through all 6 Addy books at one time.  WOW, I cried a lot!  What I decided was that it is best for our group for the girls to read the stories at home with their mom’s and then discuss them with their mom’s.  Normally we start our time together discussing the books, but this time we are not going to discuss the books at American Girl Club.  This way it will leave it up to each mom to decide what their daughter is ready to hear.  And it’s not just the slavery issue that I want to be sensitive about. (Although that is a big one.)  But, there are plenty of other issues like leaving a baby behind, being separated from dad, extreme poverty, war, and even amputation. Whew! 

I have prayed and prayed over the best way to teach Addy. We will still be discussing many of the issues raised in the Addy books, but we will be using other materials and activities to make it all not so personal.  After much prayer this seems the best way to approach this for our group.  If you are teaching an American Girl Club I encourage you to prayerfully plan what you will be doing and discuss with the mom’s in your group what will work best for your girls.

Below you will find my week by week plan for Addy which represent many, many hours of planning and research.  Please feel free to use it and change it in any way that will better fit your American Girl Club. If I have linked to pictures that we took on our trip to the East Coast please feel free to share those with your girls too.

Week 1: Meet Addy – Book 1
Theme: Slavery and The Underground Railroad
Snack – Cornmeal Mush
Craft – shell necklace, kerchief, N. Carolina, Pennsylvania and Philly Worksheets
Activity – Read The Listeners and Under the Quilt of Night
Read From In Addy’s World: Pages 1 – 7
Other:

1. Talk to the girls about being sensitive to each others feelings, asking their mom’s if they have questions and why we study history. (Include quote "Those… who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." and Genesis 1:27)
2. Show pictures of Slave Quarters.
   

Week 2: Addy Learns a Lesson – Book 2
Theme: Addy starts school in Philly / Difficulties starting a new life after slavery
Craft: Applique Pillow
Activity: Read If You Lived at the Time of the Civil War
Snack: Black Eyed Peas and Buttermilk Biscuits
Read From In Addy’s World: Pages 8 – 11 and 28 -33
Other Ideas:

1. Bring a Abacus and slate for the girls to try out.
2. Take an online tour of the Betsy Ross home. This is VERY similar to the home Addy and her mother stay in and where her mother works as a seamstress.
3. Have a Spelling Bee.
4. Talk about what school was like during this time.

Week 3: Addy’s Surprise – Book 3
Theme: Christmas/ New Life in Philly/ Helping other escape slavery
Craft – Shadow Puppet and a Scarf for Mama
Activity – Sing Joy To the World and This Little Light of Mine
Snack – Sweet Potato Pudding
Read From In Addy’s World: Pages 12 – 23
Other Ideas:

1. Take a Kerosene lamp for the girls to look at.
2. Write a poem about an event in Addy’s time and recite to the group.
3. View a Shadow Hand Puppets Book from 1859
4. Watch this video of a cool shadow puppet show.
   

Week 4: Happy Birthday Addy – Book 4
Theme: Spring/ Addy’s Birthday/ Emancipation
Craft: Hobby Horse
Activity: Jump Rope
Snack: Make Ice Cream in a Bag
Read From In Addy’s World: Pages 34 – 37 and 40 – 41
Other Ideas:

1. Bring ice for the girls to snack on while I read from Sojourner Truth.
2. Read a Brer Rabbit story.

Week 5: Addy Saves the Day – Book 5
Theme: The Civil War is Over
Craft: Spool puppets
Activity: Read book Abe’s Honest Words.
Snack: Molasses Cookies and Iced Tea
Read From In Addy’s World: Pages 42 – 47
Other Ideas:

1. Take pictures of Ford’s Theater and the house Lincoln died in to show the girls.
2. Find slide whistles for the girls.
3. Put on a puppet show.

Week 6: Changes for Addy – Book 6
Theme: Getting the family back together
Craft: Rag Dolls filled with beans
Activity: Read Emancipation Proclamation, have a Emancipation party,
Snack: Have a Potluck! – Ham, collard greens, peas, rice, cornbread, rice, biscuits, mock apple pie, yams, watermelon, goobers/peanuts, etc.
Read From In Addy’s World: Page 48 – 58
Other Ideas:

1. Take pictures from the Smithsonian on all the steps it took to do laundry back then. 
2. Show girls the pictures of the tables and chairs used to sign the terms of surrender to the Civil War.
   
3. Play Mancala on our homemade boards!
   

Ongoing project at the end of the evening – Have the girls continue to work on their rag rugs that they started in our Kirsten study.

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Last week we had the 3rd of our eight Mad Science classes for the year.  These classes have been SO fun!  This one was on Light and Color.  Here is a little of what we learned.

• How our eyes see colors using light.
• How colors mixed together appear as white.
• How color solutions mixed together make black.
• We used chromatography to help us seperate black to create a rainbow of colors.
• We used diffraction glasses to break light into a rainbow of colors.
• We made a Newton Color Wheel that blends colors into white.
• We learned about the chemical energy of different metals.
• Watched an indoor fireworks show with our diffraction glasses.

The Scientist showing us light through a prism.

Demonstrating the Newton Color Wheel.

Building our Newton Color Wheels. (My kids are now the proud owners of battery operated motors.  Life will never be the same around here again!  LOL)

My little man building his frame for his motor.

All the kids building their frames for the motors for their color wheels.

The teacher demonstrating with the black light.

My little Scientist sporting his diffraction glasses.

The kids watching the indoor fireworks with their diffraction glasses. :^)

Cute little Scientist!

Happy Homeschooling,

Read my other posts on Mad Science:
Mad Science Kid’s Day
Mad Science at My House – Watt’s Up?
Mad Science – Dry Ice

After much anticipation my youngest son FINALLY got to go to his very first Boys Book Club!  YAY!!! The book was Flat Stanley and he LOVED it! 

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

For week 5 of Kirsten the girls quilted a pattern on a potholder. 

Jamin

American Girl Club Week 1 – Kirsten 1854
American Girl Club Week 2 – Kirsten 1854
American Girl Club Week 3 – Kirsten 1854
American Girl Club Week 4 – Kirsten 1854

The kids and I recently went to see Slim Goodbody.  We have been to the Slim Goodbody show twice now.  The pics below are from our most recent time.  It’s a great fast paced show with lots of good information about how our bodies work.  If he’s going to be in your area I highly recommend the show!

http://www.slimgoodbody.com/



Be sure to visit the Teachers Resource section of the website for 6 free Slim Goodbody songs!

Jamin