Mumblings, Messes, Mondays and Meals

Happy monday my friends, I trust you had a wonderful weekend and are in need of a day off, not more work right? We actually spent our weekend at home and the children were thrilled not be in a car wandering off to a new place. Every now and then, some time at home is a blessing. They pulled out their Doctor set that I put thogether for them with printables I made. Get your own HERE. It is always inevitable that a squabble breaks out on who gets to be the Dr. My 2 oldest just love pretend play but always want to play their own way.

My youngest, is not one for confrontation and he left straight away. I thought for sure he took off to play LEGOS or something else in the playroom, but he was back in 10 minutes with a cart full of cleaning supplies and he decided that he was the man that cleaned the Doctors offices! He grabbed our book cart, pulled the things off of it and loaded it when random cleaning products. The best part? He really cleaned and did it all day long! 

I live about 2 minutes away from a Starbucks and let me tell you how dangerous that is! My addiction is iced green tea and I normally make it myself, but with the gallon of water challenge I am struggling with, I rarely have time for anything else...yet if I see this Starbucks while running errands, I have to pull right in! I'm already in the bathroom more than my 88 year old grandmother, but it's STARBUCKS!! Hahaha...I brew my own at home from teavanna, which I love, but when it's done for you? BONUS! I've already reached gold status in no time and know I must wean myself away...but I always get codes for free stuff...it's like they have a magnetic pull on me. What's your weakness?

This past week, I tried making buffalo cauliflower bites, which were supposed to taste EXACTLY like wings but sooo much healthier.....the verdict? DING DING! These were so good, the pan was gone in no time and even my kids wanted more. Who surprised me most? My husband! He is such a wings man that I thought for sure he would laugh at me and ask me what else I was serving up, but nope..he chomped his celery, dipped them in ranch and loved it all.
Pre-heat oven to 450*

1. Cut your cauliflower into bite sized pieces, I pretty much just kept the crowns.
2. mix 1/2 cup of flour & 1/2 cup of water
3. Coat cauliflower in the above mixture
4. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes
5. Let cool for 5 minutes
6. Mix 1tbsp unsalted butter with 3/4 cup of buffalo sauce
7. Place on baking sheet

8. Bake for additional 5-10 minutes

9. Let cool 5 minutes
10. Serve with skinny blue cheese or ranch dressing, carrot sticks & celery

Enjoy every minute my friends!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Sunday School Post #3

It's Sunday and I am very late in posting, for this I apologize! We havde had a busy day and last night was rough with my youngest having growing pains all night and up until 4:30. Now, let's get on with the post! Has anyone out there done the Love Dare? My husband and I plan on doing both the one for couples and parents as our challenge for Lent. It is definitely something that strengthens our bond as a couple and as parents, gotta love it! Read More HERE!

I created that worksheet on the left of the Our Father prayer, for our lapbook. Little did I know that as I was preparing other portions of the lapbook, that this would be fun in itself. My kids all know this prayer, but a friend asked us to make a lapbook for a fun learning resource for her and this is what we came up with. For just this game print out THESE TWO PAGES. Laminate the page with the words and just slip the other page of blocks into a page protector. Cut out each block of words and mix them up and now have your student try and put them in order.

Here is our lapbook! The cover is a coloring page, my daughter added a little heart that says Jesus Loves Me. Open it up and on the left hand side are trivia questions pertaining to the Our Father as well as prayer in general. In the file folder is an Our Father holy card and will soon be home to Vocabulary Cards, using words from the Our Father:

art, hallowed, will, tresspasses, temptation
In the middle is the sheet of blank squares and on the right hand side is an envelope with all the pieces in it. I also have a little sticker that says how many pieces should be in the envelope. It's a fairly simple design, but should be a great teaching tool for this awesome prayer. I have not decided what to put on the back side yet.

Do your kids get Magnifikid? This is a great magazine to help children follow along in mass and learn along the way, but not only that, we use it in our homeschool as well! Each child gets a magazine subscription and there is always excitement when it arrives. The first thing I do is grab the one for this coming week and place an AVERY removeable tab with writing space on the last page. This is where the children jot ONE line from the homily that stood out to them, we then discuss their line that evening as a family. It's amazing how different things stand out to everyone. I love this part of our Sundays! Next, I tuck in their offering envelope that I picked up from Family Christian.

My children must put their money away in 3 ways: Save, Spend & Church. They are free to divide it up as they wish and that is where the money for their offering comes from. They tuck them all away into one of their Veggietales bags. 

These magazines are a wealth of information and we absolutely love using them to prepare for Mass. On Monday we read the comic and then discuss the project it would like us to do throughout the week. We then read the letter from the editor as well, next we write down all the difficult words from the readings that they have highlighted onto the board and discuss their meanings. We leave these words up all week to discuss or use in conversation each day. On Tuesday, we read the spotlight of the week and go through the order of the Mass as we read the readings that we will hear on Sunday. On Wednesday we discuss the readings and psalm along with going over the difficult words again. Thursday brings us back to that week's project it had us do and we talk about all that we learned and or collected for that week and then do the activity page. On Friday, we read about the Saint that they have shared with us and once again go over the difficult words. Each day we say the morning prayer they have provided us with in class and every evening we pray the evening prayer together as a family before the children head to bed. Now they are prepared for Sunday mass and can listen attentively and know everything that is being read or said. 

Enjoy every minute my friends!

Find Links to my other Sunday School posts in my Little Catholic Homeschool post HERE

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Travels by dreams and reality...

As many know, we are travelers. We love to be on the go whenever possible, a 2 hour trip here or a day trip there. We love to explore new towns, cities, states and countries. One thing I love to study is Geography and I love that my kids get into it, but we like to make learning fun by playing with our inflatable globe. One person holds the globe to begin with and passes it to the next. Where that person catches it, they either say LEFT OR RIGHT and then look at what is beneath that hand. They hold up the globe and read the country, then we discuss surrounding ones and the continent it is on. We discuss oceans nearby and anything else interesting about that area. We look it up in an Atlas and name a few fun facts and it's time to toss it to the next person! A fun spin on learning.

A fun find this weekend is the passenger manifest from where my husband's grandparents and father along with aunts and uncles came through Ellis Island. What a treasure to see it all and learn more about his history. We have signed up to take an ancestry class next month to unearth more! We want to be equipped with plenty of information for our Philadelphia, New York & New Jersey trip this September. 

Enjoy every minute my friends!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Planning a Book Swap

Do you have books everywhere? Piles here, piles there, overflowing shelves, tables with stacks, suitcases full? That is a description of my house. We have shelves in every room, piles of books in every nook and yet I keep buying. Our classroom is wall to wall bookshelves and it is fairly obvious that we are bibliophiles over here. One thing I cannot bring myself to do is to get rid of books. What made it easier to get rid of books? Swapping for new books! 

I decided to plan a swap with parents from our homeschool group and let it grow from there. I set up tables in my dining room and living room and everyone just brought their books. We priced them in case people wanted to shop without bringing books to swap and then we were ready to roll. I began planning months in advance, so everyone had time to purge their shelves.

The day of the event everyone showed up with their books ready to be laid out and then we just began swapping. All children were invited as well and they had fun swapping their books for other with their friends. It was a great experience for all involved and other then setting up tables and starting a Facebook event, it did not take much to get it going.

We used anything from carts, to crates to shoe boxes, bins and dresser drawers and suitcases to hold books and then let everyone dig through for what they were looking for. It was such a success we are planning another one for May as well! 

Enjoy every minute my friends!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

In the Lab 2015 Balloon Racers

Yesterday we were in the lab for Science again! This time we were taking a challenge on Balloon Powered cars...I took it one step forward and called them balloon powered racers, because they were going to race them against one another. Since we were just working on robots, we decided to use the mindstorms LEGOS instead of hauling up enormous bins of LEGOS. We knew these would do the job. The instructions were simple...there were none. I told them to get creative and make sure a balloon would be able to drive the car. That was it.

The kids all looked at me as though I were crazy, they demanded a photo, wanted to see videos of races, needed to make a blueprint...I told them that they would get none of that and needed to get to work. They had their objective and they had to make it come to life. I saw them hesitate for a bit before they dove right in. I showed them where they would race and told them they have 35 minutes to build and rest their racers before we would begin the final race.

I saw many cars built, rebuilt, tested, tried, taken apart. I saw them second guess themselves and almost give up, I saw the kids try and copy each other and then try out their own thing. They were elated when an idea worked and disappointed when it didn't, they were crushed when their cars were too weak to handle a race but were happy it wasn't the final race yet.

It was finally time for the final races and they were not ready, or so they thought. They kept questioning their decisions and asking questions, but the time for racing had arrived. They had to blow up their balloons and have them ready to let go and race. They went one at a time and when their car stopped, they added a piece of electrical tape to the line where they stopped before the next person went. Each person got the option of racing 2 times or keeping their first distance if they liked it.

The Science Behind It:

The science behind it all is pretty simple, but that doesn't make it any less exciting when it all works out! First blow up your balloon, attach it to your racer and then place it at the starting point and let the balloon go, escaping air from the balloon rushes out of the balloon causing propulsion (the action of driving or pushing forward.) The principle at work is Newton's Third Law of Motion, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For the Balloon Powered Car, the action is the air rushing out of the balloon once the opening is released. The reaction is the movement of the car forward. The moving Balloon Racer has kinetic energy, but even an object that isn't moving has energy. This energy is called potential energy. The potential energy of the car is in the elastic material of the balloon. As the balloon fills with air, it builds more potential energy (more air, more energy). As the air flows from the balloon, it changes to kinetic energy. This is the conservation of energy.

After discussing the Science of it all, the winners were announced and the lesson didn't end. They wanted to try again and alter their vehicles and then debate on how full the balloon should be for maximum ride. This was another day in the lab that was full of fun but a lot of thinking!
1st Place - Car at the top belonging to 7 year old!
2nd place - Car in te middle belonging to 9 year old!
3rd place - Car at the bottom belonging to 10 year old!
This was definitely a lesson in age not being a factor and those lessons are the very best, it teaches the older children that they will not always come in first and the younger ones that they too can be winners!

Enjoy every minute my friends!!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Wordless Wednesday...almost!

A quiet moment between brothers at the library

Hosting a Book Swap in our home

After only 2 lessons, she made this adorable hat that looks good on her!

He finished his new book club book in less than a day.

My little engineer created a claw bot that can grab things

Share moments of peace between siblings

Enjoy every minute my friends and remember to capture those memories

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Domo Arigato...

It's Monday and I want to crawl back under the blankets...who is with me? It was a bitter cold weekend with about 15 inches of snowfall over here. That made for quite the insanity. This morning is slow going and I have a jumble of things to share. One thing I make it a point to do, is to use my materials in as many ways as possible. These are bulletin board calendar pieces that are all laminated and would normally sit in a crate until their month arrives and they get to shine! Not in my classroom! They are in this envelope that sits in a crate of dailies, things that need to be gone through daily until they are so ingrained in the memory that they can be sold or re purposed once again. They are just about reaching the end of their use with us, but for now I will share what we do. The envelope is dumped and my son must organize them in monthly order. I then added some index cards with construction paper scraps to make up the days of the week and those need to be put into order as well. It is busy work but it is hands on work with bright colors that keep him occupied. The crate of dailies hold items for each child, I will do a post on the dailies later on in the week!

How many of you own Children's Encyclopedia's or Big Book of Why's? We have so many of these on our shelves that are full of information perfect for reports and research, but I wanted more out of them! I recently began usin a fact or 2 each day and making a worksheet/coloring page with that fact. Once I have made something for that fact, I put a post-it on the fact and date that post-it with the date we used it in class. Eventually we have an entire encyclopedia with proof that we know it all or at least what we remember.

I've mentioned before that my son is on a robotics team, he absolutely loves it and enjoys anything hands on. He has wanted to build & design bridges since he was 3 and is a complete Anglophile that wants to go to college in London and live there. He is my little engineer and anythign we can do to nurture that in him, we do. We bought him the LEGO mindstorms Robot from the LEGO store, but these things are EXPENSIVE! He loves LEGOS and has plenty of the regular kind, but after joining the robotics team, he loves building and programming his own bots and he's learning so much by doing this. This past weekend he got a second kit to join his first and this boy is in bot heaven. We took him to Home Depot to get a case to keep all his bot parts in, so that it was more portable and sturdier than the boxes. Little did we know that we would need 2! Back to the team...so they were told that they needed a better name than the one they had, as they wanted shirts for their state competition. The kids were told to come prepared with team names to the next class...I want them to be the Domo Arigato's....my son thinks I am nuts...I played him the song....yeah, I think I confirmed to him that I am nuts.

Here is one of his bots that he has programmed to shoot a Nerf gun. It's still in it's testing phase, but once he finishes it up, I plan on uploading a video. I am so proud of this kid that it's not even funny. I love when the mind wins out over anything else and as cheezy as this sounds, he's got a great mind!

Remember to enjoy every minute my friends!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Sunday School Post #2

Happy February my friends! Last week was the launch of my new Sunday feature entitled Sunday School. In this feature I discuss a bit of the things we covered in Our Little Catholic Homeschool! We have continued with Adoration once a week and it seems to be something all the children enjoy and need. We change out their Adoration Bags weekly if needed, but this has mainly only been necessary for the youngest. I really do plan on doing a post only about our Adoration Bags, in which I will keep updated their contents and anything new that may arise. My children are 7,9 & 10 and doing 1 hour a week has worked wonders in our lives. We make sure to have all of our school work done by lunch time, then we eat our lunch and head out. Once we leave Adoration, we usually head right across the street to our local Catholic store and each child is allowed to pick out a new Holy Card. Next, we head to the library to return or pick up any books and finally off to pick up daddy from work. My husband carpools, but since we are already out and about on Tuesdays, it works out perfectly to grab him ourselves! Do you do adoration with your children?

I have 3 children studying the Baltimore Catechism and a great way to keep track of all the questions, is to use a index card binder with all the questions labeled by number. The top one belongs to my daughter who just finished BC #2 and the lower one is BC #1, but only my middle son is creating the index card binder. They are a great way to not only study but reinforce what they are learning as they are writing it all down. 

My youngest is learning the St. Michael the Archangel prayer and what better way to learn than a coloring page! On this page he colors each word as he says it and stops after every line to repeat what he just colored. As he continues, little by little, he is locking the words into his head and creating a beautiful piece of art work!

A sneak peak at next week has me working on an Our Father lap book for a friend of mine that requested something for her beginning learner. I will share this finished product and the 10 Commandments one I did as well!

Be sure to follow my Catholic Homeschool board on Pinterest!

I printed out these BIBLE 411 sheets for my children to fold and tuck into their Bible for when they were in need of something at a certain moment in time. They are a great way to get children involved in the Bible more and also a great reference point as I printed out one for myself as well!

Every month I print out the Catholic calendar HERE & then we read about the daily Saints from our many Saint books, if I have time to prepare ahead, I will have a fact sheet with small coloring page to accompany the readings.

My the Lord Bless you all my friends and my you remember to enjoy every minute!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!