Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Dear Lord:

Today we give thanks
For our many blessings
As we pray for those in need.

We give thanks
For our family and friends
As we pray for those who are lonely.

We give thanks for our freedoms
As we pray for those who are oppressed.

We give thanks for our good health
As we pray for those who are ill.

We give thanks for our comfort and prosperity
As we share our blessings with others. 

On this day of Thanksgiving,
May the love of God enfold us,
The peace of God dwell within us
And the joy of God uplift us.

Amen.

These little owls are so cute, even Stephen commented on them! They now grace our library shelves, keeping a careful eye on all the littles.

I can't find the link for the creative mom that thought of this first. I am so thankful for crafty moms!

The Mayflower will grace our dinner table this evening. She was a group effort by all the children. The little ones painted the ocean with shaving cream and finger paint and then glued blue paper napkin waves onto the plate. The elders manned the glue gun, creating the masts from twigs and the hull from a toilet paper tube. Sails were glued on by all, hence their backwardness, and the flags completed the details. I found the directions at The Crafty Crow.

Hand print turkeys: a favorite every year!

Autumn Leaves: A Photo Journal

Happy Martinmas

This year we had a celebration at the park with our homeschooling group complete with lanterns, an impromptu performance of Saint Martin's life, and a procession around the playground.

I was a little ambitious and decided to head up the crafting of lanterns at the park with 40+ children. The wind kicked up and we had tissue paper flying everywhere. The children didn't mind one bit though. They thoroughly enjoyed the messiness. And the results were lovely!

As dusk settled in, horse shoe shaped cookies were passed out and I began to tell Saint Martin's story. One of the fathers present acted out the exciting events in Martin's life. The children all laughed in appreciation. I handed him a cloak and he captured the children's imagination!

Finally, everyone lined up for a quick lantern lit procession around the park.

Saint Martin, Pray for Us!

Eastern Hemisphere: Antarctica

Welcome to the frigid South Pole!

We studied penguins, explorers, the concept of a frozen desert, and more penguins, lots of penguins. Since we spent so much time with the birds, let's start there.

 Penguins:
We used the book, Penguin Chick, as our jumping of point. To this we added Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater, and the movies March of the Penguins and Blue Planet: Polar Regions. This was plenty of penguin information!

The big kids wrote penguin facts and the little ones colored and played with penguins. I set up a tray with small plastic penguins from Wild Republic, hunks of Styrofoam, and blue and white silks. There were lots of scenes of tobogganing penguins with leopard seals chasing them down.

We did penguin art with our handy Draw-Write-Now #4, Polar Regions. To add a little specialness to their work, I gave them pastels. The colors are beautiful.

 Potato print penguins from That Artist Woman were a big hit. Even I sat down and made a picture.

Explorers:

Stories about the early expeditions to Antarctica are fascinating! Everyone learned a tremendous amount about Robert Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton, and Admiral Byrd. The whole family enjoyed these exciting and informative picture books.

 Race to the South Pole by Gare Thompson

Animals Robert Scott Saw by Sandra Markle

Trapped by the Ice! by Michael McCurdy

Trial by Ice by K.M. Kostyal

Black Whiteness by Robert Burleigh

Movie: The Endurance

This rounded out the information from the books. It was much more revealing as to the harshness of Antarctica and hardiness of the men. We came away with a great respect for Shackleton. However, after watching this documentary, they decided to forgo  90 Degrees South, which is about Robert Scott's doomed expedition. The big kids didn't want the gritty details.

General Resources:

Maps, 3 part cards, flags, and pictures are crucial to our studies, of course. Montessori for Everyone has wonderful materials. The little girls loved quizzing each other about the flags from countries that have claimed Antarctica. I really don't know why this caught their fancy so much but they are now experts! 

A for Antarctica provoked many giggles and questions as the photographer/author obviously enjoyed his work. In one photo he is outside in his long underwear building a snowman- for U, of course. Everyone then drew four pictures of their choice from the book as a form of narration.

Also, the little ones did a lot of copy work from Draw-Write-Now #4. This had age appropriate facts that tied in perfectly with the readings and movies.

A Note of Caution:
On the last day, I let everyone play with Insta Snow. I thought it would be fun with the penguins, ships, and explorers. Oh, and it was! However, after the clean-up, my husband told me that it was never to enter our house again.

Next stop: Japan!

ATC All Saints

I set up our little home altar with all our saints and books. The children drew pictures and made little table top saints from Ana Braga-Henebry's Journal.
It all looks quite festive!

A new addition to our celebration of the saints is participating in an Artist Trading Card (ATC) swap. Kimberlee, at Pondered in my Heart, is hosting the swap. On her blog she states,

"One of our greatest joys as parents is teaching our children about the saints who came before us - from the earliest history to modern times, rich and poor, young and old, from all walks of life, who fought the good fight and finished the course and are enjoying their eternity with God in heaven. We share their lives and their stories and we teach our children to make friends with the saints and call upon their intercession to assist us on our own journey towards salvation." 

I couldn't agree more. 

The children spent a lovely afternoon pouring over saint books, carefully drawing their favorites.

Here are a few of my favorites from each artist.

We are eagerly awaiting new cards of new saints from new friends.

Thank you Kimberlee!

All Saints' Day 2010

Every year the children attend a special Mass, procession and party for All Saints' Day. One brave homeschooling mom opens her home to all these saints in-training for the prayer and fun.

The children begin with a procession while everyone else recites the Litany of the Saints. This is followed by a beautiful and reverent outdoor Mass. And then on to round of "Who am I?" The children can earn prizes for best costume, best presentation, and most obscure saint. 

Saint Maximilian Kolbe- Winner of Best Saint Costume!

I was inspired by Dominic's Halloween costume for All Saints' Day too: he went as the Holy Spirit. However, in his mind, he will always be fire! Also, the idea of standing in front of a crowd was rather terrifying for him.

Olivia dressed as Saint Mary Mackillop, the first saint of Australia who was recently canonized this past October 17th. She was vying for most obscure but lost out to some other truly forgotten saints.

Gracie is the beautiful Saint Anne. She also found the crowd intimidating and bolted from the microphone as soon as she saw all the eager faces turned toward her. 

Collette dressed as Saint Colette. Who else? While her costume was very authentic, she chose the sit out the guessing too. Really, this is not a surprise as my energetic little girl is actually quite shy.

Xavier explored and explored and explored. He found everything fascinating except for All Saints' Day.