Posted by Cindy on February 12, 2010
Today is bittersweet for us. As you’ll see below, the boys and I have been having lots of fun celebrating Valentine’s Day. However, today is Mahayla’s 13th birthday and she’s sick. She and I were supposed to be going to CIY Believe together later this afternoon with the Jr. High youth group, too. Oh well, there will be plenty of time for celebrating birthdays and worshiping our Lord when she’s better. I just hope I can convince her of that.
On the happier side of our day, see what the boys have been up to…
Caleb’s Activities
Candy hearts are a fun tool for finding area and perimeter.
They're also fun for creating patterns.
We worked on using Excel to create a bar graph from a handful of candy hearts, too.
You can find the area/perimeter sheet and patterning sheet on my Homeschool Launch page. Look for The Measure of a Heart and Candy Heart Patterns.
Another fun math activity was Pascal’s Heart Triangle from Mathwire.com, where you can find several great ideas! We also did a fun language arts activity called Heart Idioms.
Eli’s Activities
Have you heard of Confessions of a Homeschooler?? If you’re a mom of a preschooler, head over there right now! She has SUPER ideas and FREE reproducibles that go along with the letters of the alphabet and seasons or holidays. I can’t tell you how wonderful her ideas are!! Just about every idea below came from her Valentine’s ideas and resources.
We sorted candy hearts into color groups.
We used candy hearts to make a physical bar graph.
Eli wanted to paint his graph while his bubby made the spreadsheet graph.
These patterns to match were wonderfully challenging for Eli!
Candy hearts come in handy once again!
Add glue and glitter to anything and Eli is HAPPY!
Usually, we have a fun V-Day themed meal, but none of us have been much in the mood for eating this week. I’m hoping everyone is well by Sunday because the big kids are supposed to take part in preparing a spaghetti dinner for all the adults at church as a Valentine’s service project. I hope your Valentine’s celebrations are healthier than ours!
Posted by Cindy on July 15, 2008
Well, I’m back from the CHEK Conference in one piece, but with lots of unpacking yet to do. Besides clothing bags, I packed three BIG baskets/boxes full of things for my workshops! I’m a very visual person and like to share visuals with others, too. Sadly, if I had taken everything I’d wanted, I probably could’ve packed six or more big containers. Yes, all for two one-hour workshops! LOL
I don’t know whether it was my heavy containers or the very busy job of chasing a toddler all day Saturday, but my hubby threw his back out and has been out of commission for two days now. Surely it wasn’t my boxes!! 
The workshops went really well. Thanks for those who prayed! A very special thank you goes to Melissa, Nora, Jenny, Anne and Bonnie for being there to support me!!
The first workshop was called “Adding Easy and Creative Touches to Your Homeschool”. Just about everything I talked about I have written a blog post about before. A lot of the ideas focused on learning centers, learning spaces, creative character ideas, living math and creative writing. What I haven’t blogged about before, will surely turn into posts eventually! LOL
The second workshop was called “Creative Nature Study” (I think.) Melissa and I shared this workshop. She spoke about why we should do nature study, shared some of the creative things she’s been doing (which she also shares on her blog), and led the ladies to many wonderful resources. I talked about how to keep a nature journal, what to pack in a nature bag, some creative activities to do in nature and how to start a Creation Club. The time went fast for both of us, so we talked a blue streak! I sure hope we didn’t overwhelm those poor ladies (and one husband)!
Oh yeah. My parents are really cool grandparents. They took the older kids for the weekend and visited the Louisville Slugger factory/museum, the Falls of the Ohio and the Squire Boone Caverns. What makes them really cool, though, is the fact that they willingly dressed up like cows for the Chik-Fil-A promotion. Yes, my children mean that much to them. Truth be told, the kids only had to ask once - I think my parents secretly enjoyed dressing up for free food! :)
