A little behind...

I'm so sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I've been very busy and trying to stay caught up on our lessons. As part of my application of what I'm learning in my daily Good Morning Girls Bible Study, I've been trying to use the computer less...but that wasn't supposed to mean getting behind in my posts! LOL! I promise that I will try to get caught up even if it means posting daily! We only have 8 more weeks of My Father's World-Kindergarten left--where DID the time go?

Now on top of the daily things I have to start thinking about what we are going to do for (dare I say it?) FIRST grade! I'd be interested in hearing what you did for your children to move from Kindergarten to First Grade...did you use the same curriculum? Did you start a math program? Any advice would be very welcome!

We are also looking for a good Science program...I'm considering purchasing a basic Science kit so that we have test tubes, beakers and such...any suggestions?

Well I'll say goodnight, but tomorrow afternoon I should have 1 if not 2 posts ready to go to try to catch us up from some of our super fun weeks with MFW-K!

But you O Lord, are a shield about me...

Today was the first day of a new Bible Study group I'm participating in called Good Morning Girls. A group of fellow homeschooling moms and I are corresponding thru a 12 week study on the book of Ephesians and each of us has a journal of sorts that we use to record our daily thoughts. Some just printed the provided binder pages...but I like lines to write on, so I am using a composition notebook. I gleefully decorated my notebook today pulling out all sorts of stash that I've been "saving" and just going whole hog since it's mine...all mine! LOL!

(click on the picture for a larger shot)
I made the bow wrap all the way around so that I could tie it up after each study session...
I think it adds a fun element to getting ready for study each time.

Here is a closeup of the quote panel (it's 4" x 6") so you can see the bling I added as well as the faux stitching...pictures don't do this notebook justice of all the sparkles I added!

I decided on this wonderful scripture stamp Psalm 3:3--one of favorites!

I wish I had a bigger photo booth for taking a decent picture of this...but sadly I don't and it's a rainy winter day so the natural light stinks right now...trust me when I say, that pictures REALLY don't do this baby justice and I'm just tickled to death with it!

Are you interested in seeing some more of the paper crafting that I do?
Come check out my Etsy Shop and see if something strikes your fancy!
I also do custom orders if you have something special in mind! Just send me an email regarding your request to lisabeestampin (at) yahoo (dot) com and I'll be work with you to create something perfect!

Our First Sensory Box!

I have admired all the lovely sensory bins/boxes that I've seen across the homeschooling blog world...so I finally decided to make one myself. I don't have the money to go buy things to put in it--so I dug into my pantry and junk drawer and was amazed at what came together! LOL!

Here is a glimpse of the bin...

Just so you can see that anyone could make one without spending any money, here is a list of what I used...

* A large Gladware Rectangular Container w/lid--about the size of a shoebox

* popcorn kernels (we have blue popcorn!)

* dried penne

* fabric and paper flowers

* the measuring lids from cough syrup containers

* a metal spoon with holes

* a handful of shells

* a matchbox car

* a small chipboard Thomas the Train from a book

* a plastic fork

* a couple popsicle sticks

And boy, I barely had the blanket spread out and the lid open before Baby Britches plopped down and dug in!

He played for a solid 45 minutes without making a sound as he poured and scooped! It was LOVELY!!! Then as soon as Little Britches had recess, he zoomed down to play with him! LOL!

I had to run out to the store, so I popped into the Family Dollar Store and bought two things to add...a package of rubber jacks w/ball ($1) and a super small funnel (Set of 3 for $1). I also found some extra laundry detergent scoops in my laundry room that I cleaned and added! So an nice full sensory bin that cost me a whole $2.00!!

So if you have been wanting to make one, but were bummed because you didn't have the money to spend on it, you would be surprised at what you can find around your house to make one for free!!
 

Exciting Non-Homeschooling News!

Most of you probably do not know that I design and sell handmade greeting cards as my *other* hobby. I also create for a rubber and digital stamp company as well as work for two other design teams for online crafting blogs to showcase different companies products.

Well.....

Good news came in my email inbox today. 

Excellent news. 

AMAZING NEWS! 

As in rock my socks news!

Yes yes yes! I received notice that on Sunday the 15th, Scrapbook News and Review Online Magazine will be featuring FOUR--count them--FOUR of my creations! You could have knocked me over with feather! I read and re-read the email about 10 times. And then printed it to keep forever! LOL! It's been fun putting in the "Out for Publication" image they gave in all the places the creations were showing online. Once the magazine is LIVE, I will let you know where you can find my stuff and it will be so awesome to see my name in PRINT!!!

Now I can finally say "why yes, I HAVE been published!"
(giggle)

What a great start to my week!

If you are interested to see a few of the creations I have for sale, feel free to check them out in the widget in the top right corner of this blog--or just come check them out in my store: Lisabee's Little Stampin Shop! I also do commission, so if you want a special card for that special someone or event, please feel free to send me an email.

MFW-K Hightlights: Week #12 Gg-Goat

It's a GGGGGGGGreat world for the Letter G! So much fun coming up with G words. I think he did pretty good, huh?

Here is our run-down on what we did for Gg-Goat this week!

Our scripture for the week...Little Britches was tickled when we sang our hymn "Oh How I love Thy Law" at church last week because he recognized and knew some of the words. We have started marking our sight words in our scriptures and Little Britches was happy to recognize quite a few of them.

We worked thru the MFW-K curriculum for this week and enjoyed reading and learning about goats. We did many of the activities including acting out the song Old MacDonald with some stick puppets.

I found these graphics on Microsoft Word and then printed, cut and glued them to Popsicle sticks. Little Britches likes to use them for place readers when reading words or sentences too.

We spent one afternoon making Get Well Cards...

After reviewing our short vowels, we spent some time with our blending sounds and rhyming with the short vowels we've covered so far.

I printed and laminated these cards and have them now on a ring for him to review when he gets done with something early. They are really great--you can find them on the School Sparks.com website.

We also put together our list of Winter Words making a snowman for visual reference.

These words are in Little Britches' Daily Calendar Notebook and he has to choose four of them to write out every day. We also separated them out by syllables on a chart.

It was a good week--and Little Britches' favorite part was taste testing goat milk compared to cow milk--my husband's boss raises goats so he gave us a jar of it for our test. Little Britches' decided it tasted pretty good and noticed it was whiter and foamier then cow milk.

Fabby Find Friday

I have been laminating like crazy--and using binding rings to keep a lot of my things easy to find. But when I ran out of binding rings, I discovered how expensive those little buggers are--even when ordering from EBAY or Oriental Trading Company! I need the larger ones (at least 1") which means you get less in a package for your money...so I priced them and priced them...

And then I went to the bathroom and inspiration struck! Okay, let me explain, I was in the bathroom giving the boys a bath--and I was pulling on the curtain and went

I had recently replaced my old shower curtain rings with some metal ones--and I knew I had an extra package of them!

 They are shaped like a light bulb with an opening very similar to a binding clip--but they are thinner and bigger--PERFECT for hanging multiple sheets on...or a package of flashcards! AND you get 12 for just one dollar!

Now I have these clips loaded with things hanging on my cabinet handles until I buy some plastic hooks and move them.

I'm going to be grabbing some more when I go out today--and I totally recommend that anyone who needs "rings" to hold something together consider using this little suckers!

MFW Highlights: #11 Ii Insect

It's the amazing insect world for me to share this week! We actually did this unit a few weeks ago, but better late than never right? LOL!

We are blessed in that we own some AMAZING books which really made this week even better!

We started off by reading about insects from our Zoobooks...

a treasure from when I was little! My mom kept them and shipped them our way!

Then we examined some bugs (like grasshoppers and ants) in this giant book of Insects and Spiders (and yes, it IS giant!) that Little Britches received a few years ago from a family friend.

What a great resource! Beautiful color pictures and great information--including the type of ants we got for our ant farm!

We discussed about what makes an insect and insect and wrote down some "must have's"...

(yes I know I spelled Antennae wrong! LOL!)

We talked about things relating to ants...

We made some ants the likes that you will never see again...

So much fun making these buggers...I used half of a egg carton for the bugs, then turned the other half into his paint holder. So handy! I let it dry when we were done so we could use it again.

And here are the other odds and ends we did this week...

 Ordinal Number review

A review on clocks, what the numbers mean and where the hands go.

We finished our 10 Commandment Train...

We made some fingerprint bugs...which turned into grasshoppers, ladybugs, butterflies and ants.

This was so simple...just had him put his fingers in paint and then add blobs or streaks on his paper. He would do connected blobs for the ants, a streak for a caterpillar and red thumbprints for ladybugs. Once the paint dried he went back and added legs--making sure he only added 6!--and eyes and spots and anything else to turn them into critters.


We observed our ant farm of course--drew pictures of it in our science notebook...and we had a yummy lunch of Friday--ladybug apple, Squashed Bug Sandwhich, Bug Guts Juice...Delicious!

But out of everything we did, the two most favorite things were...

Making our darling clothespin grasshoppers

Materials:
Clothespins
Googly Eyes (the bigger the better)
Floral Wire
Paint
Glue Gun

1. First paint the clothespins and let them dry. 
2. Then snip the wire and form the legs. Attach to the clothespins with glue gun in the *hole* of the mouth of the pin--that trough works great. 
3. Next shape and add antennae to slanted part of of the clothespin mouth (hot glue again). 
4. Lastly glue on the eyes. 
Now you have the bugliest bug ever! LOL!

and Little Britches getting to type out things about insects on my laptop...

Here is what he typed (as he typed it):

Insect

I lic insect

iNSECTs ARE COOL!

ANT creepe!

The ant

GRASSHOPPER!  aRe Fun to hold.

Can you tell he learned about exclamation points? LOL!

So there is a summary of our Insect week...it was very enjoyable and we made a lot of great memories!

Links

10 Commandments Train

Schoolsparks.com~ Ordinal Numbers