They’re Heeeerrrrrrre
Gingerbread Shepherdmen:
In full force.
Today is…Monday Dec 20 2010
We went to the Gym, and had a great run.
But being behind as usual, we started the day properly when we got home….
We prayed.
We looked at our Gospel Art Picture, and talked about how listening to our daddy keeps us safe too:
Then the boys played for a while. Again, I was struck by how different my two older boys are—here they are playing “together,” Giant is tying dental floss onto his trucks for unknown reasons…perhaps to become a defensive tool used against monsters. Ettin is carefully lining up all the cars and trucks beside each other:
After Ettin and Galoot went for naps, I pulled out some crafts to do with Giant.
We made some gifts for his cousins (an assortment of felt pencil toppers):
And he wrote names on paper bags for them:
We’ll probably work on these some more tomorrow.
And we built a little stable and manger:
We filled the manger with hay for an FHE activity—we’d say or act out things people did to show love in our family, and then we put two pieces of hay in the manger to show love for our Saviour. Or something. I’ve never actually understood this concept (giving gifts to Christ). I think it is based on how “doing it unto the least of these my brethren ye do it unto Me,” but I think this idea gets lost in translation when we apply it to giving gifts to baby Jesus.
But I do like the idea of showing love for each other. So that’s what we talked about…
We’ve sure got a lot of love in our family. 🙂
Today is…Thursday, Dec 16 2010
The tough thing about homeschooling is that you have children home even when you are feeling sick, or have big projects to work on.
Potentially, these are great learning opportunities in themselves.
Potentially.
But I think I have a lot to learn as a mother before I can call a day like this a great homeschooling day.
We did have a cute lesson on fractions: Cutting the pepperoni for the pizza, I had Giant cut them into smaller peices, and we discussed what 1/2, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8 and so forth looked like.
Though, mostly, the boys just ate a lot of pepperoni.
Thankfully, there is always tomorrow.
(don’t worry Galoot, hopefully I’ll have this stuff figured out by the time you’re a bit older.)
Today is…Wednesday Dec 15 2010
We prayed.
We looked at a Gospel Picture of the Shepherds.
Giant found some pictures of shepherds in other Christmas books we have, and we talked about why they were so important, and about how we should share our knowledge of Christ with others like the Shepherds did.
Then we went to the Gym and had a good run around.
We brought a couple of extra boys home while Ettin went to his friends house to play. It was nice having a bunch of “older” kids to work with. You know, the mature 3 ad 4 year olds without the busy 2 year old.
We made more cookies.
I had the boys make shepherds crooks.
Which they kept calling “candy canes” for some reason. And we talked about the shepherds again:
After Giant’s friends went home after lunch, Giant and Ettin played with legos,
…and even played on the computer a bit. Actually, this was really cute. Giant would press the words of the story to have the computer read it like he usually does, except this time a little Ettin voice would chime in copying the computer. Pretty adorable.
Today is…Tuesday Dec 14 2010
We prayed.
We did our Morning Message on a couple of little chalkboards, since sharing the larger one was resulting in…disagreements.
“cookez” [cookies] “tuoos/daY” [Tuesday]
Galoot held our Gospel Picture. I may have to let him go as Gospel Picture holder, though.
Then we made some gingerbread cookie dough.
We worked on fractions: how many quarter cups and 1/3 cups fit in one cup? We found out:
(4 1/4cups and 3 1/3 cups, just so you know)
We smelled our spices:
Mommy broke her whisk attachment. Crud.
I know, I know, you shouldn’t mix cookie dough with a whisk attachment. But it never broke before!
After I added a whole lot more butter to a reduced fat Gingerbread cookie recipe, the dough finally came together:
While the dough chilled, we made paper wreaths with a friend:
Which quickly became hats,
…and frisbees,
…and masks.
Our dough was ready, and the boys rolled it out and cut out a variety of shapes. I think “BOO” was my favourite 😉 :
The cookies were a hit.
They ate them all.
I wasn’t surprised.