Saturday, March 30, 2013

Bits of randomness

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And here we are at the end of March and the whole month has seemed to slip by without my posting but once!  I wish I could say it has been because we have been oh so busy, which is partly true, but the truth is, this past month has been a tough one for me on many levels.  I am very much looking forward to ending the month with a beautiful spring/Easter celebration and moving on!

Lots has been happening around here in the recent weeks- too much to document here now, but I will say despite all the busyness and "other things", we have managed to stay pretty much on target with our lessons! Blake has thoroughly enjoyed his Greece block (4 weeks done, two to go!) and Jacob is having fun with the animal fables.  What has been a nice shift for me is actually giving Blake more freedom in choosing what goes in his main lesson book.  In the past, I would pretty much dictate what he drew, what he wrote, what projects we did, etc.  This time, he is doing most of the choosing and I am just assisting in summary writing.  I think it is making a big difference in his attitude towards his book (although he was really proud of his Ancient Civilizations book).  The other day after he showed me his drawing he said "my book is awesome!". I couldn't have asked for a better attitude!

The kids and I spent yesterday making natural dyes for egg dyeing.  It is the first time we tried it and we are all thrilled with the results.  It was fun trying to guess what item would make what color (red/purple cabbage made blue for instance!).  I will take a picture and post what materials we used as they turned out beautifully!

As I am typing this up, the kids are still outside running around playing.  They are going on almost 6 hours now.  It is a good thing as tomorrow it is supposed to rain.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!

Sunday, March 3, 2013

A Harry Potter Birthday

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Whew!  I have to say that this was the most planned and took-the-most-work-to-execute party we have ever thrown!  But it was well worth it.  A few weeks ago, Blake told me that he wanted a Harry Potter birthday party.  Well, we usually throw the more old fashioned, have some snacks, eat some cake, and play a lot type of parties so this was quite a stretch on our planning.  But I really wanted to make it great and pretty authentic, so I hit Pinterest and started gathering resources.  I have to say, the kids were great in helping with the prep-from cutting felt and assembly ties to glueing pages to spell books, etc.  This would have taken me hours and hours and hours to do on my own!  And for the most part, they happily created!

Blake was pretty set on what activities he wanted (as well as the general flow of the party, ha ha) so all I had to do was to make it happen.  The party goers made their own wands, were placed in their house by the sorting hat (wearing a handmade felt tie), received their own spell books, practiced creating potions-some planned and finishing up with mixing their own, as well as a Quiddich game in the backyard.  The two hours went by in a blink of an eye and I can confidently say everyone had a great time!  Now there is talks of future "themed" parties...I think I set a precedent with this one.

As I stated above, most of the information right down to the labels on the potion bottles and signage was found linked on Pinterest or a simple Google search!