National Puzzle Day

 Today was National Puzzle Day, so I surprised the kids with some puzzles.  I think Alice might like the box more than the puzzles!

Jack got a 3D puzzle.  The box said "beginner" but we still had quite a time figuring it out--it would have been a huge help if anything other than the front was shown on the box!  We've got it all done now except for the roof.

If you want to find out about fun days, check out the calendar on the Homeschool Share Blog!  I am going to have to come up with something good for Nutella Day next week!

Date Nights

 Since we're homeschoolers I obviously spend a lot of time with my kids, but I don't always get to spend a lot of one on one time with them.  Last week Chili's had a Daddy-Daughter dinner night similar to the Mom and Son one Jack and I had gone to last month, so while Jay and Alice were at that, Jack and I went out.  He chose to go to Coney I-Lander because he loves the arcade.  I'll have you know that I can still beat him at air hockey, though--but it's not as easy as it used to be!

 When Jack had a sleepover with his cousin last weekend, Alice and I went out for some girl time.  We took her bear back to Build a Bear to get her back re-stitched and stopped for some Dippin Dots while we were at the mall.

Then she wanted to go back to Chili's to eat.  Can you tell that we also picked up some clothing at Build a Bear?

It was so nice to get some time alone with each of them and I even got in a date night with Jay last week, too!

The Seamstress

 Alice kept telling me she wanted her own little sewing machine for Christmas, so when I saw this one, I knew I had to get it.  I also got her a basket with her own fabric, scissors, measuring tape, and pins.  She was so excited!

 She was so excited that she couldn't actually wait to use the sewing machine!  I heard a cutting noise the other day and turned around to see her "making a blanket" with some of her material.

 Yesterday we set up the machine and planned to make a little sleeping bag for her baby doll.  Unfortunately, you don't get a lot of sewing power for $20 and the fabric was too thick for the machine.

 We made a small pillow instead.

 Alice did part of it by hand.

 The finished product!

 This morning she was back at work!

 Making another blanket.

She even made some napkins for us!

I'm going to have to round up some hand sewing projects for her to work on until my machine is fixed.  She is full of ideas!

Tales From the Five Civilized Tribes

 

 It's not easy to find a lot of living books for kids dealing with Oklahoma history, but folk tales are plentiful!  I first read How Rabbit Tricked Otter in college.  It's out of print now, but you can still get a used copy pretty cheaply.  This book is a collection on short tales.

 When we went to the Five Civilized Tribes Museum I found many (signed!) copies of different folk tales!  Rabbit and the Well and Rabbit Plants the Forest are both illustrated by Murv Jacob, who did the book above, but are longer stories and have a different author.  You can hear three of their other stories online here!  At the museum they had an art exhibit upstairs that had several of Jacob's paintings, some of which were 3D.  He is an amazing artist!

 

 We also read Saltypie and Crossing Bok Chitto, which are both Choctaw stories.  We really enjoyed Crossing Bok Chitto (meaning you will probably see it turn up on the HSS blog eventually!  ha!).

 The Girl Who Helped Thunder and Other Native American Folktales has tons of stories!

 Including stories from four of the five tribes!

In addition to all the great books, the museum gift shop also had a lot of inexpensive goodies like Amazing Grace in Cherokee and some other postcards and things with quite a bit of information on them.  I love a good museum gift shop!

The Five Civilized Tribes

 After we learned about the Plains Indians, we moved on to the Five Civilized Tribes.

 We used this book along with some information from The Big Oklahoma Reproducible Activity Book.

 We also took a field trip to the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee.

There is only one room in the museum where you can take pictures, so I don't have many to share!  It was a nice little museum, though, and it had a terrific gift shop with some books I'll share soon!

 

You may remember this picture from about two and a half years ago when we took a trip to the Cherokee Heritage Center.

 

 This was an interesting trip because we have a relative who went to the Cherokee Female Seminary and later taught there.

 This picture is from the Adams Corner area that shows life for the Cherokees before statehood, and there is also a Cherokee village.  If you have to pick one field trip for the Five Civilized Tribes, this definitely gives you the most for your money!

Word of the Year: 2014 Edition

Further (adverb)
1.  to or at a more distant place or time
2.  to a greater degree or extent
3.  in addition to what has been said

That pretty much covers it.

This year we'll be traveling further than we ever have before, at least for our road trips.  I'm not planning on loading up the kids and heading to Rome anytime soon.

Since July I've lost 35 pounds, and I'd like to go further.

I'd like to go further with some of the past words I've chosen--some because I'm on the right track with them and some because I stopped early on and definitely need to go further.

I'd also like to make myself go a little further at the end of each day to make the next day a little better.  Do you know how awesome it is to come downstairs and already have the laundry ready to start?!  It's like living with a laundry fairy, even if I did have to drag everything down at 11:45 the night before.

I'd like to remember to go a little further to make my loved ones' days better.

Happy 2014!

Learning About the Plains Indians

 I'm a little (or a lot) behind on blogging, but I wanted to share with you some of the things we did when Jack was learning about the Plains Indians.  I found these little tepee kits at the Rainbow Resource booth at last year's homeschool convention, so we pulled them out and put them together.  I had to bring out the hot glue gun, but for just a couple of bucks a piece, I'm not complaining.

 He read some from the old textbook we have and then used these books.  I got Let's Look Inside a Tepee at the Alamo gift shop on our honeymoon.  Yes, I'm the kind of person who does things like that.  The other two I have had since back in my classroom days.

 If you haven't subscribed to the Homeschool Share Blog, you really need to!  Subscribers get the huge type-it-in template pack so you can make your own lapbooking pieces.  I used the templates to make these pieces to go along with the reading he was assigned.

I also pulled the buffalo section from the History Pockets book we already had.

Inside the booklet...

After this we moved on to the Five Civilized Tribes--and even took a field trip, so I hope to get that posted soon!

Swimming Lessons

 At the end of last summer Alice figured out how to swim some, so I decided we probably needed to get her into swim lessons before the next pool season started.

 Today was the first day of class and she loved it!

 She listened very well and then practiced what she learned while Jack was in class.

 Jack took some lessons a few summers ago from his aunt and can swim fairly well, but since we were going to be going anyway, I signed him up, too.

 This way he can work on his different strokes more and get some pool time in the winter.

This picture just made me laugh!

Artist Study: Georgia O'Keeffe

 Our November artist study (which spilled into December) was on Georgia O'Keeffe.

 We used the Getting to Know... biography as well as 13 Painters Children Should Know.

 We read My Name is Georgia by Jeanette Winter, who also wrote Cowboy Charlie about Charles M. Russell.

 Georgia in Hawaii tells about when the Hawaiian Pineapple Company brought Georgia O'Keeffe to Hawaii to paint pictures for their ads.

 We also painted our own giant flower pictures!

 On Georgia O'Keeffe's birthday we visited Crystal Bridges Museum to see some of the art that she and her husband collected.

 There were some of her paintings in the collection, too!  (Flying Backbone)

Radiator Building--Night, New York

I had originally planned to study her during the spring, but since Crystal Bridges had the special exhibition, we changed things up.  It's always cool to get to see some of the artist's work in person!  I've changed plans again for January so we can see some Calders in person (though we did see one at Crystal Bridges before) here in town!