Notebooking Pages

I know it has been a while since I blogged about school, and I want to share with you a few of the things we are doing this year.  Our time period for history studies is from the American Revolution to the end of the 19th century, and I am looking forward to taking our first in depth look at this very busy time in history.  To go along with our studies, we are taking a closer look at the states of our Union, as well as a look at the Presidents.  I wanted  to keep it simple, something the kids could do on their own for the most part, so I created a set of note booking pages for them to use.    The states pages offer an outline of the US where they can locate the particular state and color it in.  There are a series of facts about that state to be filled in, as well as 3 boxes which can be used to illustrate state birds, flowers, trees, geographical features, fun information they discover about that state, etc.  They can choose what they want to illustrate within these boxes.  Our resources are the Dover coloring book, the Alphabet state books series (we don't have them all, just a small selection) and Our Fifty States.

For the President pages, we are using a set of flashcards for the image on the page (I found these at Targ*t for $1 a set).  Each page includes a place to list facts about the president, space to glue the image sized for a flashcard, and space to write something about each president's life, character and achievements. Our resources for these pages are mainly the flashcard set and our history readings.  The pages have been copied off on a parchment colored card stock to give them a nice look and feel.
Links to the pages are located in the links at the top of this blog.  Please feel free to use these in your own home or co-op group and to link to these pages.  Permission is not given to use these for profit or link pages directly to another site without a link to this site.

On Blogging and reality

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reels" - Steve Furtick

Fairy Party: Fairy Crowns

Sorry for the not so great photo - I tend to create late at night - not prime photography lighting at all!

To make fairy crowns - you can use heavy gauge wire (I have done that several times in the past, and it will work) but if you want a short cut - use the little crowns they sell in the bridal section at H*bby Lobby!  

I used the cheapest ribbon I could find, at about 50 cents a roll, and a hot glue gun.  I wrapped the crowns with ribbon in colors appropriate for each fairy.  Then, deconstruct inexpensive silk flowers to create flowery wreaths!

The birthday girls crowns are a bit more elaborate than the rest, for them I used pre made garlands I had from previous decorations.  As I mentioned before, Dimples insisted on orange for her fairy garments, so she became our fall fairy.  Here are the beginnings of her crown.

And here it is completed.

The Queen's crown was the same one she had from a previous fairy party, though we did add a few extra butterflies and flowers to freshen it up a bit.

 I think one of my favorites has to be the Poppy Fairy's crown, but since my favorite color is red, I suppose I am a bit biased!  

And here is a look at our Hydrangea Fairy crowned.  Hot glue gun, cheap silk flowers and voila, a lovely headdress for every fairy.  And if you want to minimize cost on flowers, in the past I have ordered a pack of really cheap leis from orient*l trading and deconstructed them to create flower fairy crowns.

Saying Goodbye to Summer

Fairy Party: Ribbon Streamers

view from my chair

A Fairy Birthday: The invitation

As summer was coming to an end, we celebrated two birthdays in our household, as my two youngest girls turned 8 and 5.  A favorite party theme with my girls is a fairy birthday, and while most birthday parties around here are mainly family and godparents, this party called for a lot of little girls!  So we invited a dozen little friends to join us for an enchanting garden tea party.

 What little girl wouldn't want to open this!  I will be sharing more fun details from this party over the next week or two.

And since an overload of gifts is one reason we avoid big birthday parties with lots of friends, a great way to make both guests and mom happy is to ask for toys or supplies to donate.  The girls receive plenty of gifts from grandparents and godparents, so this year we decided to ask for school supplies for our local rescue mission.

A few words of encouragement

A close friend sent this to me today by email.   It came at a good time for me, and I thought I would share it in case you might be encouraged by it as well.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

 If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

-this version is credited to Mother Teresa