Rowing :: Thanksgiving

The boys and I had a lot of fun with our fall unit so I continued the plans with different "thanksgiving" themes each week leading up to Thanksgiving. We had the Maylower, pilgrims, and turkeys. I had pinned *many* ideas and tried to incorporate a little of this and a little of that through the weeks.

Some printables and seatwork ::

I downloaded the thanksgiving packs (prek and k) from homeschool creations and the thanksgiving pack from 1+1+1=1. All these printables take a lot of color printing which for us is more expensive so I'm pretty frugal about what I print out. #4 really likes the early handwriting practice and the puzzles.

Our Thanksgiving Books ::

A sweet #5 "helping" brother with his pilgrim page.

I found this adorable idea on pinterest and I thought it would be a great memory piece to keep. I traded some ideas from the original for other cute crafts I'd found on pinterest. I have to admit that some of these just "got done" instead of being a lesson or part of a larger plan. Somedays leading up to Thanksgiving were a little harried and we just had to pull out the pieces and, "here, just put this together like this" kind of thing. Not my best work but they both enjoy their finished products. I was impressed with myself for not micromanaging the small details of say the pilgrim and indian faces...who says eyes have to go at the top of a face?

The food and treats ::

I love when I can tie a recipe to something we are doing for school. I almost always pick the recipes from our activity book for our history lessons and I really need to pick up a copy of the FIAR cook book
(note to self...use amazon gift card for that!). So of course I had already pinned a lot of cute food to go-long. First up were the Plymouth Rocks at the top of the post. Unfortunately the recipe (which I followed without adaptions) called for quite a bit of almond extract. 1) we aren't big fans of almond extract and 2) it called for 1/2 a teaspoon for 8 cookies...strong almond taste. Additionally, I didn't have any black food coloring so I used green and purple to try to get a rock look. Instead I got a mossy color that made it difficult for the kids to eat them. Basically, these didn't work out so well.

Our little rice krispie turkeys did turn out. Instead of making them the week before Thanksgiving like I had planned I ended up making them the night before and taking them with us to the family dinner as a kid dessert. They didn't turn out like the picture but they were tasty!

A Leaf Walk ::

I kept planning a leaf walk through the flower farm behind our house to collect leaves for a turkey project but as soon as I figured we would go, it would start to rain like cats and dogs. Finally I just said, "We're going" and we did! The boys had such a fun time and the colors of the leaves were awesome. There were still a lot of leaves on the trees (still are...what a weird fall) but plenty to collect. We had a great walk!

Linking up::



and

The Pumpkin Patch

This year in the garden we planted three pumpkin plants...and got two small pumpkins.

Mr. Wiedz's friend grows pumpkins every year and brought us three nice sized ones this year.

#1 went to a local pumpkin patch with her girl scout troop and picked out a pumpkin.

So, is a trip to the pumpkin patch really necessary when we already have all the pumpkins we need?

I think so.

We looked at the pumpkins and sat on the boxes for group pictures. We did all the little photo opportunity cut-outs. But we left all the pumpkins there.

We did come home with a new box of apples though. Delicious apples.

And there was a lot of running around on top of the hay maze by almost everyone. (Another mom watching her child in the hay maze was not thrilled by Mr. Wiedz fun!)

A great day at the orchard!

Thanksgiving Education

Back in the summer I thought we would take most of Thanksgiving week off of school. Just relax, cook, bum around. But I have learned (over and over) that we don't do well with no plan. Bumming around doesn't work for us. Relaxing isn't relaxing!

Then I got an email from the homeschool group I joined with links to Thanksgiving lapbook ideas. That got my wheels spinning and ideas forming and lots of internet searching. I prepped a lot of work and did a lot of cutting out and getting ready. It was really fun!

I think the kids liked doing something a little different. Plus I have been not feeling well so an easy schedule was really what I needed.

Pumpkin Stamping :

Based on a photo I saw in my internet searches I made a potato stamp of a pumpkin. I forgot to leave a stem on it so we drew those in later. I only made one stamp so the kids came to the table one at a time to have their turn.

Lapbooks :

I followed a lot of links and found some games, some mini-books, some coloring pages, handwriting tracers and whatever and made our first-ever lapbooks.  The kids thought they were fun...most because they thought they were different, I think. Everyday we spent some time coloring, reading, playing and doing something in the lapbook.

The completed lapbooks were great. Each reflected the kid that made them. #1's was tidy and everything was as complete as she could make it. #4's was very colorful and a little messy! #2 and #3 did what they wanted and only more if I was real stern about it.

Our pumpkin stamps were cut out as decoration for the cover of our books

#1's. The left inside flap: what she is thankful for and a notebooking exercise on the pilgrims.

#4's. The middle of the inside had a maze (I found Thanksgiving mazes with three levels of difficulty) and a mini-book  about the first Thanksgiving. On the right inside flap as a turkey tic-tac-toe with pieces in a little mini envelope.

#2's.

#3's. The back cover had our memory verse for the week, Psalm 121:1-2 for the kids to write or trace. #1 wrote from memory, #2 did his as copywork, #3 traced a simpler version and #4 ignored his.

History :

Of course we had to throw in a couple history discussions. About the pilgrims and why they left England (though really they'd just left Norway) and the Mayflower and the Mayflower Compact (why it was necessary and what it meant) and getting to Plymouth. How the women stayed on the ship while the men built shelter and found food. How the sick were brought back to the ship for the women to care for which could be part of the reason there were only 5 women left by the time the Thanksgiving feast came around. We talked about the Indians that helped teach the pilgrims. Why they were thankful, what they did to celebrate. And how it became a tradition for us today.

Life Skills :

Well I had to sneak a little getting ready into the week. So we made a menu together, and a shopping list. We discussed budgets. We got the house ready for company. I had much bigger plans for this part of our week but with not feeling well, I wasn't up to a grocery shopping trip the week of Thanksgiving with 5 kids to do a lesson on budgets and cooking and such.

Wrap-up :

I'm glad I did something different Thanksgiving week. It made getting back into the regular routine feel good. Not feeling well, I know I would have skimped on the regular stuff anyway so now I don't feel behind or that we didn't cover something like we should have.

Links:

Thanksgiving notebook pages
Turkey-shaped book
First Thanksgiving mini-book
I am Thankful mini-book
Colors of Thanksgiving Dinner mini-book
Coloring page & Verse Tracer

Pumpkin "patch"

The farm near us had already picked all their pumpkins so there really was no "patch", just boxes full of pumpkins to choose from. A blessing really when you consider the mud pit we would have been dealing with otherwise.

I'm all about tradition in case you hadn't noticed. Fall is full of traditions and I love the change of the season that calls for soup and candles and getting the quilts back out!

The pumpkin patch is one of those traditions. But, oh my! The week is getting away from me.

So I put in my lesson plans to go to the pumpkin patch on Monday. That would give us the other days to do Cub Scouts, basketball, and Girl Scouts before we carve them up on Friday, before we leave to spend the weekend at Grammie N's for the trick-o-treating.

Did anyone see the weather report yesterday? Or look out the window? Raining. Pouring. Down. Raining.

But what's a little rain? right?

So glad the laundry was caught up...we were soaked through! But I think everyone enjoyed themselves.