Summer Crafts 2015 Part 2 August 19, 2015

In this post: Ocean crafts and study. Plus a shell study.

Hello dear ones, this Summer we used our crafts to decorate the homeschool room for the beginning of the year. We have a sea theme. So we got a head start. Here are pictures and you can find the links on my Pinterest at the end.

Michael was given two big boxes of shells from my grandma and grandpa. He used them to decorate our homeschool room.

He also made a shell notebook.

He made necklaces as well and gave them to his buddies. Then Michael did a shell lapbook.

Michael did an ocean animal lapbook. He checked out books on ocean animals from the library.

I bought ocean paper and covered our school door and the area near the reading pool. I got the ocean creature cut outs from the Dollar Tree awhile back. I used bubble wrap to make the bubbles, and crepe paper for the seaweed.

I stapled ribbon to shower caps to make the jelly fish. I hung blue and green crepe paper to make the room feel like it was under the sea.

Michael made these origami boats.

Leeland and I made this starfish with his feet.

The jelly fish are from Michael and Leeland’s hands.

Michael made a crab, an oyster, and coral from egg cartons. I made coral from split pool noodles.

I drew the octopus and Michael splattered it with paint.

Michael made a puffer fish using a fork (not pictured).

We made socktopuses from socks.

Michael and I put together this ocean diorama.

We put foam stickers on the bottom of our flip flops and made these nifty prints. We hope to leave cool impressions in the sand when we go to the beach.

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~ Amber Dover

PS: Michael’s Lego creation

Minions Movie Night July 31, 2015

Hello dear ones! A couple weeks ago my family and I went to see the Minions movie. This is how we had fun. Also, I’ll review the movie. Please come hang out :).

I drew a minion on our chalkboard door to get everyone excited.

 

I bought a Minions coloring book for a dollar. I also found sugar cookies and fruit snacks that are Minion themed. I found the Minion bead kit at Michael’s Craft Store.

 

Chris and Michael made a Minion bookmark.

 

Michael drew a Minion based on a tutorial.

Here are toilet paper roll Minions.

Now my review:

My family and I really loved the Despicable Me movies. Underneath the craziness they were about family and love. They gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. But Minions was a disappointment. There were way too many innuendos. The plot was flat. The Minions couldn’t fill Gru’s shoes as main characters. They are hilarious for shorts, but in my opinion they can’t carry a whole movie. The best part of the movie for me, was the end…when Gru showed up. In conclusion, although there are spots of funny, the smut and lack of a decent plot and strong characters, ruined it for me. This felt way more adult than childlike.

God bless and remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

You can find more ideas here:

Fourth of July Crafts and Our Second Family Olympics 2015 July 17, 2015

Hello dear ones, I hope you are well. Two years ago we had our first Family Olympics. You can find the link here: https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/my-family-rocks-sunday-2013-family-olympics/

This year we spent Independence Day having our second Family Olympics. I also have July 4th crafts to share with you. Here we go :).

We made 4th of July T-shirts.

 

Michael and Chris tie dyed a red, white, and blue shirt.

 

I used Leeland’s hand print and craft sticks to make this  U.S. flag onesie.

Michael did a lapbook on the U.S. flag. Link here:

 

http://www.currclick.com/product/72074/United-States-Flag–Speedy-Lapbook

Then Michael made me a red, white, and blue necklace out of beads.

We also did a state lapbook. Link here: http://www.currclick.com/product/76669/United-States-Alabama–Speedy-Lapbook

Then my mom came over for…

 

Family Olympics

 

I really love this event and I can’t wait until the next one. We should really have winter Olympics as well. We began by making our personal flags to represent us in the games.

We used index cards to keep score. Here are the events:

• Archery

Michael

My Step Dad Kim

Mom

Chris

Me

Leeland

• Foam Sword fighting

Me and Mom~ This was fun, but a word to the wise…make sure you zip up the trampoline if you use it. When Michael and I were sword fighting he actually fell through the unzipped part of the trampoline screen. Thankfully he didn’t hit his head too hard. It was scary though.

• Airplane Toss

• Egg Race

• Sac Race

Then just for fun:

• Parachute games

• Michael’s 4th grade piano recital. He played The Star Spangled Banner and Amazing Grace.

 

All of us won at least one medal, but Kim won the trophy.

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

More ideas:

 

Father’s Day Crafts & Our Trip to Jesup 2015

Hello dear ones! This past Father’s Day we visited our hometown and everyone got to meet the new baby. Leeland and Michael also made homemade crafts for Chris. It was a special Father’s Day. Here’s what we did:

I printed out a Father’s Day poem from here:

Then I put the boys’ foot prints on it. I also printed out a Darth Vader poster.

I helped the boys make Father’s Day books.

I stapled Daddy surveys to the back of the books. Here’s the link:

So we visited our hometown and saw our families. We saw Chris’ dad…

and we visited where my Dad is buried.

We visited my Granny.

My family didn’t want to let Leeland go.

Granny

My Uncle

My Aunt

My other grandparents

I loved playing with this Chess set as a kid.

Chris’ mom playing with Leeland

Chris’ older brother and Michael trying out his 3D plastic making pen.

Well, God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

James and the Giant Peach Study July 7, 2015

Hello dear ones! Michael did a study of the book James and the Giant Peach. Join me for a peachy craft and some Southern peach cobbler.

 

 

Michael and I made this sun catcher using contact paper. I drew a peach and he filled it in with orange tissue paper and silhouettes from James and the Giant Peach. He made clouds from cotton balls. The birds are hanging strings.

 

Michael also watched the movie. Now, here’s a recipe that we didn’t get a chance to make.

Southern Peach Cobbler

From the Odum Community Cookbook

by Jeanette Bass

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 cup self-rising flour

1 stick butter

1 can peaches (sliced with juice)

3/4 cup of milk

Melt butter in baking dish. Add sugar, milk, and peaches, mix well. Add flour and mix until well blended. Bake in 350 degree oven until top is golden brown. Serve with or without whipped cream; you can also sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

 

 

Well, God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

White House Study July 1, 2015

Hello dear ones! Michael learned about the White House recently. Here’s a craft and lapbook for you. This would be a good study for Independence Day in the U.S.

First Michael did this short lapbook and learned facts about the White House.

Link here:

http://www.currclick.com/product/72577/The-White-House–Speedy-Lapbook
Then he and I made the White House out of craft sticks.

Inspiration here:

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Pentecost & Bike Safety June 23, 2015

Hello dear ones! We made a special dove painting for Pentecost this year. I’ve also got pictures from the Bike safety class our homeschool group did with the Columbus cops. Enjoy.

• Pentecost Dove Painting ~ I was inspired by this similar painting on Pinterest:

Michael painted a sunset on canvas. Then we modge podged a dove silhouette, a Bible verse about the Holy Spirit, and words about the Holy Spirit on top.

Pentecost in the New Testament is the time when the Holy Spirit came to live inside Jesus’ believers. Sometimes the Spirit is represented by a dove. He is our comforter, counselor, and healer. This was a special time because in the past only a select few had the Spirit visit them. No one had the Holy Spirit live inside them permanently until Pentecost.

• Bike Safety~ One of our homeschool moms is married to a park cop. He rides a bike through the parks. So her husband and his buddies visited our group and gave a bike safety course. It was great.

The guys showed the kids the proper way to wear a helmet. One cop demonstrated what happens when you don’t wear a helmet and get in an accident. He used a cantaloupe to show this. We have Crazy Carl who doesn’t wear his helmet and gets smashed all over the floor. Then we have Careful Carla who always wears her helmet. She does fine in an accident.

Then the kids watched a video on bike safety. They learned hand signals for riding in traffic. Michael volunteered to come up and show the signals he learned.

Lastly, the kids got to hear the sirens on the cop car.

Leeland hanging out.

Well, that’s it. God bless and remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Lent Crafts Part Three 2015 March 28, 2015

In this post: Lent/Easter crafts and a lapbook.

Hello dear ones! Well, I’m going to keep this post short. We haven’t done a whole lot lately because we’re hoping the baby comes soon. We did manage a couple of crafts and we planted our garden.

I’m not going to repost all the craft pictures. Simply, Michael made palm branches out of his hand prints. Then he read R.C. Sproul’s “The Donkey Who Carried a King”. We made an Easter Lily that’s leaf says “He is risen!”. And for several weeks we’ve been slowly working on an indepth Easter lapbook.

Lapbook link here: http://www.currclick.com/product/7908/Easter-Lapbook

Lily printable here: http://www.freefuneaster.com/easter-crafts/paper-lily-craft/

We also did these two printables:

http://www.biblewise.com/kids/fun/crown-of-thorns.php

http://www.sundayschoolkids.com/activities-lent-easter/1-road-to-easter-activity-bible-lookup.htm

Chris prepped the garden area and me and Michael helped plant. Our gardens usually don’t produce much and especially not enough to feed us. Still, it’s nice to know we are planting something. It’s good for kids to know where food comes from (besides the grocery store!). Planting time always excites me.

Michael planted a few things by Terabithia (his clubhouse).

Planting in the garden…

Well, I hope you have a lovely Holy week and Easter.

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Easter ideas on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/doverette/easter-crafts/

Lent crafts from this year on this blog:

Ash Wednesday 2015

I AM craft, The Lord’s Prayer chapel, and band-aid prayers cross~

Lent Crafts Part One 2015

Egg study & Resurrection egg diorama~

Lent Crafts part 2: Egg Study

St. Patty’s Day 2015

In this post: St. Patty’s food, scavenger hunt, decor, lapbook, and craft. 

Hello dear ones! Here’s how we celebrated Saint Patrick’s day this year.

• As you can see from above, we brought out our usual St. Patty’s decor. I let Michael set things up because I felt like I was going into labor that day (false alarm). You can see our family leprechaun and trap. We had Lucky Charms ready for breakfast, a book about St. Patty’s story, and this year an indepth St. Patrick’s Day lapbook.

You can find the lapbook here:http://www.currclick.com/product/1055/Saint-Patricks-Day-Lapbook

It has Catholic principles in it. We are not Catholic but we had an interesting conversation about praying to saints etc and what a Biblical saint is compared to the process of becoming a Catholic saint. As protestants, we don’t believe in praying to saints or talking to them at all. Also, we believe all Christians are saints and in the process of being sanctified. Anywho, the lapbook had great info about Ireland and we even learned some Gaelic. We talked about the symbols of St. Patty’s and how it’s celebrated in different places.

Even the dogs got festive! Here’s Annabelle :).

 

• Michael made this rainbow chain with a pot of gold at the end.

 

• That morning, Michael had a St. Patty’s placemat with activities on it. I got this free printable from: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/holidays/st-patricks-day/top-of-the-morning-to-you-printable-placemats/

 

• Chris and Michael did this St. Patty’s Scavenger hunt that I got from The Dating Divas. I set up clues around the house. Each clue bag had an activity that had to be completed before they could move on to the next clue. They were simple but fun. Examples: Don’t Eat Pete (leprechaun version with Skittles), figure out your leprechaun name, and find all the gold pieces.

Scavenger hunt printables here: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/holidays/st-patricks-day/st-pattys-scavenger-hunt/

 

• Lastly, we ate our traditional Irish foods: Irish stew (beef instead of lamb) and Irish Soda Bread. Chris made the stew while Michael and I baked the bread. This has to be my favorite bread.

Recipes here: http://pocketchangegourmet.com/irish-soda-bread-recipe/

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/irish-lamb-stew/detail.aspx

And I leave you with my 36 weeks pics (I’m actually about 38 weeks prego now. We’re praying that the baby comes soon though because he’s already bigger than Michael was at birth).

God bless & remember the High King Lives! ~Amber Dover

St. Patty’s on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/doverette/st-patrick-s-day/

St. Patty’s past on my blog:

Trinity lesson/craft & big party with tons of Irish recipes~

Crafty Monday: St. Patrick’s Day Celebration with the Homeschool Group

String maze, Shamrock punch, & peg dolls~

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Leprechaun trap & t-shirt art~

Crafty Monday: Prepping for St. Patty’s & Easter & Brazil Country Study

St. Patty’s decor~

St. Patty’s Day 2014

Leprechaun hunt~

My Family Rocks! Sunday:Dates with our Son, Hunting for Leprechauns, & Pet Parade

Lent Crafts part 2: Egg Study March 21, 2015

In this post: Egg lapbook, crafts, & treat. A unique resurrection diorama. Plus Lent decor and books.

Hello dear ones! I hope you are well. We’re enjoying the spring weather and waiting for our littlest to be born. A couple weeks ago, Michael and I did an egg study. It was a great way to gear up for Easter. Here’s how we did it.

• Egg lapbook~ I used this egg study to make a lapbook: http://www.currclick.com/product/35574/Eggs–Two-Day-Study-Series

 

• We made egg treats. Our treat is a lil different from what I saw on Pinterest. You take oval crackers and put peanut butter in them. Then you dip them in white chocolate. I didn’t feel like dealing with the mess of chocolate, so we just used frosting with sprinkles. We couldn’t cover the whole cracker so they don’t exactly look like eggs. Still, the treats were yummy :). Nana helped too.

 

• We made a stained glass egg and cross craft. I drew a pattern on black construction paper. Michael cut it out and stuck it to contact paper. Then Michael tore bits of colorful tissue paper and filled in the gaps.

 

• Lastly, Michael and I put together this resurrection egg diorama. Michael mainly colored the Jesus and cut him out. We had two coloring pages. We shrunk the one for the diorama. Then Michael colored the big page for his dad. I finished the diorama. My inspiration came from a beautiful painting I saw on Pinterest. Links below & details on how we did this.

Coloring page link here: http://biblefunfactory.com/146/easter-coloring-sheet/

Painting inspiration here: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/i-am-the-resurrection-john-lautermilch.html

I found these plastic egg containers at the Dollar Tree. I used one half to make the diorama. I glued gems to the bottom to keep the egg upright. I modge podged colorful tissue paper for the sky. I used sparkly white tissue paper for the clouds. I wanted a 3d effect so I bunched it up.

 

I took the Jesus that Michael colored and glued him to a craft stick. I hot glued the stick to the gems and I added purple tissue paper for his robe.

I wanted to make Jesus look like he was in the clouds, so I used more of the sparkly white tissue paper to cover the craft stick. Chris actually helped some too. He punched out tissue paper butterflies. I glued them all around Jesus, since butterflies make me think of new life.

Lastly, I punched out white paper flowers and cut yellow stems. I rolled them up to make lilies and glued them to the rocks along with felt leaves. Then I punched out the word “resurrection” using my hole punch. I glued it to a white tissue paper banner and glued that to the top of the egg. This has to be my favorite Easter craft we’ve ever made. I like that it’s pretty original too. I had inspiration but the creation is our own.

The diorama looks brilliant when the sun shines.

Other Lent happenings:

I love the season of Lent and counting down to Easter. For our family it is a time of remembering the resurrection and taking a good look at forgiveness and grace. We have fun with decorations, special books, and crafts.

Here are the Easter books we are reading this year. I’m particulary enjoying the author R.C. Sproul. This is our first year reading his books.

We have a fun time decorating. Many of these crafts you may remember from Easters past.

The Lord’s Supper & Jesus praying in the garden

Resurrection set and new life tree (eggs and butterflies)
We actually lost the Jesus that goes to the set, but now that we have the diorama it makes it complete.

We decorate with the usual springy things: eggs, bunnies, chicks, lambs, flowers, and butterflies…whatever makes us think of new life and the resurrection. In the pic below you can see the stained glass chapel we made awhile back.

Our Easter village has grown.

Here’s the stuffed Velveteen rabbit that I made last year for our study on chocolate bunnies. Some decor is just for fun though a majority of it revolves around the resurrection of Jesus.

Many of the crafts hanging up on our armoire are from years past. We’ve got the Peep bunny chain, a Holy week chart, and a tomb craft.

We bring out old lapbooks…

We have our Lenten devotions at supper time. You can see some pom pom bunnies and resurrection eggs that we made. Usually we hang the eggs on a tree but I didn’t find one this year. Instead I have them in a bunny dish that I won at a party.

Well, I hope you have a blessed Lent and Easter! God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Easters and Lent past:

Easter Sunday

Easter Week & Jesus, Our Passover Lamb Easter Drama

The Importance of Easter

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/crafty-monday-passover-the-lords-supper-and-the-resurrection/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/crafty-monday-charlottes-web-party-gearing-up-for-easter/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/my-family-rocks-sunday-chinese-date-night-easter-passover-celebrations/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/a-late-crafty-monday-resurrection-garden-coffee-filter-easter-eggs-mini-pies/

More Easter fun 🙂

Extra crafts for you 🙂 (Easter)

Crafty Monday: Preparing for Easter & celebrating the Resurrection

The Craft Bug

Recent posts:

Ash Wednesday 2015

Lent Crafts Part One 2015