Crafty Monday Part 2: Bats, Owls, Spiders, and Cats October 28, 2013

In this post: Our homeschool group learns about the creepy and spooky creatures talked about this time of year. At home Michael learns about bats, owls, and spiders with crafts, games, and fun food. Plus my pumpkin art!

Hello dear ones! I know the top pictures are always too big. They are for my Pinterest and the reader. This is the second part of Crafty Monday. I hope you didn’t miss the first part with week 2 of Ancient Greece. We had fun last week learning about the creepy creatures brought up around Halloween. We don’t celebrate Halloween (as in celebrating the dead…ghosts…horror etc…) but I don’t mind learning about these “creepy” creatures because I don’t think they are scary at all. We love to dress up for Fall festivals and to enjoy Harvest celebrations but I’m very anti-horror.

When one of the homeschool moms decided to do a creepy creature project we just had to prepare. So I found these great lapbooks etc on Currclick.com. They were super cheap and all about owls, bats, spiders, and cats. We never got to the cat one.

You can find my Fall Pinspirations here: http://www.pinterest.com/doverette/fall-crafts/

First we began with bats and a famous bat named Stellaluna :).  I think bats are super cute.

Here’s what you see above:

• Flutter, Flutter Little Bat poem
• Candy Bat craft ~We also watched a reading of Stellaluna. The white bat represents her.
• Hanging Bat craft ~I hung these over Michael’s reading pool. Now he has a bat cave :).
• Bat lapbook from Currclick.com. We also watched a video about bats. I believe the link came with the lapbook.
• Bats and Cats music game ~ found here: http://www.susanparadis.com/catalog.php?ID=SP740
• Cat cookie cutter sandwich ~ it is what it is. Poor black cats. They get such a bad rap. I have a sweet one and he’s not evil…well most of the time.

• Owl cursive sheets~ Michael practiced writing cursive with these all week.  He traced the owl fact sheets and he copied owl facts too.
• Michael dissected an owl pellet online here: http://www.kidwings.com/owlpellets/flash/v4/index.htm
• Then he got a certificate for being a Bird Barfologist.  Michael got the funny glasses from Michael’s craft store.

• Spider Web Language Arts Game: I made a yarn web with cut out spiders. I put various Fall words on it. Michael had to find synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms. He wasn’t allowed to step off the yarn.
• Glue Resist Spider Web~ it’s really hard to see the spider web with a green back ground.  We made the web with glue then painted over it with water paint.

A friend’s church had a fall festival called Manna-ween. We watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” on the lawn.  You can see Michael as Bilbo Baggins. There’s a pic with his buddies Olivia and Liam. When we got home Michael colored his Great Pumpkin coloring book and we watched the movie again.

Our homeschool group  learned about creepy creatures last week.  The mom who led it divided the activities in centers.  The kids were split into pairs.  They were given passports. Once they completed the activities at each center they stamped the passport. I have them labeled below.

Lastly, a couple projects of my own…

• Sweater Pumpkin made from an old blue sweater.
• Pumpkin blocks ~ wooden blocks painted orange and white. A nail for the stem and gold wire for the vine.
• We are trying to sprout Indian corn for a science project.

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

Crafty Monday: Spiders & Dragonflies June 4, 2012

Hello friends! Welcome to crafty Monday :). These antibiotics I’m on are making me feel like crud so I’m behind.  Last week, Michael and I finished our bug studies with Danielle’s Place.  Also, I made my own Spider lapbook combining resources found online. Enjoy the pics 🙂

We learned a bit about dung beetles. They may have a messy job but they help clean up & they prevent disease.  Our other bug buddy study was on antennae and feeling for others. Like I said the last Crafty Monday, Danielle’s Place is worth the membership for all the lessons they have.

http://daniellesplace.com/

I had fun coming up with our spider lapbook. I found a diagram from Enchanted Learning.

I printed out a web design on cardboard then punched holes. Michael used string to thread it.

I found a cute Spider-themed  inspirational story that we used for a Bible lesson:

http://www.creativebiblestudy.com/Christian-stories.html

The Magic School Bus had a neat Spider book. We ended the week with the cartoon version of Charlotte’s Web. We also made a spider by painting a bottle cap and attaching pipe cleaner legs. We did a glue-stick web on black paper then sprinkled glitter.

Our other bug craft was a dragon fly made from plastic spoons and knives that Michael painted. We hung it up afterwards.

Look what we found crawling on my laptop. We were so excited to find a lady bug. We put it in our garden.

Speaking of which, our garden is doing well thanks to my hubby. Our squash and cucumbers are thriving.

I think it’s funny that while we were doing bug studies my best friend was doing ocean studies. Now that we are starting ocean studies, she’s doing bug studies lol. Great minds think alike!

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

Jump to Part 4 of Bug Studies:

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/crafty-monday-fireflies-dirt-pudding-holiday-crafts-pentecost-memorial-day/

Go all the way back to Part 1 of Bug Studies:

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/crafty-monday-bug-studies-painting-the-front-door/

EarthWorm Study:

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/my-family-rocks-sunday-sherlock-holmes-date-night/

My Family Rocks! Sunday: My First Geocaching Adventure May 20, 2012

“Sorry we were late honey but Mommy and Daddy were stuck in the woods finding treasure. And we had to jump across a creek and fight spider webs. We didn’t think it’d take that long and then when we realized how late it was we ran as fast as we could. But Mommy got tired and Daddy had to carry me on his back.”

Sounds like a tall tale, huh? Well, not really when you’re talking about geocaching. Yes, this actually happened yesterday and boy is my body feeling it today…ugggg. The hubby and I dropped little man off at Church for practice. We had an hour and a half to find our first geocache. We had no clue it would take so long and be so rough.

What’s geocaching? Here’s the definition from the website: http://www.geocaching.com

“Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.”

There are geocaches all over the world…even in Antarctica! I’ve wanted to play this game for awhile but just now got the courage. There were a few beginner hunts I could’ve started with but nooooo…… I wanted to do the geocache that talked about Aslan (Chronicles of Narnia). So I decoded the decryption and read the clue “Over the river and through the woods”. By the way, if you don’t geocache you’re called a muggle (Harry Potter reference) which basically means you’re a clueless human. Geocachers can look a bit suspicious snooping around places but it’s perfectly legal. Those who hide the geocaches have to get permission to do so.

So I gathered my hiking bag and found a few treasures of my own to leave in the geocache. Sometimes people leave items in the geocache and if you take it you must leave something of equal value or greater. My gift was alot better than the bookmark I took (there were also small toys but we left them). I copied a page from C.S. Lewis and taped a wooden cross to it that was made in Bethlehem. I wanted to leave something inspirational and thought provoking….you know me.

I am really thankful that my Hubby decided to go because I would probably be lost in the woods had he not. We took the regular trail at the park but when we got to the trail we were mean’t to go on, there was orange tape. So we took another way and it turned out a lot longer and with rougher terrain.

We knew we had to cross water to get to the geocache. So we jumped across the creek. We slid a few times but thankfully never fell. My hubby had to help me across several places and he also battled the spider webs and briars.  Chris also warned me of the poison ivy. I really need to study my plants. We kept going anyways. I’m a bit itchy around the ankles but so far no rash….

Our GPS on Chris’ phone, kept bouncing it’s signal and we kept thinking the treasure was at different places. Finally after an hour we found it. We signed the little book and left our own treasure.

We found a much easier way back (the trail we were supposed to have taken). Anywho, had I checked ahead of time I would’ve noticed the terrain was a 3 out of 5 rating of difficulty. But you know me……I had to follow Aslan lol. When we got back to the main path we realized it was time to get Michael. So we ran but I had already pushed myself quite a bit. I was out of breath so Chris carried me some which slowed us down more. That may have been the first time Chris and I have ran like that together lol. We were late but it all worked out. Next time I’ll check the difficulty first. Also I’ll wear socks that cover my ankles……maybe wear sleeves too.

It was adventurous and I enjoy solving riddles etc… Not all geocaches are in the woods….some are near buildings etc. I can’t wait to have more adventures 🙂 but I think I’ll start with easier stuff next time.

God bless and Remember The High King Lives!~Amber Dover