Spring Crafts & Strawberry Picking May 31, 2015

Hello dear ones, I’m quite behind. I’m still trying to get my groove back after childbirth. It’s taking longer than I thought. So this post is going to be a combination of posts. In the past Michael and I did a craft a day, but lately we’ve barely gotten to one craft a week. So these crafts I’m about to show you are the product of several weeks and everything we did this Spring. We also took a field trip with our homeschool group to go strawberry picking. I’ll share those pics at the end. Here we go:

• Weather crafts and experiments

What better way to start Spring than with a study on weather. April showers bring May flowers after all. So we dug out our weather lapbook from several years ago. Michael gave it a look over then we did a few experiments.

Cloud in a jar~ Who knew that ice, water, and a match could do so much!

http://we-made-that.com/make-a-cloud/

Rain in a jar~ shaving cream, food coloring, and water.

Cloud sun catcher~ Michael glued cotton balls onto tissue paper to make this lovely picture.

Hot air balloon mobile~ This mobile did not turn out how we planned. The cotton ball clouds look great but we had trouble with the hot air balloons. To our defense, we only had a picture to look at…no instructions.

• Sunflower study

Here comes the flowers . Michael filled out this short Sunflower lapbook and then he watched a tutorial on painting sunflowers. We both painted. Here are the links:

http://www.flowerpatchfarmhouse.com/paint-sunflowers-simple-easy/

http://www.currclick.com/product/37913/All-Sunflowers-A-Fun-Study

Sun dial~ rocks and a pencil in play dough.

Michael planted seeds inside his tire.

• Hummingbird study

And with flowers come birds. Michael did a short hummingbird lapbook and then he painted this paint by number hummingbird. It was actually for glass painting and I transferred it to acrylic paper.

http://www.currclick.com/product/82659/Birds-Hummingbird–Speedy-Lapbook

• Bird House

This was the easiest craft. I just bought a mini wooden bird house from the craft store and let Michael go crazy painting. I’m so for easy these days ;).

• Earth and Arbor Day Craft& Outing

So then came Earth Day and Arbor Day. Michael did a couple of crafts and then we took a trip to the park for the Spring Fling.

Earth Day craft~ Michael made a picture of the earth in space. He put his prayer for the earth on it. He prayed that the earth would come to Jesus.

Arbor Day craft~ Michael traced a tree’s shadow.

Park Day with our Homeschool group.

The Spring Fling~ Our pediatrician threw this party at the park.

Leeland “enjoying” a tree…ha!

Leeland’s first feel of sand.

• Strawberry picking in Reynolds’ Ga

Our homeschool group took a long trip to Reynolds to pick strawberries. The kids filled their baskets with strawberries then enjoyed strawberry ice cream.

Well, I hope you’ve been inspired. I hope to catch up on posts soon. I’m actually doing all the writing in car on day trip to the Flint River Aquarium. God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

PS: Earth Day 2014~ flower pounding and other fun ideas.

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/earth-day-2014/

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:

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/ash-wednesday-2015/

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

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/lent-crafts-part-one-2015/

Egg study & Resurrection egg diorama~

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/lent-crafts-part-2-egg-study/

Crafty Monday: Disney Countdown~ Tinker Bell & Peter Pan June 17, 2013

In this post: Celebrate the four seasons with Tinker Bell and play the pan flute kazoo with Peter Pan.

Hello dear ones! I hope you had a lovely weekend. This is the second post in my Disney Countdown series. You can see the first here and it has my opinion on Disney spirituality:

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/crafty-monday-disney-countdownpinocchio-the-princess-and-the-frog/

Tinker Bell may seem very girly but I believe fairy tales have aspects that appeal to boys too. So in our count down we aren’t segregating boy and girl movies.  Instead I decided to focus on the parts of the movies that would appeal to my son. We will definitely be seeing princesses at Disney since I’m going too. Michael and I have struck a compromise.

I made a Tinker Bell table display using round styrofoam, moss, a Tinker Bell peg doll (made at Christmas time), and various lost things (buttons, pins, marbles etc…). Tinker Bell collects lost things.

I love the Tinker Bell movies. Each one follows a season. So each day we watched a movie and celebrated that season. Michael wanted to make a display too so he put our Terrance fairy on this one. We used glitter for pixie dust. Terrance is a dust keeper. You have to have pixie dust to fly ;).

Here they are together…

Spring with Tinker Bell (Movie: Tinker Bell 2008)

Spring was fun :). We watched the movie then I whipped up a batch of:

Pixie Dust

• baking soda
• food coloring
• glitter

with Magic Water

• vinegar 😉

You can see up close that it really sparkles.

Then we made MAGIC MUD by sprinkling pixie dust in a mud puddle and spraying Magic water to make it fizzle.

We then scooped the mud to make mud pies and mud paint.

Michael doesn’t like getting muddy so he used a shovel.

This was his first time making a mud pie. He sprinkled pixie dust on top to make it really colorful.

The colors didn’t really show up for paint but the glitter stayed.

Michael painted a Star Wars fighter jet (or something like that).

I wrote this. It really glitters.

We made a couple of mud cupcakes too.

Cement Garden Stone

We got this kit at Hobby Lobby.

Michael decorated the wet cement with stones.

I wrote his name. You can see it better when it’s dry.

Summer with Tinker Bell (Movie: Tinker Bell & the Great Fairy Rescue)

This was easy because we’re already in the season of Summer.  We made Koolaid Popsicles with a Popsicle mold.

Watermelon Smiles Portrait

We did some tinkering with Michael’s inventions kit. This time we made a generator that lit up a light bulb. Tinker Bell is a tinker after all ;).

We put on glow in the dark bracelets and watched fireflies in the back yard. The flash lit it up but if you look closely you can see little lights on the left side.

Our garden is finally growing. We have several tomatoes.

Bubble Wrap Hop Scotch

This was not what I expected. We had to jump hard to pop even one.

Mainly the wrap stuck to our feet.

Then we tried it with shoes. Michael is wearing Chris’ flip flops.

There wasn’t much of a difference but it was still fun to just hop indoors.

Glow in the Dark bowling

Michael enjoyed this the most. Chris and I sat on the couch to bowl lol.  I put glow sticks in jars and we used whatever we could find to knock them over.

First we used a plastic pumpkin but later a football. The flash lit everything up again. The room was actually really dark.

Michael made a Summer Reading book.

On one page he writes the title and the other he draws a picture from the book. He’s also getting rewards when he finishes a book. Rewards depend on the grade level and length of the book.

Fall with Tinker Bell (Movie: Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure)

Fall is my favorite season. It was nice to celebrate it early.  The house was still rather warm even with the air conditioning. So it was a little weird but we had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for a Fall supper.

We played a couple of my favorite Autumn games.

Bobbing for Apples

Doughnut on a String

Determined to get the doughnut…

I got Michael a baby pool last week so we can play with it this week for Nemo and The Little Mermaid. It turns out that pools are also good for reading spots, doing puzzles, and playing with Lincoln Logs. Who knew!

Winter with Tinker Bell (Movie: Tinker Bell: Secret of the Wings)

We were going to make snowflake sugar cookies but didn’t get to it. Instead we had cinnamon rolls with hot chocolate.

I’ve planned writing assignments for each week. This week Michael wrote about his favorite season. It just happens to be Winter. The paper has snowflakes on it. You can also see him sporting his Ring pop which I call the Ring of Truth. He earned it for being honest for several days. He’s working on a sneaking problem.

Peter Pan

So I thought I would catch Michael laughing but every time I took a picture he’d stop. So here’s Chris and Michael watching Peter Pan. Chris is staring at the kitty in his cone of shame (poor Chester- btw he’s doing much better) and Michael looks like he’s asleep.

Chris helped Michael make a pan flute kazoo out of toilet paper rolls and wax paper. I wanted to make a real bambo0 pan flute but couldn’t find bamboo. Michael had a blast with this cheap instrument.

It was a slow enjoyable week at home. No VBS or anything. But swimming lessons start soon. Chris is able to be home during the day some. with his new school schedule. Yaaa!

Join us next Crafty Monday for The Little Mermaid and Finding Nemo (Lord willing).

Disney Countdown 3: https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/crafty-monday-disney-countdownlil-mermaid-nemo-monsters-inc/

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

Crafty Monday: Rainy Tulips & Flower Pot Music Game April 16, 2013

In this Post: Homeschooling while sick, rainy tulips, flower pot music game, and Lego Club.

Hello dear ones, this will be another late post. I still feel icky but hopefully I’m on the upside of things.  Michael was sick on and off all week.  So we didn’t do many crafts or cooking. Here’s a bit of what we did get done…

Rainy Tulips

Michael drew the flowers with pencil. Then he made lines with a white crayon and painted over it with watercolors. It’s a pastel resist effect and it looks sort of like rain :).

When little man is sick we don’t completely call off school unless he’s really bad off.  I think Michael had a sinus infection. We just slowed down a bit. He played video games and watched t.v. in between studies.

We watched the new SuperBook dvd on Jonah.

He also had lots of chicken noodle soup and herbal remedies.

One of my favorites for a cold is elderberry.

Last week Michael  read the reptile books we got from the library, after our field trip to our local nature center. Some of these were on days he felt better. I can’t imagine forcing Michael to sit still all day in a desk. He likes to read in many different places and when the weather is nice it’s great to read outdoors.

Tessa likes to listen :).

We had Lego club again. I was prepared this time. Michael got several Lego sets for his birthday so we had most of what we needed. It took me a good while the night before to sort through his collection and put the parts in baggies.

Michael didn’t need as much help this time.

The end result is this neat Lego playground. We had to improvise on some parts but it still looks great. You can see the slide, seesaw, and merry go round. If you’d like to join Lego club check out the clubs and classes section on http://www.currclick.com

Music

I found this great book at the library called “The Musical Life of Gustav Mole”. I still enjoy reading to Michael. This was a sweet book that introduced several musical vocabulary words (instruments etc…).

We played the Flower Pot Note Toss game found here:

http://www.pianimation.com/2011/03/30/flower-pot-note-toss/

We played the game two ways. First, I called out note names and Michael had to ring the flower pot with the same note on the flower. It got challenging when he had both treble and bass clef.

Then I turned the flowers around so he could see the note names. Which ever note he rang he would have to run to the piano and play it.  I didn’t have flower pots so I used plastic cups and put rocks in them to give it weight.

Michael’s actual birthday was Thursday. He felt better but we stayed home to be safe. I saw this idea on Pinterest and gave it a try. I covered Michael’s door with a syran wrap pouch and put balloons in it.

When he opened the door the balloons fell on him :). He was surprised.

Celebrations were simple since he had already had a big party the weekend. I stuck a candle in his bagel.

We got a nice surprise from Aunt Jenn (my sister).  She sent Michael some nifty presents. One of them is a Magnetic Science kit. We can’t wait to experiment with it. Thanks sis! Michael loves getting mail :).

Math

Besides our normal workbook Michael did this GallonBot worksheet. It’s a neat way to teach measurements.

Link here: http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/pz-gallon-man.html

So it was a slow week and a bit lonely because we were home so much. We made it for Olivia’s birthday this past weekend but then Michael got an earache and I got sick. He’s better and I’m recovering. Still, we had a couple days to enjoy the Spring weather.

Our yard is a bit wild but the grass isn’t too tall and we’ve got a nice squirrel and several birds living in it. Here’s some lovely pictures from our wilderness :).

Wisteria ~ I love this flower.

My fig tree has leaves on it. Yaaaa!

These sting but they are pretty.

Our yard is carpeted with these little yellow flowers. I think they are a bit prickly but I don’t really notice. I often go bare foot so my feet can handle them.  I don’t really mind that our yard looks like a meadow.  We have started a garden though and I’m trying to grow a sunflower house. I want the yard to be magical. Hopefully my flowers will grow and I’ll have lots of neat pictures to show you.

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

Crafty Monday: Spring Peg Dolls & Weather Crafts April 30, 2012

Hello friends and welcome to Crafty Monday. Last week I talked about my peg doll hobby and my hope to better it so I can sell my creations one day. I was very inspired after that post and spent the next two nights making a Spring box. I wasn’t sure if I was going to try to sell it or not but Michael automatically assumed it was his. So….it’s his now.

We are learning about bugs all in May and I thought it’d be neat to make some buggy dolls :). There’s a butterfly, a bee, a lady bug, and two flower people.

I used felt to make the flowers that I glued to the bottom.

I think this is my best set yet and it looks neater. Maybe I’m improving 🙂

Last Monday I mentioned we were going to do some weather crafts when we had time. Last Thursday we  had a short day of school and had a fun craft day. We used some of the ideas I mentioned last week. Links are on that post.

Rain Stick

I put nails inside a paper towel tube. I don’t think I put it enough because it doesn’t quite sound like rain. Anywho, the nails are supposed to slow the rice or bells etc down and make a rain sound.

Then I glued red construction paper to the tube.

That’s when Michael added rice, beans, and bells.

After, he  put on modge podge and decorated with feathers, tissue paper, glitter, and buttons.

Wind Socks

We simply took toilet paper tubes and painted them.

Then I cut up strips of paper and we glued them on for a handle.

Next, I cut strips of tissue paper and we glued them inside the tube so they’d hang down.

I added pipe cleaners to tie them to Michael’s play ground.

Easy Kite

You simply tie a string to a plastic bag and run with it 🙂

Fun Way to blow up balloons

Fill a bottle 1/3 with vinegar

then put some baking soda in a balloon

put the balloon over the bottle but keep it folded so the baking soda doesn’t come out

hold the balloon up to release the baking soda

watch the gas from the mixture blow up the balloon 🙂

You can tell we had fun!

Oh yeah, Michael got his Yellow belt. I’m so proud 🙂

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

Crafty Monday: Preparing for Easter & celebrating the Resurrection March 26, 2012

Note: this blog is for informational purposes only. I will not debate or argue in the comment area. You can take it or leave it. Ultimately, I hope we can agree to disagree and get along 🙂

( Like my Easter centerpiece? ~ I got the eggs and tree at the Dollar Tree & the butterflies from Michael’s)

Hello dear ones and welcome to Crafty Monday 🙂 I’m very excited about the crafts today and coming up next week because it’s all about Easter & celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ :). Easter has a new meaning for me this year. As a kid I grew up learning about the resurrection on Easter morning, hunting eggs with my cousins, and dressing up in a nice dress. Those were happy memories. But at one time not too long ago I believed the traditions of Easter were pagan and in worship of spring etc…and that the word “Easter” itself was of a pagan fertility goddess.   I believed this for a long time and I hated the Easter egg because of the practice of child sacrifice I thought it represented. After leaving a place of spiritual bondage and legalism I began to research the history of this holiday and what I found was surprising. Take this as you will but this is why I now embrace Easter: http://fortheloveoftruth.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/611/

(Pic of our cross bracelets for passover. Mine’s the girly one)

(Pic of Welcome Mat I made from scrap carpet. I just painted it.)

This will be my son’s first Easter egg hunt and he is almost 6. I’m very excited he finally gets to do this. Some good books for kids are : http://www.amazon.com/The-Parable-Of-Lily/dp/0785272313

and http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Easter-Lori-Walburg/dp/0310224470

Now on to the crafts and fun ideas 🙂 We’ve never done Lent because we’re not Catholic but I do like the idea of taking a whole month to celebrate Easter. Of course Christ’ resurrection should always be on our mind. It’s good to have holidays though to really help us focus. We spend a whole season focused on Christmas and advent but Easter doesn’t get that much attention. I love this blog about it: http://mustardseeds.typepad.com/my_weblog/easter.html

So my family has started the holiday early. We began last week. I set up a forgiveness table that is kind of like Lent. The idea came from: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/02/how-to-prepare-a-family-for-lent-printable-create-a-forgivness-fresh-start-place/

This is just a beautiful idea and my son really loves it. He’s come up with all kinds of people he needs to forgive lol. It’s a great object lesson.

You can find the ideas I’m using on my Pinterest. I’m also including some spring recipes 🙂

http://pinterest.com/doverette/spring-crafts/

http://pinterest.com/doverette/spring-cooking/

Stained Glass Cross Craft

Resurrection Set

I really like this craft. Most of us have nativity sets but rarely have I heard of a Resurrection set. Michael has had such a blast with this set. I added the brad  to the tomb so Michael could roll the stone back n forth.

There are so many neat ideas to celebrate the resurrection. I’ll be sharing more next week. My son’s Pirate birthday party is the wkd of Easter so  I’m going to be busy.  I really like these ideas from Focus on the Family: http://www.thrivingfamily.com/Features/Magazine/2011/easter-activities-and-crafts.aspx

Don’t forget my Pinterest ideas above. There are way too many to list on here but I hope they are helpful to you. Please let me know if you try any of these ideas with your kids. The Forgiveness table can be used for anyone.

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