Polar Bear Cam

Source: polarbearcam.com via Jill on Pinterest

I just heard about this and can't wait to watch polar bears live!  A web camera was set up on the edge of the Hudson Bay, close to the town of Churchhill, Manitoba.  The camera is in a spot where polar bears are waiting for the ice to form on the Hudson Bay so that they can travel further North to begin their seal hunt. The Polar Bear Cam delivers a live feed from 9 am - 5 pm central time and is being watched in schools all over Canada.  Perhaps you would like to watch too!

Tic-Tac-Toe Review

E.W. Spider had a great blog post this morning about playing Tic Tac Toe. Turns out it's a great assessment tool! She also has some links to fun information about the game and how and where it is played.

A search of the internet yielded a lot of fun free printable boards. Here is a fun Turkey themed Tic-Tac-Toe board your students might enjoy this month.

Source: preparednotscared.blogspot.com via Cherie on Pinterest

Or maybe a pumpkin theme?

Source: partyblog.mygrafico.com via Kate on Pinterest

Jesse Trees to Benefit World Vision

A friend of mine and her children make Jesse Trees each year to sell in order to raise money for World Vision.  If you would like to use a Jesse Tree during Advent but don't have the time to put it all together she is a one stop shop for the tree, ornaments and devotions.  She will also sell you the materials to make your own ornaments and the devotion book.  If you order right away there is still time to get one and start without missing too many days.  Or you can put it away for next year.  Here is more information from her flyer:

What is a Jesse Tree?

It is a wonderful spiritual tool to help your family prepare for the Christmas season. It is similar to an advent calendar as you daily reflect on a different aspect of Christ for the 25 days leading up to Christmas.

What do I get?

Each Jesse Tree Set comes with an 18" Christmas tree, 25 hand-made ornaments, and hardbound devotional book, "The Advent Jesse Tree: Devotions for Children and Adults to Prepare for the Coming of the Christ Child at Christmas" .

How does it work?

Starting December 1st, you simply work through the devotionals and place an ornament on the tree each day. In our family we even wrap each ornament and place them under our tree. We love the excitement of unwrapping a new ornament each day .

Where do the proceeds go?

We are selling Jesse Trees to benefit World Vision! When we decided to sponsor children through World Vision, we thought that making and selling Jesse Trees would be a great way to meet our sponsorship requirements.

How much does it cost?

Each Jesse Tree set costs $40. Or as another option if your family would like to make the ornaments yourself, we will provide all of the materials plus the book for $25. Remember all of our proceeds go to World Vision.

What if I want to know more?

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at doyel@everestkc.net.

Thank you and God Bless,

Nathan, Lauren, and Rebekah Doyel

Great Backyard Bird Count

Time again for the Great Backyard Bird Count.  A really great way to contribute to information about bird species and their numbers while learning about the birds in your area.  The time commitment is vey small.  Just 15 minutes a day of looking for birds in your yard and then reporting them online.  All the information you need is at the site including some information for teaching children about birds.

Being Good Stewards - Recycle Girl

I admit it...I've been known to cringe at the term "go green." It's not that I don't appreciate the efforts of the movement. I've long been a proponent of taking care of the Earth our home. When I was a child my parents would get us to work alongside them cleaning up garbage piles dumped on our country road. They also composted and grew a large percentage of the food we ate. What I don't like about "go green" is the way businesses have made it a selling point. I don't like it's use as a marketing term. I believe that taking care of the Earth is our responsibility as Christians to be good Stewards of all that God gives us.

Then Recycle Girl entered my life and she makes "go green" so cute that I just have to love it! I've had the privilege of knowing Recycle Girl since she was a little girl. Her sweetness is infectious and completely genuine. I'm so pleased to see that she has grown up into such a lovely young woman and mother. And that she takes her time to share such important information with children.

If you'd like to teach your young children more about recycling then I urge you to share this video with them. And if you live in the Fort Worth, TX area you may be lucky enough to have an appearance of Recycle Girl. She is featured in the upper right hand corner on the Keep Texas Beautiful webpage as their Volunteer of the Month.

How to be a Patriot

Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.

Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788

I agree with Mr. Webster that every child in the United States should understand the privilege of being a US citizen. Like the holidays in the Bible, patriotic days are a great time to remind your children of the past, where we have been and how we got where we are. In this country we have a common heritage of music and heroes that should not be forgotten. Here are some resources to help you do that.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has a series of informative and helpful newsletters. One of those is called Freebie Fridays. This Friday's newsletter contained several links to help educate children on our heritage.

Learn Out Loud is a collection of audiobooks for sale and for free. They have a daily newsletter that let's you know what's free and it often touches on the current holiday or events. This week there have been several American History audios highlighted that are free. On their kid's page scroll down and under "most popular" you'll find audios of The Declaration of Independence, documents of the Founders, biographies of famous Americans, The Bill of Rights and several important speeches.

Amazon gives away several mp3s on their site everyday. I downloaded Documentary Recordings Presents Patriotic Music . Another great source of copyright free music is one of my favorite blogs Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace. Wednesday's post contained a link to 78's For A Fourth of July Mood, a collection gathered by the blog's author. It's a great collection of music from the early part of the twentieth century. A teachable moment for kids on how we used to listen to music as you explain the scratchy sounds in the music! If you want more of this kind of music check this blog's archives for patriotic holidays. There are some real treasures here.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and spend some time teaching your children!

Free Paper Dolls!

I just came across a post on the Freebies For Mom blog about Patty Reed paperdolls and thought I would share with you. Patty Reed designed fabric for Simplicity and she would design paperdolls to go with the fabric that was given to customers. Sadly, this practice has stopped because of production costs, but the good news is they are being offered free for download! These are new paperdolls done in the style of the beautiful, classic paperdolls. I hope your little girl (or you) will love them!

Free Art and Music Appreciation Lesson Plan!

Harmony Art Mom has put together a six-week Art & Music Appreciation lesson plan for summer use, focusing on the music of Felix Mendelssohn and the paintings of Monet. She has the download link available on her site at:
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=BNm9p&m=1cX8AARDKQYxun&b=Erfa3XMTEOkK6fu6YV7A4A

Please check out her blogs if you haven't before. It's a wonderful resource for mother educators following Charlotte Mason or anyone interested in leading their children in artist, composer and nature studies. You won't be disappointed.

Handicrafts for Boys

My husband recently became interested in making his own lanyards. His first two are in the picture above. He really enjoys working with his hands and loves a challenge. After seeing them I realized this would be a great handicraft for boys which is something Mother Educator's following the Charlotte Mason method are always looking for.

Lanyards not only are practical in that they help you to hold onto and keep from dropping things but they also provide emergency supplies. An inch of knotted lanyard can take up to 12 inches of cord to make. If you find yourself in an emergency situation needing cord you simply unravel your lanyard and have a supply of strong cord. And boys seem to love the idea of being in an emergency situation. And there are many different styles of knots to learn which means this is a craft that can be practiced for quite awhile.

My husband learned techniques for making lanyards from youtube videos. Simply entering the phrase, "paracord lanyard" in the youtube search yields many tutorials. My favorite of the videos my husband showed me is this one which is taught by a young boy. I can't recommend all his videos as I have only watched this one so as with all youtube videos...check it out before showing your child!

There are some really good books on knot tying that a child who wants to pursue this craft may want to look at. I recently found an exhaustive resource at a library book sale, "Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work." I just enjoy looking at this book! You can find some other resources here. There is also a fantastic site called Animated Knots by Greg that is so helpful. A pdf booklet on knot tying is also available at the Scoutmaster blog.

American Music

American music can trace it's roots from two distinctly American styles; blues and gospel music. I think that as Americans we should take time to familiarize our children with these two genres and their importance in the world of music. Charlotte Mason advocated teaching children folk music and this is the music of the folk of this country.

I am a big fan of early American country music which developed from gospel and was influenced by blues and the music of Irish and Welsh immigrants. I have found a wonderful set on youtube to teach specifically about this form of music. The set is comprised of clips from a BBC documentary, The History of Country Music. I recommend you look for this or borrow it from your library. It is excellent. If you would like to learn more about this style, check the links below.

Paperdoll Treasure Trove

If you are familiar with my blog you no doubt know that I love paperdolls. I found a wonderful resource for them today in Teri's Paperdoll Page. There are even scans of Paperdoll greeting cards. Have fun!

The Great Backyard Bird Count

It's time again for the Great Backyard Bird Count. A joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audoban, the GBBC is an easy way to get your kids involved in nature study. My children and I have done it the last two years.

To be involved all you have to do is spend 15 minutes counting birds in your area February 13 - 16. Then you go to the GBBC website and log your totals. That's it! The website is full of great information, lesson plans, regional bird lists and this year a special certficate to print out to award to participants. It is a very praiseworthy thing. But do it quick! You only have Sunday and Monday left to count.

Snow!

With the excitement of December and Christmas over, now is a great time for a study on snow and snowflakes. Here are a number of resources for doing just that!

How to grow a borax snowflake.

Dave's snowflake page

Lots of good snow activities

We love these books:

And this for viewing:

Snain from Jeffrey Butler on Vimeo.

Jeff is a very talented videographer and I urge you to check out some of his other videos. Especially if your studying Viet Nam.

Inauguration Day Freebies

We have a wonderful opportunity right now to watch history happen right before our eyes. My children and I will be watching the Presidential Inauguration together tomorrow during school time. If you are planning to do the same here are some freebies from one of my favorite online stores, Currclick:

2009 Presidental Inauguration Lap & Note Pack by Gearforlearning.com This Lap & Note Pack is perfect for exploring the history behind the Inauguration of US Presidents.

This Pack includes Lap & Note Sheets and Suggested Answers as well as Inauguration Fact Sheets to help you and your student learn about this historic event.

Teacher Book Bag's American Presidential Inauguration 2009 by Teacher Book Bag

This is a gift to you from Teacher Book Bag commemorating the occasion. "We hope you and your families learn as much about past inaugurations, the inaugural process, its celebrations, and the American presidents. "

And after (or before) you watch the festivities head over to Krispy Kreme where they are giving away one doughnut to every customer in honor of the Inauguration!

The Coupon Game

I've been reading all these coupon game blogs about Walgreen’s and CVS. Have any of you ever seen these? Have any of you ever tried it? It's actually fun!

Basically these ladies take current specials, coupons and rebate offers and match it all up in combinations that save the most money. I just went to Walgreen’s and bought $47 of stuff. Using coupons (the links to them are usually in the blogs so you can print them out right there) and a $25 gift certificate I got for transferring a prescription there I ended up spending $6. Then I got a register reward for $5 off my next visit so it’s really like I spent $1.

The first few times I looked at the "scenarios" of things that people bought there I thought, "I don't use those products so it won't work for me." See, a lot of it is convenience food. But I've realized that there are lots of deals on personal care items and household cleaners that I would use. So now I scan the deals for things I normally buy anyway and ended up saving $46.

There's a lot to this and it seems daunting at first but check them out and you may find a way to save your family money too. For me it's worth it as there are two Walgreen's less than a mile from my house. So it's convenient. I recommend you start at MoneySavingMom's blog (which is a favorite of mine anyway). She has tutorials for how to do all this and links to lots of other blogs that can help.

Mothers and Daughters At Home

I committed to joining Mothers and Daughters At Home hosted by Graceful Girlhood. Last month my daughter and I did something together but I didn't get my act together enough to post about it! So this month I want to fulfill that commitment.

Yesterday my husband set off with my son to his hometown. Perfect timing since this was the day of the Mothers and Daughters challenge! My daughter had a couple of projects in mind so instead of the proposed theme for this month, we did our own thing.

My daughter is 10 now and really interested in making some money. She had originally wanted to start a cupcake business but Mom and Dad deciding to change our eating habits made our home a bad environment to start mixing up cupcakes and frosting! But luckily she found another idea in this month's American Girl Magazine. Dog Treat Muffins!

The recipe was simple enough for my daughter to prepare on her own with just a little bit of help from me. She baked them in cupcake papers and then gave them to a few neighborhood dogs (we don't have any as the males in our family are allergic) for her test market. Then we went to the craft store and purchased some bags to sell them in. She's hoping in the future to expand her line to other dog treats and some cat treats too and sell them at our local farmer's market.

It wasn't a big or elaborate event, but just spending time talking to her about her dreams and helping make them a reality was priceless. Since I am her teacher as well as her mother it's nice to have an opportunity to just hang out with her doing something she likes instead of pulling her along to do what needs to be done.

So I recommend that you check Graceful Girlhood for other ideas and take some time to just be with your daughter this week.

Uncle Ray on Ants

Another old clipping I found stuck in a book. Here is some info on Uncle Ray if your interested. I wish this column was in my paper. Then maybe I would subscribe!!

The Great Backyard Bird Count

Birdwatching is very popular in our house. Especially in the winter months when it's hard to go outside sometimes because of temperatures that are too low or high winds. So this year we are going to use one of our favorite activites to help scientists in gaining an overview of birds in our area. The Great Backyard Bird Watch starts on Friday February 15 and continues through the 18th. It takes as little as 15 minutes to participate. During that time you write down the birds you see and then turn them in here.

At the main site you'll find a page devoted to kids activities. There are also lots of online guides and tools here. The whole site has lots of interesting information so I urge you to check it out.

If birdwatching and study interests you and you'd like to continue there are lots of resources on line to help you. We have a bird book for our area and some binoculars next to the window we look out most. Some days my kids will draw pictures of a bird they saw in their nature notebook with the date and bird's name. If you want to get fancy, Notebookingpages.com is currently giving away a really nice Bird Study set with great pages for kids to fill in information about birds in general as well as the specific birds they see. Just go to their site and join their newsletter and you can receive the link for free.

Whether or not you take part in the GBBC I hope you will encourage your children to learn more about the birds in your area. It's a great winter time activity!