Peek At Our Week 13!!

     The weeks seem to be getting busier and busier, not sure if it is life or Christmas! Our Little Elf made his appearance for the year and surprise he brought a friend!

Little Elf made his appearance at first some years back. He is not the typical "Elf On A Shelf". He had once sat in my mothers Christmas tree and then growing up he sat in mine. Now he belongs to my children and his antics keep them busy 

every Christmas! Last year he brought a reindeer friend, this year it is a St. Bernard. As usual he thrills Skyler. Now that the other kids are a bit older they help with Little Elf. 

He likes sleeping in his little house that he built years ago. 

Apparently his friend was put in the candy cane jail and he was trying to break him out!!

Poor pup!

Well I guess it was time for a fun round of "Dunk The Elf"! 

I am sure he has many more wacky things up his sleeve for this season!












     Skyler started off her Christmas School this week. Sadly, neither boy was interested in Christmas school so it will just be Skyler this year. We have been using The Thinking Tree Journals for school and she has been doing very well with this method. There is n actual Christmas journal so I am make shifting my own! 

     At one point in time the company had a few of the journals in pdf and I just happened to buy them. So I have used some of those pages, gathered some Christmas theme stuff online and wa la Christmas journal! I got her a coloring picture for the cover and at the end of her Christmas school I will have it all bound into a book!

     She is starting off with this group of books. The series of "12 Days of Christmas" are various state books. She will be using one of those each day for a different state and add a penguin ornament to the tree each day for that state. This all comes from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. It is her Christmas Around The U.S.A. set.  I finally finished our holiday shelf and it looks amazing!!

All of her Christmas School stuff will live here for the season. It has all of our Christmas theme books and stuff she will use as well as the little countdown drawers full of chocolate kisses. The little tree will be decorated each day with her "Truth in the Tinsel" ornaments. 

     Here is a close up of her penguin tree for the states she learns about.

This will be the cover to her journal.

She also has a North Pole Communicator she uses every day to talk to the North Pole. We got this last year and she has had a blast with it. Even the bigger kids have fun with it.

     She will also do tons of various Christmas activities. One of course will be making little foam houses. All of the kids started this years back and every year since Skyler adds to it so we have quite a set up going on by now!

     She made one of those little grow a Christmas tree sets too.

     She made an aerial view of a snowman for art. This was cool. I found it here while searching winter art projects. 

     She likes coloring the penguins for her tree as well.

     One of her movies was the holiday special by Magic School Bus. It was about recycling so next week will be making some paper she can use for a Christmas craft.

     I found this make a snow globe kit so we tried our hand at it. Sometimes the only thing you can say is, well that didn't go as planned! There was not near enough clay in the kit first off, and when we tried to put the figure she came up with in the globe water went everywhere! The glitter also covered the little snowman and no matter how hard we shake it the glitter don't swirl around! Somethings work, somethings don't and that is all right. She still had fun!

     Skyler is most likely a bit past the Truth In The Tinsel crafts but she has enjoyed the reading and making paper ornaments for the school room tree. 
     

Skyler also enjoyed doing volunteer at the library. They made salt dough ornaments for kids to paint for their little Christmas make and take program. She has really gained confidence with speaking in front of others since volunteering. I think volunteer at the library is something any kid could enjoy and learn from. 

Damian is still moving right along in his usual studies and this week he made home made bread crumbs! They were good and he will be making them from now on when we need bread crumbs!

Damian has not been feeling too great this week. He wasn't up to many projects or pictures for that matter.

Fox is still making all the little machines and doo dads out of his crazy contraption Lego book. 

We of course do the main stuff too. Math, language arts etc. etc. Those things are just not usually fun to take pictures of! I wish the whole world was hands on project building fun!