A Fun Way to End a Book or Unit

Do you have kids interested in chess? What about checkers? Why not tie it into what you're studying?

Take a classic good vs. evil story like the Hobbit and have students decide which chess pieces should represent which characters from the story. (If you have an old game, maybe you won't mind if they tape labels onto the pieces.) Perhaps you'll have orc pawns vs. Gandalf the king or elf pawns vs. giant spiders.

If checkers is more their style, choose some main themes from your unit and perhaps you'll get white blood cells versus bacteria.

For very motivated students perhaps they might even come up with their own game board and trivia questions, Jeopardy-style clues, or Wheel of Fortune-type puzzles.

The possibilities are endless!

Free Writing From the 8 year-old

The Lost Sheep

Once upon a time there was a shepherd. The shepherd had 99 sheep. He also had one lamb as the 100th sheep. The shepherd loved his sheep. He especially tended to the young, feeble, tender lamb. Every day, the shepherd took his sheep to a wide meadow so the sheep could feed. The shepherd kept the lamb in his pocket so that it wouldn’t be trampled. Sometimes the shepherd stood up and counted his sheep. Then he might lay down and watch his sheep. Sometimes he would shear some of his sheep while the others grazed. Sometimes he would lay down and feed his lamb after taking it out of the pocket.

One day, the shepherd took his sheep to graze. As they walked by on their way to the green pasture (they could see their goal point already), the shepherd counted them. Perfect. 99 grown-up sheep. The shepherd patted the lamb, which was peeping out of his large pocket.

When about a half-hour was gone, the sheep started to get terrified. The shepherd saw a wolf. The wolf raced at the shepherd. The lamb bleated with terror. The shepherd saw that the wolf wanted the young lamb. He jumped just in time, so the wolf missed the lamb. The wolf growled his fiercest growl and stalked into a nearby forest. The sheep continued their pasturing, and when one full hour had gone by, the sheep returned home. When the shepherd counted them, he found the correct number of old sheep. He reached into his pocket for the lamb. The lamb was gone!

The shepherd looked deeper in the pocket. The wolf had made a large hole in the bottom of the pocket. The lamb must have fallen out of the pocket while the sheep were being led home! Quickly, the shepherd penned up the sheep and took off, following the trail they always led to the pasture. He hoped that the wolf did not already have the lamb! He cried at the thought.

Finally, the shepherd came to a white spot on the path. It had black, too. It also bleated with pain. The shepherd recognized this as his sheep. He hugged it, and the lamb bleated with joy. But then its happiness seemed to go away. It raised one of its hooves to show a scrape mark. The young sheep must have scraped itself on the fall. At least the wolf didn’t get to it!

The shepherd took the lamb home, and, when he was there, he fed it and bandaged its hoof. From then on, the shepherd was more cautious with all his sheep for the sake of the one, young, feeble lamb. And, the shepherd, the sheep, and the lamb lived happily ever after, and none of them were even one mile within the distance of wolves ever. The end.

Great Moments...

Things that warm a mother's heart:

When asked to fill in the blanks for the famous phrase, your 9 year-old says:

Pride goeth before...

Prejudice?

Words of Wisdom from a Nine Year-Old

My kids and I were looking through some motivational quotes. They were quotes like: 

Success does not come to you. You go to it.
You can crumble or you can conquer.
You are much stronger than you think you are.

 There's a lot of good stuff there, and my kids recognized that. We all printed off quotes that would help us in our work, school, healthy living. 

After reading the quotes, my nine year-old came up with his own. 


Don't quit if you don't want to start over. 
If you quit, you'll have to do it over. 


I thought it was great. He wrote it down and now it is in the rotation of motivational quotes that we have on our fridge. 

World War 2

We're currently in the second week of our World War 2 studies. We are using Story of the World for the basic information. We read that together, narrate, and do map work. 

There are also projects which we do together. One of our favorites this week is a "rationing" experiment. Many countries instituted rationing during World War 2 as a way to distribute supplies. Rationing was a way to divide up scarce supplies and do it in a way that seemed equitable.

This week the kids were given a certain number of "ration stamps" for

-desserts
-electronics time
-other favorite "only sometimes" foods

They were also issued one brand new pencil for the week. They need to keep track of it and take care of it.

Although my kids have no idea what it's like to have true scarcity as many people experienced during times of war, they do have a little idea of what "rationing" is. For instance, they received some "magic milk straws" and some fancy truffles for Christmas. They each had a different plan for how they would "make these last".

We talked about the need, during wartime, to do things to conserve resources such as fuel oil. Some people would keep their houses much cooler than we do in order to conserve. Neither of my kids were willing to try this, although I wouldn't have minded trying it.

Art Museum

We had the opportunity this week to take the kids to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. We wanted to see the exhibition of the Terra Cotta Warriors. We also wanted them to experience great art up close. It was a good experience. The warriors were so painstakingly crafted. It's also a thrill to be in the presence of very old history that we've learned about together. There was a large Egyptian wall piece which was even older than the warriors.

I haven't been to an art museum since college. I had forgotten how breathtaking it is to stand a few feet away from the works of the masters--to stand close enough to see the brush strokes and the fibers of the canvas. My son echoed this sentiment with regard to the amazing feeling of standing with a VanGogh or a Monet.

Unfortunately, the kids and I are still a little drained from being sick last week and our time frame to visit the museum was short. But all in all it was a great day!

Do you have an art museum within driving distance? When was the last time you visited?

It warms my heart...

One thing I enjoy very much is how my kids descend upon the new pile of library books whenever I bring them home.

When they come with me to the library I always have to remind them to watch out for traffic, since they're probably reading a new book on their way out to the van, too.