The Feast of Trumpets {Ideas for Little Ones}

The Feast of Trumpets is anticipated to arrive with the new moon sighting expected this erev Shabbat (the evening before Shabbat). Here are some ideas to help those of you who want to help your little ones understand what the Feast of Trumpets is and why we would want to remember it as believers in Yeshua (Jesus).

~ Scripture: Leviticus 23:23-25 ~ The Feast of Trumpets Observance

Concepts to understand: the Feast of Trumpets is to be observed on the first day of the 7th Biblical month. The new months are marked by new moons.

Activities: To help little ones understand, you can study the phases of the moon. Check out Amber's Moon Unit Study for inspiration. We will be keeping the Biblical calender dates on our morning calender this month and have marked the Feast of Trumpets with a star.

Concepts to understand: We observe the Feast by having a rest, a remembrance of Teru'ah, and a set-apart gathering.  (Lev. 23:24-25)

• a rest day ~ we call it a High Sabbath ~ we do no servile work, but can prepare foods if it falls on a week day. The Feast this year falls on a weekly Sabbath so we prepare our food the day ahead (Ex. 16:23) ~ Activity: cook with your children the day before; make something special so that your children will remember it as set-apart. 

• a remembrance of Teru'ah (Trumpets) a shout or blast by instrument or human voice ~ Activity: blow trumpets and sing a psalm of praise, joy and thanksgiving to YHVH. 

• a set-apart gathering ~ Activity: assemble with other believers or as a family, read the Word together and sing praise and worship songs

~ Scripture: Numbers 29:1-6 ~ Offerings; Numbers 10:1-4 ~ Two Silver Trumpets

Concepts to understand: The Feast of Trumpets was observed by blowing trumpets and making a burnt offering, a grain offering, and a drink offering.

Activity: To help little one's understand the Trumpets, you can make a silver trumpet craft. Cut 2 trumpet shapes out of a giant silver gift bag ($1 @ Dollar Tree).  Or buy party horns at your local party store or Walmart. Add silver ribbon if they are colored. One year, we printed messages and tied them to the horns and gave them away.

Activity: While we cannot give the required offerings by law, help little one's understand the offerings by helping them keep the heart of this law. Teach them to give sacrificially and offer themselves up as a living sacrifice in honor of Yeshua (Jesus) who gave His life up for us.

~ Scripture: Revelations 1:9-11 ~ Trumpets and YHVH's presence; Matthew 24:30-31 Trumpets at Yeshua's return

Concepts to understand: When John heard Yeshua's voice, it was "a loud voice, as of a trumpet." When Yeshua returns, He will send His messengers (angels) with "a great sound of a trumpet" to announce his return.

Activity: Remember the Feast of Trumpets every year and be ready for Yeshua's return. 

~ Scripture: Numbers 10:1-4; 10:9-10 ~ How Trumpets are Used Throughout the Bible

Concepts to understand: Trumpets were used to gather the congregation together, for breaking camp, for going out into battle and for a remembrance.

Activity: Help little ones understand this by blowing the trumpets to gather the family for dinner, Bible study, etc. 

~ Scripture: Ezra 3:1-6 and Nehemiah 7:73-8:12 ~ Exiles and the Feast

Concepts to understand: After the exiles returned to Jerusalem (Yerushalyaim) from Babylon, they kept the Feast of Trumpets. Ezra read the book of the Torah (law of Moses) to the people. At first they mourned because the Torah had been lost to them, but then Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites who taught the people told them to not to mourn because the day was set apart to YHVH ~ and they made a great rejoicing!  As scattered Israel living in exile, we too will rejoice when Yeshua returns and gathers up His children and "the joy of YHVH [will be our] strength!" Neh. 8:10

Activity: Pray for the restoration of Yisra'el (Israel)!

Homeschool Highlights ~ Week 2

Here is what we were up to our 2nd week of school ~ 10 days completed.

Nutrition 101 ~ Highlights:

We covered Unit 2, chapter 2: Digestive Health and Nutrition.  Some of our activities included testing the body's pH. Healthy pH is from 6.0-7.5. We learned that the foods we eat can affect our body's pH, that acidic bodies are more prone to disease and what kinds of foods we should eat to restore a healthy balance. 

I have some urinalysis test strips, so we all tested our pH. 

We also made a homemade pH test using cabbage juice as an indicator. 

We tested water and lemon pickle juice. The water didn't change color (was neutral) but the lemon juice turned a dark pink indicating it is acidic. We also learned that cucumber juice and onion juice are neutral (we were testing to find something alkaline). 

Power Recipe ~ Green Apple Bean Salad:

Lots of raw veggies, lemon juice and grape-seed oil. We learned what it means to julienne carrots.  We also learned that while lemons are acidic, they have an alkalizing effect on the body. 

Activity ~ Lemon Pickles:

The lemons will ferment. After preparing them, we set the jar in a sunny window. They will be ready in 2 weeks and we be used in chapter 4. {They smell so good!}

I think this is my favorite subject to teach. =)

Science: 

Nathan and Dylan finished lesson 1: Introduction to Human Anatomy and Physiology.

Notebooking activities included:

• History of Anatomy
• Vocabulary Crossword
• Scripture Copywork
• Cell Miniature Book

They also started their "Personal Person" and will add body systems to this as they go. 

If I didn't stress it enough in my last HH post, I LOVE these journals! 

In General Science, Jordan finished Module 8: The Fossil Record and started Module 9: Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism. {He is more than ready to move on to the Biology section of this book and study life!}

Experiement ~ "A Simulation of Using Index Fossils to Order Rock Layers"

One thing I am trying to do this year is to keep my children more accountable. This means daily checking of their work, rather than weekly. This takes more time for me, but by the end of the week the boys were coming to me daily with stacks of notebooks and papers to show me their work. I give them a star sticker to remind myself that I saw or graded their work and this seems to be working.

New from last week:

We picked up 2 more studies this week: Writing Strands and MathScore. 

Writing Strands is a self-directed writing program. Each boy works independently. 

• Jordan is working in book 4 and completed assignment #5: My Mistake ~ Skill: Organization. He wrote about the time he was careless while shooting his BB gun. He has great voice in his writing and when I read his paper, my heart was relieved that he organized his thoughts well, he wrote clearly and it was interesting to read. I am not sure if I am feeling the self-imposed pressure about the fact that he is in high school now, or what! but I will be focusing more on writing this year than I did last. 

• Nathan started book 4 and did lesson #1: How a Sentence Does It ~ Skill: Basic. He had to pick a subject, list the information he wanted to give, organize the info, and write the sentence in that order. He is on day 4 and his focus is on writing the perfect sentence.  

• Dylan is working on book 3 lesson # 9: A Very Short Story ~ Skill: Creation. He worked on developing a character, the problem, how the problem was solved and the ending. His story is for young children and is about a frog who thinks he is a bird (cute so far!). 

MathScore is an online math practice program. (You can read my review here). Each boy spends about 10 minutes online each day as a supplement to Life of Fred. 

History:

• Finished Chapter 15 in SOTW: The Phoenicians
• Chapter test 
• Worked on the lapbook.  

Biblical History:

• Grapevine: Samuel and Review 4. 

B4FIAR: 

We finished rowing Blueberries For Sal with a French Toast and Blueberry Syrup breakfast ~ will share more soon.  I usually start a new book towards the end of the week, but I needed a planning break. 

Malachi 5K: 

He worked on his handwriting (Getty-Dubay Italic) ~ letters and numbers and AAS phonogram cards. Math was writing numbers to 30, skip counting by 5's to 60 and 10's to 100, and telling time on the hour and half hour. 

I did a lesson out of Language and Thinking for Young Children, by Ruth Beechick, called "Triple Play" (p.30). In this game, I name 3 things and he has to use all three things in a sentence. Then he gave me 3 words to use. I played the same game with Eliana using 2 and 3 words. I drew pictures to help her remember the words. 

For example:

• pencil - paper - desk ~ "I got my paper out, drew (with my pencil) on my desk." 

• apples - cinnamon - brown sugar ~ "I get out the apples, dip them in cinnamon, then dip them in brown sugar." (We had recently made baked apples). 

They both had a hard time giving me things rather than sentences so I helped them. 

One night, Luke initiated a game of add on at the dinner table. We went on a picnic and took some pretty silly things! but Malachi did a great job remembering most of them. 

Life:

We made new nesting boxes for the chickens using 5 gallon buckets. I saw the plans for this in a homesteading magazine. 

We are up to about 8 eggs a day and the boys all try to be the one to get to them first. One broke (not sure how) and the chickens started eating the egg, so Luke suggested we put a golf ball in their box to keep them from pecking the eggs. (They don't like how hard the golf ball is). What we weren't expecting is that the chickens consistently lay where ever the golf ball is! So we put another one in. So far, they lay where the two golf balls are. :p 

We also finished insulating the shed for winter, made a plan for the water (which is currently outside) and the heat lamp and wondered who will be the eager one to collect the eggs once the snow flies. ;-)

In the Scriptures: 

Luke has amazed me ~ he is all caught up and on schedule to finish reading in 90 days. =) I am at Luke 21. Nathan is in Ezekiel. 

Thoughts: 

The fact that I didn't get all that I wanted done in the school room before we started is catching up with me. I need one day to just work on organizing so that our week will go more smoothly.  Here is my plan: the boys (Luke and the oldest 2) are working in Montana splitting firewood today and tomorrow, so I will take tomorrow to organize.

We will have a short week this week ~  we have a Sabbath Sabbath ~ a Feast Day on a Sabbath this Shabbat (Feast of Trumpets) ~  so we will be spending some time studying about the Fall Feasts. Our focus will be on what we can do to remember the Feasts while in exile ~ how we can keep/guard/shamar the commands of YHVH ~ while obeying/guarding all of His commands.  For example, the main requirement of Tabernacles was to keep the Feast in Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) ~ we cannot ignore this command for the sake of keeping another. We must guard them all!

Since this will be a short week, I will post Homeschool Highlights for both weeks 3 and 4 together. 

Delightful Links:

T.O.B.Y Homes-Cool Highlights @ Hearts in Training
The Feast of Trumpets {Ideas for Little Ones}

The Carrot Seed

Last week we finished rowing The Carrot Seed, by Ruth Kraus. It is such a short and simple book but we had lots of fun with carrots, seeds, gardening and more!

Our companion books were Growing Vegetable Soup and Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z.

And the radio program we listened to added an element of fun to it. We listened to it after we planted our carrot seeds and sang it all summer.  Then we waited and waited and waited for our carrots to come up!

And I so enjoyed looking back at the carrots we grew last summer, and seeing how much Eliana has grown!

Growing Carrots:

Eliana and I planted 2 square feet, but we only harvested one square so we could let the other square grow a little more. 

After pulling them, we lined them up and counted them. Then took them inside to trim and wash. 

Art:

We made a "carrot impressionism."

I explained that we were just creating the impression or idea of a carrot.

Creamy Carrot Soup:

Another day we made Creamy Carrot Soup ~ a recipe from our learning adventure with the Tawny Scrawny Lion. Malachi especially loved this and remembered the soup! And I was careful to make sure we went easy on the salt this time. 

To make the Creamy Carrot Soup, we used:

• a fresh onion from the garden
• and lots of organic celery (from the store)

Sauteed that in butter, then added:

• lots of carrots
• and 4 cups of organic free range chicken broth (1 carton)

And let it all simmer until tender. Then we added:

• 4 more cups chicken broth to cool it down

Then we blended it in the blender until creamy, poured it back in the pan and added seasonings ~ a little salt and Organic No-Salt Seasoning (herbs and spices).  We served the soup with fresh baked Honey Wheat Flax bread that I had Luke pick up from a local organic bakery (our first week back to school and I was not up for more baking). 

Then we frosted the carrot cake (that was in the freezer waiting for us to make the soup) and had that for dessert. 

Lap Journal and Activities:

Carrot Sizing, Vegetables Book and Will It Come Up? Book:

(Lapbooking activities from Homeschool Share.) 

Fruit or Vegetable? and The Growth of a Seed:

(The above printables are from the book Exploring Science Through Literature, Level A.)

Fruit or Vegetable? Collage:

I cut out various fruits and vegetables from a seed catalog and had Malachi make a collage for each. The important concept to learn is that fruit is a seed container, so if it has seeds inside it is a fruit. 

P.S. With the calender on the wall, you can see that I don't always blog in "real" time! ;-)

Lap Journal/Memory Book:

Kumon Activities that tied in this week:

Seed Growth:

To study seed growth, we planted a bean seed in a glass jar with a paper towel so that we could see the growth. 

(Seed growth in reverse)

It is too late to plant our bean plant outside, but today we harvested some green beans from our garden so they could see the end result. We accidentally saved some pretty blue seeds from our Blue Lake Green Beans. :-) {As we were picking green beans for a Nutrition activity, I picked a mature bean that had yellowed and tried to pitch it over the fence to the chickens. Thankfully, I missed the fence and Nathan picked it up and discovered the blue seeds. lol ~ I had never saved seed from beans before.}

And of course, there were lots of discussions on seeds and bearing fruit from a Biblical perspective. :-)

Delightful Links:

• Tot School @ 1+1+1=1 (More ideas for ages 1-3)
• Preschool Corner {and 5K too!} (More ideas for ages 4-5)
• Our other B4FIAR posts
• The Carrot Seed Resources @ HSS
• Kiddie Records Weekly presents The Carrot Seed (Click on week 30, then on Record 1)

Root Beer Float Science

What kid wouldn't love a fizzy, foamy (drinkable!) science experiment?

My kids were certainly up for this extra curricular science project. =)

Objective:  Discover what physical and chemical changes occur when ice cream is added to root beer.

Supplies:

• Root Beer
• Vanilla Ice Cream
• Tall plastic cup or drinking glass 
• Ice cream scoop
• Measuring cup

Procedure:

Add a scoop of ice cream to a tall plastic cup or drinking glass. Pour a cup of root beer over the ice cream and observe the reaction.

After making a prediction, we added the root beer to the ice cream in the first glass, and added the ice cream to the root beer in the 2nd glass to observe the difference (the first way foams more than the latter).

Questions for the kids:

The solid and the liquid form a gas. Is this a physical or chemical change? {chemical}

Draw and label the solid, liquid and gas produced when making the root beer float. What happened and why?

If you have a high school student, you could have them explore nucleation. ;-)

For more great science experiments, check out Science Sunday @ Adventures in Mommydom. 

Tropical Traditions Oxygen Bleach {Review and Giveaway}

I wanted to try this for laundry stains, but when I read the list of all that Tropical Traditions Oxygen Bleach Destainer and Deodorizer can do ~ I knew I needed to try this.

Here are a few uses that caught my eye: {Check out the link above to see the complete list and instructions.}

Laundry

• In the laundry Oxygen Bleach is used to destain, deodorize, and whiten ~ even cloth diapers!

Kitchen

• For stained plastic ware, dishes, dish rags and dish towels.
• To keep your drains and disposals clear and smelling fresh.

Bathroom

• For septic systems.
• To scrub toilets.
• For mildew stains on shower curtains.
• To clean the bathtub and shower.

Household

• To destain and deodorize carpets.
• To clean mops.
• For mildew removal. 
• To clean and deodorize cat litter boxes and urine stains on upholstery.

So far, I have used it to whiten whites, scrub black sharpie marker and dirty handprints off the white hallway banister, scrub the bathroom sinks and to wash the white trim around the doorways and along the floor. Phew! nothing like reviewing a household product to get me motivated to clean! =)

My next big project was going to be the infant car seat that has been in storage uncovered in the dusty garage for quite awhile. I tried to sell it at a garage sale, then tried to give it away and then must have forgotten about it. And now I need it! However, the general recommendation is that a car seat has a life of 6 years ~ and we will hit the 6 year mark when baby is born, so I will have to buy a new one.

Do you have any marker stains on the wall? Cloth diapers that need freshened and destained? Whites that need whitened? What would you use this for? Let me know in a comment for a chance to win a 6lb container of TT Oxygen Bleach! {a retail value of $30 ~ on sale for $23}

For additional entries:

• If you subscribe or follow my blog give yourself an extra entry.
• Subscribe to Tropical Traditions Sales Newsletter. {Watch for the free shipping coupons!}
• Follow Tropical Traditions on Twitter.
• Tweet about this giveaway and leave me a link to your status.
• Do you have a favorite Tropical Traditions product? One you would like to try? Share!
• Blog about this giveaway for 5 entries.
• Place an order with TT as a first-time customer ~ see my referral pageto read how. This is worth 10 entries, so please leave me 10 separate comments if you do this! Note: I am not paid for referring customers, but I will receive a free jar of coconut oil!

Your comment is your entry. You will then have 48 hours to contact me with your information or I will choose another winner.

This giveaway is open until Wednesday September 8th {I will select a winner using random.org the next day} and is only open to US residents.{TT will ship internationally, but not for giveaways.}

Thanks to TT for sponsoring this review and giveaway!

Disclosure: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

First Week Back to School: 2010-2011 School Year

Lots of random delightful learning this week ~ planned, unplanned and life. =)

First day highlights:

• The first thing we did was harvest potatoes.

I was going to leave them in the ground a little longer (to keep cool), but the chickens got out and dug them all up. They made quite a mess with the hay ~ and as we were picking up the potatoes we found what they were after ~ worms and slugs!

We put all the small ones in a box between layers of newspaper for winter storage ~ these will be our seed potatoes for next year.

So we are off to a great start ~ this is real life. And home-school is life. =)

Next:

• Calender and Morning Board {Routine!} and Breakfast {Yogurt Smoothies}

• Cleaned and organized boxes and I handed out school supplies, materials and textbooks

• Bible, Think of Me (a daily encouragement journal written for a sibling)

• Language Arts

• Put chickens away again

We thought they flew over the fence and were due for a wing clipping, but the bungee on the back fence broke.  Yes, we all have to run out to put the chickens away ~ but really they are easy to get back in. ;-)

Proceeding:

• Mali 5K

• Mali and Elli: Row Carrot Seed {boys independent work}

• Math

• Science

• Lunch

After lunch, I did "my school" with the boys.

• Wormbin-ology 101

Remember E is for Earl the Earthworm? (Click to read all about our first adventure with earthworm composting). Well, I put Earl, and offspring outside, forgot about them and they froze. I was sad that I killed them, they were multiplying nicely. But the worm castings and organic matter made wonderful compost for my tomatoes.

This time, we bought a vermicomposting kit from Azure Standard with 1,000 red worms. Our intent is to have them to process our organic waste, produce fertilizer for our garden, feed the chickens. . . and the best part ~ the boys are staring their own home-school based business/project. They will sell worms for bait (and probably use a few themselves!). We will need to buy at least one more kit, but this was to get us started.

We covered set up, maintenance and worm feeding ~ so very simple.  They just have to keep the bin moist and feed the worms. To feed them, they dig a hole, put the worm food in, and cover it (to prevent flies). Worms don't like to be disturbed, so we bury the food in a new spot each time. 

• All About Spelling orientation: Since I was not ready (all set up), our first day of AAS was "orientation." =) The kids separated the cards while I read to them. (Elli is doing Match It! Shape Shuffle at the table with us and Malachi is playing cars or army guys in the play room upstairs.)

(The older boys will cover levels 3 and 4 this first semester and I will start level 1 with Malachi next semester.)

Continuing on:

• Nutrition 101: We read Unit 2 Intro, did an overview of Unit 2, planned the projects we would do, and made a shopping list

• Read Aloud: My Side of the Mountain

• Jordan worked @ the YMCA from 3-6 {Jordan's first "real" job!} This means we have to be done with school by 3:00 pm and Jordan has to get up early to take care of the yard and chickens. By our state law, at the age of 14, he can work 3 hours a day on a school day, or 18 hours in a school week, and not past 7:00 pm after Labor Day. He has been working with the maintenance department staining the fence and mending soccer nets (for Luke). Next week he will start working with Luke as a facilitator for Itty Bitty Soccer. I love that he will be working with his dad! =)

• Made a special dinner for The Carrot Seed with Mali and Elli (will share about this in our B4FIAR post coming up).

It really was a great first day of school and taking time to do "orientation" and first day type of school stuff really saved the day! 

First week highlights:

New curriculum!

Our curriculum page details what we are doing this year. I have made a few changes to what we are doing:

AE Human A&P

Nathan and Dylan really wanted to do the next book in Apologia Elementary ~ Human Anatomy and Physiology. I ordered the book, the journals and bought the science supplies kit that goes with the book and I am so happy I made this choice investment! I love the high quality of the journals, the schedule in the front and love that all the supplies I need are on hand. Well worth the money for me.

Activity ~ make an edible cell:

The boys did a notebooking page and drew a diagram of a cell in their notebook . . .

and then we made an edible cell.

Elli and Mali's cells were square since we were rowing The Carrot Seed and plant cells are square. =)

Nutrition 101: Choose Life 

I reviewed this for the Crew last year, but with the heavy load of review products I was not able to use it. This week we picked up where we left off with Unit 2 ~ the digestive system. The timing really was perfect with N&D studying A&P this year and Jordan covering life and the human body this year in General Science. We did Unit 2 Chapter 1 this week ~ one chapter a week/ two days a week will be perfect for us.

{Digestive System} Power Recipe ~ Raw Fruit Salad:

About half way through our week, we started rowing Blueberries for Sal ~ so this tied in perfectly! We also watched "Rainbow Salad" from our Signing Time video - Story Time Volume 1. We were all singing "Rainbow Salad is my favorite treat to eat" and even watched it again while we ate.  =)

Chapter 1 Activities:

(Working on a Salivation Experiment and seeing how much food our stomach can hold.)

Story of the World:

I was so overwhelmed with trying to tie Biblical History in with what was going on with the rest of the world that I decided to keep them separate {somewhat}. We will continue with History Revealed and Grapevine's OT Overview, but we will use SOTW and make this SOTW lapbook to go along with.  We started this towards the end of the year, so this week we reviewed chapter 1-4 (listened to them on CD) and got caught up in the lapbook ~ which honestly, wasn't hard because this is a very easy, kid friendly {for those who don't LOVE lapbooks} lapbook!

Bible History:

• Grapevine: Lesson 22 ~ Ruth
• Victor Journey Through the Bible ~ The Story of Ruth

My Side of the Mountain:

This is our current read-aloud and we are doing some hands on activities to go along with the book. We are using Woodsman and His Hatchet: Eighty Years on Back Country Survival as a companion book. The boys all read the book over the Summer and I bought them each a new hatchet once they finished it. The hatchet is one of the most important back-country survival tools ~ and we were happy to see that Sam brought a hatchet (small ax) with him when he ran away to the Catskill Mountains. Woodsman and his Hatchet is about survival in the mountains in Montana, which is a much more practical book for us!

We read chapters 1-5 and our activity was to try a new edible plant.

I grow borage (to attract bees) in my garden, but I have never harvested it. We read in our Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs, that borage leaves, stems and flowers taste like cucumber. The leaves should be harvested when young, otherwise they are fuzzy/prickly. Ours were fuzzy and prickly but we tried them anyways. :D They do taste like cucumber! Borage is grown for its medicinal value, but the seed is what is used for medicine. {I do not intend to harvest the seed} The cool thing is that borage will naturally reseed itself ~ this plant came up from last year! I pulled several plants this Spring not knowing what they were, but decided to let one grow to find out ~ glad I did. =) 

I also grow nasturtium. I started growing this a couple years ago because it is edible and pretty, but have never harvested it. We took a sample to taste and it tastes just like the book says ~ peppery. The younger leaves are less spicy. The nasturtium flowers are edible and spicy too. The leaves would be good in a creamed potato soup. 

Mali's 5K:

Malachi begins his official 5K year ~ we will continue with what we started in the Spring. (We made it 3 weeks into his 5K year, but I will start over counting).

(Working on finishing up his Kumon math book)

We did the first lesson in Writing Strands 1. This is an oral language manual with fun activities to encourage oral language development.

The first lesson is called "Making Up Words." In this activity, we invented new words that we could use in place of familiar objects. 

Here is a few that we came up with:

• crayon --- color writer
• chair --- bottom holder
• desk --- think harder (loved this one!)
• calender --- date holder

Tot School:

I do not normally blog all that we do in a week ~ I was partially up for that challenge since this is our first week back to school and I took a lot more pictures than usual. Usually, if it ties in with our B4FIAR lesson, I include it ~ otherwise, I don't for time's sake. Below is how Elli stayed occupied during school time this week (when she wasn't playing outside, doing a planned activity or playing with her dollies). 

She and Malachi both love to do the Kumon cut and paste, color and paste, sticker and paste, mazes and tracing books.  They have 6 books total and I have kept them high on a shelf over the Summer just for this reason! They are convenient for keeping little hands busy with fine motor skill activities. 

Elli initiated the puzzle time ~ she did a couple Melissa and Doug puzzles like this one and we reviewed the shapes in the puzzle. She did a color one, too.

All of our other activities focused on our B4FIAR books: The Carrot Seed and then Blueberries For Sal. 

Life:

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, I decided that life will go on even when school starts. . . and it did. We canned nectarines this week.  {We also made blueberry jam for B4}

We will not do a raw pack next time. We did not get all the air bubbles out of them. But they taste so yummy blended in the blender with a container of plain yogurt.

We also dehydrated more zucchini . . .

. . . and harvested our first buttercup squash. I baked it upside down in a pan with some water and then turned it over, filled it will butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Even Dylan {Mr. Won't Eat Veggies/Fruits} liked it! It should have been dessert instead of a side dish. =)

In the Scriptures:

I am doing my own version of the B90 challenge ~ using the Scriptures version from the Institute for Scripture Research. It is a literal translation with the restored name of God, and uses the Hebrew names.  Anyways, I was 13 days ahead in the challenge starting this school week and I am so glad because I only managed to read an average of 2 chapters a day this week putting me at day 65 of the readings on day 57 of the challenge (so still technically ahead where I need to be to feel that I can do this). Luke is on day 53 in the readings and is moving up fast behind me! Nathan is on day 30. =)


Thoughts:

Looking at our "school room", I can see that there are still several things that I wanted to get done before school started, but they will get done soon enough and we still had a wonderful week of learning together. I am so blessed to be able to homeschool my children and appreciate every minute that I have with all of them ~ even when, especially when everything is not "perfect!"

Delightful Links:

T.O.B.Y Homes-Cool Highlights @ Hearts in Training
The Feast of Trumpets {Ideas for Little Ones}