Chestnut Grove Academy: November 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Brag Time Blog Hop #5

Welcome to Homeschool Brag Time Thursday!

Come link up your Homeschool related posts to 'brag' about the great things you and your kids are doing! Browse around and see what others are up to as well! (Please link up the direct URL of the post you are 'bragging' about!)

Please Follow your hosts and grab our Brag Time Button to display in your post or on your blog so others can join in the fun as well!

Brag Time - Rockets

So I posted a few weeks ago about the rocket launchers we made, well I finally was able to get video of them....so you can see JUST HOW FAR up these things go!!

The videos aren't the best b/c you can't really see the rockets in the sky, but that is because THAT IS HOW HIGH THEY GO...so high you can't even see them until they are coming back down!

You can see the original post on how to make these launchers HERE

Linking up with:

Workbox Wednesday

Tot School - 12mos, 32mos

Well, we aren’t really using workboxes this week….this entire month is going to be off a bit with Christmas coming up, and we have company coming later this week, and then we are taking a week long vacation. So, I know I’ve kept up a post a day since diving in head first to this blog, but this month you may find I don’t live up to those standards.
Moving right along, even though we don’t technically have workboxes this week, I did want to share some activities we are doing.
First off, we are doing an Australia Unit Study (Little Passports), it’s a bit different from how we usually do our Little Passports Country Study, but this time we are using Unit Study with Amanda Bennett’s Expedition Australia. And we are really enjoying it. We’ve supplemented some stuff from Enchanted Learning, and Expedition Earth as well….so that’s the bulk of our study this week.
We put our Christmas Decorations up for Family Home Evening this past Monday. So the boys have really be enthralled by them, particularly the nativity scenes. This block nativity set I made several years ago at a Relief Society Super Saturday. Today me and the two littlest guys had lots of fun stacking them and knocking them down! We would talk about the characters on each block, naming the animals, their sounds, pointing out baby Jesus, etc. (I’ll post a tutorial on the Nativity Blocks later this week).

They also enjoy playing with my Holiday Beanie Babies (I discovered their fascination for them with the Halloween and Thanksgiving ones I had, and my Christmas ones are much more abundant)

We also have a Little People Nativity set, and several other little nativity sets (non-breakable, that C has really enjoyed playing with). There is a large basket of Christmas themed books by the Christmas tree as well.

December 1st we begin our Daily Christmas Lessons from the Discover Christmas Book by Discover the Scriptures, as well as our Advent Calendar with scripture and candy.

Linking up with:

Monday, November 28, 2011

Close to My Heart Giveaway (One Stop Christmas Hop!)

I apologize, there was a misunderstanding and a winner was drawn early, therefore I had to end the contest earlier than the scheduled date. I appreciate your understanding, and sorry to those that didn't get a chance to enter. I will host another CTMH giveaway soon!

Prize package includes (as pictured above): Stamp pad tower ($11.95), 2 stamp pads ($5.25ea), 3x3 My Acrylix Block ($8.50), 2x3.5 My Acrylix Block ($7.50), Double Scrubber ($10.95), My Acrylix Spritz Cleaner ($4.25), Double Scrubber ($10.95), Idea Book ($3.95), Holiday Magic Stamp Set ($17.95).

To enter this giveaway use the Rafflecopter form below (if form is not visible, click on READ MORE).

After entering, visit the other blogs participating (see linky below), all have giveaways valued at $25 or more!!

I am thankful for: Week #4

#21 - I am thankful for Q's job. He has a great job with great benefits, that provides us with the money we need to pay our bills! His getting the job in the first place was nothing short of a tremendous blessing and the answer to prayers! The Lord really helped us out on that one, and it has been a great job that has done very well for our family, and brought us here to beautiful Hawaii!

#22 - I'm thankful to be able to have the extra funds to enjoy extra curricular activities, we are blessed for the most part not to have to live pay check to pay check. I am grateful that Q has always been a stickler on NO DEBT, it has truly been a blessing!

#23 - I'm thankful for this beautiful world we live in, I have traveled to many places and every place I've been the beauty and variety has been different from the place before! Heavenly Father certainly did his best to not make this a boring world to live in...there is beauty and variety all around us!

#24 - I am thankful to have been able to celebrate Thanksgiving with so many of my ward (church) family, since I am far away from my own family. It's so great to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, its the one constant in our lives when we relocate to a new place!

#25 - I'm thankful to have been able to go on a date with 'C'...he drives me crazy most days, but it was fun to have some one on one time with him. Even if they movie was not all that great. (haha)

#26 -I'm thankful for the rain, even though it can put a damper on our day...it makes the beautiful greenery GREEN all around us and usually results in a beautiful rainbow as well!

#27 - I'm thankful for the freedom and ability to be able to homeschool my kids. I know it's not for everyone, and not everyone agrees, and some days I get super frustrated, but all in all it's a great experience, and I wouldn't want to miss it for the world!

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My affiliates have some GREAT CYBER MONDAY SALES going on…check out my facebook page or details or click on the buttons under MY AFFILIATES in the right sidebar! (Purchases made from my links will result in a small income for me, Thank you!)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Saturday Scrapping–Calendars

I’ve been working on some calendars. Close to My Heart sells event calendars. They are used yearly, and you just fill in the dates you want to remember each year…birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc…

Event Calendar

I haven’t gotten very far, but I have decorated 2 months, and wanted to share! (Paper, stamps and ink are CTMH, embellishments are not).

Disclaimer: I am a CTMH consultant, the link in this post goes to my personal sales page, orders placed from my site do result in a small commission. I have used CTMH products for about 5yrs, and have only been a consultant for about 5months. I swear by their products, and only promote products I believe in!

Feel free to contact me with any scrapbooking/crafting questions you may have!

Saturday, November 26, 2011

My baby turns 1

c (little c) had his first birthday on the 20th. The most important part of a birthday for me is the cake, and I love to make them. This is more of a recent thing for me, but a nicely decorated cake has always been a sort of tradition in my family. My aunt decorated cakes for a living when we were growing up, so she always decorated our cakes, and she did my kids cakes too, until I was living in NZ for one of their birthdays. So I had to try my hand at it, and it was fun. Now we are living far away from her again, so I have taken to cake decorating once again. Giraffes have been c’s theme since he was born, pretty much. So of course I did a giraffe cake for him. I found a cute picture on pinterest that I went off of…and then also made 2 smash cakes, one for his party and one for his first birthday pictures.

I have never been a fan of fondant, but found this great marshmallow fondant recipe, and it is so tasty! So much better than the store bought stuff, and once you get past the sticky, gooey stage, it’s really easy to work with as well.

I own a cricut cake mini machine, and used it to cut out the spots on the #1 giraffe and the giraffes on the smash cakes.

I can’t believe he’s ONE! Had to hold back tears as we sang happy birthday. Time goes by to fast, wish they could stay babies forever!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Field Trip #23 Friday Blog Hop

Field Trip Friday!

A Blog Hop designed to share 'FIELD TRIP' related Blog Posts

(does not have to be a 'home school field trip', can be any trip to any place with your children!)

We made it to the Mars Exhibit this week! It was a really fun end to our 2 week space unit. C really enjoyed it and didn’t want to leave, making me promise we’ll come back. The exhibit is there until the beginning of January, and since we have season passes to the museum, I hope to make it back at least one more time before it switches up to something else.

**NOTE: Before linking up please review guidelines HERE

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Homeschool Brag Time Thursday Hop #4

Welcome to Homeschool Brag Time Thursday!

Please Follow your hosts and grab our Brag Time Button to display in your post or on your blog so others can join in the fun as well!

Brag Time–Co-op

We are part of a great co-op, you could say I’m biased, since I started it up…but, I really was so lucky to have such great women join up with me in the effort. We meet every other Tuesday for an hour and a half. We cover science, music and art. This week the topic was Thanksgiving (of course) and the mom in charge of teaching came up with some great projects.
We made mosaic Indian Corn

For Science -
We did a milk and vinegar experiment ( have to say the milk was not the only thing that curdled, my stomach felt curdled too!)
And we tested a variety of food for starch, using iodine.

For music we listened to and talked about this hymn

A great time, as always!

Linking up with:

Workbox Wednesday

We have a really light week this week, with the holiday. Basically, we are reading a lot of books on Thanksgiving. We had co-op this week (more on that for BTT), and a field trip (more on that for FTF). So there was really only ONE day of school this week.

Tot School

12mos