Dwimble.com

Click the photo above to see the whole album.

The PALS group at Scottish Rite had a Christmas party at the beginning of December. We didn’t go for Amelie since she doesn’t know that she is different now, but for Nadia to see other kids (and adults) with limb differences. She has started to notice when people comment about Amelie and has even asked, “When are Amelie’s hands going to be like mine?” That lead to a great discussion with her about how we are all different and that is how God made us. They had food and a Santa which really got Nadia excited. Amelie on the other hand screamed in terror at first. In the end Amelie took the gift from Santa’s elf and waved at him, but that was it.

Amelie showing her new bear the Scottish Rite Kaleidescope.

We headed home and I set the girls up to decorate a gingerbread house. Amelie did a great job on her first try and put all the candy on herself. I was on “icing duty” and heard a lot of “can you put some icing here mommy?” I let them each do half and it was really cute.

I had been looking for a little kid friendly Advent devotion. Nadia is really wiggly so I was also looking for something hands on. Enter “Truth in Tinsel” an ebook by Amanda White.  It’s very well thought out, a good level for little kids and the kids can make their ornament each day. I bought it at 11 pm on November 30th, but since we are an arts and crafts house I had what I needed for the first 3 days on hand so we were ready to go. Nadia  was also given the Star Wars Lego Advent calendar for her birthday from Papa and Grandma Brooke.

She is so excited to start!

Working on our devotion for day one: Isaiah 9:2-7. The ornament was a candle.

Amelie holding her chocolate Advent calendar (at this point she doesn’t know it contains chocolate). She was REALLY excited when the door opened and chocolate popped out

That night we headed to church for dinner and Advent candy chain making. It was a great night with friends.

This year we decided to buy an art curriculum to do with Nadia. It’s DVD based and we have seen it at the homeschool bookfair each year. It’s called “Atelier” and you can find out more information here. The  level 1 is for ages 4-6 and has 3 modules and each module has 6 lessons. They have a supply kit you can also buy, but we have so many arts and crafts supplies I decided to wait on the list and see what we might need. I had everything except the fabrics, drawing pencils, liquid starch and oil pastels. I also picked up a new set of paintbrushes that I am keeping fresh just for this program. Here are our supplies for the year:

Click the photo above to see the entire album.

The Kimball Art museum was just finishing a Picasso exhibit when we did this “Hands and Flowers” lesson so we took the girls to see it. This is one of the great things about being in an area with so many wonderful museums.

I LOVE this mixed media family portrait!

We got the Autumn Treasures unit study of Amanda Bennett’s site, unitstudy.com, and it took us much longer than usual due to our busy month, but it was great. I started by getting about 15 books from the library and printing some extra activities from Homeschool Creations. We learned a lot in this study just like our past ones on seashells and robots. We started with Do a Dot pages to get warmed up and start our discussion about fall (even though it was still pushing 100 in these parts)

Just like the other units there were a lot of fun videos to watch including how candy corn is made and how an apple press works. We learned about Johnny Appleseed and his travels – Nadia enjoyed all his crazy hats, especially the cooking pot. I have already done blog posts on the monarch butterflies and apple pie bites that we made, but here is a little view of the rest of our unit.

Nadia is working on her fall tree in this photo.

A puzzle for the back of her lapbook.

Learning the life cycle of a pumpkin – here she is with the pumpkin she picked out at homeschool day at Mainstay Farms.

Families are encouraged to go on a nature walk each day and collect items. Then enter the highlights into your unit study work book. Here are some of the things Nadia found along the way.

Leaf rubbings from our nature walks.

“Fairy” Amelie and Nadia on a nature walk.

Amelie was saying, “art art art art” over and over while I was working with Nadia so I went to see what she wanted. Then I realized that she was drawing “hearts.” Pretty cute!

We got the idea for one of our other cooking projects from the Mama Jenn site.  These were messy and fun to make and tasted yummy!

Last of all, here is her completed lapbook.