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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.

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.

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.

One of my favorite things about fall are the pumpkins. I like to look at them and eat all sorts of delicious pumpkin foods and drinks. Seriously, I love pumpkin food. I make my own pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin smoothie (still looking for a perfect one) and the list goes on. I told Nadia we were going to paint our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch this year and she thought that would be awesome. It was Amelie’s first chance to paint and she was really excited. The little ones in the photo are from Boo at the Zoo.

Bread, cookie cutter, egg whites, bird seed and ribbon.

Use the heart cookie cutter.

Paint the bread with egg whites.

Press the birdseed into the bread.

Loop a ribbon through and then hang from a tree.

We downloaded this unit study from the Amanda Bennett site. This is the same place that we bought the “Sunny Seashells” unit. To see that post, go here. This unit had so many awesome videos that Nadia loved. She would crack up laughing at some of the stuff the robots could do. The cow milking robot grossed her out becuase “those udders look messy.” She was fascinated by the underwater robot Jason who has a 6 mile tether. It suggested that you drive 6 miles to give the kids an idea of how long that was. So the next morning when we drove to the gym I told her to pay attention because that is how long Jason’s tether is. She has talked about Jason a lot since then. There were quite a few areas we didn’t delve into because she can’t read yet and I think older kids would get more out of it. That is the great thing about these unit studies, you can do a lot or a little based on your child.

Here is the breakdown of the days:

Day 1: What Is a Robot?
Day 2: The History of Robots
Day 3: People and Places of Robots
Day 4: Science Secrets of Robots
Day 5: Goodies and Gadgets of Robots

Silly Nadia and her robot dot-to-dot.

How is a robot like a person? (notice Sparks from Toy Story 3 is watching her do school)

We learned about CiD – an ice cream serving robot. Can I get one for our house?

Nadia with her completed lapbook and her robot craft. If you look in the bottom left of the lapbook you will see her “water clock.” This was the first robot ever invented and it was revolutionary because you didn’t need the sun to tell the time. She has brought up the water clock a lot since we talked about how thousands of years ago people didn’t have electricity or batteries and all the technology we enjoy now.

Nadia and Wall-E. After taking this photo we celebrated the end of Robot School by watching Wall-E.

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My friend Michelle told us about the Marvel Comics event at Williams Sonoma last month so we packed up and headed over there. For a $5 donation your child could decorate 2 marvel comic themed sugar cookies and they would get a special edition comic book. Nadia chose Spider Man and Iron Man.

We also picked up the Star Wars pancake molds that we used for Star Wars school. Later in the day we headed out to pick up some clothes and diapers during the Texas tax free weekend. PS. The cookies were yummy!

When Nadia realized what was going on she HAD to get her Jedi robe before we could start. Thanks again Jenn R.

She wanted to be a bunny one day.

This read, build, write page is great!

Making a book practicing location words.

Star Wars Popsicle stick puppets.

Her lapbook is done. Thanks for the stickers Kathy E and Rieley.

Look at the fun puzzle I found at the Target Dollar spot.

And my friend Lynnea would say this is my “over-achiever part”.

STAR WARS PANCAKES BABY! I gave Nadia one of Darth Vaders ships and she had to sing “bum bum bum ba ba bum ba ba bum” before she could eat.

Here is a list of the books we read over the course of the week (all from the library).

• Death Star Battles – Simon Beecroft
• Blast off – DK easy reader
• What is a Wookie? -  Laura Butler
• The Adventures of Han Solo – Lindsay Kent
• Yoda in Action – Heather Scott
• Forces of Darkness – Heather Scott
• Pirates… and worse! – Simon Beecroft
• Jedi Heroes – Clare Hibbert
• Clone Troopers in Action – Clare Hibbert
• Feel the Force – Benjamin Harper
• Tatooine Adventures – Clare Hibbert
• Don’t Wake the Zillo Beast – DK easy reader
• Boba Fett: Jedi Hunter – Clare Hibbert
• Jedi in Training – Heather Scott
• Join the Rebels – Catherine Saunders
• Jedi Adventures – Heather Scott

Nadia had a really fun time with Star Wars school. We also started her Math and Art curriculum this week and she is doing well.

P.S. One morning while I was making breakfast I turned around to see this.

Then I introduced Nadia to a beading craft. The most popular name for these are Perler beads, but we bought ours at IKEA. The kids make the designs and then you can use the paper it came with or parchment paper for mom to use between the beads and the iron to melt them into place. Nadia worked very hard off and on until she finished the first one. She was very excited about the end result and has made some for gifts. Of course now I wish I would have snapped some photos of the ones we gave away, but too late.

The container of beads is giant so I know that Nadia will have many more hours of fun and I am sure her designs will get more and more complex. Fun inside activities to beat the Texas heat.