Monday, February 20, 2012

Happy Birthday JT

A Total Family Post:

My son had his 8th Birthday last week. It was a lego birthday of course! What else would an 8 year old request? =) Would you believe I couldn't find ONE lego decoration locally? So, I had to think fast, and use my printer... and it came out just fine.

Lego wall of past birthday's......

Fun wrapping!

Hide and Seek Lego men! This was fun and they were hard to find!

Thank you for Visiting!!!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Hands on Economics

Something our family does on the side, is buy/fix up/sell furniture here and there. It's something we enjoy (Well, something I ENJOY) and it's great to make some extra $$ when we can.

As a matter of fact, this has been something my kinders have been around their whole lives:

(roadside find)

His very first furniture he painted.

Always a helper!

So, we were out at a second hand store, and I thought it was time for JT to invest in his first piece.

It was a big deal!

He was very excited.

We found a solid wood Drink Cart for 3 Euros. It was old, wobbly and clearly weather worn.

With his own money he purchased it with hopes of making some good $$$. =)

(3 euros is alot of money to the little kinders)

We came home, he tightened the screws on the wheels. I taught him how to sand it down and then showed him how to stain furniture and he re-stained it, with a little help from me. But not much! He wouldn't let me help. =)

I have never seen him work so eagerly. LOL!

Afterwards He put on wax to give it a nice shine.

He photgraphed it and we listed it on a local online site.

It sold within 1 hour for $20!

Now that's ALOT of money to one of our kinders.

Not to shabby for a 7 year old on his 3 Euro investment.

Without his Savings, he wouldn't have been able to purchase this investment piece.

He is learning how to take part of this profit, and re-invest in another piece, invest in some mercury dimes(a new lesson for the next few weeks), save some, and tithe.

He is a natural Saver. My Daughter on the other is NOT. She will gladly spend her money the minute she has some. JT takes FOREVER to decide on what to spend his money on. Which is a good thing. =)

Things JT learned through this experience:

Investing

Risk

Manual Labor

Pride in a job well done

Recognizing potential

Value of Capital

Some Books we are reading about $$$$$:

(Daddy is reading this to the kinders a few nights a week )

Books I would like to get as we continue learning:

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

King Tut & Egypt Unit Study

Hi!
I know it's been over a month since I posted! Life.... My husband is home! After 18 months of being away, we are getting back into the groove of normal life again... =) It's only been a month he has been home and we are all adjusting very well. He went back to work the first week home, which allowed the kinders and I to press on into a normal school schedule again after the holidays.

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to visit the King Tut exhibit that was in Frankfurt.
Daddy took the day off and we all went with our Homeschool group. It was ALOT of fun!

Taken from the Exhbit website- this is a description:The burial and treasure chambers shown at the exhibition cannot be seen in this form anywhere else in the world – not even in Egypt, because Tutankhamen’s original tomb in the Valley of Kings has now been almost completely emptied.
Tutankhamun’s treasures are now cordoned off behind glass in the display cabinets of the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo. The impression of space made by the tomb in its original state can only be experienced at this exhibition:

A few days before, We read the book:

For our Homeschool Field trip my friend and I (Thanks JEN) made these totally fun laminated necklace tags for all the kinders! Made a great keepsake, and we knew who was in our group!

When we arrived we first watched a video of the Brief History of Egypt. After that we went into the next room to view a little movie about Howard Carter and his Discovery.....
following the movie... we entered the "first room of the tomb.." It was so neat to see the same image we saw in our book just days before!

Here is a layout of the Tomb, and the order which we were visiting each area.

What I didn't realize till I was standing in front of it, was how LARGE each box was, and how many till you got to the actual casing of King Tut. ... Much bigger than I thought. Very cool. Even though everything was a replica.. it was truly a great experience.

2 Excited Kinders seeing the famous Egyptian King up close!

During the next week we took our time studying Egypt.
We colored maps, located the Nile river, Read some wonderful books, watched youtube videos, and did lots of hands on FUN!

One of the kinders Favorite books: They love the Magic school bus, I was excited to have this for them in our library.

Nile river

Mummy FUN

We mummified and APPLE! This was alot of fun!

A few days before we went to the museum we did this and waited 7 days to compare!

Salt/baking soda a sliced apple .... (found the info online)

JT was so excited to see the outcome! We made predictions, we checked it every day.. sometimes more than once!

But they were very patient and on the 7th day we took the apples out to look at them.

WOW!

How cool!!!

Even I wasn't sure if it was going to work. If we made the right mix...

But it was perfect! The kinders were truly amazed!

Another fun book!

And who doesn't want to wrap their stuffed Friend up????

Sarcophagus FUN

This was my own idea (wow, I actually had one!) We used some small egg cartons from our recycle craft bin, some paint, and a little toy and made our own sarcophagi! I just cut out the egg molds so a toy would lay nicely inside.
We also read through our Pop up book ( a little creepy though)...

HUGE HIT!

Acrylic paint worked the best for us.

We also stamped the inside and outside with our Hieroglyphics stamp set.

Some fun things on our Display:
A post card from the Museum, Math game, a totally cool keepsake from a thrift store of the mummy, papyrus bookmark, and our Tags for the museum we made.

I also found this papyrus picture at a thrift store!

JT loved this game! A little to hard for KT... but we played it a few times...

Papyrus FUN

We made our own paper for our Craft one afternoon.

This was a little tricky. And while we didn't do anything fancy, the results were great and they loved it! I would do it again.

Supplies:

Flour, water, strips of paper, and drying rack.

We mixed flour with water to make a paste, ( also found this on the internet) and then tore strips of paper, and soaked them... laid them out and then did the opposite way to make a weaving pattern...