It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas: December 3 - 9

In My Life This Week
♪ ♬ It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ev'rywhere you go;
Take a look at the five and ten glistening once again
With candy canes and silver lanes aglow. ♪ ♬

The Trees decorated our little Christmas tree. We decided to stick with our 3 1/2 foot tree and place it in our big bay livingroom window instead of assembling the 7 footer. Perfect for seeing the festive colored lights outside! The kids also started cutting out paper snowflakes to decorate the window for a beautiful wintery effect. And we watched "The Polar Express" and "The Dog That Saved Christmas".

Cat thinks it's HER Christmas tree

What'cha Makin' Wednesday!
(Click on the sidebar button to share YOUR kitchen creations with the kids)

Lip-Smacking Lemon Cookies from Best-Loved Cookies! I guess these are NOT your typical "holiday cookie" - probably more summertime-ish, right? - but they were super easy and we enjoyed them.

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Homeschool Happenings

Balsam Fir finished up his Mapping Skills workbook last week so I printed out a gingerbread unit study from Homeschool Share. (Do you and your kids like lapbooking? Check out Homeschool Share! TOTALLY free!) I also snagged some gingerbread men sight words from Making Learning Fun to put into a cookie jar (i.e. recycled plastic 64oz peanut butter jar) for reading practice. Sweet stuff! Pun intended! LOL

Oh, but this wasn't Balsam Fir's BIGGEST accomplishment this week! Balsam Fir has become a writer! After writing me a note expressing his unhappiness with going to bed on time - he felt he should be able to stay up later - he decided to keep a nightly journal. Sure, it keeps him up later than his bedtime, but how could I say no? 2 years ago I struggled to get him to write his nickname (and his nickname is VERY short)! We're celebrating here!

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Poor Sugar Maple! Another few days of feeling "under the weather". Her asthma symptoms are under control and her ear infection is gone, but she picked up a 48 hour "tummy bug".  She's a trooper though and got some school completed. She's reread D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths as well as several books in the Heartland horse series, drew some animal pictures from Draw Really Cool Stuff, and wrote a letter to each of her pen pals.

Sugar Maple's Sharks Drawing

It's the same ol' same ol' for White Pine: Grammar and Writing, Algebra, Earth Science, and American History. He started a persuasive essay on constitutional rights, solved rate word problems and rectangular coordinates, created a diagram of the different types of volcanic eruptions, and read about the late 1800s. (Doesn't solving "rectangular coordinates" sound like super fun? LOL)

White Pine's Types of Eruptions Diagram

Helpful Homeschool Hint
Work binders! See my post about our work binders here!

Out-and-About

♥ The boys from next door popped over to play ♥ Sugar Maple had a follow-up Asthma appointment on Monday ♥ White Pine and Balsam Fir had Scout meetings this week ♥ Sugar Maple had clarinet, a basketball practice and her first basketball game ♥ We made Balsam fir wreaths at a farm education center ♥  B__, C__ and C__ came over to hang out with the kids ♥

Our Favorite Thing This Week

Making and decorating Balsam Fir wreaths at the farm education center! And then enjoying a picnic-style lunch from home in their Welcome Center...followed by sampling cheese made right at the farm and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache. Yum!

What's Working/Not Working for Us

The temperatures we've been having! OK, I suppose for SOME 40s aren't exactly warm, but this is MAINE in DECEMBER and 40s ARE warm. I know they won't last and the snow WILL come...PILING UP TO THE RAFTERS...but for now we're enjoying the warmer weather.

Linking up to These GREAT blog hops: