Classical Homemaking

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

A Band-Aid Box Story Craft

Hello Friends! Welcome to the Homemaking Party!

This week, Lynzie is away from home until Friday and the teens are at teen camp---which means it's just me and the four littles during the days! Wow, such a different dynamic!

We're doing some fun crafts and things this week and I thought I'd share one with you all.

Years ago, (like 15 or more) I was at a yard sale and found all these metal Band-Aid boxes for sale. I instantly remembered a craft I did as a four year old in Kindergarten and knew I had to grab them so I could do this project with my littles. Those littles are now almost grown but, thankfully, I've got another group of littles who are still little enough to enjoy this!

My mom had some rolls of register tape at a later yard sale so I snatched them up and all these supplies have been hiding away for a really long time. Today was their day!

When I was in Kindergarten at Heppner Elementary School in Heppner, Oregon, my teacher, Ms. Webber, led us in making Band-Aid box stories. This was about 1984 and Johnson & Johnson was still selling Band-Aids in metal boxes in "those days". I posted a teaser on my social media today and a friend joked that those lethal metal boxes were designed to sell more Band-Aids. That cracked me up...but really, now they're in paper boxes, so there's always the risk of a nasty paper cut! Genius moves on their part...hahaha!

Anyway, back to the story... So, as you can see, super trendy tiny me wrote a story about Rainbow Brite and her horse, Starlight.

The kids loved seeing and hearing my story and thought I was just as adorable as I really was... But then they were ready to get started on their own stories!

Some of the kids chose to cover the outside of their boxes first. I had a huge box of decorative paper to choose from, but everyone went with solid colors and decided to decorate them on their own with drawings and coloring.

Some of the kids chose to write out their stories on register tape first. These two wrote stories about Doctor Who, their newest obsession.

Kynthia wrote a story about Leia from Star Wars. Once they were done with their stories, they rolled them up and fit them perfectly into the little boxes.

Here's Avalon's finished story, along with a matching TARDIS box. Very cool.

This was a super fun, easy, and creative craft. I'm so glad we recreated one of my favorite Kindergarten memories! Perhaps you'll find some vintage Band-Aid boxes at a yard sale and make one of your own, too!

Thanks for stopping by the Homemaking Party! Have a great week!

Linking with: these great parties

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Field Trips to the Joplin History Museum, the Titanic Exhibit, and a Farm!

Hello Friends! Wow, well this has really been a week of getting out of the house---and it's only just begun! I spent Monday getting my hair done, getting groceries, and doing several other errands. Tuesday night, we took the kids to the Joplin History and Mineral Museum for a special exhibit. The museum is hosting a small Titanic exhibit through Saturday so we made the quick trip north to check it out.

We'd never been to this museum and were pleasantly surprised about all the cool things there were to see. Joplin has a (literally!) rich mining history and many minerals and machines were on display in this small museum. Here's Liam explaining to me that this amazing "cave" we were in was probably a real life mine at one time and once the people moved on to another mine, they turned this one into a museum! Ha! The displays really were very well done---but were housed inside an unassuming very much twentieth century building. I just let him believe what he wanted to, though...

Afterward, we took the kids to Wendy's and treated them to dinner and Frostys. Most of the kids had never had a Frosty so it was a life-changing experience...

This morning we got up bright and early to visit a local farm. The dear people at this farm put a TON of work, time, and money into hosting our group of about 100 homeschool parents and students! The kids learned a lot about running a farm and taking care of horses. It was a great experience for them!

I spent most of the morning with the two littlest girls as everyone was divided into groups by age. Kynthia seemed to take to the horses easily and really enjoyed grooming them.

It was a cool and windy day---just right for me...but I guess I'm not really a Southern girl, now am I?

All these sweeties are such a joy to take places. They're obedient and respectful and very thankful and appreciative. Tomorrow we're going to visit a friend who was injured and had surgery and hasn't been able to attend church for a couple months. After that, we've got our Good Friday service, Easter activity day on Saturday, Easter Sunday...and then two of the boys and I are headed to Oregon for a week! More on that later...but is anyone else feeling as busy as me this week? Ha!! Oh well, it's a blessing to have fun things to do and fun people to do them with!

Thanks for stopping by The Homemaking Party!

Linking with:

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Daddy's Homeschool Chemistry Lessons

Good Morning! Welcome to The Homemaking Party!

Just want to put up a THANK YOU to everyone who left such sweet comments on my update post last week. You were all so sweet and encouraging! I'm feeling really motivated and encouraged to get back to the heart of blogging and building my community of blogging friends!

Last weekend, Daddy started something new in our homeschool---Chemistry! Jamie works much more than full time, week after week, serves as a board member and in worship ministry at our church, and still makes time to be present in the lives of his nine children. I'm so thankful!!

He doesn't usually do planned out lessons with the kids, but when we recently discussed the serious lack of advanced science in our homeschool, he really stepped up to the plate. I'm good with nature study discussions and activities pertaining to whatever we're doing outside on a given day, but I was a Chemistry drop-out in high school and have never felt like I could (or should!) teach these higher level science subjects.

About a year ago, a friend told me about a new curriculum she was trying out called The Good and the Beautiful. It sounded like a pretty wholesome thing so I decided to check it out. Ha! The day I went to the site, they were offering a one-day free printable of their entire brand new Chemistry course! Woo Hoo! I printed it out and put it in a pretty binder...and handed it over to Jamie. Ha!!

Our first lesson was a general overview of Chemistry and featured an experiment where we caused marker colors to separate out on wet coffee filters.

We first guessed what would happen when we got four different colors wet...then we drew those colored circles on coffee filters and put just the tips into water to see what would happen.

The colors spread out and separated into different shades...and even some surprise colors!

Everyone got in on the lesson---from me and Lynzie, the grown ladies of the house, to Kynthia and Brenna, who are six and seven and not yet doing formal lessons. I figured I'd get in on this teaching and then I'd feel better about reteaching it to the youngers when they're in high school.

Once the kids' filters were dry and they'd recorded all their observations, they stored their pretty colored filters in a notebook. We're looking forward to Saturday morning when Jamie will have lesson number two ready to go through. It's days like these that reinforce that homeschooling (and any family learning opportunities, really) is more about the time spent and the memories made than any intelligence gained. I'm thankful!