Thanksgiving!

Four weeks ago the kids started a Thanksgiving Unit Study. So we have been talking alot about Thanksgiving and this past week we did some extra fun activities that got our creative side moving! :)

For our reading aloud time we have been reading a book about Squanto. The four older children made Indian and Pilgrim hats. Here is Elijah in his Indian hat.

Sarah would have loved to dress like a pilgrim. She wore her hat alot that day and even wants to make one for others. Just have to love her!

Timothy loved making his Indian hat.

For our homeschooling I try to have a "together time" each day, so for the four weeks of the Thanksgiving Study we created a blessing tree. During our "together time" each day I would give the kids a leaf and we would write something they are thankful for on the leaf. Then the kids would color the leaf while I read our book about Squanto to them. After they were done with the leaf they would place it on "The Blessing Tree". It was so much fun for us to watch our tree grow!! Loved this!!

Here is the "leader" of the Pilgrims!

Then one day we used play dough to create something about Thanksgiving. This is Isaac's Mayflower. I thought he did a great job! He spent alot of time on this.

This is Sarah's Wampanoag house. That is an Indian tribe we learned about.

Here is her Indian head dress and Pilgrim hat she created!

These Indians came and spent the day with us! So friendly!! :)

This is Elijah's Mayflower!

Hope you can see we had lots of fun! Another thing that Isaac did was he sent a letter to the Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, MA and asked for information about their museum. He received a packet yesterday with all kinds of information! They even sent two coloring sheets! Isaac was so tickled to get the packet! :)

Pumpkin Muffins

I need to post this before fall is over so you all can enjoy these very delicious pumpkin muffins!!

First let me say that we are not a pumpkin eating family! Bryan and I have never been crazy about pumpkin anything. So I was a little hesitant to try these but I am so glad I did!! :)

For Halloween I wanted to do a fun fall day with the kids and throw in as much education as I could. One of the things I wanted to do was to get a pumpkin and cut it open for the children to see what one looks like on the inside. We have done this before with Isaac and Sarah but not with the little ones. I called and asked Bryan to pick me up a pumpkin on his way home from work.

He called me from the store and said all they had was these smaller pumpkins and wanted to know if that was ok. "Sure", I was a little disappointed that they were not bigger. The next day the kids and I set to cut the pumpkin open and look at all the "yuck" on the inside. I noticed that these pumpkins were "pie pumpkins" so I thought it would be neat for us to see the "goody" in them too. 

We could make some pumpkin bread with this. But how would we get the "goody" out? So I got on the internet and began to search (I really didn't know). I found a website that gave step by step instructions on how to cook a pumpkin and then be able to scoop out all the "goody".

It was supper easy and the kids and I were learning something together!! We cooked the pumpkins and once we scooped it out we had this bowl looking shell (see top picture). The kids had so much fun taking turns scooping out all the pumpkin goody.

Then I took my Banana Bread/Muffin recipe and added pumpkin instead of banana, I added 1 Tbsp of Pumpkin Pie spice to the dry ingredients, and then I added 1/4 cup of chocolate chips to half the batter. Below are pictures of what the end results looked like.

I hesitantly tried the first bite....oh my these are supper delicious! Everyone loved them and I will make more with some of the pumpkin I had left over. I also went to the store and bought another pie pumpkin so I could freeze some pumpkin and make more muffins/bread later!!

We have muffins on Sunday mornings and so now I can freeze these and we just pop them out on Sunday mornings for a yummy breakfast!!

Pumpkin Muffins

2 cups of flour (I actually did 1/2 whole wheat and 1 1/2 white all purpose)
1 Tbsp. of Pumpkin Pie spice
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 heaping cup of pumpkin (fresh is best :))
2 eggs
1 cup of sugar (I actually used 2/3 cup)
1/2 cup of oil (I used 1/4 cup of applesauce and 1/4 cup of oil)
3 Tbsp of milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of chocolate chips (or 1/4 cup if you are doing half plain and half with chips)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all the dry ingredients (first 5) in a bowl and set to side. Then combine all the wet ingredients (except the milk and vanilla) in a bowl. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla (and chocolate chips) and mix well. Pour into greased muffin tin or greased bread pan and bake. 15-20 minutes for muffins and 45-60 minutes for bread (dpending on size of bread pan). Cool for 5 minutes and then remove from pan and ENJOY!!!

Building Fun

We have went crazy lately over Legos! All the kids will probably get a new set of Legos for Christmas. SHHHH! The boys love building different things with the Legos. I thought I would show you a couple of pictures of what Isaac and Elijah built.

Then Isaac built this with his cards! I love it that these kiddos have an imagination....even at 11! It also makes it special when they work together to create something!! Maybe we need to have a "Building" school day! :)

A Hunter

Isaac loves being outside and anything that he can do outside. We decided this year it would be good for him to take the "Hunter's Safety Coarse". Bryan and Isaac took this together and they learned so much! There was a class Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights with the test being on Friday night. Then Saturday morning each person got to shoot and then received their certificate if they passed. Both of my men passed and are now ready to get their hunting license.

Here they are with their certificates!

Here is Isaac having some target practice in the back yard. He has enjoyed this so much and even participated in a Turkey shoot last weekend. He won a ham and a turkey. Isaac was so proud that he had provided meat for the family! :)

A couple of weeks ago Isaac was able to go hunting with our Pastor, Bro. Jono. They didn't get anything but it was good for Isaac to be able to go and have that experience.