Littles Learning Link Up: November 20, 2018 - Torn Paper Thankful Trees

Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (usually toward the beginning of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

What have we been up to?

We have continued our study of the time of Ancient Rome, looking specifically at the time of Jesus. 

We are still reading Augustus Caesar's World, which has been so intriguing for me, though I do think quite a bit is going over the children's  heads (especially Harold and Hannah). We are also still trying to get through The Bronze Bow, which is a story that takes place when Jesus is already a man. 

We have continued learning about the different senses and the parts of the body that help with those senses. We just learned about the eye and sight, so have now finished all the senses. 

One thing I forgot to mention last time is that the children are all participating in NaNoWriMo with the Young Writers Program. Tabitha is writing a story called, "Streets and Alleys." Amelia story is titled, "The Timestoppers." Hannah's is called, "Camp Days." And last but not least, Harold's story is called, "Adventures of Tala."

Let's move on to this week's craft. 

Torn Paper Thankful Trees

Last week was our last co-op meeting for the fall. We won't be having co-op again until January. This last meeting for the fall is always a Harvest Party. Each group makes a craft and then we have a Dish-to-Pass meal. Usually I have the children make Thankful Placemats. However, this year, as I didn't have any clear contact paper, I decided to make something different with the Pre-K class. After singing our songs from the week before, we gathered around the table to make Thankfulness Trees. 

You will need:

White paper

Brown construction paper

Red, yellow, and orange construction paper

Glue

Picture of a turkey

Crayons

Zippy baggies

At home, I took and printed out small leaf templates on the red, yellow, and orange construction paper. And my children helped me cut them out in preparation. 

We traced the children's hands with a bit of their forearms for the tree's trunk. Then the children took strips of brown construction paper and tore them into pieces to use to fill in the trunk and branches. They then colored a turkey to add to their pictures. We then sent home colored construction paper leaves in a baggie, with instructions to write one thing they are thankful for each day and add it to their trees. 

Amelia made one here at home and has been adding leaves sharing what she is thankful for. 

The other children chose to make turkeys instead. They are adding tail feathers each day.

Let's take a look at that review schedule real quick:

Last week I posted my review for Guitar 360 Method. 

Next month I will be sharing a review of a devotional for young ladies titled Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women by Lindsay A. Franklin.

Here are a few things I would like to share with you:

In case you are still looking for ideas for Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving Round Up

Improved Thankfulness Turkey Placemats

Did you know it is also National Gingerbread Cookie Day this week? 

November 21st to be exact.

Come and Catch 'Em Gingerbread Man Round Up

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 5 wonderful post linked up. I will be featuring the most clicked on post, plus one randomly selected post.

Please, don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Dachelle from Hide the Chocolate shared How to Homeschool Through the Holidays with a Month Long Study of Motivating Lessons.

This week's most clicked on post is:

Marci from Stone Cottage Adventures shared Botanical Garden of the Ozarks

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Littles Learning Link Up permalink please.

I am sharing over at

An InLinkz Link-up

5 Days of Homeschool Encouragement: Thankful Thursday

Welcome back to the 5 Days of Homeschool Encouragement Back to School Blog Hop from the Homeschool Review Crew. I am so glad you are here. My fellow Crew Mates and I hope you've been finding encouragement this week. On Monday I shared how I stay motivated on this homeschool path, on Tuesday I decided we would "take a look" at our 2018-2019 curriculum, and yesterday I shared my new schedules to show how we work it all in.

Today my husband is taking over my blog, as he has done in the past. It has become a tradition for him to write one of my blog hop posts, and he chose to contribute for Thankful Thursday.

Without further ado, here's the hubby.

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Thankful?  Who has time to be thankful?  I work full time in a nursing home.  I'm on my feet so much my blisters are getting blisters, and when I get a day off, I'm scared to answer my phone for fear of getting called in.

What is this Thankful Thursday nonsense?  I just don't get it.

Or do I?

Sometimes when I'm frustrated at work, I find a folded up piece of paper with my sandwiches "I love you daddy.  Have fun at work"  They sure are sneaky.

When I'm exhausted after a twelve hour (or longer) shift and I fall asleep on the couch still in my uniform I get woken up to "Here's your breakfast, dear."  And she doesn't even add the words "choke on it" or "eat it or else"

When I'm leaving for work, and all the children rush up to give me a hug and kiss goodbye, then go out on the porch to wave.  Insisting that I honk the horn in our special way as I drive away. They like disturbing the neighbors.

When I'm finally home for a night, and the kids are in bed, and I feel my wife's arms around me, or I come home after a long day at work and she is waiting eagerly to see me.

When I find out I have time off to go to a Bills game I figured I would have to miss.

When I need a second hand with home repairs and members of my church offer to help.

When I hold my youngest daughter during the worship time  at church and she is singing along while one of her sisters is singing with the worship team.

I guess I have a lot to be thankful for after all.  But most of all, I'm thankful for My beautiful wife, Karen.

I would not be where I am, and doing what I do, if it weren't for her steadfast love.  She has been there for my highest of highs such as finally obtaining my LPN license, as well as through lows that are too devastating to put into words.  I can always count on her to be there for me.

Working night shift with 4 little ones in the house is no easy task and I couldn't do it without her.  She keeps the kids downstairs, away from our bedroom. She teaches them in a way that they enjoy, but without disturbing me.

I'm also thankful that, despite my love of sleep, She knows that there are some things I want to be up for, and won't hesitate to wake me.The house being on fire is one of those (no, that hasn't happened.)
I even get a nice, home cooked meal before I leave for work. Pretty cool, huh?

To this day, I don't know why we connected in the back seat of Mom's car.  I only know how thankful I am.  I'm also thankful that she said "yes" because, as I've come to find out, marriage. and all of it's perks, is awesome. Thanks sweety!! I love you!

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Aww, I love you too! And I'm so thankful to be appreciated and loved back. It is wonderful to have a husband that supports and encourages me. A husband that reminds me that yes, I can do this homeschooling thing. I am thankful that the Lord brought Harold into my life during quite the tumultuous time. Thankfully, things have calmed down a lot since then, and he has stood by me this whole time.

There are so many things that come up in life that make me want to grumble and complain. I need to remember not just to look for the good things to be thankful for, but to praise the Lord through the tough times. He tells us to rejoice always, to be thankful in all circumstances.

What do you have to be thankful for?

Here are some of the other participants in this week's blog hop, and you will find more in the linky below.

Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
Angie @ Run Ran Family Adventures & Learning
Annette @ A Net in Time
Ashley @ Gift of Chaos
Betty @ Let’s Get Real
Brenda @ Counting Pinecones
Carol @ Home Sweet Life
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses

Littles Learning Link Up: November 22, 2016 - Improved Thankfulness Turkey Placemats

 Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (toward the beginning of the month)
• A guest post featuring crafts, activities, tips, snack ideas or other early childhood topics. (toward the end of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my preschoolers and/or early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

What have we been up to?

We have been visiting Mexico with MFW ECC (Exploring Countries and Cultures). I hope to be sharing more about that soon. The children loved using their passports and pretending to fly in an airplane to get to Mexico City. We have been trying to do our calendar time in Spanish. We are getting ready to celebrate with a fiesta, which will probably just be Taco Tuesday tonight for dinner with some decorations. We are making a pinata, but won't be breaking it yet as we are making it into a turkey to help decorate for Thanksgiving.

We have also been reading about the desert and rocks, plus lots of Thanksgiving books. You can see some of my favorites in last week's round up: Celebrating Thanksgiving Through Literature.

Today I would like to share my improved design for Thankfulness Turkey Placemats. We made something similar last year, but I thought they were kind of plain. So, this year I spruced them up a bit. Once again, I did this craft with the children in the co-op preschool class.

Thankfulness Turkey Placemats

For each child you will need a sheet of red, orange, or yellow construction paper (their choice)

A piece of white paper that is a bit bigger, so there is a border.

(I cut my paper from a pad of large paper, making sure there would be a 1 inch border)

Brown construction paper

Leaves cut out from red, orange, and yellow construction paper

(I printed a simple leaf template directly on the paper and cut them out)

Glue sticks

Crayons in fall colors.

Contact paper

The first thing I did was trace the children's hands on brown paper, one of each hand. While the children worked on their placemats, we cut out the hands.

They chose the color of construction paper they wanted, then they glued it to the white paper.

Then they were given the crayons to decorate the border.

When they were finished, they glued the leaves around the border. The adults came around and glued their hand turkeys on for them. If we had had more time, they would have glued them on themselves, but we were limited this week because it was our last week of co-op for the fall session and we were getting ready to have our Harvest Lunch.

When they were done gluing on the leaves, they were to give their turkeys some facial features and feet, and color the tail feathers.

Unfortunately, I did NOT get a picture of all the finished placemats because parents were coming in to pick up their children for the dinner. Here area  few of them.

After they were all done, we put contact paper on the back and front to keep them protected. Harold's is the only one I took a final picture for because we have their names on them with the Bible verse.

Let's take a look at that review schedule:

Well, there is nothing on the schedule for Homeschool Review Crew reviews. I posted my last review a couple of weeks ago, it was for the Language Smarts Level E book from the The Critical Thinking Co.™ . Though I have no current reviews for the Homeschool Review Crew, I do still have some children's books I will be posting reviews and giveaways for, plus I am still working on some Single Product Reviews that get posted on the Old Schoolhouse Magazine website. 

I'm thrilled to be able to share that I have been accepted back on the Crew for the 2017 Crew year! I am so excited!! So, I will be able to continue bringing you reviews of wonderful products next year.

A few somethings I would like to share with you:

My Thanksgiving-themed Round Ups

Thanksgiving Round Up

Celebrating Thanksgiving Through Literature

(in addition to the 10 books that I share about the "First" Thanksgiving, 

there is a round up of Thanksgiving Books lists and some craft ideas)

Don't miss these reviews and giveaways:

Cityblock Children's Board Book and Where Jesus Slept Children's Book

        

I am still lining up guest posts. If you would be interested writing a guest post for Littles Learning Link Up one of these months, please leave a comment or contact me via my contact info on my About Me page. I will need to have your email address so I can contact you. I am looking for posts that have to do with young children: crafts, activities, foods/snacks, tips, or other ideas. I am open to suggestions.

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 14 wonderful posts linked up. I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus the top clicked-on posts.  

Please don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Tara from Homeschool Preschool shared 25 of the Best Educational Board Games For Preschoolers.

And here are this week's top clicked on posts.

There are 3 of them this week!

Amanda from Sicily's Heart & Home shared Books We're Reading This Thanksgiving.

Nancy from Mimi and the Grands shared More Thanksgiving Books: A Unit Study.

Ayelet from Strength in Words shared Episode 36: Infant-Directed Speech.

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

<a href="http://totsandme.blogspot.com/search/label/Littles%20Learning%20Link%20Up"><img alt="Tots and Me" src="http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt58/kewkewphoto/littles%20schooling%20b%20small%20Collage_zpsefibifom.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>

An InLinkz Link-up

Celebrating 250+ followers!!

I am so excited!! I have bypassed the 250 followers mark on my blog.  In order to celebrate I am going to be hosting my first giveaway soon.  So, stay tuned for details. 

I want to say thank you to all my faithful followers, readers and everyone who leaves such encouraging comments.  It means so much to me that there are people who are getting something out of my blog.

Blessings!

Thanksgiving Thankfulness Turkeys

This month the children and I have been discovering one or two new things to be thankful for each day centered around the alphabet. We always begin our lesson time with prayer and this month we have been writing down each thing we are thankful for on an individual turkey each day.  Then when we pray we thank the Lord for all the previous things we were thankful for.  I even wrote the letters of the alphabet on the calendar dates to help the girls see what letter we are up to. And to remind me when we are behind because of skipping lesson time due to play group, sickness or other things.
The plan is to hang the turkeys up this coming weekend to help decorate for Thanksgiving.

The fronts

I found this turkey at google images, can't remember the website I was led to. I wanted to add "I am thankful for" on the turkey and started writing around the tail feathers without realizing it would fit perfectly.

The backs

This is where I am going to hang them to decorate for Thanksgiving.