Baby Boy Nursing Cover

I made myself another nursing cover!  Now I have one to keep in the diaper bag, and one to use at home.  See my post Reversible Nursing Cover to make your own.

Week 11, MFW Adventures & K

Cooking for history!  We were supposed to make Johnny Cakes this week, but we tried them a few weeks ago and didn't like them.  Instead, we made a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Heritage Cook Book, Pumpkin Raisin Bread.  We made two very short loaves.  It was so good just the kids and I ate almost a whole loaf before Kevin got home!  It was great with homemade pumpkin butter on it!

We learned more about the Revolutionary War and George Washington this week.  Below is Caleb's summary of George Washington.  I had to help him write the summary, and demand that he write real sentences!  We're still dealing with fits every time he has to write...

Just to goad Caleb, Rebekah wanted to write sentences too.  She thought of these herself, and I wrote them down.  Then she copied them.  I think it's amazing!

We read several of the books from Week 9 again, and they watched some episodes from Liberty's Kids - The Complete Series.  As a read aloud, I read  Toliver's Secret to them.  We all really enjoyed it.

In English, Caleb has been learning the difference between WAS and WERE.  And his spelling went great this week too (see below).

They had fun with science this week.  We did several experiments from Science in the Kitchen (Science Activities) about water.  Their favorite one was stacking sugar cubes and watching the tower fall when the bottom cube dissolved.

We also have two bags of bread sitting on the window sill.  One is dry and one is wet.  We'll be checking them in a few days to see what happens to them.  Our third experiment I didn't take a picture of, but we soaked dried beans overnight to see what happens to them.  Then I made bean soup for lunch.  Caleb, Joshua and I ate it and liked it.  Rebekah said it was good, but she only had one bite and suddenly wasn't hungry...

For music, we started listening to selections from The Nutcracker.  They colored these pictures while they listened.  I looked up when the ballet would be playing near our home, and found out it's coming the same week that I'm due with baby #4.  I'm a little disappointed we'll miss it, but I plan on getting the movie at least!

Art went really well this week.  I felt like they actually learned something!  We started basic painting with learning about how to mix colors to make secondary colors as well as light and dark shades.  Below are Caleb's pictures.

In Kindergarten, Rebekah has moved on to the letter D and dinosaurs.  Her bible words were "Big and small, God made them all".  She is still excited about reading, I love it!

She finished up the letter U at the beginning of the week.  Here are the pictures she drew.  1 is an umbrella, 2 is under, 3 is upside down, and 4 is unbutton.  I'm impressed with #4.

Rebekah has been using CUISENAIRE RODS SMALL GROUP 155/PK.  After finishing her U page, she wanted more school, so she decided to make her own worksheet.  She sorted the rods she used, traced and colored them, and then counted and wrote the number on her paper.  I didn't tell her she got a couple number backwards, I was in awe she did it!

And here's an adorable picture of Joshua playing with play dough for the first time.  He felt like a big kid with a plastic scissors and knife!

Twirly T-Shirt Dress

This is the 3rd T-shirt dress I made for Rebekah.  See #1 and #2 here.  I used SewBaby's Twirly Dress Pattern.  The pattern had a section on how to cut your shirt, and also how to make your own bodice.  I made it a size 6, which called for 8 skirt panels.  However, I didn't have quite enough fabric, so hers has only 7, which isn't really noticeable.  But if you're going to be buying fabric just for this dress, make sure you get more than 2 yards if you're making size 6!  (I bought my fabric a year ago from Walmart for $1/yard so it was just sitting there waiting to be used)  I also added a ruffle and buttons to the neck line to make it a bit fancier. Rebekah was very happy with it, she ran over to her brother and spun around for him so he could see how twirly it was! (He's a boy, he didn't get it!)

Here's a picture of the back.  There is a tie on the back, but it's hard to see in the picture.  And below is her spinning!

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Another Up-cycled T-Shirt Dress

Here is T-shirt dress #2 I made for Rebekah yesterday.  (See yesterdays here.)  She loves this one better than the purple one from yesterday, although I like the purple one.  I started with a size 6 blue long sleeve t-shirt and a size 4 yellow polo dress that was way too short.

I cut the top off the polo dress for the skirt.  I just sewed the shirt and skirt together and had a dress!  I think the waistband is a bit too low for her, but she loves it the way it is, so I didn't change it.

I gathered a bit of fabric at the neck and added a button to make it a bit more dressy. For the gather, I just sewed a straight stitch right down the middle of the shirt for about 3 inches and then pulled the thread tight. Very simple!

I'm also linking up with:

Winter Girl's Dress (Up-cycled T-Shirt)

Rebekah had a fit this morning because she says she doesn't have any winter dresses.  Or rather, she didn't like her options.  Mommy to the rescue!  I made her two this afternoon!  Here's #1, you'll have to wait until tomorrow for #2, and I have a plan for a third one too.  I found 3 plain colored long sleeve shirts in her closet that someone had given to us.  She is definitely not lacking in long sleeve T-shirts, so I figured she could spare a few.  Then we headed to the basement craft area to find some matching fabric.  This striped knit fabric came from the thrift store last year, but I never got around to using it.  It looked the best with the purple shirt, and she loves it!

For the skirt, I cut two triangular pieces with curves on the top and bottom.  I gathered a few inches of fabric in the front to dress it up a bit.

Here's a close up of the front. I was going to add ties on the side so she'd have a cute bow in the back, but she didn't want them.  Below is the original shirt.  I love up-cycling!

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Week 10, MFW Adventures & K

I love it when all three kids are busy and quiet!  I'm amazed at how much Joshua is learning too.  He knows most of his colors already!  And he loves the songs that we sing for Rebekah's Kindergarten, he sings "cat and man"  all the time!

In history, we learned more about the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, and our flag.  Above they are playing with a set of Revolutionary War army men that I bought at Hobby Lobby.  I really love the figures they have!

We made quill pens!  We had an opportunity to visit one of the Great Lakes this summer, and I found a couple big feathers while we were there and saved them.  They were easy to make, just snip the tip off and make a slit on the end.  We also made blueberry ink!  I was surprised how well it worked!  They liked when I wrote their names in cursive (fancy writing).

We've been listening to Yankee Doodle, which has a line that says: "the men and boys were thick as hasty pudding".  So, we made hasty pudding!  And wow, it really did get thick!  Rebekah made her version with almond milk (dairy allergy) and Caleb made his with regular milk.  Everyone liked it.  Caleb and Joshua ate two bowls!  Rebekah liked it, but she didn't eat very much.  I tried both versions, and the one with regular milk and butter was definitely better!

They both colored a map of the first 13 colonies for their history notebooks.  And below are their summaries about the Revolutionary War.  Caleb's says: "The 13 colonies went to war against Britain for freedom.  George Washington was the leader of the army."  Notice his paper is crinkled and a mess...  He got really upset when I told him we were going to write a summary.  He's getting better about writing during English time, but he REALLY hates having to do it at other times.

Part of Caleb's fit was because I didn't make Rebekah write a summary.  (She is in Kindergarten.)  But she decided she wanted to write a sentence anyway.  Her sentence says: "America went to war with England."  I wrote it and she copied it.  She loves to write, maybe it's because she's a girl.  Or she wanted to show up her brother...

We also finished our read aloud, Sarah Witcher's Story.  We all really liked this book, although I got a bit teary eyed imagining it was my child lost in the woods.

Here are a few of our other books this week: 

In English Caleb has been learning the difference between to, too and two.  He's been getting most of them right!

And spelling has been going good as well.  

We've been using this book for our science:

Below is a picture of some of our water experiments.  We were testing different materials to see how strong they are when wet.  They thought it was great when the marble broke through the tissue paper!

We moved on to colored markers in art this week.  They practiced coloring pictures by using lines of different colors.  Caleb's is on the left and Rebekah's is on the right.

This was the Uu week for Rebekah in Kindergarten.  Below is her tactile letter activity, cutting the letter U out of magazines and gluing them to a paper.

Our bible words to remember were "God made us wonderful", so we learned about our senses.  Below is a picture of Rebekah trying to guess what object I put in the bag.  They both loved this!  For hearing, I had them close their eyes and guess what I was doing.  For smell, I held different food and spices up to their nose so they could guess.  For sight, Rebekah tried to draw a person with her eyes closed, and then she drew it with them open so we could compare the difference.  We are covering taste this next week, but I will be letting them taste some food without looking and see if they can guess.

And here's a peek into her notebook.  She LOVES learning to read!  She's also been reading the first two BOB books, and even copied all the words onto a paper to practice!

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