Bright Ideas Press Black Friday Special

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Everyone knows I love Bright Ideas Press from their Mystery of History to the Christian Kids Explore Series for science.

I would highly recommend looking into this awesome deal from them through Cyber Monday! 

Check out how we use BIP items in these posts:
Christian Kids Explore
Mystery of History
 

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving is always my favorite time of year. I love the food yes, but more than that I love the comfort and family get togethers that happen.

For the past four year we have made a Thankful Tree. Each year it is so difficult to take it down so much so that most years it is up until the next time for the new years tree! I love the thoughtful things my children are thankful for. Last year we did mix it up a little and write a journal entry each day for our blessings but this year we are back to just a simple word of thanks on a leaf.






Thanksgiving day we will make our way over to my grandmothers where I know I will get to de-bone the turkey while we sit and laugh at silly stories and try to ask her what else I can do so she will sit down, which will not happen. We will enjoy our time there for a few hours and then venture home for me to prepare my Thanksgiving supper that night for our families. Kevin's parents and sister come and my parents and brother and nieces come. The kids always play downstairs and I try to get everything finished. The T.V is normally on football and some hollaring is happening.

I love tradition.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Weekly Wrap Up 13

I'm late again but I tell you, weekly wrap ups are my hardest post to get published because I work all weekend long. I am going nonstop until Sunday am.

Last week was a good week it was full of activities and successful working.

Kyle had basketball practice, we had 2 get togethers, we went to watch Mocking Jay Part 1 at the drive in Thursday night and had a field trip Friday. Can you say BUSY?

This week for Thanksgiving we are schooling Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and taking off Thursday and Friday for a long weekend! 

Hope your Thanksgiving is blessed and happy!

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Rafflecopter Giveaway Here
 
 

Wordless Wednesday Week 12 - Fall Family Pics{2014}

Thanksgiving/Fall Books {Our Favorites}

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Can you believe it is already November?

I'm still having trouble realizing it! 

I love that Thanksgiving and Fall are upon us. I love the cozy feeling that the cooler air brings and the more relaxed pace that my life takes. 

Thanksgiving is a fun time for me, my personal favorite holiday and I've tried to share that with my kids from an early age.

We have always read a lot and the older my babies are getting I am having a harder time finding books for us to read together on certain topics but I still love these books for our Fall reads and our Thanksgiving no matter how old they get we enjoy reading them, kind of as tradition if you have it...

Thanksgiving On Thursday & Pilgrims

Cranberry Thanksgiving 

Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins

Leaf Season

When The Leaf Blew In

Fox Makes Friends (my personal favorite)

We Gather Together... Now Please Get Lost!

The Biggest Pumpkin Ever

Themed reading has always been such a fun activity in my home. I encourage you to make a book basket and each season or holiday find books and fill it like we do! 

Hope you enjoy some of our favorite books for this time of year.

H is for Homeschooling Through The Holidays!

Homeschooling is a difficult task all in itself on a great day. Add a little normal life to that and it gets a little hard to handle but when you add stress of the holidays you get extremely hard to handle!

We have homeschooled for over 9 years this year and here are some tips I have found to work well with our family along with the stress of Thanksgiving, family gatherings and Christmas!

1. Breathe

Seriously. 

Sometimes so many chores and activities make it hard to know what you are supposed to be doing. Don't let the hustle and bustle take your joy of the season away. 

The craziness only happens one time a year so just understand each day is a new day to begin completely over. Lay down your mistakes and burdens from yesterday because today is new!

2. Prep/Organize

Prepping your meals could be a huge life saver this time of year. I am naturally an organizer and I have to plan my meals weekly or else I feel completely lost looking for what to cook the hour my husband is due home.  

To read the rest of my post please visit Upside Down Homeschooling. 

 

Weekly Wrap Up 11

This week was short and sweet. 

Kyle was gone Tuesday through today hunting so he completed no work however I did send him packing with Moby Dick and gave him a very stern warning that when he came home the book better be complete. When I went to pick him up before church this morning he did have it completely read and I actually think he enjoyed it! He is looking forward to sleeping in his bed tonight.

Wednesday I started not feeling that great so with Kyle gone Lexi and Zachary only completed Math daily and Grammar. We also through a small unit study in there since no history was done this week about Pilgrims & Indians. 

I have great news from Zachary! He completed Explode The Code Book 2! In only 11 weeks schooling I think that is great. Proud of him because this is his hardest subject area.

Lexi had a little trouble understanding interjections so we watched a schoolhouse rock video, She loved it and actually understood the point afterwards.  

Oh and we did complete 2 lessons this week from Nancy Larson Science. We really love these lessons and the kids favorite part is all the hands on activities it provides. This week we talked about changing the states of matter. 

Hubby was home Tuesday and I allowed something for the first time ever... The Christmas tree is actually up BEFORE Thanksgiving. I have always said no and it is always put up the weekend after Thanksgiving but I said what the hay this year go for it... And after it was up I even wrapped a few gifts because the tree just didn't look happy with nothing under it.

Last piece of news for this week, the blog design changed and so did our address! We are now TheArrowoodZoo.com! I hope you enjoy the new look because it was a lot of hard work for this lady! I have no clue what the background consists of and I really had to dig deep to change everything around and design the new header. I learned a lot and am actually proud of myself for it.

Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Free Thanksgiving Printable { Just 4 U }

With Thanksgiving upon us I felt compelled to create a new piece of art work to place on my table! I wanted to share this with you just in case you wanted to enjoy them as well.

You could print these for yourself to decorate just like I am doing or you could use them as a background on your computer.

The first image does not have a frame. Second image does.

Enjoy your free printable. 

If you do download, I would love for you to follow us socially whatever way you enjoy most!

Blessings ~ Kayla

Download here.

Download here.