Letterboxing!

What an adventure we had today! I've heard about letterboxing and I've been wanting to try it so today, at the insistence of my bff, we went! Before I start on about our adventrure, let me just share what letterboxing is and to get more info, you can go to www.letterboxing.org. Letterboxing is a sort of treasure hunt that is going on all over the world! You go online and get clues to where these boxes are hidden then, you go find them. There are some that are easy to find and others that are well... challenging. I had read that there were quite a few at Stone Mountain Park and since I have a pass there, we (me and the kids, and my friend and her 2 girls) decided today would be a great day to hunt. We gathered our supplies, packed a lunch and headed out. Here is a picture of what we brought.

Basically a notebook, stamp pad, stamps, wipes (not necessary), pen, compass and our clue. (you can find clues at www.letterboxing.org or http://www.atlasquest.com). The premise is that you go find the box. When you find it, you put your stamp in their notebook and put their stamp in you book. From there you just collect as many stamps as you want. All of the boxes are located in public locations, usually in public parks. We had such a great time and so much learning! Each location is a secret so I didn't take a picture of the kids finding the actual box but I will say that it took us a few attempts. It was a great lesson in following directions. When they actually found the box, all 6 of us were elated! It was a beautiful day so one the way back to the car, we stopped to cool off in the stream.

taking a drink of the water.

After we were done with that letterbox hunt, we went over to the park for a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day and the kids were having a blast. Then this man walked in and started blowing bubbles! He went on to explain that he worked for the park (but was not working at that time) and this is what he did. He entertained the masses by blowing bubbles! And these were not ordinary bubbles. They were huge! He was great with the kids. He remembered each ones name and managed them so there was no fighting and everyone got a turn. At one point., Jaiden got hurt because he and another child collided while chasing the giantic bubbles. He got a pretty big fat lip to the point that is was bleeding. As soon as the bubble mas realized that Jaiden was hurt, he came over to me (where Jaiden was) and said he had the cure for bubble wounds: bubble juice! He then let jaiden blow his own huge bubbles. Before I knew it, Jaiden was playing like nothing had happened! As we were leaving, I saw his truck and his site is www.gabubbleman.com

By the end of that adventure, both kids were exhausted! So if you are up for an awesome outdoor adventure, try letterboxing and let me know if you find any good trails!!!

In love and light!

Stephanie, Anna, Jaiden and Lilli

Letterboxing!

What an adventure we had today! I've heard about letterboxing and I've been wanting to try it so today, at the insistence of my bff, we went! Before I start on about our adventrure, let me just share what letterboxing is and to get more info, you can go to www.letterboxing.org. Letterboxing is a sort of treasure hunt that is going on all over the world! You go online and get clues to where these boxes are hidden then, you go find them. There are some that are easy to find and others that are well... challenging. I had read that there were quite a few at Stone Mountain Park and since I have a pass there, we (me and the kids, and my friend and her 2 girls) decided today would be a great day to hunt. We gathered our supplies, packed a lunch and headed out. Here is a picture of what we brought.

Basically a notebook, stamp pad, stamps, wipes (not necessary), pen and compass. The premise is that you go find the box. When you find it, you put your stamp in their notebook and put their stamp in you book. From there you just collect as many stamps as you want. All of the boxes are located in public locations, usually in public parks. We had such a great time and so much learning! Each location is a secret so I didn't take a picture of the kids finding the actual box but I will say that it took us a few attempts. It was a great lesson in following directions. When they actually found the box, all 6 of us were elated! It was a beau

tiful day so one the way back to the car, we stopped to cool off in the stream.

taking a drink of the water.

After we were done with that letterbox hunt, we went over to the park for a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day and the kids were having a blast. Then this man walked in and started blowing bubbles! He went on to explain that he worked for the park (but was not working at that time) and this is what he did. He entertained the masses by blowing bubbles! And these were not ordinary bubbles. They were huge! He was great with the kids. He remembered each ones name and managed them so there was no fighting and everyone got a turn. At one point., Jaiden got hurt because he and another child collided while chasing the giantic bubbles. He got a pretty big fat lip to the point that is was bleeding. As soon as the bubble mas realized that Jaiden was hurt, he came over to me (where Jaiden was) and said he had the cure for bubble wounds: bubble juice! He then let jaiden blow his own huge bubbles. Before I knew it, Jaiden was playing like nothing had happened! As we were leaving, I saw his truck and his site is www.gabubbleman.com

By the end of that adventure, both kids were exhausted! So if you are up for an awesome outdoor adventure, try letterboxing and let me know if you find any good trails!!!

In love and light!

Stephanie, Anna, Jaiden and Lilli

pinterest...

My newest addiction...

The other day I was a little upset because people were posting all sorts of things about internet plagiarism and giving the original author credit which I agree with but they took it one step further. Pinterest should delete posts that do not comply. These are probably the same people that support government health care but I digress....

The next day I saw a post (and honestly I can't remember where) that compared the major social media sites. It went something like this:

twitter - I'm eating chocolate

facebook - I like chocolate

foursquare - This is where I'm eating chocolate

instagram - here is a vintage picture of me eating chocolate

youtube - here is a video of me eating chocolate

linkedin - my skills for eating chocolate include...

pinterest - here is a recipe of the chocolate that I will one day make but for now, I'm content with just looking at the pictures and dreaming.

I'm not sure why this bothered me, so lately, I've actually been DOING the things on my pinterest boards. The kids and I made heart shaped cupcakes for Valentines Day, I made constellation cards which I LOVE (not sure about the kids ;) ), we did a glow stick bath, finger painting place mats, and tonight we made banana smores. Yummy!!! (I've got pictures below of everything but the banana smores because we ate them too fast. ) So if you are so inclined, you can look me up on pinterest at www.pinterest.com/hugsarehealthy.

Space, our next frontier!

So, I think it's pretty normal but we are once again trying a new foot for our homeschooling. We tried Earth Schooling and it just didn't fit us well. (It had elements that I liked but not enough.) then we tried to just expand on what our homeschooling group was doing and that just didn't hold his attention long enough. So new we are trying monthly themes that HE chooses. So far, so good and this is our first month. ;)
This month he choose space! And more specifically, planets. We have had a planet mobile that we were slowly working on but we hadn't done anything intense on the planets. I think I am enjoying it as much as he is. Around new years, I did some research and found some templates for mini books for a lap book. I like these because it pulls everything together for both of us. I got everything printed out and cut out what I wanted to then put it all in our "working tub" ( which is just a red tub with everything that we are studying now.)
On the days that we work on our lapbooks, we bring out the tub and go to town. I found an amazing site with videos of all the planets (and more)called Space School. He picks the planet we want to learn about then we watch the video together. As we watch, we go through out different actives. Sometimes we watch it once through then watch it again and stop when we want to and sometimes we just stop as we go the first time thought. I like to do our theme studies twice a week and on the other days we do math or reading. I try to keep them all on the theme but...and on top of that, not every theme day is a lap book day. Sometimes we will do science experiments and some days like today, we do cooking.
Today we made planet cupcakes. They are not sized correctly but they are colored and positioned in the right order. We made them with the Fun-da-middles cake mix and j wanted to add red dye to the batter. Then I just got white frosting and frosted them. After that I let him get creative. I printed out a sheet with all of the planets on it and mixed some food coloring and water in a small bowl for each color. We had to be careful because the frosting was still soft but we got the hang of it. The complicated ones like earth and Jupiter we painted with a brush. Some of the others we decided it would work better to just dip the tops into the color. He got creative with mixing the colors too. We even put rings around Saturn.
After we were done painting I was going to make him label all of them but them decided neither of us wanted to be there all day so I wrote the names of the planets on a pieces of paper (in random order) and without telling him the name, he had to label each planet. He did very good. Then we took a picture and ate our planets!
So much fun!
In love and light,
Steph, Anna, jaiden and Lilli

I love homeschooling!!!!

This is one of the many reasons I love to homeschool my kids. After dinner tonight we were talking and planning our upcoming week. We are learning about apples so I want to do some cooking. I asked jaiden what he wanted to cook and he said apple candy. After a bit of conversation I figured out it was candy / Carmel apples so... We made some, tonight! We are making apple cinnamon oatmeal in the morning too! I love my life and I adore my kids! (notice the hand in the picture)
In love and light,
Stephanie

Garage sale day

I have been debating having a garage sale for about 6months now and I finally bit the bullet. Today was the culmination of a month of planning. So as we were getting ready for our sale, jaiden kept saying, "I want ..." or "I want ..." so I decided to give him an opportunity to earn his own money. I told him he could have his own snack sale. He figured out what he wanted to sell and I figured out the price. Then he made a sign! It was so well ... Cute! I knew he would get board or sleep in or all of the above but i think it was a great real life was to teach him about money (which we have been talking about lately). We also worked on coin recognition and adding /subtracting. He made about $10 but I think mast of that was Nanay buying whoopers.
The sale went well, the house is a bit emptier, and I have a little extra spending money so I can finally get my honeschool room set up! Jaiden plans on buying more legos with his new stash. Below is a picture of the 2 working their booth.
In love and light,
Stephanie

Fall nature class

As usual, this past thursday was "class" day the this week officially started our "fall" lessons so we decided to take a nature walk. We went to a local park that has a nice 1mile walking trail. I was so impressed that we held the kids attention. For almost an hour talking about birds, trees, bugs, plants, leaves and the like. Each kid had their own clipboards with a worksheet to make notes of what they saw. I also made a sheet with some of the common georgia trees and their leaf shapes. We all had a so much fun! Next week we are going to do a little apple science so that should be fun.
In love and light,
Stephanie