Deep Sea Swimming!

Chelsea and her friend made an ocean with chalk!
All the kids swam and swam...

Luke got stung by a jelly fish!

Petting the dolphins...

and swimming with them!

Oh MY GOODNESS! A school of fish...hiding!

A couple days after this, Annika, has a small cut behind her ear. I asked her how she cut her ear. With all the expression, that a little 3 year old could possibly create, she explained....that she had jumped into the ocean. As she was swimming around, she saw a shark. She tried to swim away from the shark, but it bit her ear!
LOL!
I love imagination...even though I may never know how she scratched her ear!

Fish Lunch!

I got to combine forces with my sister...she was doing a week of fish also...lucky me!
We had a fishy lunch together....
I was assigned cups and dessert...
I made these adorable little sherbet fish!

Blue crepe paper added to blue cups...so easy....and task complete! =)

Finishing with shell creatures!

I got the idea of the sherbet fish from Martha Stewart....
They are super easy!

Take refrigerated pound cake, cut into squares.
Put one square of pound cake in each cupcake liner.
Then scoop up any flavor of sherbet that you like....variety is always fun!
Buy half circle gummies, and gum drops!
Make your nose and fins.
I used already made eyes from Michaels!

FHE lesson....Satan is deceiving....Super Fun!!!

I was laying in bed thinking about April Fool's Day....which I love...
and I thought of a perfect Family Home Evening Lesson to go along with all the April Fool's pranks!

I started off with sponges....from the dollar store...and I cut circles...
I have to admit, my circles where far from perfect...but the kids did not notice!

I stacked them three high...and hot glued them so they would hold together.

I bought some gum, and wrapped it to look like a little purse, and wrote on the back...."Chews the right!"

I started the lesson off with a pack of gum that I had emptied, and replaced with white card stock, that had scripture references on them.

I asked them to take a piece of gum and pass it around!
They were so excited to be getting gum right in the beginning of FHE...

I was happy to see, that they were equally excited to have scripture references to look up! =)

We read 10 scriptures about how Satan wants to deceive us and lead us away from Christ!

They thought my false pack of gum was the punch line....so they were NOT prepared for my delicious looking mini layered cakes!

I also made cupcakes which I offered them. I tried to encourage them to take a cupcake, they know I make good cupcakes...but I have never made these mini cakes!
They could not resist the mini cakes!

They took their butter knifes and started to cut!

Brooke, being the oldest, and strongest, decided to take over the cutting!

OH! They were so excited to reach blue cake....they couldn't believe it...but they needed a sharper knife!

Chelsea could not wait any longer, she took her fork and dug in...taking a big chunk of sponge along with her butter cream frosting!

"YUCK!!!!"
"We've been tricked!!"

They understood perfectly what I was trying to teach them.
Satan will try to tempt us by creating a picture of joy...fun...excitement...and make the ways of Christ seem boring...ordinary...and plain!
We must be close to the spirit to recognize and avoid his cunning ways!

The truth of Satan's path is that once your in, you realize You've been tricked!!!

I ended the evening with the gum handouts...

I mistakenly did not make one for Brady...I did not think he needed a pack of gum...
How wrong I was!
Brooke gave him hers...and he loved the purse.....
and she loved the gum!

Perfect Evening!

Theme of the Week...FISH!!!

My kids have missed....THEME OF THE WEEK!
and
Luke has missed doing a letter a week!
We are going to combine the two!
I bought Annika "Explode the Code A", she will be learning a letter a week!
We are going to follow along, each week the kids will take turns picking a theme, that will follow along with Annika's book!

This week is FFFFFFffffff......
Luke picked...
Fast Fish!
I am not sure we had fast fish...but we had a very fishy week!

We started off by reading the Rainbow Fish!

The three wee ones colored a fish with crayons....and then painted over it with water colors.

During the week they could earn shiny scales by minding quickly....
(It worked)

They needed a place for all of their fish to go...so the big girls created a....

Roll an ocean!

We did all kinds of fishy math games this week...but first our math fish needed scales!

Annika and Luke put the appropriate number of scales on the fish!

Alphabet fishing!

By the end of the week we had a full ocean of fish....

More fishy activities to come....

MAINE!...and the best BLUEBERRY COBBLER!

Brooke did a report on Maine....
She hand drew her map of Maine....

and all of these state representing items!
It's so fun, she designated each picture for one of us....and then wrote a sweet note on the back!

She helped the kids all make Lobsters....since Maine produces them in abundance!
(She got this idea from here!)

They also grow blueberries...lots of them!
She made us the best Blueberry Cobbler EVER!!!!!
This is a must make.....using any fruit...even if you don't like cobbler...you'll love this!

As Brooke described the beautiful landscape of Maine, with its Mountains and Beaches!
Plus the abundance of seafood...Lobster...Salmon...and more...
We came to the unanimous decision that we would like to take a family vacation to Maine!

The kids want to visit the Lighthouse that stands at the East point....so that they can say that they were standing as far EAST as possible in the United States! =)

Cobbler
1/4 lb. (1 stick) butter, melted
1 1/4 c. (plus 2 TBS.) sugar
1 c. self rising flour
1 c. milk
2 c. fresh or frozen fruit...
(you choose...blackberry, blueberry, peaches, raspberries)

Preheat oven to 350
Grease a 3 quart baking dish with butter
Place the stick of butter in the microwave an melt.
Whisk 1 c. sugar, flour, and milk together
Whisk in melted butter
Rinse fruit and pat dry
Pour batter into baking dish...sprinkle with fruit
sprinkle 1/4 c. sugar over the top
Bake for 1 hour
with 10 min. left of baking, sprinkle with remaining 2 TBS. sugar.

EAT...AND ENJOY!

I can not take credit for this recipe...it comes straight out of the Pioneer Women Cookbook...which I may add....I LOVE!!!!!

Sister Pranks!

While Chelsea and her friend were down stairs having a spa moment....
Brooke and her friend made them banana splits!
What SWEET sisters!

The only problem is....they used shaving cream instead of whipping cream!

The two spa beauties were so excited!

Until they tasted it!

On their way to throw their yummy banana split away....
they made a quick turn...and dumped it on the older sisters heads!

My favorite part of these sweet sister pranks...is that they all just have fun...and play along...with good attitudes!

This would make a great April Fool's Day Prank!!!

Whales!

Chelsea loves to learn about animals!
She chose to do her report on Whales!

They love to come up with fun activities to help the younger kids be involved!

She painted whales on clear cups...with their water spouting out of their blow holes!
The she used blue gatorade as the water!

For her whale she made chocolate flukes, and blue licorice for the water spouting out!

Humpback Whales are 50-60 ft long...We took our blue track...which is 50ft...and tried to stretch as far as we could!

We were still short...they are enormous!
This helped the kids see how big they really are!

Humpback whales all have different markings on their flukes.
Chelsea had each of the kids decorate a fluke ....to reflect what they would want theirs to look like if they were a Humpback Whale!

She printed off these cute little whales....then she asked everyone what their favorite Humpback Whale fact was!

My favorite part of homeschool, is that we are all learning together....the kids love to share with one another!