The Weekly Wrap-Up: Our First Science Fair

So this week was our first week of school since our Christmas break. I have to say it was kind of hard to get back into our routine. I think we've been letting the kids stay up too late over the holidays and it was hard to get back to our bedtime schedule. Their attitudes about getting back to their schoolwork were actually good though, so that was a blessing.

However, our homeschool group was hosting a science fair on Thursday and I had registered the kids. We'd never done a school *fair* before (well, I hadn't since my 5th grade year:), but I thought it would be good to *get our feet wet* and participate. I chose for the kids to do reports rather than experiments to keep it simple for us and I made them chose a topic from what we've already been studying this past fall in our science curricula. It worked out well.

Theoretically it was a great idea to plan a science fair for the first week of January~all that time to work on it over Christmas break. Realistically, it wasn't such a great plan~all that time to procrastinate over Christmas break. haha

So, of course, we spent the majority of time this week finishing up their reports and display boards for the science fair. We simply kept up with our grammar and math and put the rest on hold until after the fair.

The fair turned out to be a lot of fun! The kiddos were so excited! They weren't really sure what to expect from the judges (and I wasn't either), but after they got going with their presentation they did very well. I was super proud of them!

The Princess came away with a 3rd place ribbon.

And Mr. B received an honorable mention:)

Awesome jobs for their very first science fair! And now we can get back to our routine...sort of.

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Fun With 4th of July Crafts: Part 3

I love my new patriotic front door wreath!! I had fun putting this together, although I must admit this is more of an adult craft than one for kiddos. I was inspired by this article in Family Fun magazine. I didn't have quite everything I needed for this one, but all I had to purchase was a few sheets of scrapbook paper and some double-sided tape. Then all I had to gather up were some scissors, regular Scotch tape, a ruler and some cardboard. First I cut four (5"x 6") pieces of each paper. Then by placing a piece of double-sided tape on one of the short ends of the papers, I rolled them into cones, pressing the seams together well. Then I cut a 10" circle out of cardboard and began to stick the cones on it. I used another piece of double-sided tape to stick the cones on, arranging them in a circular pattern. Next I used regular Scotch tape to attach them on the back to the back of the cardboard. After getting all the cones on, I was ready for my centerpiece. He...

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