Tree construction

Spring forth creativity from brown craft paper, plastic grocery bags, and packing bubbles! Hey, why not construct or shall I say "grow" a tree indoors? Let us make it floor to ceiling too.

Crumple with artistic ferocity.

 

 

 

 

 Staple happy and forming a grand tree trunk.

 

 

 

 

 

Not bad for a child who does not like heights very much...now start stuffing until you can not stuff anymore!

 

 

 

 

Branch making 101: do the twist!

 

 

 

Our lovely Giving Tree before leaves.





Give and take

Let us travel back to 1973...well, even though I was not born yet, I still appreciate this video of The Giving Tree, narrated by Shel Silverstein.  Little T thought it most curious too and watched in silence and contemplation.

I did not usher my opinion of the video, but waited too see what Little T thought.  He did quite a bit of thinking and we ended up talking about it for days. He was sad for the tree and upset at the greedy boy.  He also developed a sense of disbelief and respect for the tree.  Can a tree be a hero? There were some interesting questions twirling and whirring in his mind.  One thing was for sure, the character traits of the tree proved to be valuable to my 7 year old.

This video has inspired us to make our own tree in our school room...stay tuned!

Peep jousting

 

Hear ye, hear ye, gather your champions and lances!

Enter the tournament grounds (microwave)!

 

 

Try as the yellow knights did with all their bravery & might...

 

Defeat was imminent & the blue knights were crowned victors.

 

 

Good Lords enjoying their spoils!



 

 

Where have we been?

Meet one of our new neighbors!

Here's some more of the gang!

 



 

The last time I took a little sabbatical from blogging, we moved to a new city. Well, you guessed it...we moved again, but this time in the same area.  Our first lesson in the new place was to look up the differences between alpacas and llamas.  And now we know that alpacas are smaller, more pleasing to the eyes, and known for their silky wool.  Our family loves passing these unique ranch animals every day!

Leftover tortillas

This is what we ended up making with our last of the Colorful Tortillas.  Well, we had three plain ones left and one pink one.  TnT placed them in the oven at 350 degrees to crisp up for a few minutes. Once cool, the boys lightly flicked water onto them with their fingers and then sprinkled stevia and cinnamon on top.

Next, we dressed 'em up with scoops of vanilla ice cream, topped with whipped cream and butterscotch chips...yum!

I just might be a homeschooling mom if...

I wear a birthday hat made by my children that reads "It's My B-day."

Colorful tortillas

Little T has been anticipating homemade tortilla day for a while and when he asked to make colorful tortillas, I was all for it.  Oh, and there just so happened to be neon food coloring in the pantry too (insert crazy baker laugh).

We adapted an Authentic Mexican Tortilla recipe to meet our zany needs.

First, Little T measured out and combined the ingredients, followed by cutting in the shortening with two butter knives.

The dough started coming together, even though ours looked like cauliflower at first.



                                                 
                                                   After letting the dough rest for over an hour,
                                                   in came our reinforcements for the fun stuff.

Some pieces of dough were left plain, while others used no more than two drops of food coloring per ball.  TnT kneaded until each drop of color was dispersed just how they wanted it.

                               

Rolling and cooking commenced.

Our vibrant tortillas!