Search Results for: book list

10 Fall Books For Children

October 10, 2012 by Betty

Fall is upon us! The air is cooler. The days are shorter. And what a better way to usher in the season than to curl up and enjoy some great fall books. Here’s a list of ten childrens’ books that I have found that help us appreciate this time of year. Hopefully these books will spark you and your family excitement about this season of harvest. I was able to find most of these books in our local library. I’ve also linked them to amazon.com for those of you who prefer to purchase them.

Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson

I love the layout of the photographs in this book. They are bright and just beautiful. In addition to the great descriptions, this book is excellent on learning the life cycle of pumpkins. I highly recommend it.

How Many Seeds in a pumpkin? By Margaret McNamara

A great book not only on pumpkins, but for introducing different ways of counting. This book is about a little boy who really disliked being the last one in line because his teacher, Mr. Tiffin, always makes his students line up by size. One day, Mr. Tiffin brought in three pumpkins and asked his students to estimate the number of seeds in each pumpkin. Everyone thought Charlie’s smallest pumpkin would have the least number of seeds. But to everyone’s surprise, the smallest pumpkin had more seeds than its bigger counterparts. As a result, Charlie learned that it’s okay to be small. I love the diversity of the students presented in this book. Among them, six were girls and four were boys. They seemed to be ethnically balanced. Very fun illustrations as well.

The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs

This book is great for Christian families that wish to bring the Christian perspective to Halloween. While it’s written for children with pictures, this book creatively presents a Christian message. For this reason, it’s a story for any age. The book tells of a farmer who turns a pumpkin into a glorious sight. In the same way, God can turn us into a new creature, full of light, shining for Him.

The seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

A great book to illustrate the changes in an apple tree during the four seasons. Arnold takes the readers through the seasons and shows the types of activities he does with his tree. An excellent book for your apple or season unit.

The very best pumpkin by Mark Kimball Moulton

This story is about a boy, Peter who lived with his grandparents, Mimi and Papa on a farm. One day, Peter discovered one little pumpkin that was all alone among the weeds. Every day, Peter took great care of this puny little pumpkin. Then there was Meg, a new neighbor who had been watching Peter tending to his lonely pumpkin. This is a sweet story of patience, friendship and sharing. Pictures in this book are brightly colored and fun to look at. We also love the to-grow-your-own-very-best-pumpkin guide at the end of the book. My kids wanted to grow their own pumpkins next year so guess we’ll be revisiting this book again next spring.

Leaf jumpers by Carole Gerber

Wonderful book to teach children about fall leaves. The illustrations are outstanding with great descriptions of different types of leaves. My kids smiled when they heard what the children did with the leaves in the book. It reminded them of some of the things they did with the leaves too. It also inspired my kids to learn the different trees: birch, willow, basswood, etc. In the back of the book, the author provided some facts for further learning of leaves. Overall, this is a great book for your fall book basket!

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

This book has lots of beautiful pictures of fall leaves. It portrays leaves as a man, traveling where the wind takes him. Throughout the story, as a result of the wind, different leaves come together creating different animals. My big boy who loves making things took to this book. He’s really looking forward to collecting various leaves and making his rendition of leaf animals. Great companion for leaf art projects.

Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano

A friend gave us this book as a gift and it’s one of my kids’ favorites. The excellent wording and silly pictures will make your kids and adults giggle and laugh. Turkey doesn’t want to be the Thanksgiving meal, so he tries to disguise himself. Turkey is happy in the end as the family enjoys an unusual Thanksgiving dinner. A fun book!

Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington

Apple Farmer Annie has an orchard full of apples. From applesauce, to apple muffins, to selling her harvest at the farmers’ market, Farmer Annie shows us what she did with her apples. A simple and straight forward book with colorful pictures.

Applesauce Season by Eden Ross Lipson

The family celebrates this season by working together to make the first batch of applesauce. Excellent, detailed descriptions of how the applesauce was made and the team work of the entire family help us visualize this delightful story. A great story for apple season.

What are some of your favorite children’s fall books? I’d love to hear what you and your kids are reading. Please share in the comments.

Filed Under: Children's Book List Tagged With: 10 Fall Books for Children

Vacationing in Gearhart, Oregon & Blog Hop

May 15, 2013 by Betty

Last weekend we spent a few days with our friends in Gearhart, a lovely, quiet town three miles north of Seaside at the Oregon coast. Gearhart is located 10 miles from the northwest tip of Oregon and about 80 miles from Portland. View map of Oregon Coast.

What appealed to us is the quiet, slow-paced atmosphere of Gearhart. Once you entered city limits, there are no street lights. Wide streets made it a great place for biking. To learn an easy way to teach children to bike, read my post Teach Your Child to Ride a Bike.

With the unusually warm Mother’s Day weekend, it made it a perfect time for a walk down to the unspoiled sandy Gearhart Beach which is situated right in town. Just bring some shovels and buckets and the kids will entertain themselves for hours. One thing Buddy, my big boy, discovered was jumping waves. Standing in the water hand in hand with his friends and taking a big jump on the waves as it crashed in. He had the biggest smile of satisfaction! See picture below.

I had fun shell hunting on the beach. Together with our friends we must have collected ten sand dollars. At low tide, some of us even found some live sand dollars, and yes, we did return them to the sea. I found this sand dollar poem and thought you might enjoy it too (see picture below). There’re other versions of the Legend of the Sand Dollar. If you’re interested, there’s also Legend of the Sand Dollar children’s book.

When night falls, we enjoyed a fun game of Two Truths and a Lie around this outdoor fire with marshmallows and yummy smores. We were told that bonfires on the beach is permitted.

If you’re a golfer, Gearhart is home to Gearhart Gold Links, the oldest golf course in the northwest, beautiful and well kept. Other activities include tennis, clamming and flying kites. Visit City of Gearhart for more information. We definitely enjoyed ourselves in Gearhart. I hope you enjoyed all those fun pictures! Now on with our Thursday blog hop.

Welcome to Be Inspired By Others Thursday Blog Hop.
Now let’s link up in community.

If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to visit some great posts from bloggers around the web. Thank you to those of you who linked up with me last week. I loved reading all of your great posts.

Come inspire us by linking up your wonderful posts here so we all can be inspired. All family-friendly posts such as, marriage, motherhood, crafts, recipes, homeschooling, organization, and more are welcome. If you decide to join the fun by linking up with us, I request that you add Home Educator Mom’s button to your posts or site so others can join us as well. You can find the html code in the sidebar, or “save as” copy, and paste the button below on your blog.

If you have a Giveaway, check out my big list of Sites to List Your Giveaways. I personally use this list myself so the links should work.

Hop on over here to see my list of Blog Hops / Link-up Parties to add your link and join others.

Filed Under: Mom's Corner, Outdoor Activities Tagged With: vacation, visiting Oregon

What is Christmas?

December 13, 2012 by Betty

As my kids are getting to be at an age where they are starting to understand and ask questions about Christmas, I find that I have to think through my answers before answering them. Why? Because I wanted it to be purposeful and pointing them to the real reason for the season, Jesus’ birth. With that in mind, here are 10 things that we did to give us a Christ-centered Christmas. Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful for your family as well.

1. Study some of the names of Jesus.

As part of our homeschool this week, we looked up some verses in the Bible to find some of the names of God. The boys were so excited to learn these names that they couldn’t wait to share what they learned with Bubba, their dad. After learning that God has a ton more names than what’s listed, Buddy asked if I could give him a list of all of God’s names. We then cut up those names into strips of different colors and made a garland for our Christmas tree. They got a chance to hang it and enjoy the decorations.

To get a printout of the names of Jesus, click on this link Names of Jesus.

2. Sing Christmas songs.

To get a list of some of our favorite Christmas songs, click my post 12 Classic Christian Christmas Songs.

These songs all reference Jesus. They are classics and a must have in your music library. At times it’s neat to see my kids sing or hum the songs with hand motions.

3. Talk about Santa.

We did not major on Santa Clause, but we did touch upon the potential historical St. Nicholas and what legend had to say about him. Afterwards, we made up our own version of Santa Clause delivering gifts on skates. We had a good laugh! Let your kids use their imagination and hear how Santa would deliver gifts. You can read up on The Legend of the Christmas Stocking by Rick Osborne to learn about Santa’s beginnings.

4. Bible memorization

Another activity that we did was to memorize Bible verses. I’ve listed five verses that you and your kids can memorize. We made up our own hand motions to them so that it’s easier to memorize. If you’re interested in a longer list of verses, check the reference section at the end of post. To get the whole account of the birth of Christ, read the books of Matthew and Luke. BibleGateway.com is a wonderful free Bible resources where you can read the Bible online or find Bible verses by theme.

• Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)

• John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (NIV)

• Philippians 2:8-10 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. (NIV)

• Luke 2:10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

• 2 Corinthians 9:15 (KJV) Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

5. Make some candy cane crafts

To see what we did, read my posts, Christmas Craft for Kids: Beaded Candy Canes and Chenille Stem Candy Canes.

6. Find teachable moments

Whether it’s about Santa at the mall or it’s the Christmas shoe boxes that your kids put together for needy children, be on a lookout for those times where you can teach some meaningful lessons.

7. Create memories and traditions together

I know that this is one of the busiest time of the year for people. There are gifts to purchase, cards to send out, Christmas parties to go to, etc. On top of all this, we all have our normal daily grind that we have to go through as well. It’s chaotic to say the least. That’s why a couple of years ago, I decided that I cannot do it all and still have energy and time for my family. So, I make it a point to focus more on my family time and create memories and traditions together. One Christmas tradition that we have is making a birthday cake for Jesus and our kids look forward to it every year.

8. Minimize holiday stress

This is easier said than done. If we all can minimize our stress, then we could sell millions of books and be well off. If you’re like me, you are a work in progress. You have not arrived, but you’re on the road there. One way that I do this is by recognizing that I will not be able to please everyone with gifts or attending their parties. It’s hard to say no to Christmas parties, but it’s a stress reliever.

9. Teach children generosity

Teaching your kids about being generous is a life-long lesson. Not that it takes a life-long time to teach them but the impact is life-long. Likewise being generous is not seasonal, but in every season of life. There are many benefits physically and physiologically to being generous. For example, by helping others, they are able to see that their needs and issues are minuet. Likewise, helping someone who you don’t expect anything in return builds character and pleases God.

10. Make a birthday cake for Jesus

We do this every year on Christmas Eve. Your kids will love making the cake together, singing happy birthday to Jesus, and eating it. This is a nice way to make Jesus more tangible to your kids. Need some ideas for Jesus’ birthday cake? click Happy Birthday, Jesus.

Resources:

For a longer list of Christmas Bible verses visit this site: 20 Great Bible Verses for Christmas Cards.

Online Bible resources: BibleGateway.com.

To Show Them Jesus

Filed Under: Winter Tagged With: activities to do this Christmas with kids

Easy Pumpkin Carving Ideas

October 30, 2012 by Betty

No-carve pumpkin designs are definitely easier and cleaner than your carved ones, but with the right tools, carving a pumpkin is not too difficult.

Tools:

You should be able to find these at Walmart or Target stores. They even carry these carving tools at the Dollar Tree stores. Amazon.com also sells them if you prefer to shop online. I got these tools at the local dollar tree for…well…you guessed it…a dollar (no tax in Oregon).

Instructions:

1. Cut a hole in the top for the lid. Make sure to angle the saw inward so the pumpkin lid remains seated on top instead of falling through.

2. Scoop out the seeds and strings. My boys used their hands to pull them out.

3. Some people like to scrape out some flesh around where you’ll be carving to make the carving job easier, but, Bubba didn’t do that.

4. Using a washable marker, draw your design and carve. There are tons of free templates available online. But we wanted to make it simple and easy so we just used a washable marker and drew our own designs.

Here’s one design:

Just a two-teeth happy face.

Using his hands, Chico pulling out seeds and strings.

Over here, pumpkin carving is a family affair.

You noticed the little pumpkin got a round nose instead of the triangle one that I drew? Well, I changed my mind. So that’s the beauty of using washable markers. You can easily wipe off and redo your design.

Kitty and Happy Face sitting side by side.

As a companion to this activity, your family might like to read The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs . This children’s book is great for Christian families that wish to bring the Christian perspective to Halloween. To read the complete synopsis see my post on 10 Fall Books for Children. Another great book I highly recommend is How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara. A great way to introduce estimating and counting your pumpkin seeds.

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Filed Under: Fall, Indoors Activities Tagged With: easy pumpkin carving, fall activity, halloween activity

Fall Leaf Rubbings

October 17, 2012 by Betty

If you have not done leaf rubbings before, it’s a fun and easy activity for you and the kiddos. For you, it’s not messy making cleanup a breeze. Also, you can transform the product into notecards or thank you cards. For the kids, it’s an art project that is easy to learn and fun for all ages! Here’s the process and how I made the thank you cards.

Materials:

fall leaves (preferably flat ones)
tape (any kind)
scissors or sliding paper cutter
crayons (without paper wrapper)
thin white paper
colored construction paper (or other colored card stocks for notecards): Optional

Put a leaf or leaves facing down so veins are facing up. Put white paper on top of the leaves. Tape down the paper corners to hold it in place.
Rub the side of crayon where the leaves are.

Beautiful leaf rubbings framed or simply tacked onto your bulletin board for a touch of fall.

I trimmed some leaf pictures and pasted them onto precut construction-paper notecards.

For further study of leaves, being the homeschool mom, I printed out this leaf-part diagram and used it as a study tool. I went over it with my kids before starting this craft project. They decided to color this page after their leaf rubbings.

Click Leaf Part Names for a copy of this leaf coloring page.

For beautiful pictures of fall leaves, check out children’s books Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber. For a list of fall books for children, read 10 Fall Books for Children.

What fall activities does your family enjoy? I’d love to hear from you. Please share in the comments.