{Giveaway} Ultimate Guide to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!!

I am so excited to share with you a wonderful giveaway that will bless your kids over and over again!

Let me tell you a little bit about Jump Into a Book's eBook, 'Ultimate Guide to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. This eBook is meant to enhance your reading experience of the book CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY by Roald Dahl, as well as create wonderful memories with your family through recipes, crafts and activities. Roald Dahl was one of my favorite authors when I was growing up!


The wonderful creators of this eBook are Valarie Budayr and Roscoe Welply.  I would have to say that their work together is pure 'magic'. The illustrations of each activity, and just the way the entire eBook is laid out is just the way you would imagine Willy Wonka's Factory to be. In fact, I could see this eBook sitting on Willy Wonka's coffee table ready for him to read over a cup of hot chocolate.

The eBook takes you on a journey through each party of the Willy Wonka factory, and each different room or part of the factory has an activity that pertains to what happened in the book.  To introduce the book to my girls who are a little younger, we first got the Book on CD out at the library and listened to it in the car as we drove. The girls never wanted to stop listening to it, and we therefore finished listening in two days.  I have started reading the book aloud,  as well as my older daughter, who is only in Kindergarten, has become so eager that she wants to read it aloud too. This is what makes a homeschooling moms heart melt. To have a child who has been so inspired and excited to read through making the book come alive.


That is exactly what this eBook will do for your family. It will not only make the book come alive, but it will also make you as a family feel more alive. We had so much fun doing some of the activities, I wanted to share a few photos of what we did.  There are more activities than I could fit in the few days I have had the eBook, but we will continue to do activities. The next thing we are going to do is make our own gum!
We couldn't possibly read Charlie and The Chocolate Factory without making the wonderful recipe of 'Hot Chocolate Churned by Waterfall'. The girls loved the process of making the hot chocolate from scratch, making the whipped cream and then topping it off with a little cinnamon.  You can see how important they felt as we sat and read the book while we sipped our hot chocolate.

The next thing we did was to do a craft of making a Willy Wonka Luminary. This was a fun craft that I did with my oldest child since the cutting was a little intricate. But the end result was great, and the kids loved when I put a candle behind the luminary at night. It was as if the candy truly was floating in the air.
I could go on and on about the educational benefits, history lessons, quality family time and fun that you could have with the eBook, but I'd rather give a few away so you can see for yourself. If you simply can't wait for the giveaway to end, you can head right over to 'the purchase page' for The Ultimate Guide to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.


I am so excited to be able to give away 2 copies of this eBook!  The winners will be chosen through Random.Org and this giveaway will end on Monday, October 31, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST.


Here's how to enter:

1) Leave a comment,  include your email, and tell me who you would do the activities in the ebook with.

2) Head on over to the Ultimate Guide to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Facebook page, 'like' them and leave a comment on this post telling me you did so.

3) Tweet about this giveaway or re-post on Facebook and leave a comment telling me you did so.

Good Luck and happy reading!!

Week 6- Sonlight, Moses and Missionaries!

Moses in a Basket Handprint Craft

 
We had a great first FULL week of school without any illnesses and special events to focus on! If you are interested in the activities I do that are additional to Sonlight, you can follow my Pinterest Boards where I have separate Sonlight Core A pins for 5 weeks at a time.  This week's projects are here.  The first five weeks of Sonlight Core A can be found on this board.

Some of the highlights of our week were:

•  Continuing with our All About Reading lessons and filling in our stars on our Progress Chart, 
• Skip counting by 5's in Math-U-See, 
• Learning about the early life of Moses and doing the Moses in a Basket Craft
• Flipping eggs with sight words on the back,
• Reading Surprise Island- the second book in the Boxcar series,
• Learning about St. Patrick, St. Augustine and Boniface as missionaries,
•  And last but not least, Lily got her part in our homeschool co-op's Christmas Play! She will be Cindy Rella...one of the toys in the story. She has about 9 lines and can't wait to practice them and go to her practice every Tuesday afternoon. 

Math-U-See

All About Reading Progress Chart

We loved watching this funny cartoon from Veggie Tales about the story of St. Patrick..it really helped the kids to remember who he was. 

Source: youtube.com via Kristen on Pinterest

 

Sight Words- Egg Flip Practice

This upcoming week, we will be exploring the 10 Commandments, Medieval Times
(going to try a Lapbook), Starting Here's a Penny, telling time, and more All About Reading Lessons! For the future, I am scheduling a field trip to go to the Medieval Faire near us called Camelot Days, in November!  Should be a fun week!

Thanks!
 

Week 5 - Sonlight, Birthdays and Teeth!

 This week was again not a typical week as we had my mom come into town to celebrate Lily turning 6! We enjoyed a wonderful birthday dinner on Tuesday (thanks mom!), a first lost tooth that fell out in a pear on Thursday,

and a Cowboy/Cowgirl party on Saturday...whew, I'm exhausted.

Our homeschool week was kind of sporatic, and we did a lot of work in the car on the way to different events or shopping for the party. I'm excited for next week because we will have our first TRUE full week of school. I am very ready to get in a groove and rhythm.

As far as schooling topics for the week, we continued on with our Math-U-See. We only have 10 lessons left, and then Lily will head into the Alpha book. We are really loving this curriculum! Our All About Reading is coming along nicely as well. My mom even pitched in a taught a lesson or two.  One of the activities we did was play Letter Sound Bingo. The girls liked this game a lot.

 We explored the Vikings, and made fun masks that made us feel like big burly men...

I wanted to talk a little bit about how we used the birthday party to teach about the time and era of the Cowboys heading West. We panned for gold which the children enjoyed immensely. I used this tutorial from Restless Risa.  We talked about why the cowboys headed West to search for gold.  Each child got to bring home a little bag of their own gold. 

 
The children also learned 'Wild West Lingo'. lassoed a horse, shot a bank robber (with a marshmallow shooter),  learned how to line dance AND roasted marshmallow s'more pops over a fake campfire while singing camp songs. Overall, the party was a huge success!
 

Week 4- Sonlight, Joseph, and Madeline

Joseph's Coat of Many Colors

I almost cringe as I write this, but our family is still in the throws of sickness. This is a record for our family...three solid weeks of one or many of us being sick. My husband and I are just now getting over the flu and now the baby has it.

Nevertheless, we pushed through and did accomplish most of what was on my lesson plans sheet!

I wanted to talk about a few changes that I made with the Sonlight Bible Curriculum for Core A. The daily reading was getting a little monotonous and Lily wasn't seeming too interested in what she was hearing. I want to make the Bible come alive to her, and mean something to her. So I decided to examine what stories were suggested for the week and then do a 'character' study on the main people in the stories. So this week, I decided to focus on Joseph from The Old Testament. We did a fun 'Coat' Craft shown above from Challah Crumbs, and the girls (even my 4 year old) actually absorbed the information which I am thrilled about!

Lily really enjoyed transforming her name into Hieroglyphics using DiscoveringEgypt.com. This was a great site that allowed us to dig deeper into the early Egyptian Civilization. We really love the Usborne Book Living Long Ago that comes with the Sonlight Curriculum. Lily enjoys the small excerpts that explain about food and travel.

We also 1/2 Rowed the FIAR book Madeline , and the girls had a grand old time trying to make the Eiffel Tower out of vanilla wafers and marshmallow fluff. I would call my attempt a 'Tower FAIL'. When I went to nurse the baby, I came out and found an entirely different type of Landmark of the mess variety...I'll post more about our FIAR Madeline experience a little later this week when we finish! But for now, enjoy the picture of the mess I found when I came out of the baby's room...

The sticky marshmallowy mess on my dining room table

 We are moving along with our Math and All About Reading. Lily is definitely beyond what we are going through right now, but I just want to make sure she knows all the basics before moving on. 

This coming week we will be taking a look at the Vikings, and doing a few fun things with that, along with studying Job. Should be a great week!!

Thanks!
 

The Seasons {Craft Tutorial}

I shared a photo last week of our Seasons craft to go along with The Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Science and Nature  and I wanted to share a little more photos and explanation of how we did it. My inspiration came from a post by The Art of Teaching. I wanted to add a little more to it, so I used her wonderful craft as a jumping point.

Here is what you will need:
Template from The Art of Teaching Site
Watercolor paper
India Ink- This is needed because it won't run when using watercolors.
Watercolors
Multi-colored Tissue Paper
Scissors
Glue- Old fashioned Elmer's worked best for us

Template for tree

If your child is old enough, he or she could sketch out the frame of the tree and draw the lines on watercolor paper as shown in picture above. If you are just going to use crayons like the original craft, you could just print this template out on a regular piece of paper.

Once  the sketch is dried, you can begin to talk about the different colors one might see in the different season. Your child can then paint the background of the tree in the colors of their choosing according to each season. Then have your child paint the tree itself.

Once this is completed, grab your tissue paper. Cut the paper into strips, and then into squares.

The next step is to ask your children again what colors would go with each season. We started with winter, and the girls had fun pulling out greens, blues, whites and dark blues.

The children can then start gluing the squished up pieces of tissue paper in the proper season section. I think this craft turned out beautiful and would highly recommend it as a keeper for years to come!

Thanks!

Week 3- Sonlight, Pink Eye and The Seasons

Our week was still filled with sickness. We had a double ear infection, and four pink eyes in the house... I'd say we were in full on infirmary mode. So again, we didn't get as much accomplished as I had on my lesson plans, but I feel pretty confident that Lily is learning!

We are WAY ahead on the Sonlight Read Alouds... We finished My Father's Dragon last night, which is not even started until Week 5. I have decided to take a little detour and spend some time reading more of The Boxcar Children series since my girls loved the first book so much.

Lily is doing very well at her Math-U-See, and it seems that one lesson a day is appropriate and just the right amount of work for her. She loves using the manipulatives (shown above) that come with the curriculum.

Lily also loved writing a story based on the picture of the boy and his robot...She could have gone on forever about their relationship!

Our favorite activity by far was our watercolor and tissue paper Seasons Tree. We read through the first part of The Berenstain Bears Big Book of Science which takes you through the four seasons. We loved reading the rhymes and looking at the funny pictures!

My next post will be a tutorial of how we made our seasons craft!

We did however, slack a little on our history this week due to all the sickness. I reserved a bunch of books on Egypt and we will be reading them as we continue our study of Early Civilizations. 

Thanks!

Week 2- Sonlight, Isaac and Coracles

 Our flooded pond behind our house

This week started out a little crazy, and finished out crazy. 

Hence, we did not get to all I had hoped for this week but we did do all of the basics. 

And we even got to make our Coracles with the neighbor!!

We had Tropical Storm Isaac to deal with and had tons of rain

 which caused regular schools to be cancelled for two days.

 My middle child goes to preschool, so we had everyone in the house for two days. 

We also were touched with a bit of a 24 hour bug, 

which in a house of 5 people becomes a 'week long family bug.'

Claire playing in the water...fish were swimming on top of the grass

We accomplished all of our Math-U-See lessons for the week which is still pretty much review for Lily but she enjoys it (I've got a Mathlete on my hands).

We finished up The Boxcar Children, and started and finished Dolphin Adventure for our Read-Alouds. 

We are now about 2 weeks ahead on the read-alouds so after our next book,My Father's Dragon,  
 I think I am going to get out the next book in

 The Boxcar Children Series from the library,

 Surprise Island (The Boxcar Children Mysteries #2) .

 The girls enjoyed narrating the two books in their own words....

  At the end of the school year, I will compile these narrations and turn them into a book. I think it will be great memories for the girls as they grow older!

Here is a look at our Coracle that we made as part of our study of the earliest civilizations...
We tried to float them in the bowl to make sure they worked.
The craft instructions were in the Usborne Book Living Long Ago
 that came with the Sonlight Curriculum. 

The directions called for pipe cleaners but we used Bendaroos because that's all I had on hand.

Overall, the kids had a great time seeing if their coracle would float,
 and then making little men to float in the raft.
But of course, the most fun is seeing how much weight you need to sink the boat!

 I started our All About Reading Curriculum with Lily, and we both really like it. 

Our wall is set up that has all of the tiles on it.

I didn't get a chance to start the book Madeline with Five In a Row series

 due to the Library being closed,

 so we are anxious to start it this week!

I'll share more about the upcoming week with you in my lesson plans for Week 3 post on Monday!

Thanks!

Week 2- Lesson Plan for Sonlight Core A & F.I.A.R.

We are heading into week 2, and I am a very visual list type person...well, actually, I need a visual list to keep me anywhere near organized and on task, because I'm actually a 'get distracted by everything' type person:)

I thought I would post my 'goals' or lesson plan for the week, and then at the end of the week post a summary of what we did as well as photos of something fun that stood out to the kids!

Here is the lesson plan for Week 2:

Circle Time: We do a circle time every morning before we technically 'start' schooling. I'm going to do a more in depth post about this, but basically, we light a candle, pray for others and our day, sing our memory verse song, and read our FIAR (Five In a Row) Book.

Then we head to our kitchen table and begin or morning activities.

FIAR: Our book for the week will be:  Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.

We get all of our books for FIAR at the library. 

I put them on hold a week in advance and they are usually waiting for me

 whenever I can go pick them up!  

We will be learning about Paris, France by locating on our Map, 

and talking a little bit about the culture at the time of Madeline along with landmarks that make places recognizable- ie The Eiffel Tower.

We will also talk about human relationships in the story.

We will be going over our Daily Routine in the mornings, and comparing them to Madeline's...

trying to get back into a daily rhythm before the start of homeschooling.

       

Bible: Read up through the story of Jacob

We will record events on our Timeline, discuss the different stories.
 

I am also going to start a project with Lily where she finds her own  'favorite' verse this week. I want her not just to memorize verses, but realize that they have a big impact on her life, and they are God's Word that he has written for her.  I will give her a bunch of verses and have her read them to see if any stand out to her. We will then do some sort of art to create a verse card that she can keep in a frame by her bed to remind her that God speaks to her! 

History/ Geography:  

We will learn about how the Early travellers moved around, and will actually make a mini coracle!  

Coracle

We will also begin to explore the homes and clothes of early Egyptians. 

(Still working on some hands-on activites for egypt)

Read-Alouds:

We will continue reading The Boxcar Children  which my girl's love! I'm so excited that they are able to pay attention to a chapter book, be genuinely interested, and have wonderful conversations after each chapter!!! This is why Sonlight is awesome! 

We will also continue reading poetry out of 

The Llama Who Had No Pajama and The Mother Goose Book.

Math: 

Lily will continue her review of her Math Skills with the Primer book from Math-U-See.  I don't have a plan as to how far she will get because she can do about 7 lessons in one hour... once the subject matter gets a little more difficult, I will slow her down and do more daily lessons.

Handwriting: 

Continue with Handwriting Without Tears, 3 Worksheets a week.

Reading and Language Arts-   

Start All About Reading Lesson 1-3, Continue with Creative Expression-

 Summarizing stories we read, and work on story sequencing.

Science:  Work on the Seasons- Going to do this shutterstock photo I found on Pinterest...perfect for Lily!

 I'd like to do something like this using cue tips, and a tree template like this.

That's about all I have for now...I may add some things during the week, and I'll definitely share in the end of week Summary Post !!

Thanks!!

Kristen