Active Ideas with Gourds!

One of the most positive ways we can celebrate Thanksgiving involves expressing our own thankfulness for all the ways that God blesses us!

1. Turkeys of Encouragement – this idea works best if you start at least a week before Thanksgiving to give everyone time to think. Make a turkey, minus the feathers, for each member of your family. Put the person’s name on the turkey body along with a favorite Bible verse. Hang the turkeys on a wall or door that is easily accessible for every family member. Cut out enough colorful feathers out of colored or construction paper to attach to each turkey. Place the feathers near the wall or door in an envelope (6×9 envelopes work well) along with a pencil or pen. Everyone, even visitors, can write reasons they’re thankful for that particular person on the feathers and then attach the feathers on the turkeys. Examples could be: I am thankful you read with me, I am thankful that you work so hard for our family, or Thank you for being obedient for mommy and daddy. You can overlap feathers, if necessary. On Thanksgiving, each person can take down their turkey and read the comments.

Many thanks to Jamie Sue Austin at freeprintablefun.org for the following turkey and feathers pattern. Right click on the image and copy into a document to print. You can use one of the feathers for a pattern to cut out colored feathers or print several sheets on different colors of paper.

2. Make it a Year of Giving – giving back to others when we have so much shouldn’t be limited to Thanksgiving and other holidays. Thanksgiving offers a wonderful time to brainstorm various ways your family can give to others in need throughout the year. Begin by brainstorming, with your children, ideas for serving other people. Be sure to allow your children to submit their ideas so they buy into the plan. You can help them focus by thinking of those who serve us or are in need. For example, sending care packages to soldiers, visiting nursing homes, supporting specific charities, inviting someone who doesn’t have a family to dinner, volunteering at an animal shelter or a hospital, collect donations to take to Goodwill, have a garage sale and donate the money to your church or a favorite charity, etc. Try to come up with enough ideas to do something once a month or so. Then take out a calendar and work with your children to schedule a way of giving each month. It’s best to schedule high exposure opportunities, such as visiting a nursing home or sending a care package to a soldier, for non-holiday months because so many people contribute during holidays and other times of the year are neglected. By your next Thanksgiving, you can delight in remembering the ways your family gave to others, being as Christ to them!

3. Cornucopia to share – sometimes children feel small or less than useful because they don’t realize all of the ways they can be helpful! Use a basket or a cornucopia and fill it with tried corn, small gourds, etc. Help your child brainstorm ways that he or she can helpful to others: praying for someone, specific cleaning ideas, sending a card, reading to a sibling, helping out a neighbor, etc. Write each of these ideas on a small pumpkin shaped (or other fall shape) piece of paper, then hole punch and tie each, using colorful fall ribbon, to one of the items in the cornucopia. Have your child select one each day to do throughout the holiday season. You can also reverse the activity by having your child select one to do and then tying it to an item in the cornucopia once it’s completed. For some children, this works better as an incentive to attach an idea to every item!

Educational

Incorporating Thanksgiving into school can add fun to the usual routine.

1. Vocabulary cup – using the pattern on page 56 in The Big Book of Books and Activities: An Illustrated Guide for Teacher, Parents, and Anyone Who Works With Kids!,  have your child fold the cup.  Have your child brainstorm Thanksgiving words that come to mind (thankful, Pilgrims, turkey, etc) and have your child write each word on a corn, leaf, turkey or other seasonal cut out. If you don’t want your child to cut out the shapes, you can find them pre-cut in school supply stores. Older children can draw the words out of the cups to write sentences and/or paragraphs.
2. Startwrite worksheets – if you recall my review of the Startwrite software, holidays are an excellent time to use them to your advantage. In the example below, the student wrote words and phrases of things for which he is thankful using the acrostic for THANKS. You can add clipart from the software or have your child illustrate the white space at the bottom of the page. This can be a writing assignment to assess the written work or you can use it as a handwriting assignment or copy work by supplying a Bible verse or a Thanksgiving poem for older children, such as the one below, Ballad of the Mayflower. Another idea to consider is using this time to have your children write “thankful for you” notes to people explaining why they’re thankful for them. You can use this time to teach the friendly letter format and use this software to create a template for your children to follow. It’s a great opportunity to teach your children to write a note even when they haven’t received a gift!

By Linda G. Paulsen

There was a ship, Mayflower by name; Hey, Ho~
Took a trip, she crossed the main; Hey, Ho~
Full of people seeking peace,
Praying for freedom to increase;
Hey, Ho, Dee-o, Dee-o! The Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock; Hey, Ho~
Simple people, strudy stock; Hey, Ho~
To be free they crossed the sea,
Thanked the Lord on bended knee; Hey, Ho, Dee-o, Dee-o!
How when the crops were gathered in; Hey, Ho~
A dinner party did begin; Hey, Ho~
Pilgrims, Indians, pumpkin pie, Turkey, venison, corn, oh my!
Hey, Ho, Dee-o, Dee-o! Bet you thought my song was done; Hey, Ho~
But I’ve really just begun; Hey, Ho~
Ever since that autumn day,
Thanksgiving has been here to stay, Hey, Ho, Dee-o, Dee-o!

Hope you have a blessed time with these activites and ideas! May God’s blessings pour out over your entire family this Thanksgiving! Please share your favorite Thanksgiving ideas with our readers by commenting on this blog.

In Christ,

Have you ever wished that you could customize worksheets for phonics or other skills easily and quickly, as you need them? How wonderful would it be to have those worksheets in the same handwriting style that you’re teaching your children, allowing you to teach a skill and have your children practice handwriting at the same time? We’ve found a reasonably priced program that allows you do all of the above and more! You can download Startwrite directly from the internet to begin using immediately!

Startwrite works similar to a word processor making it very user friendly. Some of the features that we found attractive include:

• Fonts, in a variety of sizes, that are actually handwriting styles: manuscript, manuscript-simple, modern manuscript, italic and cursive.
• Handwriting helps such as guideline lines, again in various sizes and colors; dotted, dashed and solid letters; starting dots and directional arrows.
• Clip art to make pages interesting and unique.
• You can design relevant copy work and handwriting materials to integrate subjects and books.
• You print out the portrait or landscape worksheets on your own paper instead of having to buy handwriting book and copy work books that aren’t as relevant to your history and science topics.
• Spell check allows you to make sure your worksheets are accurate.

Initially, we viewed this software as a great resource for phonics. In fact, we used Startwrite to create all of the phonics worksheets in our Kindergarten curriculum. Eventually, we realized that there were so many other opportunities to use this software! Some ideas we have utilized, other than phonics, are as follows:

1. Copy work – with my son, I pulled sentences and paragraphs out of the living books we were reading (for history, fine arts and science). I looked for material that emphasized a specific event or accomplishment, a concept or a language arts skill that my son needed to learn. I printed it out in the handwriting font he was learning. Early on, I simply used the lightest font or dotted letters so that he could trace the words. As he grew, I used the regular handwriting font and printed out lined blank paper so he could copy onto the same size lines as he was reading.
2. Creating books – by printing out the pages half lined and half blank, you can have your child write on one part of the page and illustrate on the other half. You could put photos on the other half and have your child write about each. For a very young child, you could type up what he tells you and let him trace the writing. One idea we did that I really loved was taking poetry selections and making our own anthology to give away at Christmas.
3. Letter writing and other models – I still have a thank you letter from one of my dear friend’s children that was created on Startwrite. Any type of written model may be created with this program from a basic friendly letter to addressing an envelope to learning to write the heading on an assignment. We used this software to model how I wanted vocabulary set up. By having my son trace the first few words and definitions, it instilled how vocabulary should be completed when writing on his own.
4. Worksheets for any subject – You can create all kinds of worksheets for any subject using creative and fun clip art to assess your child’s learning. This program is so flexible that it even includes Spanish letters and math fonts!

While there are many tools and resources for homeschooling, we feel strongly that Startwrite has the attributes of a resource that every homeschool mom needs because it:

• • saves money (no more workbooks to buy!)
  • saves time (you can quickly and expertly put together the specific materials you need when you need them)
  • integrates subjects (working smart rather than hard)
  • makes learning relevant (you choose the skills that your child needs to learn).

It’s not often that you read one of our blogs and we’re endorsing specific products. However, with this program we felt that too many moms had never heard of it and were missing out on its value.

If you currently use Startwrite or decide to try it after reading this blog, please comment and let us know what you think. We’d love hear about any creative ways that moms use the program. If you have a Startwrite worksheet that you liked to share with other moms, email it as an attachment to info@epikardia.com and we’ll forward all worksheets to our mailing list of Epi Kardia moms.

I hope this product review was helpful and that you’ll find the program as useful as we have. May all of your homes be Christ-filled and joyful!

In Him,