Crafting, Cleaning, and Co-Op Classes

What a combination, right? Well those are the things that I've been up to the past few days, besides the normal homeschooling, dance classes, doctor appointments and church activities.

It seems like I can't really get it all together on the crafting as I keep forgetting something that I need and don't have it here at the particular moment it's needed! However, I do have a huge mess on my kitchen table right now, so we've been eating at the dining room table! I've been working on some things for our fall festival at church and some Christmas crafts as well. My kitchen table tells the story!



And although there's much more to do, I have a long list of not-everyday-or-even-every-week-cleaning-projects that need to be tackled, especially before the Christmas decorations come out! I want everything just so-so before then! It seems I have the best of intentions so many days, and then it just never turns out the way I planned for some reason or another and I go to bed disappointed! Anyone else feel that way? Oh well, tomorrow's another day!

However, I did get a major thing crossed off my list! I managed to get my walk in closet cleaned out so that I could get old stuff out and make room for those little piles that seem to accumulate in little corners of my bedroom! lol! Of course, that made my closet and my bedroom look so much better! And the dust ruffle on our pencil post bed had really just about had it! It was torn loose in some places and just a collector of cat hair, it seems these days! So Jason helped me take off the mattress and box springs and I removed it, threw it away, cleaned out majorly under the bed (it had ended up as a storage of rubbermaid boxes)...and left only a baby mattress under there! It's wonderful! I actually like the look of my pencil post bed much better WITHOUT a dust ruffle too! Because of the heighth of it, I had to make sure there wasn't much under there because you could definitely see it, if there was!



You can see a "little bit" of that mattress under the bed from the angle I took this picture. One of these days, I really want to redo my bedroom into a primitive one...but it's still country....romantic country..I call it! :) It is a refreshing, calming retreat with it's colors though! I still do enjoy my bedroom's decor.



And last of all, from my title above...is co-op classes. Every Tuesday is our "gym day" for our homeschooling group. It's the day the moms get to fellowship and exchange ideas and the kids get to play, both organized games and free play. However for the month of October, we have had co-op classes. During this time, we had several moms volunteer to do some classes. The kids could sign up for whatever they wanted. We had a combination Art/P.E. for younger and older children, a microscope class, and a lapbooking class for the moms.

By the time I got out of my class, most of the kids' classes were dismissed, so I didn't get photos, however, I did get some photos from the class I was in taught by Kim. She also has a blog that you can check out called GHomeschool. She absolutely loves anything to do with Science and is very passionate about it. As a matter of fact, she's always taught Science classes during out co-op classes, so this one was a different one for her. Now what is lapbooking you may ask....well it's very interesting. If you have little ones, even if you don't homeschool, you might be interested in doing this with your little ones. It all begins with a study on something, then collecting all your facts, and compiling them into a file folder filled with "mini books" of information. You end up with a wonderful little tool that your children will love looking back over again and again (and that's called review and they don't even realize it!) I love learning like that! In our homeschooling, we have always notebooked everything, although I had read up on this. I just wasn't confident on all the folds, even after reading a couple of books! I'm a show-me person, so I was excited about Kim's class! She SHOWED us how to make the little books....WOW...so much easier! And Kim graciously gave me her permission to share these photos! Here she is teaching us (like a pro)!



Here's one of Kim's favorite lapbooks that she and her children made. This one is on Ancient Greece. This is the front cover.



Then you open it up to find ALL these goodies FULL of information! It's quizzes, games, all sorts of great stuff...all with little pop up and out books! Kids just love this type of stuff. It can also be incorporated into notebooks if you're not the file folder type. You just mount the little books onto cardstock and place it in your notebook. Isn't it the coolest thing? Thanks, Kim, for letting me share! :)



If you're interested in learning more about this, email me and I can send you some great links that Kim gave us to check out that shows and explains more!

And last, but not least, I did snap a photo of our homeschooling, Robotics Spirits Team, making some posters for an upcoming competition event. These are the girls helping our team by preparing posters, noise makers, etc...for the day the team presents their robot. I will take pictures next week of the robot in action and show you all what they've worked on. It's very impressive and has to do with aviation. They have all worked VERY hard and we're so proud of them!



So that's the crafting, cleaning and co-op(ing) that I've been up to...actually that would have made a great Whatcha Workin' on Wednesday, now that I think about it!

And a couple of people asked questions about stitching...actually the same types of questions that I had before I began....and although I feel so inadequate to be giving "tutorials" on stitching...I decided I can at least tell you all what I did. After all, that's all you can share is what you know, right? So, tomorrow I'll tell you my very simple instructions (it has to be simple or I couldn't have done it) on how I did my first stitchery and where I found the patterns. Thanks for all the sweet comments on my stitchery, by the way, and thanks to those of you that are interested in trying it and for asking the questions! So check back tomorrow! Until then, have a wonderful day, everyone!