Poppins Book Nook ~ Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Posted on 31/03/2014 by Momma Jo

The kids really loved this book and the work we did around it.

Fun lunches:
Snail lunch (circles cut out of bread filled with grated cheese, a banana for the snails body, grated cheese for the antennae and icing pens for the eyes and mouth. I use tomato sauce to make the pattern on the bread)
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Queen of Hearts lunch (heart sandwich filled with egg salad, diamond mini muffin cup with grapes and a clock drawn on rice paper with a food marker)
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Fifi and I did quite a bit of baking this month for all the tea parties we had. We had one almost every day. Fifi and Pixie loved it, Koko… Not so much, LOL. Turns out, boys aren’t crazy about tea parties. Who knew 😛
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Pixie also got in the baking fun
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After finishing the book, we watched the movie. The kids didn’t enjoy it as much as they enjoyed the book. I was very surprised by that.
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I didn’t take any photos of the kids busy with their theme packs, but I’ve added the links to the resources we used below.
Resources:
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll on Amazon
Alice in Wonderland – Alice, Chesire cat, Mad Hatter Clipart and graphics
My Alice in Wonderland board on Pinterest
Alice in Wonderland Paper Dolls
Alice in Wonderland Unit Study by Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

Next month the theme is

Previous Poppins Book Nook posts:
2014/2015 Introductory post
July 2013: Penguins
June 2013: The Amazing Machines a Truckload of Fun
May 2013: Dinosaurs
April 2013: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
March 2013: Princess Petunia and the Good Knight
2013/2014 Introductory post

<div align="center"><a href="http://enchantedhomeschoolingmom.org/2014/02/poppins-book-nook/" title="Poppins Book Nook"><img src="http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n597/enchantedhomeschoolingmom/ProfileImage_zpse3f27ae8.png" alt="Poppins Book Nook" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Update

Posted on 16/03/2014 by Momma Jo

I’ve been absent on my blog for almost 4 months. The start of the year has been trying to say the least. We were broken into and they took our mobile devices (both tablets and my phone), then the whole family came down with a nasty bout of the flu and we were all in various states of healing and then to crown it all, the car (our only car) went in for repairs which took a week!

On the bright side, Fifi turned 5! All the photos of her actual birthday were on my phone and tablet *sob*, but we did manage to take photos of her birthday celebration with family the next day.

The birthday girl ♥
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Fifi with her best friend Jossi and cousin KK, two of her favourite people.
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The Hello Kitty birthday cupcakes Fifi and I made.
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Fifi got her first “big girl” bike for her birthday. She got to pick it out herself. She loves it!
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The kids have made TONS of new friends this year already. We have been attending a lot more of the homeschool social and educational outings and the kids have made a few lasting friendships 🙂 During the course of meeting a ton of new people, we have decided to research a new primary school curriculum for the children. The current curriculum is just not working for us any longer and Koko is incredibly bored with it. Fifi will use the Grade R (kindergarten) curriclum that Koko used and then she will go onto using the curriculum we decide on for Koko. We will, most probably do the same for Pixie in the ensuing years.

Curricula we are looking at are:
English: Learning Language Arts Through Literature(LLATL)
Maths: Math-U-See
History/Geography: Story of Our World
Art: Artistic Pursuit
Science: I’m not 100 % sure what we are going to do for Science yet. I have MANY resource books we will be working through.

Fifi is FLYING through her work for the year. I just CANNOT keep up. I have decided, with support from Papa, that she will be starting reading lessons with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, Elaine Bruner, also available in South Africa on Kalahari.com. We will be continuing with the Letter of the Week curriculum and once she has completed that, she will start Grade R! I have tried to have Fifi do two letters in one week, but it was a disaster and we now complete only 1 letter per week with supplementation to keep her occupied.

Pixie is growing like a weed! She now has a new Totschool area. She has her own desk and I have made her a little Tot tray shelf out of a shoe stand, that can be put out of reach (very important, in my opinion), with all her trays for the week. She LOVES animals and dinosaurs, so most of her trays have something related to that.
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A few random photos of the kids:
The three big kids
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Koko busy with school work
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Fifi being nebulized while she was ill
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Pixie in her little reading nook. She has pillows and a blanket in there for comfort. Its her favourite place in the house.
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The kidlets at soccer. We are in our third year of Soccer fun. Pixie has started taking part now too. All 4 kidlets love it!
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Koko, Fifi and Pixie’s vacation ~ Week 3

Posted on 25/11/2013 by Momma Jo

The kids are finally home. This is a rather photo heavy post with everything they got up to this last week with Nanny.

Pixie fell asleep on the floor, behind my mother’s chair, drawing.
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Koko helped Uncle Giel in the garden the whole day and Pixie “supervised” after naptime.

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Pixie decided that “Unca” Giel needed a walk around the garden.
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Nanny got the kids each a lolly at the little farm store down the road. How did she keep them clean? She filled a bucket full of water for the to “swim” in, LOL.
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The kidlets got more clothes from Nanny, so they gave us an impromptu fashion show via whatsapp. Koko is such a silly boy, LOL.
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The kidlets have been treated by sleeping in the bed with Nanny. This is the scene she woke up to one morning ♥

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Pixie was stung by a bee. Fortunately she’s not allergic, but she did learn a very important lesson. Don’t play with bees.

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On the way home on Friday, they stopped by “Grampa” Uncle Neil’s house and met up with my middle brother (I have three brothers in total, I’m the second child) for dinner. They also slept over there. We collected them from my aunt’s home on Saturday.
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Fifi found snails in the garden. Ewww!

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Koko, Fifi and Pixie’s vacation ~ Week 2

Posted on 18/11/2013 by Momma Jo

The three little kidlets are still at my mom’s (Nanna, aka Nanny). We decided to give them an extra week there so that I can have a little more time to recuperate and be in at least 80 % working order when they get home and the chaos returns. I can’t wait to hold those three in my arms again. I miss them an awful lot.

Pixie has changed so much since they left 2 weeks ago. She no longer has a paci, sleeps through the night and doesn’t use her sippy cup during the day at all any more. She only uses it early in the morning when she wakes up. She has also decided that she no longer needs to be held in the pool anymore. She is swimming with the aid of arm bands with the big kidlets and even jumps into the pool from the stairs. I cant believe how much she has matured in this short time. Koko and Fifi are still water babies and love their daily afternoon swims.
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Koko and Pixie were playing a memory match card game on Nanny’s iPad. Everytime Pixie made a matching pair, he gave her a little kiss. Feel the love ♥
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November and December are Christmas Biscuit baking months here at home and the same goes for at Nanny’s. Koko and Fifi baked a ton of biscuits and Pixie was the taste tester. Pixie wasn’t interested in baking, she’s all about the dogs, or at least one dog in particular, Champ, Nanny’s Border Collie. Fifi was in her element this particular day. That girl loves to be in the kitchen.
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The girls each got new little sunhats from a friend and Nanny tried to get Pixie to pose for photos, this is the end result. Silly girl.
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On Saturday, they went to visit my dad’s baby sister. She lives an hour and a half away from my mom’s. Pixie wouldn’t look at the camera for a photo, so Aunty Christylene made her, LOL. Thankfully one of my children look like my side of the family. One out of 4 isn’t bad, LOL.
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I am eternally grateful for my mom. Taking the kids is a HUGE task in on its own, but they have all loved it. Noo leaves for a month long visit in December! We’ll only see him again on Christmas day. He gets to spend most of his summer vacation with her this year. He can’t wait to take walks on the game farm and be spoilt rotten!

We’ll be collecting the kidlets at my maternal aunt’s home 3 hours drive from here (driving to my mom’s takes 12 hours, with stops) on Saturday. I can’t wait to see them!

Cooking with Kids ~ Omelette Muffins

Posted on 15/11/2013 by Momma Jo

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Omelette Muffins

Ingredients
8 large Eggs
1/ 8 cup Water
½ cup cooked Lean Meat (choose whichever you prefer) cut into small pieces
2 cups diced Vegetables (recommended -red bell pepper, asparagus, broccoli and onion)
¼ teaspoon Sea Salt
1/ 8 teaspoon Ground Pepper
Coconut Oil or paper muffin liners

Method
Preheat oven to 180*C/350*F.
Grease 8 muffin cups with coconut oil or line with paper baking cups.
Fill any remaining muffin cups with 1 inch of water so they do not scorch while baking.
Beat the eggs in a medium bowl and add meat, vegetables, salt and ground pepper.
Pour the mixture into the muffin cups.
Bake for 18-20 minutes. Serve as desired.

Recipe by Diane Sharpe – The Paleo Diet Recipe Book

Koko, Fifi and Pixie’s vacation ~ Week 1

Posted on 11/11/2013 by Momma Jo

Koko, Fifi and Pixie have been on vacation with my mom since my operation and they are having a huge amount of fun out at my mom’s in the Kalahari dessert.

They got to meet my maternal aunt and her children on the way. Fifi and Cousin L bonded almost immediately, I believe, Pixie and Cousin N were inseparable and Koko and Aunty Sha spent the whole day having fun together.
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They slept over at my maternal uncles house that night, since its half way between Johannesburg and my mom’s. They call him Grampa-Uncle Neil, he loves it and he treated them with fruit salad and yoghurt for breakfast. My kids must have been in heaven.
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On the last stretch to my mom’s they stopped for milkshakes, soda floats and fries. The fries were hot and Fifi decided to dunk them into her soda float to cool them down, EWWWW! They obviously stopped during Pixie’s nap time, she didn’t even wake up to eat, LOL.
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They have been so spoilt since they arrived at my mom’s. They have gotten so many new outfits and sandals as well as trips to the local mall which is a HUGE treat for Fifi even though she goes shopping at malls all the time, LOL
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They spent time playing with my brother. He has a mental disability.
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Fifi baked cupcakes all by herself. All my mom did was measure out the ingredients. Koko and Fifi decorated their own cupcakes too. Pixie wasn’t interested in baking at all, she’s all about the dogs, LOL.
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I’m really looking forward to having the kidlets home though, its the longest I’ve ever been away from Koko and Fifi and the first time Pixie has ever been away without us.