Nominate Your Star Reader

 Scholastic.com is looking for nominations for "Star Readers". Nominations can be made at the website by teachers (homeschoolers are welcome to join the Scholastic family) under the "contests and programs" section.

 Those readers chosen as Scholastic Star Readers will be featured in the Scholastic Spring Flyers. Winners will be given a 10-book library. 

Sisney H.O.U.S.E. Star Readers

September Missions With Mini Submitted

For our second "Missions with Mini", the Scholastic/Kellogg's Mini Wheats monthly challenge where families can earn free books for their children, has been submitted! As our "Outdoor Explorer" challenge #2, we thought Maddy's birthday party was a perfect fit. Along with Kenna's "reporting" the event, here is the photo submission we sent.

Read this Fox News item...

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/19/fourth-graders-taught-about-pimps-and-mobstaz-in-louisiana/

So, what's your opinion? I personally would NOT want my children reading such things at school. Nor do I like that they are being taught that misspelled words are now acceptable.

Beautiful Moon

What a beautiful moon we've had the last three nights. Of course, it was bright the two previous nights, lighting up the night sky. But tonight, the Harvest Moon was a spectacular orange-red. The girls and I enjoyed it on a perfect evening for star/moon gazing. And the reflection of this moon on our lake!

Take time to enjoy the small, simple things - like a beautiful moon - with your kids. It's free. It's beyond words in beauty. It sparks their curiosity. It shows some of God's glorious Creation in a spectacular way.

At K-1 500 Page Club this week, we read Daisy Comes Home and A Chick Called Saturday. We then did the Egg-Periment about standing a raw egg up on its end from National Geographic that we did at Maddy's birthday party (the secret is salt).

Where to buy A Chick Called Saturday

http://www.amazon.com/Chick-Called-Saturday-Joyce-Dunbar/dp/0802852602#reader_0802852602

A Lesson Plan To Go Along With The Book

http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=10690

Building A Candy-Filled Pyramid

As part of a study on Egypt, we put together some candy-filled pyramids. Very simple to do. One large poster board made 11 of them. 1 bag of Hershey's Kisses put 4 or 5 in each pyramid and there were plenty leftover to enjoy ourselves.

 

Cut out the shape.                                                       Slightly fold edges in to form your points.

                                                                                    Add candy to center, if you wish.

 

Fold up two points and tape to hold together. Repeat with 3rd and 4th points. Your finished pyramid holds the "treasure" (candy). We taped a "flag" label to the top of ours so the girls could give them out to friends at church.

National Geographic Party a Huge Hit!

Saturday, Maddy had a good size crowd of 17 kids and 18 adults attend her National Geographic Kids birthday party. The weather was perfect and everyone had a great time.

We made a craft, a kaleidoscope, then did a neat Egg-Periment (standing an egg up on its end). Both of these ideas came straight from the National Geographic Kids website at http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/.

They played "Feed the Tiger", a toss game where we used Kenna's stuffed tiger to lay on the ground (looking hungry, of course) and the kids threw disc-shaped dog toys (new ones, later given to the puppies) as the tiger's imaginary "steaks". The child tossing their "steak" closest to the tiger's mouth won.

"Dung Beetle Derby", was another idea we took from National Geographic's website. This is actually a wonderful online game that teaches logically thinking while using simple machines to help the Dung Beetle roll his dung ball to his goal. A super science game that Maddy just loves. Anyway, we took the idea and tweaked it to fit our need. I divided the kids into two teams, then using two large play balls (sorry, no real dung used), the kids rolled their "dung balls" around a small obstacle course.

Cupcakes decorated with plastic insects, spiders, lizards, and snakes were served, along with a dozen cupcakes arranged and decorated in the shape of a tiger. Dirt Pudding (used pudding cups sprinkled with a couple of spoonfuls of graham cracker crumbs and a gummy worm stuck into it), snakes and worms (more gummy worms), jungle juice (juice boxes), and swamp water (bottled water) were on the menu. We used zebra print tableware and leopard print tableclothes.

After Maddy opened all her fab gifts, the pony rides were the grand finale.

Our hour-and-a-half party stretched into 2 hours - with some guests staying to visit even longer - but parents didn't seem to mind.

When Maddy said she wanted to have a "National Geographic" party, I really didn't think it could be done in a fun way. After looking over the website, and some imagination, it turned out to be a great theme!

            

Cool Cupcakes

 Can You Get An Egg To Stand On Its End?

 The birthday girl with her "tiger" shaped cupcakes and the Dirt Pudding

 

Out of 17 kids, all but one rode Maddy's pony, Swift Wind.