Uncategorized

I had a friend tell me about this year’s ago and I didn’t think it sounded like a yummy idea…….but I was wrong. (Thanks Kathleen)

Our family likes grapes.  Not the smooshy kind that are a waste of your money, but good firm , take a bite and the sweetness just pops in your mouth, kind of grapes.  Grapes are also expensive.  Have you ever gone and picked up a few bags thinking you were getting a good deal, only to find out that your couple bags cost you $10 after they are weighed?!?!?!  Yes I have made that mistake once in my life.  Then I discovered Aldi’s.  Usually a couple of times per year, Aldis’ will have really good grapes for cheap.

That time of year is now here in North Carolina.  Grapes were $1.89 per bag last week.  My friend said they tasted good too, so I went and grabbed up 12 bags of them.  I brought them home and had my daughter wash them off.  Then we had a picking party at the table, taking the grapes off the stems and putting them on cookie sheets.  It is okay  if some of them are stacked on top of each other, they freeze pretty good individually.

I then put the trays into the freezer and let them freeze solid.  Take them out and put them into quart freezer bags.

We pulled out a bag last night and ate them while sitting outside on the deck.  It was a nice treat after it being 100 degrees all day!  Healthy, my children like them and it satisfies my sweet tooth.

Next time your store has them on sale and in season, grab a few bags and freeze them.  You will love them.

One of my favorite older children’s activities that we had done when they were younger was to do a timeline.  Back in the day, we used Osborne’s History of the World as our base and then read stories to go along with it.  We made a simple timeline out of cardstock and drew pictures and added words to mark specific time events on our line.  Those were the days of busy and I didn’t have time to document it.  Now that I have a little bit of extra time, I should be able to document things better:)

This year my children wanted to do American History.  I like to be able to do something as a group and this will work.  We found that our library has Drive Thru History DVD’s that you can borrow —that will be most of our base along with some by Shlessinger Media.  Then I added a few books that I found would be of interest to read.  I chose a couple of read aloud books that I could do with everyone and  I chose age appropriate ones for each child. We will cover a few topics per month and by the end of the year, we should get through all of American History.  I will add other information as we are studying it and we spark upon some new idea, but at least I have a base for what we will do.

I didn’t add a bunch of questions to my lessons, I want the questions and curiosity to come from my children.   As we discuss different parts of history, we should be able to talk about what it was like, how it differs from today, the emotions and feelings of people, what would life be like without specific inventions, etc.

Keep it simple and easy.  Hope you are having a blessed week!

history kids