Making Rubber Band Bracelets

We are officially part of the crazed masses that are making rubber band bracelets.

I bought a loom over a year ago. We all tried to make a bracelet and thought it was too hard. We got frustrated and put it away.

That loom sat in a box in the garage. I almost gave it away. 

For some reason, my son pulled the loom out a few weeks ago and he is a bracelet making fanatic. You name it. He makes it.

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Simple Lenten Cross Craft

Our Bible reading last Sunday was Luke 23: 13-43.    

This passage is the crucifixion of Jesus.   We were focusing on Simon of Cyrene, who is seized from the crowd and made to carry the cross for Jesus.

I started the class by asking one of the students to write the name of our church 1,000 times on the white board.    She obediently got up to write, and within a minute another child in the class said, "That's not fair.  I'm not doing anything and she's doing all the work!"

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Exploding Cranberries for Play Dough - and Some Fun Creations!

We had lots of fun today! Thank you to Homeschool Mo for giving me the idea to make Cranberry Play Dough! I recently discovered her blog and I know you will like it, too!

First, take a bag of cranberries and boil them (in about 4 cups of water)....

Wait until you start seeing and hearing them pop open.... we just had discussed yesterday in math what the boiling point of water was... so this was a good connection. The kids LOVED watching the cranberries explode!

Strain the berries so you have 2 cups of cranberry water you can use in the play dough recipe:

Let the water cool for a little while (probably long enough to complete your math and grammar lessons for the day!).

Then, over medium heat, combine 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, and the cranberry water. Stir CONSTANTLY (about 5 minutes) until the mixture pulls away from the sides and turns into play dough.

We added gold glitter to make it a little more festive:

We pulled out the Christmas cookie cutters and lots of beads:

I was so proud of the children's creations - they sat at the kitchen table for nearly two hours. (The darker play dough you see if left over Apple Pie Play Dough from the Fall!) We listened to lots of Classical Christmas music, so we got in our music lesson for the day as well.

Here's a close-up:

The kids want these to set out and dry and then give them to Santa as a gift when we pay him a visit on Saturday. They also want to use them as decorations around the house.

It was a GOOD morning... I love it when that happens!