USE YOUR WORDS!! January 2014

Today’s post is a writing challenge that I hope you find as much fun to read as it was to write. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

By the way, this is another brainchild of Karen from Baking in a Tornado!! That woman is SO amazingly creative!

 

 

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.

 

I’m using:               winter ~ snow storm ~ sliding ~ hairpin turn ~ loving life

They were submitted by:    http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

I am about to tell you a TRUE story of winter sledding in West Virginia. I was about 10 years old and we had just had a ginormous snow storm (the norm for West Virginia). Some friends and I decided that we REALLLLLY needed to head out and go sledding or in this case tubing. SIGH….

One of my friends and her sister rounded us all up and drove us to their grandparent’s house. They had the BEST hill ever for tubing. It was steep, it was long and it had a dozen hairpin turns. PERFECT!!!!!

We get there and trudge up the very steep, very long hill. When we get to the top we decided that we didn’t want to actually wait and take turns. It took too long to get to the top!!! We have about 6 of us and 2 big tubes. That’t it! 3 to a tube!

We start to pile on the tubes. Somehow I am in the middle. OK, no biggie. Sounds good to me. It means I won’t be flying off the sides, right???

We start sliding down the hill. We start picking up speed! We start screaming! We start holding on for dear life!!!!

And that, my friends, is when I got mushed into the middle of the tube. The very middle. Where the hole is.

All the rest of the way down the hill my posterior is getting the beating of a life time!

We FINALLY make it to the bottom after what feels like FOREVER!!!

And I collapse. I can’t move an inch!

But you know what?? It was SO MUCH FUN that no matter the bruises I was still loving life!

And after a while, we trudged back up that hill to do it all over again!

 

 

Thank you, Evil Joy Speaks for the GREAT words! I had almost forgotten about that experience! LOL

 

Now! On to the AMAZING bloggers that have signed up for Use Your Words!!!!!!!!!!

http://BakingInATornado.com                   Baking In A Tornado

http://www.JuiceboxConfession.com        Juicebox Confession

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch          Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com           Battered Hope

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com          Spatulas on Parade

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com               Evil Joy Speaks

https://stacysewsandschools.wordpress.com/          Stacy Sews and Schools

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com.au            Searching for Sanity

http://www.justalittlenutty.com                         Just A Little Nutty

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com               The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://followmehome.shellybean.com                   Follow me home . . .

dates2diapers2.blogspot.com                      Dates 2 Diapers 2

 

 

 

Winter Olympics Study Resources

It’s almost time for the Winter Olympics!! YAY!!!! Today the resources will be strictly for the Olympics BUT Monday I will be posting more resources for Russia. 😀 The last time I did Russia I only included a few of the resources that had been using. THis time it be much larger! 😉

I have also been working on resources for the Iditarod, Alaska and dogs. 😉

On to today’s resources!!!

As always, I include resources for a variety of ages. All books can be found at your local library, on Amazon or Paperback Swap (you should really check out this link).

All printable resources are free unless marked with $$$.

A lot of the above books are also available on Kindle.

 

 

Coloring Pages, Puzzles, Mazes, Notebooking, Crafts and More – Activity Village

Worksheets and Activities – Education.com

Printables and Crafts – DLTK-Kids

Worksheets and Coloring Pages – SchoolFamily.com

Coloring Pages and Worksheets – abcteach

Coloring Pages and Activities – first-school.com

Worksheets, Puzzles and Coloring Pages – Homeschooling.About.com (scroll down for a longer list)

Printables and Crafts – Spoonful

Printables, Info and Activities – History on the Net

Printables and Activities – Making Learning Fun

Coloring Pages – ClassroomJr.com

Printables and Info – Squidoo

$$$$

Currclick items available for purchase

 

 

Info – Olympic.org

Info – SocialStudiesforKids.com

Info – NBC

Info – Fact Monster

Lesson Plans – Education World

Info and Activities – Winter Olympics for Kids

Crafts and Games – MakeandTakes.com

Crafts and Activities – Red Ted Art

Crafts and Activities – No Time for Flash Cards

Crafts – FreeKidsCrafts.com

Activity – PBS Kids

 

 

HAVE FUN LEARNING!!!!!

 

 

What We’ve Been Up To (Besides FREEZING!!!)

We have been SO busy and SO cold!!! Single digit highs for the south?? INSANE!!!! Our sliding door on the van was frozen shut for DAYS!! It finally opened yesterday afternoon!  Thank goodness!

So, just what have we been up to???

 

 

We went to the mall last weekend. Cailey and Colin loved the indoor carousel!

It’s a bit different for us here. It takes almost an hour to get to a mall!!! WHAT??? Crazy!!!!

We then headed over to the huge used book store. Unfortunately someone decided to have a massive meltdown so he and I ended up sitting it out in the van. SIGH….. I did manage to snag some great freebies from the free box, though!

 

 

We have been studying the weather. Cailey and Colin drew the water cycle.

 

 

We made a wind vane!! An actual working wind vane! LOL It was accurate and everything!

 

 

 

We also started our middle ages unit. We were going to make actual dirt, grass and wood models of motte and bailey castles but the GROUND IS FROZEN!!!!!!  So they drew them instead. 😉

 

 

Yesterday we started making papier mache shields and swords. I’ll be posting the finished products soon! 😉

 

What have you been up to???

 

Christmassy Stuff and More Kids Crafts

We have been VERY busy lately with Christmassy stuff. Our tree went up the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was a day late! LOL

I took Cailey and Colin to the Lowe’s Build and Grow last Saturday. They made the cutest scratch and sniff Christmas trains!!

We missed the 2 kids workshops at Home Depot this month. 😦 One because of a bad tire (and NO place open to replace it) and one because of the ice storm (see yesterday’s post).

We’ve painted ornaments for the tree. Colin decided to go with an all black snowflake. LOL That child definitely has his own opinions about everything! 😉

The Hubby and I sneaked away for a few hours to go to his company’s Christmas party. It was sooo sooo sooo pretty! I was afraid that I was going to get thrown our for harassing the peacocks!

And we have been doing tons more Christmas crafts!!

You can find the template for the Christmas Tree puppet at Scholastic.

 

 

 

We made Rudolph with hand print antlers. Colin’s is on the left and Cailey’s on the right. She said she wanted hers to look like it was facing her.

 

 

We listened to The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from The Nutcracker and I asked Cailey and Colin to paint what it made them think of while they listened to it.

 

 

Then I let them watch it with me and paint what they thought of it after watching it.

 

 

 

Here we did white crayons with water color paints over it. If you look very closely you might be able to see their snowflakes. I think next time we will try construction paper instead of butcher paper.

 

SHEW!! And that is what we have been up to lately. I’ll surely have more crafts and activities in the days to come! 😀