I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

So we are, believe it or not, wrapping up the end of our FOURTH year homeschooling. Seems like just yesterday we were dipping our toes in the shallow end of the homeschool waters, trying to figure out if we could do this or not. I won't say it has always been super fun and super easy--if you know me, you know we have good days and bad days, just like any parent. All I know is as we reflect on this official school year ending, I am nothing if not grateful for the opportunity. Some days are perfectly routine; everything goes as planned and "normal" for us.  Other days are what I call "fly by the seat of my pants days". Some weeks we get everything planned accomplished with recess time to spare. Most days though, we have to go with the flow. Someone (or everyone) gets sick. Our spur of the moment plans take precedence sometimes. Sometimes it's our extra-curriculars, or errand running that cause us to mix it up and shuffle things around. Sometimes I even had to extend our school year dates or move planned breaks around because I didn't want the kids having makeup work from days (or a week) of sickness ON top of school work. Yes, that's a real life skill that needs to be learned. But while they are very young, I understand that there's only so much work they can actually complete in one day, and if they are doing school work from 6 am until 7pm which few breaks, they have no time to be just kids. On the other hand, if they choose to waste their time or not to focus on the task at hand, they end up eliminating free play time.

Lessons from Narnia

I have always heard that C.S. Lewis was a great author, but I can't say I've read his works until recently... and although I loved the first "Narnia" movie, and I never got around to reading any of the fiction books either. Until this year. I always meant to, wanted to. It was on that "to do" list of bucket list type things that you thought should be important, but most likely you'd never actually make time for. You just felt good thinking that you wanted to do said things. On my spiritual bucket list was just that-Read C.S. Lewis.

Harry Potter wand how to :D

So it's no secret that in our house we are nerds. We are gamers, and lovers of sci fy, fantasy, and all around super cool nerdy stuffs. So we love Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Star Wars, and of course Harry Potter.

I know Hannah wanted to do Art camp this summer, but with my babysitting and having 1 car, we decided it would be more fun to do some big art projects for the whole family throughout the summer.

After we got back from Vacation, we started reading the first Harry Potter book, and Hannah and Josh have been very interested. Of course Jacob and I have already read it, but we've been enjoying the re-read. So about a year ago, I started 'pinterest'ing (see what I did there) things to get some ideas for a summer unit study. Because...of course...we school throughout the summer too.
One of the things I wanted to do was make our own Harry Potter wands. Well, we finally did it!!

Here's what you need:
Wooden dowels or chopsticks
acrylic paint and brushes
string, yarn, twine, pipe cleaners, or embroidery thread
white or wood glue
Hot glue gun and plenty of glue sticks (like, Plenty!!!)
scissors
fake gems, marbles, or beads for embellishment
paper plates and paper towels. Baby wipes are also helpful, as your fingers will get dirty.