Posts Tagged ‘books’

Bookshelf Cake

Friday, October 14th, 2016

bookshelf-cake

This bookshelf cake is perfect for book lovers and librarians. Anyone who enjoys reading books would appreciate this themed cake for his or her birthday.

First you will want to bake a rectangular cake, preferably chocolate. Next you will want to frost the cake with chocolate frosting. Most bookshelves are wooden, so brown is the perfect color for the background of your bookshelf.

Now comes the fun part. Buy candy to represent the shelving and the books on the shelves. I spent a full week trying to find candy that would look like books. I finally settled on sour worms. We cut off the rounded tops and bottoms of each sour worm to make the books look more realistic, since the tops and bottoms of books are squared off. I used Twix chocolate for the brown shelving, and I created four shelves on which to place the sour worm books.

I obviously placed the Twix down first, and then I placed the books on each shelf. I tilted a couple of books to make the bookshelf look more realistic. I also slanted two Twix at the bottom of the shelf to represent the feet of the bookshelf.

Didn’t it come out great?

library-cake

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Posted in Cooking and Baking | 4 Comments »

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (film & parody!)

Tuesday, September 13th, 2016

if-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie

My daughter and I filmed If Your Give a Mouse a Cookie. It was my daughter’s idea; she wanted to film each scene in the same rooms as the book. To get ready, we collected the book and a mouse finger puppet.These are the activities we did to have fun with this classic children’s book:

Bake some chocolate chip cookies.

While reading the story, treat yourself to some milk and cookies.

cookies

Draw and color the mouse family.

While the chocolate chip cookies are baking, you can draw the picture that the mouse draws in the book, because you will need it for the scene where the mouse tapes the drawing to the refrigerator.

drawing-if-you-give-your-mouse-a-cookie

Film your version of the book.

If your kids want to film their own version of the book, you can film a “response” to our 2-minute YouTube video:

Here are some scenes we photographed. The first is the mouse drinking the milk with a bendy straw.

mouse-drinks-milk

Here is a photo of the mouse and the “box” with a blanket and pillow. My daughter reads him a bedtime story.

mouse-a-cookie

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Parody for Older Kids

If you have older kids (junior high and high school), you can do a parody of a classic work of literature, using the basic story structure of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. For example, here is a parody we wrote using Romeo and Juliet:

If You Give Romeo Juliet

If you give Romeo Juliet,
hes’ going to freak out when he realizes she’s a Capulet.
When he freaks out,
he will be too hormonal to care, so he’ll ask her to marry him.
When he asks her to marry him,
she will go to a friar who will give her a fake poison to drink.
When Juliet drinks the friar’s fake poison,
Romeo will think she is dead, so he will stab himself.
Shortly after Romeo stabs himself,
Juliet will wake up from her fake death.
When she wakes up and realizes that Romeo is dead,
she will fall on her sword.
When both families hear of their deaths,
they will decide to reconcile.
So… when a future Romeo loves a Juliet,
he will not have to freak out when she’s a Capulet!

If you would like a great deal on Early Childhood workshops, take a look at this Early Childhood Mega Pack.

If your kids are older, you will love the Romeo and Juliet Unit Study!

 

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Posted in Early Childhood | 4 Comments »

Growing Your Home Library Without Breaking Your Budget

Monday, June 3rd, 2013

home-libraryI bet you’re wondering how I grew my home library to over 2,000 outstanding, high-quality books without spending hardly any money. I myself sometimes marvel at how God has provided over the years.

When planning my homeschooling for the upcoming school year, I always start by committing the year to God and asking Him what areas to study. We go through history chronologically, but all the other subjects besides math are delight-directed until high school, depending on what we haven’t studied yet.

Anyone who has done unit studies successfully is able to pull together lots of fun books on one topic. You can do this by going to the library, but I prefer to own the books so that they are always available to me. (I like to preview all the books as well, and only have the very best.) When I write down what topics we will cover for the following school year, the books practically pop out at me wherever I look. Here are my favorite places to find books:

  • yard sales
  • second-hand stores
  • used book stores
  • used books on Amazon
  • Craig’s List
  • library book sales
  • used curriculum sales
  • gifts from friends or family

Back when I first got married, I didn’t have the basic Bible study tools like a concordance, Bible dictionary, handbook about Bible times, maps and charts, etc. I asked myself who would feel joy if I studied the Word of God? My parents decided to get me the whole set, which was on sale, for Christmas. Our whole family is closer to God now because we have proper Bible study tools, and the credit goes to my parents. I have no doubt they will be rewarded in heaven. That set of books was not cheap, even at 50% off. What I’m saying is that if people are going to buy your family Christmas presents anyway, make known specific books that you can’t wait to purchase.

After getting the bulk of my books at yard sales and second-hand stores, can you believe that I actually made money off books, and I could buy whatever I wanted—even new books—from my list? I know you’re eagerly waiting on the edge of your seat for my secret, so here it is: I buy hardcover children’s classics and coffee table books at yard sales for fifty cents. Then I turn around with a large stack of almost-free books that look new, and I trade them in to a used book store. My used book store also sells new books, and I often get a trade-in value of $80! I do this in the summer when yard sales are in profusion. I never buy children’s books that are from a book club, because they are worthless. I’ve learned over the years which books have higher trade-in value, and which ones get rejected. But with practically no money, I’ve acquired over 2,000 outstanding, high-quality books for my home library that my family uses profusely in our homeschooling.

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Posted in Creative Finances | 20 Comments »