Thrifty Thursday

Here is a great way to start the new year! Make a purchase at Chick fil a today and receive a coupon for a free chicken biscuit on your next visit.

http://www.chick-fil-a.com/breakfast/

Website Wednesday

Here is a great website that offers a FREE typing/keyboarding class online. It's fun too. My son did this a couple years ago and it really helped him learn to type. It is a beginning program that is great for young kids. It has 12 stages and 4 levels. You don't have to sign up or register or anything. You just go to the link and you can start learning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

Teaching Tuesday

Here is a link to our local paper. They have pictures of artwork that was done by area schools. Each piece represents one of the days of the "Twelve days of Christmas" They were very creative. I got lots of good art ideas from them.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/photos/gallery/1111118.html

Take a minute Monday

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant. --Epictetus

Fun Friday

Texas Snowflakes

Here's directions for a yummy dessert that I made for my family Christmas night. I call them Texas snowflakes.



You will need:

clean scissors

flour tortillas ( The uncooked kind are the best. I have found these at Costco and Walmart.)

Oil for frying

Cinnamon & sugar mixture

powdered sugar

ice cream (optional)


Fold the tortilla into fourths. This works best if they are room temp. Then let the kids cut out triangles around the edge like they would for a paper snowflake. Unfold the tortilla and fry it in a frying pan with about an inch of hot cooking oil. *only the adults should do this part. the oil is very hot. Turn the tortilla once while frying. It will fry very quickly.


Remove the tortilla and place it on paper towels. Sprinkle it with cinnamon & sugar mixture and powdered sugar. We placed a dip of vanilla ice cream on ours. My daughter called it the snowball.

Website Wednesday

Being Christmas Eve this is the only website you need!

Track Santa at NORAD

http://www.noradsanta.org

Teaching Tuesday

Most homeschoolers I know are not doing school this week, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t teach! This is a great time to learn about St. Nicholas.
The following is a brief summary of St. Nicholas’ life from americancatholic.org.
St. Nicholas
(d. 350?)

The absence of the “hard facts” of history is not necessarily an obstacle to the popularity of saints, as the devotion to St. Nicholas shows. Both the Eastern and Western Churches honor him, and it is claimed that, after the Blessed Virgin, he is the saint most pictured by Christian artists. And yet, historically, we can pinpoint only the fact that Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor.
As with many of the saints, however, we are able to capture the relationship which Nicholas had with God through the admiration which Christians have had for him—an admiration expressed in the colorful stories which have been told and retold through the centuries.
Perhaps the best-known story about Nicholas concerns his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age. Rather than see them forced into prostitution, Nicholas secretly tossed a bag of gold through the poor man’s window on three separate occasions, thus enabling the daughters to be married. Over the centuries, this particular legend evolved into the custom of gift-giving on the saint’s feast. In the English-speaking countries, St. Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus—further expanding the example of generosity portrayed by this holy bishop.

Check out http://www.stnicholascenter.org for more info.