Felt Treasure Map

Lately my kids favorite thing to play is pirates. "Arrgh matey" & "Ahoy Captain" have become everyday phrases around here. So the other day when Petie asked me if I could draw him a treasure map, I jumped at the chance to do something creative. Knowing that a paper treasure map would be destroyed by my kids in about 2 seconds, I decided to use something slightly more substantial, and grabbed my stash of felt.

This was the result! I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. The only problem is I only made one and so there is constantly a fight over who gets to use the map. He insisted that his island have a skull cave on it. He's such a boy!

Birthday Cake = Homeschool Success

Have I been teaching Patty to bake in school? Nope. What about cake decorating? Nope. So why then do I consider this birthday cake to be a homeschooling success? It's because this shows that I accomplished one of my main goals this year, and that is to instill in her a love for history. Patty doesn't think of history as a bunch of dates and old people, but rather as a collection of really great stories. So when she chose Ancient Egypt as the theme for her birthday cake, I was thrilled. That was of course before I realized that I now had to figure out how to deliver on that one. It's not perfect, but she loved it and that's all that matters. So you can keep your Disney Princess and Barbie cakes, we're eating history around here.

Our Published Artist

A few months ago Patty sent a picture she had drawn into Your Big Backyard magazine. The other day she got a letter in the mail telling her they had published her picture! She was so excited!!

P.S. She wants everyone to know her hair doesn't usually look like this :)