We built a teepee!

...but first, some highlights of the past few days. 

Adeline practiced punctuation.  She read each sentence, then chose whether to use a question mark or period.

Board work with new vocab.

Entertaining the toddler.  This is a pretty good picture of her new 'do (with a couple weeks of growth).  Nathan says it looks like a mullet. Adeline's Barbershop has been closed do to unsatisfied customers.  :)

It has been 65-70 degrees the past two days.  We took our math problems outside!  Adeline thought that was great!

Then we built a teepee... because every kid needs to build one when it's 65 degrees on January 31st and you're learning about the Sioux tribe.  Thanks to some of Daddy's house projects, we had the perfect sticks just laying around.  Don't tell the kids, but I really held my breath when we tied the knot at the top and let go.  It stayed up on the first try!!  Whew!  By the way, that made me look pretty cool to the kids!  :)

Ta Da!

After spending some time playing in the teepee, Adeline helped write our experience story.  

Then we headed back outside - who could resist this weather?!  Adeline is practicing for her life in the circus.  She discovered she could tie an old clothesline to the swing set and swing on the rope.

Sadie discovered she could swing like a big kid!

And since it's the end of the month, we finished up our January weather graph and made some comparisons.  Clearly we didn't chart every single day (and definitely not weekends), but I think we did pretty good!

Last week when we had snow, we read the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.  Really cute story about animals that find a lost mitten and cuddle up inside to stay warm.  We made our own paper mittens afterward.  Adeline was disappointed that we weren't knitting real mittens.  Aunt Fee, could you help with that?  Knitting is not in my box of skills!

Braxton colored a mitten, too.  Sadie slept through the project.  :)

At the suggestion of a fellow Story Time mom this morning, we checked out the chapter book The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker.  We've been reading the Junie B. Jones books, which Adeline loves and I tolerate.  They are cute, but I do a lot of editing because I can't stand the way Junie talks.  Clementine is very similar to Junie, but not nearly as annoying.  She's also intended for kids a little bit older and the books are longer.  We sat on the front porch this afternoon and read the first 50 pages of The Talented Clementine.  Adeline and I both really liked it.  Even Braxton listened for the first 30 or so pages.

Now, it's still pretty nice out, so I better go enjoy the day.  You should do the same!  :)  

Volcanoes!

Lately our Mondays have just plain been fun - which is nice since Mondays don't typically go that way. This week Monday was all about volcanoes.  I had fun introducing the kids to the science of vinegar and baking soda.  

Adeline formed our volcano out of play-doh around a plastic container filled with vinegar and red food coloring.

Then we poured in the baking soda!  

Going...

Going... 

Gone!

Thanks to the wonderful PBS LearningMedia website, we got to watch the Dinosaur Train episode about volcanoes.  If you haven't checked out that site yet, you have to see it!  It's free and FULL of educational resources.  Love it!!

Adeline colored a picture of a volcano erupting, then we read a really great book about the Mount St. Helens eruption and found the volcano on our wall map.  I have a Magic School Bus video about volcanoes from the library that we had planned to watch today, but of course I couldn't get either of our VCRs to work.  Guess that will happen later in the week when I find some working equipment!
 

We've been adding blends to Adeline's vocab words.  Monday was the "gr" sound - especially for you, Grandpa Greg!  :)  Today we added "sp" words.

Adeline was very excited to see Grandpa's name in her handwriting book.  She decorated it with smiley faces and insisted I take a picture for him.  Then she worried that Grandpa wouldn't be able to read it because of her smiley faces.  I assured her it would be ok.

We finally saw some snow Sunday night!  Poor Adeline had high hopes of getting a snow day on Monday, but I had to burst her bubble that snow days didn't really apply to homeschool (not that we got enough snow for anyone to receive a day off!).  Instead, she worked really hard in the morning, then spent 2 hours playing outside after lunch.

This poor snowman didn't last too long.  Adeline decided to eat his nose and steal his hat.  :)

Even my little pink marshmallow enjoyed the change of weather!

Tuesday wasn't quite as much fun, but we did enjoy learning about folk music and listening to Mike Seeger play the jaw harp, guitar, two types of banjos, and the harmonica.  The performance was compliments of the PBS LearningMedia website.  Did I mention how much I love that site?  :)

Adeline has almost completed her AWANA book for the year.  I can't believe how much she has memorized!  Last week she recited John 3:14-16 and sang all the books of the New Testament in the correct order.  It's amazing how much those little brains can stretch!  I'm enjoying learning all this Scripture right along with her.  Braxton does an excellent job with his verses, too.  Thankfully, his aren't quite as lengthy.

Better get to bed!  Wednesday is our crazy day.

Hello, Monday!

What a day!  Today's theme was "Milk."  We started by watching a YouTube video that toured a dairy farm.  A local dairy hosts an open house each summer that we will be sure to catch when the time comes.  June sounds better than January for taking an outdoor tour.  Yep, I'm a weanie like that!  Thank goodness for YouTube!  :)

Then we got down to business!  First up, butter.  I thought it would be fun for the kids to shake a bit of the cream to form butter.  They weren't quite so thrilled with that idea after the first few minutes of shaking, plus our hands were too warm to get good results.  So we moved on to power tools...

We poured the rest of our cream in the blender and pushed "on."  Probably would have worked fine, but as soon as the cream started to thicken, my blender decided to give up.  Science is about experimenting, right?

We got out the mixer instead.  Worked beautifully!

A little homemade bread and butter for a mid-morning snack!  Top that Martha Stewart!  :)

Next up: Yogurt!  I've made yogurt several times now, so there wasn't any question about the best way to make it.  Heat your milk, add bacteria (I use a little bit of my last batch of yogurt), and incubate for several hours.  Sooo good!  We add honey or agave nectar to sweeten it up.

 And if that wasn't enough dairy, we sampled Daddy's homemade eggnog ice cream after lunch.  This was made last night.  Here's the recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Eggnog-Ice-Cream-233284  HEAVENLY!!

Random picture because it's funny.  I said, "Sadie, let's change your diaper."  She took off running and this is where I found her.  Haha!  Nice try.

Ok, back to work!  Adeline dictated our milk story.

 And then practiced reading...

...and spelling.  Thanks, Grandma & Grandpa N for the stamp set!

We've been learning about money in Math.  Today Adeline learned to add money.  Afterwards, we played store.  Braxton had .5 and Adeline .10 to spend.  They took turns buying things from me.  They love that game!

Since it's been such wintry weather (haha!) we made a snowman collage.  I first had to explain to the kids what snow was... :)  Ok, it's not that bad, but it certainly hasn't felt like January.  No complaints, though!!

Then I crashed!  What a busy day!  Does anyone want to come do dishes for me?? :)

Back to School!

The Christmas break was wonderful, but it was nice to get back into the swing of things.  Here are the highlights of the last week and a half.

 Adeline was inspired by our ant study and drew me a picture of ants in their home.  The ants are laying eggs.  The red eggs are new queens, the purple are girls and the brown are boys.  I've forgotten what the black eggs are.  

 An afternoon of living math.  Adeline made veggie pot pie for us!  It was really good.

Ahh yes, the incident.  Adeline decided to open her own barbershop.  This is the aftermath.  Braxton's hair was unsalvageable.  Daddy shaved it all off.  Adeline's hair isn't too noticeable, especially if it's pulled back.  She took off a fair amount, though.  Sadie lost her bangs and a few not-so-noticeable clumps in back.  And for the record, The incident took place while I was negligently letting them play in the basement while I made supper.  :)  Lesson learned: Quiet does not equal good.       

 I saved a few chunks of red for Sadie's baby book.  It was her first haircut.  

 Moving on!  A friend sent me a website with free file folder games.  I made this one to help Adeline learn her color words.  

Cute, huh? 

 Adeline is continuing to make leaps and bounds in reading.  

 We learned about frogs and turtles this week.  I dug out this activity from Adeline's toddlerhood.  It's seen a better day!  The kids, especially Braxton, loved making the frogs hop into the pond.

We read about frogs in our kid's encyclopedia, then listened to the different sounds frogs make.  This is a neat website: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/topics/frogCalls.html

Our favorite was the carpenter frog, so we looked him up on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAnu3mjezmQ  

In math last week Adeline learned about calendars.  It was a pretty easy unit since we have calendar time every morning.  We started using a chore chart Adeline received for Christmas and talked about the days of the week across the top.  

 For one activity, Adeline had to fill in the missing numbers on the calendar.

 We also worked on recognizing the names of the days of the week and putting them in order.  

Braxton's favorite activity! 

 The girls' favorite activity.  Adeline calls it the "bus."  She rides the bus every morning before school.  Sadie LOVES this, even if it doesn't look like it here.  

 I saw Unifix Sudoku on another blog and thought it looked like fun.  I found this free printable and let Adeline try it this week.  She needed some help, but she definitely understood the concept and eagerly tried to figure it out.

More reading practice!   

 Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa N we have supply of Zootles magazines!  I dug out the Turtles edition this week.  It was full of information and pictures!    

 This is called: "How to Keep Your Toddler Busy for Ten Solid Minutes."  Write, erase, repeat.  

 In addition to frogs and turtles, we spent a day learning about the different ways animals protect themselves.  At the end of the day, Adeline completed a journal entry.  

  

We started a new math unit yesterday - money.  Today we played store.  Adeline had ten pennies to spend on these items.  She had fun experimenting with the different combinations of items she could purchase.  

Adeline completed 3 sections in her AWANA book this past week, too - including memorizing the books of the New Testament in order!  That was a lesson we BOTH had to learn.  :)  

And that's a wrap!  TGIF!  :)