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!  :)