Back to School!

We're off!  After spending about a month of summer doing part-time school work, we officially started full-time on August 8th.  We got going early so we can take a little extra time off during the traditional school year.  

In a word, our days - or at least our mornings - are BUSY!  I don't get a lot of pictures taken because I'm spending all my time running between kids.  We start the day together with calendar time and the Bible lesson, then the craziness begins!  I bounce between Adeline and Braxton, working one-on-one with them, then getting them going on independent work.  Somewhere in between I play with Sadie and help her get started on activities.  Things are going well, but there are always a few kinks to work out in the beginning.  

 First day of school!

Our preschool wall - we chart the weather daily and reflect the day's weather in the tree picture.  The letter of the day and the color of the day are also in the picture.  Later in the year, we'll add a daily number.  

 Adeline's first short story using the Write Shop Primary book.  We spent the week writing lots of short stories together about animals - zoo animals, ocean animals, stuffed animals, etc.  We finished the week with Adeline drawing a nice picture of herself and our cat, then she dictated a story about the picture.

Sadie loves to play with our Math-U-See blocks!  Braxton used the "ten" blocks to make a railroad around the bed.

Coloring...

 Lacing...

 Matching... these are two busy kids!  Adeline and I can get a lot of work done this way!

 Adeline thought we should have "twin day," so she dressed herself and her sister.  Yes, she is wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt when it's 95 degrees.  The price you pay to be a twin!  :)

Braxton is learning to read the names of our family members.  He's doing a great job!

We are tracking our first hundred days with Max's footsteps to his dog house.

 Braxton learned letters A-D this week.
 

 We LOVE Do-A-Dot markers!!

 Braxton practiced his scissors skills.

Poor Adeline, so much of her work doesn't make for very interesting pictures.  She has definitely been working hard, though!

This week our unit study was titled "Chocolate Challenge."  We learned all about the cacao tree, the history of chocolate, the science of chocolate, different kinds of chocolate, Brazil, the rain forest and five famous chocolatiers (Milton Hershey, Henri Nestle, John Cadbury, Domingo Ghirardelli and Rodolphe Lindt, if you're curious!).  It was a lot of information in just 5 days!

To conclude our study, we watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - not the creepy new version, the older one! - and made our own chocolate.

First, we melted the cocoa butter.  The kids had heard about cocoa butter all week, so it was neat for them to see it, feel it and taste it.  It doesn't taste very good, by the way!

 Next, we added the cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

 Then we mixed and mixed and mixed!  The chocolate was very hot at this point and we had to let it cool down before adding the "starter crystals" to temper it.  Our starter crystals were just ground up pieces of chocolate that had already crystalized.

While we waited for it to cool, we sampled cacao beans.    

 Sadie's face says it all!  They aren't very tasty!

 Once our chocolate cooled to 94 degrees, we added our starter crystals, mixed some more, then spooned it into our pan.

Ta Da!  After some time in the fridge, the chocolate was finally ready!  It was really good!

Adeline dictated a report about our experience.  She said, "The cacao beans were so gross!  But when we added sugar to them, they made good chocolate."  

Now THAT'S a fun way to kick off the start of the school year!

See you next week!