Extras...

Revisiting the ants:

I'm truly amazed at how "busy" they have been!

 Tis a shame it's too cold to release these beauties

outside.  They are surviving well

on their sugar water diet.

 A super fun nailing game

we picked up at the FREE table at LEAP.  :)

 Hammering in wooden pattern shapes

with tiny nails.

 Eliz's turn.

{The one time she actually shared, LOL.}

 There was an impromptu birthday party today

after Em's ballet class.

Eliz shared in the spoils.  :)

 My silly girl, wearing Daddy's glasses!

Love her!

And lastly, forgot to post this one from our apple unit.

What a fun book!

And a fun game to go with it.

We could've spent a week on this book,

learning about countries all over the world.

We'll definitely have to revisit this one.

N is for Nest

We started a new unit today.  

N is for Nest!

The tagline: "God takes good care of me".

 We made bird's nests out of spanish moss

And fake easter eggs.  :)

And glued beans down as their "seeds".

 Do-a-dot letter N from here.

She has some GREAT printables

and even creates curriculum for free or cheap!

Love her geography and art curriculum.

 Finally getting back to some traditional montessori work.

Cards and counters.

This is a good way to visually teach odd and even numbers

(the odd numbers have a "tail").

 Making polygons from colored sticks.

The task is self-correcting since

there are only 3 orange sticks for a triange,

4 green sticks for a square, etc etc.

 Making pie fractions.

 Eliz doing some metal insets.

This is a montessori pre-writing activity.

And finally a plain old measuring tape.

The stool is 12 inches, she said!

It was a good day.

LEAP Co-op!!

Our local homeschooling co-op finally started yesterday!!  

It was an awesome time. 
We met some great moms and their kids.

And got to do some kid science experiments led by scientists from Johns Hopkins University.

What a treat!  I didn't know what to expect. 
But the kids had a blast!!

There were 3 stations.  The first was to MAKE a rubber bouncy ball!

 They mixed borax and warm water and some gluey substance.

After stirring, it turned rubbery...

And they were able to bounce it!

(Sorry no pics of the balls.)

 This station mixed baking soda and vinegar in water

to cause raisins to "dance" in water.

 I have a video of the raisins dancing but haven't uploaded it yet.

Eliz was the smallest and youngest kid there.

But she loved it!
And the last station was to look at germs uder a black light.
And compare how many germs were left
after washing with hand sanitizer
vs. hand washing for 30 seconds.
There was no comparison!
Hand sanitizers don't work.  :/
And with that happy conclusion - wash your hands everyone!
For a LONG time...

February?!

I can't believe it's already February!  

Meaning, we've homeschooled for a month

and I haven't run for the hills or lost my mind completely!  :D

Just kidding.

It's actually been, overall, really good.

God has blessed it.

The kids tell me they "LOVE" doing school at home

(music to my ears and motivation to get going in the morning!).

So onwards we go.

 So this is little math addition song is from our math curriculum.

There's a CD to play along but it's

more fun to just sing it acapella.

Even Eliz is learning her math this way - LOL!

The word AND is boxed 

because that is the sight word of the day.

 So in keeping with our apple/fruit theme of the week...

We colored these fruit of the Spirit activity sheets.

 And each kid got a sticker for displaying one of the fruits of the Spirit.

(Notice only ONE sticker for today?  LOL)

 Then we tweaked a recipe from this FUN kid's cookbook

And made surprise blueberry muffins.

(And Eliz actually ate some!)

They were fighting over who got to stir what ingredient in

the entire time so I couldn't get many pics.  :/

And here is Eliz playing with her barn animals.  

She looooves her animals.

 Forgot to post our cherry trees pics from yesterday.

They always want to paint and would paint daily if I let them!

But I try and keep it to once a week b/c of the cleanup factor.  ;-)

 And our salt trays.  

Tracing alphabet letters in salt is a great pre-writing activity

for little toddler fingers.  

You could use sand too but salt trays "erase" (shaking the tray) easier.

(But boy is this MESSY!)  :/

And of course, Emilie had to join in.  :)

We also went to the playground at lunch with Daddy 

since it was a GORGEOUS afternoon outside.

And we worked on handwriting, we read nursery rhymes, 

and closed the day with our chapter from the Big Picture Story Bible

and (I forgot to mention) our chapter from Charlotte's Web. 

Most of the language in this book is above Eliz's head 

(Em gets about 75% of it)

so sometimes I paraphrase.  :)

But they LOVE the story!

B is for Butterfly

So the butterflies emerged from their cocoons!  

It was more bloody than I anticipated.

I didn't realize blood was spilled in this transformation!

It was amazing to behold.  

The girls and I videotaped the third butterfly crawling out.  

They were in awe, and so was I!  

If I figure out how to upload the video (ha) I will.  

In the meantime, here is a blurry pic of a painted lady butterfly.  

Sugar water is spooned onto the cut carnations

for them to drink.

B is for breakfast date with the hubs at Cornery Bakery!!

 B is for biking on a freakishly warm winter day.

(Where is the snow?!)

 B is for BUNK BEDS that the kids adore! 

(Well, it's really a loft bed with Eliz's bed pushed under it.)

 B is for balance beam!!

 And beaming after hanging like a butterfly

on the uneven bars!  :)

It was a fun afternoon for Emilie.

Eliz is not yet old enough to join this class.

She will be allowed to join the 3 year old class

when she decides to stop pooping in her diaper

and start doing her business in the toilet 

(sorry but this girl is stubborn beyond belief, I tell you!).

She pees in the toilet just fine, in case you were wondering.

And on that happy note - good night!

A is also for ANT

So this ant hill came with the My Father's World Curriculum, 

in case anyone thought I purchased this on my own accord.  

The kids LOVE watching the ants dig around, 

eat carrots, and fall down the back side of the ant hill. 

 Eliz has a really funny smile these days.  ;-)

 I had to marvel at these creatures tonight (as gross as I find them).  

See below?  The 2 top ants are "guarding" the entrance.

A bunch of them are huddled together sleeping.

And they moved their "stash" (carrots) 

way below for safe keeping.

Pretty amazing teamwork for insects with... 

well, you know, ant brains.  :)

The curriculum quotes this verse from Proverbs relating to the ant:

"Go to the ant, you sluggard;

consider its ways and be wise!

It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,

yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers

its food at harvest.

How long will you lie there, you sluggard?

When will you get up from your sleep?"

-Proverbs 6:6-9

A new week!

Oh what a difference an uninterrupted night of sleep can make!  

Eliz has slept through the night 2 days in a row.  

I'm hoping we're on a good trend here.  

School is so much better when everyone got some sleep!  :)

Our next unit is A is for Apple!  

The theme is "If I stay in Jesus I will have much fruit".  

If we were in autumn, we'd go apple picking for sure.  

But it's not, so this week we'll probably make homemade applesauce, 

and maybe if they're lucky, an apple pie.  :)  

 This is a felt apple tree board I made to accompany the book "Ten Red Apples" by Pat Hutchins.  

As we read the book, the girls acted out which animal ate which apple.  

As the apples left the tree, Emilie subtracted the correct number left.  

 Doing some blueberry subtraction!  

Emilie can add and subtract up to 6 now.  

Not bad for a 4 1/2 year old!

 She's really into "heart sandwiches" these days.  :)

 This beautiful poem about colors comes from this beautiful book.  

My.absolute.favorite!!

Gorgeous illustrations and lovely poems.  

Can't recommend it any more highly.

 Rhyming Time game from Happy Phonics.

 We're up to the "ink" words in her Blending House Game.  She's doing great!  

 This was from our tree unit last week.  

We read "A Tree is Nice" - WONDERFUL book - 

and made our own a tree is nice booklet with drawings and captions. 

Emilie loves patterning.  She's a natural at seeing shapes and colors!