Winter studies

La fin de l'annee est arrivee!  

Some last pics before 2013 arrives!

 We read some really wonderful books

on animals in the winter,

and talked about which ones

hibernate, migrate or adapt.

 I must admit - I had no idea bees and frogs hibernated.

Really?!

Yeah, so much for my public school education... haha..

It's been awhile since we rowed any books with FIAR...

We picked up Warm as Wool on interlibrary loan...

a wonderful story about pioneer life in 1800s in Ohio....

and an innovative mom buying sheep to spin wool to make clothes

for her cold children.

We learned about sheep and how Jesus is our Good Shepherd.  

Loved that Eliz said, after the story, if they had a shepherd like Jesus

those poor sheep wouldn't have died in the story. 

Yup, that's right.  He takes good care of us! :) 

On that note, goodbye 2012...and

Happy New Year everyone!!

Eliz is 4!

Can't believe 4 years ago, at 37 weeks and 1 day,

she came out of my belly and joined our family!!

How time has flown...

We love you sweet girl!!

Happy 4th!!!  <3

December Misc

Ok my last post for now... whew I think I am caught up!

We tried out a free music class at Black Rock awhile back...

It was fun, but a little chaotic

so I don't think we'll be going back.

 Working on evens/odds using the 100s chart...

 Patterning...

 Beginning blends...

 And ending blends...

 I added this math curriculum to her routine...

She loves it!

It's a great complement to Singapore Math,

which we are using now.

 Em still enjoys playing with Montessori 

materials for fun.

 Pin pushing a Christmas tree...

My two cuties.

Love them!

Eliz

My almost 4 yr old!  

You are such a bright little, verbal girl.

How fast you are growing up!

I really cherish these days with you at home

and feel so lucky I get to spend so much

time with you every day!  <3

And you LOVE to do "school" like your big sis...

 Here, using a modified Handwriting Without Tears method -

Dry-wet-dry

(write letter on chalk board, then water paint over letters, then write again

to really reinforce letter shapes.)

The small chalkboard edges help define the length 

and width of each letter.

 Some scissor practice...

 Followed by number matching

and then c-rod matching again.

 Counting with counters on the 100s chart..

 We went on a rainy day walk and found 44 worms on the ground!

We talked about why worms come out for "air"

when it rains.

We had a super early Bounce-U party for her

a few weeks back. 

It was late, and dark and none of my phone pics turned out!

I'll have to check the other camera to see..

More on that later...

We love you little girl!!!!

Happy early 4th birthday!!

:)

Winter Art

Love me some fun winter art!

 We painted coffee filters...

And turned them into snowflakes..

 And made more glitter snowflakes...

 And felt Christmas trees...

 And while we were at it...

Spent a quick afternoon learning about the 8 planets

in our solar system (poor Pluto!)

Loved they they called Saturn the one with a big hula hoop around it.  :)

Money Work

We did some money work over the last month or so...

It helped Emilie to match up the C-rods with actual coins...

Again, needing the visual factor to grasp an otherwise difficult concept:

The penny = 1 white cube

The nickel = the yellow rod (5)

The dime = the orange rod (10)

The quarter = 2 orange rods and 1 yellow rod (20 + 5)

Another visual match up:

4 quarters = 1 dollar

10 dimes = 1 dollar

20 nickels = 1 dollar

And of course, playing store and buying

crayons with money is always fun learning.  

:)

Thanksgiving

Trying to catch up on blogging...

We had a fun Thanksgiving unit!

Read some great books, learned about The Mayflower

sailing over and landing at Plymouth Rock...

Befriending Squanto...

And what life was like as a pilgrim

For the first few Thanksgivings..

 My little pilgrim at church on Thanksgiving!

It was fun!