Ever since I first saw sandpaper alphabet cards on another mama’s blog, I’ve been wanting a set of these for Leif.
I found small wooden cards at the local crafts store, along with felt capital letters and super sparkly, textured lower case letters. The red felt letters are actually stickers. So, Kaia took charge of sticking them to the wood. The purple letters needed the hot glue gun.
Then this wonderful set of alphabet cards needed it’s own sweet carrying bag.
I hope they will get lots of use!
Want a fun way to encourage story telling and writing in your home? Create a story board!
If you are sew crafty, you can sew some pockets onto a larger piece of fabric. If you don’t sew, what about using poster board and gluing or stapling on paper pockets?
I sewed 12 pockets (about 4 inches wide, although next time I may make them larger) onto a large piece of felt. Those are 3×5 cards, just for size reference.
Label these pockets. We used the 5 W’s and ‘How’
Fill your pockets up with your ideas. For example, ‘who’ could be grandma, Snoopy and Woodstock, the cat, Frosty the Snowman… ‘where’ might be the cellar, on Mars, under the table… Get the picture?
Then, have your kids take one piece of paper from each pocket without peeking at them. With these they can create their story. They can tell the story, act it out, write it down, draw it… however they want to create their story. It can lead to some great fun!
And you don’t have to stop at the 5 W’s. You can put whatever label on these pockets that you like. For younger ones you can put a color, shape, letter, or number label on each pocket. We put colors on each pocket and had Leif sort colored tiles and blocks. You could do the same with shapes, letters and numbers using toys, refrigerator letter and number magnets, etc.
Kaia just went to the story board and pulled out these:
So… what kind of story would you make with this?
Kaia and I took a break from our regularly scheduled math this morning after seeing some of these videos by Vihart. She calls herself a ‘recreational mathemusician’, but that doesn’t come near describing how cool her brain is! By watching just a couple of her videos Kaia and I found ourselves discussing fractals (again) which she loves, the concept of infinity, mobius strips, and a bunch more mathematical concepts. For a 7 year old, that’s pretty advanced math. But, when you bring it down to art, it seems so much easier to grasp.
Kaia immediately grabbed some paper and a pencil and set to doodling.
Here’s her ‘infinite series of circles, inside of an infinite number of circles”!
And more math doodles.
What a great way to spend a morning!
Here’s Vi’s blog if you want more of her creative mind!
I’ve been wanting to post about all the things we’ve been up too lately… projects, crafts, homeschooling, the ducks, the land. There’s always so much to share. But, I’ve been finding it hard to take the time to sit down at the computer when life has been so full. With having the kids at home, I’m generally only able to sit down after they are both asleep, and that could be 10 pm. If we come across a craft or something that seems particularly useful to share, I will do my best to post it. Until then, there are always pictures.
Warming up by the morning fire. Don’t you love the ‘bed head’?
Me – Umm, Leif? What are you putting in your car?
Leif – Haven’t you ever heard of a Clown Car, Mommy?
Leif – Well, this is a Bacon Car.
Note the two cherry tomatoes that somehow fit in there too!
My posting has been fairly sporadic, I know. But life is full and I don’t have much time to spend blogging. So, here are some pictures to catch you up on our ‘doings’. Hope you are all doing wonderfully and enjoying fall!
Leif's moved from a shoe obsession to hats.
Cowboy hat!
Paper boy hat! (And his delivery vehicle)
Attack!
Kaia's ghostly pumpkin
Scar face
Vampira
subjects and predicates
This was a really fun lesson. Kaia asked to do this over again and again. She wrote the subjects and I wrote the predicates. Then we put them in hats and drew out one of each. In case you can’t see the last one it says “My mom’s butt – screams ‘Hallelujah!’”
All tuckered out!
Him too!!
What is Chemistry?
Egyptian Fig Cakes
In a Box
Light in a Box
HEEEEEEEEY!
Learning 'A'
Best Friends
We started school today… Kaia is now an official second grader and Leif began his pre-pre-pre K studies. (He he, ok, so he ran around grabbing pencils, walking over workbooks, and sitting on Kaia. I did read him The ‘A’ Book, though!) I like the schedule I have mapped out for this first semester. On paper, it seems pretty manageable. Even with breakfast, chores and many interruptions, we were still done by 1 pm. Then, the mail lady arrived bringing two boxes of yummy goodness that I’d ordered to add more fun to our homeschool days. Kaia immediately dove into it all! In our boxes we got:
Unjournaling - I didn’t think we’d actually start this until late in the year, but Kaia wanted to dictate some journal entries to me.
Funny Fairy Tale Proofreading- again, Kaia wanted to keep doing this late into the afternoon. I finally had to tell her I was done teaching for the day 
The Periodic Table - We are starting chemistry this year, and though a lot of this is beyond her at this point, I still thought this would be a fun way to learn about the elements. She ended up flipping through it for over an hour to find the ‘cute’ elements.
Amelia Rules - I got the first three books in this series and they look adorable. Kaia is really starting to get into reading. Over the summer she’s really bloomed. So, since she loves comic books, I thought this would help fan her interest.
Vocabulary Power – Idioms – This is an idiom a day flip-type book. Each day gives you a new idiom (like It’s raining cats and dogs) and what it really means. Kaia said “do I have to do only one a day”
Vocabulary Power – Words – Another flip book… I thought this would be a great way to add new vocabulary words to our days. Each page has a word, pronunciation, definition, and use in a sentence. Any words that Kaia doesn’t know we add to our vocabulary list. Occasionally I will draw from these words and their definitions for copy work.
Haiku Stickies - We haven’t really done much in the way of poetry yet, but I couldn’t pass these up! They are yellow sticky pages with partially written haiku on them. You fill them in and stick them some where to be found! How cool is that. I thought this would be a fun way to introduce some poetry. (And what’s really cool is that the author, Allan Wolf, is a friend of mine…. we met in Tae Kwon Do) (Sarah, don’t get these for Meg… she’ll be getting some for her birthday!)
First Art – I had to get something for Leif, too. This looks like it’s going to be a great project book for keeping little hands occupied. Thanks for the recommendation Nikki.
Kaia is doing well recovering. She can almost straighten her leg and the swelling is almost gone. She’s still using a walker, but she’s gotten super fast! You have to watch out for her if she’s moving around or she’ll run over your toes!
Here’s the little foot hammock she created on her walker.
And here’s speedy gonzales! See, she’s just a blur when she gets going!
We took everyone peach picking this weekend. Kaia got pulled around in a wagon… pampered princess. She was actually easier to pull than the load of peaches we got. In the end we had 2 bushels of peaches, a peck of apples, a gallon of apple cider, and a dozen fresh apple cider doughnuts!! (Umm, yeah, there’s only one doughnut left!)
Kaia and I have been taking time this week to get her prepared for starting the second grade. We’ve labeled and decorated folders, picked up some books from the library, filled her art box and refreshed her nature kit. I think I’m more excited about school starting than she is I’m also trying to prepare for the fact that we will have a crazy little toddler trying to get into everything that Kaia is doing. So, I’ve gotten some ABC craft and cookbooks (including this ebook which is full of fun ABC crafts) to work on with Leif, made smelly playdough, and dyed some rice. I’ve also moved a little table and chairs (just Leif’s size) into the living room where we usually do our work. I want to have some easy play things to pull out for Leif when Kaia needs to focus on school stuff. Next week she will be spending some time with her Nana, so we plan to officially start on Aug. 30th. I’m looking forward to getting into a routine. Summer does a good job of sending us in all directions with no routine at all. But that’s what Summer is for, isn’t it?
Drying Rice
As part of our summer curriculum, Kaia asked to learn more about the gods and goddesses.
We’ve been taking our relaxed time reading through mythology stories, coloring pictures, doing crafts… But today, we brought it all to a close. We started the morning by designing our togas and decorating ourselves in gold. Then we broke out the Ambrosia (prepared the night before) and Nectar (peach juice mixed with carbonated water) and plopped down in front of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief.
Ambrosia Salad
Place all of the above in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix:
Pour this on top of the fruit mixture and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for several hours (overnight is best). And enjoy!
We got our idea for the toga from here. We used the Greek Chiton design, but just clipped one shoulder. I love the way it looks on her. This would be easy to sew up into everyday wear!
Kaia is really enjoying the projects we are doing from Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors!
I have to admit…. I’d kinda like one of these head dresses for myself!
Tomorrow is her last official day of first grade! Wow! Calling her a second grader just makes her sound so old!!
I can’t wait to start on our summer study units. We start mythology next week and I’m still trying to find a little bow and arrow so she can dress up like Athena and practice archery
The 2 year old roof.
Spots are filling in pretty well. I think I’ll give it one more year and then plant a few more things if needed.
I absolutely love all the color on the roof right now. It’s like a patchwork quilt!
And the yard is coming along, too. After 2 years of having huge piles of dirt and rubble in the yard, we finally had it leveled. Now I have the perfect spot for my berry garden!!! Yum Yummy!!
We also put up a bear fence for the beehives that are coming this week. I finally painted the chicken coop… I just need to trim it in yellow and put some color on the windows… green or blue maybe?
I also made myself a Medicino sundress. I love this pattern! It’s so simple and such a cute dress! Kaia wanted to pose in her dress with me.
Kaia has one more week of ‘official’ school left. We will continue with math and reading through the summer, and add in whatever else she is interested in. We are definitely going to do a few lessons on Greek Mythology!
We had a wonderful 4 day weekend visiting my sister in Atlanta! We spent lots of time seeing the sites and just catching up.
Our first full day there we went to the zoo.
This poor giraffe really wanted to eat the trees that were just out of reach. Can you see its tongue reaching out?
This elephant was having fun cooling himself off by splashing mud up on its back.
When we got to the panda area, this one got up from its nap, came over and sat right in front of us to have a little snack.
Of course there were rides:
And silliness:
And exhaustion:
The next day, we hit the Aquarium… the largest one in the world! Really cool place!!
Kaia pet the sting rays and the sharks!
They have a tunnel that goes right through the largest tank of fish! REALLY COOL to walk underneath basking sharks and other huge fish!!
See the people in this picture below? That gives an idea of the scale of this tank. The tunnel was about 4 times what you see in this picture.
Check out this manta ray!!! Fabulous!
There was also a beautiful coral reef display! I LOVED the colors of the fish. I think this pink one with the purple square on it is a Square Spot Anthias. Sooo Coool!
Then there was more exhaustion!
We really had a blast!
Of course, we are decompressing this week, and homeschooling has been very light! But we are mostly wrapping things up for the end of the year, so that’s just fine by me!
One of the things I was worried about when deciding to homeschool Kaia is that she would feel that she missed out on some of the fun things that big schools offer like going to school games, prom, and year books. Now, I laugh about those things, but back then, they were a huge deal. I’m lucky to live in an area with a big homeschooling community. There is a homeschool yearbook, homeschool prom, and homeschool athletic leagues, and if Kaia and Leif chose to participate in those… great. But in an effort to cover all of my bases, Kaia and I decided to create school t-shirts. First we had to decide on the school name: Green Meadow School. Then we had to create a mascot: a flying unicorn with a shape-shifting mermaid on it’s back. Once that was done, we knew that the motto had to be “Where flying unicorns and shape-shifting mermaids RULE!”. The school colors are “blue and rainbow, with a hint of gold” (yes, that is exactly what Kaia said). We may create a new shirt each year… maybe we’ll change the mascot and colors, too. We’ll see. But, now, she can show her school spirit and be proud of her school when people ask her about her shirt!
Here is our family school picture:
No, wait, that’s not it….
Here it is:
OY! It’s so hard to take a picture of all of us being still at the same time in the same place. Let’s try this one:
Much better
Last week, were were able to enjoy a day at the Biltmore House during their Homeschool Festival. They put this on twice a year and it’s lots of fun. Their focus this year was Farms, Flowers, and Food. We made terrariums, listened to a stories about farming, learned to make peanut butter, made leaf prints, and lots more. But my absolute favorite part was stomping grapes! We all got in the grape bucket and tried our turn at making wine, even Leif! Then we made prints of our feet (the prints are actually made with purple ink).
It also happened to be during the time of their Festival of Flowers, so we were able to enjoy that too!
Kaia and I have been working on the concept of symmetry in math for the last few days. We’ve looked at the symmetry of shapes, objects, foods, etc. We talked about how our bodies are symmetrical (one arm on each side, one leg…), but thought it would be fun to see what it would look like if our faces were really completely symmetrical.
I took a picture of Kaia (she hammed it up) and then altered it so that we could see what she would actually look like if the right half of her face was exactly like the left (and vice-versa).
Here is the original picture:
Here is her right side.
Here is her left:
Her favorite part was seeing the design that her hair makes. It would be neat to make something like this with an object from nature… maybe a tree, and look at the symmetry of the branches.
One thing I really like about homeschooling is going on field trips! (OK, I know that I could go on field trips even if Kaia was in public school, but it just seems like more fun when we get to design and plan them ourselves!) She just finished up her solar system and prehistory studies. So, we headed to the Raleigh/Durham area to visit friends and play!
The first day, we met up with some other homeschooling friends and headed to the NC Museum of Life and Science. The little ladies enjoyed looking at the butterflies in the butterfly exhibit.
Driving the boats in their wind exploration exhibit.
Climbing on the dinosaurs.
Digging through the rubble for fossils. (Leif especially enjoyed tasting the fossils!)
On day two, we went to the Morehead Planetarium to see a show! We all enjoyed relaxing in the reclining chairs and watching the stars above in their huge dome auditorium. After, we spent hours playing and exploring at the NC Botanical Gardens. Leif made some great moves on their life size chess set.
Day three took us on a tour of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. We went specifically for the Megalodon exhibit, but enjoyed walking through the whole thing. Leif said ‘hi’ to the little turtle swimming back and forth.
Kaia heard the secrets of the dinosaurs.
And, of course, there were lots of smiles along the way!
Kaia, who has always been a very cautious little lady, decided she wanted to take a ride on ‘uncle’ Mark’s bike! I was really proud of her! She’s usually one who would prefer to sit back and watch rather than participate. So for her to take this step was a pretty big thing!
Off she goes!
Leif enjoyed some riding of his own!
And a little exploration of daddy’s face.
And a little more exploration!
Kaia took this picture when she noticed the sun shining through the glass door. I love it!
By the end of the 4 days, we were all pretty tuckered out!
We’ve got lots more field trips planned this year! Next stop is in May when we head to my sister’s in Atlanta for some time at the Aquarium and the zoo!
While we were gone, our fantastic neighbors and friends took care of our animals. Kathie even put up a few videos of the chickens, too.
We are wrapping up Kaia’s Prehistory studies this next week and she has been begging to do a dinosaur dig. I got this kit because it looked like it was pretty good quality and the tools (which are metal) could be used again.
The kit says it can be ‘hours of fun’, especially if you go slowly and carefully, like a real paleontologist would. While this did fill up a chunk of the mid day, when you go at it like a jack-hammer it won’t take long to get to the bones. Kaia’s never been one to be gentle about much
Leif woke up while she was working and was a wonderful assistant!
Little hands, hard at work! I love it!
Kaia has changed it’s name from a tyrannosaurus to a Droptolipadon because anything she tried to feed it fell right out of it’s mouth.
Let’s start our morning with some daredevil antics!
Don’t see anything wrong with this?
Let’s look again:
Then off to a sweet farm tour where we enjoyed some fabulous home made jellies and ice cream, and I scored an angora fleece from this guy:
Then we spent the rest of our day enjoying the beautiful spring weather:
(You didn’t know chickens can read, did you? Well, our chickens can!)
What I didn’t get was pictures of the fabulous sand creation that we created! We got a bucket full of sand from the pile in our back yard and Kaia put all kinds of stuff in there. Then we all went dinosaur fossil hunting. Even Leif was getting into it. At one point, Kaia pulled her hands out of the sand and said, “Hey mom! Coprolites!” I was thrilled that she remembered the word for fossilized dinosaur poop. Then, I looked at what she was holding in her hand and realized that it really was poop!! Turns out the neighbor cat has been using our sand pile as a littler box!! Needless to say, we all stopped playing archaeologists and went inside to scrub off!!!
Still, it was a fabulous day!
Kaia and I have been busy planning her summer and second grade curriculum. No, we won’t really be doing much ‘real’ school work during the summer, but she has asked to learn about certain things, so we are planning ‘camps’. Mythology, Weather, and Mapping camps. She will also be attending a couple of camps outside of the house.
I’ve also put together her second grade curriculum. When I started homeschooling, I didn’t think I’d use a lot of pre-written curriculum, but I’m finding it to be nice, especially with a little one crawling around under my feet. It’s much easier to draw from something that’s already prepared than to have to write my own right now. Then I can put my energy and focus on the fun stuff! So, here’s what next year looks like:
Math – Right Start C, Mind Benders, Analogies and other math games
Language Arts – All About Spelling (we’ll probably be at level 3 by then), Language Smarts (grammer), for handwriting I’ll probably create my own copy work and also continue having her write letters and postcards to friends, along with lots of reading time.
Science – R.E.A.L. Chemistry, and continued animal habitat studies, and Nature Walks
History – We are doing an in depth study of Prehistory this semester, so we’ll begin with Ancient History using Story of the World and History Odyssey. (I’ll pull from both)
Art- Artistic Pursuits book 1, and continue with art group
I’d love to add in some Music and Foreign Language, but don’t have anything planned yet…
Here’s Kaia perfecting her recipe for Home Made Asteroids They were yummy!! (Oh, and we used cheese and didn’t have a problem with them going flat)
We found this craft when we were cruising around on the web looking for info in sea monsters of prehistory. (scroll down to Sediment Fossil Surprise). As soon as Kaia read the details, she was dying to do it. So, saturday, we got all our ingredients together and created our layers of history in a cup. We took out our giant time line and followed along. Our first layer was from the Cambrian period (red jello) and had trilobite fossils (gummy bears) in it. The next layer was the Silurian period (chocolate pudding) and contained Pneumodesmus worms (gummy worms). The third layer was the Carboniferous Period (shredded coconut) with Belantsea fish (pink star cookies) in it (those things are crazy looking)! Next was the Triassic (more chocolate pudding) and Lepidotes (Cashews). Then the Cretaceous (whipped cream) and coprolites/dino poop! (chocolate covered peanuts). Finally, topped with granola to represent the Quaternary period, or where we are today. Whew!!
We piled these yummies high into our glasses and served them up for dad, with a card that had clues to what he might find in each layer.
As we ate our way through history we looked back at the time line to find our fossils, and when Toby was done he took out our Ancient Creature Cards and read to us about some of the things he found.
It was a sweet way to spend the afternoon. Literally! Nauseatingly, horribly sweet!! I needed a big glass of water and a nap after that project!!
As part of our dinosaur studies, Kaia and I made some coffee fossils.
(Yes, that was me who shoved Jasmines head into the clay to see what it would look like!)
It was a really simple recipe with very cool results!
I love having things like this to do in our home school days. I often feel like we don’t get enough hands on and creative learning. Her math and spelling/language shouldn’t ever take more than about 45 minutes total of our day, but still… sometimes it seems like all day! I’m getting better at adding in more creative stuff, but it takes creative effort on my part to find or develop these things, and after a full day of teaching/learning/playing often, all I want to do is put my feet up and veg out! We’ve only been at this for 7 weeks, though and I think we are doing pretty darn good!
Smrt Lernins is having a photo contest. They want to know what homeschooling looks like to you. Well, we’ve only been doing this for 6 weeks, but it seems like I’m always posting pictures about what Kaia is up to. There are so many photos to chose from. But, I think one of my favorites is one I took this last week when we went to visit family at the beach. I absolutely love that homeschooling is portable! We packed up some of her books and headed out to the shore, where she found herself a nice rock/table and went to work.
She did a little of her language studies first and then we read some books on dinosaurs. We decided that we were in the perfect spot to make a dinosaur. We measured out 160 feet (the size of a Seismosaurus), found some good drift wood drawing sticks, and drew ourselves a dinosaur!!
In this photo, I’m standing at the tail end and Kaia, the little red speck in the distance, is standing at it’s head.
And, of course, no sand dinosaur is complete without a little dino dung!
Leif wanted to support us in our dinosaur creating efforts, so he put on his Dino-Might shirt. (Punk hair courtesy of daddy)
You need a little more of his squishy cuteness? How about a side view?
Kaia has decided that since I am taking sewing lessons, I must teach her! Now! As often as possible!!! So that she can use the sewing machine all by herself… with no one watching!
Hmmmmmmm….. We’ll see.
I did, however, help her make a little bag to hold her new fossil collection in. She did a fantastic job!!
And here’s what she’s keeping in her baggie:
You can’t study pre-history without making trilobite cookies!!
This was Kaia’s first time using the cookie press and she LOVED it! I had to make her a deal though… we make one full sheet of trilobite shaped cookies and she could use the rest of the dough to try out all the other cookie press shapes.
We ended up using this shape/disc. It made perfect little trilobites!
Once they were cooked and cooled a little, she used raspberry preserves to put in the middle of the cookie sandwich.
Then dip them in melted chocolate and give them some eyes (we used chopped up gummy bears:-) )
And serve them up at Trilobite Tea Time!! Mmmmmmm!! Taste much better than chicken!
For a family that lives on 25 acres, we seem to spend most of our time indoors, especially in the winter. Now that Kaia is at home most days, I thought it increasingly more important to make getting outside a priority! So, we’ve added a weekly Outdoor Hour Challenge to our studies. This week, we got outside and made it a point to keep quiet and listen to the things around us. It was so peaceful and replenishing. The 20 minutes outside turned into a couple of hours for Kaia while she ‘ice skated’ on a puddle of water.
Here are my notes from the things I heard/sensed/saw while outside:
Finally, it’s gotten above 35 degrees!! The snow has been on the ground for a month and it seems like every morning I’ll wake up to a little more! The past few days it’s gotten up into the 50′s and it’s been wonderful! The chickens are having a field day taking dirt baths and stretching out in the sun.
Speaking of chickens… have you ever heard of longcrowers? Check this rooster out! If you have crappy neighbors, you need to get you one of these babies!!!
Kaia and I had a great week of school! She always starts with math. She loves using the abacus. Most of what we are doing is review as we try to get caught up to her skill level in her new math program. She’s really enjoying so much hands on and not a lot of workbook pages. Leif really likes the abacus too… I’m going to need to get him one of his own
She’s also enjoying spelling, and usually does more than one lesson a day. There is a chart that comes with the program that you mark off each lesson you complete. She’s on a mission to put stickers on the chart as fast as she can. It really is amazing how fast she is progressing, though. She’s soaking it all up. It’s not that they didn’t teach it at her old school, but the kids had the choice to spend their day how they wanted and she always wanted to color. Me… I’m a task master. I think it’s important for her to start learning this stuff, so if I present it to her in a way that she enjoys, then we both win. All About Spelling has lots of hands on too… she’s all about that! Her reading skills are really blossoming! She’s feeling so much more confident and she’s started reading to Leif, writing letters to friends…
This week we also continued with Prehistory and the Precambrian period. We’ve started making a time line similar to this one. It’s fun to see the way her mind works with stuff like this. As she is filling in the pages, everything she pastes on the page goes in perfect alignment with the last piece. It’s all square and in order. Funny how some things must be in their proper place while other things (like her room) can be chaos! We focused on volcanoes this week and she made one out of model clay. We were supposed to create an eruption (with baking soda and vinegar) but she wanted to make a volcano just like Mako Island (from the show H2O: Just add Water, the Australian show about kids that are mermaids). So, she didn’t want to make it erupt.
Here are her little hands hard at work. You can see the secret entrance to the magic cave where the girls turn into mermaids.
She pulled the top of the volcano off so that she could paint the magic pool of water inside!
And here it is… Mako Island in all it’s glory! I think she should call it Phallic Island
Leif is keeping me on my toes, too. He finds all kinds of stuff to keep himself busy while I’m occupied with Kaia… like boxes full of shredded paper:
Even with his hands in the box, he can still give you a great “Who Me??? What did I do??” look!
While we aren’t busy doing fun learny-type stuff, I’ve begun planning this years garden. My cucumber, peas, greens, and beans did fabulous last year, but the squashes (winter, summer, and pumpkins) got hit hard by borers, and the tomatoes and melons just crapped out. So, I’m going to fill each bed with a good helping of chicken poop compost to see if that helps the soil. I’m also rotating what goes into each bed so that the heavy feeders aren’t draining the soil in the same place. I think the only thing I’m going to drop from my list is melons. I’ve never had good luck with them… you can’t can them up and save them for the winter, and for the space they take, you get so little return. I’ll just buy them at the markets when they are in season and use that space for other goodies. I’ve never had luck with Eggplant either, but it’s supposed to be so easy to grow. I think I’m going to try the good-old standard eggplant this year instead of trying to grow the skinny kinds. How do you grow your eggplant?
This week was the first official full week of Kaia and I homeschooling and we had a great time. Along with the standard weekly math, spelling/language, and stuff, we’ve begun studying prehistoric times (Thanks to Sarah for the curriculum!). We started by doing our own little recreation of the Big Bang. Kaia stuffed a balloon with all the confetti and glitter that she could.
Then I blew the balloon up and attached it to a post. I also tied a bamboo skewer to the end of a broom for her to pop the balloon with (I thought it would be better if we were farther away from the balloon so that all the stuffing could burst out without us in the way, and spread across the snow like a new solar system.) We were both in hysterics watching her trying to lance the balloon as it bounced this way and that. When she finally got it, we were both surprised and screamed! Then, all the stuffing fell like a lead weight straight down. A few stray confetti flew off with the wind. Kaia said, “Well, that wasn’t really a Big Bang, was it?” It was hysterical!
Later in the week, Kaia tried hopscotch on her prehistoric timeline. She had a blast, especially when the giant Leifasaurus tried to grab her as she hopped by.
And occasionally the Leifasaurus would plant his cute patoot in the middle of the time line and refuse to move!
Chasing and attacking the time traveler can be such fun!
But, he decided to let Kaia finish her exploration of the prehistoric time periods while he watched from his sweet wooden swing. Leifasauruses need to play, too, you know!
We’ve had the crafting spirit in our home lately! This weekend Kaia and I made some santa ornaments after seeing them at Write-It-Down. We just happened to have everything we needed and couldn’t resist the cute little guys.
Then we had a few friends over for more crafting. We made beeswax ornaments with beeswax from a local beekeeper! I got 5 pounds of it!! Mmmmm, the kitchen smelled yummy!
I had some lollipop molds, so I used a dab of play dough to block where the stick would go so that the beeswax didn’t flow into that part of the mold. I also put some sparkles in the bottom of the molds. (You could put some on top too, right after pouring the beeswax in, if you want sparkles on both sides.)
When the beeswax was cooling, but still soft, I poked holes for the ribbons.
Then there were the glittered pine cones:
And the pipe cleaner trees (Kaia’s is looking a bit like Charlie Brown’s tree… she said she will be putting more ornaments on later
And once our friends went home, and Leif finally fell asleep, Kaia and I just kept going and made Cinnamon-Applesauce ornaments with the recipe that we found over at 5OrangePotatoes. I love these!! I will definitely be doing them again!! And the cool thing is that you can use any cookie cutters you want and hang them around your house all year long!! They don’t have to be holiday ornaments.
We used some of the dough that was left over and made them into beads!! Just roll them into a little ball and poke a tooth pick through it for the hole.
We stamped a sweet little fairy print into most of the ornaments.
The house smells delicious!!
I always love seeing kite paper stars in the windows. They are so bright and happy. They fancy-up any house! With the winter coming on and it being a gray, gloomy day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make some of these! A Toy Garden and Nova Natural Toys have nice selections and good prices on the kite paper, and there are some nice tutorials on folding the stars at Arwen Art and Duo Fiberworks. Kaia and I enjoyed this calm, concentration time as we folded our stars.
Creating our holiday cards…
