Seeds

Happiness held is a seed,

Happiness shared is a flower

~author unknown

We did a week on seeds.  This is by far my favorite subject.  

We will for sure visit this again and again in various forms. 

Perfect opportunity for us to go through our seeds and finish planning our garden.

We read many books about seeds.
We took a closer look at the bean seed in particular.

We crafted bean mosaics with all the various bean seeds.




Then, we made bean bags out of our beans.

For our cooking day we took our beans and made 17 bean soup for lunch.

Over the course of the week Matthew got pretty sick.

Flowers, water, and a thermometer!

Tillie got it even worse :(.


This week had to be lite due to the sickness, dentist appointments, hair cuts, and snow days at grandmas :)



We did still manage to fit in what we could.

We started some bean seeds on the sides of glass jars filled with water and wrapped in black construction paper.  We also talked about avocado pits and put one in water to see if it would sprout.

Hopefully we will see something in a few days.



I asked Matthew if there was anything we could do to make him feel better.  He said maybe cookies :)
He picked a snickerdoodle recipie from his cookbook.  I wish we would have had Aunt Burp over!!  Everyone knows burp makes the BEST snickerdoodle cookies.

Then, the kiddos played chef for the rest of the afternoon

We also started more seeds to do mini experiments

We barely touched on some botany with parts of flowers too

We are still sick over here. 
I can't wait until everyone is healthy again!!!!
I hope all your families are well.

Until next week
~blessings

Freedom

This week we were gearing up for presidents day.  I realized how little I have explained of our country to the children.  They hear random rants by my husband or I , but none of the classic preschool stories.  This was a very good lesson for us.

We started out our week on Monday with Valentines day.  The children awoke to find love notes and treats in their baskets they had made last week.

It was also baking day so, we made heart shaped sugar cookies. 

It is so hard for me to be able to take pictures of our baked goods!  They disappear quick around here.

The rest of the week was dedicated to The United States of America.

I told the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.  It was out of a book called Best-Loved Children's Stories.  We talked about some of our founding fathers and how amazing they were.  Smart, honest, and perfect role models.  If there ever was a man I would want my kiddos to emulate it would be Thomas Jefferson!  

We pulled out money and went over each president on our coins.  Then, we did coin rubbings with our crayons.  (it didn't turn out good)  So, we just colored pictures of flags.  We talked about our flag and read stories about how it came to be.  Then, we crafted our own flags out of felt.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America, and 

to the republic for which it stands.

one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty

and justice for all."

We tried to memorize the pledge.  I feel very strongly that they know this by heart.  If I teach anything this year this would be it.  One of the reasons I initially started home schooling was because our pledge was taken out of our schools.

We talked about the states too and did a puzzle to try and learn where they all are on a map.

We went on a neighborhood flag hunt to try and find as many flags as we could.  We found 10 U.S. flags and one Marine corps flag.  This led us into a discussion on all the other types of flags flown in America.  Matthew's favorite one is the "Don't tread on me" flag (that is my favorite too).  So, we made our own.

We sang classic American songs too. Yankee Doodle Dandy, Grand old flag and Yankee Doodle Went to Town.  The "Macaroni" part was very funny for them!

We read America books too

We have strong conservative, constitutional, libertarian values around here.  I am sure they will pick up on that some day, whether they will agree with us or not.

Have a happy presidents day and God Bless America!


until next week...
~blessings

Love

I spent the whole week talking about love.  

We were preparing our home and ourselves for Valentines day.

I read stories about a mothers endless love.  

We also read stories about Saint Valentine.

On baking/ cooking day we made homemade chicken rivel(kind of like homemade noodles) soup

and heart shaped PB and J sandwiches.

Then we crafted some stained glass hearts.
We took contact paper and pressed bits of tissue paper onto them.
Then I cut them into heart shapes to decorate our windows.

We also made silly puppet hearts.

On painting day we did water color paintings using only red and painted whole sheets of paper.  We used this paper.  When it dried I cut out love birds. These turned into our Valentines we sent to our loved ones and friends. 

We also used this paper and made heart shaped baskets.

We told the kids we would fill them with love notes and treats on Valentines day.



The Romans believed that birds mated in the second week of February.  That is why we see a love bird theme.  We decided to add a little nest and eggs to our nature table to celebrate the mating of the birds.

Tillie was absolutely in love with her little nest.  For an entire day she went around saying "oh no" every time she lost an egg and replaced it.

February nature table

We played a lot of heart themed games and did mazes I printed from here.  I also went to family fun for some ideas on little coloring pages.



After we made all our Valentines we went to the post office to mail them.  I had the kids do everything so, they can learn how to mail a letter (sort of a rare occurrence these days).

This week we also went to an amazing hot air balloon event.  It was at night and they lit up the dark with a sea of enormous balloons.  We told the kids it was a giants birthday party:)  It was really beautiful.
We had our third annual lighting of our Christmas tree this week as well.  A spectacular blaze.  Both, of these are in the photostream. 



Next week is about our presidents and our freedom


Until then,
~blessings

Candlemas/Shadows

This week we took time to study Candlemas and shadows. 

Candlemas is a day("mas") for candles.  It became a special day to the Roman Catholics to bless the candles of the year.  If you want to learn a lot more about celebrating February 2 you can check out this link.  In America it turned into Groundhogs day, thus we also discussed our shadows.  Even more remarkable...in our family Feb. 2 is uncle Matt's birthday.  So, we talked about him too :)

On baking day we made cinnamon rolls,

because they are delicious.

Tillie making rolls

Wesley made an eagles nest

Then, we made cookies to mail to uncle Matt.  

He only got a few and I didn't even get to take a picture! (DAD!)

Our field trip this week was on Tuesday and we went to see the snow sculptures at the winter carnival.

Milking cow

Monster under bed

They were really neat and there was a snow castle maze too.  

Frigid, frigid cold though so, we did not stay long and we took the kids to see dinosaurs at the science museum.

We decorated candles...

and we mailed them to uncle Matt as birthday candles.

We kept this one for our table.

We also made candle holders out of air-dry clay

Wesley's

Tillie's

Matthew's

With all those jewels who could resist making crowns?

Then, we talked about shadows.  

We read lots of groundhog day stories.

from the library I got a shadow puppet book and tried our hand at shadow puppets.

So it is...Six MORE weeks of winter.  

I couldn't help but recite this nice verse of how spring may be around the corner.

THE COMING OF SPRING

The birds are coming home soon;

I look for them every day;

I listen to catch the first wild strain,

For they must be singing by May.

The bluebird, he'll come first, you know,

Like a violet that has taken wings;

And the red-breast trills while his nest he builds;

I can hum the song that he sings.

And the crocus and wind flower are coming, too;

They're already upon the way;

When the sun warms the brown earth through and through,

I shall look for them any  day.

Then be patient, and wait a little, my dear;

"They're coming," the winds repeat;

"We're coming! we're coming!" I 'm sure I hear,

From the grass blades that grow at my feet.

By: Ada M. Skinner and Frances Gillespy Wickes

Anticipating spring,

I started to work on our nature table.  

We do not see any flowers around here yet, apparently in the UK they are starting to have glimpses of a flower called a snow drop.  Cute little white flower.  I decided to make a snow drop fairy from a pattern in All Year Round.  

Snow drop flower fairy.

Wesley crafted a little snow pillow for her to rest on.  

All and all very good Candlemas week.

Next week it is about LOVE.

Until then...

~Blessings