Happy Valentine's Day!

We made heart-shaped pizzas. Georgia had the idea a few weeks ago after reading about it in her Feb 2009 issue of National Geographic Kids magazine.

Olivia made hers with turkey pepperoni, Georgia made a cheese pizza with three turkey pepperonis in the shape of a heart in the center, Mark's was turkey pepperoni and jalapenos, and mine was shrimp and pineapple. YUM!

Of course we had leftover pizza for lunch the next day!

December

This month the girls learned about the history and customs of winter holidays around the world, as well as the seasonal changes in the natural world. We read some library books and visited websites to learn more. Here are some of the places we visited...

• Toured a Tree Farm
• Learned the History of Hanukkah
• Learned about the Dreidel
• Made a Dreidel
• Read "Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat"
• Learned about Kwanzaa
• And Christmas
• And Saturnalia
• And Yule
• Watched a Brainpop video on Winter Holidays
• Reviewed Christmas Carols, Music, & Lyrics
• Learned how they make candy canes
• Made a Christmas Tree countdown calendar
• Baked lots of cookies!
• Listened to Christmas Greetings in different languages
• Played Christmas Games
• Did Gingerbread Man Math
• Read the History of Gingerbread
• Made some Gingerbread Cookies
• Learned to Make Paper Snowflakes
• Watched Brainpop video on Snowflakes
• Learned Science of Snowflakes and Snow Crystals
• Clouds
• Avalanches
• Migration
• Metabolism
• Hibernation
• New Year's
• Read Animals in Winter by Catherine de Sairigné
• Animals that Hibernate by Larry Dane Brimner
• Ice Bear by Nicola Davies
• New Year's Celebrations by WorldBook
• The Penguin Quartet by Peter Arrhenius
• Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere by Bob Barner
• Polar Bears by Mary King Hoff
• Where Do They Go?: Insects In Winter by Millicent Ellis Selsam
• Winter by Janet McDonnell
• Winter: December, January, and February by Cath Senker
• The World of Penguins by David Saintsing
• Took a tour of Daddy's work

Gingerbread Horses

Gingerbread Men

Christmas Cookies

Decorating the tree

Making Trees and Ornaments for a Countdown Poster

They added one of their ornaments each day until Christmas.

The end result...

Touring Daddy's work

Thanksgiving Studies

We read some books from the library:

Thanksgiving Poems by Myra Cohn Livingston
Thanksgiving by Natalie M. Rosinsky
The Wampanoag Indians by Bill Lund
Massasoit, Friend of the Pilgrims by Virginia Voight (This is a biography that we started but have not yet finished.)

We still have some more to read another day.

We visited Scholastic's site on The First Thanksgiving. This is a great site!

At National Geographic, Georgia made a Thanksgiving themed Mad Lib, read about the first Thanksgiving, and of Thanksgiving traditions, and had fun with the Cartoon Factory Fill-In.

We also watched a neat video of an "exploding pumpkin." Not exactly Thanksgiving, but fun anyway!

And we played some Thanksgiving themed games at Funschool.com, such as Turkey Flibriks, and Thanksgiving Feast.

We still have lots more sites to check out another day!

Veterans Day

Today we talked about Veterans Day, its history, meaning, and how its celebrated.

The girls watched a PBS children's show about Veterans Day.

We also read the book Veterans Day by Mir Tamim Ansary.

Georgia then spelled some related words, such as veteran, holiday, celebrate, and salute, in Spelling Bee style.

And we talked about the veterans in our family.

Thank YOU!!

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Haunted Woods

On Friday, Halloween, we attended a Haunted Woods event at Brukner Nature Center. It was our first visit to this nature center and we really liked it. The girls had fun checking out the exhibits, playing games, getting their face painted, and then we went for the Haunted Woods walk. We stopped at six stations along the path in the woods. The first stop was a pirate talking about the American Crow. The second stop was a mad scientist talking about making a creature by mixing DNA from other creatures...she made an opossum. The third stop was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle talking about turtles. The fourth stop was a vampire talking about bats. The fifth stop was a witch making snake stew, talking about snakes. And the sixth and final stop was Meredith Vieira with a new game show, "Who Wants to Be a Naturalist". She asked the kids questions about the animals they learned about on the walk. There was an owl at this stop. Each stop had a live animal, and the presenters were really good at imitating the character they were being. After the walk we had a snack and sat at the bonfire listening to some scary stories!

The girls also had a chance to look at Jupiter through a telescope.

We all had a lot of fun, and now that we know how to get to the other nature center we plan on visiting again.

Here's a slideshow of our trip...

Halloween Fun

Due to a back injury earlier this month, I have been behind on a lot of things. But I am finally getting around to updating our blog!

I put together a slide show of Halloween events the girls attended. The first part of the slide show shows the girls on the Great Pumpkin Hunt. They had to figure out clues to find hidden treats in the woods and places around the Nature Center. The last clue led them to some hidden pumpkins, where they got to choose one to decorate.

Next are some pictures from the Halloween parade downtown. I didn't taken any photos of the parade, but of us waiting for it to start, and of the crowd of trick-or-treaters collecting goodies from the shops.

The last few photos are of the girls trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. This year Georgia chose to be a Native American, a Lakota girl. She made her own costume with an oversized t-shirt and some beads. Her shoes were made with some faux fur material glued on some old sandals. Olivia decided to be a cowgirl again this year. So we had a Western theme going on.

Here's the slide show.....

Lapbooking

If you are wondering what a lapbook is...

This site really helps explain it.

http://www.squidoo.com/lapbooking

Today Olivia finished working on her dinosaur lapbook.

The flaps/books inside open up to reveal information about the topic.

And here's Georgia's finished dinosaur lapbook...

And here are some of the ones they've made before...

Georgia's Antarctica lapbook (cover, inside, back)

On the back of the Antarctica one she made a game, and four penguins to move around the board. This lapbook was explained on a previous post. http://canterburyacademynews.blogspot.com/2007/02/antarctica-lapbook.html

Olivia's Fennec Fox lapbook

Olivia's Gemsbok lapbook

Georgia's Moose lapbook

They've already been talking about other ones they'd like to make.

Happy Holidays!!!!

I know I have not been too active on this blog lately. I just wanted to say that I am still here, just busy. We went on vacation in November, and since we've been back it has been one project after another! And now...we are all getting over a cold. I expect to be more active in posting after the New Year.

I hope you all have a happy holiday season.

Enjoy the show from our family...

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1552398511

Noodle Art

In honor of El Dia De Los Muertos, the girls and I made some skeletons with pasta and beans.

Olivia's finished project...

Georgia's finished project...


And mine...

We discussed the Mexican holiday and what it means to those who celebrate it. We also looked at pictures of loved ones that have died, and talked about our favorite memories with each person.