Lowe's Build & Grow

We've discovered the Build and Grow Clinics at Lowe's this month. Twice a month they offer a free wooden project for children to build.

The first one we went to they built a putting green

And yesterday they built pirate ships!

The next project will be a treasure chest!

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

This weekend...

We are all trying to rest up and feel better. This weekend we stayed home as much as we could. We were excited to see snow! But it melted as it hit the ground and eventually switched back to rain.

Georgia and I played a few games of Scrabble this weekend. She used her American Heritage Student Dictionary to look up the words I used that she didn't know.

Olivia looked in her insect book to learn more about her little insect toys.

And she played Boggle Jr a few times. She challenged herself this time. She spelled the word on the card with the cubes, then took the cubes off, covered the word and spelled it on her own.

And she baked some oatmeal raisin cookies with Dad. They were yummy!

Olivia is cracking the eggs.


Georgia watched some episodes on the Discovery Channel about the Iditarod. She is excited to watch some of next years' race, only 110 more days. She can keep updated here. She also watched the Survivorman show a few times. She loves that show.

Olivia played on Starfall. This site is great for young kids learning to read!

Georgia pretended to have her own horse stables. We printed out some pretend checks here. She learned about the parts of a check, and how to fill out a check ledger for keeping a balance. She wants to fill in deposits from her "paycheck", and debits from her "bills" as she manages her horse stables.

Last week...

Last week we enjoyed some nice days at the park, enjoying the beautiful colors of autumn.

Georgia discovered a horse game called Howrse.

They each worked in some workbooks.

Georgia captured two spiders. She watched one make a web in the jar, and watched the other eat a bug that she put in the jar.

The girls went to gymnastics class on Tuesday.

They enjoyed a few games of Monopoly and Monopoly Jr. Olivia was the banker a few times, and she used addition to find money totals.

We went to the library and borrowed books on Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, The Wampanoag, ancient civilizations, ancient medicine, persian mythology, Gilgamesh, Lugalbanda, and some story books, as well.

Saturday, Georgia went to her nature class where they went on a fall hike and learned about seasonal changes, and learned some new organisms, such as "monkey brain" (or horse apple).

She also went to a pool party Saturday night and said she had a great time playing pool games with her friends.

Sunday we went to see the new movie "Madagascar Return 2 Africa" and loved it!

And here's a slideshow from our Boonshoft visit...

Set!

We love playing the game Set. It's fun and it gives us quite the mental workout. A friend showed me the Set website where one can play online. I thought I'd share it here for others to try.

Zucchini Bread

We had a very large zucchini.

We decided to make zucchini bread and muffins.Georgia said, "You really have to know fractions to make a recipe."
All done. One large loaf, eight mini loaves, and eighteen muffins all made from one zucchini.(there are some muffins missing from the picture....wonder where they went??? YUM)

Math

Olivia worked with her number cups this week. She put them in numerical order and then counted out small shells to fill the cups. The cup with number ten received ten shells, for example. She did great. Then I took random cups and she had to put them in order, lowest to highest. Even though they skipped numbers she was able to figure it out.

Afterwards we tried some shell math. I wrote out some simple addition problems and we worked together to find the answer. For example, for the problem 1+2= we would put one shell under the number 1 and two under the number 2. Then we would count them all together to find the answer. She still writes some numbers backwards or upside-down, but that is to be expected at this age.

After the math she traced and sketched the shells on paper and colored them.

Georgia has been working in her math workbook.

Playing Yahtzee is a great way for her to practice multiple digit addition! She needs to add up her score! Also, when we have three of a kind or four of a kind I'll say something like, "I have four fives, so four times five equals twenty." Sneaky way to practice math while having fun!

Farmers' Market Goodies

We have been visiting the local farmers' market to buy some fresh, local produce. The girls and I have talked about why buying local is best....and who can resist farm fresh goodies anyway???

On one trip, Olivia found an interesting leaf and wanted to bring it home and find out what it was.

love my curious girls!!!!!

We also received some fresh green beans from the girls' grandmother. They got to practice using a knife to help get them ready.

Georgia is always reading whatever she finds, including food labels. While eating cereal she found something strange. On the soy milk carton she noticed that the fat grams didn't add up to what the total fat count was.

Adding with decimals in her head....I love it!

Letters and Writing

Georgia has been learning cursive writing. She is doing really well.

Olivia has been working in her alphabet book, practicing writing her letters and recognizing beginning sounds and the letters they start with.

Olivia has also been practicing counting past fifteen. She usually goes from thirteen to eighteen, then in the mid 20s ends up in the 70s somehow.

Forgot to mention when we were entering the playground last time we were at the park Olivia says, "No Dogs Allowed, I guess dogs can't come in here." I looked around and sure enough, there was a sign that said, "No Dogs Allowed." I love those moments. My heart just melts!! It's so exciting!!

She's also noticed the outline of our state on street signs when we are in the car. She points and says, "Hey, that sign has Ohio on it." Love it!

Tonight the girls have gymnastics. Olivia doesn't like her new coach as much as the first one she had. Sometimes she says she doesn't want to go if its going to be the same teacher. Her new teacher is nice, but her first one was really great with the little kids group. And they played fun games that the new teacher doesn't do, like "Scrambled Eggs." Two more classes until the end of this session. I'm not sure if Olivia will want to take gymnastics again next session. She says she doesn't and likes practicing at home, but I'm sure she'll miss it. But, it's her choice. We'll see....