Halloween Slime and Sugar Cookies

Alternate title: Why my kitchen is never clean...

SLIME

It feels like a solids but when you pick it up it runs like a liquid.

Cut Out Sugar Cookies

This was very likely our last attempt at cutting out sugar cookies.  WAY too much work and mine never come out well.  We will stick with using cookie cutters for playdough and find another kind of cookie or treat to make.

We made pumpkins, bats, ghosts, and cats.

No Pictures, Please!

A huge part of me really wishes that I had pictures to capture the memories we made today, but pictures or not, it was one of those days is that is tenderly etched into my heart.  We focused in on our school work early this morning, got it completed quickly, then spent two hours this afternoon at the park.  It was a beautiful day!  We played and played and played!  I purposely left my camera at home.  Some days it is just nice to be involved in the moment without worrying about that perfect picture.  Hannah did at one point say, "you should have brought your camera."

Book It!

One special memory I have is going to Pizza Hut with my mom (and sisters) to order my very own personal pan pizza as a reward for reading during the month.  Book It is a long time incentive program for schools.  I discovered several months ago that this program is also available to homeschoolers.  I passed on the information to a friend who then passed it onto another mutual friend.  October is the first month for the program.  We all met at Pizza Hut Thursday for a "Pizza Party"!  The kids had a great time and loved ordering their own pizza.  They were also presented a little gift as we were leaving.  

After lunch we joined one of the families for playtime at their house.  Then we all went to a fantastic Halloween Crafts Workshop at the library.  The kids each made 4 crafts and loved it!  

Hannah fell in love with beading crafts!  I just added beads to her Christmas list!  My crafty little girl!

Pumpkin Pie Play Dough

Wanted to do something fun and festive today so we made this pumpkin pie play dough.  The kids were really excited about making it and it was really simple (once I turned the right burner on)!  We played with this for about 2 hours.  We only put it away because it was time for dinner.  I am sure it will be back out tomorrow.  

 My little cook...she loves to be in the kitchen with me.

 He didn't really want to make a pumpkin but I asked him to please make me one pumpkin then he could make whatever he wanted.  Can't believe he was so willing to let me take his picture.

 Hannah's pumpkin

 Hannah's cookie cutter creations.

 Caleb's ghost

 Caleb asked me to make his head.  He thought it was funny until I wanted to take a picture.  Barely got the shot in before the masterpiece was demolished.  

Caleb made a play dough ball and we tossed it back and forth and counting how many times we passed it without dropping it.  Our record was 96.  

The kids continued to play while I cooked dinner created hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, tacos, aliens, and much more.  

It was a fun time.  I love days like this.  I cherish their smiles and laughs.  Thankful to be home with them!

Nancy Larson Science

Science has never been my favorite subject.  As a matter of fact it is the only subject I consistently struggled with in school.  I don't want my negative feelings toward the subject to hinder Caleb and Hannah's knowledge of the subject matter.  I started researching Nancy Larson Science about a year ago after reading about it on other homeschool blogs.  I turned away from it several times because of the cost, but ultimately decided it was the best option I could find.  

TO ME, IT IS WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!

Of course I would be thrilled to not have to pay so much for it, but it really is an EXCELLENT program and a great fit for us.  Level 1 is enough new material to keep Caleb's attention yet easy enough that Hannah can keep up easily.  Both kids love the curriculum and look forward to it every day.  It is super easy to teach, requires almost no planning on my part.  

We have been learning about seeds from trees.  We observed apple seeds and acorn seeds from deciduous trees.  Pictured below is a pitiful acorn from our yard.  The next day we went to the mall and the kids found some wonderful, large acorns in the parking lot that were much more fun to observe!

Monday we began learning about seeds from evergreen trees.  We put a jack pine (provided with the curriculum) in the oven until it opened up then shook out the seeds.  We were ALL (even mom and dad) pretty impressed with this experiment.  

We will be taking a break from science in a few weeks to return to social studies for a while.  We are really going to miss it!  I am so excited about all that we are learning!

Pumpkin Week 1: October 17-21

I have been trying to prepare activities for Hannah to work on independently while I work with Caleb.  This goes well when I actually do it, but I struggle to find time to actually get things out for her ahead of time.  I also need activities for Caleb to do while I teach Hannah, but finding something that he will do that doesn't involve the computer is a challenge.  

Boggle Jr was Hannah's favorite independent activity this week.  Her phonics skills have improved greatly in the last few month so she LOVES that she can get many of the three letter words correct.

We bought TWISTER at a consignment store this week.  We all had lots of fun with this.  Good physical education activity as well as a good laugh when mom and dad play along!

 We made a transition this week from apples to pumpkins.  They always love our pumpkin songs.  We also made some yummy snacks.  

Dad's favorite- Pumpkin Roll

 Pumpkin Rice Crispie Treats with pumpkin spice marshmallows.

 Not my favorite, I prefer the original, but fun to make and the kids liked them.

Apple Week II: October 10-14

We continued singing our fun apple songs, reading fall/apple theme books, and making apple snacks. 

In science we have been learning about trees.  

 We have been wanting to plant two new trees in our front yard so this was a perfect time.  It tied in well with our science lessons.  The kids had a great time helping Daddy dig the holes.  Then we suddenly got an unexpected lesson.  While we were planting, a storm suddenly BLEW in. 

A gust of wind blew some branches out of this partially dead tree...

and it hit Daddy's windshield then bounced into the yard.  We were just thankful that it wasn't one of us that got hit considering we were all outside.  The kids also enjoyed watching Daddy and a couple of neighbors cut down three trees that were threatening to cause future problems.

The kids painted apple trees.  

We made these homemade apple muffins.  

Hannah also had fun drawing in the shaving cream on the kitchen table.  

Caleb did some mopping in his new football outfit.  He said he was the "football janitor".  

 

Overall it was a strange week.  It was cool, dreary and rainy.  Daddy was very sick and stayed home from work 4 days.  And then of course the truck mishap.

The week ended with Caleb's first camping trip.  I will try to get the pictures off of Ron's camera to post more about that soon. 

Apples: Oct 3-7

This week we took time to enjoy learning again.  We have all been missing the crafts, songs, and theme snacks, so they are BACK!  This week we spent time enjoying an apple theme.  It was a perfect follow-up to last weeks trip to the apple orchard.  We have been reading books about apples, we painted with apples, and made apple rice krispie treats.  We still got all of our other work finished too, including Caleb's FOUR PAGE unit 1 math test!  He actually did really well on his test and didn't even complain about the length!  

In science we are learning about plants.  In this picture Caleb is watering our new classroom plant.  We will plant it outside in a couple of weeks when we finish this unit.  

 These are the yummy apples we picked in NC.

 Making apple butter

 Making apple butter while dressed up as an Incredible.

 They wrote stories about our trip to the orchard and wrote the stories on these apple plates.  Hannah's is red.  Caleb's is green.

 Making apple prints to use for thank you cards for someone special.

 Making apple krispie treats

Blowing Rock, NC: Sept 27-October 1

We recently took a week off from school work at home and had a wonderful fall break in the mountains.  We were blessed with a beautiful condo to stay in for the week at Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock, NC. We arrived late on Tuesday and got settled in to our new home for the week.  Wednesday morning we enjoyed the amazing view and fall colors as we drove across the Blueridge Parkway.  We visited the Historic Orchards of Altapass to pick some apples.

 We also got in a little lesson about bees and butterflies while we were there.

 Our next stop was the original Mast General Store.  It was really cool to see all the old candy, drinks, and toys.  Ron enjoyed a Peach Nehi in a glass bottle, a long time favorite of his.  The weather was beautiful.  Ron and I would have loved sitting on the porch and just rocking for a while, but the kids were ready to keep moving!

 Thursday we visited Mystery Hill, Doc's Gem Mining, a fun playground, and went fishing.

Mystery Hill has a really cool room where no matter how hard you try to stand up straight, you stand at a 45 degree angle.  Water flows uphill and balls roll up the ramp.  Really weird.  My vertigo kicked in just tying to look into the room so I couldn't go in.  Made me incredibly sick just to be near the room.  CRAZY!!!

 The kids enjoyed being inside a bubble.

 Doc's Gem Mining was one of their favorite activities of the week and it was very educational.  The ladies there did an amazing job talking to the kids about the gems they found and then showing them other gems that they didn't find and how the gems fit together in families. 

 Climbing at the playground

 Fishing at the beautiful Chetola Resort lakes.  Caleb was disappointed they we didn't catch anything, but he had fun trying.

 Friday we went to Tweetsie Railroad then swimming at the resort.  Caleb woke up really sick this morning, but he still managed to have fun.  

 Hannah really didn't like this ride!  Caleb on the other hand rode it over and over and over and over.  I thought he was going to fall asleep on it.

 Both kids enjoyed the ferris wheel.

 The helicopter was Hannah's favorite ride.

 Caleb was chosen to participate in a magic trick.

The weather was great for most of our trip, then the morning we loaded up to leave it was raining with occasion snow mixed in and super cold!  It was a fun trip with lots of special memories.