Weekly Wrap-Up: Days 82-86

I LOVE when my kids get creative! Who would think that recycled cardboard boxes, disposable paper cups, markers, blue painter's tape, scissors, and 2 determined and imaginative kids could create fun toys?! S made a cool 4 coach car train with engine, and learned that attaching boxes together require some ingenuity and stronger tape if you want to pull them around the kitchen floor. ("Where's the DUCK tape, Mom?") C made a house complete with TV, chair, bed, books, table, and frig with food for her new Barbie doll, a gift from a friend. Of course it'll probably take some part of the evening to clean up the box scraps and wadded tape that's spreading out of the dining room and into the kitchen and living room! The aftermath of creativity, right? LOL

So, over the weekend the kids had a blast playing in the quickly melting snow. (We had temperatures in the lower 40s!) They build snow forts and snow people and had fun flinging snow with shovels. S painted me a Toy Story 3 color-by-number painting (although I don't think he followed the numbers). C and S used paper cups to stack in different patterns. J restitched and stained the leather wallet he made. And the kids got to spend Sunday afternoon playing with their buddies.

So, we picked up where we left off before vacation in our subjects, but with a few new and exciting changes to curriculum.

C started using All About Spelling Level 2. Spelling continues to be a struggle for her, so, with the advice of several homeschooling friends, I decided to give AAS a try. It has a multi-sensory approach using magnetic letter and blend tiles, flashcards, dictation, and repetition in short lessons. She completed the first step, a quick review over Level 1. So far so good!

We started doing Winter Wednesday nature studies! Our beautiful male Cardinal is back so we made suet using shortening, bird seed, Cheerios, wheat germ, and uncooked oats, and excitedly watched our "front yard" feeders for non-migrating birds. Check out our notebooking pages and photos here! We had A TON of fun with this project even though it didn't work out exactly as planned! C and S have continued to draw and paint their own bird pictures and all have enjoyed watching the feeders, hoping for a new species to arrive.

C started her History Pockets: Native American unit study with the Inuits and Tlingit tribes, and S started his Winter/Snow lapbook. You can see their mini-books and projects as well as our unit study books here! It's a PERFECT study for this time of year in Maine!

J and C worked out their first composer study with Chopin. We completed notebook pages from Harmony Art Mom and listened to a CD of Chopin's music while completing Language Arts, Math and Science throughout the week.

J also made a pumpkin pie from SCRATCH. Yum!

We had a S-L-O-W Thursday and Friday due to colds (S and I) and fevers (S).

And our some of our regular activities started back up again. J had Boy Scouts this week as well as his Not Math Math class and 2 basketball practices, C had a basketball practice and a "doubleheader" (2 games back-to-back in the SAME evening), and S had OT.

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