A Green Week: March 3 - 9

In My Life This Week

Busyness! Just busyness...and lots of it!

Cookin' in the Kitchen!

St. Patrick's Day Green Velvet Cupcakes and Knock-off (but BETTER) Shamrock Shakes! Yes, I do know that it's not St. Patrick's Day yet, but inspiration hit us THIS WEEK. And if we wait like we did for Valentine's Day, well, that cake, frosting and jimmies are STILL in the cupboard. LOL

Mini Peppermint Shake with Mini Green
Velvet Cupcake and Mint M&Ms

Oh, and you should check out my FunBites Cube It! Food Cutter review. The Saplings had LOADS of fun "cubing"!

Homeschool Happenings

You didn't think we would have St. Patrick's Day TREATS without some learning too, did you? LOL

I found a wonderful You Tube video about Ireland and it's music that we watched together. What do you think of Celtic music? Nice, huh? We especially like the upbeat songs.

While snuggling on the couch, the Saplings listened to me read aloud Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaula and then we labeled a blank map of Ireland using on-line and book sources.

And for our Irish dinner, we created some Colcannon, a potato, ham and cabbage dish, and Irish Soda Bread with currants.

Colcannon...And Yes That's Butter! Recipe Calls for a Chunk in
the Middle LOL

Streamin' with Netflix!

We're LOVIN' Netflix! There are OODLES of streaming educational shows. The Saplings haven't even mentioned cable TV! (But Dr. Who is STILL not growing on me!)

 

Excellent Extras!

❀Blue and Gold Cub Scout Banquet ❀ Cub Scouts ❀ Boy Scouts ❀ Clarinet and Band Practice ❀ Basketball and Wii at the Rec Center ❀ Maple Sugaring at the Farm ❀ Lego Club ❀ Played with the Boys Next Door ❀ Pizza and Movie Night with J_ ❀

Helpful Homeschool Hint

Sugar Maple and Balsam Fir started their Scholastic Easy to Make and Learn Projects: Human Body unit study. As a supplement, I let them play around with Anatomy Arcade, a website with body system videos and games. They've proclaimed it "cool" so it's our favorite resource this week! Check it out here.

A Photo, Video, Link, or Quote to Share

Linky Love

What My Child is Reading: April 3 - 9

J continued to enjoy A Mighty Fortress by David Weber, the last novel in the Safehold series. It's a "lengthy" book and took a few weeks for him to finish. He started Animal Farm by George Orwell for his Literature Studies. He's read this one before, but wanted to reread it. Glencoe Literature describes Animal Farm as:

A masterpiece of political satire, Animal Farm is a tale of oppressed individuals who long for freedom but ultimately are corrupted by assuming the very power that had originally oppressed them. The story traces the deplorable conditions of mistreated animals—animals who can speak and who exhibit many human characteristics. After extreme negligence by their owner, the animals revolt and expel Mr. Jones and his wife from the farm. The tale of the society the animals form and its deterioration into a totalitarian regime is generally viewed as Orwell's critique of the Communist system in the former Soviet Union.

C finished up Brighty: Of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry, and, since I haven't been able to spend a lot of time reading it aloud, continued on with Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lingren and Stuart Little by E.B. White.  Amazon describes Pippl Longstocking as:

Pippi is an irrepressible, irreverent, and irrefutably delightful girl who lives alone (with a monkey) in her wacky house, Villa Villekulla. When she's not dancing with the burglars who were just trying to rob her house, she's attempting to learn the "pluttification" tables at school; fighting Adolf, the strongest man in the world at the circus; or playing tag with police officers. Pippi's high-spirited, good-natured hijinks cause as much trouble as fun, but a more generous child you won't find anywhere.

And Amazon describes Stuart Little as: 

How terribly surprised the Little family must have been when their second child turned out to be a small mouse. Apparently familiar with the axiom that "when in New York City, anything can happen," the Littles accept young Stuart into their family unquestioningly--with the exception of Snowbell the cat who is unable to overcome his instinctive dislike for the little mouse. They build him a bed from a matchbox, and supply him with all of the accoutrements a young mouse could need. Mrs. Little even fashions him a suit, because baby clothes would obviously be unsuitable for such a sophisticated mouse. In return, Stuart helps his tall family with errant Ping-Pong balls that roll outside of their reach.

S will be spending QUITE a long time on his Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read books - there are many! - as well as Bob Books, Learning Language Arts Through Literature Blue readers and Progressive Phonics readers, but I added in some fun, less "curriculum" books that we read together.

And I read these books to the kids during our reading times:

What's your child reading?