Two Cowgirls Preschool - Letter R

Elise - A self portrait

This week we studied groundhogs in preschool, to celebrate the upcoming Groundhogs Day!  Here's what we did this week:

Day 1 - We read a book about groundhogs, worked on printing the letter R, and ending the day with a fun science project.  We took a big block of ice (that I formed in a bowl in the freezer the night before).  Elise felt it, and looked at its shape.  Then, she dropped food coloring on it, and then put salt on it.  We set it outside in the freezing weather to see what would happen.  To Elise's surprise, the spots where the salt was, melted through!  Now she understands why the big orange trucks spread salt on the roads when it's snowy outside.

Day 2 - Elise had a lot of fun playing with counting bears.  She sorted them according to color, and counted them as she went.  This wasn't a planned activity, it just sort of happened.  Today we counted, read about the R flower fairy, and then made play dough from scratch.  Fun times!  When it was cooled off, we made little hedgehogs out of play dough, tooth picks, and google eyes.

Outings this week - We went to the Science Museum for Preschool Playdates.  Elise colored a dinosaur coloring sheet, and glued noodle "bones" on.  Then, we went to the astronomy section, where Elise made her own constellation.  Before we left, we went to the Mississippi River room and had story time with a ranger!

On our way home, we stopped by Rice Park to look at the ice sculptures, then to the Wells Fargo Winter Skate to skate for a bit.  The ice was great, and everyone had a great time skating around.

Friday, we went to Comedy Sportz for a comedy show.  Elise seemed pretty bored, but Millie and I had a fabulous time.  It was hilarious!!  I think Millie would like to take improv lessons.  Maybe next year.  Our calendar is FULL for this year :)

Two Cowgirls Preschool - Letter B

Back to the daily grind!  This was our first week back after a two week break, proceeded by a few weeks of Christmasy fun.  It went a lot better than I thought!  I think the kids (and I) thrive on routine.

Here's what we did in preschool this week:

Day 1:

Our theme for the week was "hibernation".  We read a couple great books, did our "letter B" work sheet, and worked in Elise's new Preschool workbook.  I ordered the workbook to see if she could complete the tasks (sometimes I don't think I give her enough credit, and this was my way of finding out).  She loved working on it so much, that she ended up going through page 20 before I cut her off!  One thing she did that was kind of goofy, was on the page where she was given three objects, and was told to circle the two that are the same, she opted to draw on the 3rd "different" one and make it the same as the others.  So, not exactly following the directions (in true Elise fashion), but showing me that she could tell which one was different.  Silly kid.  We ended the day with a fun art project.  She drew a page of a cave where a bear might be hibernating, and we glued a picture of a bear on it.  It's pretty cute, and she had a lot of fun trying to think of different things a person might find in the woods.

Day 2:

We read about the Bugle Flower Fairy, read books, and worked in her workbook some more.  I was originally going to have her work on counting and identifying/writing numbers, but she wanted to work on that workbook so bad, so I let her.





Outings:

On Wednesday, Millie had Norse story hour at Ingebretsons as part of her book club.  While we were there, Elise got to spend some one on one time with Grandma Susie.  She loved it!  The had a tea party, built a castle kit, and made furniture out of Legos (what else?!) to go inside.

Friday Millie had another book club event.  This one was 2 hours long, and Elise had to tag along.  I brought along some fun activities (Legos, a cutting and pasting project, a book, and a doll).  Between those things, a snack, and meeting a new friend, Elise had a great time!

3rd Grade, 2nd Quarter Review

Well, this last quarter wasn't really a quarter, was it?  It went by so fast!  We're half way done with the school year!  It feels like we're just getting started.

Here's what we've been working on:

Language Arts:  We're still working on and loving Queens Language Lessons.  The lessons are gentle, and Millie seems to be absorbing everything.  No tears!

Samantha likes math, too!

Reading:  She reads out loud to Elise every morning still, which is good practice.  She also reads every day while I'm doing preschool with Elise.  I haven't had any control over what she has been reading this quarter.  I'm not sure why, but I didn't have anything planned.  She's been having fun reading lots of American Girl books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Magic Tree House, and other random book she picks out at the library.

Read Alouds:  This quarter we read Owls in the Family and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Math:  Still plugging away at Saxon 3.  We just started doing square roots.

Science:  We finished up our study of plants, and started up with physics.  I'll be honest, teaching physics a terrible bore for me, and Millie doesn't enjoy it either.  We pretty much gave up on it.  I'm supposed to be teaching it though mid-March, so hopefully I can find it in myself to get back into it.  She's got two outside-of-the-home physics classes scheduled, so if nothing else, she'll get that.



History:  Of course, history has been fabulous!  We are studying the European's arrival to "the new world".  We're using Story of the USA as our spine.  Along with the readings in those books, we read Pedro's Journal, We Asked For Nothing (this was an amazing book.  I highly recommend it.  This book led us to watch several documentaries on Netflix.  It was a great topic that the whole family got into), The Double Life of Pocahontas, Sarah Morton's Day, and Three Young Pilgrims.  We're also reading and doing projects from Easy Make & Learn Projects: Colonial America.

Spelling:  Plugging away with All About Spelling.  This is such a fantastic spelling program!  We're both learning so much!

Phy Ed:  Millie took ice skating lessons, and went swimming a few times.

Art:  She's still taking piano lessons.  It's fun to see her progress!  We did some handy crafts (although not as many as planned!) at home (doll puppets and card making), saw the Nutcracker ballet, and hit up the Children's Museum once per week to make art in the art room.

Outings:  We met up with friends at the Science Museum, Jr. Rangers classes (animal tracks and exploration by the Mississippi River, snow shelter and fire building, and snow shoeing), Minneapolis Institute of Arts to see the Terra Cotta Warriors (once in a lifetime event, here!), space lessons and the opportunity to look through the HUGE telescope at the University of Minnesota, "bring a friend day" at the St. Paul Figure Skating Club, and 4H (she learned how to use a sewing machine!  They made hats to donate to charity).

Christmas:  We spend a lot of time talking about Christmas, and doing service projects, Christmas projects, baking, etc.  It was a wonderful, simple, slow paced Christmas this year.  I loved it!

That about sums it up!  Is there anything I'd change?  Yes!  I need to up the phy ed a bit.  Perhaps we'll get into the outdoor hour again.  Oh, nature study has sort of gone by the wayside.  At least our Jr. Rangers classes are outdoors.  They're so fun!!

What's new for next quarter?  Cursive!!

Christmas 2012: A Very Relaxing Christmas

This was the Christmas I'd been wishing for for years!  In the years past, we have spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day running around from party to party, exhausting the kids, exhausting ourselves, running on a very tight schedule, and breathing a big sigh of relief when it was all over.

This year was a bit different.  Buds side of the family was out of town for Christmas, so we celebrated with them two weeks early.  My sister worked on Christmas weekend, so we celebrated with my family a week early.

All that early celebrating left us with four days of simple family time.  It was relaxing, not stressful, and blissful.  Here's what we did:

Saturday we cleaned the house and relaxed.  I had to go out and brave the crowds at JoAnn fabrics.  The store wasn't too crowded, but traffic getting there was really bad!  That'll teach me to do last minute shopping!  We just hung out at home after that, and had a movie-a-thon in the evening (Muppet Christmas Carol and Elf), and ate pizza in front of the TV.

Sunday we picked up Kinsey and headed over to Great Grandma Lenore's house for dinner and a small Christmas party.  On the way home, we swung through the drive through at Byerlys and picked up the groceries I had ordered ahead of time online.  Talk about avoiding the last minute rush!

Monday, Christmas Eve, we slept in, went ice skating, went out to dinner (I'd never been out to eat on Christmas Eve before!).  On the way out of the restaurant, Elise said "Berry Cwistmas, everybody!"  It was so cute!  She got quite a happy response from the other restaurant goers.  We then came home and baked cookies.  After we ate cookies, read the story of Christmas by candle light, and called the relatives to wish them a Merry Christmas, we let the kids open the gifts under the tree (gifts from us to them, and to each other).  The kids were eager to get to bed at a decent hour, so they'd be asleep when Santa arrived!  I love Christmas Eve after the kids are in bed!  We bring up all the Santa gifts, open up a bottle of wine, put a movie in, and wrap until the wrapping is done.  So much fun!

Christmas day the kids woke up and tore into their stockings while Bud and I slept in.  When we woke up, the girls opened their Santa gifts.  Elise's favorite was a makeup kit (that Santa thought was fake makeup, but wasn't!).  Millie's two favorite gifts were a Lego set and Pocahontas doll. Kinsey came over around 1ish.  I worked in the kitchen, slaving over a yule log.  Seriously.  It took 6 hours to make.  I'm NEVER doing that again ;)  I also made stew.  Mmmm.  We just hung out, chit chatted, and ate.  It was a fantastic day.

The night is still young (sort of)!  Bud and I are going to watch Miracle on 34th Street before calling it a night.

                          Merry Christmas!

                         Check out what other homeschool families were doing this Christmas, here.

Service Project 4 - Humane Society

Today we stopped by the Humane Society with gifts for the animals.

I'd never been to a Humane Society before.  I was really surprised at how clean and unscented it was.  The place was crawling with volunteers playing with, brushing, and petting the animals.

I didn't think we'd actually be able to get up close and personal with the animals, but the staff and volunteers were so awesome, they let the kids get right in there and pet and play with the cats and dogs.

I fell in love with a black cat named Ebony.  She was so sweet!

Included in our gift basket were pig ears, dog biscuits, wet cat food, balls with bells for the cats, hay, and special waffle shaped treats.  The girls also stuffed toilet paper tubes with hay to give to the small and furry animals.

The Humane Society has a list of suggested service projects that we could do.  I'd love to do a few more projects throughout the year!  Millie has already requested that we go back.  SOON.

Service Project 3 - Bell Ringing

This was year 5 of ringing the bell for the Salvation Army!  We always ring on the skyway level in Downtown above Macys.

We started doing it after I heard a story about my Grandma's childhood.  Her family was a poor Italian immigrant family living in a place called "the levee".  Eventually the levee was forced to be evacuated and the place was burned down because of the poor living conditions.  Anyhow, it came out at a family members funeral that if the Salvation Army hadn't been around, the children in her family wouldn't have had a Christmas at all.  So, now I like to "give back" by ringing the bell once per year.

I must say, the girls charm people into dropping lots of bills into the kettle!  They sang, handed out candy canes, danced, and just looked cute.  We had a few $20's, a few $5's, lots of $1's, and barely any change.  Good work, ladies!

Two Cowgirls Preschool - Letter M

I can tell that the season is making me really lazy.  We only did preschool one day this week.  It's very possible that next weeks lessons will be replaced with snowy, wintery, Christmas fun and service projects.

Here's what we did this week:

We read The Tomten and the Fox.  It was not my favorite, but the illustrations are super.  After that, Elise practiced writing the letter M. When we were done with that, we got on to the really fun stuff!  We went outside and gathered a cup of snow (full to the rim).  While the snow was melting, Elise practiced cutting.  When she was done, the snow was melted, and we got to see how little water there is, in fact, in a cup of snow.  It was pretty cool to observe.

That's it!  See how lazy I've been??

Here's what else we did this week:

The girls had skating lessons on Tuesday, and got to spend day with Grandma, Anna, and Kinsey, who were in town. Thursday, Elise was supposed to be in the Ballet Minnesota production of The Nutcracker, but she chickened out at the last minute.  She was already in costume and everything!  She was deathly afraid of the "rats".  So, we watched from the audience instead.  It was a fantastic production.  Next year I want to do a week long unit study about it.  Friday, cousins Ben and Patrick came over and swam for a bit.

And, just because Elise likes to challenge me, today she stated that her favorite subject is Physics.  Guess what my LEAST favorite subject is!  Oh boy.