Homeschooling and Life: Week of Jan. 6-19, 2014

We had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's break, but it was back to reality last week. Normally I look forward to the return of routine, but this year I didn't. Our holidays were just so wonderful that it was hard to let them go. Nevertheless, we did...and we had a good return to school last week and continued with good times this week as well. I hope that will continue throughout the rest of the school year. Here's a look at what we did the past two weeks:

One last Christmas pic: Baby Girl's reindeer-made with her footprint and handprints

My favorite gift that Baby Girl received: a chopping set. She loves to help me chop in the kitchen, so this is perfect for her. We found it at Target and it's a Melissa & Doug toy-I love their stuff!

My other favorite Baby Girl toy: a wooden hammer & peg set-also a Melissa & Doug from Target.

Back to school pancakes

Baby Girl enjoys being back to school at her kitchen center

Little gifts for Epiphany, which was our first day back to school

We read this story.

We learned about Epiphany traditions.

We made Italian Christmas cookies for Epiphany. Here Doodles puts in the butter.

Bug pours in the sugar.

After lots more work, the final product: yummy!

We made paper snowflakes for our seasonal nature table.

Baby Girl crashed at the end of our first day back at school....

And Bug wasn't too far behind.

Bug's painting

Baby Girl's painting

Doodles' painting

Bug wrote a report about rattlesnakes.

Bug also read about the differences in snake and lizard scales.

Bug looked at pictures of snakes.

Doodles sketched the life cycle of a frog

Doodles also sketched Celtic artwork: picture number one

Picture number two

Our dog's water froze in her water bowl-really cold temps for our neck of the woods!

Bug learned about the periodic table of the elements

Experiment to demonstrate surface tension of water (that's pepper in the bowl.)

The pepper "scoots" away when you add a toothpick dipped in handsoap.

Using a staple to demonstrate surface tension

The staple also "backs up" when you add a soap-dipped toothpick.

Baby Girl works on finding her hidden toy. I am using a new curriculum with her. It's called Flowering Baby. We are loving it!

Baby Girl is looking....

and she found her toy dustpan!

Doodles wrote a paragraph about the Komodo dragon.

Baby Girl and I read this book and talked about facial features.

I made owl cupcakes for my Five in a Row co-op class. We "rowed" Owl Moon.

My Five in a Row class made these owl nature collages.

I added my collage to our seasonal nature table at home.

Bug sketched the life cycle of a snake.

Baby Girl played with blocks.

Doodles wrote a report about penguins.

Baby Girl learned about animal sounds with this fun little finger puppet book.

Doodles sketched this hut for her Oak Meadow studies.

Baby Girl made a mess!

Apparently messes don't bother Baby Girl. :)

Baby Girl learned about colors this week and I helped her with this picture.

Doodles made a game about animals for science.

Bug learned how to compare decimals in math class.

This is the Spanish curriculum I am using to teach Doodles.

Bug read about different diseases carried by insects.

We made snowman cupcakes-just for fun!