Home Schooling Summary for the Last Week

Another fabulous week of homeschooling! We had a class at what is fast becoming our favorite (of several) local nature center with our favorite teacher -- Miss Katrina.  Baby S was stunned by how much warmer it was to get inside. 

Button Lovers Sweater Pattern

 In honor of Ground Hog Day, she read us this funny book called Groundhog Weather School.

Then all the kids colored little ground hogs and attached them to popsicle sticks.

We went outside to see whether our ground hogs would see their shadows or not. No shadows!

Then we went inside to play with the "shadow maker" and all the kids held up their puppets and a variety of other animal puppets from the box to see their shadows.

 The weather outside was slippery freezing rain, but we made it there and back okay.

I thought of writing a funny letter to Amazon this week. It would have read something like this:
Dear Amazon,
I am returning the other size of the boots I ordered in new condition, just as I received them.  I cannot say the same for the shipping box however. During the 24 hours that it spent at our home it has been used by my imaginative children as a table, a boat, a large birthday surprise, and a burrow. They were sorry to part with it. Please excuse its used condition.
Sincerely,
A Mother of Preschoolers

It has been a cold winter and putting out (hickory) nuts for the squirrels has become a favorite weekly activity. They usually come around lunch time and we watch them out the dining room window.

Ice skating is still A's favorite activity -- they had race this week and she was by far the fastest skater. Her teacher told daddy that she is ready to move on the next level.  Here they are practicing picking up toys and putting them into the bucket.

 Big sister A finished another module of "drawing and clay" class this week. This time they talked about the various types of whales. She painted the picture and molded the sculpture below. I think this class has been really good for her socialization. She is less shy and better at listening to the teacher.

At home this week we focused a lot on learning to tell time. Our old dining room clock petered out so I bought a larger one that shows the minutes more clearly.

For the most part, we used the M&D clock that the kids got for Christmas. Big sister A can tell me all the hour and the half hour times now, but we are still practicing the quarter hours and minutes.  This clock puzzle is great because it actually shows the minute numbers (5-10-15-20 etc) on the inner circle all the way around the clock.

We also did some more exercises in this cool vintage spelling book that we found at the thrift store while our buddies were visiting over the holidays.