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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Our Corn Lessons!

This week, we had a really nice time studying CORN!

 Our Bible memory Verses. We had 2 for this week.

 We studied the Life Cycle of Corn and made these cute little Indian Corn Crafts!
 The girls had a lot of fun painting with corn cobs!
 I set up an "Estimation Station" with jars filled with various items (apples, pumpkins, fall gems, pompoms, etc) and had the girls try to estimate the number of items in each jar.
 They really loved this activity!
 Em counted all of the pumpkins--all 31 of them:)
 The girls tallied their results. They did pretty well at estimating!
 Em enjoyed working with our "Eye Spy" Jar. I would ask her to find certain things for me or she would just call out what she found.
 The girls with their Indian Corn Crafts they made.

 Just having fun being "corny!" Ha, ha!
 Em worked with our Letter C drawer.
 Elle wrote a fall acrostic poem.
 Em worked on her one-to-one number recognition by putting the corresponding number of gems into each cupcake paper. I wrote the numbers 1-6 and 7-12 on paper cupcake liners and she put in the appropriate number of gems.
 Elle wrote a short story based on the bird and the corn cob.
 Em working on her geography. She knows the 7 continents and enjoys learning about animals that live on each continent.
 Elle schooling Em on the equator, the compass directions and more!
 The girls made these beautiful Indian Corn necklaces. We soaked the corn kernels in water overnight and laced them onto thread.
 The girls made these corn prints using bubble wrap to imprint the paint colors.
 Painting with corn husks. We are always trying new formats for learning!
We discussed thoughts on what people used for paint brushes before anyone had invented paint brushes. The girls came up with all kinds of funny ideas!
 Elle describing her artwork to us:).
 I put together a Fall Sensory Tray for the girls. They took turns picking items and classifying them based on their textures. We also put the items into a pillow case and played a "Touch & Feel" Guessing game--it was really fun!


 Elle working on the tower. She had to move quickly, before her little sisters came to knock it down!
 Elle working on her calendar and days of the week. She also did the weather station.
Elle is also working on addition and subtraction.
Here, Elle is doing addition using Dominoes.
 During Elle's free time, she designed an Obstacle Course!
 Em wanted to pull out the two-part cards. She loves working with anything that has animals on it!
 These were a challenge for her, but with some practice, she mastered it and had fun!!
Here is our new "Imagination Station." I found this beautiful box at a thrift store and put in a picture I had of some clouds and a blue sky. I really want the sky to be the limit with this activity!


I simply tossed in a bunch of household items and allow the girls to use their imaginations to come up with whatever inventions they would like!!! It has been fun watching their little minds work~especially the baby--she LOVES this box {and she loves playing with her Daddy}!

And, of course, we had a lot of fun eating foods with corn! I have a very cranky, teething toddler right now(who still REFUSES to sleep at night or nap well), so I was short on time to take photos this week. We enjoyed corn muffins with corn kernels baked inside, corn on the cob, corn chips, tacos, and corn salad!

We certainly hope you have enjoyed our corn unit! See you next time!
Blessings,
Aria:)

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Our Pumpkin Lessons!

We are having a ball exploring all of our fun, fall lessons!
The latest unit has been all about PUMPKINS!!

Our Bible Memory Verse.
The girls had a lot of fun decorating this little pumpkin!
 We recently took a trip to the Pumpkin Patch---we had a great time as a family!
Prior to cleaning out our pumpkin seeds, we read this book and the girls filled out their "Pumpkin Prediction Page."

 Seriously, so much FUN!
 The seeds from our large pumpkin on the left, our small pumpkin seeds on the right.
 We roasted our pumpkin seeds and enjoyed them as a snack.
I try to spare you the worksheet pages. Elle is currently working through a 1st grade math workbook and loves it! She has been studying number lines, addition and subtraction and odd vs. even numbers.
For breakfast one day, I made the girls Pumpkin Egg Toast.
Elle working on her "Parable of the Sower" Bible Story Book.
Reading the pages and putting them all in order.
We made some incredible Pumpkin Butter in the crockpot!!
The recipe called for maple syrup----so amazing!
The girls all enjoyed some PE in the bounce house while waiting on the pumpkin butter to cook!
It's so cute and fun now that the baby is confident enough to play in the bounce house with the big girls:-)
Ta Da!! Delish!!
I also threw together a quick Brown Bread. It is really healthy with whole wheat flour, oatmeal and flax seeds!
So, so good!
Everyone LOVED the brown bread and pumpkin butter. We shared it with our neighbors as well!
We also made some homemade butternut squash soup! A Fall Favorite in our family!

My lunch---yummo!!
We also did "Sink or Float" pumpkin experiments.

 Working on the "Life Cycle of a Pumpkin".

 The girls also made pumpkin life cycle plates.
Our decorated pumpkins and our mini pumpkin pies!.
The girls get free time where they can choose anything they want to do. This time, Elle was coming up with math equations while I was cooking lunch!
 
All on her own-so proud!
 The girls wrote stories about their pumpkins.
 Ce Ce, learning along:)
We spent some time on "weights and measures."
 Elle's Pumpkin Story.
 Art Fun-decorating mini pumpkins.

 During Em's free time, she drew a picture of us holding hands. I think we were going shopping together, lol.
 The girls cut pieces of string to estimate the circumference of their pumpkins and then measured them to compare their results.


 We also made Pumpkin Play Dough. It is so easy-just toss everything into the pot. We even added glitter!

The girls love playing with the warm play dough. It smells so good and is so smooth! The orange color really turned out perfectly, too!

We took another trip to a farm with our Homeschool Group friends.  It was a gorgeous fall day and the girls really had a fun time with their buddies:)
"Pumpkin School!" Just another example that "learning can take place ANYWHERE!"

Elle had a ball giggling with her girlfriends on the long wagon ride:-).

Em picked out the perfect little pumpkin!

 Thank you so much for checking out our blog!
We hope you stick around and share some ideas as well!
We always appreciate your kind comments!
Blessings,
Aria:)