Home School Weekly Digest

Boy was it a challenge for me to get back into "school" mode with Hope! I have so much to catch up on after being gone, but it was nice to take the afternoons to spend with her and just rest from my to-do list.

For science she is studying birds right now. Each state that we study has a state bird that we learn about and she colors it in on the state sheet. We had a few fun activities this past week. One was to make nests that we could eat. We did not have the exact ingredients so we substituted. We melted and mixed 1 cup choc chips with 1 cup peanut butter (aka: mud). Into that we mixed shredded wheat (aka: grass) and Fiber One cereal (aka: twigs). Hope formed 4 little nests. It was pretty hard to do! We put them in the fridge to harden and then served them with red grapes (aka: eggs) for dessert. Yum!
At the end of the week we used an empty soda bottle to make a bird feeder. I don't have a photo of it outdoors, but we hung it up at the end of our porch so we can see it from the front window. Hopefully the birds will find it before the squirrels figure out how to reach it!
We are studying each state as it joined the Union. Last week was Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland and South Carolina. For each day we find the state on a map, color it in on a paper map and the color the state sheet. Hope loves to look at the state card which shows in color the state bird and flower. I read some interesting facts or a library book about that state.

We are learning America The Beautiful now and listen to it a few time a week. Hope loves to sing. We also started reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's book Farmer Boy. She writes in such a captivating way. Hope did her dictation from her favorite part of the book: Almanzo goes into the barn and watches the new baby horses. He's not allowed to touch them, but still they are his favorite. Almanzo is 9 in the book and grew up to marry the real Laura who authored the books. Farmer Boy tells of his life growing up on a farm.
Farmer Boy has a part in it where Almanzo remembers a popcorn and milk trick. You can fill a glass full of milk and another the same size full of popcorn. One at a time put the popcorn in the glass of milk and it will not overflow. It sounded pretty amazing so we tried it.
Wouldn't you know, it worked! Owen and Emma ate all the soggy popcorn-ewwww.
My mom took the older two to story and craft at the library so I could get more to-dos checked off. They made Christmas wreaths from red and green cut outs of their hands and then put glitter glue all over them. Later that day we prepared lentil soup. There was a lot of chopping involved and I figured Hope was old enough to use a REAL knife under supervision. She was so excited. She chopped carrots, celery and potatoes. Owen and Emma did not want to be left out, so they used butter knives to "chop" green beans. The soup was delicious and everyone ate some because they helped make it.
~Rose
p.s. Hope vacuumed and mopped the whole main level yesterday. All I had to do was sweep! She told me she loves house work. Now if that is not music to my ears, I don't know what is!