I’ve spent the past two weeks battling allergies, sinus pressure, and coughing fits, but I think that finally (today in fact) I have turned the corner and am on the mend. I did fit in some school the past two weeks, but only managed to actually get one week of school finished. Allergies are so exhausting and the energy level is just zapped, but I feel better today than I have in three weeks. Yay!!!

I got my birthday present laminator in the mail from Amazon about the time I started feeling poorly. Just so you understand how bad I’ve felt, this baby has only been used twice since I got it. I feel an all day laminating marathon coming on soon!

Here’s what everyone else has been up to over the past two weeks:

Part of her mythological creatures study has been the art aspect of drawing the mythological creatures she learns about. Thanks to this book which was a gift from Gran: Chipette has been able to draw this picture of a griffin: And this picture of a Eastern hemisphere dragon (no wings!): She is saving all of her pictures to add to her bestiary during the last week of mythological creatures.

Chipette is never one to miss out on finding a new creature and while at church one night she found a moth on the side of the church building. She liked it because of “Its awesome camouflage, Mom!” She put it in a jar and brought it home. Then, lo and behold, the next morning Mommy Moth had laid a bunch of eggs in our jar. We are hoping they will hatch so we can raise some more caterpillars. Our house is seriously turning into an ongoing biology experiment. Raising tadpoles, hatching caterpillars, hermit crabs, goldfish, and a dog! They hatched this morning!!!! ACK!

Magpie and I finished up our literature study of Click Clack Moo these past two weeks. This book has long been a family favorite and we had a lot of fun doing some of the literature tie-ins that came with this unit.

She painted spots on the cow using a crumpled paper towel and black tempera paint: We watched this video on YouTube of a man milking a cow. Then we practiced milking our own “cow” via synthetic gloves filled with water. Even Chipette wanted to get in on this one! Finally Magpie wrote a letter (technically I wrote it, but she dictated) to Farmer Brown from the viewpoint of a different animal on the farm. She chose a pig and this was her letter: In case you can’t read it in the picture it says, “Dear Farmer Brown, The sty is really uncomfortable. We want some couches to lay on because it is bouncier than the ground. Sincerely, The Pigs.”

In math we combined two of our favorite math programs: MEP Reception and Cuisenaire rods. Magpie used the rods to figure out the answers to some of the basic addition and subtraction questions during her MEP lesson. She was trying to find out how many more things were needed to make seven. So she got out the seven rod (black) and proceeded to figure out how many more cups the table needed if there were already six on the table. Easy to see using the rods that only one more cup is needed to have seven! She had already done a bunch of these using the number bonds of 4+3, 3+4, 5+2, 2+5, but wanted me to take a picture of this one. It’s amazing how quickly she can look at the rods and get the answer!

In Spanish the girls were learning the vocabulary terms caliente and frío, so I came up with a game where I printed off pictures of things that were hot and cold. I spread them out on the floor and would say caliente or frío as they jumped to the appropriate picture. They really enjoyed this so I’m thinking we need to use this game to review more of our Spanish vocabulary!!!

Chipette helped Monkey make Christmas gifts (cards) for family this year. Not sure why we’re getting such a head start, but better early than late!

And Monkey just had to read his very own Basher book along with the sisters… Now we’ve just got to work on actually having the book the correct direction while reading!

*In case you haven’t heard of Basher books, they are wonderful! My girls adore the pictures and the characters really help my kids remember terminology used in science, math, grammar, even music! Check your local library and see if you can get your hands on some of these. We are slowly collecting them all for our home library.*

Glad to be feeling better and more productive (I hope!) in the tree house,
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