November is National Peanutbutter Month

We are learning about George Washington Carver this year and he had a lot to do with the peanut industry here in the United States. I'll have some peanut butter related recipes added soon... so sorry to those with an allergy!

http://www.nationalpeanutboard.org/classroom-funfacts.php

Kid's page - http://www.buddymcnutty.com/

PA Book Club - The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!

We read, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, was written by Barbara Robinson. It is a funny story about a bunch of misbehaved siblings who decide that they are going to take all the big roles in the pageant. In the end, what was a routine holiday event became one of wonder once again.

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Classical Conversatons Picture Day

Hannah's Foundations Group

All Foundations Groups

Foundations, Essentials and Challenge Groups

Soap Making

We made soap for birthday presents, but of course we made it a school lesson relating it to the pioneer times and how they made their own soap.

A little Thanksgiving trivia:
Did you know that the Puritans believed that it was dangerous to bathe because they thought that there was infections spirits in the wind and water.

Hannah and I went to our neighbor's house to make glycerin based soap and used glitter and scented oils. Alyssa and I made an easy recipe found online for oatmeal soap:

1 bar Dove soap, grated
4 -5 Tbsp water
3-4 Tbsp oatmeal, ground, but with some texture, not flour
Molds (we used tall cookie cutters)

Microwave soap and water on high, stopping to stir between each minute. Add oatmeal a little bit at a time. Pour or scoop into molds.

The Sun

Why Do Elephants Need the Sun? by Robert E Wells (ISBN 978-0-8075-9081-2) was a book Hannah picked from the library. She usually has a mountain of books to bring home, but this was the ONLY book she wanted this week. It was the BEST book.

Hannah painted a paper plate and we wrote different facts about the sun on the slips of paper that are the suns rays. We took this picture at our front yard... between the angle and the camera's flash, Hannah looked like she was cut and pasted into the scenery.

Sun Dials

It's Saturday and we're still doing school! After reading a couple of books about the sun, we decided to make our own sun dials.

Mad Science Club Vol.1

We made slime and fake blood!

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cc - Cycle 3 - American History

Anne Bradstreet - It's important American Poet

http://www.annebradstreet.com/

Classical Conversations

We have joined a group called Classical Conversations which encourages learning by the classical process of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. We are learning the peaks of the timeline of the world, American History, American Geography, basic English grammar, Latin, skip counting math, science experiments through the Scientific Method, art and music on Wednesday mornings. Hannah loves it and even does the individual presentations that they are asked to do each week.


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Advertising

Hannah has asked about how advertising works and has tried her hand at it in different ways. This time, her Sunday School class is taking on a service project. They are collecting new or gently used pillowcases to be made into dresses. The organization is "Dress A Girl Around the World." Today, she got to stand up with her Sunday School teacher as they announced the project to the Women's Tuesday morning Bible study using her poster.

Mono prints

For our Park Academy summer birthday cards, we made sand dollar mono prints.

Homeschool links

LInk for cursive writing:

http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/cursive/paragraph/index.html

A Snail Finds A Home

While walking Alyssa to school, we came upon a snail. On our way back, Hannah decided that it needed a new home. So today, we learned all we could about garden snails. His/her name is Hannah Lynne Jaffe.

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Candyland

Driving home from dropping Alyssa at preschool, Hannah was chattering away about what she wanted to do for the morning. Halfway listening to her, I heard her talking about Candyland and the new way she wanted to play the game. She sounded to matter-of-fact and grown up and was saying something about making the colors count for something and I patiently waited too see if she could come up with the word "value". She did. I finally heard what she was saying and laughed at myself as I realized that she had just created our math assignment for the day.

Based on the Cuisenair Rods we often use for Math, she gave the tiles of the board the same value. The pink ones would only get one point. Hannah who likes to be in charge, was in charge of keeping the score. We played until someone made it to 100. Hannah won with a score of 108 while I had 89.

And we never did make it to the candy castle!

Hannah's Art

CA ScienCenter Field Trip

Not only did we get to go and explore the California ScienCenter for the first time and see the IMAX Under the Sea movie, we also had a tour of the Paleontology Lab at the Natural History Museum.

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Quilt #3

Hannah did a marvelous job with Catherine's quilt.  This time around, she helped a lot more and wanted more independence where she has gained more confidence.  Catherine was thrilled with her blanket... I just loved hearing her draw her breath in excitement over it!



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Art Class

It's a detail that can be easily missed if you weren't the art teacher of your daughter's coop.  I've been using the Mona Brookes, Monart method for teaching kids (and grown ups too) to draw.  They have just started drawing cubes and cylinders.  I'm not teaching perspective, but observation of lines.  Hannah had drawn this angel on her own.  It's our tree topper.  Normally, she would have simply drawn a straight line across the bottom of the angel's skirt.  I only noticed it because we had just been talking about it in our drawing class.