horns, Jericho walls rebuilt, King May I?, science & storytime cookies

This post is loaded with pics as we did a lot of activities during our school time this morning...

K reviewed her letters - she chose to circle "Ee" in the top section and then had to match the letters correctly on the bottom.  She did it correctly and made her lines a bit creatively...just like D does.  Oh boy!

She drew "horns" (triangles) in each box of her "count on me" paper.  I drew one, then she drew one and we went on like this until the 5th one which she did all by herself to finish the page.  Her "horns" weren't exactly triangles, but they were "horns" to her so I guess that's all that matters...we'll work more on being exact next year!  :o)

Her Bible story was about the walls of Jericho falling down and so we built a circular "city" with our cardboard blocks.  Then K marched around it...

Then D joined in and K was being bossy, telling him not to touch the blocks because he'd knock one over as he cut the circle too close.

When it came time for the walls to fall down D smashed the whole thing himself... 

K was not happy (arms crossed, scowl on her face) and D's expression says "What?"...

So we rebuilt the walls and then K got to knock it down all by herself...

D's Bible story today was about Esther approaching the King.  We played a version of "King, May I?" where I began as the King and D began as the Queen.  He had to ask me if he could take a certain number/kind of steps toward me.  If I raised the scepter (we used K's "magic mirror") then he could take that many steps.  If I didn't raise the scepter he had to stand still.  Once he reached me, he asked to save the lives of his people just like Esther did in the Bible story.  We played two rounds so he had a chance to be the King, too.

Here's a picture of his handwriting from today.  I had written -y words that we're reading & learning about in Phonics Pathways.  He did well copying them.  He could tell me when consonants are doubled or left alone when the -y is added.  Hooray!  Love when he can teach back to me!

The chapter in Peter Cottontail today was all about Peter deciding he will sleep all winter just like the other animals.  D and I had a good laugh about this...a rabbit hibernating?! We'll finish the book early next week.

After D's "regular" schoolwork was done, we got out the Pop Bottle Science kit.  We picked two to do today.

For the first experiment, we used a medicine dropper to drop water drops into the pop bottle cap.  We counted the drops to see how many it took to fill the cap...239.  We then dumped the water out and wiped the cap with one drop of dish detergent (we did not rinse it).  We then added water drops again, only this time only 160 drops filled the cap.  D learned it's because of the soap residue - it mixes with the water and doesn't allow the molecules to stick together as well as when there's just a clean cap & water drops.

For the second experiment, we filled the bottom section of the pop bottle with water, D dumped pepper on top of the water then stuck his finger into it.  Nothing happened, some pepper stuck on his finger.  He then rubbed his fingertip on a bar of soap, then stuck his finger in the pepper water.  The pepper immediately "swam" away from his fingertip to the sides of the bottle.  He loved it!  He learned that the soap mixes with the water molecules and makes the water molecules less clingy.  As the molecules relaxed, it changed the surface tension and pushed the pepper outwards to the sides of the bottle.

After science we read two stories about bears for our "storytime" today...Old Bear & Little Bear's Trousers. I had made a small batch of snickerdoodle dough right after breakfast this morning and tucked it away in the fridge without the kids knowing.  The kids were delighted when I pulled out the dough and told them they could make teddy bear face cookies themselves.  Oh what fun!  It kept them occupied for 45 minutes. While the cookies baked, they ate lunch and then devoured a few after they were cooled.  Yum!

  

 

K added a nose (mini chocolate chip) to one of her cookies along with 2 eyes...I thought it turned out really cute.  Looks like I'll have two great little cookie-bakers for Christmas cookies this year!  :o)