An Artsy Kind of Week

This week started out with our yearly Achievement Tests.  Though these are not required in our state, I like to give them as we are finishing up our year just to make sure we are staying on track.  We use the California Achievement Test (CAT) which we buy through Seton Homeschool.  Monday was all about testing...a.very.long.day!

I decided the rest of the week should be a little more relaxed than usual.  We would throw in some fun stuff and leave off some of the not so fun stuff.  Artsy Girl will still be learning about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War and Soccer Boy will still be learning all about the letter "X".

So, today I let Artsy Girl do a little art review of all the artists we have learned about this week.  Her favorites are O'Keeffe, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh and Pollock.  She decided to sit outside on this beautiful 75 degree day and do a little painting.  So, I got out some new paints, paintbrushes and a canvas.  She was super excited to have "big girl" art supplies and not the ones she has to share with her younger brother.  She painted a very lovely fruit bowl which will now be hanging somewhere in our home.  We have lots of her art pieces framed and hanging around the house.  No, they are no Van Gogh's.  But, they are priceless to us.  She loves seeing her art around the house and it gives her self confidence a boost.

We also celebrated a big accomplishment today too.  Soccer Boy has learned to count to 100!  We celebrated today by having pizza, cookies and popcorn.  Artsy Girl made the pizza dough all by herself using her Pearables Home Economics book.  She then made a "100" out of pepperoni...super cute.  Soccer Boy loved the special snacks and is eagerly ready to start counting higher.

A Little Home Economics please...

So, I have been reluctant (aka...lazy) when it comes to teaching my daughter her way around the kitchen.  I have been researching different Home Ec type courses to use with her and my son too when he is a little older.  I came across The Pearables and have found it to be quite user-friendly.  It has about 30 lessons.  We will be doing one a week to help introduce her to cooking, baking, sewing, etc.  I skipped the first few lessons, as we had already covered the basics.

We jumped right into the lesson on baking  (# 6) and I let her make her very own batch of chocolate chip muffins.  Of course, the recipe calls for plain muffins.  But my sweet girl wanted to add a few chocolate chips...chocolate DOES make everything better!  I walked her through it, but let her do all the measuring and mixing.  I did place them in and out of the oven for her.  She did the cleanup too.  She was sooo excited that she had made her very own muffins all by herself.  I like the fact that each lesson is layed out for us.  I do a lot of cooking and baking myself, but having a specific lesson plan is great.

More posts to come on the wonderful food creations she makes!

Our Easter Gardens

I decided to take some time this Easter holiday and reflect upon the true meaning of our Savior's Resurrection.  I have seen several variations of an Easter Garden, so I decided to make our own too.  I let both kids make their own.

We gathered two large saucers, 2 paper cups, 2 large stones from the backyard, potting soil, grass seed, small bag of pebbles, 6 small sticks for the crosses,  and a spray bottle of water.

I would definitely recommend doing this little project outside, but since it was cold and raining, we opted for inside.  As the kids put their gardens together, we talked about why we were planting this garden.  I told them the story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection and how important it is to not only at this special time, but each and every day thank God for sending Jesus to us.  This helped them to really understand the empty tomb (large rock and empty cup) and the meaning of the three crosses (glued sticks).  We planted our gardens one week before Easter and luckily we had the first sprouts on Easter morning...perfect!

We used the spray bottle of water and sprayed them each day and here's the results after only one week.

These look beautiful on our table and the kids just love looking for new sprouts each morning...it has become a little bit of a competition.  All in all, a very easy but messy project.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone to help kids remember the importance of this wonderful time of year.