Friendship Bread

If I ever question whether or not to continue homeschooling, I will refer myself back to this photo. The smiles, the friendship, and the joy. That about sums it up. Thank you, Lord, for making this the desire of my heart.

Little B and Her Tea

Last year my sweet girl announced that she wanted a "Butterfly Garden Tea Party", mind you, this was the DAY after her 3rd birthday "Cars Party" (that post can be found HERE). Well, her plan stuck around a full year - here are the photos to prove it!

I snuck bags of sleepytime tea in each girl's basket as a pre-"I'm sorry that your children at sugar cubes like popcorn" gesture. Butterfly confetti can be found HERE.

The girls (and the self-proclaimed "Prince for all the princesses") painted butterfly sun catchers and enjoyed a spot of tea...lemonade...as the guests all arrived.

They all ordered spaghetti, which is apparently tough to master at four...

Then we played "Pin the Teacup Under the Teapot" - I know, it needs a more creative name, but it was my answer to her last minute plea to play "Pin the Tail on the Donkey".

And of COURSE we ate some cupcakes and opened gifts! The edible butterflies can be purchased HERE.

 We were graciously hosted by a beautiful "Locally Grown" restaurant with plenty of room for the kiddos to run wild

And after 4 years I finally remembered to get my very first photo with the birthday girl!

Portfolio Friday #8 - and some APPLE BUTTER :)

We started a new curriculum this week - Five in a Row. I L O V E it!!! We do more of a "three in a row" setup, only schooling MWF, and then making our own "unit" the following week similar to the story we read. I skip language arts and math or art (depending on the week), and add those subjects in at a pre-k level to our daily morning work.

This week I chose "How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World" as our book, specifically for "fall" . . . and because I love to bake :) It's the story of a little girl who travels the world to get the ingredients for an apple pie (Italy for wheat, Sri Lanka for cinnamon, etc.)

First thing I did after I did a quick read of the book was create a "Quiet Tray" themed to the book. I set the timer for 20 minutes and let her little mind explore.

Geography

This week I used some printables from homeschoolshare.com for geography. We are making an "Apple Pie" lapbook, so they fit right in. I will share the complete book next week after our "world travel" unit. We identified the countries mentioned in the book, and briefly talked about different languages and cultures. I believe it is more appropriate for her age to only introduce these ideas, and explore them as she shows more understanding.

Smelling cinnamon from Sri Lanka

Math
The math lesson mentioned in the curriculum had to do with measurement or subtraction (you choose from a variety of activities for each subject). I thought they were both slightly over her head, so instead, we made apple butter and did our own math! We weighed the apples at the store, counted how many we put in, did a brief lesson on "time" with the crock pot, and saw how one cup of apple butter looked like "more" or "less" in different sized containers. Then we took a bunch to the ladies in my women's ministry at church, because we ended up with about three times the amount photographed!

Science
The book we read has a page explaining how this little girl turned all of the fresh product into ingredients (grinding the wheat into flour, evaporating the saltwater to salt, churning the milk into butter, etc.). We attempted the "saltwater evaporation" project that FIAR suggested. However, Hurricane Sandy turned our project into a saltwater flood, so I winged it and we made butter. Not sure how much "science" was involved, but hey, it's good butter :)

 Removing the whey

We also did a few non FIAR activities this week. Here, you see our playdate with a new homeschool friend (That second picture is hide and seek. She was really good.) and Baby J playing with our new bible character puppets.

Now for the apple butter recipe:
6 lbs peeled cored cut up apples
3 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients together and place in crock pot. Cook on high for 1 hour, low for 7-8 hours, and then low for 1 hour with lid off, stirring frequently throughout the process. Use food processor to obtain desired consistency.

Joseph's Dream Coat Craft

We are studying the story of Joseph and his dreams this week. This craft is too cute to not share a little earlier than Friday!

Fold a piece of white construction paper like so:

Flip it over and draw the following outline on back, then cut along the lines

Write your verse inside. We chose Genesis 50:19-20, but you could also choose a verse on forgiveness, protection, etc.

Cut colored strips of paper and have kids glue along front with a glue stick

Voila!