Kool Aide Play-Dough

We made play-dough today. This activity never seems to grow old. We really have to give Dad most of the credit because he went to the store for us three times to get supplies. Hi5 to Dad! :D

We modified a recipe I found on recipe.com  

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

2 tablespoon cooking oil (you can use only 1)

2 teaspoons cream of tarter

1 package unsweetened Kool Aid

1 cup of water

Mix dry ingredients. 

Add oil and water. 

Cook over medium heat. (Wait till the play dough gets a little darker then flip it. Does not take more then 5 mins if pan has been preheated.

Place cooked play-dough on to wax paper or bread board and knead

Store in air tight containers. We use ziplock bags. 

There are recipes that don't require cooking or cream of tarter on the recipe.com site.  I prefer the feel of cooked play-dough. Both BigH and LittleE enjoyed wearing their new aprons for the creation. The play-dough smells delicious it's a good thing it's non toxic. Another thing you can do is add sparkles, sand, lentils, or dried peas to add some texture to the play-dough.  

Step One

Get out the ingredients I pre-measured but often I let the kids dig around in the flour and measure themselves. 

Pour in dry ingredients.

Add the oil to the water and mix with dry ingredients.

Mix well and cook on medium heat in a frying pan.

 Ta da! Play-Dough

Wrap Up Febuary 7-11

We had such a fun week. BigH & LittleE's big brother J came up for the week. To add to that excitement kids attended a birthday party. It was extra special because after a delicious lunch a Boston Pizza they went to Game On Interactive Fitness.  It was cool to have fun and play with the kids and funner still to play with my adult friends and still be with my children. Dance Revolution here I come. I love places that encourage multi-generational interactions. Seeing all different ages playing together it was so much fun. It was our first time there and I know we will be returning again sometime soon with Dad in tow.

We did manage to get some school work done. We finished Understood Betsy which turned out to be my second favorite book this year. The kids are working on Math U See alpha & beta lesson 9. Next week LittleE will be working exclusively on her math flash cards 2+ and 3+ tables.

They have worked on week 7 in their Sonlight science program learning about the animals of North America. They have been marking out on the map of N. America different habitat and naming animals that live there. Brother J did their science lesson with them.

LittleE has finished reading book 13 in HOP K and has one last book to read before moving on to the next level. She has also finished her copy work for, 'Who Has Seen The Wind' by Christian Roesetti. BigH is working on Book 2 ETC Online he's been working with initial consonants 'gl' and has been working hard at mastering it. I put a proper capital 'I' on the keyboard so he would not confuse it for the 'L' which he was doing.

In Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind the kids have been learning about proper nouns for their town, province and country. They have also spent some time copying out their proper home address.

For crafts this week we've been working on decorating Valentines cards.
 J cut up the card stock for us and the kids used heart shaped potato stamps, paint, ribbon and precut  by me hearts  from scrapbook paper. I think the children have done some beautifu work.



BY J, BigH & LittleE Feb 2011:



Christmas Decorating with Gifts From Nature

Had a fun day today decided to use up some old crayons and decorate some pine cones for the Christmas tree. I was not the brilliant mom who thought up this wonderful craft we found it here don't blame me if you get addicted to that site.

 The kids took great joy in peeling the paper off the crayons and we melted the crayon wax plus a little bees wax. In a double boiler style over the stove, once it was melted.  We tied  yarn  around the pine cones the kids dipped the cones in the wax. I helped out making sure the top part of the cones got covered.

It was BigH's idea to use the left over wax in some ice cube trays we had to make crayons. They turned out very nice with more of a consistency of pastels. The bees wax softened the crayon wax considerable and we now have some beautiful blue & green crayons.





“Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher

 



Other things we accomplished this week @ homeschool

We have completed lesson 6 in Alpha & Beta Math U See lessons

Completed Lessons 9 & 10, First Language Lessons;For the Well Trained Mind (more work on common and proper nouns and capitalization.)

A Children's History Of the World we have read chapter 7 and have placed our first timeline sticker in our 'Book of Time' at 3100 bc noting King Narmar that united Upper & Lower Egypt.

LittleE is more then half way through her HOP K book she's on pg. 82 working on words ending in 'un'.

BigH is working away on Explode the Code Online and been reading some of LittleE's HOP books which has been wonderful.

We continue to work on 'The Land of Counterpane' for BigH and 'The Wind' for LittleE each day they work very carefully doing one page of copy work. They will also usually draw a picture was well to go with this copy work.

We have also been diligently working on the day's of the week in Spanish we founds this cute video that has been helpful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5WHgkjL3kE&feature=related We go over the Spanish days of the week while we are doing calender time.

We have been going over almost daily, The Duggar family guidlines which we renamed, 'Family Beliefs'.

* BigH received a certificate of Achievement from his BC 4-H Cloverbud unit 3!  My boy congratulations!!! This year they learned about pigs, goats, bicycle safety, dogs, clothing, and sewing to name a few things. LittleE did all the same work but she was not old enough to officially join. Everyone acknowledged her and clapped for her knowing that the only reason she did not get a certificate was because of her age. That's ok she took it well and she is now old enough to be a Cloverbud.



I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go, I will
       counsel you and watch over you. ~   Psalm 32:8                                                                                  

Good Luck Crosses

We've been reading, "The Usborne Book Of House And Homes" the kids and I have been enjoying it and decided to take a craft project from the book and make Huichols (American Indian peoples who live in the mountains of western Mexico) Good Luck Crosses aka God's Eyes. I learned to make these when I was a child. They are pretty and can be very colourful. We decided to make ours with natural wool in neutral colours.

The children found sticks in the back yard and used those as the crosses. I helped my daughter by holding the cross and letting her weave the yarn and with my son I just got him started and he followed along and did the rest of his cross on his own.

"Self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child's nature."~ Charlotte Mason