New Year's Eve

This is a little late, but I wanted to share the fun we had on New Year's Eve. My kids love celebrating everything. For the last few years, they've been able to stay up until midnight to see the ball drop.


Our dining room table decorated with party hats, plates, napkins, and confetti.



Our activity bags/gifts ready to go. This idea was in Family Fun magazine and I've also seen it on the Five in a Row message boards. We've done it the last few years and the kids really like it. Most of the stuff is similar to what we did before, but they find it exciting to open stuff. Each one has a clock on it with the time to open it. They also have a little rhyme on each one so the kids can guess what's inside before opening.



Ready for the party

One of the bags had these 2012 glasses in it.

Decorating cookies

 Clock cookies

This puzzle ball was one of the gifts they got.

They also got Disney Headbandz. They have the regular one and really like it. They thought this one was really fun too.

Fun with sparklers

When midnight came, Molly decided she had to kiss Caleigh and chased her all around until they both ended up on the ground.

So Colin decided to do the same thing to Molly.

She didn't run from Daddy though.

The girls made Goodbye 2011 and Welcome 2012 signs.

Inside our bags:
1. Bubbles to keep the kids busy while waiting for pizza
2. 2012 glasses and party blowouts
3. Cookie decorating supplies
4. Globe puzzle
5. Disney Headbandz game
6. Zookeeper movie and popcorn
7. Sparklers and poppers
8. Wine glasses for a toast

Our Week: Getting Back into a Routine

We started back to school on Tuesday after 2 weeks off and a week before that of light school. It went so much better than I expected. We only took a short break for Thanksgiving and the kids had such a hard time starting back so I was prepared for it to be a rough week.

Three Rs

Colin started back with RightStart Geometry. He mostly worked on finding the area of lots of different shapes.
Caleigh is one lesson away from finishing RightStart Level C. She really liked working with tangrams this week.
Molly has been working more on place value by adding 1, 10, and 100 to numbers. She also started working on telling time again.

Colin and Caleigh both did Writing With Ease and a Spell to Write and Read lesson along with some grammar activities that went with it.
Molly is continuing Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading and her handwriting.
They will all start back with regular grammar next week.

History

We read about the Moghul emperors of India and how they eventually lost control.

We also read about the Salem witch trials.

Science

We started chemistry this week. We're using Real Science-4-Kids Level 1. We'll also be using Fizz, Bubble, and Flash along with lots of library books. RS4K is actually a level above where the girls should be, but that's the level that is best for Colin. My goal for them is just exposure at this point and I hope they'll find the experiments fun. They want to understand everything though so they're asking a lot of questions and I'm having to go back and explain a lot of it to them. We learned about matter, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, and the periodic table.
We read What's the Matter in Mr. Whisker's Room and Bartholowmew and the Oobleck. We made our own oobleck just like in these books. We mixed 2 cups of cornstarch, 1 cup of water, and a few drops of green food coloring.

 

 

Colin also started the second part of his Biology class. It's the first academic class he's taken and he's doing so well. They are also using Real Science-4-Kids.

Everything Else



While Colin was in his science class, the girls had to go visit the horses again. They're so fascinated with them and will spend an hour just looking at them and trying to feed them.

 

 

 

Colin had his two regular ice hockey practices. He also went to tryouts for a travel roller hockey team twice.

Christmas Pictures

Christmas Treats

Santa Pancake

 

These were easy for the girls to do all by themselves and only 3 ingredients.

 

 

 

The girls thought spreading peanut butter was fun. They tried to help roll, but I had to do most of it because it kept trying to break.

 

 

A Visitor from the North Pole

We had a visitor for a few weeks in December. One evening, we found this book in our school room.

 

The next morning, there was an elf in our living room. The kids named him Elmer. He was always moving around when they weren't looking and getting into things. The girls had a great time searching for him.

Here are some of the places he was found:

taking a marshmallow bath

 

 

 

snow angels in flour

The girls saying good-bye to Elmer the Elf on Christmas Eve before Santa came to pick him up.

 

A December Visit to the Beach

Colin had hockey games in Charleston, SC so we took the opportunity to go to the beach. We went to the Isle of Palms, which is the one we visited a lot when we lived near there because it was so close.