Valentine's Wrap Up

 We had a lot of Valentine fun over the last week or so and here are the pictures to prove it!  Alice and Jay went to the Daddy Daughter Dance the Saturday before Valentine's Day.  Her bear was dressed up, too!

 Ready to go!

 Jack was my date for the evening--well, for the first part, at least.  Jay and I had his work party to go to later in the evening.

 We went to see The LEGO Movie for the second time.

 

 When there's just one kid, Mom will spring for nachos!

 This week the kids had a Valentine party with their PE group, too.  This was the first year we've done premade cards and there was no way to convince Alice she didn't have to write her name in the From and the To sections.  I figure it was good handwriting practice.

 We found these cute (and really easy to put together) boxes for their cards.

 Passing out cards to friends

 Playing a Minute to Win It game

 On Valentine's Day Jack got a new G.I. Joe figure in his mailbox.

 Alice got a new Build A Bear outfit.

 In the afternoon, we went skating.  Alice didn't use her Skate Mate the entire time!

 Going every month has definitely helped them improve!

 One of the treats in their mailboxes was going to the cupcake shop where they have this make your own bath stuff.  We were going to go on Thursday, but we stayed at the party too late to fit it in before swimming, and when we tried to do it on Friday, the shop was closed because they had sold out of cupcakes!  So Saturday morning we went in to make the stuff and have some cupcakes!

 Alice made the ice cream kind.

 Jack with his mad scientist creation!

 You could pick a certain number of icky things to include in your jar.

Alice added sparkles and sprinkles to hers!

We had a great two weeks but now that we're out of winter holidays I'm ready for spring to get here!

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

 Alice recently did a unit on We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  This is such a fun book, and you have to listen to the author read it!  If you go to the unit page at HSS (which we used), you can see the video.

 We learned about bears with Bears and Their Cubs...

 ...and Bears and Their Dens...

 ...and Why Do Bears Sleep All Winter?

 One day we had a bear lunch:  fish, blueberries, a peanut butter and honey sandwich, and mud (which is in the story).

 Alice mixed up the mud!

 We used this felt board set that I made when Jack did the story several years ago.

 Alice also made a scene showing all the places they went through in the story (idea from here).

 The finished product!  We used fake grass (the grass), blue aquarium rocks (the river), playdoh (the mud), Playmobil trees (the forest), cotton balls (the snowstorm), and rocks (the cave).  Our bear came from a Toob set.

We also used some of the printables from Homeschool Creations.  Alice has been working on number recognition and matching letter sounds!

Taking One for the Team

 Today we stopped by the clinic so Jay could look at my thumb and I ended up being the donor for a science lesson.  I let them draw blood so Jack could see the different parts.

 Waiting on the centrifuge.  (They like getting suckers a Dad's office!)

 

 After it was done spinning!

Now I can literally tell my children that I have given my blood, sweat, and tears to their education!

World Nutella Day

 Today is World Nutella Day.  We actually refer to it here as Tella, because that is what Alice has always called it and she is the primary Tella consumer in the household.

 Last night we made this Chocolate Strawberry Nutella Cake from the Pioneer Woman.  It is crazy.

 Today we kept it simple and made these Nutella Crescents.  You just spread it on pie crust triangles...

 ...roll it up...

 ...and put a little butter and sugar on top.  Bake them at 400* for around 10 minutes.

Yummy!

I have lots more Nutella recipes pinned, but since I have to fit into a party dress this weekend I am not making any more of them right now!

Artist Study: Alexander Calder

 In January we learned about Alexander Calder.  That's not what I had originally planned, but a field trip opportunity came up, so we went with it!

 This biography is out of print but I was able to get a copy of it from the library.

 We started with Sandy's Circus, which tells about the circus Calder made from wire, cloth, and all kinds of found objects.  It is now housed at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has a lot of neat information about the circus on their website.

 Roarr has lots of pictures of the circus objects.

 This is a photo of Calder operating the circus.  I've also got a video of him pinned on my Artists board.

 We tried making some things with wire and found out it's harder than it sounds!  This is Jack with his sun.

 We took a field trip to The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art to see some of Calder's lithographs.

 It was a very small exhibit, but they had some great booklets that told a lot about Calder and the prints.

 Alice made this painting based on the one on the booklet cover.

 When we visited Crystal Bridges in November we saw some more of Calder's work!

We're also finishing up The Calder Game.  This is actually the third book in a series so it seems like we're missing a bit of information, but it's pretty good!

This was one of my favorite Artist Studies we've done.  There are so many different things you can do, even with younger kids!

Valentine's Day Kickoff

 Last night I got the kids' first Valentine Mail ready.  I know this is a really commercialized holiday, but I'm so sick of winter by the time February rolls around that I'll take any reason I can find to enjoy it.

 Today they got window clings that you can color in (under a buck in the WalMart Valentine's Day section) and some new crayons.

 They also got some new Valentine's Day cups.

And we had heart shaped pancakes!

I only have two or three days planned out, so I've got a bit of work ahead of me, but I'm sure we'll have a good time over the next two weeks!