A relaxed week of rest, reading, hiking, and playing; homeschool this week was peace and restoration giving!
Our week mostly in pictures:
A hike to Station Cove Falls in Oconee to hunt for wildflowers, Spring blooms, and to enjoy the weather was the start to our week.
After our hike, we rushed to dance class. Ellie got her costume for her recital; however, due to uncontrollable scheduling circumstances, it would seem that Ellie won't be in town for the date of her recital this year. So sad! The song they are dancing to is "Wish Upon a Star." We are definitely planning a little home family recital though for our girl so she can display her hard work! How cute is this costume?!
Our Forest School curriculum, Exploring Nature With Children, was themed with Snails this week. We read snail books, studied the difference in snails and slugs, the different kinds of snails, and we found some, too! Ellie knows snails are gastropods and mono-peds. We made snail-rolls for breakfast one morning for a fun treat!
In enjoying the warm weather, we played outside a lot, had a pic-nic, and read a lot of books!
We read a book about Fancy Nancy and her friends decorating Easter bonnets. Ellie wanted to make one for herself. So, we gathered some craft supplies and an old straw hat, and we did just that! Ellie did almost all of it by herself; I tied to bow. So SO so cute!
We observed a new bird at the window feeder: A Carolina Chickadee! So exciting!!
One day, we did an uppercase, lowercase, and number Easter egg hunt. In each egg was either one uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, or a number 1-9. I just used our magnets that probably every mama has for their babies. Then, doing one of the three categories at a time, I hid the eggs and Ellie would do an Easter egg hunt (around the house due to heavy rain), and then we would count the amount of eggs collected, open them, and Ellie would place each discovered letter or number upon it's match written on the paper. I knew she would like this learning game but I didn't expect her to have the attention to play three rounds....oh but buddy was I wrong! She loved the game, played all three categories without pause, and wanted to keep playing again! What an easy and fun way to learn to count and hone in that visual recognition of the letters and numbers. Also, I hid a lot of eggs in tricky places such as up high or inside things which she had to really use her problem solving brain skills and physical skills to retrieve the eggs. I am a mom who not only does not mind my child climbing the windows, tables, and walls, but I encourage it. Let those bare little toes and fingers grip fine surfaces and gain strength and agility and balance. She climbed windows and furniture and cabinets to get her eggs. One egg was in the COVERED knife block. (As in ...NO you judgmental person, I did NOT let my child have access to sharp knives...) But she had a hard time reaching the block. So she climbed the cabinet and tried to pull the block towards her with one hand and hang on to the counter with the other hand. That didn't work so she problem solved and found that she could gradually pull the block out bit by bit then reach the egg on top. It was AWESOME to watch her solve this problem herself - to see her brain find a new way - to not call out for help or to give up but to be determined and persevere to do it herself. SO PROUD! So this game was really a pathway to many doors of learning and developing the mind. At the end of opening the eggs, Ellie wanted to build a tower with them. So cool!
Then, we went ahead and celebrated the Last Supper a week early because of other things going on the next week and this is so important to do. Reading scripture, partaking in the Seder plate and the meaning behind the food it contains, and discussing Jesus' last meal with disciples was really sweet and special. On the Seder plate we had Haroset (sweet and tangy apple paste), Maror (bitter herbs), Karpas (vegetable), Beitzah (boiled egg), Matzah (unleavened bread), Wine (cranberry apple juice for Ellie). Each of these is symbolic and is very interesting. We discussed the symbolism to Jesus for each item we ate off the plate. For our meal, we had grilled lamb loin marinated in red wine, new Spring baby potatoes with rosemary, and Spring kale salad. Next week will truly be Holy week and we will do more during that week. Normally we would do this meal on Maundy Thursday of course which is next week, but schedules for our family wouldn't allow it. So we enjoyed it this week!
Kindermusik this week was fun and educational as always! Ellie's knowledge, skills, and solo singing confidence is growing every week!
We ended our week with a big family camping trip to Red Top Mountain State Park in GA. We kayaked, swam (yes-freezing), biked, grilled, and played hard. We read books, and cuddled too!
Here are the books we read this week along with continuing our "Amon's Adventure" Easter study and bible reading.
And of course continued with our bible verse of the month, Romans 12:12.
