First of all, Chipette used her Christmas money to buy a hermit crab to be the Live Oak Christian Academy "classroom" pet. She was super excited and could hardly sleep for worrying that Hermie (very original name for a hermit crab) would get too cold and die. But he made it and here's a pic:
You can see him crawling up the side of his terrarium in an aqua shell that looks a lot like the pigs from Angry Birds.
This week Magpie really jumped ahead in her handwriting skills. She can consistently write her name correctly and all of her numbers 1-4 without looking at an example. Don't tell Chipette, but Magpie (almost 4 1/2) is well ahead of where her big sister was at this point!
In our American history studies, using Heart of Dakota's curriculum, Chipette studied William Penn this week. We learned that William Penn enjoyed participating in jumping games that the Native Americans played, so we had a jumping game in our hallway.
Chipette's jump:
Magpie's jump:
Also in Chipette's curriculum, we learned during science about Cotton Mather and his work with smallpox innoculations during the Colonial period. Then we did an activity that demonstrated the way the body creates its own antibodies to a virus and how those antibodies stay in the bloodstream to protect you from getting sick again.
I have to admit that part of the fun of homeschooling as a parent is that you get to learn all kinds of cool things along side your kids! I never knew exactly how the human body worked to fight off infections....but I do now :)
One of Magpie's favorite parts of her preschool work is when she does the ABC Series from Rod and Staff. These are fun little workbooks that help preschoolers develop fine motor skills through cutting, pasting, coloring, and writing. It's always the first thing that Magpie wants to do each day!
And to put an exclamation mark at the end of our week, we went on our first field trip with Chipette's homeschool group this Friday. The first field trip they did we missed because we were out of town. This time they went to visit Habitat for Humanity Restore to learn about Habitat for Humanity and what they do.
We learned that for every home Habitat builds in the US they build a house in another country. They average about 50,000 homes a year. Since Habitat started, they have built 500,000 houses. Most of the work is done on Saturday and Sunday, and a house is completely finished in about 2 and a half to 3 months!
I hope all of you had a great week as well!
So thankful that we have a treehouse to live in,
Chelli
Looks like a wonderful week. I love the pictures of the girls jumping. Looks like fun that I would not be able to resist. The BEST part of homeschooling is learning alongside my children. I love it sometimes I wonder who is having more fun them or me.
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