a week in review... Valentine's

I think that this has been the most dis-jointed week that I have ever done! We ended up schooling on Monday, taking Tuesday off for SweetPea's birthday, schooling Wednesday, taking Thursday off for Valentine's day and then schooling today. But at least we had a good time this week with all our projects. Didn't accomplish much in the way of progress with letters or numbers but we did use the skills that we have worked on already. Makes it a winner in my book.

On Monday, we made Valentine cards for daddy. I let the kiddos finger paint with their feet to create hearts that we wrote our message around. Daddy was so surprised when he came home to see his newly dried cards from the littles. I think that he was quite touched. And the biggest shock of all... PorkChop, who vehemently refuses to touch finger paints for more than ten seconds, had no trouble having the paint smeared on his sweet piggies. In fact, that part was down right hilarious.

I love you "toe" much Valentines

 We did work on learning to match our upper case letters with lower case ones this week. I really wish that I could find more themes like this because it was not only a great exercise but SweetPea loved it! Even better, since I could laminate them, I have them put up for next year! Bonus!! Eventually, I am sure that PorkChop will get some use out of them too.

heart upper/lower case matching

Since SweetPea is a puzzle-holic, I made sure to print and laminate two different Valentine themed puzzles for her. Sure, four piece puzzles are not a challenge when you have been doing 100 piece by yourself for about two months but they were a nice surprise. And well worth it too to see PorkChop trying to line up the pieces as well. Its amazing to see what all he is learning already just by being involved with us around the family table every morning.

puzzle time

 I think that the biggest thrill of the week was our very own Valentine scavenger hunt! Both littles thoroughly enjoyed running through the house with their "list" and bringing all their "finds" to the table. SweetPea even got creative and took different interpretations of some of the pictures. Way to go, little girl, thinking outside that box!

scavenger hunt fun

 For math this week, we worked on candy graphing. A little disappointing when your favorite color doesn't come out as the winner.... and a bit frustrating when your little brother is stealing/eating your homework but a fun game all the same. And the best part, when its a learning game like this, they really don't realize the skills that they are working on... They just believe that its all fun.

Sweetheart graphing

 Since this was a laid back week, I managed to throw some science into our mix. We worked on a "five senses" worksheet with our Sweethearts. Did you know that Sweethearts make noise? I really thought that she would select "no" but after shaking the bowl next to my ear, she assured me that what I was hearing was the candy rocking and rolling in there. Yeah, she had me there. We also learned that SweetHearts taste like ashes and smell like skunk. While PorkChop might be a fan of the chalky candy hearts, SweetPea takes after mama and thinks that they belong in the box!

Sweetheart five senses

I had planned on doing some special baking this week with the littles... making sugar cookies for all five of the kids to decorate... but it just didn't happen. Instead, SweetPea did help me bake her birthday cupcakes. She learned how to pour chocolate to make suckers. And she got to make frosting almost totally on her own. So our week might not have gone as I planned or hoped for, but we definitely had a great time celebrating!