January Homeschool

The kids got some cooking badges from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas.  They made some crepes and cakes to earn some new ones for their aprons!

Tuesday nights have turned into a fun girls night out - The Kohnhorst and Ory ladies have tap class, and have a little fun at the bowling alley before and after. 

Eric learned to make croissants for our France unit.

Our family was responsible for the January 4H meeting.  We taught kids how to make bird feeders - Olivia led the demonstration.

Pop Art Mona Lisas for our Mona Lisa Vanishes book!

We did this awesome Harry Potter color by number as a family!

As part of our unit on France, we did an amazing multi course French dinner.  Eric did the majority of the cooking and did such a great job.  It also happened to be Gabrielle's birthday, so it was a special occassion of celebrating one of my favorite people! We had crudite (fresh vegetables and dip), vichyssoise (leek and potato soup), quiche lorraine, chicken fricasse and pommes aligot (cheesy mashed potatoes), homemade baguette, goat cheese, croissants, nutella, and eclair torte for dessert.  It was so much fun and all so delicious!

We've been occassionally hitting TJ Maxx after our Tuesday tap class and listening to these girls giggle is so fun.  

Nolan's impressionist style painting

Our church kids group is collecting hygiene items to make personal care kits for hurricane victims in North Carolina.  We are hoping to make 100 kits to be delivered by our high school youth this summer on their mission trip. We also made valentine suncatchers to put in care packages for our church's college age kids.

The kids were divided into teams and made catapults in the style of Leonard DaVinci.  They did surprisingly well considering how difficult some of the steps were and all of the catapults were successfully able to launch!

 We had a family dinner out at Holiday Acres to celebrate the closing on Steve and Patti's house, as they prepare to move into their new build on Boom Lake.  It will definitely be a transition, but we look forward to making lots of great memories in their new house.  On to the next chapter!

December Homeschool

Simon has been working hard on his winter drawing/writing book.  His drawings are so cute!

When I got to be Simon's helper, he had a special guest come to visit - Tommy, the red tailed hawk!  It was such a neat experience to get to see this amazing creature up close!

The kids made powderhorns for their American Revolution unit.  We've been reading "Susanna's Midnight Ride" and it has been such an interesting and fun unit to study!

Dinner church has continued to be a hit for our kids all semester.  They look forward to it every week.  All of the kids have served the meal at least once, and it's so fun to see Simon get in there too.  

Igraine the Brave, made by Olivia at Co-op art class out of tooling foil, tempera paint, and sharpie.

 For the end of our Susanna/American Revolution unit, the kids made a bald eagle out of oil pastel, sulfite paper, and tempera paint stars.  They also worked really hard on these awesome American Revolution portfolios which had tons of learning and projects insde.

Throughout the semester, Nolan and Olivia have been pen pals with a couple of seniors at Grace Lodge, Ken and Linda.  They wrote letters several times throughout the semester and got to know their pals on paper, but we finally got to meet them right before Christmas.  Grace Lodge threw a pizza party and the kids came to chat and put a face with a name!  It was fun to get to hear some stories and learn more about them.  Ken is 94, and is having a hard time writing letters, but we will visit him the next time we go to Grace Lodge.  Linda wants to keep writing with Olivia.  All of the seniors were exceptionally sweet and it was a good opportunity for all!