100th Day of School

Today we celebrated the 100th Day of School. Ethan was coughing a bit so he stayed home from preschool, giving us the prefect chance to celebrate. We had to start by heading to the grocery store to do the groceries and get a few supplies. (Yay for one of the freedoms of homeschooling!) The kids were crazy excited because I was throwing things like Fruit Loops and shrimp chips into the cart. You can imagine the excitement for the day already building!!

Once we got home we started with our calendar as usual and what an event it was to finally change over the 10 tens into 1 hundred. Yahoo! We made it.

After making our counting place mats, we moved on to the Fruit Loops and counted out one hundred of them. 

 I love the concentration on Ethan's face in the photo. He really had a fun time today and I was thrilled to see that having him join us next year will be quite doable. For many of the activities I was able to tell Maddy what to do and she'd do it on her own, giving me the space to help Ethan out a bit. There's hope for next year!

 

  

 After the necklaces were done I convinced them to save the eating of the actual necklaces until after dinner to show Papa. Easy enough to do since the lure of shrimp chips was next. It seems I misjudged how many 200 shrimp chips would be (You'd be surprised how many there really were!). So I knew there was no way we could eat them before lunch.We stopped for lunch with a promise that if they ate their lunch we could eat the chips right after while watching a '100 days of school' movie. Thank god for YouTube and the whole internet as I was not planning for this. I lucked out and did find a movie.

After the movie we went back to the school room to count out 100 KEVA blocks each. We have the 200 block set and part way through I worried that if we had lost even one since Christmas, this activity was in trouble. Luckily every single one was accounted for and mama breathed a sigh of relief once again. They counted out their 100 blocks and then moved to their own space in the room to build something with all 100 blocks.

What a fun day this was for both the kids and for me. I loved seeing how excited they were to do the special activities. With the first 100 days of school under our belt, we only have about another 80 or so before summer vacation! Happy 100s Day everyone!!

Dinner for the family

Maddy had a 'how to' garden book that I once bought for her. One night in the fall she was reading it and saw that the brand also had a Kids Cookbook. Her mind was blown away with the idea that if she only had this book, she could "learn how to grow the food and then learn how to cook the food". We suggested that she put the book on her wish list for Christmas and Auntie Lyn and Uncle Aaron came through for her. While up in Revelstoke she asked to make her first recipe and chose a dessert involving frozen bananas, honey and sprinkles. Let's say there was a lot of 'fake eating' from the adults! Last week she made chicken, pear and cheese sandwiches on bagels for dinner. Not bad, much better than the bananas. Finally last night we had a hit. Maddy made pasta for dinner for us and it was delicious.

I am loving the idea of letting her cook every once in a while and hope that one day soon I can completely turn over a night of the week to her! :)

Happy Groundhog's Day

We've NEVER observed Groundhog's Day around here. Usually at this time of year, things are so busy at home with report cards looming, Valentine's Day and the guilt of having not taught the kids anything about Chinese New Year (see previous post), that Groundhog's Day goes by with barely a mention. Well there's always time for a first, no? On Starfall.com there is a little song about Groundhog's Day and that is where the kids were first introduced to the idea. This year we were eagerly waiting for the day to come so that we could see what the verdict was. I can't say that we actually 'celebrated' the day, but it was the one of the first things we did this morning. We checked the internet for the news. Unfortunately, the groundhog did see his shadow. At least Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie both reported as seeing their shadows. I saw on Facebook today that a friend of mine was celebrating an early Spring. Huh? It seems that other groundhogs didn't see their shadows and the decision is split down the middle. So who knows what will happen with the weather.

Maddy decided to make a sign and here is what she came up with.

Happy Groundhog's Day everyone!!