Christmas at the beach

This year we took a short family vacation to Galveston to see the Festival of Lights. It was a great family time and the weather was amazing for winter (even for Texas). While it was snowing in Dallas, the Piwis played on the beach. They collected shells and watched the waves break with daddy. I was satisfied with taking pictures and watching that no one got too close to the water. I am not a fan of the ocean, but a tale about my ironic phobia can wait for another day.

We joined a local parish in their Christmas Masses, Miss K was excited to attend a Childrens' Mass with a live nativity. The church was packed!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Our rejoicing continues with the 12 days of Christmas!

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Shared at 1+1+1=1 tot school

Miss K's week of Drs, frogs and Advent

Miss K was busy for most of the week - trying to get well again. It seemed a lot like the pre thanksgiving virus she had. This time though we didn't let it take hold and took her off to the Dr on Day 2. The decongestant worked well and let her breath better and gave her tummy a rest -don't ask!
It did make her a bit foggy so she just read a lot and drew.

Not too many action shots this week of Miss K but here is a bit of what she got up to

She is nearing the end of her AB Christmas unit Study. This week we also added the mini books from the 1+1+1=1  Christmas symbols lapbook, into her Advent notebook. Here she is researching meanings.

She also made a photo frame craft she received for Mini Piwi's birthday (we practice a family tradition of giving small gifts to siblings too).  It involved flocking so it was a bit tricky but she did a great job.

 American Girl Crafts Frame Kit, Flocked Flower

 

This week we also looked at Frog anatomy as part of an amphibian lesson we missed in Science. Miss K did the closest thing that we will ever get to a dissection and looked at this cool model we found

 

After labeling the parts in her notebook, she had lots of questions about frog vs. human anatomy so we pulled out our books and compared them side by side.

 

 

 Cross Section Frog Model & 3-D Human Body book

 

Miss K also had an awesome week on IXL.com completing nearly 2 hours and earning 14 medals. At-ta-way-to-go!

Mini Piwi's B'day week

It was a busy week....

We celebrated Mini Piwi's Birthday and she spent most of the week playing with her new toys.


Birthday cupcakes

Learning Resources Smart Snacks Alpha Pops

Thrilled with her new chair and sandwich making set

 

She did manage to fit some counting into her schedule with the Lady bug countdown puppet set we made together to go with '10 little ladybugs' by Melanie Gerth. The post about making the set is here

We also had a trial of ABC Mouse.com. Mini Piwi seemed to really like it.

I made the Christmas tot pack from 1+1+1=1 and one of the activities that Mini Piwi enjoyed was matching the shapes to the pictures of Christmas shapes....

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Christmas Science round up

Last week we had a Christmas Science linky. I was excited to see all the creative ideas. For future use  wanted to put these and the other resources,we found to use, together in one post. There is nothing to stop us from 'doing' holiday science after Christmas day. We had planned to continue the advent season to Three kings day. Let me know if you try out any of these ideas or have something else to add to this list.

The original Christmas Light science post and linky



Playing with Pine needles @Fantastic Fun and Learning

 

Advent Pine cone Bird Feeder @ The Tiger Chronicles

Math & Science with Balloons in the cold @Blog me Mom

It's snowing angles @Relentlessly fun, Deceptively Ed

Chocolate lollipops & States of Matter @Relentlessly Fun



Thinking about Christmas Printables @Hey Mommy, Chocolate Milk!

Snow flake Science @ The Tiger Chronicle

Here are some other older Christmas/winter related science projects I found around the web. Most of them I would say are fairly kid friendly (with adult supervision). I steered clear of anything involving flames.



photo credit

Glow in the Dark Crystal Snowflakes. Depending on the age of your kids you can use Sugar or borax to make the crystals for this project.

Chemistry, making saturated solutions, evaporation

Snow Ice cream recipes: Use the snow to make Zip lock bag ice cream or use clean snow as a base for your creamy treat. I also found another recipe at The Party animal

Tags:Chemistry, states of matter, food science

Poinsettia pH paper @ Science made fun.
Extract the red pigment (which responds to changes in acidity) from poinsettias and use it to make your own pH paper strips.

Tags: Chemistry, Acids and bases, Plant science

Photo credit

Homemade gum drops

Homemade candy canes

Tags: Chemistry, Food Science, Involves use of heat.

Christmas tree investigation@ Education.com.
Tags: Plant Science & Observation

Leftover Christmas candy vs. Heat @ Almost Unschoolers
Tags: Chemistry, effect of heat on food, melting points, states of matter

Santa's sleigh race &Christmas tree buzzer game @Snapshot Science
Tags: Electrical science, circuit diagrams, force of motion, basic machines


In the meantime I have found some good free printables for Christmas themed science activities. Sigma science (UK) have two really good booklets to download. They are cut and paste type activities that would be appropriate for K-3 (maybe older?).
Sigma Christmas Science investigations

 Let me know if you try out any of these ideas or have something else to add to this list. Be sure to tell the original posters how much you liked the ideas too!

Mini Piwi & the Scales

There are so many nice printables for Christmas! Mini Piwi had fun with the tracing ones -she wanted to do all the ones I had printed in one go..

 

Every day this week we had at least one set of scales out for Big Sis's Math. Mini Piwi usually claimed it after our lesson and weighed everything from Christmas decorations to toys.

 

I really thought this decorating activity would be a hit but Mini Piwi is started to frustrated if a star  wasn't perfectly placed....We moved onto something else.

 

Christmas Super Shapes inspired by Team unizoomi as part of our Hands on Math projects

 

Also as part of our Hands on Math projects this week we did allsorts with Candy canes. Comparing sizes and mass and using them to measure the table.

 

 

 

Mini Piwi also became her big sis's fashion model this week and I was treated to multiple fashion shows.

 

Check out Piwi's adventures in Math this week 

 

 

 

 I am linking up to these blogs and this weeks 1+1+1=1 Tot School

 

Printable packs we were loving this week:





1plus1plus1equals1 Christmas tot pack and Nativity pack 



Christmas Printable @ Gift of Curiosity



E-book and printables

 



Christmas Hands on Math

Here are the Hands on Math activities we got up to this week...

Our hands on Math projects are something the Piwis can  work on together, and learn from even with their 4 year age gap. For more on our this see my first HOM post.

Measuring Metric Mass in Kg

We started our week with measuring mass. This year we are studying metric measurement. The Piwis were excited to play with all the different types of scales we have. Out first project was collecting items, weighing them and grouping them by their mass. The three categories: about less than 1kg, about 1 kg, and more than 1 kg.

Elf Math -measuring in grams

In order to investigate measuring mass in grams we did some 'Elf math'.
I gave the Piwi's a list of weights, the kitchen scales and a huge pile of mini candy canes. Their mission was find out how many candy canes you needed to make 25g, 100g, 150g and 200g. They tried it with little candy canes and the bigger fruit flavored ones.

Even Perry helped.....

I think Mini Piwi misheard me because it seemed like she was trying to eat her weight in candy canes.

I gave Miss K a challenge to use her results to see if she could work out how many candy canes you would need to make 500g, 1kg. Miss K didn't know it but she got an introduction to Multiplication.

Mini Piwi helped Miss with the Elf math and then used the balance to compare the weight of the big and small candy canes. She also measured the table using candy canes.

Next week we are going to solve some more real world problems with Mass like comparing masses.

Super Shapes!

Mini Piwi asked to make pictures like Team Umi Zoomi -why didn't I think of this one!!
We made lots of Christmas pictures from shapes just like Geo. We made some from our plastic tan gram shapes and others from paper. Here is Miss K's tree and Mini Piwi's snowman.

 

 

Test prep

One of our goals for the new year is practicing test taking so I encouraged Miss K to log on each day to IXL. She said she had forgotten that it was so fun and has consistently spent 20-30 mins on it all this week. Mini Piwi has taken to asking to go on Starfall.com when Miss K is on IXL.

 

 

I have a Spectrum test prep book ready to go too. So many homeschooling moms have recommended this to me.



 

 

Talking of multiplication, this weekend we are going to use the Christmas Multiplication freebie from The teacher in Me. Ms. Mills you saved me a lot time with this cute printable, thanks!!

 

 

 

 

 

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