F is for Flower

We homeschool year round.  Arin has finished her kindergarten year and I have ordered her first grade materials, which she will be starting at the beginning of May.  When I ordered her books for next year, I also ordered a few things for Ella's preschool year.  Ella loves school and asks for it daily.  For this reason, we started her new materials this week, even though Arin is taking a short break.  Ella is loving all the one-on-one time and that all the school time is focused on her :)
She started her Get Ready for the Code primer A.

This book starts with the letter F.  We chose flowers as our theme this week.
Over a four day time period, Ella completed all of her "f" work in her workbook.  She would have loved to do it all in one day, but I have to pace her or she'd be done with the book in a week!

In addition to the above workbook, Ella did the following letter F and flower themed work.

Day One:
Ella worked on flower puzzles.  This is Arin's puzzle and it was Ella's first time using it.

She got frustrated that the pieces kept moving, so she asked to use her (much easier) flower puzzle.  This puzzle has grooves to keep the puzzle pieces in place and Ella liked that much better.

Day two:
Ella really loves worksheets, so we worked together on a few more of these.  She located all the Ff on the sheet and then wrote the letters.

She also matched upper and lower-case letters with this worksheet.

Together, we colored a color-by-shape flower themed worksheet.

I colored the picture on the left and Ella colored the picture on the right :)

Day three:
We took a field trip to our local, public gardens so that we could look at a variety of flowers.  We talked about the differences and similarities of the flowers, their colors, shapes, sizes and whether or not they were fragrant.

We also started the classic science experiment, showing how water moves through the flower's stem.  We did this by picking white flowers (we have gardenias growing in our yard) and putting them in water dyed with food coloring.  We left the flowers overnight, and by the next morning, they were no longer white.  Instead, we had a blue flower, a pink one, and a very pale purple flower.

Day four:
Ella worked on a sequencing activities, which also gave her cutting and gluing practice.

She worked on a few more flower themed worksheets.

And finally, we incorporated a little math into the mix.  I printed six flowers and wrote numbers 1-6 in the middle of them.  Then, I gave Ella plastic linking flowers and a dice.  She rolled the dice, counted the dots, linked together the correct number of flowers and placed the chain under the correctly numbered flower.  Later, Ella and Arin played this together, each with their own set of numbered flowers and linking flowers.  The first person to complete all six chains was the winner.

Making Memories

We just finished celebrating the biblical feasts, Passover and The Days of Unleavened Bread.  In addition to teaching the girls why we observe these days, we also pull out some of our favorite unleavened recipes to make during the week.  Arin and Ella look forward to eating the store bought matzas, but Andrew has never liked them, so I always make the honey oatmeal unleavened bread that he grew up on.  I always look forward to Cherry Cheese Tarts or my all time favorite dessert, Marble-ous Peanut Butter Dessert, which I really should blog the recipe sometime.

A few years ago, Andrew and I decided to also make this week, a special family time, making many memories together.  In 2010, we took a road trip.  That year was so much fun, but not something we have been able to do again yet.  In 2011, we stayed local and did fun activities like strawberry picking, picnics, painting pottery, and going to the zoo.

This year, we once again stayed local.

We celebrated Passover at Andrew's parents' house.  Five of his six siblings plus a portion of their families were present, including his sister and niece that traveled down from Illinios.  It was great being together and our girls especially loved all the time with their cousins.

On the first Day of Unleavened Bread, we spent the day with Andrew's family.  We also spent time swimming.

On the second day, we took the girls on their surprise trip to Weeki Wachee State Park.  My uncle and his girlfriend also met us there for the day.  On the ride over, it started raining, but by the time we arrived, there was nothing but blue skies and beautiful weather for the day.

We watched the mermaid shows,

took a boat ride down the spring fed river,

and we saw a couple of bald eagles.

We also ate a picnic lunch and Andy hand-fed this peacock.

After our picnic, we took the girls to swim in the springs and play in the sand before heading home.

Kaelyn's 1st experience with sand

The third day was very low-key.  We went to lunch with Andrew's brother and his wife and afterwards, the girls went swimming.  I didn't even take any pictures this day, but we did still have fun being together all day.

The fourth day, we invited three of the girls' cousins over for a playdate.  First, there was a movie and popcorn.

Followed by outside time, running through the sprinklers.

On the fifth day, we met my mom, uncle & his girlfriend at Colt Creek State Park.  We hiked a bit and had a picnic lunch together.  We saw lots of wildlife, including an owl and several alligators.

On the sixth day, we took the girls to Chuck E Cheese.

On the seventh and final day of the Days of Unleavened Bread, we went to my brother and Andrew's sister's house along with some of the rest of the family.  We visited, ate, visited, swam, visited, rested and visited some more and then Arin cried when it was time to leave her cousins.

We had a really great week, which went by way too quickly.  On a side note, Kaelyn's first two bottom teeth broke through during this week also :)