H is for St. Helen, Herb Twopence Fairy, Honeybees, and Helpfulness!

Well, we spent two weeks on H and were able to take our time, finish reading all our garden books from G week along with our H books, and do some additional math work.

Here are our themes for the week, all of which went into the Word Box, as usual.

Our H poems for the week from An Alphabet of Catholic Saints and God's Alphabet

~Work Activities~

a new horse floor puzzle!

We pulled out all the puzzles with horses on them, too.

~Circle Time~

Caroline brought a horse finger puppet and horse game card to Circle Time for show and tell. Cecilia wore a hat that she found on her own in a box of cold-weather hats and mittens and such... it fit her last year, ha ha. Hat happens to begin with H, which was unintentional on Cecilia's part. In the mystery sound pouch, the girls found a toy hot dog and hamburger!

Songs and Rhymes

Humpty Dumpty

Johnny Works with One Hammer

Hickety Pickety, My Black Hen

Hickory Dickory Dock

Holy God, We Praise Thy Name

Holy, Holy, Holy

It was also time to change the calendar to November...

~Foods for H Week~

honey sticks - I got these a few months ago at the local farmers market, thinking the girls would have fun squeezing out their own honey (onto pumpkin pancakes in this photo!)

hash brown potato pancakes and scrambled eggs with ham and cheese

hummus in a pita

Cecilia wants to make sure to stuff as much in as possible! ;)

herbed tomato mozzarella salad

hot ham and havarti sandwiches

hazelnut-pumpkin soup...

...with herbed spelt popovers!

I'd never made popovers before... oh, they were so fun and easy! I made them in the blender, poured them into the muffin tin, and they came out beautifully - and very yummy!

hearty vegetable soup

hamburgers

Also enjoyed during H week: hot dogs for Halloween to kick off the week, Halloween candy (of course), havarti cheese on crackers for snacks, honey-roasted chicken, ham and pesto sandwiches, and horseshoe cookies!

~Tea Time~

We had honeybee cookies and hot chocolate - mmmm!

Cecilia insisted on drinking out of the toy tea set cup! She liked the hot chocolate pretty well, but Caroline didn't love it... she drank most of one small cup but didn't want any more.

~Letter Formation~

forming letter Hh using playdough

writing H's in cornmeal

Cut and Paste H Collage

Punch Out the Letter - Capital and Lowercase Hh

~Flower Fairy for Letter H: Herb Twopence~

Caroline coloring her flower fairy page from the Flower Fairies coloring book

Caroline's completed Herb Twopence Fairy

~Saint for Letter H: St. Helen~

painted St. Helen

St. Helen poem copywork from An Alphabet of Catholic Saints

Caroline's completed work

~In the Book Baskets~

Science Theme: Honeybees

A Drop of Honey

The Life and Times of the Honeybee

Honey in a Hive

The Bee Tree

The Honey Makers

Liturgical Year and Religious H Books:

Legends of the Saints

Saints of the Americas

Favorites for Letter H:

The High Hills

A Hatful of Seuss (includes Horton Hears a Who)

Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales

Michael Hague's Favourite Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales

Little House in the Big Woods (our bedtime read-aloud)

~Word Box Work~

locating all the H words with a short e sound

~Picture Study: H is for Hair~

Caroline works on her copy of a George Washington portrait by Gilbert Stuart

Here's her finished work... I was really impressed! We both got a big kick out of "the porcupine on his back." What is that thing supposed to be, anyway??

~ABC Virtue of the Week: Helpful~

These are virtue coloring sheets found here. Using the great idea of another Catholic homeschooling mom, I am reading Caroline a relevant story from this sweet little book full of stories with morals to them.

~Activities for H Week~

Science: Honeybees

Caroline's narration of everything she remembered about honeybees after reading several books

Honeybee handprints

The body of the bee is a yellow handprint, sideways on the paper with the fingers all touching each other. The wings are made from a white handprint, fingers pointing toward the back, sliding the hand back and forth while keeping the fingertips in the same place. The black stripes are the side of the hand, and the eye and stinger are made with a fingertip.

Caroline's bee on the left, Cecilia's on the right

Here they are after the girls drew flowers on them

~Cooking Project: H is for Honeybee Cookies and Hot Chocolate~

measuring ingredients

adding pretzel "wings" to the dough (a peanut butter cookie recipe)

frosting the honeybees with "black" stripes (chocolate frosting, leftover in the freezer from G week's garden cake!)

Cecilia "helping" to make the hot chocolate... such an easy recipe that I found in an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Fill a 1/3 cup measure with half cocoa powder and half sugar, put it in a pot with a bit of water (maybe a tablespoon), heat over high heat and let boil a minute, then add two cups of milk. Heat, then whisk in a splash of vanilla and serve. You should see me trying to make myself just one serving... filling the 1/3 cup up 1/4 of the way with cocoa powder, then sugar to the halfway mark...

~Chores/Practical Life: H is for Housework~

rather specific, no? ;)

Caroline puts away laundry

Cecilia helps unload the dishwasher

Cecilia helps wash the sink (I use a water and vinegar mixture, so the kids can help without touching unsafe chemicals)

Caroline and Cecilia wipe down the mirror in the bathroom

~Outdoors: H is for...~

hopscotch (drawn on patio in green chalk, not very visible in photo)

Hula Hoop Olympics:

hoop rolling

Cecilia just ran down the hill holding onto hers :)

hoop toss

how high can your hoop go? (can you find it?)

and of course, standard hula-hooping.

We also took a family hike!

On to I week!