Monday, December 06, 2010

J is for St. Joseph, Jasmine Fairy, Jewels, and Joyful!

Another week completed along the Alphabet Path!

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

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

~Circle Time~

Caroline wrote a joke and brought it to Show and Tell. She also drew a picture of jello for Cecilia to bring. The item in the mystery sound pouch was a jar. Oh, and Caroline renamed Froster "Jinny" for the occasion!

Songs and Rhymes
Jack and Jill
Little Jack Horner
Jack Be Nimble
Jack Sprat
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

Advent Songs began this week!:
See the Candles Burning bright
Advent is a Time...
Waiting for Jesus
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
O Come O Come Emmanuel

~Foods for J Week~

stuffed jalepenos (this recipe minus the Ranch dressing)

They lose their spiciness when baked, apparently... Caroline loved them! Cecilia tolerated them but wasn't nuts for them. Caroline is learning to use a knife, as you can see.

monterey jack cheese cut with a J cookie cutter

Cecilia wanted to cut hers, too


jambalaya (and a few stray peas...)

We also enjoyed Jamaican Jerk Chicken - very tender and yummy! Jelly/jam made appearances throughout the week as well.

~Tea Time~

Well, we didn't really have tea time, but if we had time to do so, we would have had this:

jello jigglers!

J-shaped jello jigglers, to be exact. And really, if I am going to be accurately exact, they weren't Jell-o brand... they were some box from the health food store that lacked red #40.

We took them to share with friends rather than having tea time.

~Letter Formation~

forming letter Jj using playdough

writing J's in cornmeal

printing J's on grey block paper

Cut and Paste J Collage

Punch Out the Letter - Capital and Lowercase Jj

~Flower Fairy for Letter J: Jasmine~

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

Cecilia doing the same... she loves that random too-small hat she found, ha ha

Their completed Jasmine Fairies

~Saint for Letter J: St. Joseph~

painted St. Joseph

St. Joseph poem copywork

Completed St. Joseph poem copywork from An Alphabet of Catholic Saints and her St. Joseph illustration

~In the Book Baskets~


Science Theme: Jewels
A Cache of Jewels (really a grammar book, not science!)

Favorites for J:


As an additional activity, the girls ate bread and jam while I read them Bread and Jam for Frances.

And Caroline came up with her own extension activity for St. Jerome and the Lion: she dressed as St. Jerome and Cecilia was the lion (she took off her golden "mane" and held it in this picture, being two and not really wanting to be the lion at this point!).

~Picture Study: J is for Jewelry~

This painting is Princess de Broglie by Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres.

~ABC Virtue of the Week: I'm Sorry~

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.


Some of Caroline's completed work for the week:

J's and Jesus coloring page

I don't think I have been posting Caroline's copywork from God's Alphabet in each post... so here is this week's poem, J is for Jesus.

~Activities for J Week~

J is for Jesse Tree

We started our Advent Jesse Tree at the end of J week... perfect timing! We are using Holy Heroes Advent Adventure along with printable ornaments from here at Paper Dali.

J is for Jelly Bean Jewelry

I tried using regular sharp needles, but they didn't push through the jelly beans very well, and I wasn't going to give Cecilia a sharp needle anyway... so I tried using blunt-tipped needles that I think are called "plastic canvas needles." They worked great! You just have to stop every so often to clean them off, because they get a sticky build-up on them!

I tied dental floss to the needles and then made a large knot at the other end.

I ha to push the jelly bean through partway for Cecilia, but then she was able to push it through the rest of the way and pull the jelly bean down the floss.

Caroline did it mostly on her own, although sometimes she wouldn't get the needle centered in the jelly bean and there were a few "casualties" that had to be eaten!

Cecilia's bracelet

Pretty "jewelry"

~Baking Project: J is for Jelly Jewel Cookies~

This recipe came from Mrs. Field's Cookie cookbook, although I subbed in some whole wheat flour.

The girls did great with rolling the dough into balls and then pressing down with their thumbs to make a hollow.

Caroline filled some with peach jam...

...and Cecilia filled some with blackberry jam. Strawberry would have made a pretty jewel-ish looking cookie, but we already had these two flavors open.

And for outdoor activities, we would have done jumprope and jumping jacks, if it wasn't raining much of the week (and if I'd remembered the jumpropes on the nicer days! ;).

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