O is for St. Odilia, Owls, and Obedience!

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

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

~Circle Time~

I don't seem to have a photo of the girls with their O Show and Tell and mystery sound pouch items...

Songs and Rhymes

Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly

Old Mother Hubbard

Old Woman in a Basket

Old King Cole

One, Two, Buckle my Shoe

Old Woman, Old Woman

~Foods for O Week~

orange chicken - in the freezer section at Trader Joe's!

oat-banana pancakes and omelettes

We also had plenty of oranges and orange juice, and we had an oriental stir-fry one night. We had lots of oatmeal and oat bran for breakfast, as usual, and of course, the girls enjoyed olives!

Tea Time pictures are below, with our owl learning!

~Letter Formation~

forming letter Oo using playdough

writing O's in cornmeal

Cut and Paste O Collage

~Flower Fairy for Letter O: Orchis~

Caroline's Mallow flower fairy page from the Flower Fairies coloring book

~Saint for Letter O: St. Odilia~

Illustrating St. Martin

finished copywork and illustration

~In the Book Baskets~

Various books on owls, and various other O titles. Caroline narrated and illustrated Ox-Cart Man after I read it to her.

~Picture Study: O is for Ox~

The picture in Museum ABC showed a close-up of the ox that is included in this painting, The Adoration of the Magi.

~ABC Virtue of the Week: Obedience~

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.

~God's Alphabet Poem: O is for Offering~

Caroline's copywork from the O poem in God's Alphabet

~O is for Owls~

We made a KWL chart about owls. We haven't found the answer to the last question, "What do owls do when they are sick?" Anyone know? Probably just hide away like most animals, huh?

We made these owl cupcakes as a treat to have for tea time! The girls put the eyes and beaks on after I frosted the cupcakes.

They turned out pretty cute, huh? But a warning... just so other people are aware of the potential issues if they attempt any projects that I post pictures of... I had the hardest time getting the Oreos to come apart with the frosting still intact on just one side! You are supposed to use the side of the Oreo with the frosting as the eye, and then place an M & M or a Junior Mint on it. Well, I had to use a serrated knife to try to get the frosting to stay on just one side of the cookie. That caused lots of cookie crumbs to get in the frosting and made it take awhile to get them all assembled. But, the end result was very yummy!! Anyway, the tufts are just one of the non-frosted halves of the Oreos covered with the chocolate frosting. So the ingredients needed are: Oreos, cupcakes, chocolate frosting, brown and yellow M & Ms (although one of our owls ended up with green eyes once we ran out of browns!).

~Tea Time~

So, tea time was delayed until another afternoon because the owl cupcakes took longer than expected - plus, we had to run to the gas station to buy M & Ms when I realized all I had in the house were red and green ones left over from Christmas! We made orange smoothies to go along with the owl cupcakes. Cecilia and I were not fans... but I am not liking certain tastes currently, so I might actually like it another time! ;)

She did eat her entire cupcake, of course! We used a basic butter cake recipe from our King Arthur whole grains cookbook, along with chocolate cream cheese frosting.

~Cooking Project: O is for Orange Cinnamon Rolls~

We made these by scooping out oranges and then coiling unrolled cinnamon roll dough into the hollowed-out peel. We baked them in the peels, which gives them an orangy flavor. Warning: it is very difficult to scoop the orange pulp out of an intact peel! The kids couldn't really help much with that part, as I hoped they might be able to do.

But they really liked getting to stuff the dough inside the peels!

Here's the dough all baked up and overflowing out of the peel!

~Indoor Movement Activity (on a rainy day!): O is for Obstacle Course~

We made an obstacle course which involved several steps: riding the plasma car to the tent, crawling through the tunnel to the other tent, jumping over pillows placed along the floor, hopping off of step stools, and crawling through yet another tunnel.

They are wearing dress-up clothes while they do the obstacle course! ;)