Sunday, June 05, 2011

W is for St. Wenceslas, Wallflower Fairy, and Water!

W week - almost at the end of the alphabet! These are out themes from the week, all of which went into the word box, as usual.

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

~Circle Time~

For show and tell, Cecilia (with some prompting!) brought the books Wemberly Worried and A Weekend with Wendell (both from a favorite series of ours, the mouse books by Kevin Henkes). Caroline brought Winnie-the-Pooh and a white bear. There was a whisk in the mystery sound pouch.

Caroline also thought of this a few minutes later and retrieved a slice of watermelon from the play food in the little kitchen.

Songs and Rhymes
Wee Willy Winkie
Little Red Wagon
Whistle
When the Snow is on the Ground
There was an Old Woman Lived under a Hill

W is for Whoops!

Whoops for me, that is... when I upload photos to Blogger, I have to choose them in reverse order. So I had already chosen most of the photos from the end of the post back to this point, and I accidentally skipped these, so I am putting them here in the post. Wish there was an easy way to insert them where they belong, further down in the post... So W is really for:

~W is for Whales~

The girls made paper whales by folding paper... we did it step by step (me doing Cecilia's while Caroline practiced following a step-by-step process). The directions are found here.

They decorated them with markers and googly eyes. We also read about whales and other ocean creatures in a book called W is for Waves.

~Foods for W Week~

This winter squash (butternut) ravioli recipe is made using wonton wrappers and walnuts... a quadruple score for the W's on this one! It is one of my favorite recipes... mmm, see the greasy melted butter all over the inside of the bowl? By the way, I am not endorsing the website on which the recipe is posted... from the looks of it, they are a liberal environmentalist group which probably supports liberal agendas... I just found a few really good recipes there. Read anything else with discretion, and don't tell them I sent you! ;)


watermelon!

windmill cookies... found these on sale and have been saving them!

We also had our fair share of waffles, I think topped with whipped cream!

~Letter Formation~

Playdough W

writing W's in cornmeal

Cut and Paste W Collage

~Flower Fairy for Letter W: Wallflower~


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

~Saint for Letter W: St. Wenceslas~

painted wooden St. Wenceslas

Caroline illustrates the saint

Finished copywork from An Alphabet of Catholic Saints and illustration

Caroline also colored this picture of King Wenceslas and his page taking food to a poor family through a snowstorm. If that sounds familiar, it's because it is a Christmas carol. It is actually a song about the feast day of St. Stephen (December 26th), on which this story took place.

~Picture Study: W is for Windows~

The image for this week was this triptych of the Annunciation by Robert Campin. Caroline chose to focus on the panel on the right, Joseph working in his woodshop with the windows in the background.

~ABC Virtue of the Week: Worry Not~

Apparently I don't have a completed photo of this one. The picture I drew shows a boy on a bicycle at the top of a hill with a worried look on his face, while his friend who has already ridden down the hill calls out to him in encouragement. Maybe not the best illustration of the idea of trusting God rather than worrying, I suppose it works for a child's understanding. I didn't want to make the kid worrying about something tragic like serious illness or death...

I was asked recently if I could make these drawing available, so I have uploaded them to Google Docs. I also discovered that the originals which I had been using (and had run out at letter O) have actually been updated, and P-T can be found here. My drawings, P-Z (excluding X), can be found here:

~W is for Wounds~

Caroline's copywork from

~Activities for W Week~

Water Science

Caroline and Cecilia gathered various items found in the yard and predicted whether each would sink or float when dropped into a bucket of water.

I made this chart to track Caroline's guesses and the actual results.

~Cooking Project: W is for White Chocolate Chips~

We made a favorite cranberry oatmeal chocolate chip recipe and subbed white chocolate chips for the typical semisweet ones. Caroline measures the flour...

...stirs the cranberries and white chocolate chips into the dough...

...and drops the dough by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet.

We also did some experiments related to our science theme of weather, but we did them during X week (X is for eXperiment), so those will be included in the X/Y week post!

No comments: