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! ;)

Random Bits

So, we got a "big snow" here in Georgia... about six inches on the ground, and our local schools were closed for the entire week (a bit over-reactive keeping them closed on Thursday and Friday if you ask me! ;). The last time I remember snow this deep was in 1986, I think, in Atlanta... the "Blizzard of '93" wasn't really that bad in Atlanta. Our snow this time got coated in a thin layer of ice, making it very crunchy to walk on. Yesterday, I looked out our front window and noticed that somebody - don't know who - had walked in the edge of our front yard, right by the street, to form some letters. "F", I could make out... "U... Uh, oh, what did somebody write in four-foot tall letters in our yard where everybody who drives right past can read???" But my alarm was quickly subdued as I realized the U was followed by an N. "Fun," it said. Okay... Cecilia didn't think so, but Caroline might agree to that word!

***Update: The day after I typed this, we drove past our next door neighbor's yard. There is a not-so-nice word beginning with "Fu" written in her yard with footprints... ugh. Wonder what made the person spare us and write "fun" but then be mean to our 86 year old neighbor??? I am tempted to go stomp it out in the night, because the snow on our side of the street is very slow to melt since we get mostly shade at this time of year.

Something has been baffling me for weeks now. Our library has an entryway in which you go through the automatic doors into a lobby-type area, and then about 15 feet further is another set of automatic doors leading into the library. You know the little stands that have retractable fabric "caution tape" - the old-fashioned ones were the swag-style things that were always in banks, you know that block off an area so you can form a line where they want you to, or to keep you from getting too close to the teller's desk before it is your turn. They have this blocking the way into the library for some reason... once you go through the first door, right in the middle of the lobby are three stands with the tape pulled out to block the direct path to the second set of doors. You have to walk around this contraption (do those things have a name????) to get in and out of the building. Perhaps they are trying to trip up would-be library book thieves who are trying to make a quick escape?

The dead squirrel on the road in front of our house is still there - it survived the snow and was visible again once the snow and ice were gone from the road. How a dead squirrel can remain in the same spot on the road for at least two months is beyond me, especially when it has been gone over by both a street sweeper and a snowplow. There's not much left of it now... but it is still very much there. At this point it's a science experiment to see how long it will last!

And another thing noticed in our neighborhood: apparently, the gas company came out and marked some gas lines one day this past week, when there was still lots of snow and ice in everyone's yards. I noticed tome flags up and some yellow spray paint in different places along the curb... and then I noticed that they had sprayed something (I couldn't tell what it said) on the ground at the edge of somebody's yard... on top of the snow. Wow. It is a true case of Southern ignorance - apparently they don't realize that the snow will eventually melt, even if it seems like it has been here "forever" since a whole week of school was cancelled. People really were acting like being "snowed in" for part of a week was totally unbearable. I guess people take it for granted that we usually don't have that issue here in the South - to Northerners, a couple feet of snow is no uncommon thing, and they just bundle up and get out in it (or maybe stay inside for the week with books and hot chocolate? that's what I would do!).

I was telling Chris that giving Cecilia some play-doh "got her engaged" and made her forget about being upset ... Caroline responded with, "But she can't marry play-doh!!!"

Cecilia was going to hear Make Way for Ducklings as her bedtime story. She pointed to the image of the gold award on the cover and said, "It has a Candacorn Medal." The funniest thing is, she doesn't know what candy corn is...

Cecilia, looking in her bowl at breakfast: "I have a lot of some oat bran!"

Update on the dead squirrel: The street sweeper came by again, and this time it got it! Apparently it was finally lightweight and small enough to be picked up by the street sweeper truck!

Cecilia came into the kitchen tonight and asked me, "Mommy, what are we having for dinner?" I answered, "Pasta primavera." She ran back into the den, announcing to Chris and Caroline, "We're having pasta pweemavawa for dinner!" Then she returned to the kitchen and said to me, with a very serious facial expression, "That's a silly word... I think you just made that up."

N is for St. Nicholas, Nasturtium Fairy, and Nature!

It appears that I didn't take many photos during N week... and that we didn't do so much overall, but that is okay - it is good to have more laid-back weeks. I am having to stay motivated to keep up with the planning and such... and already thinking about next year and what we are going to do for first grade!

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

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

~Circle Time~

Caroline brought a cat named "Nursing Nina" for Show and Tell ("Double N!" she announced), and Cecilia brought... an angel. But it is from a nativity set, so we focused on that! ;) There were nuts in the Mystery Sound Pouch this week.

Songs and Rhymes

I Had a Little Nut Tree

Hymn: Now Thank We All Our God

We also just focused on various nursery rhymes this week!

~Foods for N Week~

nuggets and noodles

We also had nachos, nuts, Nut Thins (crackers), and new potatoes.

~Tea Time~

Nutella on bread!

We were going to bake something called "nut butter balls," which consist of butter, walnuts, powdered sugar, and flour, but, well, we had a rough morning, and so those got cancelled and I pulled out the Nutella instead!

~Letter Formation~

forming letter Nn using playdough

writing N's in cornmeal

Cut and Paste N Collage

Punch Out the Letter - Capital and Lowercase Nn

~Flower Fairy for Letter N: Nasturtium~

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

~Saint for Letter N: St. Nicholas~

Doing copywork from An Alphabet of Catholic Saints

Illustrating St. Nicholas using this "How to Draw St. Nicholas" activity from St. Nicholas Center.

painted St. Nicholas

completed work

~Picture Study: N is for Nose~

Museum ABC had several close-ups of noses in artwork, so Caroline chose to copy this profile.

~God's Alphabet Poem: N is for Night Prayers~

So, I realize that last week I didn't list the M books we used... nor am I doing it this week. It is tedious, and I have the list of ideas of titles for each week saved into a Word document, so I can easily refer to that in the future when Cecilia travels down the Alphabet Path as a Kindergartener in a few years.

Also, no photos of the virtue of the week, apparently... it was neatness.

~Activities for N Week~

N is for Nursery Rhymes

We read oodles of these!

N is for Numbers

playing Chutes and Ladders

N is for Nature

chart we made after observing things outside

Cecilia's Third Birthday!

Cecilia is three! I can't believe it!

She has been saying for months that she wanted "a candle cake" for her birthday. When I asked further clarifying questions, I discovered that this meant she wanted a cake shaped like a candle. I convinced her to want one shaped like a "candle shaped like a three," since otherwise we'd just have one long, skinny cake incapable of fitting on any serving platters I own! So no, this is not a cake shaped like three, but a cake shaped like a birthday candle three. ;)

We had BBQ pork sandwiches and some sides for lunch.

Cecilia opening gifts

magnetic shapes board from Gran and Grandad

dress-up clothes from Gramma and Grampa

enough to share with Caroline!

a slide whistle from Uncle Mike, Aunt Crystal, and Julianne... I love how CC is looking at Uncle Mike in this photo!

unwrapping some play felt food (cookies and cake!) from Mommy and Daddy

and unwrapping her very own (washable!) markers, so she will stop wearing out Caroline's school markers!

Cecilia's gift from Caroline: she traced and colored a picture for her from her Fairy Tracing and Design kit that she got for Christmas! I put it in a frame and we plan to hang it by Cecilia's bed.

Cousin Julianne became the earliest walker in the family a couple weeks ago... at a couple weeks before ten months, she began walking alone! The only pictures I got of her were by this table... when I tried to get a shot of her walking out in the open, she was around the corner before I could snap the picture! She beats my brother Tim as the first walker by a few weeks, and Caroline (who walked right at 11 months) by about a month and a half!

Cecilia with her cake

My mom got this awesome picture on her camera!

It was a basic butter cake with strawberry icing... Cecilia said she wanted a "white vanilla cake" with strawberry frosting. It was good... as Mike commented, the cake part tasted like a sugar cookie.

To end the party, the girls did lots of playing outside with their grandparents. Cecilia got this new "big girl" swing as a gift from Mommy and Daddy so she and Caroline could swing together! My dad captured this last photo.

Happy Birthday, Cecilia!! You are growing up so quickly!