Week 17 and 18 of 2nd Grade MFW (with Valentine's Day)

In an effort to catch up on my blogging, I am combining two weeks in one post....

During these weeks we studied Kentucky and Tennessee.  Rose really enjoyed these states.  She was born and lived 2 years in KY (and has lots of family there)  Her great friend LK lives in TN.  This made these states more interesting for us to learn about!

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Doorpost blog had a great idea about making a list of 50 things that daddy does for our family.  Rose and I did it to give to him on Valentine's Day.  Daddy sure does a lot for us!  ...And it is good to acknowledge that and have a thankful heart.
Be sure to read about it HERE.

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Rose and I do Art together for the most part.  We are using Barry Stebbing's How Great Thou Art "I Can Do All Things"  It includes drawing, using colored pencils, markering, painting, etc.

And one day I WILL post photos of our schoolroom but here is a pic of our new Art Table area!  We love it!

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We learned about Eli Whitney and the cotton gin.  We did some great hands on activities to really show us how much labor this one machine saved.

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Science continues to be Rose's favorite subject.
Here is her cell model made from Jello and other foods.

And her experiment on bacteria...

milk...one for the refrigerator and one for the cabinet...

six days later

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In history we are learning about the pioneers.  This week Rose enjoyed learning about how they made cloth.

Her favorite book this week is American Pioneers and Patriots from Christian Liberty Press.

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To celebrate Valentine's Day .....
....Rose made Valentine bookmarks to send to some special people

.....we had a heart shaped breakfast and lunch

 .....lovely flowers from daddy

.....and lots of fun baking and crafting.

Keepers Club Tea Party

 In June we hosted a tea party for our Keepers At Home Club.

 Party favors for the girls...
Over Christmas when I was sewing and crafting with my friend Sara in Fargo, ND I started the photo clip project with giving them to these girls in mind.  I thought they turned out cute.  There is a photo on the front and back with all the girls.  On one side they are holding their prayer journals, on the other they are showing us their "Starry Starry Night" art project.
The China was my mom's....but I don't recall her ever using it.  I love the pink rose pattern. The dishes are dear to me since they make me think of my sweet mom and precious daughter.

 The girls enjoyed the tea party.  Precious, precious girls...

 and then we did some crafts....

 We will miss these sweet girls and our wonderful club!

It has been a joy and a blessing to do Keepers at Home Club with this group.  We will miss you all.

Some of June's happenings......

We are starting to pack for our big move across the country.  But we still have lots of stuff going on.  This post and the next three posts are from June 2011.

We are at the pool almost everyday.  Rose joined our local swim team.  They have practice 4 days a week, plus she likes to go to the pool at different times to just play around.

She is pretty good at sorting socks.....and if you do sock puppets during it....well, it is just that much more fun!  (By the way...I didn't ask her to sort socks.  She was looking at the sock basket on the dryer and asked me if she could sort them.)  She has great initiative!

Remember our pet Honey Bunny?  When we saw this rabbit in our backyard .....Rose decided that it is Honey's child and she comes to visit us, since Honey told her fabulous stories about our family.

We were able to get together with Andrew Hortman, his mom, and sister for an afternoon, one last time before we moved.  Remember Andrew?  I watched him and taught him and Rose preschool together. 

After our friend, Tianje, heard about Rose going to Chuck E Cheese for her birthday, she wanted to go too.  So we all went.  Rose and Tianje had a great time.  The highlight was when Rose won bonus tickets, getting 250 at one time! 

Here is a diorama she made with her Chuck E Cheese clay.

Rose has been enjoying doing sticker books

and hand sewing.  She is currently working on a redwork doll quilt.

Oh and I also discovered Norwex cleaning clothes.  I have been trying to keep chemicals and toxins out of my home for the past 7 years, already.  These make it even easier for me to achieve that.  I love these things.  Rose loves them too!  My friend Connie sells them, if you want to get some. I pretty much have my whole house converted over to them.  (I may do a separate post about them later.)

And here I am doing one of my favorite things.......holding a baby.  ...Matthew C. at my Norwex party.

More June coming soon.....

Other May happenings

Here are some more things from May (snippets that didn't make their own post).....

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Our homeschool group had our end of the school year party and field day.

getting lined up for tug-o-war

 pull!  This tug was kids vs moms....the kids won!  (that's a lot of kids!)

 Rose and her sweet friend Lily W.

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Rose is a good helper around the house.  She does well with the laundry, cleaning, and helping me cook and bake.

My little chef!

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We sometimes walk over to the little lake in our neighborhood.

Here she is feeding the ducks.

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We went to another Homeschool Conference this month.  Not as big the one last month, but still very nice.  Rose did some exploring with her friend Autumn around the exhibit hall and found a Math game she really liked.  I think this is the game:
Albert's Insomnia
I am thinking about getting it for her.  Have any of you ever played it?
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Lately Rose has been making a lot of things with her melty beads.  She can do it pretty independently, too.
 
First she places all the beads on the form.  She often uses tweezers for this step.

Then she turns on the iron and gets some wax paper.  Irons the beads until they melt.  Peels it off the form and irons the other side.


Here is a video she wanted to record
(if you are viewing this in a feed, email, or facebook you may need to click HERE to view the video)

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Daddy walks to the train station and rides the train to work.
On occasion when it is close to time for daddy to be home, we will walk up the street to meet daddy walking home from the train station.
Here daddy and Rose are walking back to the house after we had met him part way.

And that is a peek in to our May 2011.