Dec 3-7 Recap

We had a productive week here at BLISS Academy.

Monday started with Story Hour.  They read books about Gingerbread Men and got to decorate cookies and color gingerbread boys.

We are still a dye free family but are doing our best to loosen up and enjoy random moments instead of worry about them.

Mondays are busy days.  We usually sneak some core subjects in between running, meals, and naps for the little guys.
We have art on Monday afternoons followed by ballet.  The art project was a two week undertaking so finished pics will be in next week's recap.

Chelsie and I took black paper with white chalk and white paint and glitter for the younger 3 to make "snow pictures."  I guess I didn't take a single picture of them at work!  Here's Mia's finished product:

I did take a picture of these two friends cleaning up.  Quite a pair, this duo.

Tiny dancers are so cute.  Natalee's easily distracted so I haven't slipped out to take pictures of her during dance...yet.

Monday it was back home for a quick supper, showers, and snuggling down together to watch The Great Christmas Light Fight!

Our core subjects marched on much the same.  I continued to try to be "fun" and inventive for some of our writing assignments.  In History we began Imprisoned In the Golden City and we are reading Calico Bush together as a read aloud for Reading.  N and X finished Justin Morgan Had a Horse and we finished reading aloud Lewis and Clark.  We really enjoyed Lewis and Clark and I think we will stall out and continue studying about them for another week or so.  In Math the older two worked on money, specifically counting exact change with the least amount of coins.  We did a variety of things for writing, one of the favorite being me teaching the older two to make snowflakes, step by step, and then having them write the directions from memory of the steps we took.  Challenge!

I'm also trying to incorporate hand strengthening and fine motor work into more of our week....this week I cut out stocking shapes and had the kids punch holes around the edges (I helped the little two squeeze the punch) and then gave them each a lace to lace them up with.

Mia remained focused the entire time!  She loves a "project."

I was SHOCKED at Zayden's lacing ability.  He laced around his entire stocking weaving in and out like it completely made sense.

We finished off the stockings with the kids' names and a fuzzy cotton top.

The kids also did lacing Christmas trees...

We used rainbow yarn for Christmas lights and they dotted on ornaments with metallic Crayola markers.

Other non-core work included piano for Natalee and Bible for us all.  We do the Jesse Tree through the month of December and look forward to it every night.

We traded our office futon for a daybed last weekend and I finally got it put altogether and the office cleaned up on Thursday.  The kids love the daybed for reading, napping, sitting to do school work, and hanging out.  Thank you, Buzz and Faith Ann for the trade.

Preschool was a lot of reading this week, calendar time, practice on obedience, and an introduction to the letter Oo.

Xavier got two of his stitches out on Tuesday and the other two out on Friday.

He was a bit dramatic and not particularly brave.  He's had so few medical needs that I suppose this was all very overwhelming to him.

Friday was also co-op.  Daddy was on night shifts Monday-Thursday which meant he had Friday off.  Yay!

This month for co-op we did holiday craft stations.  We had over 40 children again.

The children in first grade and up just got to pick and choose and mill about the stations they wanted to do.  

Their choices were:

Christmas bow wreaths

cookie mix in a jar

This messy station was mine!  If you do this station, pack funnels along.  I had to snitch paper from the DIY card station to make funnels.

Just in case you wonder, you need approximately 3 five pound bags of flour, 3 four pound bags white sugar, 2-3 bags of brown sugar, 1 box baking soda, a bit of a canister of salt, and 3 canisters rolled oats to make 25ish quart jars of oatmeal cookie mix.  Whew.  I also had fabric available to cover the tops and ribbons to tie the rest of the recipe cards on.

perler bead snowflakes

I thought this mom volunteer was so brave because perler beads often end in disaster for us, but really it seemed to go so smoothly.  The kids LOVED it and I thought they all turned out really sweet.

handprint cardinals

Natalee

Xavier

marble milk jug ornaments (with sharpies/rubbing alcohol)

DIY Christmas cards

tissue paper wreaths

They had about an hour and a half to do what they wanted, to visit with friends, and to enjoy their morning.

We separated out the preschool and kindergarten kids and kept them in their own room, taking crafts to them.  They got to do:

gingerbread and angel puppets

rudolph bulb ornaments

snowball fight games!

I didn't make it back to see what this entailed but Wes, the leader of this activity, made a friend in Zayden with his games so it must have been a huge hit!

Nativity sticker craft

foam stocking and snowflake sticker ornaments

They had so much fun, and transitioning them every 20 minutes seemed to work really well the teachers told me.  Kudos to all the parents who jumped in, helping, cleaning up messes, and keeping the kiddos entertained.  I'm so used to working with preschool that it was a big switch for me to hang with the big kids all morning.  Our paint hostess, Charlotte, who is not afraid of messy children or paint, also offered to make a handprint cardinal with the little guys so the parents could have them as a keepsake.  

Mia

Zayden

We had so much fun.  Most of the families carried a lunch in and stayed to fellowship with each other.  I especially appreciated the lay-out of the church we met in and that our host had thought to cover the craft tables with paper.  Also, the floor was tile - so much easier to sweep up messes!  We appreciate it when co-op families come together and participate in activities - it's fun to be a part of this community.

All in all, it was another very successful week of school!