Kyrie's 9th Birthday Spa Party

Kyrie started asking for a spa birthday party (at Sweet & Sassy) nearly a year ago after she attended a friend's party at the same place. She was very excited as we prepared and invited friends. The day of the party, the kids ended up having a make-up session for German School at the zoo, which Darren attended with them. They left the zoo and headed to the party place where I met them (after doubling back because I forgot the cake... yikes!). 

Degen joined the girls who go pink robes and flip-flops before beginning their afternoon of pampering. The party started with chocolate 'mud' masks and then the kids were split up to get pedicures, polishes, make-up and simple updos. It was really fun to watch the kids going through each of these steps. There were lots of smiles! 

After all the pampering, the kids gathered for a group photo and then made their own lotions before we headed to the party room for snacks & cake. I think all the kids had a great time! On the way home, Kyrie was already wanting to go back to get mani-pedis with her friends... and Degen, too! We had a wonderful time celebrating with our friends!

Spa Birthday Party Cake

Here is Kyrie's birthday party cake. She had her party at a children's spa, so keeping with that theme, we decided on a nail polish bottle cake. At first, we wanted to make an upright polish bottle, but I couldn't find a cake box to accommodate the height (and didn't want to make my own box). So, I had to alter the plan and instead made the bottle spilled on its side. 

The biggest challenge for this cake was putting together the nail polish bottle. I was thinking that I would need to use some dowel roads to hold the cake together, but it came together quite easily with no worry that it would fall apart. To make the cake, I used a giant cupcake pan, a round pan and one cupcake. I cut one side from the giant cupcake so that the cake would lay on its side and then pieced together everything. The round cake had a strawberry filling. 

Overall, this cake was not that difficult. I took the process slowly and was pleased with how it turned out! 

Homeschool15: St. Patrick's Day/Weather

Pages from Degen's journal.

Our homeschool units for this year began with units about ourselves in the world. We talked about time and relationships and our bodies and nutrition. After our nutrition unit, we switched our focus on the world around us. We have already looked at transportation and our solar system, during this unit, we focused on weather (while also celebrating St. Patrick's day). We will continue studying aspects of  our world for the next few months. 

Degen's unit folder.

Map work from Degen. We have been focusing on map symbols.

Poster page by Degen

Kyrie's unit folder

This year, we have been focusing on content vocabulary. She has a good grasp of much of the vocabulary we are encountering.

Kyrie's country study: Irelend, of course! 

Kyrie's sense poem about the wind.

I have added some of these math practice sheets to many of Kyrie's country studies. 

This is a new way that I created to help Kyrie think about her writing. It is appealing to her (more so than our usual writing rubrics) because it includes cute concepts. I wanted to develop an easy & memorable way for her to remember what she needs to look for when she edits her writing. So, I came up with P.I.G.S. I think that this has been a nice edition to her writing assignments. 

Kyrie's unit writing project was an opinion piece about the best weather (her choice).

Having a Ball!

Degen asked Santa for this giant ball you can climb inside at Christmas (on his sister's behalf). Then the kids had to wait and wait until the weather finally warmed up and it wasn't too muddy... and for Darren to spend half the afternoon blowing it up. They had a blast and played with their giant ball for about 2 hours that afternoon... and popped holes in two of the chambers. Ugh! Finding and patching holes in this ball is going to be an on-going struggle. 

Homeschool15: Transportation & Space

Kyrie's unit folder, a space scene.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I lost a couple files of photos recently. However, I was able to replace the pics I took of their school work for this unit. 

Kyrie spent this unit concentrating on the study of space with some in-depth articles about Mars. Not surprisingly, she chose to write about Mars for her unit writing project. 

Degen's unit folder.

I have started letting Kyrie choose the topics for her writing projects within the framework of our unit studies. She chose to write an opinion piece about the 'best' planet. Her choice: Mars.

Origami rocket ship by Kyrie

Kyrie's country study during this unit was about Kenya. We made African peanut bread  as part of this country study.

Degen studied transportation and space during this unit. I am really seeing progress in his phonics studies. We keep building and building on all of his pre-reading skills, and I am confident that he will be reading by the end of the year. (Hindsight is 20/20: I was way more stressed about Kyrie learning to read, and pushed her way more than I am pushing Degen. I know that he will get it slow & steady!)

Part of Degen's space study is understanding Earth's place in the solar system, specifically the 'relationship' of the Earth with the Sun. 

A fun part of our letter studies is when Degen gets to make a picture using the letter.

I have been really happy to see Degen progress using activities like this where he has to figure out the order of letters to create words. 

I like this journal entry where Degen drew a picture of part of the solar system.