Owl Pellet dissection

Visiting Flat Stanley

We have a visiting Flat Stanley here from a friend of ours. Stanley is getting to enjoy the rare & elusive snow storm in North Carolina! Here he is enjoying sledding. Did you know that the type of sled he is riding is called a toboggan? But here in North Carolina, the hat that he & Luca are wearing is called a toboggan & the sled is just a sled. Us relocated Yankees think that's just not right!

Field Trip in our Neighborhood

We went on a walkabout the other day. The boys wanted to show me the creek that winds through our neighborhood. It was a good time & reminded me of growing up & all the times I spent in the backyard, playing by the river in Monroe.

Hard tack

Niles & I made hard tack. Which is the bread sailors used to eat on ships in the 17th century. Yes, it is as tasty as it sounds! Haha! It's salt, flour & water. And could probably be used to repair portions of your home if necessary! But it was fun to make it & get a chance to experience something he'd only read about in his book.

Going buggy

Luca is in a great co-op class this time, called Going Buggy. Here is a picture of the peanut butter play doh ant he made one day. And here is the clay sculpture spider. And the mealworms we are watching change into beetles!

Baking

Another project we did was bake a coffee cake! The boys are really enjoying doing cooking & baking, so I've been trying to include them more in projects & planning. The hardest part is that Elie always wants to help too! She wants to be on the same chair, wants to measure with the same cup or spoon & don't even think about not letting her use the mixer!! So when the recipe says 10 minutes prep, figure 20-25 depending on how much pushing & shoving there is!

Origami

We've been having a pretty nice winter break. I haven't been stressing too much about what we are getting done, especially since Nate is gone & very obviously on break in California w/his dad. But I did find some books about origami at the library,so we did some of that! We talked about the shapes, lines of symmetry & just how hard it is to follow someone's instructions! But it was fun & we plan do more today. Obviously, we started w/the very easy origami kids book! And hey, I needed it just as much as they did!