Bread

I just got done baking my first ever loaf of regular whole wheat bread! I've done tons of sweet breads before, but never regular bread. I am surprised and happy to announce that it worked!! The recipe said not to cut it until it cooled, but I could not resist. It's actually edible! Yay again! I do feel happy knowing what went into this bread. I have the peace of mind of knowing that it is healthy for us, and doesn't have any preservatives or high fructose corn syrup. Now comes the real test: seeing if my guys will eat it.

Footprint Turkey

I got this idea from http://www.childcareland.com/ . G had fun with it!

Mini Pumpkin Pies

I got this idea from a friend of mine. These are the perfect size for a little snack or for sending in my husband's lunch. I just used a store-bought pie crust, rolled it out a bit thinner than it already was, and used a glass to cut out circles that were about 3" in diameter. Then I lined the cups of my muffin pan with these pie crust circles and poured in my regular pumpkin pie filling. I baked them at 425 for about 10 minutes, then lowered the heat to 350 for about 15 minutes.

Piano

Today was the first day of the 2nd quarter of kindergarten. I decided to add piano to our studies and found this cute little book for children ages 2-6. It's for the absolute beginner and I expect G will get two things out of it:

1. He will have fun with it since he will be playing songs he knows within a short amount of time.

2. He will learn the letter names of the white piano keys.

He's excited about starting piano, and so far he loves his new book!

Lentil

This week's Five in a Row title was Lentil by Robert McCloskey. Since one of the characters in the book was Colonel Carter, we took the opportunity to talk a little bit about Veteran's Day. Some of the activities we did to go along with the book were:

1) Baking cookies for a US soldier currently serving in Iraq.

2) Writing a "Happy Veteran's Day" note to a friend of ours who is serving in the Army and has been deployed to Iraq twice.

3) Introduction to the Pledge of Allegiance.

4) Experimenting with the lip puckering power of a lemon.

5) We talked about musical instruments, counting quarter, half and whole notes, and practiced clapping in time to music. The new quarter starts next week, and we will start learning the piano, so these music activities were the perfect lead-in for that.

New Phonics Activity

G loves to write, but isn't so excited about phonics so yesterday it came to me to try having him write the words we're working on reading on his white board. It worked wonderfully. We did it until he was bored with it and we got an extra 15-20 minutes of phonics in. I'm hoping this will help solidify the concept we are currently working on, the silent e.

What is wrong with me that I didn't think of this before? I wonder how long it will last.

Happy Halloween

G had a blast wearing his costume all day long. In the morning, we went to story time at the library, then after lunch it was off to a homeschool group Halloween party, and of course there was the church carnival and a bit of trick-or-treating in the evening. A very full but very fun day!