This week was busy with a costume party, a playdate and our portfolios.  In between our extra activities we had fun rowing, The Duchess Bakes a Cake.  I loved the rhyming rhythm of reading this book and the kids keep asking me to read it over and over.  This has been a favourite for sure!

Math - A week of math games!

 We've been having fun with "Marshmallow Math", a fun activity that I saw online.  I was able to adapt it so that all the kids could participate.  

For Mikayla we put a toothpick into a marshmallow and gave her a sheet of numbers.  She would try to recognize the number and then put that number of cheerios onto her toothpick.  She loved it.

Caileigh had to solve double addition and subtraction equations and then she would put the answer onto two marshmallows, one representing the "Ones" and the other representing the "Tens".  We added a third marshmallow and I would write down 3 digit numbers and she would put the amount into the 3 place values.

Aiden (not pictured) solved multiplication and division questions and put his answers onto 3 marshmallows.

The little boys just had fun putting cheerios onto the toothpick.

Language Arts  The first time we read the book, I stopped reading just before the dilemma in the story was resolved.  I asked each child how they thought the problem could be solved.  We then read on to see what the author's solution was.  All the kids liked the author's solution the best:)

The kids worked on several different creative writing assignments.  One was discussing what they like about parties, another about being a snowflake.  Some ideas are taken from our "Evan-Moor Giant Write Every Day Writing Prompts". 

The kids were introduced to conjunctions in the form on "and", "but" and "of".

We discussed alliteration and made fun coming up with our own sentences.

Social Studies

We discussed Medieval times and the kids made castles.  Aiden and Caileigh worked together on theirs and I worked with Mikayla.  This led into hours of play with their Little People and other various toys.

We made a "lovely, light, luscious, delectable cake" just like the Duchess in the book.  We discussed different materials that act as leaveners.  We used beaten egg whites to produce a light, fluffy effect to our cake.

Aiden was in charge of melting the chocolate and butter together.

Caileigh was in charge of beating the egg whites.

We topped the cake with icing sugar and it was incredibly delicious!!

Health and Career  We went over fire safety.  We came up with a family plan that included finding a primary and secondary exit from each room in the house.  We went into each bedroom, closed the door, and then I would test the smoke alarm.  The kids would crawl over to the door and tap it to see if it was hot.  If it was, then they know to escape from the window.  It not, they were to crawl out of the room to the closest exit.  We set up a family meeting place where we will all meet, in the event of a fire.  We reviewed dialing 9-1-1.

We created a map to show every room in the house and the exits.  We posted it at our front door.

We went on several websites and read the safety information.  On site, Aiden played a game to see if he could put out the fires.

We talked about earthquakes.  We went through a practice earthquake drill.  

Aiden wanted to host a Costume Party and invite some other homeschool friends.  The older three kids also enjoyed making a piñata by stapling two pieces of paper together and filling it with candy.  We had a fantastic time with our friends!

Ladybug, Luke Skywalker and a Princess

Jordan the Elephant

Alex the Pig

A born jumper, reaching for the piñata.

We made coloured pasta so we could make bracelets and necklaces.

We painted trees to show the different seasons.  This will be used again later to illustrate a writing project I am hoping to do at a later time.