We're more than a month into the school year sooooo...time for a break!
We didn't really take a break. We still did math and reading, but we took this week to get caught up on some things (such as science and art, the two neglected fields!)
I still wanted to keep on with our weekly theme but really we're doing F next week (F is for Fish, Adam's most favorite thing!) But this week F is for fall so how did we celebrate fall? Not as well as we could have but it was a break, remember? We did get out our fall decorations hanging towels that say give thanks, sticking scarecrows in our potted plants, and putting out a bowl of candy corn (a potty training reward for Jill). We also we read many books about seasons. This was our favorite...
It's about two friends bear and fox and they talk about the good and bad of each season ultimately deciding that being with friends is the best no matter the season. Great book! And sitting there on the couch reading to all four of my kids...that's my favorite season!
Adam still built his letter F.
And all on his own, he proudly built an A out of colored pencils (yes, they're all orange, his favorite color.)
Having more free time, the kids got into different projects. Here they're building with straws and paper clips, although it turned out to be more of a "sorting by colors and seeing who has the most" activity.
I hope we can all agree that break or not, there was learning going on this week!
I've recently been inspired to put together a family tree photo album. I want pictures and stories of people in our family that my grandchildren can read and see. With this in the making, I had to do G is for Grandparents. It may not have been as easy as grapes or goats but it was fun and meaningful. We looked through photo albums and talked about family. We explained and discussed what makes a grandparent (both biologically and emotionally). We had Grandma McCambridge and Grandpa Skelly send Adam a letter in the mail to make him feel special and loved by his grandparents. We colored our own pictures to mail to all our Grandparents. We read What Grandpas Do Best or was it What Grandmas Do Best. 
And we made a family tree where we can hang pictures of Adam's grandparents and great-grandparents. I bet you didn't know our family tree was so colorful :) 
Along with letter themes, we're also learning math. I must be honest, at the beginning of this year while doing a puzzle with Adam I discovered that he had no idea what a rectangle was. I was shocked. I felt so bad that somehow I hadn't sat down with him and done shape puzzles and talked about shapes and pointed out shapes. Isn't it amazing how we can beat ourselves up? Anyway, I explained what a rectangle is and decided to incorporate some sort of math into his day. This includes identifying shapes, patterns, and numbers, and recognizing patterns and comparisons. He loves coloring shapes and doing puzzles and most of all...finding shapes in our everyday world. Look...a circle! 
I don't have to encourage this behavior. He does it all on his own and usually catches me by surprise. Did you know that the light panels in our kitchen are rectangles? I do now...And look! Squares behind him, and he's standing on a rectangle! 
It's adorable and oh, so encouraging!
When I recently read Adam the Creation Bible story at bedtime, I asked him, "what's your favorite thing God created?" His answer, "fish!" You'd think with that much love I would have planned an amazing week of fish activities. I must confess that did not happen. Coming off of Jill's birthday weekend, I realized I had done little prep and planning. The one project I had in mind involved photos from our recent trip to the aquarium but we were having printer problems...I didn't even have a book for the week until the Friday before. I randomly picked a book at the library: Barry, the Fish with Fingers. I learned a hard lesson this week - planning is necessary! It doesn't take long but preparing ahead of time is critical. So here goes, what we did do:
Whenever I can, I try to offer food shaped as the letter of the week. This is often done with pancakes. This week, however, it was chocolate sauce. There were raspberries for dessert with chocolate to dip. Adam doesn't like berries of any kind so he got a plate of chocolate for dessert, yummy!
As for our book, Barry the Fish With Fingers...It looked cute and inspiring. 
Barry has fingers and can therefore do many things like count to ten, fingerpaint, and tickle (Adam's favorite part). What I didn't read until I had the library book at home was that Barry's "fingers" are actually fish sticks (you know, the frozen ones you eat!) and he gets a big box and then all the fish have fingers, yea! It is just slightly bizarre. I decided to go with it because it was Sunday night. Andrew called it cannibalistic. The kids thought it was funny. I won't be buying the book but it did inspire us to fingerpaint (it also inspired fish sticks for dinner, is that wrong?)
Jill loved fingerpainting and could have gone on for hours. Funny thing is she really focused on using just her one finger. I finally got her to use all her fingers at the end so I could get a 2 year old handprint picture :)
Jason went to both extremes creating a nice picture with a tree and stars and then just mushing all the colors together and making a mess.
Beth was her girly girl self barely using her fingers. She used a popsicle stick, sponges, and her one finger to create her pieces.
Years ago Jason's favorite books were the Elmer the Elephant books (elephants have always been Jason's favorite.) He even knew were to find them at our local library. I thought it would be fun to revisit an old friend and introduce Elmer to Adam and Jill. Elmer is a patchwork elephant. He's silly, friendly and colorful. Adam enjoyed the story (we read Elmer and the Kangaroo) and really enjoyed coloring elephants all week. I printed some coloring pages from the internet but I also found this worksheet in one of the few preschool workbooks I kept. It has you draw missing parts on the elephant. I thought it was amazingly appropriate as it was even titled Elmer Elephant. Adam did a great job. All the elephants Adam colored this week were very colorful just like Elmer.
Jill even got in the fun coloring her own elephants. She prefers markers for her work :)
In addition to preschool at home, Adam has started swim lessons (and loves it) and...
gymnastics! He's always loved climbing and jumping and rolling, and I thought it would be good for him but he's the only boy in the class. He has fun but says he doesn't want to sign up next time. We'll see...
Make way for Ducklings! Have you read this book? Do you know about Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Oack, Pack and Quack? They are Mr. and Mrs. Mallard's 8 ducklings. Adam loved this book. Every time we read the story he would point out quack (always the last duckling in line) and count the eggs to make sure all 8 were still there. It really amazes me how such a simple story with black and white pencil drawings can truly draw children in. Adam was so excited everyday to be reading his "duck" book. His love for ducks was so intense that we even read through a bunch of the non-fiction books on ducks and waterfowl. (Every week we have a book basket overflowing with library books on our theme for the week for Adam. Jason usually reads through them all, Beth flips through one or two, and Adam will look at the pictures if I sit with him). One of the books this week is "Ducks don't get wet." Ducks secrete an oil and rub it on their feathers so they don't get wet. Adam thought this was hilarious and really enjoyed the book. Because his interest was high, I wanted to be sure he understood so we compared oiled paper to non-oiled paper. Wow, water on oiled paper pooled and didn't soak in...a very successful demonstration. 
And for a bonus, the next week Jason and Beth were learning about Pilgrims and how they used oiled paper for windows! I love when everything connects. And for another great connection...this week was homeschool week at the Long Beach Aquarium. There's a decreased admission price, no school groups, and learning stations throughout the aquarium. We went for those reasons but you should have seen how excited Adam was to find that they actually have ducks at the Aquarium! Again, I love when everything connects!
Last week was carrots so there were obviously many food related activities. Well I wasn't going to cook duck (I know I could have...) but Jason and Beth kept trying to think up a good D food to eat. The only fruit or veggie I could think of was Dates. Well, Andrew supplied Adam with this alternative - donuts! Adam proudly declared, "donuts starts with D!" I was not going to buy donuts but ok, we made homemade donuts. It was educational...and yummy :)
We juiced them (and added frozen fruit to make it super yummy).
And we sprouted our own seeds (they're lentils, not carrots, but the point was made.)
We also read other books about seeds, talked about ways seeds are dispersed, and how plants grow. 
And it has nothing to do with carrots or seeds or even the letter C, but I just had to mention that we're loving our pool. Our community pool is heated and we've gone for our "PE" time at least weekly. I hope California lives up to it's good weather reputation so that we can swim for many more weeks!