MOOre on Cows

So what was our science experiment yesterday? Well, I put some whipping cream in a jar, spent a whole lot of time (and hopefully a whole lot of calories!) shaking it up...

and what did we get?! Butter!

Of course, we had to do a taste test. It passed.

Then today, despite having this going on outside,

the kids and I braved the weather and headed to the library for Story Time. The roads were horrible, and that was just the in-town roads, driving the 7 blocks to the library. In fact, I almost got stuck in our driveway, so we almost didn't make it to the library. I can't imagine what the country roads look like today! All the kids dressed up in costumes for Story Time, and my daughter, being the true girl that she is, tried on 3 different outfits before deciding on what she wanted to wear. See, I'm not one to go out and buy a $35 Halloween costume for my kids (because Halloween just isn't that big of a deal to me), so instead, we tend to dig through our box of dress-up clothes, add a little creativity, and see where that takes us.

My point in all this is that our entire morning was spent getting ready for, and actually trying to get to, the library. No school was accomplished at all this morning. By the time we got home from the library, it was lunchtime. So here is where we pick up on our lesson theme.

We had a dairy lunch today, to go along with our cow lesson - grilled cheese sandwiches, what my kids like to call "cheese chips" (a.k.a. Doritos), yogurt, and milk.

We made our cow-shaped badges with our words to remember written on them: "God's Word helps me grow."

We read "The Story of Ferdinand" by Munro Leaf and discussed how Ferdinand was different from the other bulls, and the ways that we are unique compared to others. Madison then illustrated the story and I love how her pictures turned out!

We also read "Farm Alphabet Book" by Jane Miller which describes a different feature of a farm for each letter of the alphabet.
We completed a cow dot-to dot as well.
(Dot to dot page from www.makinglearningfun.com)

We have a couple more things to try accomplish later today after naps, but since they are more general items and don't really follow our theme (i.e. practicing numbers, handwriting, reading Bob books), I'm not going to post them. So I guess this about does it for C/Cows! Next up, horses!

Cow-abunga!

Lesson 13 teaches about the letter C and cows. We read the verses from 1 Peter 2:2-3, which says,

"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."

Just like milk helps us grow to be strong and healthy individuals, we remember that "God's Word helps me grow".

I'm actually still waiting on a few books from our library to use for this lesson, and I should be able to pick those up tomorrow. We were able, however, to do a few activities today to get a start on the lesson.

During math time, we played a dice game where the kids rolled the dice, counted how many dots there were, then either placed the correct number of pom-poms on the cow (what Noah decided to do), or colored in the correct number of circles (what Madison decided to do).

(cow math sheet from www.makinglearningfun.com)

We made these cute cow masks for an art project. If I were to make a suggestion to others who would be interested in making these, it would be to either glue the pieces onto cardboard, or laminate the masks. Using just construction paper like the directions said, we found that they are pretty flimsy and don't want to stand up straight. The top of the cow keeps wanting to flip over. I even tried gluing sticks to the back side of them hoping that would help, but it really didn't. They are cute to look at, but to be honest, I just don't see them withstanding my children's imaginative play for very long!
(cow mask idea from www. makinglearningfun.com)

To go along with our letter "C" theme, we read "The Mixed-Up Chameleon" by Eric Carle. This book taught a great lesson in being thankful for how God made us, and how we shouldn't always be wishing that we could be like someone else. After talking quite a bit about that lesson, we made our foam lowercase "c" into a chameleon.
(idea from http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/06/now-i-know-my-abcs-c-is-for-chameleon.html)

For our snack, after reading "The Mixed-Up Chameleon", we picked out 3 flavors of yogurt (which also happens to go along with the cow/milk/dairy theme!), then we mixed them up.
(I came across this idea online somewhere, but now I can't seem to find the site! My apologies!)

For science time, we read the book "Cows Have Calves" by Lynn Stone, which gave us some information about dairy calves. We also plan on doing a science project this evening after Daddy gets home from work, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what that is!