MFW Adventures, Weeks 7 & 8

Let's take a poll right now and see how many people think that this is a downward trend? I started out trying to get the weekly update in by the weekend of, and now has turned into every two weeks. Thank you to all my lovely readers who show such patience! :)

Besides keeping up with the three R's (or technically, the R,WR,AR)...

During the past two weeks, our Bible lessons taught about Jesus, the Bread of Life. We started off the week with homemade English-Muffin Bread (mmmm), and through the weeks, we tied in yeast experiments, dough making, and a fun book from our book basket.

Glen's boss sent home a huge bag of books home for the girls. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this book, so perfect for our study.

Mixing up the yeast/water/sugar combination for experiment

...which is poured into a bottle and capped with a balloon.

The yeast feeds on the sugar, producing carbon dioxide. The balloon expands.

Olivia documents the experiment
Cute, huh?Carli's narration of the experiment (She dictated it to me, but drew the pics herself).
Carli joins the littles for an afternoon nap, making mama very jealous!

In history, we studied the colonists in New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) and the pioneers in Michigan. Besides enjoying the Pioneers and Patriots book, we read several books from our book basket (forgot to take a picture). One of the favorite parts of our day is always the read-aloud, related to history. Carli begs to keep going. Our current read-aloud is The Courage of Sarah Noble, based on the true story of a little girl who accompanied her father to the wilderness of Connecticut in the 1700s.

We also made butter (in pajama bottoms with a sweatshirt that doesn't match, evidently)!

Lots of shaking...

...turns whipping cream into butter in about 15 minutes.

I chose Amelia Bedilia for Carli's reader this week. She laughed herself silly, as you can see.

Ooops, these should have been up further, but here's Carli making homemade modeling dough. The intention was to bake her creation and then paint it, but evidently Daddy didn't get the memo. After it was out of the oven, he picked it up, asking, "What's this?" while it fell apart in his hands. Ah well, she had fun making it.

Comparison dictated by Carli

Just for fun...One day we ran over to the Pointy Pencil to pick up some primary-lined paper, and they had a craft going on for Oktoberfest.

For a nature walk this week, I had Carli draw in her nature journal one item and take my camera (!) and take pictures of something that made her think of fall. Her pics included...

...fading hydrangeas...

...leaves starting to turn...

...the neighbor's bush changing color...

...herself in the grass (huh??)...

...the clear blue sky....

Our weeks were especially busy with extra activities. We took Kirsten to Indianapolis Museum of Art (more on that in another post),

...visited an apple orchard with Olivia's preschool (pics coming soon)...

...trekked clear over to Flora with our homeschool group to take in an Amish sawmill and honey farm...

...celebrated National Reading Day with books I'd saved back from my Usborne party (one for each girl..they were beyond thrilled and we had fun reading them aloud together).

Although I didn't get pictures, the girls also spent two nights with Grandma and attended Old-Fashioned Days at their aunties' school, and on Sunday we took part in a Life Chain to support the rights of unborn babies.