Rolling Along Well

Rolling along well in our homeschooling and also these Mexican wedding/flag cookies that we made this week. This is a simple cookie that are rolled into balls and then decorated the colors of the Mexican Flag. We got this from our Spanish curriculum Las Clase Divertida . If that link doesn't work check it out at CBD .

First we made the dough and split it three ways for Colin, Hayley and Tristan.

Then add food coloring and form into balls.

bake

after baked roll in powdered sugar

Then wash your hands really well since that food coloring is MESSY.

Finally, enjoy.

We are so enjoying our la clase divertida level one. I plan to do all three levels with the kids. Level one is suggested for grades 1-6 or so. Same for level 2 and level 3 is suggested for 1st-8th. Hayley is above grade 6 but still quite enjoys the lessons. I think under high school age could get away with any of these levels.

Friday we moved on to the contour drawing lesson in Drawing basics. The goal was to draw something while looking at your object, not your paper, and also not lifting your pencil!

Colin and Tristan chose leaves for their objects and afterwards Colin asked if they could do leaf rubbing. I thought my kids would be too old for this fun activity this year but Colin and Tristan had a blast making leaf rubbing pictures. This is a sentimental activity for me since it's one of the first things we ever did as "homeschoolers" back when Trevor was just 5 and Hayley 3.5. Also one of the first activities I did with a small homeschool group I started back when my kids were little. What a treat that my youngers still like to do things like this from time to time!

We are in an excellent routine with our homeschooling now. I kept what was working and didn't think twice about replacing those things that were not working. The latest change was Trevor's science. We tried Teaching Company Chemistry and it was just not a good fit for Trevor. I got My Favorite Universe, also from the Teaching Company and it is ***awesome***! We've only done 1 lesson so far but were hooked right into the subject, the professor is fun and loves his subject. This one is a keeper. I'm only sad that it's just a 12 lesson course. We are loving Math U See as well. I have all the kids on it in some way or other now. I always wondered how on earth people utilize (fit in!) two different math curriculum's. It was an I could NEVER do that thought. Well now all of my kids have two different math and it is working great. Tristan and Colin continue to use CLE once per week and MUS 4 times. Hayley is using a few assorted MUS lessons for topics she never quite mastered along with SOS 7th grade math. Trevor is using MUS 4 days and Teaching Company algebra 1 day per week. I feel at this stage these combinations are giving my kids a deep and wide math education. Deep understanding through math U See but also wide through the very diverse CLE math lessons in the younger kids case or the pre-algebra SOS in Hayley's case. For Trevor the TC algebra simply gives him a different way to look at algebra than the MUS and more work with the graphing calculator. I never could have done this when my kids were younger but for this age and stage they are at two maths is working perfectly and keeping interest high.

Another thing rolling along, or blowing around is the leaves. Fall has set in full force here. The days are chilly, the nights downright cold and there has been a lot of wind too. Here are some photos of kids and cats playing and the current foliage colors. It goes fast here I estimate that most of the leaves will be gone from the trees in a week or so.