Week of September 17

Ava continues to surprise me daily with new things she says and does.  This week it was fun to catch her "reading" on the couch like Noelle does.  She loves to go to co-op.  Sometimes I drop off Noelle at the same house we have co-op for a girls' club meeting, which means Ava doesn't get to go inside.  She definitely recognizes the house and gets really upset when we turn around and leave.

Ava likes play time, snack time, art time and music time.  She does not like sit-on-your-shape-and-be-quiet-for-a-story time.

This week for co-op science homework Noelle was supposed to start thinking like a scientist and write down questions.  We were watching a cupcake show and they got an order for gluten-free cupcakes.  Noelle asked "What's gluten?" so we made a n experiment out of it.

We made a batch of cupcakes with regular flour, and one with gluten free flour.  We learned that gluten is a protein that in baking creates a spider web effect to trap air in the dough so it can rise and be light and fluffy. Without gluten, we predicted that those cupcakes would be flatter.

We were right.  The cupcakes on the left are the gluten-free ones.

At co-op this week the kids combined chemistry and art to make t-shirts.  They have been learning about atoms and molecules, density and solubility.  You use a sharpie marker to make a design on a t-shirt.  The ink in permanent markers is not soluble in water, so you can draw on a shirt and then wash it and it will be fine.  The ink molecules are, however, soluble in rubbing alcohol.  So you draw on the shirt, drop some rubbing alcohol on it, and watch the ink spread to make a cool tie-dye effect.  Once that has dried, you set the ink by drying it on high heat in the dryer for 15 minutes.  Then you can wash and wear without affecting the design.

Another exciting addition to Noelle's education this week: piano lessons with auntie Emma!  She has been waiting for this for months and is excited to have a piano teacher who isn't me.  Her first lesson was close to an hour, which is way longer than anything I'd ever done with her.  I asked her afterwards if it had seemed like a long time, and she said "NO!"

Nothing new and exciting in the other subjects.  Just continuing on with the same subjects as last week in Life of Fred math, spelling, grammar, geography, social studies, literature, etc.  Well, maybe nothing new, but definitely fun to be learning at home!