week 3 and some cupcakes

(Warning, lots of pictures!)

For the last two weeks I have posted about school on Friday.  So, why stop now.  I am mostly doing this so Mamaw and Papaw can see the girls' progress.  Being so far away, I know how hard it is on them to not be around the girls.

This was our third week of school.  So far, so good.  What I am finding that I like most about homeschooling, other than the fact that I get to teach my children, is the flexibility.  We are on our own schedule.  Which, when the bed is toasty warm in the morning, we don't necessarily have to get out of bed at any particular time.  I love that!

Today we just forged on in the workbooks.  Usually we do a page or two in each workbook each day.  The girls each have 9 workbooks and there are a handful of other books that we discuss together.  And, we have the learning games and toys that we use, as well as the science experiments.

Here the girls are working in one of their workbooks.  Coloring in the different items and practicing number recognition and writing the numbers.  I've been surprised how well Emily is hanging with Bella.  They are 14 months apart but there isn't much lag as far as Emily keeping up.  And, Bella does struggle with that bit of perfectionism that she has. Overall, they are both doing well.

Here is a interesting learning tool.  It is called a Purpllinker.  It came with the insert that shows how to form all the capital and lower case letters and some shapes and numbers.  Right now the girls are figuring out the more simple letters and numbers.  I told them as long as they try, they are doing great!

This is one of our science experiments.  We were taking two colors and mixing them to see what new color they make.  The kit also included these growing crystals.  You mix them with water and they grow.  We put in some different color crystals to see how that affected the color.  The science experiments are always the big hit.

And, just for fun, to celebrate how well they are doing in school, we made cupcakes today!  I was brave and let the girls do most of the mixing and such.

I had to be quick with the pictures because these girls don't sit still very long. 

Here is Bella pouring the mix into the bowl.  I cheated and used box mix and icing from the store.

Emily, on her first try, cracked an egg.  She didn't even get any shells in with it.  I was impressed!

The same for Bella.  This was her first try and she got it right off the bat.  No shells either!

Bella is adding the oil to the mix.

Emily added the water.



Emily is taking her turn mixing everything together.  I reminded this wild one to do it gently several times.  She was pretty good.  No mess at all!

Miss Perfection was nice and slow with the mixing.  I didn't expect any mess from her and I was right.

Here they each got their own liners.  Emily got snowman ones and Bella got Santa ones.  I stocked up at K-Mart a few years back.  Still got plenty of these liners left.

I let them pour batter into one of the liners.  It was going to be too much work letting them do them all.

Emily proved me right.  After I snapped this picture, she dumped the remaining batter from the measuring cup right onto the cupcake pan.  After cleaning that up, I finished pouring them all.

After putting icing on one cupcake, they asked if they could eat it.  I wasn't going to make them wait.  You can see Emily's empty liner.  I think I saw Emily put a sprinkle on the cupcake then one in her mouth.  She did that the entire time she was decorating.  She probably ended up eating more of the sprinkles than she used to decorate. 

Bella was very careful with her decorations.  She wanted them to look perfect. She said, "When daddy comes home he is going to say 'Those look beautiful''. 

Here are some of the cupcakes that were decorated.

They said they had a fun day!  That is all that matters.  Plus, there wasn't any arguing.  Bonus!