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Circle Time (every day)

• Song: She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain
  • We are learning new songs now that Kai really enjoys singing and has begun to pick up the words to songs we sing all the time. Each song is scheduled for two weeks, so that she has plenty of time to pick up the lyrics and hand gestures.
• PE: Hopping
  • We are working on hopping on one foot.
• Calendar: Weather
  • We are charting our daily weather.

Monday

Outdoor Nature Study: Creeks and Erosion

• We are looking for creeks and the effect of erosion this week on our nature walk. We’ll be wading in the two or three inches of water that are there this time of year and looking at how water effects the banks of our local creek.

Process Art: water and oil drop painting

• Our art activity this week was inspired by Stay at Home Educator. We are oil and liquid watercolors in dropped to make paintings.

Tuesday

Indoor Nature Study: Erosion 

• We are going to looks at canyons and rivers and learn more about how erosion works. We’ll be playing with sand and water droppers to see if we can make a canyons with our own water power.

Life Skill: Tea Time/Washing Dishes

• Tuesday is tea time! First, Kai is going to help wash our cups and plates afterward.  We have a treat and some lemonade in a tea cup and I read a book from the book basket.
• We also do a math activity from Mathematical Reasoning Beginning 1
  

   or another math activity.
  

Wednesday

Science: Wind

• We are looking at wind this week, and learning about how it effects us and our weather. 

Sensory:

• We are going to play with kinetic sand and water this week.

Thursday

Seasonal: Starting the New Year

• The new year is a time for keeping what is precious and shaking off what is weighing us down, so in that spirit, we do an audit of our material possessions. What do we want to keep, what do we want to get rid of, and how many more socks do we all need? 

Kitchen: French Onion Soup

• French onion soup is a traditional New Years food in our family. It takes lots and lots a chopping, which Kai loves to do. So we will be practicing our chopping skills this week and trying not to cry too much. (I do use the recipe my grandmother made, which does include alcohol which simmers off.)

Friday

Ancestor Tale: Creation Stories (Abrahamic) 

• Instead of reading a story from a book, Fridays are for oral story telling. I learn a new story every other week to tell Kai, and we act out the story with props. Usually the story gets acted out again and again during playtime and bed time, as Kai tends to really enjoy this kind of story telling. During early winter we are focusing on creation stories around the world.

Painting and Drawing:

• On Fridays, I tell a story and Kai is invited to paint or draw something from it.

If you want to see how it went or follow along, I generally post our school photos to our Instagram either on the same day or soon after.

Specific Materials for Week 5:

• Vegetable oil
• Droppers
• Play Sand
• Kinetic Sand

See our School Supplies post for general supplies used throughout the year.

Recipe

• 10 cups of thinly sliced yellow onions
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 8 cups of broth (we make our own bone broth, but beef stock will work too)
• 1/2 c dry vermouth
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• a loaf of french bread (~8 slices, each an inch and a half thick)
• 2 cups Swiss Gruyere

1. Chop onions into thin slivers. So much chopping.
2. Caramelize onions in a little more than half the olive oil for ~20 minutes.
3. Once onions are soft add the rest of the oil and the butter, and continue cooking for another 15 minutes or so until onions start to brown.
4. Sprinkle with sugar and salt, and continue cooking for another 15 minutes until onions are fully caramelized.
5. Add garlic.
6. Add vermouth and deglaze your pot by scrapping up all the brown bits from the sides and bottom until they start to form a bit of a sauce.
7. Add stock and spices.
8. Cover the pot and simmer on low heat from about 30 minutes.
9. Toast your french loaf slices in the over for 5 minutes
10. If you have special french onion soup bowls you can ladle in the soup and the place the bread and cheese on top before putting them under the broiler in your oven until the cheese melts OR you can melt the cheese on top of the bread under the broiler before adding it to your soup bowls.

11. If you are my sister and you are eating this out of a coffee mug, you ladle your soup out, add bread and cheese and zap in the microwave until the cheese is melted.