Friday, February 21, 2014

Projects All Over the House

I finally made my green healing salve. It's basically a natural polysporin. We slather ourselves with it for everything. I've been infusing my oil for a year- with comfrey, plantain, chickweed, mullein, yarrow, wild geranium, and chamomile. I have all these plants/weeds in my yard now. Thank you to my friend Jody for sending me her beeswax in the mail. Why does having a friend with bees make me feel so cool? 
Charlie sent a hug with us to Dubai for "Special Gramma"

I've been pumping these kids full of Elderberry Syrup all winter. All the kids take it willingly except Scarlet.

Charlie makes these towers, then demolishes them with a detonation.


We studied the tongue and did all kinds of taste testing. Here is my list of what we did:
-name the senses
-talk about sensory nerves
-make nerves out of pipe cleaners/beads
-tongue map of tastes- salt, sweet, bitter, sour
-discuss the new taste umami
-list foods in each category
-learn about tastebuds
-saliva
-explain how smell contributes to tasting
-taste salt, sugar, vinegar, lemon juice using a q-tip dip in the foods then dab on the tongue in different areas. should be a stronger taste in specific spots.
chart the category for the foods.
-play the "fool your tongue" game by eating something, then eating it again while smelling a cotton ball soaked in vanilla. you can't taste the food as well while smelling something else.
-say tongue twisters

These polymer beads are so much fun. Way fun for a sensory bucket.

We dissected a diaper and found the polymer layer inside that does the absorbing.
We measured how much water a diaper can hold and it was AMAZING.

This is one of the best activities we've ever done. Scarlet set up a family mail system. The idea comes from this blog Family Fun. It's been great for lots of reasons- we all write each other cute notes all the time and its motivated Scarlet to learn how to write all our names and to read them too so she can sort the mail each day. We set up a writing station with a mailbox for writing the letters. Scarlet decorated labels to use as stamps for the letters too. Then each day before supper Scarlet takes the mailbox and sorts all the mail into our own boxes. She then calls "Mail Time" so we know we can gather our letters.
So darling!

3 comments:

Timothy said...

I love Scarlet and her mailbox idea.

Lindy's Homeschool said...

Okay, I have a confession to make. I don't like looking on your blog very much because I think "Oh my goodness, she's incredible! and all her kids are so amazing!....man, I wish I could be like that but I'm not." Silly me eh?

The Eatons said...

Lindy, if you really think that, you are crazy!!
p.s. You're blog is very inspirational :)