Cooking with Kids: Crepes {France Learning Unit}

In our study of France in Homeschool Kindergarten, the kids and I made crepes.  It was a great Montessori-style practical life activity with plenty of fine motor skills work.  Here's what we did...

GoVoxBox from Influenster

Getting something in the mail is so much fun - even more so when it's a box from Influenster full of wonderful products to try!  I recently received my third VoxBox from the Influenster program: the GoVoxBox, which was a perfect fit for this busy, active Mommy.  Here's what was included:

Claude Monet Artist Study

Since we learned about France last week, it seemed natural to use Claude Monet for our artist study in homeschool Kindergarten.  After looking at some of his better-known works (especially the water lilies and haystacks), and learning about impressionism, we made some art inspired by his paintings.  The picture above was a collaborative effort between me and E (almost 5) using the oil pastel / watercolor relief technique (lots of fun for Mommy too!).  We tried different mediums, as well, and by the end of the session everyone was obsessed with lily pads..

Ivory Soap Science Experiment for Kids

I've been seeing the Ivory Microwave Experiment on blogs for years and have been meaning to try it.  When the girls got ivory soap for soap carving at the art museum, this experiment is the very first thing that came to mind.  First I invited L and E (almost 5) to place two different brands of soap in a bowl of water and observe what happens.  The Ivory soap floated, and the other brand did not.  The girls predicted that it was because it was lighter, but then were not so sure when they felt the weight of both bars in their hands (I should have brought out the scale so we could compare them).  I asked some prompting questions to get them thinking about how some objects that are filled with air float...