Homeschooling Friday - Week Two

We had an awesome week! I love fall, I love October, and I love Halloween, (plus my birthday was Wednesday) so there was no way it wouldn't be an awesome week. I have decided that Halloween is going to be a major holiday in this house from now on. I am talking Christmas major. Mini Halloween stockings, advent calenders, exchanging gifts, cookies, crafts, the whole shebang. If Magdalena goes back to public school in the future, I may make her stay home the weekend before to make and bake with me and have a big party after school.
We spent the week on Halloween crafts, and learning about the letter B and the number one.
We made bird masks on Monday:

Butterflies on Tuesday:

On Wednesday, there was no way I was going to adhere to a strict diet on my birthday, so we spent the day baking cookies. Chocolate and vanilla Day of the Dead skull cookies, to be precise:

These, seriously, are a can't miss. The cookie above it the absolute best looking one we got, but keep in mind I had a five year old helper. But taste wise, they're amazing, no matter how they look! Recipe here: http://www.nantucketknitter.com/2013/10/day-of-the-dead-cookies.html! (I originally had the recipe in this post, but it deserves it's own post. Seriously.)
We also made these amazingly fun crafts this week:

It's Halloween, and it starts with B, perfect! (I didn't take any step by step pictures with Boo, might be a good thing as the post is long enough without them!) For Boo we followed part of this inchie idea: http://www.thatartistwoman.org/2011/10/halloween-inchies-part-1.html

We followed the ideas here for this one, roughly: http://www.thatartistwoman.org/2012/10/halloween-inchies-2012.html. I cut three inch squares for both projects, because I thought two inches would be too hard to work with, with a five and four year old. (Magdalena's friend Mr. T was here for one of the projects.)
We didn't have everything she used on hand, like bubble wrap and googly eyes, but we made do with what we had. They were such fun projects, I will be doing these for every holiday, and I think for gifts as well.
We painted all of the backgrounds of the little squares first, as well as collaged the center one, then let everything dry whilst we went and ran some errands.

I wouldn't use sand on them next time. It was cool because M loved watching the paint being sucked up by the sand, and it left a nifty effect. But it was way too hard to glue anything on afterwards. Although, I don't have any liquid white glue now, so we were working with glue sticks, and M dumped a ton of sand on them, so that may have had something to do with it.
Once everything was dried, we got to work on the details.

Our structured projects don't normally take so long, or require quite so much work; I think that was good for a change to have an all day project. Plus one that requires such attention to detail, for a five year old.

For the background, I cut a piece of poster board big enough to hold all the mini projects, with an inch or so border between each one and all around. Then, I let Magdalena go wild on it with water colors. I think after so many hours of such structure, it was good to let loose!

I think this one is getting its own frame! We are going to be working on a fall theme of this same project next week, then a Thanksgiving one as well! Seriously, fun, fun, fun. The website, that artist woman, has been a major source of inspiration since I came across it. I will be referring back to it through out the year. Go check it out, you won't be disappointed!

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