Weekly Review: 06 February

Phonics/ABCs:

Abby is plowing through Funnix. Every once in a while Abby will complain if I pull her away from doing something more fun, but if I warn her we're getting ready to do it, she's more than willing. She loves the worksheets that come with it. The other night we were stopped at a store and she pointed at a word on the window and said, "Look, Daddy. This word is 'for.'"

Emmett is still learning his letters, so this week we talked about the letter T and what sound it makes. All week I've asked him what says the /t/ sound and he says, "T!" When Abby sits at the table to do her reading lesson, he asks to sit up and do his, so I've let him trace the letter T and write it on his own. All week he has (of his own accord) made T with anything he can. This morning,even, he held up two flashlights and said, "Look! I can make the letter L and the letter T!"

Ellie can't let the older kids do anything without being in on it. While we're doing "reading lessons" Ellie is either napping or sitting at the table with us. If she's awake, we see a lot of her demanding to do whatever it is we're doing.

Story Time:

This week we've started Rumpelstiltskin. It's a fairy tale my kids haven't really heard and aren't really familiar with. We looked up videos on YouTube of what a spinning wheel does and what it looks like, which Abby was fascinated with.

We're starting to work on the kids' listening skills. Emmett hasn't always cared to listen to stories. When I ask him to bring me a book he typically brings me a look-and-find as opposed to a storybook. When he does bring me a storybook, it's about a character he's seen on TV. I want him to enjoy stories for the story. Abby loves to listen to stories, but we haven't moved much past picture books. We've dabbled with some chapter read-alouds (Pain and the Great One, Junie B. Jones, The Magic Treehouse), but she's not been as interested in the stories. I think, mostly, because we haven't found the niche she likes. So, our first listening of Rumpelstiltskin was a recording from the Kiddie Records website. I printed out coloring pages off the internet so they could have something for their hands to do. Apparently, though, there are not a lot of Rumpelstiltskin coloring pages...

Life:

We made Kool-Aid playdough this last week. This is the type of playdough that is always accessible to them (we keep it in the bottom of the fridge). I don't mind them mixing it or making a mess or, in Emmett's case, eating it. Emmett and Abby have already mixed their colors.

Emmett even made a T with his playdough:

Snow Days!

Between last week and this week, we've had nearly a foot-and-a-half of snow. The kids have loved playing in it. Abby especially could play in the snow for hours. Even Daddy had snow days! Last week he worked a total of five hours for the week!

Swim:

The older kids are finishing up another session of swim. Next lesson they'll move into an older class (typically for kids 6+, and they are 4 and 3). We're hoping this next class will focus on different strokes, but mostly we're hoping they'll gain some endurance. They can swim fairly well, but ideally we'd like them to be able to swim further. Abby starts to freak out if it's longer than she thinks it should be. Emmett just exhausts himself because he starts out so quickly, and his body is only so big.

Abby's been hesitant to put her face in the water lately. They swim so much better when their head is down and in the water (and it's proper form!) so we went out of the way to buy good goggles to see if it would help her and it has! She'll just have to remember that she shouldn't have any worries about putting her face in now.


In this one you can see the kids jumping in. This is Emmett's favorite part during swim lessons.

Mom and Dad:

We are taking the same Developmental Psychology course this semester. This week we had a quiz, a paper, and a test. He and I are both grateful that this week is done, but this next week brings the same amount of assignments for different classes. Still, we're both happy that we can both be online classes which makes being in school while taking care of three young children a lot easier.