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Saturday, August 27, 2011

Week 1!

This was our first week with everything added in. Our kids were pretty excited to start "school."


I picked up a bell for the kids to ring after their rooms are clean to signify that it's school time. Each morning this week they've raced to see who could get their rooms cleaned and dressed fastest so they could ring the school bell.

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And just a warning...I do actually fix my girls' hair, but in the mornings (which is when school takes place), we're a lot more relaxed. So, you're about to see a whole lotta' bedhead. :)


ABCs:

Emmett is really getting passed this, but we haven't finished our coconut tree! So, we're still lightly reviewing our letters. When we finish, then we'll let the coconut tree be for a bit and then go back and do lowercase letters for Ellie.

This week we did letter F. We pulled out some rice and wrote in it, did a bit of tracing of the letter, and then made a letter craft. I did this craft with Abby when she was little. It's a nice way to illustrate the /f/ sound when we use it to blow it off our hands!

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Of course, with my kids anything where you get to use school glue like this is the neatest craft!

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PreK:

Emmett is working through the first What Your Preschooler Needs to Know Activity Book. We did some comparing work, sang "I'm A Little Teapot" and did a coordinating activity. I love this activity book because it has all of the cutouts and things in the back of the book already perforated. I don't even have to worry about cutting them out! Just punch out and go!

Emmett loves having his own separate lesson. Abby has a "free folder" that she can choose an activity from while she's waiting. On this particular day, Abby chose to do the Tangoes.

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Reading:

For read-aloud we have moved on to Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. And, of course, we are still reading aloud our fair share of picture books.

Abby isn't doing any formal reading lessons, but she is still reading aloud to me. This week, she read The Lighthouse Children, Caps for Sale, Counting Sheep, and a few others that escape me.


Spelling:

All About Spelling has been a big hit! At first Abby didn't care for it, but we were just reviewing phonograms. The only phonogram that she hasn't passed off is o because she hasn't consistently told me all four sounds. Admittedly, though, I'm being a bit strict about it. She can, however, point to whichever tile or spell whatever phonogram when I'm dictating it.

When I introduced the white board, though, in step 3, she decided that it was pretty neat. (Probably because she gets to draw on the big whiteboard after her lesson, but whatever makes it exciting is fine by me.)

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We worked through 5 lessons this week. Abby has a great memory and typically I only have to tell her something once and she can parrot it back. This is good and bad. I really have to make sure she is digesting the information rather than just parroting it back. Here, she's just replaced the blank red tile with the "i" after I had dictated the word. She occasionally mixes up the short e and short i sounds. I'm not concerned about it because I think that's fairly typical. They can sound a bit like one another!

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Math:

Until I sat down to write this post, I wasn't sure we did a whole lot for math. Now that I look back, though, we did a ton! At the start of the week, it was her favorite lesson. Now she says she likes both spelling AND math.

We worked with Miquon this week and probably will until we hit either a block or decide we need a change. I really am enjoying Miquon. I think it is the type of program that encourages a love for math.

We pulled out some candies and did work with those. I placed five on the table and asked her how many were there. "Five." Then I had her close her eyes and pulled away two. When asked how many I pulled away, she looked at the three left and quickly replied that I took away two. She was able to work that type of problem for about five minutes. Then, it was like her brain short-circuited and she started wildly guessing. When that happened, I knew she was just overwhelmed and processing it all and we moved on for that day.

This week, we worked through the counting section of the Orange Book. For our lessons, though, I'm trying to do some non-sheet things as well as some of the lab sheets at the end. We went over counting with one-to-one correspondence. The lotto sheets at the beginning of the section were fun to count with candies!

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We measured our other rods with the white rods. I pulled out random number cards, had her finger trace the number and then guess the rod that would coordinate with it before she made her train of white rods. She told me every single color rod without hesitation. I guess our pre-book play has been beneficial!

Here she is showing that the brown rod is equal to eight white rods. And, yes, she made the pattern herself. LOL

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When she first chose to do this worksheet she looked really confused. I had her turn it over and then explained the concept to her. I had her close her eyes, covered a few numbers on our number line with some index cards and then had her open her eyes and tell me which numbers were covered up. She likes games like that and did it easily. Then I had her flip her sheet over and see if she could do it then. I could see the recognition on her face and she went and completely filled this sheet and the one after it.

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On Thursday we talked about tallies and made our own tally book which I even proclicked. Abby loves it wanted to show everyone her tally book! Sometimes I'll play a game with her where I tell her to find the page with "five and two" and she searches for the corresponding tally and tells me the number.

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We topped off our week by playing bingo with Daddy and Emmett with the lotto sheets. I'd pull a rod, Abby would say the number and they'd cover their square with a candy counter. Of course, though, they had to cover everything in that square. Even Emmett worked on one-to-one correspondence playing Bingo!

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Five in a Row:

Social Studies:
  • We found New York on our map. Abby remembered a few things we had discussed about New York from rowing Mrs. Katz. This time, we talked about New York City and learned a bit about the Statue of Liberty. We read The Story of the Statue of Liberty and poked around the internet for videos of it. We also read The Top Job, which is a great read about a girl who tells of her daddy's job to change the light bulb in the top of the Empire State Building.

Language Arts:
  • In the book, there is abundant personification. That was the lesson we talked about on Tuesday. We pointed out examples of it in the book (the lighthouse, the boats, the bridge, the fog, etc, etc) and then we personified our own lighthouses. I found a cute idea from Family Fun to create our own lighthouse to do it with. Abby and Emmett both did a lighthouse and loved that we let them take them to bed.

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  • We also read The Old House. It's a very charming story of an old house that was empty and lonely. It was also a nice go-along for the personification theme.

Science:
  • We discussed bridges and the different type of bridges. We even illustrated WHY there are different types of bridges. Emmett was all into this discussion and kept wanting to drive across the bridges. It didn't interest Abby nearly as much.
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Applied Math:
  • The "applied math" in FIAR is fairly simple for the younger elementary set. It involves a lot of counting things on the page. We typically do this for quite a few books, not just FIAR. Hopefully, as we get further into our math curriculum and understanding we can branch out from there.
Art:
  • Our art lesson talked about pictures of night. We found pictures that the illustrator had drawn of nighttime scenes and then created our own. We talked about hints we could find that would let us know if the picture was in daytime or nighttime.
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Extra:
  • Abby found this bag of chips at a gas station and pointed them out, "Look, Mom! A lighthouse!"
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  • To top off our week, this evening we are going to see the Lake Hefner Lighthouse when it's all lit up. It means we'll be up a little later than normal, but I think it will be nice for the kids to see it at night rather than during the day.

Swim:

Swim lessons started back this week. The older kids had a fairly good week of swim lessons. Emmett's form has seriously improved since his last swim lesson. Yay! Abby enjoyed being with all the girls in one of her lessons this week. LOL

We actually were permitted to enroll Ellie (just 2) in the preschool class (for 3-5 year-olds). She had her first lesson on Thursday. She was too short to stand on the tot dock they use, so she had to sit on my lap in between her turns. She did really well except for doing a back float where she would pull her legs up. Once her legs went down, her head came up. LOL We're going to be practicing "being starfish" this week.

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Extra:

We are working on an all-about-me type of book for the start of the year. It is just basic information that I would hope we will remember to add to year after year. This is the first page she did. Her picture shows her and me and our house. It gives me fuzzies. :)

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Life:

Our watermelons keep growing! We now have five hanging out in our garden. The trouble is, though, that I didn't plant them (my mom did it with the kids right after I had Hyrum). She doesn't remember if they're typical watermelon, or maybe smaller sized ones. We're not quite sure when to pick them. The kids are still excited that we have five, though!

I have been trying to be faithful about getting up in the morning and doing some exercise. Dan and I have a bit of healthy competition going to see who can exercise the most consistently. So far we're tied. I'm sure I'll win, though. :) The kids enjoy doing the Wii Fit after I do my morning exercises. It makes me contemplate investing in the Nickelodeon version.

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Sometimes, when I'm dealing with something else, Hyrum beings to fuss. And, sometimes, I ask Emmett to talk to him. And, a majority of the time Emmett is engaging Hyrum, Hyrum stops crying and grins at his brother. This is one reason we have more than one child. :)

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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Week of 14 Aug -- Last Week of Summer!

We were really fairly light this week! This week I finished up the last little bit of arranging to start school (as in our full load) this coming Monday. That involved just time-consuming things that I've put off for a while (tearing apart our AAS cards, printing out and putting together a "counting" book to go with Miquon, laminating some of our daily calendar stuff, etc). Mostly we played and did FIAR, which is really how summer should be.

ABCs:

We reviewed the letter S this week.

Math:

We did pull out the rods and played with them a bit. Most notably, I printed off some centimeter graph paper and we drew shapes and had each other find rods to fit their shapes. At the end, we actually built our stairs and checked to see how many squares it took to fill each one. This is the first time I've acknowledged the idea that each rod could be a different number (ie yellow is 5, therefore orange is 10).

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On the other hand, I have heard Abby refer to certain rod colors by the correct numbers if the white rod is our one rod. When we clean up the rods, we try to "stump" each other by producing one rod and seeing if the other can find two rods to match the one rod. The other day, we were building with them and I pulled out a dark green rod. From there she said, "That's easy. White and five!" And she pulled out a white rod and a yellow rod.

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Five in a Row:


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Social Studies: We discussed which mountains the author was young in. My parents actually live at the foothills of the Appalachians. Abby chose, however, to place our picture right in West Virginia. We also discussed a bit of historical things--the big one being a johnny house.

Language Arts: We revisited repetition this week. Nearly every page begins with "When I was young in the mountains..." Abby wrote her own story which repeated "When I was young in Oklahoma..."

Applied math: We discussed scales and balance and weights. For this we looked at the scales at the grocery store, used my postal scale to weigh small things and even pulled out our brand new math balance!

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Art: We discussed how pictures can give us clues and made a list from one of the pictures in the book.

Science: Abby loved this one! We talked about snakes! We discussed what venom is, found pictures of different venemous snakes in our country, we even watched a snake eat a mouse whole! The venemous conversation translated to life when we found a venemous spider--a black widow!--in our back yard!

Read-Aloud:

We finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Abby was ecstatic to hear that there is another book about Charlie. She's decided we can read that one next and Harry Potter can wait until later.

This evening we had a Wonka celebration! We watched the classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and enjoyed Wonka candy. The afternoon we picked out our candy, Abby was on the phone with Grandma when she exclaimed, "And we found Wonka candy at WalMart! It came straight from Wonka's Factory!!!!" She was so excited and could hardly wait the few days until we had our movie night. She said her favorite candy was the Chocolate Waterfall bar. She would also exclaim periodically, "That's not what happened in the book!" or "His boat wasn't blue, it was pink!" LOL At the end of the movie, her grandparent's called and asked what she thought. Abby said, "Well, it was pretty good, but the book was much better." Hahaha.

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Life:

We noticed this week that the watermelons that Abby planted with my mom are growing. She had to call up my mom right away and facetimed her to show her.

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We also made bubble snakes where Abby, Emmett and I discussed the differences between blow and suck.

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Unfortunately, Emmett is one of those kids who has to figure it out for himself why I tell him not to do something.

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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Week of 07 August

School starts the 22nd of August! That week, I think, I'll start numbering our weeks... So I guess this coming week is our last of summer...

Phonics/Reading:

Abby and Emmett tried out Reading Eggs this week. The Homeschool Buyers Co-op has it on sale and I thought we'd try it out. It was really a good game for Emmett, but Abby was pretty much past it.

We haven't done any formal phonics instruction for a while...we've just been having Abby read to me. She's working on Balto, but I haven't been great about having her read it to me everyday. She has been reading pages here and there randomly during our story time when we're doing our picture books. She's only 5. There's lots of time for more formal reading. :)

Emmett surprised me this week. For the last couple of months we've been playing a game we call Say It Fast. I segment CVC words into their separate sounds have him blend them together. So, when we were playing with our letter magnets and we had the magnets B, A, and T he did the sounds, "/b/" ... "/a/"... "/t/." And then I said, "Say it fast!" thinking it was probably a little beyond him. Imagine my surprise when said, "BAT!" His face was nearly glowing with excitement when I said, "Good reading!" He was so pleased with himself. :) I guess we'll add in some CVC sounds with his letter review.


Math:

I have been reviewing what we'll be doing for math in preparation for school starting. I had a hard time deciding between RightStart and Miquon. RS has had GREAT reviews for a good foundation. Miquon, I've heard is a very different, but awesome program as well. I LOVE Miquon for its use of Cuisenaire Rods. I LOVE C Rods because they are somewhat of a visual display of how I manipulate numbers and math concepts in my head. I finally decided that it wouldn't hurt if we did both. :)

So, I ordered RightStart Level A. It got here and I quickly read through some of the lessons and felt a little nervous because it all seemed really simple for Abby. I made my way over to the RightStart website and took their placement quiz thing and it said to place Abby in Level B. Whoops. I emailed the RightStart people and the lady that (quickly) got back to me said it truly did sound like Abby was ready for Level B. Well, sheesh! I got lucky and found someone who was selling Level B and the worksheets for a steal. It's a good thing I ordered the extra manipulatives for B with the A starter pack. (I was really trying to reach $150 to get free shipping from Rainbow Resource...) I'm still not bummed that I have A. I think it will be perfect for Emmett in a few months.

While all this was going on, though, we played and built with our rods. Abby hasn't seemed nearly as interested in the rods as Emmett, but since I was playing with them too, she joined in. We played some games that encouraged the building of trains and stairs and she amazed me with how aware she was with the rods even if she hadn't sat and familiarized herself with the colors and relationships between them. She seemed to intuitively "get it."

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And the abacuses have been already claimed, even though we've only had them for a few days.


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The standard came with the starter kit we got, and I ordered an extra junior one. I guess I should order another one because these are a hit!

Five in a Row:

This week we rowed The Story of Ferdinand. The older kids happily sat for this one!

Social Studies:
We found Spain on our map and talked about the Iberian peninsula. Then we discussed what a peninsula was. It really did sink in because even this afternoon Abby was pointing out different peninsulas on our map.

Language Arts:
In the manual, one of the language arts lessons in interjections. I tried to tell Abby that it would be easy to find an interjection in our book because it was a short word followed by an exclamation mark. And Abby looked at me like I had three heads. Apparently, Abby had seen exclamation marks, but she didnt' know what they were. So, I dumped the lesson on interjections and we talked about exclamation points.

We also talked about repetition in stories. The kids pointed out a few repeated phrases. The kids noticed this carried over to another book we had checked out of the library, What's the Magic Word? by Kelly Dipuchio.

Applied Math:
We measured ourselves.

Art:
We acted out a few different scenarios from the book.

This one is Abby sitting on a bee:
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And this one is Emmett being the matador after Ferdinand would not fight:
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Science:
We discussed about flowers and labeled their parts. Emmett's paper was on trees and Abby's on flowers. Abby asked, "So, Emmett's has a trunk...is that like a trees stem?" Love the natural discoveries kids make!

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And here are Abby's notebook pages for Ferdinand:
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Life:

We had crazy wind this week and the kids found a bird's nest in our yard after one of them. They thought it was so neat and loved to pick it up and inspect it. We looked on the internet about birds and how they built their nests. It was a neat impromptu lesson.

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I got these cookie sheets on sale at Target and I think they'll be nice for entertaining kids while I'm working with another. (I'm thinking magnet play, rice, sand, play-dough, etc...) Yes, there will be mess...but when is there not when you have four kids five and under? I made magnets out of pom-poms as one option to play with them. The kids thought they were a neat blast too. This will especially good for Ellie and some of her fine motor skills work.

I glued eyes on a few pom-poms too. Emmett made a caterpillar out of his.
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Read-Aloud:

We've been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Abby has been loving it. We're about 50-60 pages from the end. Abby's asked me if we can read Harry Potter next. I guess we'll see. LOL I did ask her if she liked Charlie and she said she did, "It's much better than those other books...you know...the ones without chapters." LOL

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

"Doing School"

Not Back to School Blog Hop


About a month ago I posted
where we "do school." I'm not sure if it will remain the same when we actually "start school"...I like the idea of Abby sitting at a kid-sized table, but the only one have is an Ikea one in Emmett's room. While it's fairly light, I'd probably have to drag it back and forth to the living room to "do school" everyday. I'm sure that would get old.

I guess, while I mull it over, we'll keep schooling at the dining room table.

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Saturday, August 6, 2011

Fall Line-Up

We are getting ready for "back-to-school" at our house, just like everyone else in the US. Abby keeps asking me when she'll go to "real school." Umm...maybe never? LOL I tell her usually, "We'll see."

Lately, though, she keeps asking me when school starts. So, we've set a date so she can see it on our calendar. I'd like to start with an all-about-you type of page and "first day" pictures and a few light lessons and then maybe we'll go off and do something fun. That something fun, I'm hoping, will emphasize the fact that kids in school don't get to do fun things during the day like that. Daddy's also going to take off, so it will be lots of fun...whatever we do. I haven't decided that yet...

Anyway, with the fall semester coming, it's a great time to evaluate and really see what we're going to do. I'm saving the start of some lessons for the 22nd of August, which is our start date.

This list is subject to change or rearranging as I see fit. After all, it is our first year of homeschooling with curricula and as much as I've read reviews and researched and picked what I think will work...the fact is, it may not.

Abby turned 5 at the end of May.
For Language:
  • She is at a solid second-grade reading level. We stopped Funnix 2 halfway through because it was getting repetitive and not necessary. I'm hoping a spelling program that is rich in phonics instruction will fill in any holes in her phonics understanding. For that, we'll be working with All About Spelling Level 1.
  • To encourage her reading, I'm going to have her read to me the Sonlight Readers. We'll back up to grade 1 and read through those and the grade 2 readers as well.

For Math:
  • I've ordered RightStart Level A and are awaiting its arrival. I think she'll have fun with all the manipulatives. The scripted lessons, I think, we'll be good for her. She does not care for open-ended lessons at all. She wants to be told what to do and complete it effortlessly.
Outside of the House:
  • Swimming lessons at the local community college. She really wants to take gymnastics too. Hopefully I can find a way to make that work...

For Everything Else (science, history, art, etc, etc):
  • Five in a Row! Enough said. We've done seven units so far and LOVE the curriculum! We own all of the books that aren't out-of-print in the second volume. As we row the other volumes, we'll collect those books as well.

Emmett turns 4 in October.

For Language:
  • We'll do lots of letter play and phonemic awareness activities. My aims for him this school year will be to work on rhyming and an increased phonemic awareness. If he's really interested we'll start some of the earliest blending exercises...but probably not. Whatever he wants to do...

For Math:
  • He is the type that I could see loving the discovery method of playing with Cuisenaire Rods and Miquon Math. For the next few months the rods will be special time to play between myself and him. Gradually we'll work ourselves into some Miquon-ish type activities.
Outside of the House:
  • Swim lessons at the local community college, which he loves! He is quite the little swimmer as well!

For Everything Else:
  • Tagging along with his big sis doing FIAR!

Our full-time tag-alongs include:

Ellie turned 2 at the end of July.
  • What can I say? She's two. Our goals this school year for her include colors, shapes, speaking in better sentences and finish potty training. Oh, yeah...and trying to contain the toddler tornado. Wish me look on that one.
Hyrum just turned 2 months.
  • My goal for him this year would be those typical of the first year of life: giggle, roll, sit, crawl, feed self, stand, walk... Most importantly? Be CUTE!


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