Week 5

This week was a success for me not because of what we accomplished school-wise, but because I made great strides in my ability to keep the house somewhat put together and still get school done. We didn't really feel it start to deteriorate (thank you, entropy!) until Friday afternoon. And, because Saturday is our cleaning day, that's not too bad!

ABCs:

We made Ps with Popcorn! I did throw a little sugar and purple dye in there. I didn't add nearly enough sugar to coat the popcorn, though, so you can hardly see the purple in the pictures. Rest assured it is there! We did this craft before lunch, though, and I didn't want them all filled up on sugar popcorn before we ate.

PreK:

Emmett didn't want to do much of anything this week. He did listen in on what I did with Abby. We also read the Three Little Pigs and had him role play those with our storytime figures, but mostly he wanted to play outside.

Reading:

Abby did a fair amount of reading to me and her little sister.

On Friday, we got Magic Tree House books 5-8 in the mail. I picked up the package and handed it to her to open it. She tore into it and then excitedly ran to tell Emmett, "Emmett! We have more Magic Tree House!" She begged to read it right then, and so we did. She read half the first chapter to me and I read the other half. We alternated pages so she gets more comfortable with the longer pages. And she loved it.

I got another set of books on Friday: Grade 1 Pathway Readers. These look really fairly easy for her, which is good. They'll be easy to read, but I will also require her to complete the coordinating workbook. I think we'll toss those in the mix next week.

Spelling:

Abby continues to zoom through All About Spelling. Because she's moving so quickly through it, and I was aiming to have the curriculum last through December, we have moved it to twice weekly. She only has six lessons left to complete and those do have good rules to learn and go over. This week we reviewed when to use c or k at the beginning of a word and also learned that the letters f, l, and s are usually doubled after a short vowel in a single-syllable word.

Math:

This week we talked about other ways to add and subtract besides using the rods. We added on our number line...

...and on a non-traditional number line.

On Friday we discussed addition being when we want to know the whole of two parts and subtraction being when we have a whole and a part and want to know the other part. We did part-whole pictures and expanded them way down. Here's one she did for 10, though it looks like 100 because she added a face to the top circle and called the very bottom circle feet and it was a spider. LOL

She also continues to build with the rods independent of math lesson. This one's a table...

...and here she is measuring her candies.

Memory Work:

We memorized One, Two, Buckle My Shoe. The sayings that I wanted to get to...well, we didn't get to them. LOL We did memorize 2 Ne 2:25, though.

FIAR:

This week we rowed Three Names. In some ways, I wish we would have rowed this one during our first official week of school because it is about a boy and his dog who go to school in a one-room school house.

Social Studies:

• We talked about what a prairie is and located the Great Plains on our map. Emmett placed the book cover on our map and was excited that he could place it in Oklahoma.
• We also compared Three Names' school adventures to ours. We talked about how we use cars to get places instead of a wagon. Abby said they used a stove to heat their school room and we used something else..."By the way, Mom, what do we use?" I explained the idea of a furnace that is turned on by a thermostat. We discussed electricity and lightbulbs vs candles. She remembered back to a time where we were without power and compared that. I started to respond that we still didn't use candles as much then, but used something else. "Flashlights!"

Language Arts:

• There are a few examples of hyperbole in the book and we discussed how the author uses them to emphasize that even though it wasn't "a hundred years ago" we know that it was really a long time ago.

Art:

• In the book, Martha plays the fiddle for special occasions. I pulled out my violin and we discussed the difference between a violin and a fiddle (they are the same thing). I told them that even though they were the same instrument, violin music and fiddle music are very different from one another. I let them (very, very carefully) try my violin. Then, we got on YouTube and looked up some fiddlers. (We would have looked up violin music, but they're aware of how that sounds because I am a classically-trained violinst.)

Math:

• We talked about the correlation between inches, feet, yards, and miles. Then we measured how many inches in a foot and how many feet in a yard.

Science:

• We talked about wells and why things under the ground are colder than other areas on earth.
• We also discussed animal classification a bit and determined that dogs (and humans!) are mammals.

Other:

• On Wednesday, we went to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. We looked at depictions of prairies in art. They have a great mini-town where you can see what a one-room schoolhouse might have looked like. Abby loved this part. They also had a pump for a well. It was neat for her to see to draw connections from the book to actually seeing some of it.

Life:

• We did entertain the idea of putting all the kids' beds in one room so we had a schoolroom, but I have reservations because I don't think it would be something that would last very long...a year max. So, I reorganized our school supplies. Now the older two each have their own crate that holds all of their supplies. When I say we're doing a lesson, they grab their crate and sit at the table. At the end of the lesson, they're responsible for putting things away and putting their crates back on the bookshelf. So far, that's working nicely. Maybe one day we'll have a schoolroom...

• We visited a park where the kids devised a game where two of them stay at the bottom of the slide and place sand on the bottom while the other slid down after the sand was all piled at the bottom of the slide. Then, the slider stayed down to place more sand and one of the sand-placers took his turn as a slider. They were the only ones at the park that day, but they still played together and had a great time. My kids may have their squabbles, but I love that they can play together and are friends. In this picture, Emmett was the slider and now Ellie is running off screaming, "My turn!"

• Ellie is also a little reader. She loves books and all things puzzles.

• I bought Monopoly Jr. this week and we played it for the first time last night. I'd much rather play this than Candyland, and this has the added benefit of Abby sometimes needing to come up with a sum with her money. I think the next time we play, we'll use two dice so as to require the addition of two numbers before they move.

• In my post about why we homeschool, I apparently forgot to add one. Because who would want to corral this one into getting changed from her jammie shirt, fix her underwear (it's actually on right, just way wedged in there!), put on some pants and do her hair all with a baby in tow? That's exhausting. LOL

• And, perhaps Abby's topper on the week: We took her training wheels off her bike! It's so interesting to watch her learn something like this. Emmett excels with physical activities. He swims well (across the pool) and has been riding his bike sans training wheels since we got it. Abby relied heavily on her training wheels. Then, Emmett went on a ride with Daddy while Daddy ran...and Abby decided that she wanted to do that too. We said she could when she had no training wheels on. So, this week, she has been working on it. She would go a few feet and then stop for what seemed like no reason. Her progress with the bike has been so incremental. Whereas, Emmett learned in leaps. Abby has no problem committing things to memory (so much that I really have to be cognizant of checking for understanding instead of her just spitting back the answer). Emmett does not memorize as quickly (it could be because he'll just be 4 next month, but I'm not sure), but he sure does excel when it comes to just observing, taking a leap of faith and doing it. It'll be interesting to see what Ellie's learning will be like.

Memory Monday!

Our memory work this week will consist of a couple of sayings: "A place for everything and everything in its place." As well as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We are also working on memorizing "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" as well as counting to 100 by tens.

Already memorized:

First Article of Faith

Continents

Pledge of Allegiance

Personal information (address, phone number, full name, etc)

Week 4

Daddy went back to work this week, which was a bummer, but also good for us to get back into our regular routine.

ABCs:

We reviewed the letter N this week. Lately, mostly reviewing our letters involves reading the sounds it makes, the shape and a lettaer craft. We used noodles for our N this time.

Ellie wanted to make a necklace afterwards. She loved it and made four and exclaimed, each time we finished one, "So pretty!"

PreK:

Emmett decided he wants to begin reading lessons this week. I'm indulging it, though we're going very slowly. So far he has completed 1.5 lessons. :) We also talked about body parts this week, including bones and muscles. We found parts of our body that aren't as common: elbows, wrist, ankles, hips, etc.

Reading:

Spelling:

We made it through three steps this week, which sets us at just past halfway through AAS Level 1. This week we learned whether to use "c" or "k" at the beginning of a word. Later, she was pleased to tell Daddy when a c is before e, i, or y it says /s/. We were in the middle of Chick-Fil-A and she bursted it out. LOL

Math:

My middle two love to watch Team Umizoomi. We have this math kit that came with cards that have "mighty math missions." This particular card had Emmett searching for numbers 1-10 throughout our house.

We headed back to Miqoun this week. Most of our time this week was directed around pairs that make five. We played a game we call "Yellow!" You need a deck with 0-5. If you're using face cards, you can use a Q for 0. Uno cards are PERFECT for this, though, just take out what you don't need. Then, the first player lays a card in the middle face up, and the next player follows. Each take turns laying a card. When you see a pair that makes five (or the yellow rod, hence the name), you exclaim, "Yellow!" and take the pair. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins.

We also played a game that we call make a pair. With the same deck, each player is dealt five cards. The deck is placed in the center with two cards drawn and face up on either side of the deck. If a player can cover one card so the showing pair equals five, he does so. Otherwise he draws a card.

We've also played Old Maid with the same deck, just pulling out our "mystery card" before we begin play. We need more than two people for that one.

And of course, Go Fish or Go to the Dump with pairs that add to five.

Abby can now tell us all of the combinations of numbers that equal five.

She worked through the C-addition pages in Miquon and completed them. With the rods, single-digit addition is easy for her. Working these pages, she has committed to memory her +0, +1 addition tables as well as 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, and 6+6. She's also fairly consistent with addition to 10, but only if she thinks about it in terms of rods. For being only 5 and only doing Miquon for the last 4 weeks, I'm fairly pleased with her understanding.

Memory Work:

This week we've worked on skip counting by ten. It will probably continue in to next week.

Unit Study Completion:

As a topper to our fire safety unit study last week, we visited the fire department! We visited the last firehouse in OKC that has fireman's poles. And it was a great tour! Besides just touring the firehouse and meeting the firemen, they also took us for a ride in a ladder truck.

The let the kids try on their equipment.

They let the kids spray the firehose!

FIAR:

This week we rowed a favorite, Madeline. My kids have never actually done any FIAR activities with it, but they are familiar with the books and the cartoon.

Social Studies:

• This isn't the first time we've rowed a book that is set in Paris. This time, we focused on the Seine River that runs through Paris. We got on Google Earth and looked at the river. Then, we found the picture in the book where it says that "nobody knew so well how to scare Miss Clavel." We supposed that the bridge was built to cross the Seine River and then practiced "scaring Miss Clavel" in our back yard.

Language Arts:

• We discussed rhyme this week. Abby can rhyme orally, so I assumed this would be a review type of lesson. Much to my surprise, she's never actually paid attention to written words that rhyme!

Art:

• We discussed impressions verses photographs.
• We noticed the differences in the pictures in the book: Some are full color and some are done with just black and yellow. We even compared the pictures where Miss Clavel says, "Something is not right."
• Finally, we drew a picture of a Tiger using Draw Write Now 7.

Applied Math:

• We arranged the "twelve little girls in two straight lines" into one, three, and four straight lines.

Science:

• Madeline has her appendix removed in the book. We found out where the appendix is and why someone might have to have theirs removed. This led us to an awesome discussion about the digestive tract. The kids enjoyed watching the BrainPOP Jr. episode on digestion.

• Because of Madeline's surgery, she has a scar which becomes the envy of the other little girls. We talked about our body's mechanisms to heal itself and how we get scars. Then, we found some on our bodies. I also took a picture of Abby raising her shirt so we could see her stomach. On it, she drew her own scar.

Other:

• We checked out a Madeline collection from the library and read other Madeline books.
• We watched a fair amount of Madeline cartoons via our Netflix instant play.
• For our movie tonight, we watched the live action Madeline, which is really a composite of all the original Madeline books.

Week 3

Daddy was off this week! We maintained our basics, but skipped FIAR to do a light unit study on fire safety.

ABCs:

This week's letter was Y.

PreK:

We read the Goldilocks and the 3 Bears and sequenced the story. I am loving the activity book that goes with What Your Preschooler Needs to Know! It comes with all of the stickers and cutouts you could need. For Goldilocks, there were cutouts of the bears' porridge bowls, the chairs, and the beds. We added magnets to the back and they are now at home on our dishwasher. We have a Goldilocks figurine and Emmett will tell the whole Goldilocks story.

We also did a section on faces and placed stickers of eyes, ears, and noses where they belonged.

We've also spent hours this week at certain parks bike-riding. Emmett loves it and asks us every day if he can go ride his bike.

Reading:

We read a fair amount of picture books this week, but none from Charlie. Having Daddy home sure does throw off our routine! Abby did some reading to us as well.

Spelling:

I'm kind of at an impasse as to how long our spelling lessons should take. The lessons still contain fairly easy words for Abby. We completed step 11 in two days, we made a spelling notebook on a separate day. We were supposed to do spelling on Friday, but it didn't happen. We'll pick it back up this week.

Math:

Daddy actually did a bit of rod play with Emmett this week. He and I also played war. He loves playing war with me because he typically wins. :)

We finished the "Literal Work with Rods" section in Gattegno Mathematics. From there we worked a bit with the number application and have now moved back to the Miquon lab sheets. We've only done the first two in section C (which is addition), but it was fairly quick and painless for Abby.

Finding the difference:

Making the pattern of five:

Because we started a new "unit" in her math stuff, we are taking the advantage to try this out. Each time she completes a worksheet, she uses the fun paper puncher to punch out a shape. Then we stick the shape on a piece of paper. The shapes missing out of the corner allows me to see quickly which sheets have been completed and I'm hoping the shapes on the paper give Abby a sense of accomplishment.

Abby also likes to add a bit of fun to her math. In this step, I asked her to find if the math sentence was true. I told her to draw a smiley face if it was, she chose to draw a cat smiley face.

Unit Study:

With Daddy home, we took a bit of break from Five in a Row and talked about fire safety. We discussed fire extinguishers, firefighters, smoke alarms, important things to know in an emergency, etc.

We own the book No Dragons for Tea, which is an awesome introduction to fire safety for kids. We also rented Billy Blue Hair - Why are Fire Trucks Red? and the kids got to watch it as a free show (as in, they didn't have to pay out to get to watch it).

We visited the Oklahoma State Firefighter's Museum.

We tested our fire alarm and ran a fire drill. We let the kids crawl out of their windows as an illustration of an alternate route out of their bedroom. They had a blast with that!

We camped out and had our own little fire to cook hot dogs and s'mores. (This led to "tent schooling" the next day!)

We discussed stop, drop and roll and practiced it by rolling down a hill.

We reminded the kids of our family meeting spot.

Emmett has really enjoyed this unit study. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he immediately replies, "A firefighter!" On Monday, we'll be visiting the Oklahoma City Fire Department and touring their station!

Memory Work:

We memorized our personal information for part of our fire safety unit!

Calendar Time:

Monday through Thursday we do a "What's the Word?" moment where I introduce a new word. (I've been using Evan-Moor's First Grade A Word A Day for the lists.) I've made a word search every three weeks to review our new words. Abby remembered what each meant and would say it as she found it on the search. She is beginning to really like word searches.

Life:

We got a new kitty yesterday! He is still very much a kitten (3 mos). He's been very skittish, but is slowly warming up to us. Our other cat, Drift, is still asserting his dominance over the kitten, but the kids already love Swirl!

And Hyrum just gets cuter day by day!

Week 2

We're hitting our stride! This week I implemented the rule that the kids are not allowed to watch TV or play on the iPad until AFTER their lessons are done. It doesn't take long to complete everything...but it does take all day for me to work through cleaning the house a little bit (The Husband has been a huge help lately!), feeding the baby, dealing with our Toddler Tornado, etc. For the most part, Emmett is one of our "older" kids, even though he's three. Abby wouldn't see it as fair at all if the screen time rules didn't apply to him. So, he has "reading lesson" and "math" to complete as well. His "reading lesson" usually consists of talk about letters and the sounds they make. We may complete a worksheet, do a letter craft, do some rhyming, find something that starts with that letter, whatever. Math for him involves playing with our cuisenaire rods.

ABCs:

We reviewed the letter G this week! We made Gs and then covered them with glitter and glue. Who doesn't like glitter? (Besides Daddy, of course...)

PreK:

We did a bit of left and right discussions. We danced a lot of the Hokey Pokey this week!

Reading:

We are still slowly working through Charlie. Abby has also completed The Bravest Dog Ever this week.

Spelling:

We completed step 10 this week. That took us to the end of spelling with short vowels. So far, it has been a lot of review. I have a feeling that the next few steps will take more than one lesson. Mostly it's a good thing...it means that level 1 will last us longer.

Math:

This week, on the Well-Trained Mind forums, there was a discussion about C Rods and someone posted a video that illustrated why I love the idea of these rods. The video is called Mathematics at Your Fingertips and it's on YouTube in three segments (one, two, three). So, I've been taking some ideas from Gattegno's first textbook and using them in our math lessons to emphasize more familiarity with the rods. It gives me a bit of direction for activities to do with the rods before we jump into more formal arithmetic. I really want Abby to be aware of the relationship between them all.

This week, we worked on the stairstep order of the rods. Here she is telling me the order.

We also discussed "complements" and found each train of two rods to make orange. This was an eye-opener to her in some ways. I explained to her that each rod could only have one complement and asked her to demonstrate. I gave her a black rod and told her to find me it's complement, she rummaged through our box and then pulled out a light green. Next, I gave her a brown and asked for it's complement. She correctly pulled out a red. Then I placed a light green down and asked her what its complement was. This is where she realized what I was talking about and understood that the only color rod that would fit there would be black. At the end, I asked her what orange's complement would be, and she thought for a second and said, "zero!"

On Friday, we tested to see if we could cover each rod with just red rods...then just green rods, etc. I explained that when we could cover it with just red rods (2) we call that even. When we have to use a white rod (1), it is called odd. Abby liked this game. The last one we did was an orange rod (10), and when Abby realized it was even, she said, "Look, Mom! Five twos make ten, but so does two fives!"

In her Miquon book, she finished off section A and earned herself a special night. I'm going to hold off section C (addition) until we finish Gattegno's section on really familiarizing ourselves with the rods. That should only take us a week at the maximum.

Five in a Row:

We rowed Wee Gillis this week.

Social Studies:

• We found Scotland on our map, looked at images of Scotland and watched videos on YouTube of bagpipe players.

Language Arts:

• We discussed our names and where they originated them from. We talked about how Wee Gillis' name was SO LONG that they shortened it. Abby can understand that since her full name is Abigail, but we call her Abby. We completed this cute little family tree with full names and also discussed where our kids' names come from.

Art:

• We compared the two pictures in the book of Wee Gillis eating his oatmeal. The pictures are pretty similar, but we did find some differences! To reinforce this, we found a "Spot the Difference" picture online and I had her circle what was different in each picture.

Science:

• This was a big hit this week! In the end of the book, Wee Gillis is able to play the bagpipes. We talked about air and our lungs and how they work. Then, we completed a science experiment that allowed us to demonstrate blowing out our air with our lungs.

• I'm asthmatic, so we have a peak flow laying around. We tried our hand at that too.

• We also made musical instruments out of different lengths of straw and blew into them with our lungs.

Applied Math:

• We graphed how many breaths it took to empty our two-liter bottle!
• We also used our base ten flats and rods to really see the numbers of our peak flow. It was a good practice in place value because Daddy's was as high as 590 and Ellie's was only like 50. LOL

Extra:

• We also enjoyed a Wee Gillis meal of oatmeal and shortbread (cookies). I thought for sure that Abby wouldn't care for it, but she loved it. Probably because I allowed her to put a massive amount of brown sugar on hers.

Memory Work:

Our memory work this week has been memorizing the continents. Each kid got a chance to point out the continents. Abby picked it up fairly quickly and, after the full week, Emmett can point out all the continents too.

Life:

1. We enjoyed our first watermelon out of our garden!

2. I took the kids to the zoo on Thursday. They played in the little water/river area that is in the children's zoo. Abby immediately started building a dam. She even started with big rocks first and then placed small rocks to fill in the holes.

The other kids helped, of course. :)

3. Emmett spent some quality time with his brother, too.

4. Abby played some with our geoboards this week. She was really excited about her house!

5. The kids got bikes yesterday! Emmett has mastered the balance bike. So we went and picked up regular bikes. Abby is still using training wheels, but Emmett can ride his bike without!

Because Emmett got a new bike, we passed the balance bike down to Ellie. She's still a bit little to run with it, but she loves having her bike.