Week 20

I was very busy this week with a lot of orchestra rehearsals and a concert on Saturday, so Daddy took the week off.  We were out a lot because Daddy was home, but we made sure to get our schoolwork still done!

On Tuesday, we drove a bit of a ways to go to the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum.  Of course, the kids loved it.

While there, I found the perfect opportunity to take pictures of our little students.

The Tot

The Silly One

The Reluctant One 

(not just for schoolwork, just reluctant to do ANYTHING that isn't his idea)

The Studious One

Of course, there was a lot more to do!

Fix a car...

Go grocery shopping...

Play with some bubbles...

Learn a bit more about the human body...

...and a bunch more!

Of course, we also completed our regular work as well.  I just didn't take as many pictures of the boring stuff.  LOL

Preschool

Craft

We made reindeer antlers!  After we finished, we danced around to Rudolph!

PreK Activity Book

Ellie did all of her bookwork with Daddy this week because he was home.  She counted out music stickers (one-to-one correspondence), she listened to instructions about where to place farm animal stickers, she did some more or less work and she made a road with shapes.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett is still reviewing stories from 100 Easy Lessons.  He is jumping to more fluid reading and a lot less sounding out.  It took him a longer time to make the jump, but I'm pleased with his progress.

Spelling

Emmett worked through Step 5 this week.  He changed CVC words by changing their vowels.  He learned that every word has at least one vowel.

We hung the spelling whiteboard for him.  Abby got to a point where we weren't using it to teach the lessons.  Emmett seems to thrive on the actual manipulation of the tiles.  Instead of storing it under the bed, we hung it (and another one for the littles).

Math

We skipped anything that even looked like math this week.  Besides living math, we just basically skipped it.  :)

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby worked through lessons 83 through 85.  She's now got the first two stanzas of Mr. Nobody memorized.  We also discussed the proper time to use is/are.

Writing

Abby's selections this week came from A Child's Geography of the World by V.M. Hillyer.  Abby really enjoyed these selections.  I also think Emmett would.  I'll have to keep my eyes open for a used version of this book.

Reading

We picked up Ramona and Her Father from the library.  I could've gotten it a lot quicker on my kindle, but she wanted the book this time.  She's working through that for her "school" reading and Charlotte's Web on her spare time.

Spelling

Abby completed step 22 this week.  It taught about the third sound of a: the /ah/ sound.  She learned that a will traditionally make that sound before and L and after a W.  She is now capable of writing sentences such as "Put the water in the tall glass."  I love that she's not memorizing a bunch of lists, but learning a rule and applying it!

Handwriting

She focused on the letter P this week.  Since the formation in manuscript is similar to the cursive formation, it was not a difficult letter for her.  We also went back and reviewed Bs because those are really difficult.

Math

Abby has completed Singapore Math 2A!  She worked through some end of semester review.  I also added some addition review from Math Mammoth 2B.  I've seen vast improvement between fluidity with multi-digit addition with this review.

All Together

Science

We learned about reptiles this week!  We went to the zoo to get a good glimpse of some reptiles and amphibians in the herpetarium.  We also saw GIANT reptiles at the Galapagos turtle exhibit.

We focused on how reptile bodies are specially designed to endure harsher conditions than amphibians and did an experiment to illustrate how have scales/thick skin can be an advantage.

History

We moved back to Greece this week.  We learned about two important ancient Greek cities: Sparta and Athens.  Emmett told me he would have loved to live in Sparta, but Athens might have been a little bit boring.  LOL

We also began listening to D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths on audiobook.  Abby really enjoys these.  She's stayed up late a few nights listening and following along in the book.

Week 19

It looks like I took all of one picture of schoolwork this week...

Preschool

Craft

We cut out snowflakes this week!  Scissors are a great exercise in fine motor skills and Ellie struggles with these as well. We have these scissors where she can grip the whole of the scissors with her hand.  She LOVED them for this activity.

PreK Activity Book

Ellie reviewed patterning and drawing dots and lines.  The book also had her color in a boat.  She is our first child to have any interest in coloring and staying in the lines at this age.  The older two were just interested in drawing, no coloring please.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett has made the jump to self-identifying as a reader!  He climbs in bed and starts to sound out/read books.  He usually reads Little Critter books on his own.

Spelling

We introduced the letter tiles and sound cards this week.  Emmett focused on identifying vowels and consonants.

Math

We played some games as a family in the evening...but adding two dice together was about all he did this week.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby did lessons 82 and 83 this week, which focused on Mr. Nobody.  This poem is longer than others that she's memorized, so we're taking it in chunks.  She's already got the first stanza down (and so does Emmett!).

Writing

Her selections came from The Light Princess by George MacDonald.  She was intrigued by this story and might be one we have to read together in the future.

Reading

I was a bit slow in getting to the library, so she read a few picture books that were history and science related.  She did begin Charlotte's Web on her own on Friday.

Spelling

Here is where my only picture comes in!  This week Abby learned that words don't end in u or v.  Now she knows that "English words don't end in i, j, u, or v."  In order to save the words from ending in u or v, she learned that we typically add a silent e at the end of the word.

Handwriting

Abby did O this week.  O has a harder connector in cursive so I thought it might be difficult for her, but with the simplicity of the letter shape, she did just fine.

Math

She did the section involving dividing by 3.  This was frustrating for her because she doesn't have her 3 multiplication facts memorized.  So, in order for her to figure it out, she had to either skip count or pull out her rods...which apparently made her feel dumb because she couldn't just KNOW the answer.

All Together

Science

This week we discussed amphibians.  We compared the metamorphosis of frogs and butterflies or incomplete and complete metamorphosis.  The kids made life cycle wheels for that.  They also learned about how newts "hear" with their legs.  We did a lab that displayed how sound travels and that really it's just movement.  Part of the lab involved playing with a slinky, so of course that was fun!

History

We learned about the Medes and the Persians this week.  The kids learned about Cyrus the Great and how he became the leader in Persia and then moved over and conquered all the way to the Indus River and then back through and even conquered Babylon!  (Apparently, Babylon is Abby's favorite.)  We left off with the cliffhanger that there was one country that the Persians didn't conquer - Greece!

Week 18

Preschool

Letter Craft

We are forgoing letter crafts this month for Christmas activities!  This week we strung Fruit Loops for the Christmas tree.  Abby and Emmett also strung, of course, but Ellie zoomed past them with her strand.  She loves stringing things.

PreK Activity Book

Ellie worked some with one-to-one correspondence (with stickers!) and drawing some more lines and dots.  We're working on proper pencil grip as well.  It looks like she might adopt a quadropod grip.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett is still working well with reading me the stories from the last half of 100 Easy Lessons.  It's nice to have found a place where it's challenging, but not too challenging.

Spelling

Emmett did Step 2 this week, which was segmenting words into their different sounds.  When I did this step with Abby, she looked at me as if I was joking her because it was so easy for her.  She had been "spelling" her own words for a while.  Emmett, on the other hand, struggled for the first day with this exercise for the first day.  After that, he sailed through it.

Math

We did some work with number bonds again.  I'm not doing anything real formal with him because he's working fairly diligently with his reading.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We worked through lessons 79-81 which reviewed titles of respect and her memorized poems.  We also introduced the poem Mr. Nobody, which will be her last bit of memory work for first grade grammar.

Writing

This week's selections came from A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.  Being very familiar with Pooh, this was rather exciting for her.

Reading

Like I expected, Abby finished up Ramona Quimby, Age 8 this week.  She took the test and passed with 100%.  I think she's saving her points for a chocolate bar.

Spelling

Abby worked through step 20 this week, which talks about the soft sound of g.  This wasn't hard after last week discussing the soft sound of c.

Handwriting

We just got through some review this week.

Math

This was the last new section of Singapore Math 2A.  It deals with multiplication and division with 3 facts.  We just worked through the multiplication section this week.

All Together

Science

We peeked in on the world of fish this week.  Of course, this meant that we had to go get our OWN fish for observation.

We did an experiment that demonstrated how fish can stay at a certain level of water without working hard.  The kids thought this was almost magic.  This is why they love science!

History

In history this week, Greece got civilized again!  We discussed the writings of Homer, which the kids were somewhat familiar with because we read Mary Pope Osborne's Tales From the Odyssey.

We also learned about the Olympics.  We had our own mini olympics outside with footraces and discus throwing.

Week 17

My parents were in town this week so we made our best effort to get schoolwork out of the way as quickly as possible each day.  I'm pleased to say that we had skill subjects down and finished within 60-90 minutes most days.  :)

BUT, because we were trying to quickly finish lessons, I was not as focused at taking pictures.  Therefore, this post will be picture-less.  Oh well.

Preschool

Letter Craft

Skipped this in favor of hanging out with Grandma!

PreK Activity Book

I read the Little Red Hen to Ellie and she sequenced the story.  She also worked some on drawing lines and dots.

Junior K

Language

Reading

We worked through some 100 Easy Lessons again.  Emmett is flying through these lessons that we've already done.  BUT, I have seen some improvement with fluidity.  He's now capable of looking at a word, thinking about the different parts, and blending it all together before speaking.  He can now "say it fast" if he thinks about it, without sounding out.

He has complained that the stories are long and there are no pictures, but he's not sounding nearly as many words, and if he is motivated, reading is done for him in ten minutes.  Right now this feels like a sweet spot with him.  I don't want to try and push him mostly because I know it will be pointless.  When he is developmentally ready to make that jump to automaticity, he will spurt forward again.

Spelling

He is still LOVING the idea of spelling.  We continued to review the sounds all different letters can make.  I am taking this slowly, but he is doing really well.  I also am connecting spelling a bit with his handwriting practice so he is partly dictated by how well he can form the letters.

Emmett did spell his first word this week.  Grandpa has always affectionately called him "Punk" and he even spelled it!  He looked confused about which /k/ sound to use, but after I told him that we hardly end English words in "c" he correctly chose "k."  He was pleased with himself.

Math

We worked through some simple number bond games.  I tried to keep him sums to ten, but at this age, he loves grabbing the bigger rods to see what it is.  LOL

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We worked through Lessons 76-78 which focused on some review, abbreviations in an address and titles of respect.

Writing

This week's narrations and copywork were from The Reluctant Dragon.  Abby didn't love the story, but didn't struggle with any of it either.

Reading

Abby finished up Beezus and Ramona like I expected.  She was pretty insistent that she wanted to read Ramona, Age 8 so that's what we checked out next.  She's almost halfway through that.  When she finshes, I think I might encourage her to try something else for school and let her read Ramona on her spare time if she wants.  We'll see...

Spelling

We focused on the soft sound of C this week.  Abby seemed confused about when to use s or c (followed by e) for some sounds.  I'm sure part of that will resolve as she's exposed more to these words.  Regardless, she'll have a bit more review of these words next week than normal.

Handwriting

She worked on letter n and some review, I think.

Math

We are coming to the close of Singapore 2A.  Abby worked on the chapter that focuses on division by 2.  I'd like to keep the momentum we've got going with Singapore rather than switch back to MEP quite yet.  Today, though, we did work on some MEP puzzles.  I'm wondering if maybe this next semester it would be ideal to drop the IP/CWP from Singapore (which we use a year behind, so there's no real challenge) and add in half a lesson of MEP puzzles prior to her Singapore lesson.  We'll have to see what will work when we get the next Singapore set (sometime next week).  Traditionally, the B set of books have a lot of easier topics (money, geography, time) so it might be fine to have some challenging problems by way of MEP...

All Together

History

This week we read about the Mycenaeans.  I need to find some common household items made out of bronze and iron.  The kids understood that the barbarians were able to conquer the Mycenaeans because they had stronger weapons.  They have a hard time remembering that the barbarians had iron weapons and the Mycenaeans had bronze weapons.  I'm hoping we can take them to home depot or something and see/feel the difference.

Science

We did studied crustaceans this week.  The kids even enjoyed checking out our own crustaceans: roly polies!  These are their favorite bugs ever, so it was really easy to encourage them to work on some science this week.  LOL

Week 16

Even though this week was Thanksgiving week, we still did schoolwork...though a bit light/shorter than normal!

Preschool

Ellie has been having gastrointestinal issues of late.  Mostly, it's involved vomiting and random times.  I took her the doctor last week and then ran some tests.  This week, though, she had an upper GI series.  Between that and Thanksgiving prep, we took an "unschool" approach.  In our house that equals A LOT of reading to her and a ton of playing with blocks (mostly Duplo).

Junior K

Reading

Emmett skipped back and forth between I See Sam books he's already read and some Dr. Seuss (especially the Cat in the Hat's Learning Library).  He really loves science-y books and has been carrying around a book from the library with HUGE spreads of insects and spiders.  I wish they made beginning readers like that.  He'd eat it up.

We also moved back to reading some stories from 100 Easy Lessons.  He cruised through them.  Now I wonder if we should go back and work on the again for fluency.

Spelling - New!

Since Emmett has had a good amount of phonics instruction, but still isn't fluent, I debated starting him in All About Spelling 1.  I thought we'd take it slowly and learn the phonograms and see how it goes.  He really enjoyed saying the sounds and writing them with me.  We'll see how far he makes it.

Math

Skipped!

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We worked through lessons 72-75.  We worked mostly with the poem Three Little Kittens and some review of nouns, verbs and pronouns within the poem.

Writing

This week I read her Master of all Masters, which is a folktale.  I only had to re-read one section of the story, which I thought was pretty good for all of those weird words it dealt with!  The other story we worked with was an Aesop fable.  It was kind of neat because next week for history we will be learning about Ancient Greece.

We also wrote letters to Santa.  :)

Reading

Abby got on Book Adventure and took the quiz for Meet Molly.  She got all ten questions right, so apparently she did follow the story somewhat.  I'm not sure she grasped some of the significance of the story, but it was a good introduction to some ideas for her.

This week she's worked through Beezus and Ramona.  We checked it out from the library on my kindle.  There are good things and bad things about that.  I really like her using real books and turning real pages.  BUT, at the same time, she thinks it's neat to use a device to read a book.  I can also make the text larger if she needs it (though, she doesn't).  Most of all, though, she can't freak out about how big a book or chapter is.  She just gets on and reads it.  She's already two-thirds of the way through Beezus and Ramona, so I anticipate we'll be picking another book fairly soon.

Spelling

We worked through some commonly used words (to, do, you, your, of) and some words using the third sound of u.  Even though it was a short week, there wasn't much issue with these words.  It probably did help that half of the list was composed of very high frequency words.

Handwriting

We moved on to learning the letter M this week.

Math

Because it was a short week, we worked through the given review of multiplication and then used a bit of Miquon to review multi-digit addition.  I think next week, for her warm-up work (which we never really do), we'll review multi-digit subtraction.

All Together

Science

Our butterflies finally matured into adulthood!  Ellie was so excited!  We've been feeding them oranges and plan to release them this afternoon.

We also moved on and studied arachnids this week.  Abby and Emmett loved the little ditty that came in their science books about spiders. Emmett also caught a spider for us to observe.  The favorite part was also putting an ant in with the spider and then observing how the ant went missing!

History

This week we read about the Minoans.  The kids were fascinated with the stories from this week.  Who wouldn't love bull-jumping, the Minotaur and volcano exploding?!  They did have a hard time remembering the name of the civilization that lived on Crete.  We did a lot of "Who lived on Crete?" with the kids yelling, "THE MINOANS!"  LOL

Week 15

Apparently I'm getting a little boring in my picture-taking.  There are only four photos this week!

Preschool

Craft

Because Thanksgiving's coming up next week, we chose to forego our letter and make a turkey instead.  We finger painted feathers and then used tracings of each child's foot for the turkey's body.  I forgot to take a picture of how well they came out, but they did come out like cute little abstract turkeys.

This was Hyrum's first time actually painting and not eating the paint.  After a bit, he wanted a wipe for his hands, and then he tried to clean his paper.  LOL

Preschool Activity Book

We did some story comprehension questions, some patterns with shapes and colors, and some line drawing. Ellie still needs crayon nubs because otherwise she wants to fist the writing utensil!

Junior K

Reading

Emmett did some Dr. Seuss reading.  He picked Green Eggs and Ham again.  He's memorized most of it, so I'm not sure how much reading he actually did.  LOL

Math

He moved into the number bonds section in his book.  He really likes these papers, but does not like that he has to show me the answer with the rods.  I'm trying to encourage him to check with the rods because he is prone to miscounting.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We did lessons 71 and 72 which focused on seasons and holidays as well as the proper use of sit/set and the pronoun I.

Writing

This week focused on The Railway Children.  Abby enjoyed the story, but had trouble remembering the kids' names.  I think probably because they were unfamiliar to her.

Reading

Abby finished Meet Molly!  I started her an account on Book Adventure so she is anxious to take the quiz for this book.  I guess that will tell me how much of the story she actually comprehended.  She can tell me what happened, but I'm always left wondering...

Spelling

To close up this section of r-controlled syllables, Abby worked through words with the /or/ sound.

Handwriting

We have been working for the last little bit on connecting letters to form words.  This week, she wrote her first sentence in cursive!

Math

This week we moved on to multiplication by three.  Abby surprised me by completely being able to skip count by 3s even though we've not practiced it!  Though, if she didn't know a multiplication problem, she's very prone to think of the number doubled and then added again.  I'm more than fine if she doesn't commit these problems to memory as my current plan is for her to move on to Beast Academy next year where they will work on multiplication again.  She is just six, after all!

All Together

Science

Our caterpillars have mostly all moved on to become chrysalises!  We have one straggler, but he was so long past the other guys, that we moved the other guys and have the caterpillar still hanging out in the cup.

History

This week we learned about Babylon taking over again!  Abby loved that Nebuchadnezzar was so nice to make his wife a garden that reminded her of home.

Week 14

Preschool

Letter Themes

This week we did t and made a tower.  We read Rapunzel and put our own little Rapunzel in our tower.  To my little girly-girl, this was the perfect craft.

PreK Activity Book

The book this week focused on the fine motor skill of coloring, some storytelling, and followed up on AB patterns.

There was a part where Ellie was supposed to put some cut outs of a story in order.  It had three pictures: kids building a tower, the tower really tall, and the tower falling.  If I had been placing it, I would have placed them in that order.  Ellie placed them as the tower really tall, the tower falling over and then the kids building the tower.  I had her tell me WHY she put them where she did and she said, "The tower was really tall, and then it fell over.  The kids were sad, but wanted to rebuild their tower."  Perfectly valid, so we left it like that.

Junior K

Reading

Emmett read some stories in Frog and Toad and did a great job with them!  He is still sounding out a lot of things, but really seemed to enjoy the different stories in Frog and Toad.

Math

We worked some on numbers above fifteen.  He's funny because he can recognize and say the numbers in math names when given a group or rods, but when he counts them, he's constantly off in his counting.  He understands one-to-one counting, but sometimes he is very confident in his counting that he misses things because he's moving so fast.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We did lessons 68-70 which focused on writing the names of some months, was verses were, and reviewed action verbs.

Writing

Same ol', same ol'.  We worked with a Robert Louis Stevenson poem and a folk tale.

Reading

Abby started in on Meet Molly.  It has a much higher interest level, so I'm wondering how much of the book she's understanding/retaining.  I guess we'll see...

Spelling

We continued our focus on r-controlled syllables.  This week was focused on spelling /ar/.

Handwriting

We worked some again on not holding our marker/pen/pencil so hard and forming words, not just independent cursive letters.

Math

We moved into the 2s times tables today.  Since she knows her doubles in addition, this was not a hard math week.  At all.

All Together

Science

We are learning about arthropods for the next chunk of time.  First we are focusing on insects and raising butterflies!  Just in time, we got our butterfly larvae on Monday.  So, we swapped our science and history days this week and did our observations of them.

They grew quite a bit by the end of the week.  The kids are excitedly anticipating their transformation into chrysalises.

History

Our chapter this week was The Return of Assyria.  The kids learned about Ashurbanipal and have been singing They Might Be Giants' The Mesopotamians.

Week 13

Last week was a scheduled break.  It was also Emmett's birthday.  He turned five years old!

Preschool

Letter Themes

Seeing as this was the week of Halloween, we did some Halloween stuff instead!  We read a ton of Halloween books.  One of the favorites was Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly.  So, we made monster masks.  Ellie enjoyed this, and even Hyrum got a big kick out of putting the monster to his face and then letting out a pseudo scream.

The older three constructed their own monster faces.

PreK Activity Book

The book focused a lot on reviewing our senses and then patterns.  I was surprised that Ellie could continue AB patterns with relative ease.  Imagine that!  She loved doing it with her Halloween candy even.

Junior K

I didn't get many pictures of Emmett doing schoolwork this week.  He doesn't cooperate half the time to take a picture.  BUT, the highlight of his week (besides Halloween) was his swim class.  He's LOVING it!  He just wishes there weren't as many kids in his class because they're all bigger and he gets bowled over occasionally.  He is at least three years younger than any other kid in his class.

Reading

Emmett is continuing to work on his fluency.  This week he read books 22-26 in the I See Sam readers.  He also worked on a few other books on his spare time.

Math

He moved into numbers above 10 and number bonds.  He is a bit of a know-it-all when it comes to math.  He, of course, doesn't know it all, but he likes to think he does.  LOL

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We continued on through and finished up some work with months of the year and seasons and abbreviations.  I should accelerate Abby through this stuff, but she loves that it's easy and she is only six.

Writing

Her selection this week came from The Saturdays.  Abby really enjoyed listening to the story selections from this book.  It might be a good read-aloud in the near future.

Reading

Abby finished Ramona, the Pest!  She loved it.  To celebrate, we redeemed her next coupon for Book-It on Friday.  She went to the library and picked out her next book: Meet Molly, An American Girl.

Spelling

Abby learned "/er/ as in her," and applied that sound to words.  She that we call such a syllable an R-controlled syllable.  Now she points them out in reading.  LOL

Handwriting

We continued to work on marker/pen/pencil pressure and some cursive work.  She worked through the letters K and L and their review parts.

Math

This week was a scheduled review week.  She only missed one or two problems the entire week, which was pretty good.  She did have to review the meaning of division a time or two on Monday, though.  I guess taking a week off'll do that to you.

She's also started annotating her regrouping when she needs to hold a lot of it in her head.  She even does it for problems in the horizontal representation.

(She's moving her hand up to erase the two and change it to a one, here.)

I knew that eventually she would adapt and change how she solves problems.  That's fine with me.  As long as what she's doing is mathematically correct, she can work it however she'd like.

All Together

Science

We learned about echinoderms this week.  The kids thought it was a really interesting unit.  They thought it was wicked that a sea cucumber can spit out its intestines and asked to watch video after video of it on youtube.  LOL

History

This week we moved back to Mesopotamia with the Phoenicians.  The kids really retained the part about them making glass, especially since we watched videos of people today blowing glass.

We made our own purple dye and dyed some yarn.  No stinky snails here, please!  No way!  Instead we used kool-aid and the crock pot to dye some yarn.  When it is sufficiently dried and I have a second, I will knit it up for Abby and she will have her own hat that is the color of the kings.

King Cluck Completed!

I often hear how people have started the process of mummifying a chicken and then leave it sitting in salt for weeks, months or even years!  With Halloween coming up, it was a perfect time to wrap King Cluck!

First we pulled him out of the salt and were amazed at how shrunken he was!

That led to a few funny photo ops!

Yum!

Next, we washed off the salt as best we could and then added some oil.

It still was a bit salty...oh well!

This is a kid's project, right?

Next, we stuffed him with fabric.  The Egyptians would have stuffed him with sawdust.

They also would have wrapped him in linen.  We used old cotton sheets.

We mixed up a solution of one part water to one part glue.  Then, we began wrapping.

We made sure do his wings and legs first.

This is the part where the kids lost interest.  They left to watch TV while Daddy worked on the wrapping.

He took three layers or so to be complete.

He hung to dry outside for about a week.

(Not the greatest photo because it was dark outside and the light he was hanging on was the only light we had.)

And, here he is completed!  Now...what do you do with a chicken mummy when he's done?



Maybe we'll just keep in him the bucket with our Halloween decorations...