Week 29

Emmett's moved to a point where he is being folded into school work more often. This week, he came to me and told me, "Mom, I already know that one and one make two, two and three make five, two and two is four, four and four is eight, and two fives makes ten. I think it's time that I'm in math." Okay, then! LOL I was planning on waiting with any kind of math instruction with him until he was solid on reading...but when he is asking for it... Well, I'm not one to disappoint! Because he's starting to work more and more, for the next little bit (or maybe *gasp* forever), I think I'll start recording his work under subjects like I do with Abby. So, for now, there will be no PreK section...which makes me a little sad because I keep begging my kids to STOP GROWING UP. When will someone listen to me?!

Also, apparently I only had the camera handy for when we were doing math this week. Language things tend to happen on the floor, couch, bed, whatever. My camera isn't as readily-available at those times...

Tot School:

Ellie continues to flit around during school time. Sometimes she's making a mess in the bathroom, other times she's in the kitchen sink. When I'm lucky, I can entice her into a puzzle (she actually loves to do puzzles).

Every so often she climbs up and steals the C rods. Then she likes to be the distraction as she puts the purple one in her mouth (gross, I know) and then proceeds to launch them as far across the dining room as her little breath can get them. This afternoon, she launched one completely over the table. And yet, she says she can't blow out a candle!

She is constantly begging me to read her books. I wish, though, they wouldn't be the same books over and over again. Variety is the spice of life, kid!

She also consistently climbs up to the table and declares that she needs to "do maff."

Occasionally, I will pull a completed MEP sheet off the fridge and let her "do maff."

When she's decided that she's disrupted enough, she sneaks off with the iPad and a set of headphones. Her favorite apps include Miss Spider's Bedtime Story, Cut the Buttons, My PlayHome, and LetterSchool.

Math:

Emmett began a bit more work with C rods. He has used them informally, but I want him to get more familiar with them and their potential values.

He sorted them by color and then again by length. Waddya' know?! They're the same groups!

I also handed him a sheet to color in the corresponding rods. He liked this one a lot.

The best thing, though, was playing our invented game of Yellow. The goal of the game is to capture cards that make a train equivalent to the yellow rod. He was really quick at this!

He also worked on his counting some with some dot-to-dots.

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Abby worked through Week 31 of MEP 1. She zoomed through most of the problems without trouble.

Today, we skipped our MEP lesson and did a bit of Miquon. She liked these lab sheets as they were about multiplication. Like cursive, apparently multiplication is more "sophisticated" and therefore it has more draw.

Abby's also saving up for a toy at Target. I've been paying her in pennies for extra chores.

One day, I told her she could have earn extra coins by doing a few math challenge problems. She was excited for these. This is a great opportunity for her to learn first-hand about money and coins.

Language Arts:

Emmett is zooming right along with his reading. I thought video would be a better option here...

Abby is reading two books at this point. She had started a Magic Tree House book a few weeks ago, but it was lost. Apparently, Ellie had put it in a bag full of toys and we couldn't find it. So, to tide her over, she read a bit of Fire Cat (which was entirely too easy). I really should move her on to the third grade Sonlight readers. We found the Magic Tree House yesterday, so she read me a chapter of that tonight.

In grammar, Abby focused on proper nouns for places.

In spelling, she learned the first two rules of syllabification.

Geography:

The kids made review booklets of all of the landforms and bodies of water we learned about. I was surprised that they retained all of the pieces we did. Emmett even properly pointed out a valley!

Next week, we'll be moving on to continents, I believe.

Extra:

• A family that used to live near us had their fourth baby (and first girl) three weeks before we had Hyrum. Sadly, towards the end of July last year she died of SIDS. They are running a service project for children's hospitals around the country on her behalf and we are trying to collate as many things as we can. This week, we focused on making placemats for kids who are in the hospital. I instructed the kids to put their name and age. Abby chose to draw her age as five-and-a-half. I don't think it's a coincidence that the hands look a bit like Moby's.

• Hyrum is fascinated by all things wheels, switches, and flaps. I love this stage in baby-hood where everything is fascinating and new!

• We also picked up and added a new shelf in our living room. These two bookshelves hold only part of our kids' books. We have shelves in the hallway, my closet, and one in each of the kids' bedrooms. Yes, we like books a tiny bit...

Week 28

While my older kids were all better this past week, my baby has been afflicted with ear infections. After we tried to treat the infections, we learned he is allergic to cephalosporins.

With all of that going on, it was a bit of a rough week on Mom. I feel like I held together really well, though...just with a baby on my hip ALL OF THE TIME.

Tot School:

Ellie has been known to climb up to the table and tell us she is "doing maff." She loves to line up the dominoes when we pull them out, so I thought she'd get a kick out of the c rods and their track.

She flitted about us this week drawing random pictures and scribbles and declaring each notepad she saw hers.

PreK:

Emmett completed five lessons from 100 Easy Lessons. He is now up to reading short sentences in the book for "stories."

We've been reading We're Going on a Bear Hunt this week.

Emmett's been playing with these cards from Homeschool Creations. They've been a good review of counting past ten.

I also highly recommend this audio CD which reads the book, but also has a slew of activities to go along with it. It has been a huge hit here.

Math:

We worked through Week 30 of MEP 1B. This week focused on number bonds to 20, which Abby found extraordinarily easy. I think we're getting to the point where I should start pulling in a few problems from Singapore to give us a bit of a different approach... We'll see...

She does enjoy the problems that involve Roman Numerals and enjoyed creating some problems for me. This led to extending the lesson to learning the numerals for 50 and 100.

Language Arts:

Abby completed three or four lessons of grammar. This book is so gentle and repetitive that sometimes she gets ahead of the lesson. For example, this last week was on streets and proper nouns...so then, Abby moved on, "Well, our city is XXX. That's a specific place; it's a proper noun! And we live in Oklahoma, and THAT's a proper noun!" In the meantime, she's gone past what the first lesson was on and has now moved into the lessons previously. I guess she gets it... LOL

We took spelling a bit slower this week and reviewed the multisyllabic words, phrases and sentences from the last step.

Because Abby's so young, she doesn't write quickly, so writing out several words at once can be laborious. I've just been having her write three or four words, one or two phrases, and one sentence a day. We'll move on to the next step next week.

In cursive, Abby started work with the "roll" motion in preparation for writing humped letters.

Abby's still reading her Magic Tree House book to me. She was so excited to read it, but having her sit down and read to me is like pulling teeth of late. I have no clue why as she reads well and hardly has to break apart even foreign words. She enjoys the story when she does read it... Who knows? LOL

I am still reading Pinocchio to the kids. Abby would love to read more than one chapter a night, but Emmett can only do so much listening and I want him to enjoy the read-alouds too. This book will take nearly a month to get through if we are working at this pace consistently...

Geography:

We started off with a little review of our oceans. This was especially useful for Emmett.

This week was our last week for landforms. We discussed valleys and canyons and watched video on the Grand Canyon.

PE:

The kids are still taking their gymnastics class and enjoying it a lot. I'm looking forward to when Ellie is three and I don't have to be out on the floor with her. It's harder to drag Hyrum around while making sure she is doing what she's supposed to.

The kids have even been practicing some of their flexibility at home.

Extra:

Daddy took Monday off and we visited the Science Museum. Our museum has a lot of neat and hands-on exhibits.

They also do a "Science Live" show where they do real experiments on stage. This is a somewhat scripted show, but still fun for the kids. The last one they did was chemistry. They've since redone it to work a bit on physics. Abby was chosen twice to be up on stage and help.

The first time was to demonstrate the principals behind Bernoulli's Baseball.

The second time she was chosen specifically because she had worn light-up shoes and they wanted to demonstrate the Van de Graaf generator. She was so funny this time because the nature of the experiment required her to touch the boy she stood next to. She would only barely touch him with the point of her finger, as though he would transmit some kind of disease to her. LOL

And, of course, we've had beautiful weather and the kids have had plenty of outside-and-messy time!

Week 27

Last week I wrote that I was worried that we would all get sick after Hyrum had been sick. And get sick we did! Sunday night Ellie, Emmett, Daddy and I were all up throwing up. It was MISERABLE.

Monday, just as everyone felt that we were on the mend, Abby started complaining of the backs of her legs hurting, she spiked a fever and had a cough. Her fever was really high, so I took her in. Her strep test was negative, so we took her home thinking that she just had something viral and she'd get over it quickly. While she had the virus, though, we did only light schooling. We did some math, skipping a few sets of problems, and we did a bit of reading. Come to find out, her flu swab was positive.

I guess I'm a mean mom making her work through light school while she was positive for influenza, but she was capable of playing in the back yard and running, then she was capable of a few math problems! Never fear, though, there was plenty of TV watching...

...story reading...

...and good ol' imaginative play!

Tot School:

My two-year-old is busy learning things and I think I'll start adding a bit of a learning update on her in this space... :)

We watched a lot of LeapFrog Letter Factory...and I realized she already knows a fair amount of her letter sounds.

She loves to play the iPad and do puzzles.

She also got a big kick out of our Tag Jr. this past week.

She is the perfect age for it to be fun!

She also is learning to navigate a computer with a mouse. She plays Starfall and once again I'm happy that I paid for the upgrade. So. Worth. It!

PreK:

Emmett is really getting good at reading some CVC words. I started him on the I See Sam readers and he has read the first two. He is really pleased that he is learning to read and was happy he could do these books (on the iPad, no less) all on his own!

He is also beginning to show an interest in writing.

So, I'm slowly introducing the proper way to form certain letters.

He has beautiful handwriting for a four-year-old boy.

He's also getting faster with his rods, especially building a staircase.

Math:

Like I said, we skipped a fair amount of math problems in our lessons this week. I'm not too concerned about doing this since Abby's computation and understanding are good.

MEP focused on number bonds for 18 and 19 this week. Each time I let her skip problem sets, she immediately chose to skip the drill-ish problem and kept the puzzles.

She did pull out the wrap-ups one day and was pleased that she could manipulate it enough to complete a stick!

We did do some money problems out of a typical first grade workbook this week as well. MEP is British, so I figure we've got to introduce US currency somewhere. I'm not too worried, though, because I think we'll be working some through SM 1B (which is American) this summer.

And, for a bit of surprise... This evening we were playing board games and Ellie wanted to play. We pulled out Candyland. The older kids had to answer questions to get to draw their cards. I wrote down a few two-digit addition problems to see how Abby would tackle them and she was able to completely solve them mentally! My husband was surprised that she did problems such as 18 + 32 = 50 and can even regroup tens mentally...albeit a bit more slowly. (For you old fogies, regrouping is the new name for "carrying" past a ten.)

Reading:

Because Abby's already read the next selection on our schedule, I let her pick her own library book to read through this last week. She is currently in the middle of a Magic Tree House book: Twister on Tuesday. During her own time, she reads plenty of picture books and also loves to read on my kindle (currently reading Cam Jansen: The Catnapping Mystery).

We also finished the Wonderful Wizard of Oz this week! I already have the movie from Netflix and we'll be watching it on Sunday. Both kids really enjoyed the book.

After finishing Oz, we took a day or two off and now we've jumped right into Pinocchio. My kids have never seen the Disney version, but Abby knew a bit about the storyline from a VeggieTales parody.

*****

And that's our week! I do believe we should be full steam ahead next week...at least I'm hoping we're done with the flu that quickly!

Week 26

Daddy only had a two-and-a-half day work week, so our school week was accordingly light.

Also, my camera has been in the shop for the last couple of weeks. I've been relying on iPhones and it is really difficult to get good pictures. I tried, though!

PreK:

For the last few months, Emmett hasn't been interested in the idea of anything academics related. I've been fine with be very unschool-y because he is only four.

This week he started building CVC words with our word whammer and has started asking to learn to read. I started out with the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, but he seems to need a bit of help blending beginning sounds (the ends are no problem). So, we are working through some of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We will keep OPGTR as a complete phonics guide, but probably work through 100 Easy Lessons for a while. He is super pleased with his progress and his ability to sound out CVC words.

Math:

Abby worked through week 28 of MEP 1B. This week was a daydreamy week. While her pages weren't a struggle and there was no crying, there was really no focusing or real paying attention.

She also worked through some problems in Singapore's Challenging Word Problems 1 and she loved those.

She did make me laugh on Thursday, though. She had an appointment at the doctor's for some warts. The doc said she wanted to see her in three weeks for a medication application. Abby said, "Three weeks. That's seven days three times..." As we walked out she waved to the pediatrician and said, "See you in 21 days!"

On Friday, I handed her a few challenge problems. Even though we haven't really covered two-digit addition yet, she knew that she needed to add the tens and the ones separately. I was pleased with that.

Language Arts:

We completed three lessons in grammar this week. Abby has no issue with the difference between common and proper nouns now and FLL is already starting to seem repetitive. I also read her the story of the Lion and the Mouse. Her narration was thus: "The mouse saved the lion from the net." I haven't finished listening to Susan Wise Bauer's lecture on the writing process, but I do believe this was an okay narration for this story for a five-year-old.

Our next step in AAS2 has us learning the beginning processes for spelling words with more than one syllable.

We did mostly review this week in cursive. We had a beautiful week weather-wise and cursive was the first thing to be dropped in favor of parks. You're only five once! We did learn the rock curve in preparation for other letter formation.

This week Abby read Nate the Great. She moaned when we went to reading it, but did enjoy the story after the fact.

The kids and I are reading the Wizard of Oz before bed. We are only four chapters out from finishing the book and Abby and Emmett are really enjoying the time spent reading. The chapters are short enough that Emmett can pay attention for that amount of time, and the book we have has good pictures.

Geography:

Since we finished our continent unit study, we moved on to talking about different landforms. We're working out of Beginning Geography and I'm requiring Emmett to sit in a bit while we do it. They both enjoy it as it is very gentle and there is a lot of coloring and cutting and pasting. This week we worked on hills, mountains, volcanoes and islands. Even Ellie wanted to color a volcano! The first time they sat to it this week, Abby exclaimed enthusiastically, "This is so much fun! It's better than schoolwork!" LOL

Extra:

Daddy had Monday off and it was a beautiful day. So, we went to the zoo! The highlight of the zoo that day was feeding the giraffes!

This Friday was Dr. Seuss's birthday. We celebrated by having brownies for breakfast, reading a few of his book, coloring some pictures and then we surprised the kids and went and saw the first showing of the Lorax that day. It was definitely a good day!

Hyrum came down with a tummy bug Saturday morning, so we've spent much of the weekend catching vomit. We were hoping that he would be an isolated case, but this evening, Eleanor is telling me she has to throw up. To make up for Daddy's short week at work last week, he has a 12+ hour day scheduled tomorrow. I am praying that we don't have a vomit week this next week...