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...