Summer Fun - Week 1

Theme - Under the Sea!

Our themes this summer are going to focus on things Ellie might like, including crafts and activities.  She is very often folded into the older kids' work, but this summer I'm hoping to fold the older kids into whatever it is that she's doing.  She's been really enjoying it.

This week, we've read books about fish and shells.  Ellie loves the Rainbow Fish, but she also enjoyed the Let's Read and Find Out book What Lives in a Shell?

We made a starfish out of construction paper, glue, and cheerios.

After our starfish dried (a day or two later), we used them to stamp paint!

I was really pleased with how they came out!

Of course, we had to eat hot dogs made into octopus shapes!

The Routine

On Monday, I created these activity cards so the kids could pick when we do which activities. I wanted it to be to scale time-wise so when we placed them in order, we knew when to move on from whatever thing. This keeps me moving through everything and making sure that things are getting done with each kid.  It runs from 10 to 5.  Each kid has two hours' worth of playtime, 30-60 minutes of chores (depending on the house), 45 minutes of math and phonics/reading for the older two (which is definitely an overshoot), 15 minutes of reading, 15 minutes of quiet time, half an hour for lunch, an hour for "something fun" (a catchall for activities outside of the house), fine motor play and story time for Ellie, etc.  The kids are enjoying our little "routine builder" and I'm finding it helps me be more of an effective parent.  If it works through the summer, we'll make some school cards and use it during the school year.

The Two-Year-Old

She is fascinated with the letter E.  "E for Ellie," she says.  Yesterday, though, she told me, "E for Ellie...and exit," as he pointed to an Exit sign.  LOL

For her fine motor activity this week, she shoved pipe cleaners into our colander.  Then she would exclaim, "Where'd they go?"  When all of them were shoved in, she'd turn it over and shout, "Surprise!"

She has enjoyed princess stories this week.  She chose two different princess books and asks me to read them.  She only makes it about a third of the way through, them, though, because there is a lot of text on each page and she gets restless and starts asking questions about them: "Why is that witch mean?" "Oh look, she has a baby!  Is that a girl baby or a boy baby?"  "Am I a princess?"

The Reading

Abby is struggling with larger, multisyllabic words.  There is a lot of guessing and frustration because these words aren't coming easier.  I am quickly taking her through the last half of the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading where the lessons are about breaking apart and decoding these words.  She has done something crazy like 40 review lessons this week.  And now that I've started it, I realize that a large part of her problem is partly vocabulary-related.  If she's never heard or seen the word before in her life, why would I expect her to know it?!  Still, the phonics review that she'll get from OPGTR is solid.

Last Saturday we went to the library.  We picked her up the first Mercy Watson book because she enjoyed the one we own.  Sunday night, I encouraged her to read it.  She looked at it and dismissed it.  I correctly surmised that she was feeling anxious about the unfamiliar and the thickness of the book.  I told her she didn't have to read it all at once.  She still looked nervous.  So, I grabbed one of her favorite Dr. Seuss books (with which she feels comfortable) and showed her that there was MORE text on the Seuss pages and MORE pages.  So, she apprehensively took the Mercy Watson book to bed.  When I went the girls' room to tuck Ellie in, she asked me for help with one word.  By Monday, she was asking to go back to the library to pick up another Mercy Watson because she had finished the first one...in one night!  These books are well below her decoding capability (at an early second grade reading level), but are right on for interest level and pictures.  And I'm okay with her reading things below her level because they will increase fluency.  And she likes them!  She read the entire second Mercy Watson on Monday!  The next time we went to the library (twice in the same week!), I picked up the last three.

Emmett is still working through 100 EL.  He loves tackling the word lists and story in each lesson, but does not like being asked to repeat the words.  I believe this is partly because he feels like it's a waste of time.  I feel like they will help him recognize the words, so I make him repeat them anyway.  He completed up to lesson 44 and is surprising me with how easy he's read a few of these stories on the first go.

The Math

I was planning on using Singapore Math's Primary Mathematics 1B for the summer for Abby.  I was hoping it would be kind of a fun little review with the concepts and she'd enjoy having something "easy."  She worked through the clocks section as well as beginning addition and subtraction in numbers up to 100.  This is almost like a review for her because we have been doing these problems mentally for a bit.  Singapore also went through and worked with numbers up to 40 and, to Abby, these problems aren't much different.  In the last three weeks she's gone through about 10 weeks of lessons.

We did also throw in a few Miquon sheets.  Abby loves division.

Emmett is still working with his rods.  I very gently introduced the idea of a number bond.  He was rather excited that he was going to do some math like Abby does!

He is now working on remembering which rod is which number when the white rod is one.  The only rods he occasionally mixes up are black and brown.

Unplanned Summer Fun

Of course, part of the fun about summer is just oodles of free time and play.  My kids get plenty of that during the school year as well (the joys of homeschooling!).

This week, we...

• ...enjoyed strawberries.  The kids ate nearly an entire Sam's Club container in one afternoon!

• ...weeded our garden.

(The big ones are our bush beans.)

• ...played outside plenty!

• ...went to the Science Museum.

• ...caught a caterpillar.

• ...went hunting for tadpoles.

We even caught a few!

We had originally mail-ordered a tadpole, but they kept dying.  Instead, we went and caught some at a local park/creek/pond.  These little guys seem to be a whole lot sturdier...and we have a lot more (~10)!

• Hyrum even got his first pair of shoes!