Week 8

Daddy was off work for most of Monday and Wednesday, so we took a light this week this week and focused only on math and spelling so we could enjoy our time with Daddy!

ABCs:

We only have three letters left. This week we did letter I and we painted it with ice. We poured jello powder on our Is and then used ice to wet it down and color the Is.

All the kids love to do our letter crafts. This time, though, Abby didn't care as much about painting the I. "This powder is delicious!" she exclaimed. From then on, she mostly ate the powder. LOL

I made them strip to their underwear so they didn't stain their clothes. Ellie, however feels that underwear is optional any time we're at home so she was naked.

PreK:

Emmett has been fairly resistant to any idea of learning. Lately all he wants to do is watch TV. And if he doesn't have enough stars (we use Chore Pad) then he chooses to play outside. I'm fine letting this because that is what being four (or nearly so...his birthday is on the 23rd!) is all about. He still counts as we play. We identify colors and shapes in everyday life. He helps pick up. The luster of "homeschool," though, and "doing school" has worn off. He still tells everyone he does homeschool.

Reading:

I'm trying to ascertain where Abby is reading-wise and see what would be good for her to read aloud to me. We have some Pathway Readers, but I don't think they'll interest her as much. We picked up Mr. Putter and Tabby Feed the Fish at the library. While the interest level is good for her, the reading was definitely easy. She only sounded out one word in the entire book. This weekend I'm going to be spending some time on Scholastic's Book Wizard to find something maybe a bit harder...Or maybe we'll park it here for a bit.

Math:

We are nearly done with section E (addition and subtraction) in Miquon Orange. We also completed the first addition unit in Singapore Math 1a. The only lesson that was a bit confusing for her was the last one where it discusses "counting on." I tried to explain it to her and she was frustrated because "adding is faster!" She was confused because I have been trying to NOT have her count. When adding one or two more I say, "Six and two more" and she will respond with the correct answer. I do believe she is "counting on" in her head and isn't realizing it's the same thing I'm trying to explain.

So we glazed over it and then went to check what addition facts she is shaky on. We're focusing only on addition up to ten and she only was hesitant on a few facts: 6+3 and 5+3 being the big two.

I know that it's becoming second-nature, though, because we were at a park yesterday and she wrote in the sand, "10 = 6 + 4 = 8 + 2 = 9 + 1 = 5 + 5 = 7 + 3 = 5 + 5 = 1 + 4 + 3 + 2!"

One day we did math outside. We wrote a bunch of numbers on the ground and then I sat with the whiteboard and wrote problems for Abby and Emmett. Abby's were typical number bonds, addition sentence type problems with a few reading problems thrown in. Emmett's were mostly counting objects, which is really too easy for him. When they knew the answer, they rode their scooter over to it.

We also bought Double Shutter on clearance at Target. It will be a great game to review some addition facts... Daddy and I also love to play it. It's a bit addicting. :)

Spelling:

Because we had such a light week, we reviewed mostly. We did finish lesson 21 which taught the digraph /nk/. It was good to review this week because she kept spelling ring like "reng" or think like "thenk." I was at a loss at how to tell her we really spelled it with an even though we pronounce it with a long e sound. And then I realized AAS had given me the tool for this when I introduced the phonograms and told her that /ng/ is rarely in front of an e and /nk/ is never placed after an e. She looked confused and said, "Well, how do we spell this?!" and I commented, "Do you know another vowel that can say that sound?" It was then that she made the connection that we place an i there and use it's third sound of "eeee."

Read-Aloud:

We've been reading through the Magic Tree House books we have. We also checked out a Winnie-the-Pooh audiobook that the kids have really enjoyed. We got it from the library on Tuesday and as of Friday night we were well into the third CD. Now I'm on the hunt for another audio book for the kids to listen to.

Swim:

We finished up our last session of swim lessons this week. Next session, Emmett will move on to level four, Abby will stay at level three to review a few more strokes, and Ellie will continue to split between the mom-and-tot class. We have seen marked improvement in Abby's technique. now she just needs to hone it. The class that Emmett will be moving into is a longer class and will require more of him. The teacher he's getting seems to really love his job and be very capable with little kids. We're also hoping the class we'll place him in is the least populated of the two he teaches.

Ellie has made strong improvement in her swimming this session as well. She can now float on her front and back without freaking out. She can glide in the water. She would be swimming but she has yet to make the discovery that if she starts kicking while she's gliding on her tummy, she would move forward. I'm sure that discovery will be coming soon.

Extra:

Because Daddy was off on Monday, we took the kids to the zoo! It's been a while since Daddy's been to the zoo. The kids and I went last month, but it's much more fun to go with Dad.

The children's section of the zoo is still fairly new (added within the last year). The climbing things are classic for them, even Daddy participates!

We saw a condor spread his wings. He sure is a big bird! The kids even imitated him.

We even saw some prairie animals which had us talking about Three Names.

We did the lorikeet exhibit. We try not to do this too frequently so it doesn't ruin the magic. The kids love this part, and this time we bought nectar to feed the birds!

Emmett is awesome at holding the birds. He holds super still and just watches. This is one of the few times we see him still.

Abby is a big spaz when it comes to holding the birds. She has gotten better, but she really has to focus on not flipping out when they stand on her.

Since this was the first time we'd been in a while, it was the first time Ellie really got what was happening without flipping out. She really wanted to hold the birds and couldn't figure out how to get them. Daddy finally helped her out.

Even Hyrum got to hold the birds!

Week 7

I toyed with the idea of doing a rotation of six weeks school and one week off, which would have put us off this week...but we were just feeling like we were going somewhere. So, instead of taking the week completely off, we did a lighter version of school and dropped FIAR this week. We just read lots of library books in the absence of a FIAR book.

Also: Abby got her first pair of footed pajamas for the winter this week. If she was at home, she was in them. So, even though she's in jammies, these pictures did occur on different days and different times. Another unspoken benefit of homeschooling.

ABCs:

We are running out of letters...after this week's letter (Z), we only have four left. We made zig zags for Z this week. I have specialty scissors that cut jagged edges. They're originally supposed to be used for scrapbooking and cardmaking...but let's be realistic: I'm not crafty like that.

PreK:

Mostly we just played around with classification this week. We sorted by big and small, short and small, shapes and colors. The favorites was colors, of course. Ellie also joined in on these activities as she is still learning her colors (or maybe it's just that's she's finally starting to care about colors).

Emmett also used the iPad to trace some letters and even attempt some Rocket Math. And, because Emmett did it, Ellie had to try it too.

There was one day, where I was teaching Abby a math lesson, Hyrum was asleep, Ellie was in the way (as usual!) and I realized I hadn't seen Emmett for a few minutes. When I went looking for him, he was up on Abby's bed, "reading" Little Critter.

Reading:

Abby is still working through Magic Tree House 5 with me. She also is constantly reading throughout the day too. Her favorite time to read is before bed, though. After reading for about an hour, she usually comes out and tells us she can't sleep. Of course not!

Math:

We took a week to just review and go over number bonds. From what I understand, number bonds are crucial to being able to succeed with Singapore Math. I had been led to believe that it might be a bit of a conceptual leap for Abby since she is still only 5 (and a young 5 at that). Mostly, though, it was a bit underwhelming, though. I showed her what the bonds were, how they were notated and then let her work on them. And she totally gets them in almost a "What's the big deal?" fashion. I attribute this really to the Cuisenaire rods and being able to see what I'm talking about.

One day we did number bonds on the sliding door with dry erase. (They love to write on the glass with dry erase markers.)

Abby caught me reading about a game, Math Rider, this week and asked me to play it. It went over okay, except Abby doesn't have the keyboard skills to be as quick as she'd like. So, I sat and typed the answers for her. In her zeal to be quick, she'd sort of freak out before sitting and remembering the answer. I think we'll put games like this on hold for a bit.

On Thursday, built sum towers. We basically used our rods and flats to build towers. Our pillars started as only 1cm high, then we progressed to 2cm, all the way to 10cm. This was awesome, though, because we only used an introductory set of rods which only have 4 rods each of the 5-10 rods. So then, because we ran out on the first level, we had to build the numbers in a different way. She really liked this lesson and I have a feeling it will be one we repeat to review our number bonds. While it was a lesson in building different numbers for Abby, it was a lesson in patience for me because the two-year-old wanted to help too!

This is our "seven" tower.

Spelling:

We reviewed our previous rules and completed lesson 20 which discussed the digraph /ng/.

Extra:

Because we had had a stomach bug run through our house all last weekend, we discussed germs and the importance of washing our hands. I demonstrated how our hands are dirty even if they appear clean by having them handle two peeled potatoes.

We also found some kind of seed pod after swim lesson on Thursday. I had the kids grab a few and told them we'd open them up for a science project. All I have to do is say "science experiment" and they are all running towards me with excitement in their eyes.

Week 6

ABCs:

We did "U is for Umbrella." Hyrum actually joined us at the table! :)

Then, it was time for Hyrum's morning nap...so I quickly left the kids to put Hyrum down. They had markers and do-a-dot type paints and I was hoping to be quick.

Of course, even just three minutes meant a big mess with Ellie there.

PreK:

This week we read the story of the Gingerbread Man. Emmett really enjoyed it. We read it. We acted it out. He loved being the Gingerbread Man. He'd say, "Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me; I'm Emmett man!" LOL

We made people chains and decorated them.

Of course, we made gingerbread cookies!

Abby and Emmett watched them bake while wondering if OUR cookies would pop up after baking and run away.

The cookies got this kid's seal of approval, though!

Emmett also completed a Mighty Math Mission by tallying all of the circles in our kitchen he could find.

Reading:

Well, we did get the first grade Pathway Readers and I had planned to start them this week, but we also got a Magic Tree House book that Abby and I have been reading aloud together. I'm not going to squash excitement over reading!

Spelling:

We reviewed when to use "c" or "k" at the beginning of a word and reviewed the double letter rule as well.

Of course, Emmett wanted to jump in and use the rice too.

We completed lesson 19 and learned when to use a "k" or "ck" at the end of a word. These spelling rules really do click with her. Mostly, she doesn't seem to need to see the words more than once or twice before she is spelling them all correctly.

Math:

We've been working through Miquon and Abby has been flying through it. I've been assuming all along that after K math, we'd jump into Singapore Primary Math. We've played a lot of games, we've covered addition and subtraction, she can solve problems with the rods.

I had felt like I was just sort of pulling what to teach through separate sections: Miquon being the primary, but I've also used ideas from Gattegno Mathematics, MEP Math, Math Mammoth, and Let's Play Math! as well as fellow homeschooler's blogs and my own head. I felt, however, that it was time to buy Singapore 1a to see really where I needed to be directing all of this work towards. We got it this Thursday and I opened it up and realized that all that spiraling back to numbers and addition and number bonds especially is really building a well-laid foundation. Abby has her number bonds up to 6 memorized and is very nearly solid on her number bonds of 10. I am absolutely sure that she understands the concept firmly. If I give her part-whole circles she can find all the number bonds to whatever number I've asked... And if I give her the numbers and ask her to pair up the bonds, she hardly ever needs the rods.

We will camp out here for however long it takes her to be really good with the bonds up for 7, 8, 9 and completely automatic with bonds of 10.

Memory Work:

We worked on the rhyme Once I Caught a Fish Alive. We made pop-up books of fish to go along with it, but I didn't take a picture. Abby colored hers as a rainbow fish. It was a perfect time to read her The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.

We also started working on memorizing the months of the year. That came naturally from the discussion we had about this week being the last of September.

FIAR:

We rowed All Those Secrets of the World by Jane Yolen this week. I don't know why we haven't done this book before. It is a sweet book about a little four-year-old girl and what happens when her daddy goes off to war. She learns the "secret of the world' that things look smaller when they're far away. When her daddy gets back two years later, he comments that she was much bigger than he remembered. She whispers her secret in his ear, that she is bigger now because he is close to her.

I have a lot of feelings about this book. Probably because, while my husband hasn't been gone for two years straight, we have lived through our fair share of separations due to the military, including two deployments. At our house, we call it "long work" and we are very grateful that Daddy is now in a squadron that has a very, very low chance of deploying him for another 15ish months.

Our lessons were very simple and nothing strongly awe-inspiring, but sometimes, that's what learning is about.

Social Studies:

• We found the state of Virginia on our map. We talked about Daddy's brother who is in the Navy and lives in Virginia.
• Janie and her cousin take an impromptu walk in the Chesapeake Bay. We talked about what a bay is and I asked Abby to point out a few other bays. She found the Bay of Biscay, Bristol Bay and the Hudson Bay.
• We discussed what it means to be patriotic and counted all the American flags we could find in the book. We talked about our country's other symbols and listened to a song by the Teacher and the Rockabots called Symbols of America.

Language Arts:

• The children in the book wade in the bay even though they were told not to. Janie's cousin tells her that they were told not to swim in the bay, but nobody said they couldn't wade in it. I discussed with Abby why that was still wrong. It was interesting to discuss this with her because she is a very innocent child. She takes whatever someone tells her as a whole truth. When I read what Michael told Janie, I asked her if she thought that was still okay. She told me that Michael wouldn't say it if it wasn't, so it must be. Abby has dabbled a bit in lying, but she's not very good at it and is quick to tell me the truth. Developmentally, I know she's capable of lying, but I don't think it morally suits her. Of course, that's how I would prefer it. :)

Art:

• Because of the secret shared here--that when things are further away they appear smaller--we discussed how we make things look far away in art. We talked about viewpoint and size in creating the perspective of distance in art and found other pictures that had these same techniques.
• We plan to listen to the song mentioned in the book, Over There, this weekend.

Math:

• When Janie's dad leaves, she is 4. When he returns, she is 6. We found the difference between 6 and 4. I told Abby that time was about as long as the time we've had Ellie. Her eyes grew wide. Then, we did some skip counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, and even 3s and observed the patterns it made on our 100 chart.

Science:

• This was the exciting lesson of the week! We learned about oil and water and how they separate. We made our own bottles with colored water and oil (and glitter, of course!).

• Then I smeared some oil on a plate and asked Abby to try to clean it. She turned on the cold water and tried to wash it off. Of course, that didn't work. Then, we discussed the importance of using warm or hot water. Then I asked her what else do we use to wash. "Soap!" So, I placed some water and soap in our fourth bottle and asked her if she thought it would mix. She said no. Imagine her surprise when it did! We discussed how soap helps things mix with water and get it cleaner.

Life:

Our kids are so spoiled. I think we went to four parks or so this week. At one park, we saw a frog jump out of the sand and go enjoy some rocks.

We also found a grasshopper in our back yard and let the kids inspect them. Emmett was willing, Abby freaked. LOL

The kids have loved writing on our sliding glass door with dry erase markers for the last little bit. The other day, Abby wrote a note to Ms. Frizzle.

On our calendar spot, we record the date and how many days we've been in school. (I told the kids when we get to 100 we can have a party.) This whole week, our date and number of days in school have lined up. That was totally not planned, but the kids pointed it out and thought it was cool.

This weekend is Conference weekend. I had an assignment to go to some world fair today at the college, so I was thinking we would miss the first few sessions and have to read them later. Apparently, Heavenly Father really wanted me to hear these sessions, though, because the older two kids were throwing up all last night. My poor husband was up with them most of the night. It has hit Emmett worse than Abby and the poor boy is having difficulty keeping anything down. I guess it is a great day to cuddle up, and listen to the desires of God. Tomorrow they will probably be feeling better and will be listening for key words to earn a treat. Until then, we'll have a day of jammies and loafing.

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.