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...

Week 18

We took Monday off this week to get things together and unpack after being gone for a month. I kind of am seeing the beginning of January as a beginning of "second semester" and made a few changes that I'm hoping to stick with.

Firstly, our calendar notebook has kind of fallen by the wayside since we were gone. Instead, we have been working our calendar work with the main things on our fridge. We are still counting days, doing a word a day, writing the date and the weather, etc.

PreK:

I found this sticker workbook when I was cleaning out our school closet. It's mostly just fun "work" for Emmett.

We've also been working through capital letter formation with the white board. I write the letter, he erases it with his finger. He likes this. We have done letters A, F and E.

Math:

This week I noticed we had RightStart B left when I thought we'd do that for math. I tried it again since memorizing her facts past ten is work for Abby. I realized that it is way too spiral for my liking. Anyway, we are going to continue to move sideways with it. We'll finish up Miquon Orange and work through some puzzles with MEP 1.

So, this week, we worked through some Miquon. At the beginning of the year, I tested the waters with Abby and the concept of halves. She didn't quite get that halves had to be equal, even though stressed that we needed to split whatever number into two FAIR parts. This week, though, I explained the concept and gave her an orange rod and asked how we could break it up evenly. She said, "Oh, that's easy. It's five!" After going through ten and eight, she then commented, "The odd numbers can't be broken fairly with the rods here. We'd have to break the white rod in half to make it even." Have I sung the praises of C rods lately?!

We played a bit on Dreambox math. We're trying out the free trial.

Spelling:

We are still working through dictated phrases. I have come into a bit of paypal, though, so I'm going to be looking for AAS level 2 now. Yay!

Reading:

Abby still is reading on her spare time. I'm not requiring any amount of reading. She reads plenty at bedtime. (Our rule is that they have to be in bed and quiet, but they don't have to be asleep.)

We are still working through All About Sam. I need to see if I can put the audio on her DS...or maybe sync my old iPod so she can listen to it in the car when Emmett is wanting to listen to music (which he seems to prefer). The next time we make a trip to the library, I am hoping to pick up some Jim Weiss audios.

We have been working through The Boy on Fairfield Street: How Ted Geisel Grew Up to Become Dr. Seuss by Kathleen Krull and have been fascinated with it. We are going to put FIAR on hold for a while and do a Seussian theme for the next few weeks before Seuss's birthday in March. Then, we will throw a big Seuss bash and invite a friend or two. Abby is chomping on the bit to get started with that.

Of course, read-alouds happen daily here.

Extra:

In the great clean-out of January 2012, I cleared and reorganized our school supplies. Hopefully it is better suited now so I can use our materials better. I've decided that we will be coloring heavy for a while. I'm hoping that between some snippets of handwriting, and lots of coloring, hand muscles for writing will be strengthened.

I'm also hopeful that group coloring will encourage Ellie to sit and enjoy some "schoolwork" with us. This week Abby colored a myriad of unicorns, Emmett did Toothless (from How to Train Your Dragon) and couple of unicorns (can we say follower?), and Ellie colored Dora and WonderPets. (Have I mentioned how much I loathe Dora? She doesn't watch it much, but she definitely knows she exists.)

The Baby:

Hyrum is also joining in on the learning fun! He has finally figured out how to stay on hands-and-knees rather than belly crawl. He has been army crawling for a while and would push up onto his hands and knees, take a few "crawl" steps and get annoyed with his speed (which is about as fast as cold molasses) and get back down on his tummy. He also has figured how to pull up! And now, he is learning how to fall without knocking his noggin.

TWO: Weeks of 20 and 27 Feb

ABCs/Phonics:

Funnix is going well for Abby. As of yesterday, she completed lesson 89. I figure if we keep at this pace, she'll be finished by the end of March! She's now attempting to read titles of television shows and other things. For a child who is hesitant to try anything new, it is a big show for what she's accomplished to feel comfortable trying to read something NOT in her lessons.

In this picture she drew a tree, and then continued to embellish it with a hole and a little bunny to live in the hole. A couple of lessons later, she read the word "bug" and was supposed to draw it in. She chose to draw in a bug like her daddy's: a VW bug. :)

Emmett learned a bit on the letters "e' and "s." Apparently "e" was harder for him since he had a bit of a time remembering the sound it made. He surprised me, though, with "s" by knowing its name and sound before I had introduced them!

He was also excited to use his SpiderMan pencils that I found at the dollar spot at Target. He loves SpiderMan.

We also traced the letters in shaving cream. Abby and Emmett both thought this was great fun. Ellie was not a fan.

Literacy:

We had a celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday this past week! We read a ton of his books (Abby read the entire Hop on Pop and Green Eggs and Ham). I wrote quotes of his on our windows (with dry erase markers), we had green eggs cookies (no pictures, though, because we gobbled them up!). We also colored some paper bags to look like the Cat in the Hat and talked about the pattern on his hat.

Abby felt the need to write "Today is Dr. Seuss birthday" on her hat (birthday appears on the other side). Emmett tried to write on his too, which is why you see a bunch of letters on top of Abby's. He asks her and she shows him how to form the letters on the top of whatever she's working on. The little squiggle under the "o" in "today" is something that appears in her reading lesson to indicate that the "o" does not make its traditional sound.

Life:

We also got our big box from Rainbow Resource this past week! It included our wall maps and a bunch of books for Five in a Row. The kids were rather excited about the maps portion. And of course, the large box that it all came in.

The hang on the wall by our dining room table and we have lots of discussion about where family lives, where Fancy Nancy wants to go (France), where Disneyworld is, etc, etc. I know they're not your traditional dining room decor, but it sure is a good visual!

We bought this Makin' Mud Pies toy when the weather was still cold. We pulled it out and it has been a big hit. Of course, I also got a new washer this week, which was good timing for the amount of mud they get on their clothes now.

We made a trip to the zoo with friends where they hardly looked at any animals; they just had fun running around! We did discuss animals that are nocturnal vs diurnal when we saw owls and bats, though.

Swim:

This past lesson, Abby and Emmett took their first jumps off a diving board! We were quite surprised. Emmett thought it was awesome and kept going back for more. They had to inform him that lesson was done about four times.

Mom and Dad:

I just finished units in all three of my classes. It included a week full of studying and audio lectures and all around craziness. In order to juggle it all, I decided to skip the assigned reading in my developmental psychology class. I was lucky enough, though, that the chapters were on pregnancy and infants. Those are two things I know quite a bit about.

Daddy just finished a week full of flying. His eyes cleared the exams and he flied twice in four days. They were long days for him. He even taught a brand new flyer for the first time. He also did get to accomplish a bit of reading for our psych class. I guess at least someone is reading the book! ;)