Week 4

Daddy went back to work this week, which was a bummer, but also good for us to get back into our regular routine.

ABCs:

We reviewed the letter N this week. Lately, mostly reviewing our letters involves reading the sounds it makes, the shape and a lettaer craft. We used noodles for our N this time.

Ellie wanted to make a necklace afterwards. She loved it and made four and exclaimed, each time we finished one, "So pretty!"

PreK:

Emmett decided he wants to begin reading lessons this week. I'm indulging it, though we're going very slowly. So far he has completed 1.5 lessons. :) We also talked about body parts this week, including bones and muscles. We found parts of our body that aren't as common: elbows, wrist, ankles, hips, etc.

Reading:

Spelling:

We made it through three steps this week, which sets us at just past halfway through AAS Level 1. This week we learned whether to use "c" or "k" at the beginning of a word. Later, she was pleased to tell Daddy when a c is before e, i, or y it says /s/. We were in the middle of Chick-Fil-A and she bursted it out. LOL

Math:

My middle two love to watch Team Umizoomi. We have this math kit that came with cards that have "mighty math missions." This particular card had Emmett searching for numbers 1-10 throughout our house.

We headed back to Miqoun this week. Most of our time this week was directed around pairs that make five. We played a game we call "Yellow!" You need a deck with 0-5. If you're using face cards, you can use a Q for 0. Uno cards are PERFECT for this, though, just take out what you don't need. Then, the first player lays a card in the middle face up, and the next player follows. Each take turns laying a card. When you see a pair that makes five (or the yellow rod, hence the name), you exclaim, "Yellow!" and take the pair. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins.

We also played a game that we call make a pair. With the same deck, each player is dealt five cards. The deck is placed in the center with two cards drawn and face up on either side of the deck. If a player can cover one card so the showing pair equals five, he does so. Otherwise he draws a card.

We've also played Old Maid with the same deck, just pulling out our "mystery card" before we begin play. We need more than two people for that one.

And of course, Go Fish or Go to the Dump with pairs that add to five.

Abby can now tell us all of the combinations of numbers that equal five.

She worked through the C-addition pages in Miquon and completed them. With the rods, single-digit addition is easy for her. Working these pages, she has committed to memory her +0, +1 addition tables as well as 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, and 6+6. She's also fairly consistent with addition to 10, but only if she thinks about it in terms of rods. For being only 5 and only doing Miquon for the last 4 weeks, I'm fairly pleased with her understanding.

Memory Work:

This week we've worked on skip counting by ten. It will probably continue in to next week.

Unit Study Completion:

As a topper to our fire safety unit study last week, we visited the fire department! We visited the last firehouse in OKC that has fireman's poles. And it was a great tour! Besides just touring the firehouse and meeting the firemen, they also took us for a ride in a ladder truck.

The let the kids try on their equipment.

They let the kids spray the firehose!

FIAR:

This week we rowed a favorite, Madeline. My kids have never actually done any FIAR activities with it, but they are familiar with the books and the cartoon.

Social Studies:

• This isn't the first time we've rowed a book that is set in Paris. This time, we focused on the Seine River that runs through Paris. We got on Google Earth and looked at the river. Then, we found the picture in the book where it says that "nobody knew so well how to scare Miss Clavel." We supposed that the bridge was built to cross the Seine River and then practiced "scaring Miss Clavel" in our back yard.

Language Arts:

• We discussed rhyme this week. Abby can rhyme orally, so I assumed this would be a review type of lesson. Much to my surprise, she's never actually paid attention to written words that rhyme!

Art:

• We discussed impressions verses photographs.
• We noticed the differences in the pictures in the book: Some are full color and some are done with just black and yellow. We even compared the pictures where Miss Clavel says, "Something is not right."
• Finally, we drew a picture of a Tiger using Draw Write Now 7.

Applied Math:

• We arranged the "twelve little girls in two straight lines" into one, three, and four straight lines.

Science:

• Madeline has her appendix removed in the book. We found out where the appendix is and why someone might have to have theirs removed. This led us to an awesome discussion about the digestive tract. The kids enjoyed watching the BrainPOP Jr. episode on digestion.

• Because of Madeline's surgery, she has a scar which becomes the envy of the other little girls. We talked about our body's mechanisms to heal itself and how we get scars. Then, we found some on our bodies. I also took a picture of Abby raising her shirt so we could see her stomach. On it, she drew her own scar.

Other:

• We checked out a Madeline collection from the library and read other Madeline books.
• We watched a fair amount of Madeline cartoons via our Netflix instant play.
• For our movie tonight, we watched the live action Madeline, which is really a composite of all the original Madeline books.

Week 3

Daddy was off this week! We maintained our basics, but skipped FIAR to do a light unit study on fire safety.

ABCs:

This week's letter was Y.

PreK:

We read the Goldilocks and the 3 Bears and sequenced the story. I am loving the activity book that goes with What Your Preschooler Needs to Know! It comes with all of the stickers and cutouts you could need. For Goldilocks, there were cutouts of the bears' porridge bowls, the chairs, and the beds. We added magnets to the back and they are now at home on our dishwasher. We have a Goldilocks figurine and Emmett will tell the whole Goldilocks story.

We also did a section on faces and placed stickers of eyes, ears, and noses where they belonged.

We've also spent hours this week at certain parks bike-riding. Emmett loves it and asks us every day if he can go ride his bike.

Reading:

We read a fair amount of picture books this week, but none from Charlie. Having Daddy home sure does throw off our routine! Abby did some reading to us as well.

Spelling:

I'm kind of at an impasse as to how long our spelling lessons should take. The lessons still contain fairly easy words for Abby. We completed step 11 in two days, we made a spelling notebook on a separate day. We were supposed to do spelling on Friday, but it didn't happen. We'll pick it back up this week.

Math:

Daddy actually did a bit of rod play with Emmett this week. He and I also played war. He loves playing war with me because he typically wins. :)

We finished the "Literal Work with Rods" section in Gattegno Mathematics. From there we worked a bit with the number application and have now moved back to the Miquon lab sheets. We've only done the first two in section C (which is addition), but it was fairly quick and painless for Abby.

Finding the difference:

Making the pattern of five:

Because we started a new "unit" in her math stuff, we are taking the advantage to try this out. Each time she completes a worksheet, she uses the fun paper puncher to punch out a shape. Then we stick the shape on a piece of paper. The shapes missing out of the corner allows me to see quickly which sheets have been completed and I'm hoping the shapes on the paper give Abby a sense of accomplishment.

Abby also likes to add a bit of fun to her math. In this step, I asked her to find if the math sentence was true. I told her to draw a smiley face if it was, she chose to draw a cat smiley face.

Unit Study:

With Daddy home, we took a bit of break from Five in a Row and talked about fire safety. We discussed fire extinguishers, firefighters, smoke alarms, important things to know in an emergency, etc.

We own the book No Dragons for Tea, which is an awesome introduction to fire safety for kids. We also rented Billy Blue Hair - Why are Fire Trucks Red? and the kids got to watch it as a free show (as in, they didn't have to pay out to get to watch it).

We visited the Oklahoma State Firefighter's Museum.

We tested our fire alarm and ran a fire drill. We let the kids crawl out of their windows as an illustration of an alternate route out of their bedroom. They had a blast with that!

We camped out and had our own little fire to cook hot dogs and s'mores. (This led to "tent schooling" the next day!)

We discussed stop, drop and roll and practiced it by rolling down a hill.

We reminded the kids of our family meeting spot.

Emmett has really enjoyed this unit study. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he immediately replies, "A firefighter!" On Monday, we'll be visiting the Oklahoma City Fire Department and touring their station!

Memory Work:

We memorized our personal information for part of our fire safety unit!

Calendar Time:

Monday through Thursday we do a "What's the Word?" moment where I introduce a new word. (I've been using Evan-Moor's First Grade A Word A Day for the lists.) I've made a word search every three weeks to review our new words. Abby remembered what each meant and would say it as she found it on the search. She is beginning to really like word searches.

Life:

We got a new kitty yesterday! He is still very much a kitten (3 mos). He's been very skittish, but is slowly warming up to us. Our other cat, Drift, is still asserting his dominance over the kitten, but the kids already love Swirl!

And Hyrum just gets cuter day by day!