Week 21

We took last week off for winter break.  The older two kids did a bit of reading and Abby did a bit of math each day, but nothing extensive at all.

Preschool

Letter Craft

Ellie asked to do the letter O this week.

We even put oatmeal on the Os!

Of course, this meant that everyone wanted to play in the oatmeal!

PreK Activity Book

Ellie didn't want to do much of it this week, which was fine.  She did work on one-to-one correspondence in other things, though.  She does great with that, but she has a hard time remembering the sequence from one to ten.  When I tell her to pick up five things in her room, she says, "How many is that?" If I show her how many on my hand, though, she will pick up the proper amount.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett has been zooming through the stories in 100 Easy Lessons.  He's really making huge strides in fluency.

Spelling

Emmett got his first spelling list this week!  He did great with most of the words, but got caught up with "am."  He wants to spell it "a-u-m."  When he says it slowly, he does say, "Ay-u-m."  I want to make sure these words are solid, so he'll repeat the list this next week.  he's only five, so I'm taking a better-too-slow-than-too-fast approach.

Math

We put up a new number line over the break.  With it up, we did quite a few exercises where I covered up certain numbers (between one and thirty) and he had to tell me which I covered up.  He also worked through some Miquon Orange pages that dealt with counting and number lines.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby did lessons 86 and 87.  She also really worked really hard on memorizing the third stanza of "Mr. Nobody."  She did some copywork from another poem and did a narration from The Boy Who Cried Wolf as well.

Writing

This week focused on Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.  Abby didn't really care for it much...probably because it was a "boyly" story.  LOL

Reading

I picked up Poppy and Little House in the Big Wood from the library and gave her the choice.  She started Poppy this week.

Spelling

Abby's getting close to finishing up level 2!  She worked with words with the /oy/ sound this week.  She learned the generalization that we use "oy" at the end of a word and "oi" in the middle.

Handwriting

Abby worked on the letter p this week.  She did pretty well with it.  It feels like cursive it starting to become a bit less of work.  When she finishes her book, we'll work on doing some word writing for connecting letters a bit more.

Math

While we were on break Abby worked some with random Math Mammoth addition and subtraction review sheets.  We just got Singapore Math 2B and the first section reviews addition and subtraction with mental math.  We jumped right in and started the mental addition section.  She'll finish it next week, but the review was good.  It feels "easy" to her and she works quickly through it.

All Together

Science

We moved on to talking about birds this week.  The kids had fun bird watching outside.  There was an experiment that demonstrated how birds stay warm with special oils.  The kids thought it was fascinating.

History

We talked about the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars this week.  Emmett really seemed to enjoy when I pulled out the Lego blocks to show him how the Greeks from Sparta and Athens teamed up together to beat Persia.

Chess - NEW!

The kids got a chess set for Christmas.  I thought we'd add this in with easy and quick lessons from Chess is Child's Play.  Friday was their first lesson, so they didn't do much this week.  Ellie enjoyed learning the names for the rook and bishop.  Emmett and Abby learned about how the rook moves and how to capture a piece.

Week 3

We are on vacation next week for my sister's wedding!  Yeah!

Preschool

Letter Themes

This week's letter was I.  We used ice to paint (frozen, watered-down tempera paints).  She loved the painting part, but did not love that it left her hand all dirty... Ellie does not like to have dirty hands.  (Remember this post?  Hahaha!)

PreK Activity Book

This week we introduced the story of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  We've read it before, but it's always fun when "schoolwork" involves a story!  We read it, she retold it (with figures), we made porridge, Daddy read it to her, then she played it on the iPad even!

Junior K

Reading Lessons

Emmett finished up to lesson 70 this week.  He also read a fair amount of Cat in the Hat with me one day.  I printed out a phonics concentration game that he loved playing.  Our rules were a bit different: If you could sound out the word correctly, you earned a hot cheeto. If the word was a real word, you got to keep the cards and go again.  Emmett LOVED it.  Even if the word wasn't real, he'd still say, "But I get a hot cheeto!" Then I'd sound out a nonsense word and he'd say, "You don't get the cards, but you get a hot cheeto!"  It was every bit as neat for him as if he had made all the matches with real words and I had lost every turn.

Math

Emmett's now moving through the pages of Miquon Orange where addition and subtraction problems are on the same page.  Soon I'll have to buy the workbooks for Singapore Level 1.

First Grade

Language Arts

Grammar

Abby has the Months poem completely memorized.  We worked through three lessons and have finally finished the sections on nouns (hallelujah!) and have moved on to pronouns.

Writing

This week's focus was Rumpelstiltzkin.  Abby had a few days where she couldn't focus on anything, so some of her narration this week was harder than typical.  Usually she flies through these types of exercises.

Phonics

Abby is at the very end of her review of Webster's Speller.  She is confidently reading sixth and seventh grade words.  She still tries to guess an entire word sometimes, but when I require her to slow down and do the words a syllable (and sometimes even a sound) at a time, she's more than capable of decoding them.

Reading

Abby finished Mummies in the Morning and then moved on to Pirates Past Noon and finished that one as well!  It's obvious these Magic Tree House books are too easy since she finishes them in one night.  But at least she enjoys them!  For our trip next week, she's picked a Box Car Children book.

Spelling

We completed the first set of multisyllable words in spelling.  She made two errors on Friday, so she'll have review words.  The first error was starting "contest" with a K and the second one was replacing an i with an e.  Like I said, she had a few days with her head in the clouds, so I wonder if these errors were part of that...

Handwriting

We worked through the letter C in New American Cursive.

Math

It was painfully obvious that the math in the section of MEP we were in was too easy.  So, I took a look at the scope and sequence and moved her along a whole four weeks or so.  Still, the work was bordering on too easy.  The only issue we had with math was the same she had the rest of the week.  I think Abby's just looking forward to vacation next week...or something!

All Together

Science

Because we're planning on breaking this coming week, I didn't want to stop our science studies in the middle of a unit.  So, we did three sections of science this week, which allowed us to pause right before we dive into studying the respiratory system.

We studied how our muscles work with a working model that illustrates that our muscles only pull.  I caught Abby sharing that information with her Sunday School teacher later on, so it definitely settled in her brain.

From there, we moved on to discuss how our heart is a very important muscle that pushes blood through our bodies.  We learned that the more oxygen and food our muscles need, the faster our heart pumps.  The kids did different exercises and we monitored their heart rate to illustrate this.  (Can I just say how extremely difficult it is to measure a kid's heart rate while he's squirming around and two other kids are yakking at you at the same time?!)  It was painfully obvious that Abby does not correctly do push-ups since her heart rate for that exercise was the same as her resting heart rate... But, look at Emmett's form!

Finally, we made a working model of blood and illustrated the parts of our blood and why it appears to be red.  We watched a Magic School Bus episode (Inside Ralphie) that was a great introduction to this topic.  Even Emmett can now tell us the four major parts of our blood.

History

We started our week by completing our project from last week.  We made a working model of the Nile River.  When we made it, before we poured the water in, Abby started jumping up and down talking about how we should flood the Nile so there would be crops going on the side "like it really happened!"  This afternoon, she noticed that there is indeed some seed growing and she and Emmett pranced around for fifteen minutes exclaiming that they were just like Egyptian gods for making the Nile flood.

There was only one section in chapter three, which is a good thing because we wanted to do all of the activities surrounding it.  It was on the first writing and comparing the cuneiform of Sumer and the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt.  

We first made a scroll for our hieroglyphs.  We used paper from our easel.  Abby told me we should have used papyrus to make it more realistic.  

Then, we used oven-bake clay to carve our own messages in cuneiform.

We put them outside to brave the elements while we're gone for this next week.  When we get back, we'll simulate the conditions of leaving these items in the desert for several hundreds of years by placing them in the oven on low heat.

Week 2

Things are really starting to get going pretty smoothly!

Preschool

Letter Themes

This week we worked on remembering the letter "L."  We went on an L hunt one day that had Ellie shouting, "L!  Look!  L!  Hey!  L is for look!"

We made ladders out of our Ls.

 

PreK Activity Book

This week focused on the color red, which was a good review for Ellie.  Every once in a while she mixes red up with green still.    It also worked with her on recognizing her name in print.  I think after we complete "I" next week, we will make a name bug for her.

Junior K

Reading Lessons

Emmett doesn't seem to struggle at all with what is expected of him in reading.  He doesn't necessarily love the lessons, but does them pretty well.  I would imagine we will see a big jump with him reading early readers here in the next few weeks.

Math

Emmett has most of his math facts to ten memorized.  This has definitely caught me by surprise!  The ones he doesn't know with confidence are the facts that aren't +1s, doubles, or near doubles.  So, he doesn't remember 5+3, 6+3, 4+2, and a few others.  I'm more than happy to let him continue to use the rods until he's really solid with these.

I introduced him to the idea of number bonds earlier this week.  From there, I moved him into figuring missing addend problems which he had no problem with.  Then, I introduced him to subtraction.  At first he was adding the subtrahend and the minuend, but he's doing it properly now.  We talked extensively how adding is putting things together and subtracting is breaking apart.  He really seems to get it from that discussion.  Now looking at a number bond, he can tell me the addition sentences and at least one subtraction sentence for the bond.

First Grade

Language Arts

Grammar

We sort of slacked here this week.  I need to print off "Monday's Child" and review it plentiful with Abby.  We still reviewed proper and common nouns, which went fine.  We're ahead in this book, so I'm not too worried about having had a lax week here.

Writing

Not much to report here.  She did two days of copywork and two days of narration focusing around Pinocchio.

Reading

Abby began Lulu and the Brontosaurus this week.  She seemed to really enjoy the book.  She and I are also buddy-reading Mummies in the Morning to go along with our history studies.

Phonics

Nothing introduced here is new, but some of the word-reading is good review.  She has a tendency to glance at the whole word and either panic or guess, even though she knows her phonics.

Handwriting

Abby really struggled with the cursive b this week.  If there was one thing we could change about New American Cursive, it would be introducing the letters in a more systematic way.  In some ways I was thinking I'd change the order of introduction, but in other ways, I do want her to get good at the bs because they are a part of her name.  Regardless, she really seemed to get it this week.

Spelling

We're taking spelling slowly since we're also still reviewing phonics.  This week, we reviewed step 3 which deals with using why to end short words that end in the long i sound.  

Math

MEP is still fairly easy for her.  She completes the lessons within an allotted amount of time (40 minutes) and usually without complaint.  On Friday, she chose some Miquon sheets to work.  The sheets she chose asked her to divide eight snowmen into halves, fourths and eighths and draw certain things on them.  I wasn't sure if she would understand it, but that was all for naught.  She wanted to complete the entire little booklet and enjoyed her fraction work.  This is where Miquon really shines because it takes things that most people shy away from teaching first-graders and allows it to be attainable (and fun!) at these young ages.

All Together

Science

We learned that all living things are made of cells and discussed the differences between animal cells and plants cells.  We read a few books about cells and made our own (simplified) edible cells.

After cells, we moved right to talking about skeletons and bones.  We have a few fun books from the library and we constructed a skeleton and talked about important bones and their names.

A little bit later, we played bone Simon Says and also watched a youTube video singing a bone song.

History

This week we began talking about ancient Egypt.  We learned about the Nile flooding, upper and lower Egypt, and we learned the myth of Osiris and Set.  The kids did some mapwork that showed the Nile River, the Nile Delta, and Upper and Lower Egypt.  We were planning to make our working Nile River model this weekend, but I forgot potting soil.  I think we'll be doing that tomorrow afternoon...