Summer Fun Weeks 5-9

Well, it's been a bit of time since I've written here.  Summer has kind of created it's own routine.  On Mondays, we go to the movies (the inexpensive kid ones).  Tuesday is gymnastics.  Wednesday I have a meeting.  Thursday we have playgroup.  Friday is our only free day!  Luckily, though, we only have one more week of gymnastics and then the kids will be off till the school year starts again.

The Math

Abby is cruising through MEP y2.  By the end of this week, she'll be done with the first six weeks of lessons.  She has really enjoyed this session of math and it has come fairly easier to her.  Must be nice!  She also has gotten really good at mental math.  She can add and subtract three-digit numbers with relative ease!  She also is capable of working out simple multiplication and division.  I'm sure by the end of this school year, she will have her multiplication tables memorized.  She can already easily figure the x2, x3, and x4 tables.  Today, I asked her what the smallest 3-digit number she could think of was.  She thought for a bit and said, "Negative one-hundred!"

Emmett has started Miquon Orange.  He really enjoys the autonomy the rods give him to figure out the problems all ON HIS OWN.

Ellie begs to math every time one of the older kids pull out the rods.  She has started to play with them, and especially likes to use the ABC book we have for them.

The Reading

Abby has read through plenty of longer picture books, her favorite being the Billy and Blaze series.

Emmett made it to lesson 60ish in 100 Easy Lessons.  He started getting really fidgety during the lessons, so I started splitting them in half.  One day, I thought he might like Funnix, so we gave it a try and he loves it.  There is less fidgeting, and he is flying through.  I jumped back to lesson 40 in Funnix because it has a different scope and sequence.  It's a good thing, because he is double-timing it through and sometimes does two lessons a day.

Ellie, I am realizing, knows a very large amount (if not all) of her letters/sounds.  She plays around on Starfall, but is more frustrated by the mouse than the actual letter parts.

Unplanned Summer Fun

We've taken a bit of time to just enjoy summer.  This week (the last of June) has been the first week where we've been consistently in the triple digits.  As a result, we've done a lot of fun things!

• We've been to the zoo a few times.  One time we even went while it was raining!

• We pulled out the easel and the kids had a great time.  Hyrum thinks it's a buffet table with all of those crayons.  We were surprised to find a cute little drawing Abby must have done over a year ago!

• In our scripture study one week, we read about Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty.  So, we used tissue paper to make our own "coats" which we then rent into our own titles of liberty.

• All of our tadpoles turned into frogs.  Rather than buying mini crickets or meal worms, we opted to release them.  The kids loved growing tadpoles!  Last week, we saw a few little frogs that were bigger than the ones we released, but not full grown, and wondered if they were our "pets."

• Our blackberries produced a ton of fruit! I didn't get to eat much because the kids were constantly back there nibbling!  Ellie and Hyrum loved it.  Ellie ate nearly anything that resembled black.  Hyrum, on the other hand, was not that particular.  If it didn't break off into his hand, he ate it off the cane.  He ate a few crunchy ones and didn't seem to be bothered one bit!

• The pool has a new aqua climb that Emmett loves to do.  He can actually make it to the top square!  He had to pass the swim test to be able to do it.

• One week, the library had a Reptile/Amphibian day.  The kids loved seeing all the different animals!

• Hyrum is not only a walker... he is now a climber too!

(...and a stripper too!)

• Emmett has been bug-hunting all summer long.  He finds bugs, holds them, names them, and even build them little homes/nests.

• We've been to plenty of parks.

• We've played in plenty of splash parks and water areas trying to stay cool.

• We took advantage of $3 bowling (including shoe rental!).

• We painted.  We even let Hyrum paint.  He did a pretty good job for the first little bit...until he decided to eat the painter.

• We worked a bit in the garden.

• We even learned what happens when you try to jump a car with the cables on the wrong ends.  Whoops!

Summer Fun - Weeks 3 and 4

In true summer fashion, these past two weeks there has been no theme or much planned learning. Sometimes it's nice to just be off!

The Math

Emmett didn't have much planned learning.  We did do a fair amount of math stories and a fair amount counting without a curriculum.

Because Abby finished Singapore Math 1b, we moved on to work with MEP year 2.  We only worked half-pace, though, with our own added math review problems.

The Reading

Abby has been reading whatever suits her fancy, including a lot of Dr. Seuss, a few library books, etc. She's excited to enter a few summer reading programs and earn prizes this year.

Emmett is still working through 100 Easy Lessons.  He slowed down a bit these last two weeks, but is still doing wonderfully... The lessons at this point get longer and he doesn't have stamina or maturity to sit that long.  So, we've started splitting the lessons.  He's finished just past lesson 50.

Unplanned Summer Fun

• We had lots of ice cream!

• We flew kites.

• For whatever reason, my kids (especially the middle two) LOVE to watch the garbage truck.  It is the highlight of their Monday.

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• Emmett is constantly picking flowers for me.  What a sweet boy!

• We noticed our blackberries were ripe!  So we enjoyed a taste - yum!  Ellie eats as many as she can.  Hyrum full fists them into his mouth.  Even Emmett checks everyday to see if he can spy a ripe few.

• Abby lost tooth number three!  She pulled it out all on her own.

• Hyrum became a walker!  I guess he is now making the shift into toddlerhood!

• This past Friday we made a trip to Enid to visit Leonardo's Discovery Warehouse.

• While we were in Enid, we visited their splash park where the kids had a BLAST.

• Before heading home, we stopped at just one more park.  The kids were fascinated with the merry-go-round there.

Daddy is off this next week, so who knows what kind of crazy fun we'll cook up!  

Week 21

PreK:

Emmett didn't do much formal this week. He enjoyed tagging along where he wanted to, but mostly played with Ellie while Abby did her thing. I did get him playing with some C rods a bit.

Math:

We worked through Week 23 of MEP 1B. Our focus number was twelve this week. Abby was off this week, though, and we had lots of resistance.

You can sort of see her daydreaming a bit here:

So, each day we quickly worked through our MEP 1B sheet and then jumped into some Miquon. Miquon is a lot more fun for her right now.

I do want her to continue to work through the MEP because there is so much practice and problem-solving in those lessons. I think she's just getting bored with the focusing on just one number. I am getting to a point where I'm starting to believe that she is telling me it's "too hard" and she "can't do it" not because she can't, but because she doesn't WANT to. I think it is her way of asking for a challenge. At first that seemed counterintuitive. Why would she tell me it was too hard if she is ready to move on? But the more I evaluate, the more I realize she is more capable of doing things she struggled with a bit ago. A few weeks ago, she was struggling to get through the process of adding past ten. This week I realized that she doesn't know those facts off the top of her head, but she can figure them without a problem. Soon, they will become rote.

Besides...when in math do you get to build little sheep pens with your manips?

Spelling:

We reviewed some words from AAS 1. She still is retaining the rules that she learned. We will work through How to Spell Simultaneously with AAS 2 (I think) until I decide which we want to continue with. Which means...I need to order AAS 2.

Reading:

Abby completed week 23 in Sonlight's grade 2 readers this week, which means she read Frog and Toad are Friends. These books are still really easy for her, which is fine as they are confidence building. She does not like to sound words out at all and gets frustrated when she doesn't know a word right away. For as much as she loves to be read to, you think she'd love reading. She does, to a degree, but it is very frustrating for her because she wants to know every word at first glance.

On her free time, she read several different books in our library box, including books with a reading level as high as 4.9. When compared to this, it's painfully obvious that grade 2 readers are a easy for her. But sometimes it's nice to have "work" be easy.

We finished up The Boxcar Children this week and have moved on to Mr. Popper's Penguins. We've done this one before, but we're reading it again so we can watch the movie for movie night.

Science:

I was planning on finishing up our magnetism mini-unit this week, but that didn't happen. Whoops! We'll move it on down to next wek.

Geography:

We discussed North America this week. We discussed the Grand Canyon, the Great Lakes and the Panama Canal. Of course, we also talked about animals native to this region.

When we do these studies, we listen to the Teacher and the Rockbots song called "Continents." Abby loves it because we dance around and it ties in quite nicely to the continent of the week.

Extra:

• Our weather has been chilly here, but despite that we took the kids to ride their bikes this last week. Abby has been running around with Emmett's old balance bike and the improvement has been remarkable. Her confidence is soaring this way.

• Monday was our 100th day of school! We celebrated quite well. Daddy took the day off, we had friends over, ordered pizza, made 100-day hats and even went to the movies! It was quite the party!

• On Fridays, I try to let the kids do a fun craft/art project that is completely geared toward the process. This week, we did stamps and everyone loved it.

• We also got Life of Fred this week. We're going to work slowly through the first book, but Abby already loves it. She thinks it's silly and definitely fun. We even made her her own "turn to play" book.