Week 31

We are zooming towards completion of the school year!

Tot School:

My two-year-old has a death wish! In the last two weeks she has ripped the nailbed of her thumb completely off, stuck a safety pin up her nose (thankfully it was closed and she coughed it out - yuck!), and then burned the tops of all four of her fingers on her right hand.

Her right hand is completely out of commission, but that doesn't stop her. She is one tough chick, that's for sure!

We are continuing on our light little bear theme and made maps for We're Going on a Bear Hunt. You can find the pictures here.

On Saturday, we took the kids on a bear hunt...

... at the zoo!

While we were there, we stopped to see the lions. Hyrum really caught their attention!

Language Arts:

Emmett finished up this week at lesson 34. He is just past a third of the way through it!

Abby started a Mercy Watson book for her reading. She is enjoying the frivolousness of the plot, but also enjoying applying the rules for multisyllabic words she's learned in spelling.

Spelling this week focused on silent e words, which were very simple for her.

She still likes doing spelling on the iPad too.

In grammar, she did some picture narration and started memorizing a new poem: "Hearts Are Like Doors."

We are still working through James and the Giant Peach. Abby and Emmett laugh at whatever the centipede said, especially the part about him taking off and putting on all of his shoes.

Math:

Emmett did some building with C rods.

Abby finished up MEP year 1! The last few weeks included a lot of review. We did a small amount of work with a lot of different things. We did some work with clocks...

...skip counting...

(jumping on every third number)

...patterning...

...and a bit of "machine" work.

She also became interested in fractions recently (now that she is "five-and-three-quarters"), so we did a bit of talking about that. C rods once again proved to be the perfect manipulative.

Geography:

In geography this week we learned about North America. We discussed the Equator and how if you get further from there, the colder it gets.

We also started Abby on Evan-Moor's daily geography grade 1, though it is still a bit easy for her. She seems to get a kick that her grade work is above "kindergarten." LOL

Gymnastics:

The kids are still enjoying their gymnastics.

Their skills are improving and Abby is now excited to move to the older class after she turns six.

They each surprise me with the things they are accomplishing.

And, just for kicks, this is how Hyrum does school:

Spring Break! and Week 30

We took our spring break the last week of March. The kids and I enjoyed being off and just doing fun things together. (Though, I did have Abby do a few minutes of math and reading each night!)

We visited the zoo...

Daddy was lucky enough to be off one day so we rented a movie and had an impromptu movie night, just during the day!

We also went to the science museum.

It was so nice to be off! We do have to finish our last little bits of curriculum, though, and we will enjoy a slower summer!

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So, back to work this last week!

Tot Schol:

We focused a lot on sensory activities for the last bit. We made white mud, which was like a huge giant spit wad. The older kids had fun with it.

Ellie tried it.

She didn't care for it much.

Eventually, we filled the table with bubble solution which was better all around.

Daddy showed them how to use a straw to make a lot of bubbles. We both thought Ellie would love it. She did...until she sucked some up. "I don't like it. It tastes nasty." LOL

Of course, she was read to a lot all week.

She even is branching out beyond the Pinkalicious series.

Hyrum doesn't care what we read to him...just as long as he gets to bang on the book a couple of times.

Language Arts:

Emmett is still working at the rate of one lesson a day in 100 Easy Lessons. He worked up through Lesson 30 this week.

Abby finished up the Magic Tree House she started a few weeks ago.

In grammar, she memorized the poem Work, though I didn't get a video of her doing it. She also narrated a story and worked a bit with common and proper nouns.

In spelling, Abby worked with splitting words into separate syllables.

She also has started taking sentences from dictation.

She loves to do spelling on the iPad!

Math:

Emmett is still familiarizing himself with the rods. We play the "stumping game" where one person tries to stump another to make a train from two rods that is the length of the rod chosen.

MEP and Miquon took Abby through a few different kinds of problems this week. Mostly there was focusing on measuring...

...and symmetry.

Abby still enjoys a bit of rod play as well.

We also had a chance to use money in a real-world situation. (And no, they don't travel in the car like this. We were at Sonic.)

Geography:

This week we focused on naming the continents and oceans. It was a bit of review for Abby, but it was a good lesson for Emmett. He still sings the songs fairly frequently to point out which continent is which, but he now understands that we are not just arbitrarily pointing to any spot on the map.

We also got this new wall sticker, which was neat for the kids to put up. There was even the Southern Ocean! (Our big map doesn't have the Southern Ocean.) Sadly, though, there was no Europe sticker, which is really maddening!

Gymnastics:

The kids are really enjoying their gymnastics class. Abby keeps practicing her handstands and is actually getting better at them.

I have to be on the floor to help Ellie out while the older two are also in class, so I can't just take a ton of pictures. What I get on my phone in passing is what I get. Emmett is the blurry one on the circular tramp.

And Abby is the blurry one doing seat drops.

This is one of the best things about homeschooling! My kids are all still good friends and enjoy doing things together (ESPECIALLY the iPad)!

Week 29

Emmett's moved to a point where he is being folded into school work more often. This week, he came to me and told me, "Mom, I already know that one and one make two, two and three make five, two and two is four, four and four is eight, and two fives makes ten. I think it's time that I'm in math." Okay, then! LOL I was planning on waiting with any kind of math instruction with him until he was solid on reading...but when he is asking for it... Well, I'm not one to disappoint! Because he's starting to work more and more, for the next little bit (or maybe *gasp* forever), I think I'll start recording his work under subjects like I do with Abby. So, for now, there will be no PreK section...which makes me a little sad because I keep begging my kids to STOP GROWING UP. When will someone listen to me?!

Also, apparently I only had the camera handy for when we were doing math this week. Language things tend to happen on the floor, couch, bed, whatever. My camera isn't as readily-available at those times...

Tot School:

Ellie continues to flit around during school time. Sometimes she's making a mess in the bathroom, other times she's in the kitchen sink. When I'm lucky, I can entice her into a puzzle (she actually loves to do puzzles).

Every so often she climbs up and steals the C rods. Then she likes to be the distraction as she puts the purple one in her mouth (gross, I know) and then proceeds to launch them as far across the dining room as her little breath can get them. This afternoon, she launched one completely over the table. And yet, she says she can't blow out a candle!

She is constantly begging me to read her books. I wish, though, they wouldn't be the same books over and over again. Variety is the spice of life, kid!

She also consistently climbs up to the table and declares that she needs to "do maff."

Occasionally, I will pull a completed MEP sheet off the fridge and let her "do maff."

When she's decided that she's disrupted enough, she sneaks off with the iPad and a set of headphones. Her favorite apps include Miss Spider's Bedtime Story, Cut the Buttons, My PlayHome, and LetterSchool.

Math:

Emmett began a bit more work with C rods. He has used them informally, but I want him to get more familiar with them and their potential values.

He sorted them by color and then again by length. Waddya' know?! They're the same groups!

I also handed him a sheet to color in the corresponding rods. He liked this one a lot.

The best thing, though, was playing our invented game of Yellow. The goal of the game is to capture cards that make a train equivalent to the yellow rod. He was really quick at this!

He also worked on his counting some with some dot-to-dots.

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Abby worked through Week 31 of MEP 1. She zoomed through most of the problems without trouble.

Today, we skipped our MEP lesson and did a bit of Miquon. She liked these lab sheets as they were about multiplication. Like cursive, apparently multiplication is more "sophisticated" and therefore it has more draw.

Abby's also saving up for a toy at Target. I've been paying her in pennies for extra chores.

One day, I told her she could have earn extra coins by doing a few math challenge problems. She was excited for these. This is a great opportunity for her to learn first-hand about money and coins.

Language Arts:

Emmett is zooming right along with his reading. I thought video would be a better option here...

Abby is reading two books at this point. She had started a Magic Tree House book a few weeks ago, but it was lost. Apparently, Ellie had put it in a bag full of toys and we couldn't find it. So, to tide her over, she read a bit of Fire Cat (which was entirely too easy). I really should move her on to the third grade Sonlight readers. We found the Magic Tree House yesterday, so she read me a chapter of that tonight.

In grammar, Abby focused on proper nouns for places.

In spelling, she learned the first two rules of syllabification.

Geography:

The kids made review booklets of all of the landforms and bodies of water we learned about. I was surprised that they retained all of the pieces we did. Emmett even properly pointed out a valley!

Next week, we'll be moving on to continents, I believe.

Extra:

• A family that used to live near us had their fourth baby (and first girl) three weeks before we had Hyrum. Sadly, towards the end of July last year she died of SIDS. They are running a service project for children's hospitals around the country on her behalf and we are trying to collate as many things as we can. This week, we focused on making placemats for kids who are in the hospital. I instructed the kids to put their name and age. Abby chose to draw her age as five-and-a-half. I don't think it's a coincidence that the hands look a bit like Moby's.

• Hyrum is fascinated by all things wheels, switches, and flaps. I love this stage in baby-hood where everything is fascinating and new!

• We also picked up and added a new shelf in our living room. These two bookshelves hold only part of our kids' books. We have shelves in the hallway, my closet, and one in each of the kids' bedrooms. Yes, we like books a tiny bit...