Week of 11 Mar

Phonics:

Abby just keeps moving along with Funnix. We are past lesson 100 and Abby is starting to really enjoy reading some easy readers (with a bit of coaxing that she can).

Five In A Row:

We jumped in with FIAR this week. Our first book is The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It was actually a good book to start with because Emmett has had a week where he's not done great at following the rules. That was a big emphasis on this book. We talked about the rule Peter should have followed and rules we need to follow. We even had blackberries and milk like Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-Tail!

I made thumbnails of the cover of the books instead of using story disks and we placed it on our map.

We colored Britain's flag.

We also talked about seeds and gardens. Then we planted some seeds that we will dig up in a week or two and see how they've changed.

We also discussed onomatopoeia and how Mr. McGregor's hoe went "scritch scratch" and pulled out our toy hoes and tried it out.

We found some worms and discussed how worms help gardens by spreading nutrients. Emmett wasn't hesitant to grab the worms at all. Abby preferred to carry them on her shovel, but was convinced occasionally to use her fingers.

We capped off the week by building our own raised garden beds to plant blackberries!

ABCs:

Emmett did the letter "m" and we used mostly things from Confessions of a Homeschooler. It was a big hit with Emmett, and also with Abby.

We lined the M&Ms by size.

We also sorted them by color.

And then we made a graph of the colors we had! Emmett LOVED this part.

Week of 03 March

Our week has been fairly light. We've kept up with reading lessons, but otherwise we've just played and had fun.

Phonics:

Abby has officially completed 100 lessons of the 120 lessons of Funnix Beginning Reading. We should be done with it completely in about two weeks. Tonight she is choosing to stay up in her bed and read (and actually reading/sounding out!) board books.

Emmett chose to have some reading lesson this week. He is still only three so we go really slowly and let him slack if he or I feel like it. Today, though, he asked for a reading lesson, so I actually set him up to do the first lesson from Funnix Beginning Reading.

The kids love to draw and write stories. Abby chose to draw the new baby (Hyrum) a picture. It says "Hyrum, this is for you." I think doing some spelling work after we finish Funnix might be a good idea. :)

Life:

The biggest thing is that we've been trying out what we would think about keeping him. He's a 4-month-old boxer puppy...and as much as we'd like to keep him, we really don't have the space to keep a dog at this point. We'll probably be taking him back to his owner tomorrow. We've just told the kids we are watching him. He sure has been fun to have around! The kids like sharing their food. They love playing fetch with him. If he stayed this size forever, we'd keep him definitely.

Our zoo finally also got our elephants back so we went to the opening of their new exhibit! They've been gone for about 18 months to Tulsa to be impregnated. On the morning of the event, we discussed how elephants are mammals and carry their babies in their tummies like Mommy does. Then we talked about other ways baby animals grow. We discussed how baby birds grow in eggs, but kangaroo babies grow in pouches. Then Abby told me that when I'm ready go have Hyrum, that he I would be as big as an elephant.

Swim:

We ended the session this past week. Abby and Emmett have both been advanced to the advanced class for next session. This class has a different teacher and really seems to focus on endurance capabilities. It is also for older kids (6+). We'll see how well they do. There is at least one other girl that is under 6 in the class, so ours won't be the only ones.

Mom and Dad:

We took our second test in our Developmental Psychology course this past week. Daddy and I didn't feel as comfortable after this exam after we did the first, not because we weren't prepared...mostly because the study guide of what was going to be on the exam didn't cover everything. What a bummer!

Daddy needs to finish up a section on our Oklahoma state senators for his federal government class. He hates writing assignments, so I think he's been putting it off...

This week in my European history class we have been talking about World War One and its root causes. I think it's so interesting how little people actually know about the first world war. Reading the discussions, it seemed like half of my class believed that half of my class believed that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was the only reason that war broke out. Many were unaware of the military alliances that had been formed beforehand that pulled nearly the entire continent into the war so quickly. While I AM a history major, I don't consider history my favorite or strongest subject (that would be math). I'm a history major for the benefit of it being mostly online. Still, I'm amazed at the ignorance a lot of my classmates seem to have for history. It does not bode well for our country or world with this type of ignorance running rampant.

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! ;)

Week of 13 Feb

Phonics/ABCs:

Abby is just moving right along with Funnix and her reading. She just finished lesson 69 out of 120 lessons. This week she also read nearly the entire Green and Eggs and Ham to me. She at first told me she couldn't do it, but when I opened the book and had her try, she was amazed that she could do nearly all the words. The stories in her reading program are getting more content in it too, so it's not as boring listening to those, either.

Emmett has been learning about the letter "m" this week. Last week we did "t," so I'm hoping this next week to cover "e" and we'll have done all the letters in his name.

"M" is for Monster:


Tracing the "m":


"M" on Funnix's website:


Writing more letters in his "M" mini book:

Scriptures:

We've started focusing a bit more on the Book of Mormon using the Scripture Stories series that the Church puts out. This week we focused on the first chapter, which tells about how we got the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith story. So, to highlight that we've been writing the first part of James 1:5. The kids enjoy writing it and they can even sort of say it from memory.

Life:

We made decorations for Valentine's Day for a few days too.

This one I took from No Time For Flashcards:

We also decorated mailboxes to house our valentines:

We found these magnets at Target for a really good deal, so I thought we'd try to reinforce the days of the week. Abby gets that there are specific days in certain order, but she still has difficulty with the sequence of it all. She'll get it.

We also took a day and visited Science Museum Oklahoma. We're on our third membership to this museum and the kids still love it.

The weather here has been beautiful, so the kids have also had a ton of play time too!

Swim:

The kids started a new session in their swim lessons. The great thing is that they're the only kids in their class with two teachers...so they're basically receiving private lessons at the moment. The only bummer is that the lessons are a little later than we would've liked, but we're dealing by moving bedtime back an hour.

Mom and Dad:

Daddy and I were super pleased to learn we were the only two in our developmental psychology class to earn 100% on our latest exam. Unfortunately, it was a short-lived victory because now I have like four chapters of European History to catch up on in preparation for my exam this coming week. We just have to keep plugging along with it! The fun thing is that we are finally into the section of developmental psychology that is interesting to both of us. In the last two weeks we've covered the prenatal stage and the infant/toddler stage. It sure isn't as difficult to remember all of this information compared to five different psychological theories and their characteristics!

Weekly Review: 06 February

Phonics/ABCs:

Abby is plowing through Funnix. Every once in a while Abby will complain if I pull her away from doing something more fun, but if I warn her we're getting ready to do it, she's more than willing. She loves the worksheets that come with it. The other night we were stopped at a store and she pointed at a word on the window and said, "Look, Daddy. This word is 'for.'"

Emmett is still learning his letters, so this week we talked about the letter T and what sound it makes. All week I've asked him what says the /t/ sound and he says, "T!" When Abby sits at the table to do her reading lesson, he asks to sit up and do his, so I've let him trace the letter T and write it on his own. All week he has (of his own accord) made T with anything he can. This morning,even, he held up two flashlights and said, "Look! I can make the letter L and the letter T!"

Ellie can't let the older kids do anything without being in on it. While we're doing "reading lessons" Ellie is either napping or sitting at the table with us. If she's awake, we see a lot of her demanding to do whatever it is we're doing.

Story Time:

This week we've started Rumpelstiltskin. It's a fairy tale my kids haven't really heard and aren't really familiar with. We looked up videos on YouTube of what a spinning wheel does and what it looks like, which Abby was fascinated with.

We're starting to work on the kids' listening skills. Emmett hasn't always cared to listen to stories. When I ask him to bring me a book he typically brings me a look-and-find as opposed to a storybook. When he does bring me a storybook, it's about a character he's seen on TV. I want him to enjoy stories for the story. Abby loves to listen to stories, but we haven't moved much past picture books. We've dabbled with some chapter read-alouds (Pain and the Great One, Junie B. Jones, The Magic Treehouse), but she's not been as interested in the stories. I think, mostly, because we haven't found the niche she likes. So, our first listening of Rumpelstiltskin was a recording from the Kiddie Records website. I printed out coloring pages off the internet so they could have something for their hands to do. Apparently, though, there are not a lot of Rumpelstiltskin coloring pages...

Life:

We made Kool-Aid playdough this last week. This is the type of playdough that is always accessible to them (we keep it in the bottom of the fridge). I don't mind them mixing it or making a mess or, in Emmett's case, eating it. Emmett and Abby have already mixed their colors.

Emmett even made a T with his playdough:

Snow Days!

Between last week and this week, we've had nearly a foot-and-a-half of snow. The kids have loved playing in it. Abby especially could play in the snow for hours. Even Daddy had snow days! Last week he worked a total of five hours for the week!

Swim:

The older kids are finishing up another session of swim. Next lesson they'll move into an older class (typically for kids 6+, and they are 4 and 3). We're hoping this next class will focus on different strokes, but mostly we're hoping they'll gain some endurance. They can swim fairly well, but ideally we'd like them to be able to swim further. Abby starts to freak out if it's longer than she thinks it should be. Emmett just exhausts himself because he starts out so quickly, and his body is only so big.

Abby's been hesitant to put her face in the water lately. They swim so much better when their head is down and in the water (and it's proper form!) so we went out of the way to buy good goggles to see if it would help her and it has! She'll just have to remember that she shouldn't have any worries about putting her face in now.


In this one you can see the kids jumping in. This is Emmett's favorite part during swim lessons.

Mom and Dad:

We are taking the same Developmental Psychology course this semester. This week we had a quiz, a paper, and a test. He and I are both grateful that this week is done, but this next week brings the same amount of assignments for different classes. Still, we're both happy that we can both be online classes which makes being in school while taking care of three young children a lot easier.