Week 12

Next week, we are on break!  Yeah!

This is how Hyrum sometimes entertains himself during our schoolwork.

Preschool

Ellie wasn't into much workbook or letter themes.  This week, she built a lot with Duplo blocks.

A lot of her creations were pretty neat little buildings!

I just hate picking the blasted blocks up!

Junior K

Reading

Emmett worked through I See Sam books 18-22.  Because of the repetition of the words, he has added a few sight words to his repertoire!

Math

He also built a Four Tower.  He knows his sums to four now.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby worked with verbs and abbreviations this week.  She abbreviated the months of winter and spring.

Writing

This week was a poem/song that I'd never heard that involved the days of the week.  She could remember what Monday through Thursday were for, but had a harder time remembering Friday and Saturday.

Reading

Abby is still working through Ramona, the Pest.  It's a longer one for her at times, but I've noticed her speed is picking up.  She's enjoying the story as well.

Spelling

She applied the "find gold" rule to her spelling this week.  The only word she struggled with was "old."  She wanted to reverse the l and the o.

Handwriting

Abby worked on J and also not holding her pencil or marker too hard.  This has been an off-and-on issue.  We pulled out the white board and I showed her how if she pushes to hard there is a break in the fluidity of the marker.  We worked on making scribble lines that can eventually morph into some cursive letters.

After a bit of this, her scribbles eventually turned into a snail!  She really liked that, especially since we were also studying snails this week.

Math

Abby worked through the introduction to multiplication this week.

She's encountered multiplication before in SM 1 and also in Miquon.  It's not difficult for her as she thinks of 3 x 5 as "3 fives" or "3 of 5."  I did let the lesson naturally segue into division and it being the undoing of multiplication.

All Together

Science

One day this week, Hyrum was playing outside and he found a little snake!

We didn't get to keep him very long as he was mysteriously missing from our yard a bit later.  That was a big bummer because Daddy and I were very much looking forward to watching him eat some slugs!

Formally, we studied mollusks.  The curriculum called for snails, but we couldn't find any.  We've hardly ever seen them here in the seven years we've been here.  BUT, we found a slug... He was close enough.

(When Emmett brought him in, all I could think was, "Ewwww...")

We also surfed some youtube videos to see some squid and octopus type mollusks.  The kids also watched Magic School Bus Goes to Mussel Beach.

History

We learned about the Exodus this week.  We topped it off with watching Prince of Egypt.  The kids thought the story of Moses parting the Red Sea was fascinating.

Week 11

Not a whole lotta' pictures this week... We did have sick kids and a bunch of appointments for Mom and the aforementioned sick kids.  So, we took it a bit easier than normal this week and will do a few more fun projects this weekend.

Preschool

Letter Themes

Ellie didn't really want to do a letter this week, and I didn't push that.  :)

PreK Activity Book

Ellie LOVED what was in her book this week.

She did both the Old Lady that Swallowed a Fly AND Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.  She liked this youTube video for Old Lady.  We also did a few for the Mulberry Bush, but she didn't love either one.  Searching youTube, though, did segue us into finding a bunch of different videos for the kids to dance and sing along to.

Junior K

Reading

Emmett read through I See Sam readers this week (specifically books 14-18).  I'm hoping to build his fluency and these are easy for him.

Math

This is one of those things we skipped.  Not because he didn't enjoy it last week, but because I sent it with Dad to get the spine chopped off and we didn't get around to it till yesterday.  So, it sat in the car all week.  Whoops!

Handwriting/ETC

Skipped this this week as well.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Because we're ahead here, this was one of the first things to drop because of everything else.

Writing

Writing this week involved the Trumpet of the Swan, which is another E.B. White book.

Reading

I let Abby choose between a few books and she chose to read Ramona, the Pest.  These chapters are a bit longer so she only read through chapter two this week.

Spelling

This week we introduced words that are spelled with "ee."  This included her first "rule-breaker."  In AAS, we send the rule-breaker to jail.

The next few times she was told to spell the word, she denoted that it was a rule-breaker.  The first time, she tried to draw a sheriff like what was on the card.  That proved to be a bit more involved than she wanted.  The next few times, she settled for a sheriff's star.  LOL

Handwriting

Definitely skipped this one this week.  :)

Math

Math this week went over measuring in meters, centimeters, yards, inches, and feet and the differences between them all.  She really enjoyed math this week.  On Friday, we did another review.  She did great, except for two problems with subtracting three digit numbers.  Again, she tried to solve it in her head and really confused herself.  I imagine either she WILL figure out how to solve such problems in her head, or she'll just start using the standard algorithm.  Either way, I'm not worried...

All Together

Science

Well, our worm experiment didn't go as it was planned.  We moved the jars to the kids' closet.  When we took them out next, they were a bit moldy and they had random red splotches on the sides.

Upon further insepction, even the worms at the top had large bulges.

Our best guess is that those bulges on the worms exploded or something.  This is our first "failed" science experiment.  I have no clue what happened, but have a couple of emails in to worm-y people and hopefully the will respond.

We have one other experiment to complete that will illustrate if worms have senses.  We were going to use these worms, but they were pretty sick looking.  So, we had to wait till we bought some more worms.  Then we'll do that this weekend.

History

We moved into the New Kingdom of Egypt this week.  The kids learned about Thutmose I, Hathsepsut, Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten, King Tut, and Howard Carter's discovery of Tut's Mummy.  This weekend we are planning on setting up a little "treasure discover" ourselves.

Week 10

This was our last week with Daddy home recovering from surgery.  It was so fun having home (after the immediate recovering part)!

Preschool

Letter Themes

We did the letter P this week.  This craft was easy to throw together.  Ellie made a Pink Paper Polka Dot P.

PreK Activity Book

Ellie worked with comparing colors some more in her book.  She also did a page which required her to line up ant stickers in a line and then a circle.  She really liked that one.

Junior K

Reading

I pulled out Green Eggs and Ham at the beginning of this week, thinking it would be a good book to read through for the whole week.  Emmett read through the whole thing in one sitting!  He just wanted to keep going!  Towards the end he did get a bit exhausted and started making goofy mistakes.  The rest of the week, he read Hop on Pop.

Math

I got Singapore Essentials Math book B this week.  It's a kindergarten-level curriculum for the second semester of K.  It starts out with one more than and one less than, which is still too easy for him.  I imagine he will accelerate through these pages until he finds something that's a bit more challenging...

Handwriting/ETC

We didn't do any this week.  :)

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby did lessons 61-63 in grammar this week.  The first involved proper pronoun usage when answering, "It is I."  The second was a narration from the story the Pitcher and the Crow.  The third was a review of the months of the year and days of the week.

Writing

We worked through some selections about Davy Crockett and Sacagawea.  She had a hard time with the narration about Sacagawea.  I wonder if that's just partly exposure...

Reading

Abby finished Stuart Little!  She really enjoyed this book and was happy to finish, but really bummed that it was done.

Spelling

This week's step involved plural vowel-consonant-e words.  The only word that tripped her up was "lakes."  She spelled it "lax" even though she properly spelled "brakes."  After a few days, though, she was working at  it with no problem.  Still, that particular card is under the review section.

Handwriting

We completed the letter j and I did some letter review with her on the white board the rest of the days.

Math

Her math introduced the traditional algorithm for regrouping (or "borrowing") this week.  She worked through it fine.  If she lines the problem up, she has no issues completing the problem.  She still tries to complete a problem in her head, though, and if it involves regrouping within more than one place, it seems like it's a lot to hold in her head.  She is still INSISTENT on solving problems her own way.  I'm sure some of that will change with maturity and experience.

All Together

Science

We began our unit on worms this week.  We went on a worm hunt.  The kids were supposed to hypothesize where they might be.  Since we've had some gardening moment and Emmett is our current Critter King, they went straight to the garden spaces.

We also created our own composting jars to observe the worms composting our layers or oatmeal, sand, and soil.  Unfortunately, though, we put them in the garage and then our weather turned cold.  Rather than beginning to compost, the worms huddled on top of the jar and went dormant.  Whoops!  We moved them into a closet and will check on them next week.

History

We talked about the Middle Kingdom of Egypt this week.  The kids learned about Amenemhet and the Hyksos this week.  I tried to show the kids what a chariot was, but was having a hard time explaining.  One day, though, we were at Target and saw this Lego box.  The kids are going through a Lego stint so it was a perfect way to explain to them...except the mummy/skeleton/monster-ish part.  LOL

Week 9

We are one-fourth through the school year!  Yay!

Preschool

Letter Themes

We did the letter J for jellyfish this week!  It went along with our science studies, and Ellie was sure she wanted to do a letter, but wasn't specific about which one.  Unfortunately, she thought it was an umbrella...LOL But at least it came out cute.

PreK Activity Book

She is back into her book and loving it.  We did the Itsy Bitsy Spider and used circle stickers this week.  The shapes and colors stuff is mostly review (except for the red/green confusion), but she still likes doing it all.

There was one section which had her drawing lines.  She has a very fist-like grip, so we tried pencil grips to help her grip the pencil correctly.  She didn't get that, so we're going to be working that by doing a lot of coloring with broken crayon pieces.

Hyrum, though, loves to draw with a pencil.  His grip is a lot better (at 16 months!) but sometimes he grips way up high.

Junior K

Reading

Emmett finished up The Cat in the Hat this week.  It has improved his fluency a little bit.  Next week I think we'll move on to Green Eggs and Ham or something similar.  He is enjoying reading real books.  He also finished his Book It chart and was happy to earn a coupon for his OWN pizza.  :)

Math

We played a few math games this week.  He liked play addition war.

Handwriting/ETC

Emmett got annoyed with me just having him form letters when I wanted.  Apparently he needs to see a means to an end.  So, I pulled out Explode the Code 1.

These are good review for him as they are just CVC words.  BUT, we will also use it to teach proper letter formation.

First Grade

Language Arts

Grammar

We completed through lesson 60 in FLL1.  We reviewed pronouns, identified action verbs, and introduced initials.

Writing

This week's narration and copywork focused around Charlotte's Web.  Abby was excited because she was familiar with the story AND because Stuart Little is written by the same author.

Reading

Abby is still cruising through Stuart Little.  She did freak out over a few words of vitamins (riboflavin, thiamine, and something hydrochloride).  I just repeated them a billion times and told them they were vitamins and minerals.  It wasn't worth the drama.  She has 19 more pages to finish the book.

Spelling

We completed step 11 which deals with vowel-consonant-e words that begin with a blend.  I wasn't sure that we were going to complete a new step this week as I didn't get to until Thursday.  But, it wasn't a huge leap for her to take all the CVE words we've been working with and then apply the blends at the beginning.

Handwriting

Abby worked on more review and Js in her handwriting book.  I should probably have her spell some of her spelling words in cursive if she's covered the letters in handwriting...

Math

Abby had a bit of excitement on Monday during math time.  She lost tooth number five while working some of her problems!

There was really no hang-up with math this week.  She was completely able to apply renaming all the way across different place value areas.  The only thing that was new this week was that Singapore introduced the vertical representation of adding three-digit numbers with "carrying" (or as Singapore calls it "renaming").  She only really saw the value of writing vertically when she had three large addends.  She did write them vertically and solve that way when asked, but otherwise she preferred to solve the problems in her head.  She had no problem applying the vertical algorithm with larger numbers either.  This seems to be a theme with Abby.  She has no problem intuiting into an area where she's not yet taught.  It's as though she inherently understands that such methods can be applied in other areas.

All Together

Science

This week we discussed cnidaria.  Emmett didn't seem to be as interested in such things, but once we got into it, he enjoyed it almost as much as the human body.

We created our own sea jelly model and discussed their life cycles.

On Friday, we visited the zoo on a hunt to SEE some cnidaria.  We didn't get to see any jellies, but we DID get to see a lot of coral and anemones.

We also introduced our kids to the beginning of our Anamalia collection.  As we go through and study different animals that represent each phylum, we will earn a stuffed buddy.  The kids have to pick a stuffed animal to donate to some less fortunate children AND eventually we'll have a whole diverse many of stuffed animals to sort into their own phyla! We'll mostly be getting beanie babies because they are small.  The kids like that they come pre-named.  This guy is Goochy.

History

This week we read the chapter on Western Africa.  The kids were fascinated the Sahara Desert wasn't always a desert.  They LOVED the Anansi stories.  Everyone colored their own picture of Anansi and Turtle.

We also played a review game that I found on the Run of the Mill Family Blog.   Before we played, I had the kids sit down with their history books and read their narrations and check over their maps.

The kids didn't really care about points, but they did enjoy answering the questions.  Abby surprised me with hardly needing to use her book and only actually not remembering the answer to one question (about silt).  We played it again, but with our Chutes and Ladders gameboard, and Abby didn't even need her book at all then.

We also changed the salt mixture in King Cluck.  He only has two weeks left in the salt.  It's amazing the transformation he's made in only a month!

Week 8

Daddy is finally feeling better to the point that we are out and about more frequently.  We still got all of our school work completed this week, even though we took a day at the fair and had other adventures out.

Preschool

Letter Themes

Ellie wasn't very interested in doing her letter craft this week, so we didn't push it.

PreK Activity Book

She made up for her lack of interest in crafting by completing last week AND this week in her book.  I guess now she's "caught up" (even though I didn't really feel as though she was "behind").

Junior K

Reading

Emmett's moved into reading real books.  We began the Cat in the Hat this week, popcorn style.  He didn't finish it, though.  Next week, I guess.

Math

He's still counting things.  We're just going to work on correctly counting with math names rather than worry about English varieties right nwo.

Handwriting

We worked on forming ms with the correct size when compared to his capital E.

First Grade

Language Arts

Grammar

We hit a section in First Language Lessons where Abby is reviewing a lot of previous memory work and ideas.  I'm pleased with Abby's retention so far.

Reading

We are still working through Stuart Little.

Spelling

We began the next step in AAS that introduces the idea that the long sound of U in VCE words sounds less like "U" and more like "ooo."  She also learned one word that is spelled with a z at the end of the word: size.

Handwriting

Cursive is usually the first thing to drop if we get busy. I think we got some review writing done, but that's it.

Math

We worked with place value and started the section on renaming.  It seems that since Abby is familiar with renaming ten ones as one ten, she has applied the same concept to ten tens as one hundred and ten hundreds as one thousand.  This next section shouldn't be too rough except that we will be introducing the vertical representation of adding with renaming.  She does get stuck with doing things just one way.  I guess we'll see...

All Together

Science

We finished up the section on genetics with a lab on fingerprints.  The curriculum told us to draw a dark mark on a paper with a pencil and then rub our fingers on the graphite and pull the fingerprint off with tape.  I'm glad we followed that instead of doing a stamp pad because it was very easy to see the characteristics of each fingerprint.

Genetics was the completion of our study of the human body. So, we moved on to the next section which illustrated the difficulties scientists might have in classifying animals into different groups.  This activity was a little harder for the kids to grasp until I started drawing the chart on our big sliding door.

History

This week we read about ancient China.  For our project, we created our own Ming Dynasty plates.  We grabbed some plates from the dollar store, then used specialized blue paint to paint on them and fired them in the oven.

We even took the plates to Panda Express to eat "Chinese food" (or the closest the kids will eat) on our plates.

Week 7

Tuesday of this last week was September 11th. That morning, we told the kids (in an age-appropriate way) what that day stood for. Then, they helped Daddy put out the flag.

Preschool

Letter Themes

Ellie chose to do z this week.  Zebras are one of her favorite animals, so of course we had to make zebras!

She still loves putting her letters on the coconut tree.

Of course, Hyrum loves it too.

PreK Activity Book

Ellie didn't request to do much of her book this past week, and I didn't push it.  She much preferred to hang out with Daddy.  When she does ask to do it, she usually wants to do more than one page, so she should "catch up" (whatever that is for a three-year-old) within a few days next week.

Junior K

Reading

Emmett still needs work on fluency.  For his reading this week, we broke up his stories into sections and printed them off. Then, he used a highlighter to find "teams" such as "ai."  He's doing really well.

Math

I realized that Emmett counts to twenty just fine, but skips fifteen.  When he uses "math names" he counts appropriately, so he obviously understands the progression of numbers.  Somehow, though, he's constantly forgetting fifteen.  We're working on counting normally and NOT skipping fifteen.  He counts snacks, lines, stairs, food, whatever.

Handwriting

We didn't work on any proper letter or number formation this week.  If there was something he was writing that we noticed was off, we fixed it.  We didn't do anything formal, though.

First Grade

Language Arts

Grammar

We still worked a bit more with verbs.  I'm sure I could accelerate through FLL, but I don't really want to do any rigorous grammar at this level.

Reading

Abby began reading Stuart Little this week.  She's really enjoying the book.  I preread the chapter, then work through any unfamiliar words with her.  She'll be reading it for the next few weeks.  I purposefully am treating it like a "school assignment" so she doesn't zoom through this book like she has others.

Spelling

This is the last week of review through AAS Level 2.  She did fine remembering that with VCE words, we have to use K at the end rather than C because they DO end in E.

Handwriting

We only got through some review and I this week.  Slow and steady wins the race.

Math

This week was more review.  Abby wanted to go further, but we slowed it down and pulled out the manips and really looked at comparing numbers.  It's nice for me to only do the one easy lesson a day because we are done REALLY quickly.

All Together

Science

We finished up the section on the nervous section by doing a lab about the five senses.

One of the things they used smell for was vinegar.  Our kids couldn't tell us that it was vinegar, but both Abby and Emmett said that it smelled like painted or decorated eggs.  We counted that as correct because we do use vinegar when we dye eggs on Easter.

Vinegar was also a sight item, but it was in a jar.  Of course, the kids all believed it to be water.  After the lab, we talked about what other lab could help them know for sure.  They eat chose to taste the liquid.  Abby scrunched up her face, but Emmett liked it and kept dipping his fingers and eventually took the jar outside.  LOL

On Thursday, we moved on to discuss genetics.  Our kids have never actually asked how babies are made, so we very gently introduced them to the idea that a dad gives a cell and a mom gives a cell and then those two cells grow into a new baby.  They enjoyed the lab sheet where they checked out different features mom and dad had and then seeing which they got from each parent.

History

We learned about the people of the Indus River Valley.  The Story of the World introduced the idea that ancient peoples all lived near a river and used the river not only for water for their crops and to drink, but also to use as roads.  We also discussed citadels and the mystery of Mohenjo-Daro.  One of the activities in the activity guide was to make our own mud bricks because the houses surrounding citadels were made with bricks.  Well, we know what happens when our kids get near mud and we didn't wanna' open that can of worms.  So, we used food to create our own little replica of Mohenjo-Daro.

Our chicken mummy's salt was not wet enough to change this week, so we're waiting till sometime next week to switch it out.