Week 4

Some units just lend themselves to a ton of crafts while others, do not. This week IS a big craft week. We've had a ton of fun, too.

Monday

Bible Genesis 41:14-43, Memory verse Romans 12:21
Classical Conversations (CC) memory work. We are reviewing weeks 1-2 this week.

For English I worked with Miss E on the words that we know. I made little cards that I laminated and put on a ring. We will start taking them everywhere and will work on memorizing our words. She did her Lexia, but we've hit a 'harder' level so she is easily frustrated.

For math we talked about recording data on picture graphs. She has started telling me what we need to do to make things equal and she loves to count everything to give me a 'total'. We LOVE math in our house.


Tuesday
Bible memory verse Romans 12:21 with review of all the previous verses.
CC memory work

Miss E was not feeling 100% and feel asleep after Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). After her nap we worked on our 'rainbow writing' again, she did her Lexia, and then math. That was about it.

Wednesday
Bible Genesis 44-46, memory verse Romans 12:21 with review of previous verses.
CC memory work

We finished reading the story of Joseph from the bible this week. I pulled out our Joseph book from a couple of weeks ago and we re-read the story. We were able to talk about what was going on a little more in depth this time around.

For math I pulled out the M&Ms again. It is funny how a little manipulative can make both kids very attentive. Probably doesn't hurt when the manipulative is edible. We were talking about rearranging objects in different patterns, but keeping the same amount of objects. She struggled a little bit with her assignment but I know she understands the concept. We also used the M&Ms to represent quantity. I have five cards with the numbers 1-5 on them, I had her put the correct number of M&Ms on each card. The last thing we did was make a poster that represents the number 1.

We did a lot of reading. We read The Empty Pot, Wildflower ABC, and Planting a Rainbow. Miss E also gave reading a try on her own. I was so proud!! Today she read Mat (A Bob Book). She was excited, too. 

We are participating unofficially with a virtual book club which started this month. I picked Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert, see my official post, here. It turns out that this little book goes perfectly with our unit this week. I love it when things like this happen!! So, for our activity for the book club we painted a garden. I gave the kids some green paper to make stems for our flowers and then they painted the flowers. I've said this before, I do not give too much instruction when we are doing creative activities. I'm firm on what I want when we do our math and reading/writing, but when it comes to crafts, I give the kids free liberty. I don't make a 'sample' for them to follow either. I love seeing what they come up with after I explain what we are doing.







One of the activities with Epi Kardia this unit is to paint a terra cotta pot. I rolled that into our rainbow flower painting. Who wants to set up paint, twice?

Thursday
Bible Genesis 47-49, memory verse Romans 12:21
CC memory work

Since I had a captive audience this morning, we did all of our reading in one sitting. After our bible we read two poems from Poems & Prayers for the Very Young, The Seven Chinese Brothers, Sunflower, Miss E read Mat to Little Man, and we looked at two pictures from A Child's Book of Art.

Our math objective is to represent the number 2. I pulled out the play dough (suggested from our Earlybird Math book) and we each made two balls. We then rolled the dough out to make the number 1 and then the number 2. Miss E proudly told me that when a 1 is next to a 2 you have the number twelve! We then had fun making other things with our play dough, shapes, letters, etc. When they were done with playing we went back to our lesson. After the lesson, I had the kids make another poster that represented the number 2. (I got the idea from a friend of mine who posted pictures similar to what we did on her facebook.) After our fun with our poster, the kids got out more paper and more stickers and just created fun pictures on their own.
 

 Our next project, since we are dealing with flowers in science this week, is to paint with fruit. We read Wildflower ABC which is a book of potato prints. The kitchen table smelled so good! Both kids were amazed at the patterns that the different fruit left on the paper.

 

English is the last thing on our agenda today. We are working with the letter 'C c'. I got out the Do.A.Dots for Little Man while Miss E did her copy work, then Miss E worked on her Lexia. The Do.A.Dot paper came from Confessions of a Home Schooler's Letter of the Week Program.

Friday
Bible Genesis 50 - Exodus 2, memory verse Romans 12:21
CC memory work

We started our day off with History. We read The Great Wall of China, along with a poem from Poems & Prayers for the Very Young. I wanted Miss E to work on some geography. I printed off a map of the Middle East and then one of Asia. We talked about Israel and Iran last week and China this week. I had Miss E write Iran and China in their respected countries and then had her color just those countries. I helped her find the country on the globe and then she found it on her map.

 For math we worked on representing the number 3. We got out the play dough again and worked on creating our numbers 1-3.
 
 Our new letter is 'D d'. Again Little Man worked with Letter of the Week (LOTW) 'D', Do.A.Dot while Miss E worked on her copywork also from LOTW. Later in the evening she read Mat to her dad.

We wrapped up our week on flowers with a flower life cycle project. We read From Seed to Sunflower first and then from there we made our life cycle. From google images I found pictures of the flower life cycle. I don't remember the exact website. I had both kids order the pictures and then glue them onto a poster.

We took our terra cotta pots that we painted earlier in the week and planted some viola seeds. The kids are really excited to see watch them grow. 

One thing about painting with Tempra paint is that when the pots got wet, the paint ran. We'll see how long they have any color.

Thanks for continuing the journey with us,
Elizabeth

Literature for the week:
Joseph by Brian Wildsmith
The Empty Pot by Demi
Wildflower ABC by Diana Pomeroy
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
Mat
Poems & Prayers for the Very Young selected by Martha Alexander
The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy
Sunflower by Miela Ford
A Child's Book of Art selected by Lucy Micklethwait
The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher
From Seed to Sunflower by Dr Gerald Legg

Week 3

This week marks normal for us. I guess there really isn't a normal and the routine always changes, but as of right now, there will be nothing new added to our weekly routine. This week we added Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). This means that two mornings a week we have commitments, with one of those mornings being pretty intense for the kids. Monday is my leaders meeting and the kids just play with the other leaders's kids. Tuesday the kids are in a program. Well, it is more than that, but for lack of a better word that is what I'm going to use. I expect for Tuesdays to be pretty laid back in regard to school work, but we will see.

Monday

We started out at BSF and then did some errands. I used this time to make a run to the library, we had a few books to return and needed to find a few new ones for next weeks unit. By the time we got home, we only had an hour before we needed to leave for Miss E's gymnastic class. I purposely planned for Monday to be a light day knowing that time was going to be short. My focus is on Bible, English and math when we have our light days.

When we got home I had the kids sit on the couch and we did our Bible reading, Genesis 29-31:21; we reviewed our past memory verses and worked on our new one, 1 John 3:16; and then did our CC memory work. (Since we are only on week 2 of our CC work, we reviewed what we did last week and just added this weeks stuff. For now we will just keep reviewing and adding until I feel the kids have it down.)

I asked Miss E if she wanted to work on her English or do math, she chose math. I found some sorting and pattern activities involving M&Ms in the Letter of the Week program from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I got out the M&Ms, gave both kids a small bowl full and then had them sort them by color. I then had Miss E do a variety of different things with her sorted M&Ms. We talked about how many of each color there were, she made different patterns, and then we talked about adding. She was excited that she got to eat them when she was done. Little Man did some activities, too. I had him make the same patterns and we just talked about the different colors.

 

 After Miss E's gymnastic class and while I was preparing dinner I had her work on her Lexia. She struggled at the beginning. It is tough to watch her struggle and get frustrated. It is tough to keep on her to keep going. Eventually she picked up on what she was supposed to do and finished her level perfectly. She was so proud of herself and I made sure to praise her. Sometimes it is the little things.

After dinner we spent time doing some free reading. While we were at the library Miss E found a book called Real Live Monsters. We read though it and talked about the amazing animals. We also read Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. For having a light day, we did get a lot done.

Tuesday

We started the morning off at BSF. The Children's program at BSF is just that. It is a program teaching children about God. We do a bible story, sing hymns, have a quiet time, and do some fun playing. It is two hours and for the oldest kids (5-6 year olds) there is a lot of stimulation. Knowing that Tuesdays are already full of learning in the morning, I make our school schedule very light, again. 

I always let Miss E dictate our day, to some extent. I asked her what she wanted to do first and she surprised me by saying her Lexia!! Since she did such a good job yesterday, and because she ended her time on such a high note, she wanted to do her computer work again. She had an amazing session!! After she finished her Lexia, I had her do some copy work that reviewed the letters we have learned along with the words we can make with those letters. 

We then read The War Between the Conconents and the Vowels, a poem that we are memorizing from Poems and Prayers for the Very Young, and Baa Baa Black Sheep from our Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics curriculum. We did not just read Baa Baa Black Sheep, we discussed what was going on, counted different things, and started working on adding and subtracting.

Math is the last thing we covered for the day. Our objective was to count and recognize 1, 2, 3.

Wednesday
Bible Genesis 31:22-34 and memory verse 1 John 3:16
CC

Miss E started her day off with Math. We are working on recognizing and counting 1-5.
To keep Little Man busy while I'm working with Miss E, I got these lacing cards from Lakeshore. He started having a lot of fun with them and Miss E decided she needed to have fun, too.

 We read David and Goliath, Frogs, and About Amphibians.
After reading about frogs, we did a rhyming activity which sorted pictures into categories either rhyming or not rhyming with frog. The activity came from here.

We also did a frog life cycle poster. I just googled pictures and printed them off. I had the kids color them however they wanted to and then they cut out their little pictures. I guided Miss E in her poster by telling her to put the frogs in order from egg to frog. For Little Man, I just let him do what he wanted.

Their completed posters. Pretty creative, if you ask me. 

 I am still struggling with getting Miss E to do any writing. I talked with a friend at gymnastics and she said that her daughter came home with 'rainbow writing'. We talked about what 'rainbow writing' is and I made this little worksheet. Miss E used colored pencils, so the lines are light, but she enjoyed practicing her letters this way. Just one more activity to keep in mind when I need to change things up a little bit.





Thursday
Bible Genesis 35-37 and memory verse 1 John 3:16.
CC

Today was rough!! Oh my!! I think part of the problem is that I'm run by my schedule and Miss E is not. I want her to try all of our activities and she is strong willed. I keep having to remind myself that everyone learns at different levels and at different times. I don't need to push her to stay up with my schedule. One of the joys of home schooling is that we get to set our own schedule and work at our own pace, we get to be flexible! 

Our math objective was arranging items in different ways. We started by reading Elmer. While Miss E worked on her assignment I had Little Man do the paint brush color sorting folder game again. Of course, when she was done, she needed to do the file folder game herself.

We did our history reading of The Legend of the Persian Carpet.

This is where our day took a turn. We've been working on our little words for at least a week and a half. When we learned 'm' and 'a', we put the letters together and talked about 'am'. We we added letters we added words. Miss E was not excited at all about reading the First Bob Book; Mat. I got a little bit frustrated... We will be working on this...

 We took a break from reading and did our science. We read Why Frogs are Wet and then talked about what animals were predators for frogs and what were prey. And then started our frog craft.

Friday
After the disaster of yesterday, we let our schedule slide a little bit. There are still things that I felt we needed to cover and we did. It was not an easy day but any means, but we got enough done to call it a day.

Bible Genesis 38-41:13 and memory verse 1 John 3:16
CC
We actually did our Bible and CC work while in the car driving to and from our chiropractor appointment. Not to bad for multitasking.

Since we had such a hard time with our words, I make some flash cards and we worked on saying our words with our cards. Miss E started off excited, but then started to push back. Our new flash cards will not be going away, but I'm going to have find the line between making her do some work and letting it go because she has had enough.

We then did math. Our objective for today was reading picture graphs. She loved being able to color different things. She kept asking for more math to do, too.

We finished our school day by reading Sindbad.

I heard from several friends this week that it was tough. Someone said 'Momma said there will be days like this, days like this, my momma said.' I had to chuckle. I know that I am training my kids, that I'm doing for my kids what I feel is best, and that the honeymoon is over. Learning is tough... the process is hard... we'll get through it and if it takes weeks to get through one objective then it takes weeks. We are not on anyone's schudule but our own.

Thank you for taking this journey with us.
Blessings,
Elizabeth

Ideas for this week came from the following blogs.