Unit 14 complete...now on to Christmas!

We completed unit 14 for both kids this past week.  It was a bit of challenge since daddy was home this week with us.  :o)

D's Bible stories were about more of Jesus' miracles.   His rhyme for the unit was set to the tune of "I'm a little teapot."  On Wednesday we had forgotten to do the rhyme at the end of the school day and as we were driving home from church that night he said out of the blue, "We need to do my rhyme when we get home, Mom!"  He has a great memory!

He completed chapter 13 for his math which was about shapes (easy for him) and I may put off chapter 14 for a week or two in January so we can get him mastering his addition facts.  He can figure out +8 and +9 but he really needs to master them (according to the notes in the teacher's guide) before I have him moving on.  Another nice feature of homeschool - we can spend extra time on a concept if he needs it, or fly through it (like the shapes) because he's already mastered it.

For Phonics, D finished up another HOP chapter book this week and earned his December Book-It.   He's reading fluently but is always looking at the picture on the page prior to reading the text and then asking me what's happening.  I've had to remind him to read first and then look at the picture since the text describes what's going on in the picture. :o)  He's learning!

He's continuing to work his way through Phonics Pathways even though some of it is a review of 100 Easy Lessons.  He's learning the "rules" and hopefully that will help him with spelling and reading.  In January I'll begin having him write a few words from dictation since the book recommends having students write as well as read the words.  He won't like it, but I figure we better ease into it, since next year's curriculum guide will have him doing a lot more writing than he is doing this year!

Our read-aloud book is Danny Meadow Mouse and the chapters this week were all about Danny being a good friend to Peter Rabbit after Peter allowed Danny to live with him in the Briar-Patch.  Peter got caught in a snare in Farmer Brown's orchard - Danny helped him get out of the wire.  Silly animal stories but D enjoys them - it's something different than what he's reading for Phonics or what we read-aloud outside of our school work.  K often listens to the stories, too!

On Friday D had to write about helping someone since Danny was helping Peter Rabbit in the store.  D chose ME!  It was cute - he wrote that he could help Mommy cook, clean and do laundry (since he always puts his folded clothes away now).  He even drew two helping hands on his paper (complete with green-colored veins).  ;o)

K's Bible stories were about David's life as king.  She also learned the letter "L" and had a little trouble making the "L" sound.  Yesterday she glued various pieces of yarn in shortest - longest order.  She is begging me to paint everyday and is often disappointed when I don't get the paints out.  Her lesson from the Big Thoughts book this week was about "L" - for Lying - what's not good to do.  I had an interesting discussion with her about lying - since she's lied lately about having accidents.

Now we're on vacation from school work until January 4, so this blog will be left alone until then and I am hoping to get more pictures on it in January because I know it's more fun to read with PICTURES!  :o)   

Merry Christmas!

waves & kindness

We finished Unit 13 for both kids on Friday and will tackle Unit 14 this next week, then take 2 weeks off for Christmas...yeah! 

D's Bible story was about Jesus walking on the water.  He drew a picture of the boat (some of the disciples in it) and then used glue to make waves as the water around the boat.  When the glue dried it was "puffy" and looked "wet" since it dried clear and shiny.  D had given me a bit of a fit as he wanted to just color the waves not use the glue, but I told him we were following directions...one of those things I always wonder if I'm doing the right thing or if I should let him do his own thing.  The teacher in me stresses about following directions correctly now in the little things so that it carries over into his life in the "big things" one day...

K reviewed letter "K" and we read the "K" page in her Big Thoughts book.  It was all about kindness, doing kind things for others so we had an interesting discussion about kindness and how she can be kind. :o)  I love those moments with her.  She always begs for more activities and most days I give her an "extra" one while I continue helping D.  Some days she'll cut out the letter we're working on - kind of like her counting book.  Other days, I'll pick out a coloring page.  And the rest of the days, she opts to get on the computer and play a few computer learning games.

baking bread feeding 5, not 5000

Today the activity for D to do along with his history (Bible) was baking bread since he read about Jesus' miracle when He made 5 loaves of bread (and 2 fish) feed 5000 people.  Our loaf fed 5 people. :o)

It was fun!  D was instructed to add ingredients & mix the dough in large Ziploc bag...

He was then to knead the dough for 8 minutes...he kneaded about 2 minutes then I took over. ;o)

He didn't mind getting his hands all messy or sticky though...

 We then placed the dough in a bowl and let it rise for 30 minutes.  Time was up while the kids were eating lunch so I ended up flattening it, rolling it and placing it in the loaf pan to rise again prior to baking it.

After baking, the final product of all our labor was this...

It was really good! D had a slice this afternoon and then another slice with dinner tonight. :o)

For Phonics, D read an entire HOP chapter book today.  It was about a detective and he was interested in it and asked to read all of it after chapter 1.  I wasn't going to say "no" to more reading.  I also encouraged him to begin reading our other "easy" chapter books on our bookshelves...we only have a few hundred books here at home. :O)  I told him we could make a chart to count the books he reads and after so many he could get something special (besides the Book-It certificate each month).  He read one right after lunch and designed his own chart - making a HUGE gauge that was already colored in for one book. I love it!

K learned about David & Jonathan today and had a few activities about friendship/sharing.  She painted her letter "K" with watercolor paints and listened to her Singing Bible CD song about David.

PE - Gymnastics today!

The kids were delighted that PE today at the Y was all about gymnastics.  I've been keeping the girls home from church because of their coughs, but felt it didn't matter for PE since the other kids are there coughing.

They warmed up with stretches and then moved from the gymnastics area into this small room with a gymnastics obstacle course...

They began at the bar - holding themselves up with their arms...

Later hanging by their arms with their legs touching the bar for 3 seconds...

 

D kept telling the instructor he could hang for 300 seconds...

After the bar they moved onto somersaults down a "hill" mat...

 

C watching...she was really good for the entire 2 hours we were there...not napping, of course.  :o)

 

After the somersaults, the kids went down a slide (you can see it in the back of the picture through the mirror) and then had to walk across balance beam stepping over the beanbags.

 

K dancing after coming over to me to get a drink from her water bottle...

 

They spent about 30 minutes in the small room doing the obstacle course and hanging from the bar.  Then moved back into the big room with the large gymnastics equipment.

D walking across the "low" balance beam in the gymnastics room...

 

D walking across the "high" balance beam in the same area...he kept telling the instructor he could do it all by himself.  I have no doubt he could, but she had to hold on for safety reasons and I had to explain that to him later.  He was practically running across the beam...

 

K making her way across the "low" beam...

 

Then going across the "high" beam...no fear!  I was impressed!

 

Her "dismount" at the end of the "high" beam...

 

The last hour of the PE is always free-play time in the gym.  Today there was a large ball out and the kids kicked, rolled and pushed it around for awhile and also had a blast on the scooters - their favorite!  

 

 

December school so far...

We completed Unit 12 last week.  D's moved into the New Testament for his History beginning with the birth of Jesus.  He added this picture to his timeline last week for the wall...

The past few days we've been reading about the miracles Jesus did while on earth.  We read the one about Jesus asking the men to throw their net back into the water after fishing all night catching nothing.  When they did their nets were full of fish.  D had to draw a fish that day and made a cute one!  This was all him...he was adding a baby fish at the bottom when I took the picture...

The day we read about Jesus turning the water into wine...for a science activity D poured water into various containers he chose.  He discovered that water takes the shape of the container...flower, muffin tin, circle, bowl, etc.  K had to do it, too, of course!

 

D completed chapter 11 (review of shapes & counting by 2's) in his math and has moved onto chapter 12 this week which is adding doubles (3+3, 4+4 etc.).  He is also practicing reading, writing and spelling the number words "zero-nine."  He loves his math and is always looking to the next chapter to see what's coming.

For Phonics, D is learning about digraphs (ch, tch,) and more.  Throughout the Phonics Pathways book there are witty sayings that I think are a bit "corny" but D loves them and will often read them himself and then ask me what they mean.  He's finished all the beginning readers from HOP (hooked on phonics) that a friend gave to me and have moved onto the chapter books.   He's reading a chapter a day and doing an amazing job.  Lately I haven't had to help him at all...except when he's mis-read something because he's rushing.  Can't wait for him to read chapter books on his own for fun!   He earned his Book-It certificate for November but has yet to get his pizza yet!  :o)  

We began Danny Meadow Mouse for his read-aloud just before Thanksgiving.  He's already met up with Reddy Fox and the other characters from the other books we've read.  One day last week D had to make a snow mound and hide something behind it just like Granny Fox hid herself under snow trying to catch Danny Meadow Mouse.  D chose Pac-Man and had to write two descriptive words and draw a picture...

K completed her Unit 12 last week learning about letter "J" and the story of Samuel.  She is working through Unit 13 this week and was so excited the letter is "K" which is "her letter" as she calls it.  She is learning about David this week and created this scene to go with her Bible story yesterday learning about David being a shepherd and taking care of sheep.  She cut out the clouds with scissors and glued two cotton balls side by side for the sheep.  She also colored the stream blue and did a nice job staying in the "lines" I drew for the outline of the river.

It's hard to believe we're almost 4 months into our school year already.  It's been an adventure so far, but I LOVE it and so do the kids.  I wouldn't trade this time with them for anything!  Last night at our Bible study, our leader was talking about God giving us the desires of our hearts when we delight in Him, obey Him, and follow Him and I sat there thinking about my desire to school the kids.  Thank you, Lord for this amazing privilege right now!

Neglected blog but not neglected school

So I've been really bad with the blog thing for two weeks.  I'll get back to it!  Even though this blog was neglected our school days were not.  We took a break only from the 25-27 for Thanksgiving but resumed our school on Monday with Unit 12, Day 1. 

I will update soon with pictures!

math review & Danny Meadow Mouse

Sorry, no pictures today. :o(

D had a big math review page today...36 math problems reviewing +0, +1, +2 +9 and +8...all the facts he's learned the past few weeks.  He did really well...though he ended up going to the living room to work on it as K was dancing around her to Bella Dancerella video downstairs and D complained he couldn't concentrate.  He only missed 2 problems and that was because he chose not to use the blocks. :o(

We began reading aloud Danny Meadow Mouse today, discovering that Danny wishes he had a longer tale like his cousin Whitefoot.  He wasn't content with the way he was made...  D and I talked about being content with how God made us.  D says, "I am, Mommy!"  Guess Mommy needs to keep learning that lesson!  :o)

K learned more about Samson today and glued paper flowers to letter "I" which she can name and say the sound for.  She always begs me to do more "schoolwork" so she usually gets a coloring book and joins D and I at the table while he works on a lot of his subjects.

D's Bible story was about the angels telling the shepherd's about Jesus' birth.   For his activity, we felt our throat vibrate while we talked, sang, spoke in a low voice, etc.   We filled 4 glasses with various amounts of water and listening to the vibration each glass made when tapped with a spoon.  K liked this activity, too.

For Phonics D learned about consonant digraphs (two consonants on the end of a word that say a sound together...like "sh" instead of the sounds for each letter).  The words were fairly easy for him to read which is good.  He has four more books to read for his Book-It for November.  He also only has two weeks left to use his coupon from October.  I think he'll be using it to have a fun lunch or dinner with J soon!

the past 3 days

We did have school today and the past two days.  I just didn't blog about it Monday because I ran out of time and yesterday I had a very bad case of food poisoning (so bad that J had to come home from work to take care of the kids) and so finally today I'm better & have time to blog...

Monday we finished Unit 10 for both kids.  K had a final review of letters A-H and everytime she gets to letter "D" she says "that's D's letter" and everytime we get to "G" she says "that's Grandma's letter!"  I had her trace the dots I made for each letter...she surprised me and did really well! 

We read a chapter from a "new book" for D's curriculum about Alexander and a horse (frightened by a shadow) and then we got out a flashlight and made shadows, talked about what causes the shadow and why Alexander could ride the horse once he turned it to face the sun instead of having his back to the sun.  D thought it was really neat.


We began Unit 11 for both kids on Tuesday.  I was feeling bad, but we got through the work.  (I really didn't want to have to double a day later this week.)  D's Bible story was about the angel speaking to Mary, telling her she was going to have Jesus.  (Yep, we're in the NT now!)  He has a new rhyme which talks about celebrating Jesus' birthday in December and goes over the months of the year.  He is instructed to do a somersault when he hears the name of his birthday month.  He likes this!

K learned a new letter "I" which says "I-I-Impossible" and has the motion as if she's lifting something heavy.  She learned about Gideon picking the men to fight that drank water from their hands.  She drew a picture with a blue wavy line across the bottom (river) and a smile on the left side and I trace her hand on the right side.  She then circled the hand to symbolize those where the men God told Gideon to pick to fight in his army.

She knew "I" today when I brought out the flashcard!  Her Bible story was about Samson being strong.  She drew "barbells" (weights) for her count on me paper.  I drew the first one and then she did all the rest.  She wrote the numbers in purple crayon (over top the ones I wrote in pink).
 

Her activity was to lift several objects and put them in a line...lightest to heaviest.  We used various toys from the playroom.  She knew "light" and "heavy."  :o)

D's Bible story today was about Jesus being born in a stable.  D asked "how did the baby come out of Mary?"  My answer, "How God made babies to come out."  Oh goodness, didn't want to go into details today about it.  His activity was to set up a nativity and so I grabbed the Playmobil nativity out of our Christmas box (I had gotten last summer at a garage sale!).  The kids had fun setting it up and playing with it for a few minutes.  Then we packed it away again until after Thanksgiving. ;o)

We finished Peter Cottontail (a.k.a. Peter Rabbit) today - he finally learns that he can't hibernate or be like other animals because he was made to be a rabbit!  When I asked D what his favorite part of the book was, he said "the whole thing!"  I'm glad he enjoyed it.

He's nearing the end of chapter 10 in his math book.  He completed the last lesson review page today, but he's still not solid on his facts yet.  So we'll review more tomorrow and take his test on Friday.  He's anxious to get into chapter 11, but I told him he has to be able to say the answers to his facts "fast" before he can move on.  The next chapter is about shapes & counting by 2's which he knows...so I'm thinking we'll continue reviewing his facts daily.

He copied his verse for Unit 11 today (sorry the picture is light to see his pencil) and when I put away his other handwriting papers from the bulletin board, I looked at his handwriting from September.  What a change!  I showed D the difference between the papers.  I love keeping a portfolio of his work (besides for assessment at the end of the school year) to show him how he's progressing!

horns, Jericho walls rebuilt, King May I?, science & storytime cookies

This post is loaded with pics as we did a lot of activities during our school time this morning...

K reviewed her letters - she chose to circle "Ee" in the top section and then had to match the letters correctly on the bottom.  She did it correctly and made her lines a bit creatively...just like D does.  Oh boy!

She drew "horns" (triangles) in each box of her "count on me" paper.  I drew one, then she drew one and we went on like this until the 5th one which she did all by herself to finish the page.  Her "horns" weren't exactly triangles, but they were "horns" to her so I guess that's all that matters...we'll work more on being exact next year!  :o)

Her Bible story was about the walls of Jericho falling down and so we built a circular "city" with our cardboard blocks.  Then K marched around it...

Then D joined in and K was being bossy, telling him not to touch the blocks because he'd knock one over as he cut the circle too close.

When it came time for the walls to fall down D smashed the whole thing himself... 

K was not happy (arms crossed, scowl on her face) and D's expression says "What?"...

So we rebuilt the walls and then K got to knock it down all by herself...

D's Bible story today was about Esther approaching the King.  We played a version of "King, May I?" where I began as the King and D began as the Queen.  He had to ask me if he could take a certain number/kind of steps toward me.  If I raised the scepter (we used K's "magic mirror") then he could take that many steps.  If I didn't raise the scepter he had to stand still.  Once he reached me, he asked to save the lives of his people just like Esther did in the Bible story.  We played two rounds so he had a chance to be the King, too.

Here's a picture of his handwriting from today.  I had written -y words that we're reading & learning about in Phonics Pathways.  He did well copying them.  He could tell me when consonants are doubled or left alone when the -y is added.  Hooray!  Love when he can teach back to me!

The chapter in Peter Cottontail today was all about Peter deciding he will sleep all winter just like the other animals.  D and I had a good laugh about this...a rabbit hibernating?! We'll finish the book early next week.

After D's "regular" schoolwork was done, we got out the Pop Bottle Science kit.  We picked two to do today.

For the first experiment, we used a medicine dropper to drop water drops into the pop bottle cap.  We counted the drops to see how many it took to fill the cap...239.  We then dumped the water out and wiped the cap with one drop of dish detergent (we did not rinse it).  We then added water drops again, only this time only 160 drops filled the cap.  D learned it's because of the soap residue - it mixes with the water and doesn't allow the molecules to stick together as well as when there's just a clean cap & water drops.

For the second experiment, we filled the bottom section of the pop bottle with water, D dumped pepper on top of the water then stuck his finger into it.  Nothing happened, some pepper stuck on his finger.  He then rubbed his fingertip on a bar of soap, then stuck his finger in the pepper water.  The pepper immediately "swam" away from his fingertip to the sides of the bottle.  He loved it!  He learned that the soap mixes with the water molecules and makes the water molecules less clingy.  As the molecules relaxed, it changed the surface tension and pushed the pepper outwards to the sides of the bottle.

After science we read two stories about bears for our "storytime" today...Old Bear & Little Bear's Trousers. I had made a small batch of snickerdoodle dough right after breakfast this morning and tucked it away in the fridge without the kids knowing.  The kids were delighted when I pulled out the dough and told them they could make teddy bear face cookies themselves.  Oh what fun!  It kept them occupied for 45 minutes. While the cookies baked, they ate lunch and then devoured a few after they were cooled.  Yum!

  

 

K added a nose (mini chocolate chip) to one of her cookies along with 2 eyes...I thought it turned out really cute.  Looks like I'll have two great little cookie-bakers for Christmas cookies this year!  :o)

crossing the Jordan & glitter

Today's school work was from Unit 10/Day 3 for both kids.  K really liked her Bible story...crossing the Jordan River carrying the ark of the covenant.  When the men's feet (men who were carrying the ark) touched the water, the water parted and they walked across the river on dry ground.  She had to "cross the Jordan" today walking on a tape line carrying an "ark."  We used duct tape since I haven't gotten masking tape yet and K picked a teddy bear blanket to carry as the "ark."

For her letter review today, she picked a letter to make "glittery" and she chose "G" because as we were revewing the letter names & sounds with her flashcards she kept asking for Grandma's letter..."G."  So this glittery "G" is for Grandma, today!  (Hi Mom!)  :o)

D completed his second page of chapter 10 for math...had a little difficulty adding 8 again since he refused to use the blocks.  I made a set of +8 fact flashcards to help him review this week.  I have a feeling we'll stay on chapter 10 for all the lesson pages & review pages to make sure he knows the facts before moving on.

In Phonics he learned about the suffix -y when to double the consonant & when to leave it "as is" and just add -y to the end.  Do you know when to double the consonant?!  When it's a single consonant (like "fun)...funny.  When it's a double consonant on the end of the original word, -y is just added to the end like "mist"...misty.  He seemed to understand this and read the entire page of words.  The book suggests he write each word from dictation, but I haven't made him write them yet.

For his Thinking Skills paper today, he was supposed to copy a block pattern.  He rushed a bit and had to redo it since the lines he made with his pencil weren't the same shape as the pattern.  He tends to think these pages are easy (and they are - at least what he's supposed to do) but they're for "following directions" and some days he needs lots of work on it. :o)

His Bible story today was about Daniel in the lion's den and so for his science activity we read about animals and insects who camouflage themselves.  We compared Legos on the carpet to Legos on top of the same colors on a colored blanket to see if we could camouflage them.  He'd much rather do something more "scientific" and messy.  We'll do a Pop Bottle Science project tomorrow since it'll be Friday.  :o)

During today's reading of Peter Cottontail, he finally found out what the animals were doing during the winter - hibernating.  The book writes the possum's ("Unc' Billy Possum") speech in a very thick southern accent.  D said when we were done reading, "that guy talks funny."  I agreed with him as it's quite a mouthful to read, too!