Last day of January!

Time really does fly! Last week we thoroughly enjoyed our vacation and did not do any official schooling at all....though the kids learned a bit of geography, science & social studies through the week by traveling, watching the weather change constantly (lots of snow) and getting reacquainted with extended family. :o)

We began Unit 11 today. Drew was happy to finally get the pilgrims to Plymouth...seems like they have journeyed forever to get to the new world! :o) He learned how they built their houses today...chopping down trees, making planks, pegs, etc...lots of hard work!

He's continuing in his math with measurement - using centimeters and meters. He's doing a great job - only problem we don't have a meter stick...so we're always visualizing 10 cm off the end of our yardstick. Ha!

Kate learned about God choosing Gideon's army today - the story about narrowing down the army by the way they drank from the river...hand to mouth or like an animal. Drew was listening in and told me he would have drank like an animal so he wouldn't have to fight.

Kate's having fun flipping through the preschool "Brain Quest" cards the past few weeks. She answers questions about math, nursery rhymes, science, social skills, etc.

beanbags, Jericho & clay

Drew & Kate balanced the "ark of the covenant" (beanbag) on their shoulders as they crossed the river that God parted. It was Kate's activity from yesterday that we didn't do until today due to running a few errands yesterday afternoon. ;o) Kate walking 7x around the city of Jericho (dining room table)...

Drew's learning about MEASUREMENT! Singapore uses meters/centimeters but I had Drew learn about a yard today instead. He had to estimate and then measure the couch. He was close...estimate: 2 yards. Actual measurement: 2 1/3 yards.
He also estimated the length of the dining room: 3 yards and measured it: 3 2/3 yards.
For science today he created a replica of the ocean shelf, slide and floor using oatmeal clay (1 c. oats, 1/2 c. flour & 1/2 water). He made the clay by himself...
Stirred it for awhile until he asked me to take over because I "stir faster" ~ ha!
Then shaped the sea level (against the top of the bowl), the shelf below that, the slide down to the ocean floor. He realized the neat "glow" fish he read about a few months ago live in on the ocean floor - darkest, deepest place in the ocean. :o)
We then poured water over the model to show how it really is...we see the water at the beach, not what's really underneath...but it's there! ;o)

setting & bays

Drew contrasted the setting of Sarah Whitcher's Story to our home in a picture today after listening to a few more pages of the story. He drew our home on the left and the earmuff-looking thing at the top left is a telephone, he also drew Jim on the roof fixing it...with his water bottle on top of the red ladder. The cabin on the right is the actual setting of the story that's situated in the middle of a forest years ago (no electricity). Notice he drew a telephone with an "X" through it along with the sun/sky as it was in the middle of a forest where not much light came through the trees (in his mind)?!?! I love seeing what he creates!

For history we read about the pilgrim men who had gone to shore to look for a place to settle who were attacked by Indians one day. The Mayflower was anchored in a bay and so we talked about what a bay is, pointed out a few in Massachusetts using a large map. Then drew sketched the outline of the land, the bays and labeled the bays, Plymouth (where the pilgrims eventually settled) and Boston. Sorry you can't really see his sketch very well in the picture...he did it really light. :o( I feel like the pilgrims are never going to get to shore to settle...they will it's just that we take 1 story a day right now and it's moving so slowly! But I know why HOD does it...it makes history come alive to the kids and they remember it rather than spend 1 day on it and move on. :o) I'll be patient...

Jewels & BOOM!

We began Unit 10 today...

Kate's Bible story was about Joshua leading the Israelites.

She decided to draw jewels on a skirt as part of her math activity today. :o)
Drew's memory verse for this unit is Psalm 118:1..."Oh Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever."

Drew made this art project to go with his history story about a boy on the Mayflower who got into the gun powder room, fired a musket and gave everyone on the boat a scare! This happened while the Mayflower was anchored off-shore during a day several men went ashore to try to find a place to settle.

He cut out a large oven, drew an X with a vertical line through it, then cut each line...He roll each triangle shape back to reveal an opening in the center.
He wrote "BOOM!" on the front of the red oval and then drew a scared face on a cotton ball to represent the scared boy who fired the musket resulting in an explosion.
He completed his math paper today that had 9 problems on it all 3-digit addition AND subtraction - some with regrouping and some without. He did a nice job with just a few errors that he was able to correct. :o)

Unit 9 Complete!

Kate made a bunch of grapes (we read about the spies returning from the Promised Land)...she first chose to use her finger to make them and then ended up using the "o" stamp to finish.She did her rhyme for Unit 9 and wanted to do the rhyme from last week, too, so we did. ;o)

We finished up Unit 9 today! Drew made this marker tower while listening to his storytime book (Sarah Whitcher's Story). The plans have us dividing the book into 20 school days to read it which means only 4 pages a day (it's a shorter book). Drew listens more attentively when he's doing something so I often let him color on the small white board.
Drew's history activity from yesterday...marking off footprints following a compass as I gave directions (1 step west, 2 steps north, etc.). The footprints led to corn - just like the pilgrims followed the indian footprints to find corn in the new world.
Drew's copywork this week was the poem Maker of Heaven & Earth..."All things bright and beautiful..." We picked the poem apart one day and talked about each line, what it meant and saw the poet did a great job giving an overview of God's creation.

Drew's picture to accompany the poem he drew yesterday...the boy in the middle is him! He has a bird and butterfly above him.
Spelling test for unit 9 - he got everything right!
For his "history" today we read from Nehemiah 4...Drew's activity to go with it was to build a Lego wall 3 bricks high while I would pound the floor 10x before knocking part of it down. He would then "blow a trumpet" and rebuild the part I tore down. He saw how frustrating it might have been for Nehemiah and those building the walls to be interrupted and worried about an about attack while they worked...but they kept working. Which tied into his memory verse this week. ;o) The completed wall...

Pottery Painting!!!!!!!!

We went to a pottery place to paint the afternoon away. The studio fee was only $5 since we had a group of at least 10. And their prices for the pottery were very reasonable.

The kids had been talking about what they wanted to paint the past few days. Since our big popcorn bowl has a few cracks in it (and won't be long until it crumbles), they each decided to make their own little popcorn bowls. I had hoped to do another BIG one but the place didn't have any big deep bowls that would work. :o(

Once they had made their choice, they sat down at the table and "washed" the dust off their bowls and then chose paint colors. Kate chose purple, teal and pink. Drew chose speckled yellow, speckled dark blue and "hot tamale" (red).

I had remembered to bring some extra scrapbooking alphabet stickers (learned that trick when I made my popcorn bowl years ago). Drew and Kate chose the "font" they wanted and stuck their names to the outside of the bowl. Drew then decided he wanted the word "enjoy" on the inside. Kate wanted it out outside below her name..."Kate...enjoy" but I talked her into putting it inside as well.

See the stroller/blanket in the back behind Drew? That was where Claire slept peacefully for an HOUR! I was thankful she slept most of the time we were there today. ;o)
Painting the outside of the bowl...
Kate added polka-dots with sponge paint brushes...she chose small and medium sizes.
Drew did the same (I think he had the idea first and Kate copied - such is life right now. ;o)They then peeled off the letter stickers revealing their names and the word "enjoy" in the bottom of each bowl. I can't wait to see them after they've been fired! The colors will be much more vivid and dark!

Kate's finished bowl prior to baking...

Drew's finished bowl prior to baking...
Their little bowls turned out really cute. We pick them up next Wednesday. I'll post pics again! :o)

late afternoon school again

We were in Columbus most of the day today for the chiropractor, D's OT and a few other errands. Once we finally made it home, we went to our library to pick up held books and a few other fun books/DVDs, so school today was late...like 4 p.m.! Gotta love it! I've misplaced my camera (or C has "hidden" it)...so no pics today.

Drew finally has a few tricky spelling words this week! Long "a" words with silent "e" like shake, skate, trade, etc. and the word "danger" which breaks the rule a bite. Gotta love our crazy English language! He loves to write them on the small marker board, so that's what he's been doing most days until his "test" at the end of the week.

His science activity today was blowing a marble (Mayflower) across the table (ocean) to a marked place (post-it-note = New World/land) and then doing it again while having me blow sideways to be the "wind" across the ocean. He realized how they could get off course easily with the direction of the wind.

reading, art activities & counting backwards

Drew learned about a new genre yesterday, historical fiction, when I began reading aloud Sarah Whitcher's Story. The genre was a little difficult to explain...some of it is true (time period, certain events) but all the other details, characters, and events can be fictional. It's good to be back with HOD, we're reading a book we probably wouldn't have chosen on our own. I'm glad Drew's getting to hear a lot of genres this year!

He is a reading machine and I LOVE it! He's been reading an hour (8-9 p.m.) the past few nights on his own in his room. He used to do just one picture book (10 min. or so) but it's now it's become a longer amount of time with longer books. I know he enjoys getting to stay up "late" but he is also reading his books & enjoying them! He's been reading fiction chapter books, non-fiction books, historical books, etc. He's now begun the 1st book in The Magic Tree House series. He told me the other night that I need to buy more of them. We have a few random numbers and I assured him I'll keep looking for them at thrift shops & yard sales...where 97% of our books come from, but we can also get them from the library. :o)

For Drew's history, we read about the pilgrims going ashore today and that tied into Drew's science reading about starfish, sand dollars and jellyfish. For his art activity, he made a starfish...brown paper, half glue/water mixture brushed over and crushed oatmeal squares sprinkled on top. It will "feel" kind of like a real starfish when it's dry. :o)
His memory verse this week is Col. 3:23, "Whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, not for men." We've had interesting discussions about what it means and how he can apply it to his life right now...doing the jobs he enjoys and the ones he doesn't enjoy with a happy heart attitude because he's not doing them for daddy and mommy, but for God! I've been able to apply it to my life, too...doing my "jobs" as unto the Lord, not unto my kids or husband. When we think about this verse, it changes our attitude every time! ;o)

Kate begged for an "art" activity today. I suggested the dot pens - she loves to color with them. She chose a picture to print from this website to color & dot.
She also wrote her name in white crayon and then dotted over it. Her letters were really light, so I wrote her name using a lot of pressure with the crayon. She dotted over the letters I wrote and revealed her name...

For Kate's math, she continued counting 1-10 forwards and backwards. As a fun activity before she did her paper, we were pretend rockets counting down before blasting off.

"10, 9, 8, 7..."

"Blast-off!!!!"

Her outfit in the pictures above is 2nd one of the day and is what she chose to wear from the dress-up tub. When I asked her who she was today, she told she's Word Girl in a skirt! Ha! :o)

Math

Go figure that it was my least favorite subject in school, yet it's one of Drew and Kate's favorites (at least for now). They both LOVE math.

Kate usually requests to do her math first just like Drew. I had held off working through the Earlybird 2A (Singapore) book with her because at the beginning of the fall there was a lot more number writing then she could do or that I wanted her to do. But now that she's writing all kinds of things on her own (no instruction from me for letters yet), I felt she could get back into the Earlybird book. I'm using the math plans from the LHFHG guide.

She loved using chocolate chips to count to ten today. When it was time to count backwards 10-0, we used all the chocolate chips once and then did it again only this time she ate the chocolate chips as we counted backwards (very slowly). :o)
She was able to write all her numbers by herself today with just a few verbal instructions from me...she reverses the 2 and 3. She always begs to do more pages, but we stick with just one. I don't want her in first grade math too soon! :o)

Unit 8 Complete

We finished Unit 8 on Friday. It was a very late school day (we began at 3 p.m.) as we made an unexpected trip to the dr. office for Kate that morning, then took Jim lunch at work.

Drew aced his Unit 8 spelling test. Played "Mommy Says" to learn about commands for grammar. He made up his own command, "Go outside." and wrote it on lined paper. He finished copying the first verse of the poem for Unit 8. He also review his 2-digit & 3 digit subtraction with regrouping...he's getting it! We finished his history reading and concluded our reading of King of the Wind in the van on the way to the chiropractor late that afternoon. He really enjoyed the genre adventure.

The past 3 evenings, he's read the entire first book in the Freddie Fernortner series (Thanks, Nana!). We're hoping our library has the next book in the series. He told me last night that it's an "old-fashioned" book. I asked him what he meant by that, he replied, "it's in black/white, no colored print or pictures." I told him it's not "old-fashioned" because it was made in 2005 but that it's like an adult book with just black text on a page and no pictures. He seemed okay with this answer. I'm glad he's enjoying reading at night - I think he'd read for hours if we left him stay up. :o)

Kate enjoyed picking up "manna" (a.k.a. Cheerios). I called out a number and she counted that many out as placed them in the bowl. Don't worry, we didn't eat them off the floor. :o)

She also drew a path (dry ground) on plain white paper and then drew a few fish with crayons (pink & purple - her choice) and then painted over the fish with watercolors to make the Red Sea waters. She really wanted to use RED as she thought the sea was indeed Red. :o)

Snowy Thursday

We're finally getting more snow (we had warm temps last week and all our December snow melted). As part of Kate's "project" today, I gave her a snowman-themed paper with 4 pictures on it that had to be put in order. She cut each of them out, put them in order, glued them to a large piece of paper and then drew the final picture in the blank box. Her order is correct (from right to left though)...


She begged for help making the last picture on her own, but I refused because I know she can draw circles and because I want her doing these things on her own. I told her the snowman is 3 circles on top of each other. This is what she drew...big bottom circle and two tiny circles above it for the body and head. :o)It was cute last night at dinner that she told Jim she put together the entire MAISY puzzle on her own. She was so proud of herself. I'm glad I made the choice to begin refusing to help her (in a nice way) so that she can do things on her own and realize it!

Drew's copywork so far for Unit 8...we're still working on correct word spacing, but his printing is really nice-looking. He told me today, "Remember when I used to complain about copywork? Now I just get it done!." Funny how things change in a few months. :o) The other day, Kate was asking me about learning to write (she already writes some letters on her own). I told her she will have a handwriting book next year when she begins Kindergarten. Drew asked when he'll learn cursive and I said, next year. He was so excited. It's one of those "big kid" achievements. :o)

Drew saved his science for last today. It was about mixing oil/water (or trying to) and discovered the oil floats until you add a bit of salt to the water and then the oil drops sink. We tinted the water blue, too! The science lesson tied loosely into our history story because we read today about one of the pilgrims who fell off the Mayflower during a storm and was able to get back aboard the boat.

I am enjoying the Morning Bells devotional book. I was able to find link to the entire book online. Here's what we read together today...

The Sight of Faith.

"As seeing Him who is invisible."--Heb. xi. 27.

If we were always doing everything just as if we saw Him, whom having not
seen we love, how different our lives would be! How much happier too! How
brave, and bright, and patient we should be, if all the time we could
really see Jesus as Stephen saw Him! And by faith, the precious faith
which God is ready to give to all who ask, we may go on our way with this
light upon it, "as seeing Him who is invisible."

These words were said of Moses; and this seeing Him by faith had three
effects. First, "he forsook Egypt;" it made him ready to give up anything
for his God, and God's people. It made him true and loyal to God's cause.
What did He care for anything else, so long as he saw "Him who is
invisible?" Secondly, it took away all his fear. What was "the wrath of
the king" to him, when Jehovah was by his side? Of what should he be
afraid? Thirdly, it enabled him to "endure," to wait patiently for forty
years in the desert, and then to work patiently for forty years in the
wilderness; and only think how strength-giving that sight of faith must be
which enabled him to endure everything for eighty years!

Try for yourself to-day what was such great and long help to Moses. Ask
God, before you go down-stairs, for faith, "the eye of the soul," so that
you may walk all day long "as seeing Him who is invisible." When you are
tempted to indulge in something wrong,--idleness or carelessness, or
selfishness,--this will help you to give it up at once, and forsake it;
for how can you give way to it when your eye meets His? When something
makes you afraid, this will make you brave and peaceful; for how can you
fear anything when your God is so near? When lessons, or work, or even
having to be quiet with nothing to do, seem very tiresome, and you are
tempted to be impatient, and perhaps cross, this will help you to endure
and not only so, but to feel patient; for how can you be impatient when
you are looking up to Him, and He is looking down on you all the time!

"God will not leave me all alone,
He never will forsake His own;
When not another friend I see,
The Lord is looking down on me."

We had a good talk while we read this devotional . Because of the wording, I have to stop often to make sure Drew is understanding it. :o) He had just listened to the story of Stephen from AIO the other day in the van, and Kate's Bible stories are about Moses right now (he often listens in) so it's neat for him to make connections between them realizing they're the same people in the Bible. Drew learned what the word "forsake" means as well as a few others. But most important, he was reminded that when no one else is with him, Jesus is with him!

180 barrels & "G" in dots

We're cruising through Unit 8 this week! It's so nice to "open & go" - we stay on task and I spend less time prepping (selfish, I know- but it's nice)!

Drew learned more about the Pilgrims today as we read the story of The Speedwell - the boat that took pilgrims from Holland to England to meet up with the Mayflower. It was interesting because the Speedwell never made it to America - it had too many leaks. Drew added "Mayflower 1620" to his timeline we began a few months ago. I did the writing and he drew the boat. He told me the little dots along the edge of the boat are the pilgrims. :o)
He also added 180 barrels (a.k.a. Cheerios) to a slit/ziploc bag in the boat he created yesterday. It was the load the Pilgrims took with them to America. It was a simple activity but he kept saying, "this is really cool!"
For his math (no pic today), he began subtracting 2-digit numbers with regrouping. We began by using Cheerios (the manipulative of choice today) in tiny bowls (groups of ten) and loose Cheerios for the one's column. He was able to dump a bowl from the tens to the ones to see how it's taken away and then transferred it to the paper. We used the problems from his paper and made them with the bowls & loose Cheerios. He caught on quickly! By the end of the page he wasn't using the bowls anymore - just doing it on paper!

Kate reviewed letter G today. (We're taking a break from 100 EZ Lessons just because she had been complaining about it. We'll pick it up in the fall when she begins Kindergarten. :o) She used the dot pens to color the Gg combination that I had drawn for her.

Kate's "project" was to complete this Maisy puzzle and she had fun putting the Colorforms on it for awhile (Maisy, art supplies, food, towels, etc...items that go in Maisy's house).

Beads, Mayflower & Math

We had good school time this afternoon while C napped (for most of it). Drew enjoyed his math activity which involved using playing cards to add 3 3-digit numbers. We used the Aces for "1" and the backside of a card for "0" and set up each of the 8 problems from his paper as he worked through the page. He enjoyed using glue sticks as the "regrouping/carrying" ten or hundred. A few problems required him to carry 20 instead of 10. He said, "WOW!" To go along with his history, he created a picture of the Mayflower out of paper. He even painted waves with a Q-tip.

Kate loves doing her work! I'm trying to pull out a "project" for her to do every day from our stash of things and today it was BEADS! She loved them though needed a bit of help to snap some of them together. Drew was eager to help her while I read aloud his adventure story.
Kate's Bible story today was about the Israelites putting blood on their doorposts so the death angel would pass over (last plague in Egypt before Pharaoh let them go). She learned how to draw rectangles on her paper and then counted them (writing the correct numbers 1-5 below each "door" that she had drawn).
Claire woke up at the end of our school time and so she spent some time coloring at the table with her triangle-shaped crayons. She always has to be doing what the "big kids" are doing! :o)