October-November

Well, we've been gone for a while but hopefully we will be back!  We have still been doing school everyday, just not blogging about it.  Here are just a few pics of some of the things we have been up to.  We learned about the anatomy of a leaf and then we went out and collected leaves and made rubbings of them.  Our two girls have started playing the piano and our oldest has really loved it.  She actually asks if she can practice.  I think that is unheard of!  Since our absence I think I have discovered our oldest might have ADD.  Her dad has it and she has a lot of the same things that he has.  After researching into it more, I have found better ways to teach her and she has really begun to excel in math and is able to focus more.  She just learned how to add three numbers and I can't believe how quickly she picked it up.  Anyways, I will try to be more faithful to our homeschool blog and let you know what we do each and everyday!

Updates to come!

As to our recent car accident, I have been spending my normal blogging time to trying to research the best way to handle everything.  We still our having our normal homeschool schedule, but I just haven't had time to blog about it!  Hopefully we can quickly get things squared away and I can get back into my regular blogging routine!  Wish us luck!

Thursday, 10/16/08

Today we started with math.  That seems to work best for us.  We learned about subtraction 5 facts and the girls did really well with this.  Then we read a poem called the storm.  The little boy in the poem really liked the sounds of the storm, but my oldest made it very clear that she does not like the sounds.  We then read a story by Beatrix Potter and talked about that and discussed some of the words that were unfamiliar to them.  For science we learned about the different parts of plants and what they need to live and then we made our own flowers, roots and all, to demonstrate what we learned. We also made pumpkins out of paper bags for an art project.  They are still drying so we will have to finish that tomorrow.  We ended by practicing our sight words out of our Book of Mormon curriculum.  

Wednesday, 10/15/08

We did a lot of reading today!  We read from our fairy tales book about a real princess(the princess and the pea) and then we read a poem titled the mackrel.  We also read the story Peter Cottontail.  I feel like a lot of the literature for kindergarten, as well as the questions, are pretty basic so I am going through it quickly to give our oldest a little more of a challenge.  For science we did the same thing.  The next like three lessons were on whether something was living or dead and our oldest and even our youngest daughter knows what's living and dead and what they need to survive.  NO BRAINER!!! So we breezed through about three lessons.  We also worked on the kw sounds for the works quick, queen, quilt, etc.  Then for math we did more subtraction focusing on subtracting fours.  Our oldest wasn't as focused on math today, but that was mainly my fault for waiting till the end of the day, but she still did pretty good.

Thursday, 10/9/08 - Tuesday, 10/14/08

So we are back from vacation and yes, we still did school!   On Thursday we were able to finish our addition unit.  Hopefully our oldest has a good fundamental grasp on the basics.  We also learned about our teeth.  We talked about the different parts of the teeth ie the crown, the neck and the root.  We talked about the dentist and also about how we start with baby teeth and then adult teeth come in.  We also did a story for language arts.  Friday was a no school day! HOORAY!  It was really nice.  I was planning to teach and then went online to discover there was no school!   On Monday we started subtraction and continued with that today.  Both of the girls seem to be grasping this concept much faster that the addition unit.  Today they almost didn't need to use manipulatives! Amazing!  Yesterday we read part of Sleeping Beauty and then talked about how to set the table.  We did this little story about how to remember how to set the table.  

The princess (the fork) was on the left and was separated from her prince by an alligator infested swamp (the plate) and an angry guard (the knife).  They really liked this story and so I gave them print outs of a proper place setting and they drew the characters from the story.  Today we finished the story of sleeping beauty and talked about what happened and how the people in the story must have felt after being asleep for 100 years.  We also did our book of mormon reading which we do every night.  I highly recommend this learning method.  I am amazed at how well our oldest is picking it up.  IT'S AWESOME!!!  Hopefully I will have pictures tomorrow.  I am still playing catch up from vacation!

Wednesday, 10/8/08

There will be no posts for the next couple of days.  We will be on vacation!  I will be sure to post our new "learnings"  when we get back!

Tuesday, 10/07/08

Today we did more addition sentences and the number 6 addition facts.  We learned that even though you reverse the order of the numbers they still equal the same sum.  For science we learned about muscles.  We learned about the arm muscles and we made our own arm (elbow included) with balloons for muscles.  We learned about the heart and the girls learned how to feel for a pulse and learned about the size of their heart.  Then we talked about the brain.  Later for literature we read Hey Diddle Diddle and the colored and cut out the characters in the poem and then had to put them in order.  Then we read a poem about pumpkins and then they made mosaic pumpkins.  It was a pretty fun day and the girls favorite part was learning about the muscles.  I have to admit that it was pretty fun as well.  Did you know there are 640 muscles in the human body?  I didn't until today.  Just another fun fact!

Monday, 10/6/08

For math, we started with review on the computer then moved on to addition sentences.  Her workbook had her counting pennies, so I pulled out the pretend money and that really help her to visualize the problem.  Then she moved on to doing problems that didn't have visuals.  I thought she would really struggle with this, but she did pretty good.  I saw her using her fingers a couple of times, but she did it!  Then we did a bunch of phonics worksheets.  I am trying to get her to a place that is a little more challenging for her so we have been doing a bunch of these worksheets until we find something she doesn't already know.  Then we read a poem that I loved called Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson.  This is the second poem of his that we have read and I absolutely love them.  They are so real to life and what kids think!  Then we read Tom Thumb and our oldest loved the book.  It was a bit long for our 3 year old.  We then did a little book that the kids could color.  It had sentences you had to read in order to know what color to color the leaves.  So I like _______ leaves.  The girls really enjoyed this and they can't wait till our own leaves on the trees change color!

Friday, 10/03/08

Today my husband did the math lesson in the morning so I could go to a friends house and learn how to can grape juice.  Hopefully I will be able to apply that to a lesson.  Anyways, he taught more about addition sentences and adding 5 facts (different addends that equal the sum of 5).  He also used manipulatives to really help her visualize the addition sentences.  Later we worked on a weekly review of her phonics which went really quickly.  Then for language arts we read the story Thumbelina and talked about which characters were nice and which ones weren't and how we can be nice.  She then colored and cut out different characters from the story i.e. the sparrow, butterfly, field mouse, and mole.  She really liked this story because Thumbelina turned into a fairy queen at the end.  Today was such a nice day to have my husband home and to let him take a turn teaching so he can see what goes into our lessons.  

Thursday, 10/2/08

On Thursday we started out with phonics just to mix things up a bit.  This actually turned out to be a mistake.  I think we all have gotten so used to the routine of things that it kind of threw the whole day off, but oh well.  You live and learn.   So we started with phonics and our oldest  breezed through that and then went on the help her sister.  That worked out really nice.  I threw in a picture of how our baby has been the last couple of days.  It has been really frustrating dealing with him and trying to do school, but it looks like he is doing better now and his teeth are finally starting to break through!  My husband came home early today, so I waited for him to continue with school.   We did math in the afternoon, and again because it was a different schedule our oldest didn't have the greatest attention span.  But we did manage to learn about addends and sums and practiced writing addition sentences and then learned to write those sentences in a vertical format.  Later we did science and learned about the different bones in our bodies and their function.  Then they got to make their own skeletons.  Not the best day, but what do you do with a screaming baby?  I'll tell you . . . you do your very best and hope that your kids are learning something.   Here's to hoping!!!

Wednesday, 10/1/08

So I didn't get quite as many pictures today, but we were quite productive.  Before we started class I took the kids to park.  Today was supposed to be the last really nice day of the season so I thought we should take advantage of it.  The girls met some kids at the park and decided to have races up and down the hill.  I love how kids can make friends with anyone.  I wish it were that easy for me.  Not that it couldn't be as my husband would say, but it's just not for me.  Anyways, we came back and worked on addition sentences.  I love teaching something to our oldest and then having her teach to our middle child.  Not only is our middle kid learning, but it helps reinforce it for our oldest.  LOVE IT!!!  Later we read Little Red Riding Hood and talked about safety with strangers.  She was really curious about this subject so we did quite a bit of discussing.  After that we did phonics sheets addressing the ending sound g, letter recognition, and a whole bunch of other ones that I can't really remember right now. :)  Then we worked on science.  Since switching from first grade science to kindergarten, I feel that is a little to easy for her.   So we did a bunch of assessments together until we came to some things she didn't know quite as well so she can be a little more challenged and I can feel like I am not wasting time on something she obviously knows very well.  Then to end off the day we did more math review with apples and then made an apple pie and talked about measurements.  Oh, and the pie was really tasty as evident from the pictures!

Tuesday 9/30/08

Today we started with math.  We did review and then started working on addition.  We finally got our manipulative items and workbooks so it was fun to get to use those.  The workbook was awesome because I was able to help our oldest with the first couple and then she worked on the rest by herself so I was able to help our middle child work on her math book.  Later we worked on a poem called the smily apple.  The girls made up motions to it and then memorized it.  We also read Jack and the Beanstalk and then colored a "magic harp". We then did some phonics worksheets that worked on letter recognition and ending sounds.  We also learned about syllables and both the girls caught on to that pretty quickly.  At night we did a scavenger hunt in the dark with a flashlight and then used a magnifying glass to examine what we found.  A lot of the stuff we did for science today was review, so we went through it pretty quickly but the girls had fun.  Then for a treat we made cakes in mugs that you cook in the microwave.  They really liked that!  And so did I.  It was pretty fun!

Monday 9/29/08

I have to admit that today was one of the rougher days that we've had so far.  My baby would not stop crying.  No matter what I did!  But somehow we managed to do school.  Here is what we did today.  Math was mainly review.  We worked on odd and even, which our oldest seems to have a really good grasp of.  Then we did more and less and reviewed zero through twelve.  Later we did quite a few phonics work sheets, mostly having to do with beginning and ending sounds.  Then for our two year old we did a worksheet on the color green.  We then read the story The Frog Prince.  The girls loved this because, well they love anything that has to do with princesses.  Then they made frog princes.  I used a pattern that involved a heart shape so our two year old could practice her shapes.  Then we made crowns so the girls could be princesses to go along with their frog prince.  We also did some right hand, left had review by playing a game of simon says and then worked on balance by making a pretend balance beam out of string.  They loved this and thought it was really funny to try to go backwards with their eyes closed without falling off.

Friday, 9/26/08

Today we started out listening to mom practice for her solo in church on Sunday.  After that we came back and reviewing 1 more and 1 fewer.  Then we practiced story problems using the technique Read, Draw and Write.  So mommy would read the problem then they would have to draw in out and then write the answer.  After that we did color review with the color red.  This was really good, mostly for our preschooler, but our kindergartener enjoyed it as well.  We focused too on the phonics of the word red.  Later in the afternoon we read a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson titled A Good Play.  I thought I would share because I think it's very cute.

We built a ship upon the stairs

All made of the back-bedroom chairs,

And filled it full of soft pillows 

To go a-sailing on the billows.

We took a saw and several nails, And water in the nursery pails; 

And Tom said, "Let us also take An apple and a slice of cake;"

-- Which was enough for Tom and me To go a-sailing on, till tea.  

We sailed along for days and days, And had the very best of plays; 

But Tom fell out and hurt his knee, So there was no one left but me.

So after we read the poem we discussed it and then built our own boat out of chairs

pillows.  The girls loved this and loved to play pirate.  You will see in one of their

pictures they did pirate faces.  Later Robb did a few of the phonics worksheets focusing

on the letters starting with E and H and then worked on matching ending sounds.  Then 

they worked on vowels to see if the picture word had the vowel O.  

Thursday 9/25/08

This post will probably be shorter, because I am so exhausted, but we'll see what happens.  We started out learning about patterns and working on one more and one less.  We worked on a worksheet where you had to draw circles in a row next to the number in wanted you to draw and then at the bottom there was a pattern of shapes and you had to complete the pattern.  Then we made a pattern out of fruit cheerios and then made bracelets out of them.  We were going to do necklaces, but the kids began to lose interest.  Then we worked on science.  We talked about the five senses that scientists use to explore the world around them.  We then made watercolor paints out of koolaid to show how we use not just our sense of sight when we paint, but also are smell.  They created lots of beautiful pieces of artwork.  Then we reviewed the different types of sentences we have learned about i.e. telling, asking, and exclamation and then learned a new type of sentence, the command.  We then took turns playing simon says to demonstrate what commands are and then did some writing practice with commands.  Later Robb read a few of their phonics books with them and worked on sight words.