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. 

Wednesday, 9/24/08

Today for math we learned about ordinal numbers and yes we used chocolate as our learning tool.  Everything is better with chocolate!  We then did reinforcement with several different examples.  Later we reviewed telling sentences and asking questions and then learned about exclamations.  The girls practiced writing exclamation points and then did sentences with exclamation points and also said them out loud to show expression.  Then we read In The Tall Tall Grass by Denise Fleming.  We read through it once and then read it again while the girls looked for the caterpillar on each page.  We then did an art project where they made grass and cut out pictures of creatures and hid them in the grass.  Other than the air show practicing in our backyard the art project and maybe the chocolate were the highlight of the day!

Tuesday, 9/23/08

Today we started out learning about odd and even numbers.  We used teddy grams for Hailey and raisins for Emma to demonstrate this.  We drew teeter toters on paper and then used six snacks and put one snack on each side of the three teeter toters and no one was left out.  Then we ate one snack and only had five left and put them back on the teeter toters and we had one that was left out so that meant that five was an odd number and six was even.  Then we did a story problem and the girls drew pictures to figure it out.  The story was about a butterfly house and a ladybug house so there is a picture of Hailey's drawing.  I thought she did a really good job and I think her houses look straight out of a Dr. Suess book.  Later for science we learned about Anders Celsius and how he came up with the first thermometer.  We talked about how to read a thermometer and then did experiments reading different temperatures.  And then after that we read a poem called Whisky Frisky and the girls had to guess what kind of animal it was about.  I had to give them a couple of hints and they finally got it when I said they feed them in the backyard at grandmas house (squirrel).  We discussed how it was broken up into stanzas and then the girls had to count how many stanzas there were.  Then we read a Hindu fable called The Mouse and the Wizard.  We talked about the Hindu people a little and how they make up most of the population in India.  We also talked about how a fable is a type of story that teaches a lesson.   I have to admit though after reading it I am not sure what the lesson was supposed to be.  Oh well, good reading time I guess.  

Monday, 9/22/08

Today we started out with name and address cards.  I had a picture of this but removed it after I realized you could very clearly see our phone number and address.  Not a good idea to put on the internet I thought.  Anyways . . . this was good for Emma to get practice writing her name and it was good for Hailey so she could practice better pennmenship.  For math we worked on before, after, and between using the numbers 0-12.  We also worked on counting and writing her numbers backwards starting from 12.  This unit was really easy for her so after she completed the assessment we made paper chains to count down the days till we get to go to Oma and Opa's house for the blessing of their cousin.  This worked well counting backwards and introducing new numbers up to 19.  In the afternoon we worked on some silly poems from a book called Ready, Set, Read.  Hailey really surprised me!  She was able to read the poems almost all by herself.  This was the first time that she seemed really confident to read on her own, especially something that she has never read before.  I was super excited and so was she!  I love that I am the one that gets to see those things click for her.  It's amazing!  After reading and discussing the poem we made puppets that went along with the poems and then the girls put on a puppet show.  It was pretty cute!  Here are some pics from the day . . .

Friday, 9/19/08

Today we started learning about number lines.  Hailey did really well with this.  We pretty much breezed right through it.  Emma worked on a which is smaller worksheet.  We then did a dot to dot that used only the numbers 0-12 to reinforce what we have been working on ie. number order and numbers 0-12.  Then we did an M&M graph again only going up to the number twelve.  We learned how to read the graph and then the girls had fun eating the M&M's.  In the afternoon we worked on sentence structure, word order, and then did a coloring project where they had to write a story about their favorite place.  Guess what they picked?  Yep, Disneyland . . . again!  So Hailey wrote a story about Disneyland (well, she recited and I wrote) and then drew a picture of Disneyland.  Then we read two rhyming books, Oh The Places You'll Go and Green Eggs and Hamm.  The girls loved finishing the rhyming words on Green Eggs and Hamm.  We also canned peaches and talked about the importance of food storage of food storage.  I don't know what you would count that as as far as subjects go, but I felt it was educational. :)

Thursday, 9/18/08

Well, today wasn't quite as crazy.  Thank heavens!  Today we did more review of our numbers 1-12 and started to talk about number order.  Hailey did a connect the dot worksheet where she had to put all the numbers in the right order.  Then we did a story problem about a little girl named Jane and her twelve chocolates.  Throughout the story Jane loses her chocolates and so we worked on our subtraction starting from the number twelve.  After math we did a fill in the alphabet train.  Then we talked about vowels and worked on the phonics for the vowel E.  Later we did a science unit on milliliters using a graduated cylinder.  We worked on counting in 10's up to 100 and then did a lab sheet on how much volume was in a certain object using the graduated cylinder.  For language arts we talked about asking sentences (questions) and how they are different from telling sentences.  We then practiced writing question marks and then did a worksheet where she had to write a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and then a either a question mark or a period at the end depending on the type of sentence.  Finally, we did a coloring project on Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.  I asked Hailey and Emma if they had a magic pebble what they would wish for.  Both of them replied . . . "I want to go to Disneyland!"  So they drew pictures of Disneyland and then made sure to include the red magic pebble that got them there.  I wish I had a picture of Hailey's Disneyland picture.  It was so cute!  It had the castle with fireworks and a very happy Hailey standing out front, but the water we used for our science project spilled all over it.  Maybe when it dries I will be able to get a picture!