MFW 1st Grade - Week 7 in Review

Week 7 is in the books!!  Whoo Hoo!!  As I am typing this post we are sitting out at our campsite :-)  We have decided to have a nice relaxing weekend in the RV!  It has been so long since we have been able to take the RV out due to this HOT summer we had!!  It is nice to get in the outdoors (even though the days are still pretty warm, at least the nights are cooling down).  And to make it even more fun we have some friends that are joining us with their RV tomorrow morning!!  :-)  I believe lots of memories will be made this weekend!

We only had 3 days of school this week due to the fact that Aaron had a speech therapy evaluation on Monday!  But Seth was able to have a little bit of "school" at a friend's house while Aaron and I were at the evaluation.  He just about memorized his new proverbs there and worked on some phonics and got to play with a pocket chart having fun with word families.  Thank you Mrs. Angela for being the "substitute" teacher that day for us!  (oh and Alyssa enjoyed being spoiled by their family that day as well - LOL!)

We did Days 24 - 27 of the Teacher's Manual this week for reading.  (we skipped the day 25 exploration day since it doesn't involve reading).  We continued our work on long vowels and today worked on the sound /oo/ as in spoon.  Seth was so funny with this one.   He kept trying to add the /n/ sound at the end of it.  He was so cute.  I figure I had him say /oo/ 50 times or more - LOL!  But he started getting it at the end.

MathWe did days 22 through 24 of the math grid this week.  We continued our work on learning numbers.  As I shared a couple of days ago Seth learned about the alligator that likes to eat bigger numbers (greater than/less than signs)

Books we read this week for Math:
Prairie Dogs Perching: Counting by 3s by Amanda Doering Tourville
Sunning Sea Lions: Discovering Even Numbers by Amanda Doering Tourville
Hiding Hippos: Counting from 1 to 10 by Amanda Doering Tourville
Look Who's Counting by Suse MacDonald
How High Can A Dinosaur Count by Valorie Fisher
Counting by Sar Pistoia
Underwater Counting by Jerry Pallotta

Science
We did days 22 through 24 of the teacher's manual this week for science, which means we finished our study on trees and started our study on rain.  Of course it would be a lot funner to study rain if we could actually experience some rain.  Here in Texas were we live we are under a very bad drought right now (in fact the lake we are camping at this weekend is quite low!  There are large beach areas that are  usually not there).  But I guess I can show them how things in the state they are in outside right now are a result of no rain and how the ground and the trees and the animals need rain to survive.

I am looking forward to our experiments next week.  We are going study evaporation by watching how water disappears from a bowl (shouldn't take too many days to dry up that bowl - LOL!) and we are going to create rain!  (oh how I wish we could maginfy the amount we are going to create and actually produce a good rainfall outside! Oh well - I guess creating a little bit in the kitchen from a jar will have to be good enough).

Books we read this week
The Busy Tree by Jennifer Ward
One Rainy Day by Christina Butler (VERY CUTE book!!)
When Rain Falls by Melissa Stewart

Bible
We memorized Proverbs 16:24.  Here is the video of Seth saying his Proverbs.  (remember if you are viewing this from email you will have to go to the blog to see the video)

We also didn't get to our activity of making a bible costume today since we wanted to get things packed up for camping... I am hoping to work that in to next week sometime.  I have planned my lessons for next week - that will be the week where Seth (and Mommy) learn how to make a map of the Bible lands map!  That should be very interesting!  I am going to have to get creative though on the day that we are suppose to be looking at a globe and a flat map...because I haven't gotten our globe yet...

Aaron and Alyssa

As mentioned, Aaron had a speech therapy evaluation on  Monday and is being recommended for speech therapy.  We are playing the waiting game right now waiting to see if insurance will cover it with this facility that we had the evaluation at.  In the meantime I have been given good information to start working with him at home.  I have found several websites that have a lot of good printables, games, etc for us to do.  And I have found some good ipad apps (which works well since Aaron LOVES the ipad).  I mentioned the Tiga Talk app the other day in this post if you want to read more information on that.



Aaron and Alyssa have finally shown interest in my "busy box" that I made up for them!  I am so excited and hope that the activities will hold their attention while I try to work with Seth.

I didn't do a very good job getting pictures this week! I am hoping to have some more schoolroom pics to show next week :-) I have figured out yet another way to rearrange my room to give us more space and have better use of the space we have!  Hubby has agreed to getting in there with me on Sunday afternoon to help me move things around!  I am so excited!!!  It will make a BIG change, but will solve a lot of the headache I have been having with the room set up :-)!!  I can't wait to share pics with yall!!

But for now I am going to go back to relaxing with my family!

Until next time,
Kellie

This and That

Here's another "this and that" post of different things going on in school this week!

Seth's Math -
Seth is learning the greater and less signs this week.  I took an idea that I saw on pinterest (yes, I'm addicted) to teach this concept to him.  I had him envision the signs being an alligator's mouth and that the alligator always wants more so his mouth is always open to the bigger number.  I think it really worked because he nailed all the problems on his worksheet after this explanation!  :-)

Aaron and Alyssa have decided that they want to now explore the box of busy items I have made for them.  They had fun today exploring through that box.  :-)  Hopefully this curiousity will stick and they will continue to want to play with these because it does keep them busy so I can concentrate on Seth's lesson.

I will be honest - Alyssa has been a holy terror this week!! She has been fussy and cries whens she doesn't get her way!  Sometimes I just don't know what I am going to do with that girl.  But I know I need to just take deep breaths and realize she is still so young.  I need to pray for more patience!! My oh my!  Her screams are just so loud!!

Aaron had a speech therapy evaluation  on Monday and is being recommended for speech therapy.  We are in the waiting process now - waiting to see if insurance will cover the therapy.  In the mean time I am starting him on some speech exercises during school time.

I wanted to share an awesome ipad app we have discovered!!  We started playing it today and I love it, and more importantly - he LOVES it.

It is called Tiga Talk.  The iTunes store describes it as "Tiga Talk Speech Therapy Games, developed with licensed speech and language pathologists, is a fun way for children to develop speech sounds through playful voice-controlled games that can improve speech clarity, articulation, and instill confidence"

It goes through each of the sounds and teaches the child the correct way to pronounce the sound and then has them say the sound...if the microphone does not pick up the correct pronunciation it will continue to work with the child until it does.  After the kid says the sound correctly it will let them play a game where they have to use the sound correctly over and over again to win the game (like using the p sound to pop all the balloons).  There are different levels and the higher levels even have sound blends.

Not only is this helping Aaron say his sounds correctly, it is also helping him in getting his voice out (which is another area we are working on with him) because he has to say the sounds loud enough for the microphone to pick up!

I am THRILLED to have found this app and really think it will help Aaron alot!  I have also found some other apps, along with some printable games and stuff that we will be using! And hopefully the insurance will be approved, and it won't take very long to do so!  :-)  I would much rather work with this group instead of going through our public school system that we are zoned for.

Until next time,
Kellie

The Reading Corner - officially set up!! LOL!!

Ok, so you have read in other posts that I have been trying to make a reading corner, remember?  I am really wanting reading time to be a big focus on our school time and have wanted to have a special place for us to have this reading time.

Well... I have finally accomplished that!! YOOHOO!!!!  :-)

This weekend we were having a "family date day" (having fun out as a whole family) and we were at Target and guess what they had?!?!  BEAN BAGS!!!!!!!  YAY!!!!!!  I was so excited!!!

The bean bags, of course, are huge, which makes for very comfortable seating for the kids, but they do take up a lot of room...and we have a rather small schoolhouse.

So I did some rearranging today and I am super happy with my results.  Would you like to see??  You know I of course took pictures!  So take a view of our new room :-)!!!!

 I got the kids each a bean bag and then you can see my "box" in the corner... it is a cushioned ottoman - the top comes off to store our blankets.  It is actually very comfy to sit on too.

 I moved the craft table over by the door.  I had two 3-drawer filing cabinets sitting beside one another.  I decided to stack on on the other to give us more room (and thankfully it does not make them too tall to reach either :-) )

 This picture shows you where the craft tabe is in relation to the desks (they were kind of out of place during this picture...Alyssa likes to move them around)

Here is a view from the door - LOOK how much floor space we gained!!  YAY!!  And if we are doing an activity that we need more floor space the bean bags can be stacked in the corner and the desks can be pushed up against the wall where the white board is and we have almost the entire floor of the school house free!!  YAY!!

I guess it's pretty evident how excited I am about this rearrangement of things!!   I don't know if you noticed the pocket chart on the wall in the story corner...but we will be able to do pocket chart activities while we sit on our bean bags as well! Fun! Fun!!

The kids are super excited about this too :-)

Until next time,

Kellie

MFW 1st Grade - Week 6 in Review

WOW!!  It is hard to believe that we have just finished our 6th week of school!!  OMG!!  We have had 20 days of school (LOL that number doesn't seem as high...but it is due to the fact that we only school 4 days a week...)!!  
We are LOVING the MFW 1st Grade Curriculum still!!  And it has been so neat this week to see Seth's reading clicking like it has been!!  This week has been a good week to remind me what homeschooling is all about!!  I love being right there when that light bulb goes off in his head and he reads a word!  I feel so privileged to be able to experience this with him, something that a lot of moms are not able to do.  Thank you God for giving me the opportunity to be able to do so!
Reading

We did days 19 through 23 in the teacher's manual.  One of the things that I love is how I can  change up the lesson plans as needed.  We went ahead and did a reading lesson on our exploration day this week because we are not going to be able to do school on Monday due to Aaron's speech therapy evaluation.  But I don't think Seth really minded that much because he is enjoying his reading lessons right now.  Our main focus on reading this week was the silent e and how it makes the other vowels say their name.  Seth also finished his animal tales book that he made writing the sentences from each day and drawing his pictures to go along with it!  He is very proud of his book and can't wait to show it to Daddy.

Seth has earned $1.00 in his book fund!!  We are working real hard to see how much money he can earn before our trip to a BIG bookstore in a couple of weeks!!  :-)
MathWe got through days 18-21 of Math this week!  We continued our focus on numbers and counting and worked on learning how to count by 2, 5 and 10!
Books we read this week for Math:Penguin Pairs: Counting by Two's by Amanda Doring TourvilleArtic Fives Arrive by Elinor J PincezesThe Big Storm: A Very Soggy Counting Book by Nancy TafuriLyle Walks the Dogs by Bernard WaberCat Count by Betsy LewinPie for Piglets: Counting by Two's by Michael Dahl
I have to note about the books - the good thing about reading literature to help with our math concepts is the fact that it gets Aaron and Alyssa involved.  They loved the reading of these books and loved helping me count in the books. Through just reading those story books, their counting skills have improved :-)
ScienceWe did days 18-21 of the Teachers Manual for science this week. Our focus this week was trees.  Exploration day was especially fun this week as we made bark rubbings and climbed trees.  You can read more detail about it here.

On exploration day we also watched the Reading Rainbow episode "Once There Was A Tree".  (I want to give another shout out to my awesome Mom for supplying us with these video resources!!  Thanks MiMi!!!  We love you!!)
Books we read this week on the subject of trees:Curious George Plants A Tree by Margaret & H.A. ReyThe Giving Tree by Shel SilversteinLittle Bear and the Wishing Tree by Norbert Landa and Simon MendezThe Man Who Lived in a Hollow Tree by Anne Shelby & Core HazelaarA Tree for Emmy by Mary Ann Rodman BibleWe memorized Proverbs 21:23.  Here is the video of Seth saying his Proverbs.  (remember if you are viewing this from email you will have to go to the blog to see the video)

We also talked about the books of the bible and talked about the different authors of the bible, and how God is the true author.  Seth doesn't believe that he will be able to memorize the books of the bible later in this year.  I can't wait to see his face when he does :-)
Aaron and AlyssaWell we found something to keep Alyssa busy while we are doing reading lessons - PLAY-DOH!!  (at least that is what worked this week...hopefully it will next week too LOL!!)
Aaron was my hard one this week.  Aaron would get very upset when I would not let him do what HE wanted to do when HE wanted to do it because it would be distracting to Seth trying to do his reading!  Aaron ended up a couple of times standing outside the schoolroom because crying fits are not allowed in the school room.  By the end of the week though he was being more compliant when he realized that he is not always able to get his way.
At least, so far, Aaron and Alyssa are not being super difficult at the same time LOL!  Lord help us all when that happens!
:-( And on a sad note, after school this morning the kids were playing outside and Alyssa encountered her first cactus and decided to grab it with both hands!!  I don't know if I have ever heard her scream that bad!But after drying glue all over her hands and peeling it off and then using duct tape I think we got all the quills.

All better Mommy!
We have co-op classes again tomorrow and the kids are super excited about that!  Then we are looking forward to a spending a fun weekend with Daddy - just enjoying some family time! :-)
I hope you all have a good weekend as well!
Until next time,Kellie

Exploration Day!!

Today was exploration day again!  The kids get super excited about these days because it is less "work" and more "fun"!

The boys enjoyed their pattern blocks again!  Alyssa actually enjoyed putting the colored counting bears in their matching color cup! YAY!  And she did a good job at it too! :-)

Since our science focus for this exploration day was trees we had some fun with the trees in our yard.  First off we made bark rubbings on one of the trees.

And then I gave the instructions for the kids to just have fun exploring the trees!!

Of course Seth decided that meant climbing the trees :-)

Daddy - Seth wanted me to take this picture to show you :-)


Aaron told me he was not a good climber so we found a tree with a very low limb for him to climb.

Alyssa just wanted to touch a tree...that's all :-)

(and yes I know...they are in their pjs today... I told them we could have a pj morning because we are going to be getting baths before lunch today due to a busy afternoon of dental appts for me and Seth...and I like to have them nice and clean for church on Wednesday nights... so what's the point of getting dressed before baths... of course Aaron was ECSTATIC to be able to stay in his jammies! LOL!!)

And the weather was pretty enough that I just opened the doors of the school house so that I could get some work done while they enjoyed playing outside :-)

Oh - and I have to add this.  We went ahead and did a reading lesson today (even though the curriculum tells you not to on exploration day) because we are not going to be able to have school on Monday due to Aaron's speech therapy evaluation.  I did not want us to get too behind, especially since we usually only school 4 days a week.  

Our reading lesson today was o_e and oe.  One of the words that Seth had to read was home. When he sounded it out and it clicked what the word was he said "home...as in Home Depot! My favorite place in the whole wide world".  LOL!  That's my Seth!  (I just don't know why, of all places, that is his favorite...I guess it's because it's his Daddy's favorite!!)

Until next time,
Kellie

This and That

As everyone knows I am still trying to figure out what to do with Aaron and Alyssa during school time.  Well play-doh has seemed to work the past couple of days.  Both of them have enjoyed playing play-doh during Seth's reading time!  It would be nice if this trend would keep up :-)

 See the stack of blankets and pillows in the background??  I really wish our school house was just a wee bit bigger for a nice story corner...it would look so much better.  I am hoping to at least be able to get some bean bags or something for Christmas.  I know there has to be a good solution for a good story corner...I just haven't thought of it yet :-)

 See Seth in the background concentrating hard on his workbook?!?  Thank you Aaron and Alyssa for being so good and letting him concentrate!  :-)

Seth is doing really really well with his reading!!!  It is really starting to click with him and I am so excited!!  I came up with my own reading "game" to give more practice.  I have been putting all the words from the workbook on flashcards.  Well we started a "book fund" - for each word he read correctly he earned a penny towards his book fund!   In a few weeks he is hoping to have enough money to go buy a Star Wars book :-)

After we do all of the scheduled school stuff (reading, math, bible, science, art, reading corner) all three kids can choose activities that they want to do independently, like puzzles or ipad games, play-doh, etc..., while I get everything prepped for the next day, or work on a blog post for our blog (like I'm doing right now), etc... We probably spend another hour after our "school" time in independent activities.  The kids love being in the school room :-) and this allows me to get everything that needs to be done for school done while we are are still out there so once we get back in the house I can concentrate on house chores and other stuff.

Today Alyssa wanted to help me.  So I plugged in computer cool school for her while I was on the laptop.  I really think she thinks she was helping!  I think her "writing" in the picture below was what she wanted to do tomorrow (I just wish I could read her writing LOL).

It really makes me feel good when the kids wake up excited about a day of school!  I guess I must be doing something right!  :-)

Until next time,

Kellie

MFW 1st Grade - Week 5 In Review

We had a fun week this week!  We are continuing to love our curriculum!
ReadingThis week we did days 15 through 18 in the teacher's manual.  We continued our focus short vowel sounds with looking specifically at o and u, and then on Thursday started with long vowel a, learning the rule "Silent e makes the other vowel say it's name".  After we finished the lines on the workbook page he seemed to be still struggling with the concept so we tried one of the games suggested in the back of the book.  I put all the words for the day on the white board and gave Seth the eraser.  I told him he could erase the word when he got it right.  After doing a few that way he really started grasping the concept!  And I LOVED watching the light bulb come on in his head as he started "getting it"  (one of the greatest joys of homeschooling!!)

 I guess propping a foot on the wall helps him concentrate - LOL!

Seth is also continuing to read short books during our story corner time!  He is doing really well with his reading.  I am very proud of him.
MathThis week we did days 14 through 17 in the teacher's manual, continuing our focus on numbers and counting. Seth is very good at recognizing his numbers and can easily count to 100 so this was pretty much just a review for him.  But he still enjoyed doing the worksheets in his math book.
Books we read on this concept:How Many Kisses Do You Want Tonight by Varsha BajajTally Cat Keeps Track by Trudy Harris
Some of you may remember my post a few weeks back about the pattern blocks and how I hadn't purchased the pattern block book.  I just used templates from online but they were way too easy for Seth.  Well, I ultimately decided to go ahead and purchase the pattern block book and I am so glad I did!!  During our exploration day this week we did a couple of templates from that book and it was a lot more challenging for Seth!  He enjoyed trying to figure it out though!!  Yay!  We didn't do any of the worksheets that day though, just had fun working with the templates.

And Aaron enjoyed doing the simple templates that I had found online!!  YAY!!  So I didn't waste paper printing those out LOL!  I was really pleased at how well he did with them and he had fun working with them too.  (I think it helped him to feel "big" like his brother).

ScienceWe did days 14 through 17 in the teacher's manual this week, focusing on seeds and how they grow!  On Exploration day we did the experiment suggested the book.  The night before I soaked some beans (decided that this was a good time to go ahead and soak some beans for supper the next night as well!!  YUM!)  On exploration day we examined a few of the beans and studied their different parts.  We then put the rest and wrapped them in very wet paper towels and foil.  We are pulling out a couple each day to observe how they are changing.
We are recording the changes in our science journal.

Books we read this week on this topic:Mouse and Mole and the Year Round Garden by Doug CushmanHow A Seed Grows by Helene J JordanMax's Magic Seeds by Jean-Pierce CorderochRose: A Flower's Story by Joanne Randolph

BibleSeth learned another proverbs this week.  Here is the video of him reciting Proverbs 23:12.(Remember if you are viewing this from email you will have to go the blog to see the video...it won't show up in the email)

He told me the other day one of his favorite things about school is learning his proverbs :-)  I am so glad he is enjoying this!  He gets excited about being able to recite them to Daddy during supper every night!  :-)
Aaron And Alyssa
Of course I am still trying to figure out what to do with Aaron and Alyssa during school time... I have a feeling this will be a common theme all year!  
Aaron did learn how to make the letter A this week, on his own.  (If I would have asked him to do this he would have refused...he's just that way - he is going to do things his way on his time).  Anyways, here is a picture of his A he put on the white board.

Alyssa enjoys writing on the white board but you have to keep a very close watch on her to make sure she doesn't try to take the marker to another part of the room to "draw".  That little stink!!

We are going tomorrow to our first field trip with our homeschool co-op group!  We are going to tour a fire station and then going to the park for lunch and play time!  And then we have to go grocery shopping and get things ready for MIMI to come see us for the weekend!!!  :-)
See yall next week!Kellie

Seth has homework!!

We started something new this week that I think is going to work out really well for us!  Seth has started having "homework"... or I guess for us it would probably be more appropriate to say "nap-work" LOL!

I have additional workbooks and resources (a lot that have come from my mom, a veteran public school teacher) to help Seth further grasp his phonics and reading concepts.  I have been having trouble figuring out how to incorporate them into our school time in the mornings.

I am also having trouble with Seth doing work independently... he wants me to be right there to let him know if he has the right answer or not before he puts anything on his paper (because he hates to have wrong answers).

So I figured out a way to kill these two birds with one stone - homework!!  I am saving some of the worksheets from my additional resources for Seth to do during his "nap" time.  He has not been taking naps for a while now but he still has to have quiet time in his room (so that I will be able to have some quiet time...Mommy needs her nap LOL).  Anyways, I am giving him his worksheet assignments to do during his quiet time.  He has to listen very carefully to the instructions so he will remember what he is suppose to do, and then he has to do the pages in his room, which is a different room than I am in.  He has to do his best to finish the worksheets to the best of his ability and then I will check his work after naptime is over.

Today was our second day to do this and he is doing very well with it (and even though I don't know if he will admit it I think he is enjoying it as well). This is not only teaching him how to work independently, it is also helping me to see what information he is truly retaining.  And of course he is able to concentrate on his work without his brother and sister pestering him.

I just thought I would share this in case there are others out there that could use this idea!

Until next time,
Kellie

We love games!!

I picked up a domino game at Wal-Mart for less than $4!!  We enjoyed playing today!  Of course when I saw it I saw real quick that this will work for more than just a fun domino game!  It can also be used in math for addition and subtraction, and for Aaron and Alyssa to help with matching and counting!  That's a lot of stuff to do with a game that was less than $4!

I am also working on another game to help Seth (and eventually Aaron and Alyssa) with his reading.  I saw another wonderful idea on Pinterest (have I mentioned that I am addicted?!?!).  That link talked about using duplo building blocks and attaching word and letter labels.  I have a bunch of fish link toys that my mom gave me that I am using.  On one side of the fish I am just putting letter of the alphabet so that  we can build simple words or words that follow the rules such as "silent e tells the other vowel to say it's long vowel sound".  On the other side some of the fish will have the blends such as "ck" and "ph" to make words with those blends.

(the flash of the camera made it hard to see some of the letters in the above pic...sorry)

I also picked up a tumbling tower game (like Jenga) at Wal-Mart for less than $6.  I think I am going to write words (sight words and commonly used words) so that we can build sentence towers with that game.  Still thinking about exactly how I want to do that one though.  :-)  I will be sure to post pictures when I decide what to do.

Until next time,

Kellie

First of School Pictures

I found this idea on the web for first of school pictures and have seen people from several other blogs do this. Even though we are in our 5th week of school already I thought it would still be a good idea to do :-).  I am hoping to be able to do this at the beginning of every school year.  It will be neat to see how them grow and see how their answers change on their interviews!  These will also be very cute to put in the front of our yearbook that I am wanting to have made at the end of the school year. :-)

(if you right click on each picture and choose to open in a new tab you can see the full size of the picture to be able to read it better.  If you are viewing this on email you should be able to click on each picture to open it up on the web to view the full size)

(of course I answered Alyssa's questions for her)

Until next time,
Kellie

MFW 1st Grade - Week 4 In Review

I am going to start linking up with a  My Father's World blog hop with a "week in review" post!  I am looking forward to the chance to connect with other MFW moms!!

We finished Week 4 of our first grade year this week!  (for others using MFW 1st grade - this does not line up with week 4 of the teacher's manual.  We only school 4 days a week and I am not trying to double up on work to turn the MFW 5 day schedule to our 4 day schedule...so I will state what days we do as listed in the manual as best I can...)  And actually this week we only did school for 3 days because we took Labor Day off!  (Friday is our co-op day so we weren't able to move day 4 to Friday this week).

Reading
This was the week where we really started doing some 1st grade "stuff" and Seth was so happy!  He was so tired of writing his alphabet (we are going to have to work on his dislike of handwriting LOL)!  Anyways, we did days 12 - 14 of the teacher's manual.  We learned what a vowel was and learned the 5 vowels of the alphabet.  We discussed in detail the short vowel sounds for a, e, and i.

Seth read some short books in our reading corner that used short words with the vowels a, e, and i.  You can go to this post to see what our reading corner is all about and go to this post to read more about Seth being able to sit on the "bunny cushion" while he read to us!

Oh and we have started an idea that I found at pinterest.com.  Have you discovered pinterest yet??  OMG!  It can be very addicting but I am finding some great ideas on there!  And I love it so much better than bookmarks because of the pictures!! So cool!!  Anyways, back on topic LOL, one idea I found was making a paper chain of books your child has read.  Now the whole idea they had was "I Can Read 100 Books" and it was for a classroom to see which kid could get to 100 books first.  I just liked the whole idea about making a chain - something that Seth could literally see growing as he read books.  So I made "Seth's Book Chain".  Any time he actually reads a book himself he gets a link on his chain.  I will try to remember to periodically put an updated picture of our book chain on her so yall can see how much it is growing as well.

Math
This week we did day 11 and 12 of math, which finished up our sorting and classifying concept.  You can go to this post to see more details on activities we did to learn this concept.  On Thursday we did day 13 which started our numbers and counting concept. We played a game of Number War (a game mentioned at the beginning of the Teacher's Manual).  I made my game with Mickey Mouse paint cards from Home Depot.  I grab a few when I think about it when I am in that store and have built up quite a collection.  Seth also enjoyed his color by number page in his math book.

Science
We finished up our study of the seasons on Wednesday (day 13).  We found a lot of good books in the library on seasons.  Here is the list of books we read:
4 Stories for 4 Seasons by Tomie de Paola
What Can It Be? Riddles about the Seasons by Jacquiline A Ball
Red Sings from Tree Tops by Joyce Sidman
All Around the Seasons by Barney Saltzberg

On Thursday we began our study of how flowers grow.  We read our pages in our Things Outdoor book and then we read Mouse & Mole and the Year-Round Garden by Dough Cushman.

Bible
Seth memorized Proverbs 10:5!!  Here is a video of him saying his proverb :-)

(if you are viewing this post by email you will have to go to the blog to see the video)

On Wednesday we started our memorization of Proverbs 23:12.  On Thursday we did our first copywork of our Proverbs!  I was proud of Seth's handwriting!! Now he did forget a few words (which you can see we added at the bottom) but overall he did very well.  To be honest, he is a typical little boy and did not like doing it, but was very proud when I told him how well his handwriting looked.

We also made our scroll from our alphabet pages.  Seth was very proud of his scroll.  (I used unsharpened pencils instead of dowel rods for the handles).

We have our first week of co-op classes with our homeschool group tomorrow (Friday)!  The kids are super excited to see all their friends again and are very excited about their new classes.  I am actually teaching two classes this semester.  I am teaching a puppet fun class for ages 2-5 (that both Aaron and Alyssa will be in) and a sewing class for girls ages 7-12!  I am really looking forward to this as well!!

Alyssa and Aaron

I am still trying to find out what works with Alyssa and Aaron to do during school time.  Of course with Alyssa being only 2 I am not pushing school at all!  And Aaron, at 4, is still in pretty much control of that as well.  There are days when he wants to do worksheets and he wants to do some of the fun activities with Seth, and there are days when he wants to lay in the floor and play with his Buzz Lightyear!  

I had mentioned in a prior post that hubby is letting us use his ipad now for school!  Well Aaron has a favorite game that he loves to play on my phone (when I let him).  Well we put it on the ipad today and he spent the majority of the school time playing that game!  It is an animal matching game and he is actually very sharp when it comes to memory games!  I didn't have a problem with him playing this game because it really helps his concentration skills!  (and as you can see in the picture Alyssa liked watching him play too!)

Alyssa did ask to play computer cool school today so I went ahead and set her up a profile and let her play on the drawing screen.  She had fun and looked so cute up at the desk.

Oh - and I do have to say that you will probably no longer see pictures of the kids in their pajamas in the school pictures.  Hubby has told me that he would rather see them dressed, especially if I am going to be taking pictures of them and posting them on the blog.  And he is right - I agree. :-)  So this morning we added "getting dressed" to our routine of getting ready for school.  And I have to be honest and say I think it helped them - I think it helped the mindset.  (but I do occasionally want to have a "pajama day" for school...because that is one of the beauties of homeschool - but if we only have it on occasion it will make it to be a fun and special day!) :-)

Well, I think that covers everything for this week! Until next time,

Kellie

I am linking up here.