First Week of December School

Hey guys!  We are having so much fun in December School!!  This is going to be such a fun month!!! I think the boys are having too much fun to realize how much they are actually learning :-)  Alyssa is getting a chance to participate and learn right along side them!!  We will definitely be continuing some of these activities when we go back to "normal" school!

So on this First week I thought I would show you what our daily schedule looks like for "December School".  It is just basically an order of activities...

1) Seth Reads  - At the beginning of every day Seth will read a story.  Most of the time it is one of the stories we have already read in our Pathways reader, or our MFW bible reader, or a BOB book or Starfall book that we have.  Just something enough to keep him in the practice of his reading.
2) Play A Math Game
3) Play a Reading Game
4) review the books of the bible we have learned and add a new book (this is the only "new" thing we are doing - we are continuing with the memorizing of the books of the bible)
5) Play A Math Game
6) Play A Math Game on the IPad
7) Play A Reading Game
8) Seth Reads a story on the IPad (did you know they have leveled readers on the IPad?!?! I found out just last week!  Reading on the IPad always makes it more fun!)
9) Play A Reading Game on the IPad
10) Play Our Flashcard Game (more about this game later in this post)
11) Play A Reading Game
12) Seth Reads another story (as stated before, I do want to keep him in the practice of reading...we NEVER stop reading!)
13) Story Time
14) Watch A Christmas Movie
15) Reveal our Christmas Advent Activity

Seth is also continuing working in his Explode the Code book at least twice a week.  This give him handwriting practice and, of course, more phonics practice :-) He does this during his "nap" time.

So here are highlights from this week!

Flashcard Game - this was originally a math game scheduled for 1 day.  It was a game I found online here.  It's a simple board game that you can print off and laminate and it had ? cards and ! cards.  I discovered real quick that the ? cards are nothing more than addition flash cards... so why couldn't I "adapt" it to work with any flashcards... even flashcards on Aaron's and Alyssa's levels so that they could play along as well.  The ! cards are things such as "lose a turn", "move forward 6 spaces", "move back 3 spaces", etc...  The kids had so much fun the first day we did this that I decided to make it a game we play every day!  (And we will continue to play it come January...I love the fact that I can include all 3 kids!)

For Seth I am using addition and subtraction flash cards.  There are also times that I will use our phonics flash cards as well.  For Aaron I am using number and letter recognition flash cards right now, and for Alyssa we are using color recognition flash cards right now.  Once she has learned those well we will move on to shape recognition!

Can you tell that I am so very excited about this game!?!?

 I also decided to add more ? and ! spots because there weren't that many and the boys were wishing their were more :-)

Here are our flash cards we were using one game - Alyssa was telling me the color of the animal, Aaron was doing number recognition (middle deck...but it showing the back of the card where you can count the items - the number is on the other side), and Seth was working our Cars addition and subtraction flash cards.

Reading Games
My awesome Mom, who is a public school teacher, gave us last year the Scholastic Reading Program, which has a BUNCH of reading games!!  We are using those games for most of our reading games this month.  Here are highlights of some of the games we played this week.

 Hooked On Phonics Roll And Read - we are playing this game every Monday.  You lay out so many word cards and then you roll 7 letter dice.  You try to make as many words as possible and you get to keep the cards of the words that you make and the player with the most cards at the end of the game wins.  (Aaron and I are partners for this game...)

 Rhyming Dominos - a domino game where you have to match rhyming words (Aaron and I were partners for this game as well)

 This was a Scholastic game - a board game where you roll your die to see how many spaces to move.  You land on a mouse that has a letter.  To the side of the board are cards that are face down.  Most of them are two letter blends.  You have to see if you can combine it with the letter your marker is on the game board to see if it makes a word.  If it does you keep the tile, if not you return the tile back to the spot where it was.  (which adds in a concentration aspect because you can remember where that is for when you do land on a letter that will make a word with that blend).  There are also mouse and cat cards mixed in - mouse card lets you move forward two spaces, cat makes you go back two spaces.  First one to finish line gets 5 bonus points and then you add up your tiles that you gained to see who wins.  (Aaron and I were partners...but he was an AWESOME partner because he is GOOD at memory game and remembered what tiles were where!)

 Another Scholastic game we played this week was Rhyme Time Fun.  Each person has picture tiles.  There is a game board and they roll to see how many spaces to move.  They have to see if they have a picture tile that rhymes with the picture that they land on.  If so, they put that picture on that spot on the board.  The first person to move all of their tiles to the board first wins.  (Aaron was, of course, my partner again...but I have to say I think he is learning what rhyming words are!)

 Another Scholastic game we played was Bunny Rummy.  There are large cards that consist of two or three letters and there are small cards that only have one card.  Each player starts out with one of each.  Each turn they draw one large and one small card and see if they can blend any of their small cards with large cards to make words.  Whoever makes the most words wins.

 A game that we will be playing once a week is snap and spell!  It consists of 50 letter tiles and a spinner.  On your turn your work the spinner and choose a letter from the group of letters that it lands on.  You try to make words with your tiles.  (we are just concentrating on 3 letter words right now).

Seth was so excited when he made the word kid all by himself with no help from me!!

 Every Wednesday we are going to be playing Erudition - a sight word game I have had for a while.  I have also altered the game so that all three can play.  For Seth's turn he has to read the sight words, but for Aaron and Alyssa I am using their flash cards for their turn! 

We are also playing our tower reading game every Tuesday.  I just didn't get any pictures of us playing it this week.

 Here is a picture of Seth reading a story on the IPad.

 Here is a picture of Seth playing one of his reading IPad games!

Math Games

Here are highlights of our math games - most of these are games I found online.  I have provided links for you - just click on the game name to go to the link.  :-)

 Fish Plus One - It's Go Fish (which my boys LOVE) with a twist.  Instead of asking for the same number you are asking for your number +1.  For instance, if you have an 8 then you ask for an 8+1 and if your opponent has a 9 then they give it to you, if not then they say "Go Fish".  Of course, you can probably see how this game can have a lot of variations!  I was excited to see how well Aaron was catching on, though!  He was learning his +1 facts!  :-)  (oh and notice the trick I figured out - I have the boys a bag clip to hold their cards in!)

 Penguin Math - this was another game my mom gave me - a board game.  You roll a die to see how many spaces to move.  And then you work the spinner.  You have to add the number you land on the spinner with the number on your spot on the board.  If you are correct you get to stay where you are, but if you get it wrong you have to go back to where you were at the start of your turn.

 Mathino - a game I got on the internet (click on the name of the game to go to the link).  It is a fun addition card game.  I will let you go to the link to read all the rules of the game...but the boys enjoyed this.  I helped Aaron, but I let him do most of the counting :-)

Scan For Compatible Sums - Another game I found online - a simple addition game looking for sums of 10.  You can go to the link to see all the rules!

Here are other games we played that I didn't get pictures of (but they I got them online so I wanted to give yall the links)

Compare and Pair - a card game where you are trying to remove all cards from the board, either by removing matches (ex: 2 queens) or the smaller value of two cards of the same suit (ex: if there is a 9 of diamonds and a 7 of diamonds you can remove the 7).  See the link for a complete explanation of the game. 

Horseshoe Race - Another simple addition card game...it has a printable game board...you move ahead when you are able to correctly add the two cards that you draw together.  See the link for more information.

Lucky Number - Another card game where you are trying to clear the deck by finding sums that equal to your "lucky number".  See the link for more information.

 

I have found a whole bunch of math games on the IPad!

 On most of the IPad math games, I have Seth solve the problem and then Aaron will touch the answer.  Seth is learning his addition and subtraction skills while Aaron is getting practice in number recognition :-)

Story Time

We are changing up story time a bit this month as well.  Instead of doing library books, I have found books on the IPad and kindle.  The kids really enjoyed the story of Peter Rabbit read from the IPad.  I found a free kindle book that has 11 favorite Christmas stories such as "The Night Before Christmas" that we have enjoyed this week!

Christmas Movies

I LOVE Netflix!!  We have the download-only account and there are TONS of Christmas movies!!  YAY!

Here are the movies we enjoyed this week:

Monday - Christmas Classics Volume 1 from Netflix - Nine merry and high-spirited holiday cartoons from the 1950s!!
Tuesday - Thomas And Friends: Holiday Express from Netflix
Wednesday - we watched our Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer DVD (the CBS cartoon classic!)
Thursday - Build-a-Bear Presents: Hal and Holly Moose, an Uplifting Christmas Adventure from Netflix

Our "school" day lasts anywhere from 3 to 4 hours - depending on how much we are enjoying the games and how many times they want to play them! LOL!  But we are having so much fun!!!!

OH -and I can't forget!  Here is a video of Seth reciting the books of the bible Genisis - Proverbs!
(if you are viewing this from email click here to view it on the blog)

Until next time,
Kellie