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So I guess M-T-W Summary is going to become a tradition.
This week has been a pretty good week. The kids are completing all their work assignments as well as reading on their own. I feel that they are learning and making progress and that's what counts. B's still hard to get to stay focused but we work in little spurts.
M&O: Mathmatics - place value, rounding to nearest tens, hundreds & thousands, adding money, telling time to the minute, fives, quarters, half & writing time in both analog & digital, word problems & multiplication drills (both on paper and using games on the PC)
Language Arts - 2 spelling lessons in McGrawHill Spectrum books (grade 2 for O and grade 3 for M), reading comprehension exercises, letter writing/envelope addressing, paragraph writing/story-telling, writing skills/proofreading, contractions and punctuation
Science - moon & stars, ant colonies, weather and climate
B: Mathmatics - simple counting to 20, patterns & sequencing, addition/subraction using manipulatives, PC and printed worksheets, learning money denominations, introduction to calander and clock
Language Arts - Study Dog, Starfall, Between the Lions (phonics), manuscript writing and reading aloud with assistance
Science - five senses, body parts, senses, weather and seasons
Tomorrow is an all day field day. We'll be meeting fellow homeschoolers for a bagged lunch playdate from 10am-12pm. Should be fun; it's always exciting to meet new people and make new friends. Afterwards we will rush to another homeschool group's tour of a fire stations. This should be BIG TIME fun because apparently they let the kids get really hands-on! Updates and pictures to come....
Also, tomorrow night O and I will head to our church's Bingo night before it starts to see how many boxes of Girl Scout cookies she can sell. She's set her goal for 1000 boxes because the reward is a limo ride and lunch. Aim high, little girl, aim high!!!
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Posted in Life in General
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While it is the day of rest we still found ways to keep busy. At 11:30am the kids had Bible Study. Since this class is in it's beginning stages they are just learning about the Creation Story. Our priest was graveside today so the young ladies that are working with him were in charge. They talked about what they learned last week and colored a mini-book about it. I was thrilled that B actually colored!
After that they had folk dancing practice. What a joy to watch. The kids all wore their Macedonian dancing shoes and you can tell that they love it. I can't wait to see them perform this holiday season at the Chirstmas Dance.
I talked to another mom and the 'teachers' more about organizing a "Kids' Night Out". I figure if I have 3-4 others whom are interested in helping me out, that it will take flight. I need to contact the board of the church to see how things can progress and develop.
We were supposed to go out to our friends' house for a dinner playdate at 5pm but just before we were to turn on to their street my friend called me to tell me that her 8 year old son was currently grounded (for calling her an idiot while she was prodding him to get his homework done). I found it unfair that my 8 year old son would have no buddy to play with so we did not go there. We were all bummed out but it gave me a chance to talk to the kids about choices, the words we use, the tone we use and respect. They took the opportunity to tell me that they were glad they were homeschooled b/c they didn't have homework. To quote M:
"I'm glad I don't have homework. I just do my work at the table and then I can go ride my bike and play and stuff."
Ain't that the truth, son, ain't that the truth! |
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Work Accomplished: (M/O) Mathmatics - Rounding, Place Value, Time & Money (B) Addition on PC, Word Families on PC & Writing Exercises
Fun Accomplished: Lunch & Play at McDonalds Playland
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We settled up the payment and got divied up into groups. We toured with Mr. Nelson and had a really nice time. He was informative and very likable and took a liking to O. She's got that way with people, though.
This trip was the kids' first outing in which they met other home schooled children in the area. I only wished that the day could have been sunny so that we could have had a bagged lunch picnic with the other moms/kids. I'm sure more outings will come.
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On Thursday morning the kids and I set off for the Naval Park at the Marina in the city. It was one of those days that is bound to be chilly and rainy but we just layered up the clothes and off we went. Our first stop: Tim Horton's for coffee, milk and muffins. Then we were off. We got there right on time which is a feat, in and of itself, for me.
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M & O's lesson today revolved around fall. We talked about the different seasons (solstices and equinoxes), answered some quesitons about them, wrote an essay about fall, did a fall spelling worksheet, talked about the life cycle of a pumpkin (did a worksheet about it, too) and also made a book about fractions (Enchantedlearning.com, I love you!). They also had an hour of independant reading time. We have some multiplication drills/flashcards to do soon, too.
B did some sound/letter recognition and tracing exercises (his biggest hurdle this year will be handwriting as he is left handed so we are starting from basics and learning form). Currently, he's on the computer playing various games that involve letter, number, shape and phonics recognition.
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Two of the three have decided to dance in our church's newly formed dancing group. This makes me very happy and proud as I danced from ages 5 to 18 and have very fond memories of it. Hopefully the one who doesn't want to will change his mind (btw: he's my youngest).
Today my parents came back from their trip to Macedonia and brought back these teeshirts and dancing shoes. Perfect photo-op!! |
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Today we awoke to a bit of sun but slowly the dark clouds crept towards the house. Papa decided to do his weather unit on his days off and today was the perfect (and maybe only) day for him to do so. While he does this I have the pleasure of cleaning. YAY. Not!
But first we had math to work on: Addition, Subraction, Multiplication and Division. The kids really understand these math works but it's memorization that we have not tackled. O still uses a number line (which I am fine with) and M chooses to use an abacus. However, the time has come to really MEMORIZE! I have decided that from here on our we will work on this with drills and other games. (Feel free to comment if you've found something that really worked in this area) B did some work in a math workbook and after his break we are going to work on more letter writing and phonics/reading (using Starfall booklets we made).
I also found a little exercise from EnchantedLearning.com. It's a Bone Word Pieces Puzzle that is just a little work to reinforce the work we did with the Human Skeleton last week.
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http://donnayoung.org/index.htm |
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http://www.progressivephonics.com/sample_pages.htm |
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This morning I had a monthly check up and everything is great! So, while I was getting ready I had the kids at the computer using the Study Dog program. After I left Papa worked with B on math and set the kids up with some math work. Upon my return, I made lunch and the kids did a spelling unit in their Spectrum/McGraw Hill books and had 1/2 hour of reading time.
We will be visiting the library to pick up more chapter books today or tomorrow! |
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Papa led us on a little hike yesterday. We had our mushroom book (National Audubon Society Field Guide to N. American Mushrooms) in hand and a nice end of summer day to look. We found so many mushrooms on the floor of the woods, it was so cool! The kids loved identifying them and finding out all about the various fungi.
Afterwards we found the park with a field by it and the kids played and the frisbee golf disc were also tossed around. They got a great amount of phys. ed. in for sure! |
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Climbing to Good English:
http://www.homeschoolcanada.com/menujs.html?cge1.htm |
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This morning has been spent playing and painting. The kids have spelling work and math work to finish, in their own time, and then we are going to the library to get some more books to read. I think we will also compile our list of units to study and take out books on those, too. Our next unit study is Geography (specifically landforms). I Love the library for having tons of books on these various units. I'll probably look for some books on Human Anatomy to correspond with our lessons from this week. |
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We started schooling on September 6th, 2006 this year. I originally intended to start on the 7th but the 6th just jived for us. So, we picked up with math review and language arts review (parts of speech). B is re-doing Kindergarten and while he has phonics down pat we started off with writing and phonics. O is 2nd grade and M is 3rd, though I'm sure she'll lump into 3rd soon enough.
That half week (9/6 - 9/8) was spent with M and O reading, drilling math, working in old workbooks (O found a 1st Grade WB from Walmart that was not completed) and of course, playing. A lot of time was spent, after school ours, playing outside. This is the part of the day that they look forward to the most; riding bikes and running in the huge yard.
This week (9/11 - today), for M and O, was spent working on more math (adding and subtracting using regrouping), spelling (via 2nd and 3rd Grade McGraw Hill/Spectrum WB), grammar (WS printed from edhelper.com), reading and fine tuning penmenship.
We also encorporated a unit study on The Human Body. All three of the kids learned about the various systems, organs and how they work together. We used the computer and sites to help us visualize and I also printed up 'lable me' WS from enchantedlearning.com. We used other books on the human body that we had in our personal library, as well.
Computer time is spent with Impossible Creatures, Ages of Empire and various sites like funschool.com, starfall.com and nickelodeon.com (for fun game time). TV is off in the a.m after 9am and does not come back on until late in the afternoon, if at all. |