Feb. 26, 2007
quick update
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HAve had a busy few weeks , The girls and I were sick all at different times of course. This reduced homeschooling to many many storytimes  This week we have started getting back on track. We did friday night fun at the library, Serena loves that. Its just a storytime really, but they have lots of sillyness and songs fun all around. Iris enjoys it too, and enjoys being at the library, looking at the different toys they have and walking all about. Sitting to do any paper work is nearly impossible right now because of Iris(13 months) I am trying to plan things for her naptime but often serena and I also need a nap so that goes out the window. We have been doing lots of carschooling  Serena is getting very good at spelling three letter words with a short vowel in the middle. When we are in the car I ask her to spell things like hat, pop, hum, egg, and she is getting great at it. I also got some neat poetry books with cds that we can turn on in the car. This entertains both serena and Iris. Iris must like the music or maybe its the rhyming but she laughs and kicks her feet the whole time its on. I think the name of their favorite is "Kansas city octopus" but i will have to look next time we are in the car to be sure. Serena and I watched "Out of Africa" the other night and talked all about africa found it on the globe and map during commercials. talked about olden days, wich is still a bit of a stretch for her. We talked about how different the landscapes are in africa compared to here in missouri. Africa is not the continent we are doing this month, we are actually doing asia, but it was to good an oppurtunity to pass up. Am trying to think of a good movie that is set in asia. We are preparing for our upcoming vacation. We are so excited to be going to Texas. First going to Bonham TX to TIa Lydias house where we will be staying along with Nana and Poppa and cousins Richie and Sierra . There is a replica of a log cabin at a small museum in bonham which we will probably go see to fit in with little house. The whole family is also going to go to the dallas aquarium. We have been getting ready for that by visiting their website and finding out all about the fishes we will see there. This led to a virtual side trip to the chicago aqarium where their are BIG sharks, Serena id really interested in those. After staying with Tia Lydia for a couple days we are off to dallas for a vacation/ field trip. more on that later. |
Feb. 4, 2007
She is paying attention
After Serenas refusal to read "little house in the big woods" yesterday, and the way she seems to be ignoring me while i am reading I thought maybe She didnt like reading in these chapter books and I ought to just put it away. Then......Tonight we were taking clothes out of the dryer and somehow some pieces of her magnetics set (plastic rods with magnets on the ends and metal marble sized balls) got in there. I carefully took them out and set them on the table warning her "those are hot, be careful" I turned around to get more clothes out and promptly heard "ouch!" I noticed that she put her fingers in her mouth, just like in the book.........I looked at her as I put the clothes in the basket and she said to me "remember, laura and mary put their fingers in their mouth to cool them off after they touched the hot stuff their dad was making?"  I pretty much took the day off from school today. Kyle did a bit of math with her. It was really a psych experiment for him, but she learned too. He poured water into two small glasses of equal size asked her wich glass had more and she answered they are the same. he then took the contents of one of the glasses and pored it into ataller glass ,asked which one has more? As expected she answered the taller glass. He took it further and poured water into many different glasses and all and all concluded that although she will always answer the taller glass has more, she does know that a shorter fatter glass can hold more water because when he had a medium glass, and asked her what would happen if he poured it into the larger glass she said it would be fine, but when asked what would happen when he poured it into the smaller taller glass she said it would overflow, and fairly has a fit whenhe started pouring it in anyhow. even after this though, when he asked her which glass had more she answered the taller one. |
Feb. 3, 2007
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Hello Things are going pretty good. Reading~ Still working on long vowel sounds. checked out "hop on pop" and "theres a wocket in my pocket" from the library and have been reading them. Serna has read a few pages of hop on pop to me. We also read a book about buddha today, that will count in the religon catergory for hsing, but it was me reading to her. it was a mini biography, very interesting and right on her level. She didnt want to read little house in the big woods today but thats ok , hopefully we can get back to that tommorow. I have decided that it is just to descriptive in some parts and i am just skipping over that to get to the stories. Math~Did additon sticks, have a colored popsicle sticks ,had her give me different amounts, say 2 green ones and 3 red ones, how many does that make? Kyle loves to get in on hsing and was showing her how no matter how you arrange them its always 5. talked about halfs, cutting things in half as an example, sandwichs ,advocados, etc. Geography~ australia, we found out which parts are desert and which parts are moutainous and what lives in each, ie; kolas inthe moutains and kangaroos in the desert. Science~continued studying marsupials and animalks that are unique to australia. looked up the platypus :) thats always fun to learn about. Social studies~ a strange unplanned lesson, i was watching the movie "water" it is set in india in the 1930s, the story of a girl who is 8 years old when she is widowed and is sent to live in an ashram. not a movie for 4 year olds but it was totally in Indian so i had to read the captions and Serena couldnt understand what was being said. I was able to tell her lots of things about the movie while leaving out all the inapproprite stuff. It turned put to be a great way to talk about a different culture and there traditions and how people work to change things they think are unfair . |
Jan. 31, 2007
Austrialia
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Last week I decided we should learn the continents so i gave Serena the globe and showed her the continetnts and asked her which one she would like to learn about first, she picked australia Today We read in the encyclopedia about australia, she learned that it is the only continent that is entirely beneath the equator equator? So we got the globe out found australia again and then found the equator. WE read about the different regions of australia, the outback and the coral reef. will look for a book about the coral reef at the library. so that covers geography. Science~ We re read our book about kangaroos. She remembered this time that they are marsupials and is still fascinated with the journey the joey makes after birth to the pouch. plan to get more materials about marsupials fromthe library and looking on the internet for animals that are unique to australia. Reading~ We finished the secret garden yipppeee. We like dthe book but we are excited about starting our new book little house in the big woods. We started it at bedtime. I had forgotten that the first chapter is a little graphic with the butchering of the pig and deer but she took it in stride. We went over her "at" and "an " words again. had thought we could move on tto the "ed and "en" words today but decided to wait , since she didnt seem as firm in remebering the at and an as i though tshe might be. Math~ Working on fractions and addition. cut an apple in half, asked her to give Iris half of her toasted cheese sandwich which she accomplished. for addition i am just introducing the idea, whenever i can , she is warming up to the concept. |
Jan. 30, 2007
starting kindergarten
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We actually started the year a the new year but we have decided to be real laid back. That was such a good decision!  Serena has learned tons more since I quit trying to make so many plans and just focused on what I wanted to do each day. She is right on the cusp of reading so we spend a good deal of time on that. Spelling is one of her favorite things to do , she asks me to write out words. last week we covered at, and an and she caught on real quick. I just printed A on a piece of paper and then added letters in front to make words. In math we have been working on measurments and weights and a little bit of addition. Well I plan on updateing a few times a week with what we are currently doing. |