Wow! Where to begin? Sorry it's been a while, we've had a couple busy, crazy weeks. Last week didn't go completely as planned, so we started over on a few things this week. Here are some highlights:
One of Adeline's workbox activities (from Confessions of a Homeschooler) is this See it, Build it, Write it page. Adeline draws a word out of our bag, then "builds" it with letters. Then she writes it on the line. She really likes this activity!
Hooray! Our workbox cart arrived! It was super simple to assemble - I did it in about 30 minutes. Adeline's side is on the left, Braxton's on the right. Adeline usually has 8-10 boxes a day. I've been putting her core work in it, as well as the extra activities. Braxton gets 3 boxes. Someday I'll make numbers to velcro to the outside of each box, but probably not in the immediate future. :)
A new Calendar Time activity is graphing the daily weather. I took this picture about a week ago. Our graph is looking really pretty with mostly sunny days! A beautiful September!
Ok, don't judge, art isn't my strength! I made a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree for the back of our door. Each week we'll be adding a letter to the tree. When we get through capital letters, we will do lowercase and then numbers. This will carry over into next year. Both kids think it's fun to read the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book and put letters on the tree. I have a lapbook that we will be making in the coming weeks to go along with this.
Last week we learned about firefighters. We spent a good chunk of Tuesday testing our smoke alarms, practicing Stop, Drop and Roll and planning/practicing our escape routes from various places in our house, including practice opening the windows and removing screens. The kids learned to crawl under the smoke and to test a door to see if it's hot before opening it. For our final fire drill, I pushed the smoke alarm button and let the kids get out of the house completely on their own. I was really pleased with the day and Adeline now wants to show everyone how to escape.
We completed our fire safety workbooks and watched Elmo Visits the Firehouse. Excellent video!
Adeline worked on her second reader on Friday. It's the last reader without words.
And then on Saturday we had a huge birthday party for both kids!
We spent some time at the park this week. Sadie loves playing with her big sister!
And back to schoolwork! I didn't take many pictures this week. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed and crazy. Just getting through the day is an accomplishment! Although today went much better - just in time a little glimmer of light shined in this tunnel! More on that a different day.
Adeline is making huge strides in learning to read! I'm so very proud of her! Today we played this tic-tac-toe type game. I said a word and when she found it, she got to put a star sticker on it. She found them all on her first try!
We did some boardwork reading sentences. I first read through the sentences, then Adeline circled all the words she knew. Then we read the sentences again with Adeline shouting out the circled words as we came to them. "Kate" and "Josh" are characters in our Beginnings curriculum.
The letter "S" was one of our letters this week. It's the only letter Adeline has trouble writing. We practiced a lot using finger tracing, writing with a pencil and crafty activities like this one. She has improved a lot this week! Still one of her harder letters, but now legible. :)
Last week was firemen, this week was police officers. We learned a cute poem about crossing the street and got to practice it a few times when we went to the park!
Stop, Look and Listen before you cross the street;
First you use your eyes and ears
And then you use your feet!
Today we examined our fingerprints and talked about how God has made each person special, giving them their very own fingerprint. Adeline and Sadie's fingerprints are on the page. Braxton wasn't feeling well, so he slept through this activity. Adeline then drew a picture of her doll - something her fingerprints would be on.
We've spent a lot of time this week with the pocket chart! I just have to say it again - I'm so proud of Adeline's progress in reading! She's so proud of herself, too. It's cute.
We started the Madeline unit over this week - it was one of the things that flopped last week. We located Paris on the map, learned a few new vocab words and talked about how to keep our bodies healthy - as Miss Clavel says, "Thank the Lord you are well!" Wellness was a timely lesson today as the pukies have struck Braxton and Sadie. What you don't see in the pictures is the stripped bed because Braxton woke from his nap, walked into the classroom and threw up all over the bed. All in a day's work, right? :(
As for reading Matilda, Adeline informed me today with the inflection of a teenager that "Matilda is the longest book EVER." I don't think she's a fan of our reading time. I think we'll try again with a shorter book. For the record, I was thoroughly enjoying the read!
And that's pretty much it. We played some games and put together some puzzles and spent a lot of time outside soaking up the warm, almost-fall sunshine. Oh! How could I forget?! Grandma located a couple of desks for us - for FREE!! They are MUCH better than our tiny table. We like our table, but it just wasn't big enough for two kids. I'll get a picture of them next time. :)
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