Term B, Week 2 Report

Oh yeah, I'm on top of things this week. We actually ended a little early today because Noodle had a friend come over so I decided "socialization" (snerk) was more important than more science (which we've already done 2x this week).

Language Arts
Reading
Noodle is nearly finished with the Yesterday's Classics First Reader. It has been a good one and she's enjoyed it. Three days this week, though, she read from Ruby the Red Fairy. It is a bit above her comfort level and is a beginning chapter book, but I wanted to find a book she'd enjoy reading and that would show her that YES she CAN read chapter books. If I'm there with her to help her when she gets stuck on a word (only so she doesn't get too confused trying to decipher the meaning when the words are wrong), she can maintain a fairly decent pace and enjoy reading the book. Earlier in the week we agreed on a "4 page/day" assignment, which seemed a little skimpy to me but I didn't want to push her too much, and today she was so into the book she read 10 pages! She just kept saying, "I have to find out what happens next!" and, "Sorry, Mom, but I just have to read one more page." I was so delighted!

She also read some advanced BOB books that we hadn't done before. And she picked up the Big Dog, Little Dog book I'd read to Spud yesterday and read it all the way through. Since she has not been a self-motivated reader, I am tickled every time she chooses to read something or read more on her own.

We (Noodle & I) also played the Y Not? game from Happy Phonics a couple of times this week after reviewing the Y-ending pages in Phonics Pathways. The first day we played it, she loved it and we had to play it three times. I was happy to do so.

Grammar
We learned pronouns this week. "A pronoun is a word used in the place of a noun."
I, me, my, mine
you, your, yours
he, she, him, her, it, his, hers, its
we, us, our, ours
they, them, their, theirs
She did really well and seems to grasp the concept without much difficulty. Next week we'll do a review page (from the Worksheet generator link I posted yesterday) to see if it is clicking. I think it is.

Spelling
Noodle was struggling with the words could and would when she would encounter them in her reading, so we did a list of regular "ou" words (i.e. proud, loud, round, found, out, etc.) and the three irregular words could, should & would. She got 100% on her Spelling Test today, but then in her reading stumbled over could the first time, but got it in subsequent encounters. Being as visual as she is, I think she has to see the words a lot before they are solid in her mind. My goal with spelling is to reinforce the rules as well as revisit some of the ones we may not have covered too solidly in the past.

Spud spelled some words from some pictures cards, but he wasn't too excited about it. I am planning on taking a break from really requiring him to read anything for a while. I wish I had some sort of handbook that would tell me the best way to motivate this little guy to learn. Te thing I have to remind myself over and over again now is that he hates to do things he can't do
well (as judged by some unknown standard in his mind), but he likes to do things he CAN do well. He hates to be on the spot for knowledge he isn't confident about. So we are shifting our preschool approach to reading books and doing activities.
One of Spud's favorite books is Big Dog, Little Dog, so for our first day of "new" preschool, we read this book and then he colored pictures of items from the story either red or green, depending on whether they went with Fred or Ted. I cut them out for him (because he didn't want to, for who knows what reason) and he glued them on. I freehand drew the dogs, and was pretty proud of myself.

Our agreement was that we would do two activities of my choosing every day (in addition to his computer school) and then we would do "Fun Time," where he gets to choose an activity to do with me for 15-20 minutes. We only started Thursday, but both days we built towers/buildings with blocks in the playroom and then crashed our matchbox cars into them. It was surprisingly fun. I have to keep reminding myself that learning stuff (reading, numbers/math, etc) isn't a race, and it really isn't going to affect them in the long run if they master reading 6-12 (or even longer) months earlier or later. What WILL matter, though, is the attitude they have about learning. Spud is a hard kid to teach, but he's a pretty easy kid to have fun with. So I'm hoping that working on our relationship will help him feel happier and more capable.

Writing
Noodle is doing really well with Writing With Ease, Vol. 1. I like that the lessons are grab-n-go and typically take less than 15 minutes to complete.

History - The Phoenicians
Did you know that the reason purple dye/cloth was so expensive long ago is because it came from sea snails that had to be gathered and boiled to get the dye, and it took a lot of snails to make the dye and it STUNK. Maybe you did, but I didn't. We learned all about the Phoenicians this week. How they lived in land (modern day Lebanon) that was inhospitable to crops or raising animals (due to the whole "no crops" thing), so they became totally awesome goods-makers and traders. They were the first to invent blown glass! They also had the first alphabet and made really nice furniture from the cedar trees there. They set up colonies around the Mediterranean. For our activity we made "Phoenician bread," which is known today as pita bread. No, I don't know if it is exactly the same, but it was one of the suggested activities in our book and we did it. The bread is delicious, by the way. I think we'll make it again sometime. (And I had to include these pictures of the kiddos enjoying the bread this morning!)


Math
Noodle started subtraction this week. She actually did a bit of subtraction in the Primer book last year, so it doesn't seem to be giving her any trouble right now. I suppose we could move faster through the Alpha book, but I feel okay at our current pace and I like that she is getting these basic math facts down solidly. From everything I've read, staying at our current pace she'll be plenty caught up by the end of elementary school. Also, I'm considering doing math through our longer breaks (Christmas & summer) which would help us keep making progress. Ever since I instituted the sticker charts for doing her math work, her attitude has been a lot better. I will say again, incentives definitely have their place! I also found my old addition flashcards so we did those a couple times this week. She earns one Skittle per card correctly answered, as many as she can do in a minute. (She also earns an equal amount of Skittles for Spud. I have him earn Skittles for her, too, some days, to keep it equitable and help them be happy for each other's achievements.) It's great because on Tuesday she got 9 the first minute, 10 the second minute, then 14 the third minute. She wanted to keep trying for more. Thursday she got 14 right off, and tried one more time and had some trouble and only got nine. A book I read about right-brained kids talked about how doing math problems quickly for timed tests can be a challenge since it takes time to visualize the problem, so I'm hoping doing the flash cards will improve her speed in a fun, not-too-stressful way.

Spud can count to 20 very solidly, so we are working on going to 100 now. He will get a "100 Cake" when he can count to 100 unassisted, just like Noodle did, and he is excited about that.
He also does well actually counting objects up to twenty and not just saying the numbers. We are also working on counting by 10s, as I think that will help with counting to 100.

Science - Seas, Oceans
So much STUFF about the ocean to learn. Which makes sense, seeing as oceans cover ~70% of the planet. I had no idea that the Pacific Ocean alone covers 1/3 of the Earth!! Crazy! I think it would be fun to do a longer, more in depth study of oceans sometime, but for now I feel okay with only a week. We did some experiments from the book Awesome Ocean Science. Two addressed how warm water and cold water interact and one was about how the coloring of penguins helps them hide from predators. There were 3 Bill Nye shows to watch (Ocean Exploration, Ocean Life and Oceanography), but we only got the first two done. In addition to our notebook page of drawings/information, I had each kid pick an animal discussed in one of the books we read and we did a coloring page of it. Spud picked an angler fish and Noodle picked dolphins. Spud really wanted a flatfish, but I couldn't find any good coloring pages of flatfish, unfortunately.

This experiment shows how warm water and cold water can take a long time to mix (part of what happens during El Nino). The yellow water was warm and the blue water was cold. Five to six hours after combining the two, they were only somewhat mixed (2nd picture). By morning they had completely mixed. It was really a fun one to do.
For this one, we made a red ice chunk in the bottom of a paper cup and froze it, then put it in a glass of lukewarm water. You can see the cold water carrying the color down, so it demonstrates cold water sinking.

New Activity - Safari
I came up with a new activity for Spud's workbox this week. We call it "Safari" and it means he picks an animal out of our "Wildlife Fact-File" and we read about it, find it's location on the map and then color a picture. This week he picked Desmodus rotundus, the Vampire Bat. We found out that an adult Vampire Bat drinks about 5 teaspoons of blood/day, so we measured out five teaspoons of water and dyed it red. (Though at first we couldn't find red so we did green instead. Then we found the red.) And then the kids wanted to drink the colored water. Sure, they don't really need the food coloring in their systems, but it was a nominal amount and added to the fun.

Music Appreciation - J.S. Bach
We did Vivaldi last week and are just going in order. I'm either going to have to keep rechecking this book out from the library or find another one. (Heck, if I get some $$ I might even buy it.) I really like the one I've been using. We talked about Bach and listened to some of his music. I also got some very simple sheet music from Making Music Fun
It's a little advanced for Noodle right now, but I played it for them and when she has the skills, she can try it. We also colored pictures of Bach. We all did really funky color combinations, which made it fun. Punk Bach.

In other music news, Noodle was assigned to learn a simple version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." At first, she was really intimidated by it (it is her first encounter with eighth notes) and said she didn't think she'd be able to do it. Within two days, though, she was in love with playing the song and played it many times a day. Soon she had it memorized. Such a funny girl. I'm trying to teach her to replace her negative "I'll never get it!" self-talk with more positive speeches. Slow going.

Other Stuff
The Hiding Ghosts activity. (They liked it, then Noodle drew one for me to find the ghosts.)




Muffin Tin Monday
Yup, we're still doing it. I've seen some online that are all theme oriented (i.e. apple related or all round). I don't yet have the creative juices for that (nor do I have the money to buy "special" food), but the kids enjoy eating their lunch this way. I have been glad that we often have a variety of cereal opened,as it's good when I run out of other foods.

Fall!
Either Tuesday or Wednesday, we woke up to see that most of the leaves had fallen off our maple tree. The kids had to run out and play (they even raked the leaves themselves to play in!). It was great to watch them and it made me happy that we have the flexibility we do because of homeschooling. Granted, overall there are lots of great reasons for homeschooling, but somedays it feels more poignant than others.

It can be a challenge homeschooling with a baby. His new mobility (he's a great crawler, though still not too speedy) is both a blessing and a challenge, as it keeps him entertained but his capacity for finding the wrong things to play with has exponentially increased. Plus, the diaper changes and naps can interrupt our flow. And it's really hard to do read-alouds if he wants to be held, since he likes to grab the book and crumple or eat it. That said, he's a lot of fun to have around. And he helps us not take ourselves too seriously, and remind us of what's really important.

(Not to mention the awesome power of cuteness.)

Week 4 Report

This week FLEW by! Spud hasn't been doing his workbox the past couple of days, which was good in that it gave me some time to reflect (and consult the folks over at the WTM forum) on what is most important for me to be doing with him right now. He knows all of his letter sounds and is quite good at sounding out 3-letter words. But he is so resistant to trying things in front of people when he doesn't feel confident that he will succeed. He has always been this way. He used to say, "Tant say it," when we'd ask him to say a word that he knew he couldn't. And then, voila! a few days or weeks later, we'd notice him saying the word without any fanfare. And he really doesn't like attention drawn to his new achievements, either. I guess it's some weird variety of perfectionism, but it sure is hard to figure out how to teach this little guy. He was/is the same way when learning his ABCs, drawing, counting, learning new songs, and pretty much everything I can think of. As a total non-perfectionist (I'm perfectly happy to bumble my way through most anything!), I have a hard time relating.

Anyways, all that to say that I'm going to back waaay off the reading stuff and just let him pick things up on his own. I'm also going to do some non-handwriting methods of reinforcing proper letter formation (draw in a pan of sand/cornstarch, playdoh letters, possibly make some sand ABC cards for some of the letters, etc.) as he likes to write letters, but his formation is just not very good and, not surprisingly, he is resistant to practice as that is an admission that he can't do it very well. But, back to the weekly report.

Science
We did Rocks & Fossils this week. We had two Bill Nye Episodes (Rocks & Soil, Fossils) and one Magic School Bus episode to watch. Those are always fun, and I know they help me retain the information more when it is presented entertainingly. Yeah, I know we shouldn't have to be entertained to learn, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing when it works! We read a couple of books about rocks and fossils, including this one:

We also went to the BYU Paleontology Museum with our homeschool group. Can I tell you that I was delighted how the timing on that worked out? Fun fun. The museum is not huge, but it has a nice-sized collection and is about right for elementary aged kids. We love the one at Thanksgiving Point, but it is HUGE and really more than anybody can take in on a single visit. Plus, the one at BYU is free! (I gave the kids all my change to "feed" the dino skull donation box, though.) I think I'd like to make a point of going to each of the free museums in the area at least 1-2x/year. I think the repeated exposure is good for kids and adults, and you always notice something different.

We also did a rock craft, where we mod-podged fabric shapes on rocks to make animals. Or just a sticker. Or painted the rocks. Obviously we were flexible. We got that idea here. I think it would be fun to do what the blog author does and make enough to tell a story, but that would work better as a multi-part project (cut out all the shapes one day, find appropriate sized rocks one day, mod-podge another day) than a single afternoon.


History
We did Ancient Africa this week. There isn't a lot of information really about Ancient Africa (outside of Egypt) because they didn't keep written records that have survived. They did tell oral stories that were passed down, though, including the stories of the spider/man Ananse. (I've seen multiple spellings, but I'm going with that one.) We really enjoyed reading a lot of Ananse stories, listening to the Ananse song by Raffi, and then we finished up our week Friday afternoon by making our very own Ananse spiders out of Sculpey and wire. My first idea for doing the legs didn't work, so we ended up building an armature out of wire and then building the clay around it. I thought to make a sort of tutorial, but then got distracted by doing it and taking care of Sprout, so it didn't happen. The finished products are pretty cute though, methinks.


Language Arts
Like I said, Spud was taking a break from his workbox for part of the week, which was okay. Something new we added in this week for him, though, was "Letter Hunt." I sewed this polka-dot bag for him (you can kind of see it in the letter P picture) and I give him a letter card to go on a letter hunt. I have to say, I was surprised that we kept thinking of more and more things that started with P. It doesn't seem like that common of a letter, but we finally just had to stop looking (as the kids kept making me take a picture after we added each new thing. Good thing we have digital cameras!) I think he enjoyed doing it, so we'll probably add it to our mix of letter-related activities.


Noodle and I spent 2-3 days on soft "c" words. She also kept working through her Yesterday's Classics reader.

Muffin Tin Monday
I'm on a quest to find more fun things to make the days more enjoyable, and the first idea I came across that struck my fancy was Muffin Tin Monday.
It seemed both simple and fun, so I decided to give it a try.

It was a hit! And really didn't take any more effort than a regular lunch, so hooray! Noodle ate all of hers, Spud didn't quite finish. I think I'd like to find a 3rd muffin tin for me, too! And I think it is funnt that Noodle is making such weird faces in both of the pictures. Little nut.

Math
Still chugging along! Sprout likes the manipulatives. I love that he can make a mess, be happy, and it is easy to clean up.

Other Stuff
We went on a loooong walk on the River Trail this week, too. Both kids are now really adept at riding their scooters, which is fabulous as they can speed around at a reasonable pace for me to kind of keep up with. Their bikes are too fast and with walking they get tired or bored too quickly, so the scooters are a nice middle ground. We had a really nice time and found a partial owl pellet on the trail that we will dissect this next week.

Oh, last week (week 3) there was a traveling "Leo on Wheels" science exhibit at one of the schools down in Mapleton, so we went to the Community Night. It was really cool, and free! I found out about it through the newspaper. I know a lot of people get their news (if they get any) online, but I can always find half a dozen things I'd rather do online than browse the news, and I like leafing through the paper and catching headlines. I don't get it read or even skimmed every day, but I like the connection to the community it affords. /tangent/

So, it was a good week. We have two more weeks until the end of our first term (we have six weeks on, one week off with a longer break for Christmas, and we have six terms in our school year) and I'm thinking of having a Fun Friday for the kids and some friends on the last Friday of the term. I think we'll invite a couple of the kids' friends over and the kids can all make mini pizzas and maybe sundaes or root beer floats and play together for a few hours.