Term B, Week 5 Report

It was a good week. I already reported about the happiness on the reading front. Noodle got 100% on her spelling and math tests, so that was happy stuff, too.

Spud and I read a book called Moon Rabbit, and then sewed a rabbit for him (and then one for Noodle) based on the story.
I made a quick pattern and they were a fairly quick project (though I wish I'd have taken a little more time to ensure a better symmetry on the white bunny). After having a hard time with brown bunny's mouth, I utilized an online video directory of embroidery stitches for the white bunny's mouth, which turned out much nicer. It was good practice for the Christmas projects I'm making.

For science we learned about deserts and read some good books. While we were finishing up reading the book Cactus Hotel, Spud made this saguaro cactus out of Magformers. I thought that was pretty cool.


In history we learned about Crete and the story of the king who kept the minotaur under his castle in the maze and fed him Athenian children every year until Theseus (prince of Athens) killed the monster. I am trying to remember to do some geography with the kids, so I used our Children Just Like Me book and also a cool book I got from the library called How People Live and on Friday we read about modern day people in Crete. (They are called Cretans, which made me giggle.) That was a nice tie-in, I thought.

We also did read from Lives of the Musicians about Mozart. Did you know that if you played all of his music back to back it would go for 202 hours?! That's almost 8 1/2 days! I can't remember if I linked to this website before, but it has some great resources for music/composer study. We like to color the composers in lots of crazy colors and patterns. They kind of look like tattooed rock stars.

We also did a fun turkey craft that I got from here. I will put the pictures up next time I upload my card.

So, yeah, that's about it.

I'm a sucker for pretty things...

So I'm blogging about this contest to win a very cute "hostess apron." How cute would I be then?

Spelling It Out

So, you (and by you, I mean me) get lists from here (they also have word scrambles & alphabetizing worksheets for the lists)
Have your kids practice their spelling words here
And print out any extra stuff pages you might think of yourself here

Piece o' cake!

Yay!!

So today I included an extra book in Noodle's workbox for her to read, in addition to her Amber the Orange Fairy reading. She read the first page, and I was sure she would complain about having to read the whole thing (it was fairly long), but when I offered to take turns reading pages with her she said, "No, I want to read it!" I could have done a happy dance! She read the entire thing, and didn't get tired or complain! I was so proud of her! I really think that working through the Rainbow Fairy chapter books is boosting her confidence. We've also been doing better at reading scriptures (instead of just working on the ones we memorize), and I'll have her read a verse. She's doing really well at that, too.

I don't know if she would have "bloomed" faster in reading if she'd been at school, but if not, it makes me happy to think that she hasn't ever had to feel "slow". From everything I've read and from talking to teachers, kids develop at wildly different paces when it comes to reading, but often by about third grade even the late bloomers have caught up. When I think of how Noodle was struggling last May and how much improved she is now, it's really encouraging.

Oh, and this is happening more often: Noodle will pick up a picture book or one of the baby's board books that are lying around and read the whole thing, either to herself or Spud or Sprout. Yesterday she read this book, which I have to say I just love. A very cute story of a boy whose mom won't let him get a dog, and his clever plan to convince her that dogs are pretty good pets to have around.

Term B, Week 4 Report

We didn't do anything fabulously exciting. Spud needed to finish up his sticker chart so he could earn a prize the same day as Noodle, so I told him I'd give him 3 stickers for each BOB book he read. He read Mat, Sam & Dot with hardly any trouble. Just goes to show what a little incentive can do. He seems to be enjoying our new "relaxed" preschool. Every day we read a story and then do something that (usually) goes along with the story. We read this hilarious book called Ugly Fish. Then we drew our own versions of Ugly Fish and the other fish in the story. I should scan Noodle's in when I find it, as hers was quite good. Here are Spud's and mine:

Who's Who pages

We only started doing these a few weeks ago. A couple of times I have gotten one out for Noodle but not Spud, figuring he won't want to do one. Then he asks for one, which makes me happy.

This week we are learning about Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar. Both kids wanted to do their page on his wife, Amytis. I write the information (though today Spud really wanted to write on his page, so he did) as I want it to be a non-stressful activity for Noodle. Plus since we do History at the end of our school day, I don't think she has it in her to do any more writing or copywork.

Term B, Week 3 Report

This is going to be a really short report.

This week we did Wetlands for Science. There isn't a page for it in our science "text" (Usborne's First Encyclopedia of Our World), but I thought wetlands merited some attention. Plus, we had BOTH Bill Nye and Magic School Bus episodes about wetlands. We read a book, watched the shows, and made a page for our science notebook.

History this week was on the Assyrians. We learned about Ashurbanipal and the fighting strategies of the Assyrians. We "reenacted" their two-man basket shield & arrow-shooting technique with markers and a laundry basket. We also built an Assyrian Siege Tower out of Legos (I'll add pictures later today, hopefully.)

Other than that, Noodle made good progress on reading Ruby the Red Fairy and was delighted to be able to create her own fairies on the Rainbow Fairies website. She and I also had a drawing together time, where we both drew pictures of fairies. I freehand drew my version of Ruby from the cover of the book. Since I'm not an artist, I was pretty pleased with the result, and I think I might enjoy drawing more fairies. Lately I'm finding that I can do okay if I have a picture to look at, and as long as it isn't supposed to look real. Cartoonish style is much easier for me.

We had a really full non-school week. We ended up taking Tuesday off, as we had some errands that we had to do and we also needed to get a present ready for Spud's friend's birthday on Wednesday. We checked out both Dollar Tree and Robert's Crafts looking for gift ideas (being on a very tight budget). We ended up buying a recipe box (as both kids thought the friend would like to have a box) and then making him a very cute Sculpey clay dinosaur and painting a peg doll like a caveman for him. We also made a little clay fire and Spud made a snake. Spud also painted a dinosaur magnet for him. We cut a piece of green fabric and put that in the box also. We also made him a necklace out of a circle of wood (we painted his initial on one side and a cool pattern on the other) and some beads and strung it on a leather string. I wish I'd have taken a picture. It was fun to work on together, and great because we had all the supplies already at home. I'd like to get more ideas for homemade birthday gifts and try to do that more often.

Noodle had Imagination Club on Wednesday, also, so we spent a lot of time out on Wednesday as well.

Thursday was a nice, regular day. Very productive!!

Friday Noodle took her Math test (100%) and spelling test (missed one, but easily fixed the mistake when I had her look at the word again), and did her reading and writing assignments. We hosted a Halloween Party for our homeschool group, which was fun. I wish I'd have planned things a little earlier, though. I think it went well, but I felt a little frazzled trying to do too much prep at the last minute. C'est la Vie!

Oh, we started on the subtraction chapters this week, and Noodle did so well on the first subtraction chapter on Monday that she wanted to take the test Monday, too. She did and didn't miss any. She has her addition facts down very solid (and is getting quicker as we keep doing the flash cards--she got 18 cards in a minute this week!) so I think that makes a big difference. I think we'll do two chapters a week for a while if she keeps sailing through them.