2nd week of school

The 2nd week of school is over!  This week brought about new challenges and struggles to have good attitudes thanks to having no air the 1st half of the week!  But we made it through and we are better for it!  I can now say that I would make a terrible pioneer-I hate being hot!
So here is what we learned this week:

Music:

This week we continued with Carnival of the Animals and we listed to Cocks and Hens while coloring our coloring sheet.

Notice the giant mattress in the living room?  Well this week the living room
became our make shift bedroom since it had a window unit in it.  Imagine trying to teach
while kid roll around on a bed, or attempt to jump on the bed.  It is very difficult so I am so glad it is in the bedroom again!

Here is Matthew's paper in progress.  You can see at the top we circled if the music was high/low, fast/slow, long/short, loud/soft.

History

This week in history we studied nomads living in the fertile crescent.  We enjoyed listening to chapter 2 in SOTW Vol 1(story of the world).  Then we colored a map of the fertile crescent region.

Often I find that history,art,literature,and science overlap.  So this week in art we created our very own cave drawings just like the earliest people did.

Samantha's cave drawing-when asked what it was of she said, "a creepy ghost".

When asked what her ghost was doing she replied,"It's just pretend it isn't doing anything."

Kaitlyn used her fingers to draw because she told me cave people would not have used paint brushes.  Notice the blob of black and red in the left hand corner.  While painting Kaitlyn told the story of a curious bear who wanted to climb a tree to see what was at the top.  The bear climbed the tree and died.  If you don't get it watch The Croods.  It really is a good movie.

Matthew also told us a story of a curious animal who was killed because of his curiosity.  Again you must watch The Croods!

Matthew's 2nd painting.  This one you can see the shapes of a few animals such as a deer and bears.

This is my favorite cave drawing.  Kaitlyn used her 2nd sheet to document our family on the cave wall.  So sweet!

 Project #2 didn't turn out so well this week.  We were supposed to make game bags sewn with animal print fabric.  Then take our game bags outside and pretend to be nomads gathering nuts and berries and build shelters.  Well that just wasn't to be.

1st    When choosing this project I forgot to consider that I had not used her sewing machine in 9 years.

2nd    When setting sewing machine up the night before I threaded it correctly but the tension was wrong.  So I watched a youtube video fixed the tension! Yay!

3rd     When I fixed the tension I lost the bobbin string.  No biggie just fix it right? Wrong!  It will not be fixed.  After searching google and watching a video I discover it is my needle timing and I need to take apart my machine.

4th    So machine taken apart, needle timing fixed , just put it back together right? No not right.  Wrong again!  I have just been beaten by a 3 piece puzzle.  Insert wall of shame here.

5th    Finally find a blog with pictures of someone putting their sewing machine back together and discover I have been trying to put a piece in backwards the whole time.  Machine gets fixed! Yay!

6th   Nope.  Not fixed because it still won't pick up my bobbin thread!  I give up and go to Walmart to buy some of that iron on stitching.
.
7th    Come home with Iron on stitching and not until I walk into the front door do I remember that our iron broke  days ago.  Seriously, why don't I remember this at Walmart?  Why do I wait til  I walk in the front door to remember this important piece of equipment?

8th    I cry!  Seriously it has been a long week with no air.  My project that Kaitlyn was super excited about had just failed.  I know it was a silly bag.  But I was just defeated by my sewing machine!  Who gets defeated by a sewing machine?! Don't worry we have another sewing project planned next week.  At some point the sewing machine will be conquered!

Some books we enjoyed this week:

Little Grunt and the Big Egg was a cute story however not very accurate historically.  It depicts people and dinosaurs living at the same time.  So if you aren't ok with that then don't read it.  I thought it was cute so it was ok.
How People First Lived is a great non-fiction book.  It gave us lots of information along with interesting pictures.  It is out of print so check for it at your library.

We also read from the Usborne Book of World History.

This is a great reference book that we will be using all year to compliment our studies.

Literature

This week we have been reading The Little Prince.  I liked this book as a kid and Kaitlyn seems to be enjoying it a lot.  I think some of the dialogue is going over Matthew's head though.

 
In addition to these books Kaitlyn and Matthew have independent reading time everyday.  Matthew mostly reads easy readers.  Kaitlyn has been reading The Little House on the Prairie chapter books:The Caroline years, a few history books, parts of the animal encyclopedia, and the Bible.

Memorization

Kaitlyn finished her poem this week!

She finished the Old Testament books this week!

Matthew finished his poem this week!

Both kids learned their memory verse too!

I am really glad I choose to push memory work this year.  The kids really seem to enjoy the challenge and I know it is good for them.  Even Samantha is trying to memorize along with them.

This week we used our memory verse from church-Ephesians 2:10.  If there is music or a rhyme to help us memorize I like to try and use it.  I can still say all the names of the states in alphabetical order all because I learned it in a song in grade-school.  I think music is a great learning tool!  Here is the rhyme we used:

Rewards

Here is my reward chart :brownie points!
The kids can earn brownie points for different things in school:
1 point for learning a memory verse
1 point for learning a poem
1 point for learning a list
1 point for completing their morning routine by 8 am

So far these are the only ways to earn points but that may It is also possible to loose brownie points by having a bad attitude or not staying on task.  So far only 1 child has lost a brownie point and he was not happy about it!

What do you get when you fill your pan full of brownies?  A pan of brownies of course!  Or another dessert of choice.  Kaitlyn has already decided that she wants to make homemade ice-cream sandwiches for her reward.  As fast as she is filling up her pan we are going to be making a lot of desserts around here!

As much fun as we had this week I am super looking forward to next week studies:Ancient Egypt!  I mean seriously what is more exciting then mummies and pyramids?

Preschool Letter E

So this week Samantha's drawers were not so exciting.  On Saturday our air conditioner broke and I have discovered that when you are hot and sweaty your motivation to get things done diminishes.  So I only managed to change a few activities in Samantha's drawers and well she noticed.  She did not spend as much time this week doing "school" activities as last week.  The fact that it was 88 degrees in the kitchen where her school stuff was probably influenced that as well. Here is what she did do:

Traced the letter e and the letter a with dry erase markers.
Then we highlighted capital and lowercase e on a paper.
Matthew kept saying, "I love highlighters!"

Samantha worked on her cutting skills using playdough.  We are going to need to work on this a lot!

She covered her lowercase e in playdough and then decorated it with buttons!

 Samantha and Matthew both painted their letter E's with Q-tips.  Although Matthew knows his letters he still needs the fine motor skill practice so this is a great activity for him!

E is for Easter Egg!
The kids covered the lines on their egg with elmers glue-another great exercise in fine motor skills!  I thought this activity might be a little difficult for Samantha's small hands but she did great!  The wavy lines were a little tricky for her but that is to be expected.  Of course we covered it in glitter after applying the glue!

We found the short vowel shuffle cards!  This game is so simple it surprises me how much Samantha and Matthew like to play it!

I have a stack of laminated cards consisting of a,e, and a pair of eyes.  Everyday we assign an action to the pair of eyes such as shake your booty, say ooga ooga, or honk your nose.  Then the kids take turns drawing cards from the stack.  If they get a vowel card they have to say all the sounds associated with that vowel if they pull the eyes they have to do the assigned action.  That is it!  So simple and yet this has helped Samantha with her vowel sounds so much and she loves it!

Samantha's other activities included playing with the kinetic sand box and playing in her letter E sound box.  These kept her pretty busy while I was helping the other kids with school work.

Overall I thought her week went well!  Hopefully I will have more activities for her next week because she was a little less interested in the repeat activities this week.  Oh well! She learned.  She had fun! What more could you want?

1st Week of School: Part 2

History

This year we are using Story of the World volume 1 by Susan Wise Bauer.

Each day we listen to the audio recording by Jim Weiss (which you can purchase here.  We also read these books from the library

   

These were excellent books that I thoroughly enjoyed.  The books were very poetic and gave many great options for discussions, and if we had time further discussion .  If you have kids go to your library and check them out!

   

Great informational books that helped us further understand what history and archaeology is.  Matthew really liked I Can Be An Archaeologist.

At the end of the week we used our knew knowledge  by creating our very own archaeological  dig site in the backyard.  

The kids dug up their area, sifted the dirt so that they wouldn't
miss any small findings, and then bagged and labeled their artifacts
 in plastic bags.

Once all artifacts were bagged we moved inside out of the heat to "read" the clues of this past civilization.  The kids studied their artifacts and tried to gather as much information as they could from each object.  They hypothesized what some of the tools could have been used for and we discussed.  After each item had been discussed they each picked their favorite find to write and  record on a notebook page to be placed in our history notebook. Here is Matthew's:

"The people could have used it to eat, drink, as a mirror, as a spy device, for spanking children, for digging, and as a backscratcher."

Music

We are starting off our year by studying the Carnival of the Animals by 

Camille Saint-Saens.  So we began music this week by listening to the  Royal March of the Lions

while coloring our 1st picture in our Carnival of the Animal's book

Kaitlyn's lion

Afterwards we attempted to "march" around the kitchen on all fours as the lions to the beat of the music.  It was quite hilarious.

We also started our 3- part music cards I bought from Montessori print shop..  This week we used the string instrument pack because those are the instrument featured in the lion's march.  It also seemed like a good starting point because all the kids already knew most of the string instruments.  It was to easy so next week we will be moving on.

We also sang "Go Bananas"

and "B I N G O"

Kaitlyn wasn't thrilled with BINGO but I reminded her that the songs are not just for her and that BINGO is a perfect song for Samantha.  Hopefully I will get my act together next week and we will spend more time singing next week.

Art

Art this week was very simple but the kids loved it!  It seems I am the one who loves complicated projects when they are very happy with the simplest things.

We decorated cover pages to slide into the front of our binders.  The kids went crazy over the puppy stickers!

Kaitlyn's art page from I Can Do All Things art book.  Kaitlyn and Matthew started this art book last year but we never finished it because it is a little to worksheety for me.  However we are using it some this year because I do think it helps improve actual art skill.

We then started learning our Ancient Egypt 3-part cards.  I searched the web this summer thinking surely cards on Egypt must already exist and I couldn't find any!  So I ended up designing my own cards which took much longer than I would have thought.

  Matthew was enthralled with these pictures.  He would not let go of King Tut's Burial Mask card he just kept staring at it.  He then asked if I could take a picture of it because he just wanted to know everything about it!  I never would have guessed that reaction from him.  I can't wait till we actually start studying Egypt in 2 weeks he is going to flip!

Math

We switched to Right Start Math when Kaitlyn was at the end of 1st grade and that was the best curriculum purchase I ever made!  We love it!  It is Singapore math based and uses Montessori style manipulatives.   I don't often think to take a lot of pictures during math but here are a few moments I did think to capture:

Right Start uses a lot of games to aid in memorization.  This is a math game called "Who's on top" that reinforces multiplication concepts.  In this picture Kaitlyn and I are practicing the 8s.  The cards in the green stack are numbers 1-10.  The 1st player pulls a card and then multiplies whatever number they got by 8.  Then they place their colored tile on the correct product.  For instance if you pulled 3*8 you would place your tile on the 24.  If later in the game your opponent also got 3*8=24 they would place their colored tile on top of yours.  When all green cards have been pulled you count up how many of your tiles were on top and whoever has the most tiles wins. Today Kaitlyn  won.

 Last year I debated on whether or not I should teach Kaitlyn any tricks or rhymes to help her memorize her multiplication facts.  This week I decided I would go ahead and teach her a rhyme for 6*6.  When I started to say the rhyme she cut me off,

"Mom I'm never going to learn if you don't let me explore."

 So I guess no short cuts for her!

This is Matthew's favorite math game-Swim to 10.  You pull number cards and move your swimmer across the pool towards the 10.  If you land on an x you go back to start.  Honestly it is a very simple game that I think should be geared towards preschool or kindergarten but he loved it last year and he begs for it this year so we play it at the end of a lesson for a treat.

This week part of Matthew's work has been to build different shapes using different shapes.  Earlier this week it was with rectangles.  Today it was with right triangles.  The first challenge was to build a bigger triangle.

Matthew's hand photobomb

  The challenge here was to build a square.  The
picture on the right was his first answer. Do you see the square?
That answer wasn't given in the book.  I encouraged him to
find another way and he eventually found the answer pictured
in the book the answer on the left.

 His next challenge was to build a rectangle using all 4 triangles.  He told me he could build a big and a little one.  These two answers of course weren't in the book.

 So eventually he made this one which was in the book:

For some reason Matthew has become enthralled with selfies lately and so everyday after math he steals my phone to take a few.  I don't mind.  It is an easy reward for doing a good job.

And then today he insisted that we needed to take a silly one together: