Sh- ship, and picnics

In school today, we did another reading activity to solidify knowing and reading the "sh" sound. We cut out a "ship book" to remember "sh as in ship" and wrote some words on it. 

We talk about how vowels "stick" the words together and on some worksheets we mark them with a red "smile" on top, and then underline our consonants and consonant blends with a black pencil.

Here is one thing I love about homeschooling during these younger years: 

Connor gets to kiss and love Lainey, and he showed her different countries on the globe. Noah played with play dough today but didn't want his picture taken.

Lunch picnic in the front yard, in a box! Followed by bike riding and a nature walk collecting leaves. I love that my kids get to do this together. (Now mommy wishes she could have a nap!)

Who ate my cheese!?

Today we played a little reading game of sh and ch word blends. Connor cut out words on a piece of cheese (paper) and we took turns having the mouse pick up a piece of cheese and read the word. If we read the word right, the mouse got to eat it, if we read it wrong, we had to put it back in the pile. Connor loved this game! He really likes to play games!

Daily math activity

Here is an example of our daily number of the day math activity! As we discussed 10+5=15, I then took 10 items and said "what is half of ten?" And we divided a line in the middle with 5 items on each side. Connor said "so, 5 is half of 10, and 5+5=10, just like 3+3=6 and 2+2=4" yay! 

Today we added a penny to our coin cup and since we had 5 pennies, he got to trade it in for a nickel. So now he has a nickel and dime. 

Daily math activity

Everyday, we count the number of days that we have school. Today was the 12th day. Connor has a chart that he writes the number on, another chart where he makes a tally mark (and then adds it up for the month), and then we do a little activity. We have 3 cups. One is a coin cup. Every day he drops a penny in the cup. When we reach 5, he trades his penny in for a nickel, then we continue with more pennies, and when we reach 10, he trades it infor a dime. We currently have a dime and two pennies to represent 12 days of school.

We also have a bean cup for place value. We have a "ones" cup and a "tens" cup so far. Everyday, Connor drops a bean in our ones cup. When we reached 10, we glued them onto a Popsicle stick to make 10, and put it in the "tens" cup. Then we continue to add one bean per day in the ones cup. When we reach 20 days of school, we will have two sticks in the tens cup. We also have number cards to show how it all comes together. Here is a picture from yesterday: 

From here, we show how place value works. And even though we did place value last year, it was fun to see it click again as he described it to me and even went on to say "100 has 3 spots! And one thousand has 4 spots!" He made me show him how many spots one million has! And then he excitedly asked me if could count to one hundred by himself (which he did). After this, we then use the number cards to show and write an addition equation: 10+1=11. This daily math activity just helps solidify understanding of numbers and how it all comes together! It takes time and it's separate from our regular math lesson, but I can really see it helping him!

Our local homeschool group

We met with our homeschooling group today! So excited and blessed to have this group- kids to play with and mommies to talk to! Connor had fun making friends! 

Our first week!

This is how we do school! 

Even Noah is learning!

We get to have picnic lunches together and explore God's beautiful world. Science this week was about things "on the ground" (tree roots, earth worms, etc). We collected a big bag of green acorns. A few days later, during our observation, they turned brown. We decided because they weren't getting water from the tree anymore. Connor decided to return them back to nature for the squirrels.

Spelling and stamping words on play dough using abc stamps!

Reading review of words already learned- Connor reads the words on the cards, then using ziggy the puppet he places an apple eraser on the word once it has been read.

We love hands-on learning.

September 7, 2014

Today we did a review of patterns using our unifex cubes.

We also did patterns with numbers. We drew a "number line" to understand it. 

In doing a basic review of numbers, we are using these worksheets. Connor colors in pictures (today was donuts) to match the corresponding number, write the number and the word, write the before and after number, draw it on a domino, highlight the word, highlight the number, color it in on "base 10 blocks" and "ten frame" and finally make tally marks. There is also a watch to cut out and wear! The base 10 blocks and ten frame are neat in giving him a concept of the number- to be able to see how much it is in relation to 10, and it will help with mental math computations to be able to think about how much it is. Looking at those blocks, you could say "5 is half of 10" or "5+5=10" or "5 is less than 10"... 

And finally I taped some sight words onto match box cars and had Connor read the word and push the car across the table to me! He had fun with it!

Frying words up in a pan!

Today we learned the "th" sound, which is a little bit difficult! Practice words were on eggs that we cut out and "cooked" in a pan. Connor had a lot of fun pretending to put "butter, salt and pepper" on them. Then we flipped them with a spatula, read the word and moved on to the next egg!

Our First Day of School!

First day of school was a lot of fun!  Connor- 1st grade, Noah- 3 year old preschool (last year we called it "tot school") and Lainey- baby school!
Fun pictures from our day.  We read "Pete the Cat Rockin' in my School Shoes" and "Charlie Goes to School" about a dog in a homeschool family (written by Pioneer Woman).
Magic play dough was a hit.  I made white play dough and put food coloring on the inside.  We read the poem (below on picture) and they played with it to reveal a color! As they kneaded it, it became blue and green.  Our poem said "if a color should appear, we're sure to have a great school year!"

Noah's set-up for letter A

Connor's set-up (the rest of his work is in a numbered "work box system"

We add our sight words to this poster board

Our homeschool table area

I love that Noah's preschool sign is upside down!