This past month...

Here is a reading game we played. Connor had to turn over two ducks and read the word, if they rhymed, he got to keep them, if they didn't rhyme, he had to keep reading (kind of like a memory-match game). Then when he found two that rhymes, he put them (they were ducks) in a "pond". Cute game!

Here is a sample of a page from his reading and spelling workbook. 

We are making a book called "Animal Tales"!

Another page from workbook (on the top, I dictate the word out loud and he spells it and writes it down).

Another reading game- finding matching socks then turning it over and reading the words.

One of our weekly bible memory verses. 

We make a fun project of folding paper with special sounds he learns- like "ar" as in car and star...

More special sounds projects-

We have magnet letter tiles in which we move around to make words.

We are memorizing addition facts up to 10 right now. We use unifex cubes, and then make a worksheet with all the facts. We put this in a math folder we have made. 

Our daily math activity is still awesome! We add one bean and one penny per day. We have a tens cup and ones cup for the beans. Connor can trade in his pennies for nickles, dimes and quarters. We practice counting the money and also place value with the beans. We count by 5's, 10's and 2's. 

Brotherly love! 

Sight word work

Here are some fun things we have done while learning from the dolch sight word list!

Connor is making his own sight word coloring book. I really think this has not only helped him learn his sight words but also color words! It is a color by number activity. After he colors it, I laminate it and hole punch it into a book.

Here are some worksheets we do:

Find it and circle (reading it in different fonts), trace it, color it, highlight it, put it in a sentence, box it up and build it (cut and paste). I like hands-on worksheets. Also this is something he knows how to do now, so I can give it to him to work on independently when I need to give some time to Noah or Lainey.

I put word flash cards on the floor in a pathway/road, and Connor pushed a bulldozer and read each word as he bulldozed I over it!

Lainey and Noah want to do school too!

Science and fun activities!

We have been reading about science with plants and we did a cut-and-paste labeling activity. Connor did really great at this!

A fun thing to do to break up school work like reading and math is to do a pattern block activity. Connor followed a pattern worksheet to match and make a helicopter!

Here is a new thing I sometimes do, I call it "you pick one". I have a few trays set out with different learning activities to do and I tell Connor it is his choice which one he wants to do, he gets to pick one tray. And then the next day, he picks from the remaining trays, and so forth. Today he picked a spelling puzzle activity. 

Lainey has to be in the center of it all! 

October math fun!

Math fun this week:

We discovered addition facts that equal 10. I made an egg carton to have 10 slots by tearing off two. We used 10 black cat erasers and 10 orange pumpkin erasers, to go with the October/Halloween fun theme. I told Connor that no matter how he arranged the erasers in the egg carton, it would equal 10. So, we came up with all the equations by arranging the erasers and Connor wrote them down. (Picture doesn't show all the pages we did).

We also made a Venn diagram. 

Logical thinking skills:

We made a "one difference train". Connor placed one shape on the table to begin the "train" and the next shape could ONLY have one difference. It was a little bit of a tough one. You couldn't put a shape that had two or more differences next to the previous shape. It wasn't until we made a check list with "shape, color, size" that made it easier to understand. At first Connor wanted to make a pattern, like we usually do, so this was different and required thinking skills! Here is our train!

Welcome fall! We are crazy for apples!!

I veered off track from our normal curriculum this week to do a theme of APPLES!! Since fall has begun, we are all about fall things. We visited our local apple orchard here twice already! We picked apples, rode on a tractor ride, and toured the orchard to learn about how apple trees grow (seeds, blossoms, bees, pollination, picking, washing, and even how apple cider is made)! We saw it all. Here are some fun apple activities we did in our homeschool!

Fall books I set out to read.

 

We made homemade applesauce. We used words that teach us to follow directions and wrote down the steps on an "anchor chart". 

Connor cut, pasted and practiced reading this bible verse. 

Noah had a matching activity. He matched shapes and pictures and glued them onto the paper to make a match. He also used a dot marker on an A worksheet. We sang a "letter sounds" song.

We made homemade apple pie play dough! It has apple pie spice in it and smells so good! 

 

Connor's: 

 Noah's sculpture below:

We used our 5 senses to "describe" an apple. It was not as easy as it seems! We had to learn moving beyond the word "good" ("it tastes good, it smells good...") We tried expanding our vocabulary using descriptive words. 

We also discussed fact vs. opinion.

We inspected the parts of an apple:

And practiced reading: 

More apple activities later!

The 4 seasons

We made a book about the 4 seasons! Here is Connor's book. He did it all by himself! Everything except the cloud, which I cut out. I love the fall leaves, the winter snowman and snow, the flowers, bird nest and rain in the spring, and the green summer tree with sunshine.

Connor puts a lot of care, attention and detail into it when he starts. He started with the fall tree, and cutting and pasting all of those leaves. It's so nice he takes his time working on it, and it looks really nice and beautiful. BUT... the flip side to that is it starts to take *too* long, and he looses interest by the middle of the project and thus just rushed through the last one, summer, to just get it done. I wonder if there is a way to show him how to keep moving forward through things because there is more to do after what we are currently working on. Instead of putting ALL you energy into the very first thing and losing interest and wanting to be done (but there is still more to do). That happens in our school sometimes! I'm trying to figure it out. 

And here is Noah's book. The only thing I helped with his was the cloud and sunshine. Everything else he did. I love his rainbow and raindrops in the spring. If you look closely at winter, there is a snowman in there with a smiley face, and that is snow falling all around. Noah zooms through his projects. He cuts, pastes, colors fast, and then he is done and runs off to play. Ha ha! They are both cute with their special, unique ways.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Today was one of those days when everything went smoothly, yay! We started out playing classical music and we did some "ABC yoga poses" to the letter C (Noah's letter of the week). We stretched and got ourselves awake for school! 

Lainey sat happy in her high chair for 40 minutes during the first part of school. I slowly fed her toast. Then she got moved to exersaucer, and then this awesome spot I barricaded off for her. Ha ha! She stays in there for awhile and safely plays next to us. 

Lainey is learning to read, too! 

Noah built this awesome block structure all by himself.

Last night I put up some Halloween decorations around our homeschool space and fun Halloween erasers out on the table. Connor immediately made a pattern out of his! We will also use these as math counters and bingo pieces this month. 

Noah had the letter C sitting on his side of the table today. 

Today, I dictated words to Connor (lines 1-6) and he spelled and wrote them down. No help from me and no mistakes!! Awesome job, Connor!! He got a sticker!

We practiced more "ch" words and made another book. 

This (below picture) is our bible memory verse for the week. We talked about how if we are careful with what we say and how we say it, then we stay out of trouble.  I am amazed with how well he recited our first verse (even Noah!): "if you really want to become wise, you must begin by having respect for The Lord. To know the holy one is to gain understanding." Great job, boys!