Weekly Report

The Weekly Report
Couldn't get the nifty banner to work right today. Here's our week in review:

Christmas, of course! Lots of baking, seeing relatives, reading Christmas stories, and playing with new toys. It was a short week with easy school days.

Kindergartener:

• Learned 60, 70, and 80 in math.
• practiced writing a few words
• finished her short vowel a sound words in Explode the Code.

Next week, she'll count & write to 100, write some sentences, learn to write more lowercase letters, and start on short vowel i sound words.

2nd grader:

• Getting faster at figuring out subtraction within 9. Learned different ways to approach subtraction. Worked on some challenging story problems where she had to decide whether to add or subtract to get the right answer.
• Learned to write cursive "e" and "l", and write them within words.
• Are learning how to put thoughts and pictures into words (composition)
• Reviewed the grammar rule that all sentences begin with a capital letter.

Next week, we'll continue subtraction, including more story problems, will learn cursive "f", will write more in Write About Me, and will practice adding correct punctuation to the 3 types of sentences (statements, questions, and exclamations).

I also hope to finish "week 10" in our Sonlight books and start on "week 11". This week, the kids learned what Egyptians and Romans wore in history, they learned about beaches and under the sea in science, and they yawned their way through half of Light at Tern Rock (definitely not their favorite read-aloud).

Thurs, Dec 27, 2007

We did a late-start, half a day of school.

Kindergartener:
Math: 1 page, practiced writing and sequencing 80-89
Reading: Explode the Code, 1 page (short vowel a sentence matching)
Handwriting: wrote 2 words "jet" and "yet". She has mastered lowercase "e" but still has problems with lowercase "y".

2nd grader:
Math: 1 drill page, with abacus as-needed. She did very well today and went much faster, and only needed the abacus for a few.
Grammar: easy page; had to pick either uppercase or lowercase letter to start each sentence (of course, the answer was always uppercase!)
Handwriting: half a page of lowercase cursive "l" and words.

Other:
Science: Finding Out About Everyday Things, under the sea
History: Living Long Ago, Roman Clothing
Home-ec: took down the Christmas trees and cleaned up the house!

Wed, Dec 26, 2007

Daddy is on vacation. I've found that if we do a little school in the morning, it keeps kids quiet and occupied so Daddy can sleep in a little bit! We took a Christmas break for the 24th and 25th.

Kindergartener:
Math: 2 pages, numbers 70-79, review of fractions
Explode the Code: 2 pages, short vowel A words
Handwriting: review of "y", wrote 2 words "jet" and "yet"

2nd grader:
Math: 1 drill page on her own, using an abacus. 2 pages of storyproblems (some of these are really tricky!!)
Grammar: 1 page, capitalization of first letter in a sentence.
Composition: Write About Me, my favorite toy and story (Her favorite toy was her baby dolls from Christmas, and her favorite story was Star Wars).
Handwriting: finished the cursive "e" page
Spelling: taking a break this week

Other:
Science: Finding Out About Everyday Things (the beach, and waves)
History: Living Long Ago, Clothing: the Egyptians. Found out what the Egyptians wore.
Bible: reading stories from the book of Joshua
Literature: chapter 2, the Light at Tern Rock

Wordless Wednesday, Dec 26, 2007

recipe link: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1910,158178-227192,00.html

The Weekly Report

We went to Library Storytime on Monday, with a Cookie theme. The girls made their own gingerbread houses out of graham crackers at Storytime. Last weekend, the girls made a gingerbread house with their uncle using a kit. Lots of gingerbread houses this week!

We've made cookies for Christmas gifts, went Christmas shopping, and wrapped gifts.

Kindergartener:
Learned 40s, 50s, and 60s in math. Reviewed Days of the Week and Fractions.
Learned ls, ks, ys, and js in handwriting...having some trouble with the Handwriting Without Tears method for ys (she can do ys if she makes them into a u first instead of the v shape).
She is continuing work in Explode the Code 1 with short vowel "a" words.

2nd grader:
Learned -9s in math, writing number sentences, and wrestled her way through a few drill pages.
She learned how to write cursive "p" and "e".
She learned what makes a sentence (It names someone or something. It tells what that someone/something does). She made incomplete sentences into complete sentences. One page in Grammar was a story about a bird making a nest that she had to fix. She also needed to write a 1 sentence ending to the story, and she did a very nice job with this - "when she was done she laid her eggs."
She learned how to add -er and -est to short vowel-1 consonant words to show comparison (double the consonant rule) in spelling. She also had to write a sentence from dictation.
She wrote about her favorite time of day and favorite color in Write About Me. Overall, I am seeing improvements in her writing.
Worked on Joy to the World on the piano.

Looking forward to the Christmas break...

Thurs, Dec 20, 2007

School the week before Christmas?!? What on earth was I thinking? We did half a day of school work and half a day of Christmas school.

Kindergartener:
Math: 2 pages of math, 50-59. Review days of the week
Reading: 2 pages of Explode the Code
Handwriting: the "y" page. Y is a very hard letter for her, even though its in her name.

2nd grader:
Math: 4 pages of subtraction, including a drill page, and the 9's page. Today was a hard day for thinking. I wrote the answers, and we discussed different solving strategies. She did some of the problems on the abacus.
Grammar: page 6 - putting sentences together. Cut & paste silly sentences.
Spelling: page 3 of 5. She wrote a very nice sentence.
Handwriting: finished the cursive "p" page.
Composition: Write About Me "My Day". She picked "afternoon" as her favorite time of day because "I can play."
Piano: worked on Joy to the World, which has been quite a tricky song for her, but its getting better!

Other:

• Followed a recipe by baking oatmeal raisin cookies for Daddy.
• Wrapped gifts
• Made & wrote gift tags for the gifts
• Read their new storybook from AWANA about the meaning of Christmas, and giftgiving.

Wordless Wednesday (a little late)

Art!

Art usually looks like this at my house...
A daughter grabs a craft book from the shelf.
daughter: "Can I do a craft?"
me: "sure, pick one out."

and then they pick something to do. It's not like a formal "art class" sort of thing. Most of the time, art involves pictures of mermaids. Today we did something different - styrofoam sculptures! I raided the eBay closet and got little styrofoam balls everywhere. We are non-bio-degradeable around here.

Here is our craft book (image borrowed from Amazon.com)
Kindergartener's bridge sculpture, before it fell apart, and before the wheels were added.

2nd grader's "Airport" sculpture. Inside the airport, someone (a packing peanut) is taking a photograph of a boy and a girl (two more packing peanuts). A boy and a girl fell in love on the rooftop. And a few other things are happening at the airport with the other people (the other packing peanuts).

Tues, Dec 18, 2007

The local schools had a snowday yesterday, and so did we! We visited with great-grandma and great-aunt, and helped them out by snow-blowing their driveways (actually, Daddy did all the work!)

Today was back to work. The plan is to get 3-4 good school days in this week before Christmas.

Kindergartener:
Math: 2 pages, learning numbers 40-49, and that 40 has 4 tens.
Reading: Explode the Code 2 pages, AT and AN words. She did most of this independently!
Handwriting: lowercase letter k. This was tricky at first, but she caught on.

2nd grader:
Math: 4 pages of subtraction. 2 pages were tricky story problems, such as this one:
You have a week vacation. 2 days have passed. How many days of vacation do you have left? She did a good job figuring these out, but did need some help.
Spelling: page 2 of 5
Grammar: page 5 (see the picture, she illustrated each sentence)
Composition: Write About Me "My Neighborhood"
Handwriting: 1/2 of letter "p" page in cursive

Other:

History: Living Long Ago, the first clothes

Science: Finding Out About Everyday Things, Rivers

Literature: The Light at Tern Rock

Music: 2nd grader piano practice "Joy to the World"

AWANA verses

Hope to read Bible at bedtime!

BRRRR...

Oh the weather outside is frightful!

We've had a FULL and blessed week!
Our homeschool co-op ended this Friday. A new semester will start in January. On Sunday, the kids had their Homeschool Co-op Christmas Program. The 7yo performed Away in the Manger on the piano. She also sang 3 Christmas songs with her choir. She's pictured in the slideshow, front & center between her two good friends. Also included in the slideshow are photos of the girls decorating a Gingerbread House with their uncle (uncle not pictured)

In Language Arts, my 2nd grader (7yo) is working on CVC words and adding -ing and -ed endings (double the consonant rule). She is making steady progress with cursive handwriting. She has been writing in her Write About Me book, currently writing about our neighborhood. My Kindergartner has been working on reading and writing AT and AN words in Explode the code. She has mastered the lowercase letter "e", which must be the most difficult letter, but she writes it beautifully.

In Math, the 2nd grader has reached the half-way point in her Dev Math 3 workbook. She is getting quite good at subtraction, but draws pictures if she can't figure out the answer in her head. The kindergartener has finished the unit on fractions - although I think she has learned her fractions from food rather than a workbook. Fractions always seem to come up when she wants a cookie, but hasn't eaten her lunch yet (eat half a sandwich, a third of your noodles, and a no-thank-you bite of the vegetable, and then you may have a cookie). We all learned the meaning of "dozen" and multiples of 12 when we baked 12 dozen cookies!

We did not read selections from History, Science, Bible, or Literature, due to our full week. We did start a family read-aloud called Bark of the Bog Owl from the Wilderking series.

We were supposed to go Christmas caroling with our church tonight, but the girls came home feeling icky from co-op. The younger one camped out on the couch today, so we didn't end up going. The older one watched lots of science and history shows, and filled her brain with the Trojan War, single-celled animals, and George Washington Carver with the history of the peanut. I guess the occasional day of TV (especially when feeling under-the-weather) isn't so bad.

Thurs, Dec 13, 2007

Kindergartener:
Math: 2 pages of math review of ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.), addition, telling time, and graphs
Reading: 2 pages of Explode the Code - writing and matching AT and AN words
Handwriting: lowercase letter "l"

2nd grader:
Math: 4 pages of math, including a drill page. We are now 1/2 way thru Book 3!!
Spelling: Spelling page 3 of 4 adding -ing to short vowel-1 consonant words (double the consonant, add -ing)
Grammar: page 4 of Evan-Moor Grammar & Punctuation 2 (what makes a sentence?)
Composition: 1 page of Write About Me
Handwriting: 1/2 page of cursive t (words like cat, hat, tag, tad)

Now the kids are working on coloring my hand-drawn mermaids.

Wed, Dec 12, 2007

Kids are coloring this Mermaid Page today.

Kindergartener:
Math: 2 pages working with Fractions (halves, thirds, quarters)
Reading: 1 page of Explode the Code
Handwriting: wrote two sentences using uppercase/lowercase & punctuation.

2nd grader:
Math: 2 pages - making number sentences (ex: ** *** can be written as 2+3=5, 3+2=5, 5-2=3, & 5-3=2) and a drill page.
Spelling: did Spelling page 4 of 4, focusing on adding -ed to short vowel-consonant words (hop becomes hopped). We'll do page 3 tomorrow.
Handwriting: learned cursive t, made words such as cat & tag in cursive.
Helped teach her sister math and reading.

We started a family construction project of installing hardwood flooring. Kids are always involved with projects and learn construction, measurement, project planning, and all-around family co-operation! See Wordless Wednesday picture below. Hopefully we'll have a beautiful finished floor to show in a few more weeks.

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday, Dec 11, 2007

Wow, what a day...

We baked 12 Dozen cookies (144 + 5 extras). Kids helped measure and mix ingredients. The oven was on and actively receiving and spitting out cookies from lunchtime until dinnertime. We have a cookie exchange with our homeschool co-op, and also our small house-church is going Christmas caroling, and will be leaving cookies on the doorsteps of neighbors.

In addition to my baking adventure, I worked on two customers' web sites. School was low-key today, with a focus on the 3R's, and a conversation about cold-blooded vs. warm-blooded animals.

Kindergartener:
Math: 3 pages (Fractions, and Probability)
Reading: 1 page of Explode the Code
Handwriting: Practiced writing a few words using c,d,e,i,t,u,g

2nd Grader:
Math: 4 pages on subtraction (includes finishing the Unit A test)
Spelling: Spelling worksheet week 2, page 2 of 4
Handwriting: Finished cursive h page

Other:
Science: coldblooded vs. warmblooded animals
Math: the concept of a "dozen", measurement (cups, teaspoons, half, whole)
Home-ec: helped clean the downstairs, cleaned their bedrooms, helped bake cookies

Monday, Dec 10, 2007

Library Storytime: Christmas theme & reindeer craft

Kindergartener:

Math: 3 pages of math (fractions, thirds & fourths)

Reading: 1 page of Explode the Code 1 (matching same words)Handwriting: learned how to write a lowercase "e"

2nd grader:

Math: 2 pages subtraction Unit 2 Test (2 of 4 pages)

Composition: Write About Me 2 pages (about my family)

Handwriting: learned cursive lowercase h

This Week in Review!

We've had a great week! Here's our week in review:

In science, we officially learned a lot about plants and trees.
Independent studies on planets in our solar system, and fun "enlightening" experiments on static electricity - we discovered that we could actually see the sparks in the dark!

In math, the kindergartener studied addition using pictures. The 2nd grader made a discovery that subtraction is the same thing as addition, only in reverse (5 - 3 = 2, 2 + 3 = 5)

In reading, the kindergartener is working on CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant words, such as C-A-T); she is able to sound out a short sentence and then "say it fast" so that it makes sense. She also spends time looking at the pictures to gain picture clues. She looks at Mommy's books and computer and points out recognizable words, such as "go", "zoo", "google". She watched Mommy reading from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe and pointed out all the places that said "Zaphod". She is learning that words spelled the same way will consistently say the same thing. The 2nd grader is learning how to change CVC words by adding endings (plural -s, -ing, and -ed). She has also read several Beginner Bible stories, directions on microwave meals, directions in math, and any other words that come up in every day life.

In writing, the kindergartener is learning to apply phonics to writing. She wrote "ploobo" for "Pluto" during our solar system studies. She writes phonetically when adding words to her pictures. She is learning to form lowercase letters in her handwriting workbook. The 2nd grader is learning to put thoughts into words. She can write short reports about subjects that interest her. She is also writing letters to people, expressing her thoughts and feelings. Today she wrote a personal letter to her piano teacher, telling her about what she has been working on at home.

We've also focused on the 7 Continents for History/Geography. The 2nd grader can sing a song with all 7 continents. We've also worked on finding the continents on various maps, and talked about unique features within each continent.

Friday, Dec 7, 2007

Kindergartener:
Took review test of past week
Math: 2 pages, Whole and Half (Fractions)
Reading: Explode the Code 2 pages

2nd grader:
Took review test of past week, including spelling words
Math: 4 pages of math; subtraction and addition number sentences
Piano: private lessons today

Other:
Bible: Joshua & Israelites defeated in battle because of disobediance
Biography: Johnny Appleseed (32 page storybook)

The Rainforest Report

The 7yo's Rainforest Report, written at 9:30pm in bed:

"The rain forest has animals. The rain forest has lots of trees."

Homeschooling tip: leave a notebook pad and pencil by your child's bed!

Thurs Dec 6, 2007

...I admit, I'm playing around with Blogger and seeing what kind of tricks I can do!

Kindergartener:

Math: 3 pages math with big sis (review of adding, counting, telling time, money)

Reading: 2 pages of Explode the Code

2nd grader:

Math: 2 drill pages of subtraction and adding (60 problems)

Spelling: Spelling page number 4 of 4 (-ed on vowel-consonant words)

Handwriting: cursive letter g, connecting g, a, d, c

Piano: Jolly Old St. Nick, D scale

Other:

Field trip: Secretary of State

Science: independent study of the Quetzal (bird) from South America, found photos online of the planets, 5yo colored pictures of planets according to description, polution's effect on plants (Discover & Do DVD), also we did several experiments with static electricity.

Math: independent use of pattern blocks

Art: playdo sculptures

Geography: Europe (7 continents)

Bible: Joshua & Jericho

More about static electricity: we discovered different ways of picking up static electricity charges (hair, scuffling across carpet in socks, blankets). We also discovered that if we turned the lights off and recreated the experiments, we could actually see the static!

Wed Dec 5, 2007

Kindergartener:

Math: 1 1/2 pages math (addition)

Reading: 1 page Explode the Code, writing AT words

Read Fun Tales Book 1 and 2.

Other: Drew pictures of planets during discussion on each planet

2nd grader:

Math: 3 pgs subtraction, including 1 drill page

Spelling: Spelling page number 3 of 4

Reading: Beginner's Bible, story of the spies and Rahab

Handwriting: cursive c, a, and d

Piano: Away in the Manger, 2 pages of Theory book

Other:

History/Geography: Review 7 Continents, Antarctica

Science: Trees, tree rings, animals in and around trees

Bible: AWANA night (they each earned a green jewel)

Misc: colored U.S.A Flags

Tues Dec 4, 2007

Kindergartener
Math: Bob Jones Addition (4pgs), Days of the Week
Reading: Explode the Code 1 (pg 4) AT words, handwriting

2nd grader
Math: Dev Math 3 Subtraction - number sentences, drawing pictures, drill page using "less" for subtracting and "and" for adding.
Handwriting: Cursive letters c and a, connecting those letters
Spelling: Spelling Lesson 1a (completed pg 2 of 4)

Other subjects:
Science: (First Book of Nature) Bugs that you can find in trees, products made from trees
Geography: Australia, and review of 7 Continents song
History: Book of Time - reviewed past history figures studied so far and put in timeline book
Bible: Joshua, Rahab and the Spies

Monday Dec 3, 2007

Library story time: "friends" theme
2nd grader practiced finding books by her favorite authors (today was Mercer Mayer "Little Critter" books). Discussed antonyms and synonyms (coat and jacket as synonyms)

Kindergartener:
Math: Practiced addition to 6
Reading: Consonant Review pre-test Explode the Code 1
short vowel a words, practice writing a.

2nd grader:
Math: Subtraction -1, -2 (2pgs DM)
Composition: Write About Me (writing, journaling)
Handwriting: Cursive c, and connecting c's.

Other subjects:
Literature: Finished The Hundred Dresses last week
Bible: finished Deuteronomy (Moses dies)
History/Geography: reviewed 7 continents song, studied Asia
Science: ways seeds move