YOKO: February 21-25

ITTY BITTY BOOKWORM

Our book focus this week was YOKO.  We talked about foods from different countries, different ways to eat food, respecting different cultures, etc.  Caleb and Hannah each colored pictures of food, cut them out and put them in a paper lunch bag.

This was the favorite craft of the week.  I laid out several different kitchen utensils and five colors of paint.  They loved experimenting with the tools to see what designs they could make.  The finished picture on the right is Hannah's.   

McRuffy Kindergarten Phonics

Caleb (lessons 121-125)  He was working on long i words.  I found it interesting to realize that he can read just about any book I hand him without really ever slowing down to sound out a word, but if you pull the words out of context and just make a list of words he looks at a few like he doesn't have a clue what they are (the same words he just whizzed right through when reading the story).  His writing prompt this week was about driving a cab for a day.

Caleb's Cab

Once upon a time there was a person named Caleb.  Caleb had to drive Ruff's cab because he had a day off.  He started driving in the cab and then he saw 100 worms.  They asked if they could ride in the cab with Caleb.  Then Caleb drove off.  Then their tire hit a nail in the road.  Then a tow truck had to tow the cab and put a new tire on.  

Hannah (lessons 6-10)  She learned the "c" and "t" sounds and ca, ba, ab, ta, and at blends.  She is really beginning to understand how to sound out words and is so excited about it.  

McRuffy First Grade Math

Caleb (Lesson 116-119)  Really nothing new here this week.  More practice adding, subtracting, counting coins, reading thermometers, measuring, and using geoboards.

McRuffy Kindergarten Math

Hannah (lessons 5-9)  counting, patterns, greater than and less than, and pattern blocks.  Greater than and less than was a little tricky, but the rest she did really well with.  

Other FUN Stuff

We took the kids to a Monster JaM show Friday night.  In this picture Caleb is using blocks and cars to have his own Monster Jam.  

Mom's birthday was last Sunday so we spent Monday celebrating with bowling and pizza.

Bunny Mail: February 14-18

ITTY BITTY BOOKWORM

Our book focus this week was BUNNY MAIL by Rosemary Wells.  We spent time reading about mail delivery.  We planned on designing stamps, but no one seemed to be in the mood for that this week.

MCRUFFY KINDERGARTEN PHONICS

Caleb (lessons 116-120) continues to breeze through this curriculum, but have at least reached a point where he has to at least think a little bit.  The spelling words have gotten a bit harder.  he generally misses one on the pretest and continues to struggle with that one throughout the week.  We are currently working on words that start with "j" and the long a sound.  I have reintroduced the weekly writing assignment.  This week I asked him to write a story about a jet.  If he had a jet, what would he make it out of?  What would it look like?  Where would it go?  Here is his story.  He also illlustrated, but I didn't take a picture of that this week.

The Eagle Jet

If I built a jet it would be made out of metal so I couldn't break it.  It would have eagle color, wings, and good eye sight and an eagle beak.  I would be a pilot and fly it at an airport and take Daddy on it.

A side not from last week about writing stories:  I decided it was time for Caleb to attempt writing the story himself.  This became a major battle and one I decided not to repeat for a while.  Caleb really doesn't like to do things if he knows it isn't right.  He couldn't stand the thought of spelling a word wrong.  He wanted me to spell every word to him and that was totally not the point of the assignment.  Choose your battles! 

Hannah has been getting very neglected on the school scene lately and has been expressing a strong desire to learn more.  I walked through a few pages in the beginning of Caleb's phonics book and decided to give it a try with her.  I ordered her workbook 1 and she watched for the UPS truck for  days, squealing when it arrived!  She has done really well with the first week.  It is certainly harder for her that it was for Caleb, but she surprised me.  She worked on the letters a and b and blending the two sounds.  I also did a quick game to make sure she was correctly identifying uppercase and lowercase letters.   

 Hannah's handwriting is already better than Caleb's.  She begs to do handwriting.  In this picture you see a line that I wrote followed by a line that she wrote. 

MCRUFFY FIRST GRADE MATH

Caleb has been adding 3 numbers at a time and we have also started some 2 digit subtraction.  Counting money was driving him crazy at first, but now he is doing it really well.  

MCRUFFY KINDERGARTEN MATH

I also ordered Hannah the kindergarten math curriculum when I ordered her phonics book.  It is a perfect level for her and she loves it.  This week she has practiced writing numbers, counting, grouping, and patterns.

 MCRUFFY KINDERGARTEN SCIENCE

We talked about plant parts and things that come from plants.  We also reviewed man made and God made(nature).  The second half of the week we talked about things in the sky.  I am quite bored with this curriculum and since I am not a science person by nature it is really a struggle for me to get science finished each week.  I am determined to finish this curriculum by May though.  

 PLAY TIME

The weather was beautiful here this week so we spent lots of time outside riding bikes, going for rides in the wagon, playing in the sandbox, swinging, playing baseball, throwing the frisbee, and mostly playing basketball.  Monday was Valentine's Day so we made cupcakes and delivered them to Daddy at work them went to the playground for a while.  On Friday we had a picnic at our house with a new family on our street.  We also got a little physical inside.  We got Just Dance for our Wii and the kids LOVE IT!  It really keeps them moving and burns up some energy so I love it too!

Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink: Feb. 7-11

This week we focused a lot on Valentine's Day.

Caleb and Hannah decorated gift bags for a present for Daddy.

We decorated a lunch bag for each member of our family.  I set up a tray with pink, white and red paper, Valentine's Day themed rubber stamps and stickers, ink pads, and markers.  All week anyone could make a valentine or just write a little note to drop in someone's bag.  This was a lot of fun to open and read on Valentine's Day.

A special project:

Caleb received a paint and build set for his birthday that included 4 projects.  Daddy helped the kids each build a project this weekend.  Hannah did a birdhouse and Caleb built a racecar.  The kids had fun, but I think Daddy ended up doing most of the work.  The kids just wanted to paint.  

The rest of our school work this week was our usual math, phonics, and science.

Have You Missed Us?

At the end of November I created this beautiful plan in my mind.  It went something like this- we would spend December focusing on Advent activities while still spending as much time as possible on our regular activities.  We would take a couple of weeks off around the holidays.  I would spend that time preparing lovely plans for our next semester of school.  We would get back on our regular schedule using my lovely new plans immediately upon our return from KY January 10.  Here is what really happened.  I spent all my time in December planning a baby shower for my sister-in-law and preparing for Christmas and Caleb's 6th birthday.  We had his party on Jan. 2, had a special day with him for his actual birthday on the 3rd, then headed to KY on the 4th.  We returned from KY on the 10th with a sick Hannah and Caleb began getting sick on the 11th.  We eventually ended up at the ER with Caleb (croup) on the 16th.  The next week we began dealing with a family situation that had us traveling a good bit three weekends in a row.  So, as far as school goes we have been reading as many books as we can, trying to get to at least one craft a week, keeping up with Caleb's workbooks, and playing lots of games.  It finally feels like things are beginning to settle down.  I am working hard this week to get some planning finished.  Hopefully my regular posts will return next week.  For now I just wanted to record a few shots of what we did accomplish the last few weeks.

We had a week about penguins.  We froze paint and painted with it while it melted.  This was a big hit with Hannah, not so much with Caleb.

 We made penguin snacks.

 We made penguin puppets.

 And played Pengoloo.

 Hannah and Caleb drew pictures of penguins.  

Caleb's (left) Hannah's (right)

 Our next week was about Chicken Little.

We made these cute chicken crafts.

 We talked about different kinds of birds.

 We made nests and used marshmallows for eggs.

 Not really related to school, but we found this Polish pottery tea set in the attic and decided Hannah was ready for it.  She is my little cook!

Last week was suppose to be all about dogs and I had some really cute things planned, but it just didn't happen.  We read lots of books about dogs, but didn't accomplish anything else related to the theme.

So here's to HIGH HOPES of many wonderful learning experiences over the next few months!

A LITTLE Behind Post 2- Caleb's 6th Birthday

Can't believe my baby boy is SIX!  He had a blast at Monkey Joe's with all his friends. 

A LITTLE Behind Post 1- Christmas Portraits