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!