Monday, September 27, 2010

ABCya!

While on the hunt for some help teaching how to tell time I came across the site abcya.com They have a great section about telling time and when I look further there is so much more! They have all sorts of interactive activities through 5th grade! I am super excited to have found it! Another thing we are already loving on our quick glance is the interactive number chart where you can color each number. That is something I was having Lucy do already but I wrote out the numbers and while we were learning how to count by 2s 5s and such I had her color those specific numbers. Wish I knew about this then!

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Feeling fallish


This was a busy week of field trips! Monday Sam was not feeling good so we ended up skipping school and taking him to the Dr. Lucy watched a couple of Animal Planet documentary just to squeeze in some educational value LOL. Tuesday we went and took a ride on the trolley as part of our tourist in our own town unit followed by a lunch at Trolley Dogs to continue the theme :) Wednesday was business as usual. Thursday in honor of the first day of fall we went to a really cool local park for the day for all sorts of fun. W=My friend who is also homeschooling joined us. We had a picnic. Read a couple of books about autumn and what changes happen and why. We also had a signs of fall scavenger hunt.
Which led to a hike in the woods. We also did some rubbings. We did leafs, sticks and all sorts of things we could find to check out the different textures they made. After a while at the playground I think we were all pooped after a long day!
Friday was another trip to the library for story time and picking out this weeks books.

This week Lucy got a great handle on counting by 5s so starting tomorrow we are going to attempt telling time! She also did 3 Starfall lessons and loves it! I am finding she is really getting it and zooming through it and it is making things much easier for me because it is the same kind of lessons I am trying to make for her but it takes me a lot more time to draw it all out! I am hoping after she gets through all of these easier lessons it will get a bit harder and challenge her! She reads the stories on there like nothing I am so proud of how well she is reading! I am hoping this coming week we will also get in a couple of good water lessons. She is still keeping an eye on her water slowly evaporating from the cup and I think she thinks that is really neat!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Hooray!!!!!

i am finally on the school computer! It took a bit longer then expected but we finally have one down here in the school room! I am very excited about it and we are finally going to start starfall today!!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Well I am happy to report that we have been able to introduce more then just reading writing and math without a problem! Last week I asked Lucy what she wanted to do for science and she put me on the assignment of finding material on water. I am excited at all of the possibilities! We are planning to take a road trip to see a waterfall and maybe a dam too! We started the unit with a easy reader book I had all about water which touched on evaporation and the solid liquid and gad forms of water. We filled a glass with water and set it out and are observing how long it takes for it all to evaporate. We also started our "Tourist in your own town" unit as we are calling it. We are very excited to learn all about the history and all of the things Kenosha has to offer! We went to the visitors center yesterday to get a good start. We got a map and booklets all about the attractions and sites to see! The list is growing everyday of the things we want to do for this! In other news Lucy has pretty much mastered even numbers and is also doing quite good on odds too!
This weeks Lego Quest was to make a playgroup I love it! She put so many features! It was hard to get a great pic but she has a slide,Teeter totter, tire climbing thing a couple poles to slide down, a pond, bouncy duck, sand box, grounds keeper, water fountain, flowers, a snake and more! I think of all of these this is the one she has gotten the most excited about! And journals you ask? Well she is breezing through them and actually starting to enjoy them too! I am so glad! I feel like that is touching on so many different areas I really wanted her to like it! Oh! And we also finished the first of the Boxcar Children books, Lucy made a little story board for it and we are now reading Matilda because well she thinks she is Matilda :) LOL alsright enough of this mish mash! I will be back to report how it is going again soon!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Busy Busy!


We are still going going going! This week journals are going much better! The ticket idea is working great too! We learned about short and long vowel sounds and made word webs for each. She is getting great at recognizing number 1-100 and we started working on counting by 2s also! We have been playing a lot of word games and she is getting so great at Boggle Jr!
We also pulled out her new balance. first I wrote two numbers on the board and she had to guess which one would weigh more then check them all. She got them all right after that we tested to see if the bears and Legos were equal and how many Legos it takes to equal a bear. I think she learned a lot during that quick lesson and I plan on doing more of it!
We also ordered ourselves a new updated computer (this one is very outdated!) My brother has it all put together now we just need to get windows 7 on it and then we will have a school computer! I am very excited!!! Starfall here we come! So hopefully next week we will be open to a bunch more possibilities! I am also very happy to report that my biggest worry keeping Sam entertained during school is not really being an issue!
Tomorrow story time at the Library! Also hunting for books on Autumn for our first day of Autumn celebration!

Friday, September 3, 2010

Week one under our belt!

Well week one is done and I am super pleased! Thursday we did a lot. Journal was a bit rough again. Other then that she read to me out of her easy reader book of choice, I made flashcards of 1-100 and she did great at those! Still having the most trouble with the teens. She also did the weekly lego quest. (link to that on the right sidebar)
She also did a search through a page out of a book to find all the vowels which she is doing great at too!
Today the journal went a lot smoother! We got our Rainbow Resource order yesterday so we had a bunch of new stuff to use today! We played with the counting bears I had her count and write the number on her little dry erase board and she is getting better at figuring out how to write the teen numbers so hopefully with a bit more practice she will have that down. We also took turns making and finishing patterns with them and she has that down too! I came up with an idea to create a way for her to hopefully focus better on her journal because she can do it just fine when she is focusing on it. So I let her decorate a box and now when she does good she can get a ticket to put into it and after 10 she can have some sort of reward.

So I would say this week was a success for sure! I introduced vowels and she has a great grasp on what they are. With the help of a "finger space" her writing is much easier to understand. She is showing improvement with writing 2 digit numbers. She also learned about when to capitalize letters!
Today her journal question was "what do you hope we do this weekend?" and her answer was "more school" so I guess that is a great sign!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

We had a great time at our little party today! We did end up doing the journal today before we left and it was a bit worse then yesterday... that situation may need some help. but other then that the party was a lot of fun and the kids did a lot of neat stuff!

Twister!


They each made a flower.



and their own french bread pizza!

We also played alphabet Bingo and made Girl Gourmet cupcakes... and those were a disaster by no fault of the kids! a fun filled busy day and now i'm pooped!