Well, week one of school ran smoothly, and week two tested my ability to be flexible- and maintain sanity. The first one I feel was accomplished, not so much the second. You can see my original lesson plan above and how many changes needed to be made as the week went along. We still had a great week of learning and it's good to know early on that we can handle many things that may come our way.
On Monday the kids had a chance to visit a playplace we haven't been to in years- and with friends they can rarely see. So we decided to hold school in the afternoon and embrace the opportunity.
After an hour drive in the rain through construction, and several calls to Dax for altered directions, we finally made it. And didn't realize the kids needed socks so had to borrow some from the bin. The place itself is very cool. There are so many areas to play- a grocery, a tool room, dollhouse corner, cars corner, bounce house, and as you see, a dinosaur land- and much more! When we arrived home, we found we had accidentally taken a play purse and left Colin's raincoat. sigh :)
After lunch we started school and of course concentration wasn't at it's height so I left more of the wordier explanations out and got to the activities. We're studying Summer this week! We read
Touch the Sky Summer about a boy whose family visits grandparents at their lake cabin. We focused on lakes and mountains that day for Geography. The kids learned to recognize a lake on a map of our area and were interested to see which ones we've visited.
I love this poster and the kids have gone to it throughout the week. Hannah asked if the black writing meant those were "bad places." haha! I explained the print was in different colors so we could see the words more clearly. You never know when a little lesson will pop up.
Next w created the mountain and lake landforms with play-dough. We didn't have the exact colors, so it's a chance for an even more creative mind, right? : )
They referred to pictures in the lake and mountain books and included what they liked. Here's Hannah's with an orange beach, lake with lilipads, miniature forest, massive wildflowers, and because she always like things to be a bit scary for excitement- volcanoes.
Chloe followed suit but added a yellow beach and a beachcomber.
Beachcomber blob person.
On Tuesday we happy to have a playdate with our good friends the Bentons. We finished their reading and math in the morning and did an art project with all the kids together. What's more summery than sunflowers? The kids talked about the colors Van Gogh used, the shape of his vase and flowers, and tried their own versions. (Hannah wrote "sunflowers" several times because I'm 'strongly encouraging' her to avoid writing so quickly that she makes mistakes or mixes capital and lower case letters)
Chloe's art.
I sadly didn't get a picture of everyone at work, but us moms produced nice versions as well : )
One morning I woke up to this. I used to dump out all their baby puzzles like this when they were toddlers and it would give me time to complete a task on my own. The kids decided do it again, but didn't realize some of these puzzles actually take quite awhile! By the end of the day, we eventually got them all together again. In the meantime, we just stepped over the progress.
New vocabulary words. Hannah's reading is progressing really quickly. In her writing we're working on forming the letters consistently with care. It's kind of funny to do this considering once she gets older she'll just write messy like the rest of us. Her math is also going well. She completed her first little workbook test and got 100%!
A nice surprise project in our week popped up when we read a random book they checked out from the library. It happened to fit perfectly with the summer theme. The kids thought of doing this themselves, and if they are interested and motivated it's often better to encourage them on rather than having to stick to original plans. That's the lovely freedom of having school at home. In the book, a mouse princess is tired of the royal gardens being so formal and draws plans of her own garden. The caretaker helps her over the course of a year work the grounds so her garden can come to life. I liked the planning/hard work lesson in this!
Chloe's garden includes an airplane runway and a bookshelf.
Hannah spent a few days thinking on hers. She'd like a variety of beds in her garden- labeled 'boys' and 'girls'. I'm all for beds in the garden.
On Thursday they went to Co-op and came home to a bit of our own school. She's learning to follow number lines in math, so I used a Twister map to make it more interactive. Some ideas come from blogs, but sometimes I'm lucky and things around our house come to mind! They would stand on a color and I would say 3! They jump 3 circles. Plus 2! Jump 2 more. Then they add up the circles they jumped. Excuse the pantsless boy- potty training still in progress. And the new Mickey Mouse shoes are never coming off.
This was the day I lost a bit of sanity. Dax has been gone until 11pm every night, and while I actually enjoy quiet evenings on my own, to have the kids for every hour of the day for several days on top of life's regular responsibilities gets to be overwhelming. As he's always a patient husband, he calmly listens to my woes and I can begin to see clearly again. And the pile of laundry in the bedroom will get put away eventually.
Friday we did some more interactive math. She's also learning about tally marks- or rather reviewing since they did them in preschool a bit. I figured our little bowling set would be perfect for low number tallying. I put out five pins and we played a couple of rounds using the chalkboard we have on the fence. At first I tallied while they told me their scores, then Hannah got a chance to mark them.
My Jar Jar Binks posture in action. Chloe easily won both rounds and I came in last.
At one point I gave Hannah what I thought was a question she would really have to think about. "If Chloe has 17 and you have 13, how many more pins do you need to hit to beat her?" She said "5" without missing a beat. I'm pretty horrible at simple math in my head- so there was an awkward and embarrassing pause while I figured out she was right. : /
For a science this week, I had planned to mix various smoothie recipes with them, cut up fruit and match the seeds, etc. etc. It just didn't work out. We ate most of the ingredients before the end of the week-oops- and somehow seeds just didn't seem to fit in with the plan anymore. However, I had been reading a sensory poem to them every morning having them close their eyes. So we tested out their hearing. Each kid was blindfolded and the other two of us (Colin was out with Dad) would move around the yard clapping or whispering to see if they could point in the right direction. Pretty easy exercise and very funny.
Field trip! I'm trying to do a fun field trip each week because back when you were in school, wasn't that the most exciting thing? I always wished there were more field trips than once or twice a year and now we can have them all we want! Since it was the first day of summer, what more appropriate activity than going to the water park for the first time this year. Hannah is very close to swimming (poor thing almost never has access to a pool- or a sidewalk to practice biking) and Chloe and Colin were able to do so much more than last year. Dax even went down the big slide a couple of times and they were so cute cheering him on. I loved seeing him up there, the only adult surrounded by kids, but proudly waving at his own little ones from the top.
And one of those amazing mom moments happened here! At one point Hannah came to sit nearby me on a towel. The lady in the red hat above and another mom had deemed themselves the slide monitors and were watching every kid there like a hawk. She came over and pointed at Hannah. "Is that your daughter?" my heart beats a little faster and I nod. "Well, she is a VERY good girl." I smiled in surprise. "Thanks!" and that was it. But that's all it takes to feel so proud of your kid and feel like you've done a little something right along the way not without plenty of prayer and help from others. So feel like doing a good deed? Compliment a mother and make her entire day : )
We love these kids and their blue eyes : )
Next week we read the book, Lentil. I can't wait to see how it all goes!
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