Week beginning 2/21/10

Language Arts/Foreign Languages:
*I read Dinosaurs at Dark aloud to Sarah, Mia, and Adam
*Sarah and Mia took turns reading the I Can Read (Level 1) book Dinosaur Time
*Sarah and Mia played Hennings Haus (German online games) - colors, articles of clothing
*Sarah and Mia practiced German color words (We played "I Spy")
*Sarah learned Spanish words cama and silla, and words for liking/not liking: me gusta, no me gusta, me encanta, odio, mi favorito es...
*Sarah and I read Three Little Pigs (a We Both Read book, Level 1)
*Mia and I read Too Many Cats (a We Both Read book, Level K)

Math:
*Sarah and Mia did measuring and sorting according to size
*Sarah practiced identifying coins and their amount
*Sarah practiced telling time
*Sarah and Mia did addition and subtraction problems
*Sarah played games at Funbrain.com's Math Arcade
*Mia practiced counting to 100.
*Adam practiced counting to 10.

Social Studies:
*I read "What is History" from the SOTW to Sarah and Mia
*Read The Story of Soha: A Girl From Ancient Egypt to Sarah
*Sarah and Mia watched the NatGeo Egypt video (Ancient Egypt)
*Sarah and Mia watched the NatGeo Japan video (Fire and Water festival, Mount Fuji)

Science:
*We read the Usborne IL Encyclopedia of World History: Early Life, Early Fish, Early Mammals
*Sarah, Mia, and Adam learned about dinosaurs (see LA/FL above, Dinosaur Time, as well as Dinosaurs A-Z, and the Usborne IL Encyclopedia of World History section on dinosaurs)
*Sarah and Mia watched a frog dissection video
*Sarah learned about conservation of resources
*Sarah learned about conductivity (follow-up to electricity study last week)
*Sarah watched videos about dunkleosteus, orthocone, nothosaurus, cymbospodylus, sea scorpion, basilosauras, styxosaur, megalodon, and others. Learned about fossilization. New vocabulary: sediment, vertebrates, extinct; reviewed vocab carnivore/herbivore/omnivore from last week
*Sarah watched video on orcas in the wild with Dad
*Sarah visited the BBC.com page Science and Nature: Sea Monsters
*Dad introduced Sarah to the concept of ages: pre-Cambrian, Cambrian, etc. using the prehistory timeline
*Sarah explored human anatomy online (skeleton, tooth, cardiovascular system, female reproductive system, excretory system)
*Mia watched video about dunkleosteus and orthocone
*Mia explored human anatomy online (skeleton, tooth, cardiovascular system, eye)
*Adam watched "Land of Giants" from Walking With Dinosaurs, watched megaladon and dunkleosteus videos

Art:
*Sarah, Mia, and Adam painted with watercolors
*Sarah and Mia began exploring the book Starting Painting
*Sarah made art with found/recycled objects (bottles, cardboard)
*Sarah played the Usborne online keyboard with notes and stave
*Adam made a snow scene with "soap paint"

Physical Education:
*Sarah and Mia had jiu jitsu class, and at home worked on take downs and positions (Adam did MMA with Cody)
*Sarah practiced forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheels, one-handed cartwheels, backbends, bridges, headstands, and handstands. Mia practiced forward rolls, backward rolls, and cartwheels.
*Sarah worked on flexibility
*Sarah and Mia began reading The Young Gymnast: A Young Enthusiast's Guide to Gymnastics

Religion:
*Sarah learned about caring for the Earth (UU Principle 7) and Adam explored "Snow." Mia's class did Session 16: How Families Change; the book read was I'll Always Love You.
*Sarah heard about the Egyptian concept of ma'at, and about some of the gods of Ancient Egypt (Sekhmet, Hathor, Amun, Inubis, Osiris, Isis, etc.)

Week beginning 2/14/10

For the week of 2/14/10 to 2/20/10

Language Arts and Foreign Languages:
*I read aloud Mummies in the Morning - vocabulary: oasis, mirage, pyramid, sarcophagus
*Sarah learned Spanish words for body parts
*Sarah read Yo! Yes?
*Sarah did Three Little Plays and Chinese Fables in the I'm Reading section on starfall.com
*Mia did Silly Turkey (short U sound) on starfall.com
*Adam independently counted to five in Spanish.
*Adam and Aaden repeated numbers in Spanish to ten
*Adam and Aaden did Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in ASL
*Adam and Aaden copied the ASL fingerspelling alphabet


Math:
*I read One Hundred Hungry Ants to Mia, Adam, and Aaden
*Sarah was introduced to Roman numerals I, II, III, IV, IIV, IIIV, V, VI, VII, VIII, X, C, and M
*Mia and Adam learned "whole" and "half" (review for Mia)

Social Studies:
*Sarah, Mia, and I read the Usborne IL Encyclopedia of Ancient History chapter on Egypt
*Sarah and Mia looked at photos of "What the World Eats" showing weekly groceries in some different families in different countries around the world
*Sarah and Mia watched a detailed but child-friendly online video with Dad about the mummification process of Ancient Egypt
*Sarah and Mia learned about Ancient Egypt

Science:
*Sarah, Mia and Adam learned about some different dinosaurs (including a new one: ornithomimus), new word: paleontologist
*Sarah and Mia, (and Adam) learned about the scientific method - hypothesis, test, observe
*Sarah and Mia looked at the timeline from formation of the Earth, through life appearing, to dinosaurs, to current.
*Sarah explored insect camouflage
*Sarah learned about electricity; watched Electricity For Kids 1 (electric circuits, conventional current flow, electrons, voltage, switch, conducting) and Electricity for Kids 2 (magnets, attract/repel, polarity, compass)
*Mia watched an electricity for kids video

Physical Education:
*Sarah and Mia learned about relay races.
*Sarah, Mia, and Adam attended their gymnastics classes on Thursday (the last class of this session) and then afterward we stayed for open gym time where Aaden was able to explore the gym and equipment as well. At home, the children worked on forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheels, handstands, bridges, backbends, and back walkovers (at their level.)

Art:
*Mia blended primary colors to make secondary colors.


There was a special treat this week! After church at the beginning of the week (an intergenerational service, so there were no RE classes) there was a Kids' Valentine's Day Dance. The kids had a lot of fun dancing and getting to play with children they don't get to spend a lot of purely social time with, and then afterwards the girls were awesome and helped fold up and put away some of the chairs.

Tuesday we went to an "after Valentine's Valentine party" with our friends - the children exchanged Valentines and had lots of fun playing dress up and with Play Dough together. A snowstorm brought lots of opportunities on Wednesday for outside snow play with snowball fights, fort building, snowmen, and sledding with neighborhood friends. Saturday, Sarah and Mia went with two of their friends to Chuck E Cheese's for an afternoon of fun, and a quick trip to see the train station (where the photo at right was taken.)

Last Week

Week beginning February 7, 2010

Language Arts and Foreign Languages:
*I read aloud a different classic fairy tale each night (including The Red Shoes, Little Match Girl, and The Emperor's New Clothes) and then we discussed the stories. Also, Dad read East of the Sun, West of the Moon and Puss In Boots.
*I read Brown Bear, Brown Bear each night for the boys, and also the Spanish translation, Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo, for everyone.
*We all practiced fingerspelling the ASL alphabet each night.
*Sarah and Mia read Eat Your Peas, Louise (Guided Reading Level E/DRA Level 6-8) aloud, twice each
*Sarah and Mia read The Mighty Little Lion Hunter (a "We Both Read" level 1 book) aloud, twice each.
*Sarah copied sentences from a phonics reader that is slightly above her current reading level (Animal Adventures, which is Theme 6 in the Houghton Mifflin Phonics Library) as well as from a book that is in Spanish (Hablo Espanol con Perico)
*Mia worked on starfall.com doing the Valentine "Connecting Words" (Reading/sentence creation using phrases), "Word Hunt" (finding the correct word to finish the sentence), and "Zac the Rat" (phonics based story using short A)
*Adam copied an "A."
*Adam matched Spanish shape words to the matching shape on the literacycenter.net Early Childhood Spanish page
*Aaden repeated numbers in Spanish up to ten, and tried to copy the ASL fingerspelling alphabet.

Math:
*Sarah and Mia learned a little about banking and were introduced to budgeting.
*Sarah practiced counting by twos and fives to 100.
*Sarah practiced telling time.
*Mia worked on counting to 100 (first on starfall.com and then with me) and on basic addition.
*Adam began to show interest in counting everything he saw.

Physical Education:
*Sarah, Mia, and Adam went to gymnastics classes on Thursday, and at home practiced: forward rolls, forward rolls with straddle, forward rolls with pike, cartwheels, bridges, handstands, tuck jumps and straddle jumps. (Aaden participated in this.) [The children were dissuaded from rigging up a makeshift balance beam in the house, so they got no practice in that area.]

Social Studies:
*Sarah and Mia and I read about different climates around the world (desert, tropical, temperate, etc.) and discussed living in those areas.
*We briefly reviewed continents, and talked about the Equator and Poles.
*We looked at a series of photographs of people living, working, and playing in India, China, Vietnam, Laos, Tibet, Pakistan, Cambodia, Peru, and Ghana, and discussed the photos.
*Sarah and Mia learned about desert living.
*Sarah and Mia learned a bit about gender roles in the past.

Science:
*Sarah and Mia investigated batteries online, to find out how they work.
*Sarah learned about carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores with Dad.
*Sarah, Mia, and I read about camels and their adaptations to their climate.
*We discussed climates (see Social Studies above) - this includes weather, animals and plants, and orbit/tilt of the earth.
*Mia learned about decomposition and decay.

Art:
*Sarah and Mia have been making Valentines and related crafts, using the book Valentine's Day: Things to Make and Do.
*Adam made a pasta necklace.
*Sarah has been working on drawing people without using solid outlines.
*Both girls are working on improving their mermaid drawings, and have been doing a lot of telling elaborate mermaid stories with drawings.
*Sarah sketched what she saw going on around her, such as Mia and Adam playing on the couch, or Mia twirling a cloth above her head.
*Adam has begun to say "black" when he means black, instead of "brown" which was covering both colors.

Religion:
*Sarah and I discussed some Muslim and Hindu beliefs, as well as some cultures' beliefs about spirits and protections/wards like bells on a baby's cap, etc.
*In RE at the beginning of the week, Mia's class did the second half of lesson 15, My Family: All Kinds of Families. The book read was Heather Has Two Mommies. Sarah was in Children's Chapel with the older children, and they discussed treating people kindly. Afterward, they all made Valentine's together in the nursery with a few other children while the parents were in a meeting.


We missed our homeschool get-togethers last week, but Sarah, of course, has spent a few afternoons playing with her neighborhood friends when they get home from school. We're looking forward to seeing our hs friends a couple times this coming week, starting with an After Valentine's Valentine's party tomorrow afternoon, homeschool playgroup on Thursday, and the last gymnastics class of this session on Thursday.

New blog purpose!

This is the first year that I've had a child who is "in the system" and in just a few months, she'll be required by the state to either take a standardized test or have a portfolio reviewed by a certified teacher. We're choosing the portfolio option, but I've not been very diligent at record keeping -- especially difficult when the learning and academics aspects of life are pretty free-flowing, spontaneous, and interwoven in the fabric of the rest of life. I have an overstuffed folder of drawings and writings and scribbles, and a stack of different things that are widely recognized as learning... but it's a jumble. My theory is that this blog can serve as a sort of record that helps me keep things organized so that when "portfolio time" rolls around, I will actually have a framework and basis to build said portfolio around, something that demonstrates to this random certified teacher that my school-age child is, in fact, learning, progressing, growing, and experiencing. I will naturally also be including the similar exploits and antics of her younger siblings.

Sarah said...

Today, I was getting really frustrated about something, and I snapped at Sarah. She looked at me, upset, tears in her eyes, and said, "Mama - you choosed angry, and now I'm choosing sad!"

My son, Dum Dum

My daughters tonight were playing with the baby, chasing him, hiding from him,
just really having a good time. They said, "We're playing with Dum Dum!" I said
"Dum Dum?" and Sarah said, "That's what we call him." It is said in the same
tone as "Buddy" or "Kiddo" would be -- affectionate and matter of fact.

And they've kept it up all night ... "Dum Dum's going to get you, Mia!"
"Mommy, Dum Dum wants a drink."

I'm just accepting it in the spirit its offered... but hoping it doesn't stick
longterm LOL!!!