Notebook: Week 2

Shannon
Language Arts
   Spelling Workout Lesson 5
   Hooked On Phonics pages
   Handwriting Without Tears: some pages in the workbook and lowercase letters on the chalkboard
   First Language Lessons 4 - 6

Math
   Worked with Cuisenaire Rods and Flash Cards
   Math Facts of 0 - 5 memorized

Science
   Printouts found online - Animal Habitats

History
   Story of the World: Chapters 2 & 3
   Map Activity of Upper and Lower Egypt

Shannon, as the White Crowned King of Upper Egypt, and Chloe, as the Red Crowned King of Lower Egypt

  

King Narmer of Upper Egypt defeats the Red Crowned King and wears both crowns to unite the two kingdoms

King Narmer, hard at work on his map

Religion
   Catechism: Lesson 3

Other
   Lots of reading at bedtime. We always throw in an easy reader or two so the kids can read to me. 

Chloe
Language Arts
   Handwriting Without Tears
   Hooked on Phonics Readers
   Phonics Centers

Math
   MCP worksheets

Religion
   Catechism: Lesson 3

   Book of Saints

Notebook: Week 1

We started our school year last monday and I must say . . . it is going rather well. I am super impressed with the workbox system and the chore packs I put together. Our home has never been cleaner and school has never run this smooth. I realize we are only a week in but I have always been an optimist.

I plan on writing a post dedicated to the workbox system and the chore pack system so I won't go into that right now. I'll just scribble down what we covered this week.

Shannon
Language Arts
   Spelling Workout Lesson 1
   100 Easy Lessons 51 - 54
   Handwriting Without Tears: review of capital letters
   Writing With Ease
   First Language Lessons 1 - 3
Math
   MCP Lessons 2-4, 2-6, 2-7, 2-8

Science
   First Animal Encyclopedia - characteristics of animals

History
   Story of the World: Intro and Chapter 1
   Map Activity of the Fertile Crescent

Religion
   Catechism: Chapters 1 & 2

Other
Lots of reading at bedtime. Shannon has insisted on reading the words that he can sound out. And Chloe chimes in as well. We also read some books about archeology.


Chloe
Language Arts
   Handwriting Without Tears
   Hooked on Phonics Readers
   Phonics Centers

Math
   MCP worksheets

Religion
   Catechism: Chapters 1 & 2

   Book of Saints

I made schultutes to celebrate our first day of school. I stuffed them with some school supplies

and a couple of books. I didn't make them very fancy but the kids loved them just the same.  

Notebook: Week of 5/10

Language Arts
Reading
Shannon: Lessons 51 - 53. It seems we have hit another plateau. Shannon seems to get overwhelmed by the length of the stories at the end of each lesson. But we'll keep plugging along slowly.
Chloe: She has not been able to do the lessons that Shannon is on so I want to start working with her, one on one, at her own level. I started at the beginning of the book and went through parts of each lesson to see which lesson I should start on with her. I think we got up to lesson 15 so far.

Poetry
We finally got back to this after a pretty long break. The kids have memorized Bed in Summer and now we are starting on The Cow. I like how at the end of Bed in Summer, Chloe sometimes states, "It's hard to go to bed in the day". She is both summarizing the poem and agreeing with it at the same time.

Handwriting
Mead books: Letters G, Q, U, V, W, R
We had taken a break from this as well and I am amazed at how much each kiddo has developed in their fine motor control. Chloe is actually forming letters and Shannon just zooms right through without getting tired.

Math
Shannon finished up the unit on number placement. He did very well working independently. I had not originally planned on going back to the workbook but he seems to like it. If he gets tired of writing, I just go over the lesson without the worksheet. I should also note that he is doing awesome at printing those numbers. He used to get so frustrated while attempting a "6". But his 6's are great now and he is so proud of himself. He'll call me over to look at his masterpieces, "Check out this six, Mom!"

Chloe, not to be left out, has started completing worksheets from the beginning of the book that we never used because we started with this book mid-year. So she is learning one to one association. It also gives her a chance to work on fine motor skills without calling it handwriting.

Notebook: Week of 4/19

Language Arts
100 Easy Lessons 47-50: we slowed down a bit this week on the lessons but we attempted to read some books. Shannon made the transition pretty easily. Watching him attempt to sound out longer words is amazing. I usually help him but the fact that he tries is awesome.

Handwriting: we continued doing some copy work. And he has been doing a lot of writing on his own.

Math
We have been just doing math as it comes up. Lately, Shannon has been pointing out the speed limit signs, reading them to me and then telling me whether I can go faster or I have to slow down. And money, time, weather, the date, and other topics are also covered on a pretty regular basis.

Other
The weather was pretty nice this week so we spent a few days at the park. Shannon had soccer practice on thursday and then a game on Saturday where scored his first goal. Woo hoo!

And we went on a field trip to Spokane Family Farm. They had a customer appriciation day in celebration of their one year anniverasary. They spoiled us with bottomless milk and cookies and we went on a short tour of the farm to learn about the milking and bottling process. 

Shannon jumping down from the hay after I hollared at him to get down. And then getting out of a tree that he should not have been climbing. -sigh- Boys.

  Chloe tried so hard to touch those ducks.

 Cute baby piggies.

Athena with chocolate cookie all over her face. Hey, she's a customer too and she wanted to be appreciated.

Notebook: Week of 4/11

Language Arts
100 Easy Lessons: 42 - 47
Shannon has been cruising through the lessons now. He really likes the story at the end of each lesson so that is his motivation to get through the first part. There were a couple days where we did two lessons in one day. He wanted to get the book out again in the evenings.

Handwriting
I got out a piece of paper and wrote a line from the story that we read, and he copied it onto the next line. He did it without any frustration. He also came into the office one afternoon and sat down at Stacey's desk and started to write onto an index card with a highlighter. He asked me how to spell one word but other then that he wrote the rest himself. It was pretty small print. Very impressive, Little Man.

Math
I put the book away for now and just started doing practical short lessons every other day. One day we got out a hand full of change and named the coins, gave them values, and added coins together. Another day, the kids were playing with the Melissa and Doug wooden clock so I sat down with them and taught them about the minute hand and gave them a little intro on telling time with hours and minutes. They were both really engaged.

Religion
We worked on their Things We See In Church lap books. They are slowly being completed.

Other
Stacey and the kids have been taking care of the seeds they planted three weeks ago. Here we have our beautiful carrots . . .

. . .  and then the habanero. 

Look at that one crazy habanero plant sticking up. It is quite the over achiever.

Notebook: Week of 3/22

Language
100 Easy Lessons 35 - 40

Shannon was on such a reading high that we just stuck with that this week. I want to get to the library soon to pick up some easy readers and see how he does.

Chloe was attempting to read the program during the Chrism Mass today and she did quite well on some parts. What a smarty.

Science with guest lecturer: Daddy
Stacey woke up last friday not feeling very well. The poor guy was probably burnt out from wokring a million hours everyday and then being abandoned by his wife every evening for one thing or another. And then sleeping with a teething baby. Oye. But after he got a few extra hours of sleep in and some general relaxing, he put the kids to work planting seeds in the middle of the kitchen.

This is the first year that we are attempting to plant anything other than a few flowers out front. I'm really curious to see what comes up. Stacey has been flipping through gardening magazines and seed catalogs with the kids in the evenings. And he let them pick out a few veggies to plant. And of course the kids are learning along the way.

That was about it for last week. Pretty laid back. And we're taking Holy Week off so I probably won't have much to report next week either.

Notebook: Week of 3/15

Language Arts
100 Easy Lessons: 33 - 35
Mead Handwriting: Letter O
Poetry: Bed In Summer

Math
Review and catch up on past worksheets not completed

Religion
I made an effort to lead the kids in spontaneous prayers of thanks and petition (please God help me to make good choices, etc) in hopes that it will start to become more of a habit.

Other
Gymnastics
Soccer (I was hoping it would not overlap with Gymnastics but only for two weeks)
Occupational Therapy
Many days at the playground

Arts and Crafts
Last week was a busy week so I never got around to creating any planned art projects but on several mornings, I woke up to Shannon sitting at Stacey's desk, arts and crafts bins open, creating masterpieces. He made this card for me one morning:

I also created a card for Shannon but I think he ran off with it before I could get a picture. It's a shame too because it was some of my best work. : )

Notebook: Week of 3/8

Reading: 100 Easy Lessons 29 - 32. This week went better so I think we will keep doing 4 lessons a week for now.

Math: Began chapter on Order and Place Value

Poetry: Continued learning "Bed in Summer". First two stanzas are pretty firm.

Handwriting: Worked in Mead books. Shannon seemed to be getting a little bored so I printed out some worksheets from Donna Young's website. (An awesome resource. Free stuff galore!)

Religion: Started working on "The Things I See In Church" lapbooks

Other: Gymnastics & Occupational Therapy

Unfortunately, the weather was pretty poopy all week, so we didn't get to go outside too much. Today, we finally had some good weather so Stacey had the kids outside with him for four hours, working in the yard. We shall all sleep well tonight.

Notebook: Week of 3/1

Wow! This week was a little crazy. While our house was turned upside down for the basement renovation, we tried to do as many out of the house activites as possible. And, as many home educating moms know, even when we take a week off from formal schooling, the kids just keep learning despite my greatest effort to mess it up.

On Monday the kids spent ther entire day with Granny (my dad's mom) while I stayed home and painted. Oh. My. Gosh. I was soooooo sore. But the kids had a blast. They love being with their Granny.

On Tuesday we went to Alton's to get our brakes, which have been grinding for a few weeks now, done. I knew it would take a little while but when we were quoted 3 hours, I must admit I was in a bit of a panic. But we actually enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. Luckily, I had prepared and brought the stroller and hats and gloves. We walked over to Jack in the Box and had lunch and then walked to Starbucks for some hot cocoa. Then we walked over to Walmart and Shannon and Chloe helped me look at possible birthday gifts for Athena's big First Birthday coming up in April. After we picked the car up, we went to the park to further enjoy the nice weather. After dinner we were off to gymnastics where Shannon showed the signs of sensory wackiness. I call it "crazy eyes" when I talk to his occupational therapist. I'm not really sure what triggered this episode but I can guess he was over stimulated by the day's events. He tried to get the sensory input he needed to calm himself by throwing himself onto the mats and rolling on the floor. I knew right away what was happening and eventually, like 2 hours later, he was able to settle down.

Wednesday morning we were off to Occupational Therapy. And then I spent the day returning e-mails for Engaged Encounter and preparing to teach childbirth ed for Catholic Charities. The kids played outside and watched a few movies on my laptop.

Thursday was the big carpet install. After the installer left, the kids were so excited to run around the basement. We spent the rest of the day putting some of the toys downstairs and getting some things back where they belong.

Friday we went to our home school group.  The group decided to have the kids do some sort of presentation related to Lent. Shannon and Chloe brought their rosaries and told the group how they pray with Daddy every night. And they recited the Hail Mary as well. Super cute.

Throughout the days and nights, the kids would often open up their 100 Lessons book and read words to each other. They would also ask me how to spell things or play with the magnetic letters on the fridge. We still did our reading at bedtime and math is just unavoidable in everyday life so that was taken care of. And we recited our poetry throughout the week as well. I felt pretty bad about taking yet another week off from school but now that I've reflected on our past week, I realize we did a lot more than I thought. 

I was also off my game a little bit last week because Athena started having a lot of trouble sleeping starting Wednesday night. I finally took her in to the doc today and she has an ear infection and the infant equivalent of a sinus infection. -sigh- The poor thing. So we got her on some antibiotics and she's on the road to recovery. And I am really looking forward to getting a decent night of rest before we hit the grind tomorrow.

Notebook: Week of 2/22/10

Week 20

Teach Your Child to Read: Lessons 25-28
Shannon really struggled these last two lessons. We'll see how it goes this week but I may slow the lessons down to half a lesson a day. He can sound out all the sounds in a word but then can't process what he said. I think his sensory integration issues are getting in the way. With some time and practice I'm sure he'll be just fine.

Chloe is getting the concepts pretty easily. She opens the lessons book up and reads from it on her own all the time. Here's a video of her being awesome.




Poetry
We're working on Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson. Shannon and Chloe have both memorized The first Stanza and half of the second

Handwriting
Letters I, T, J, and D
Shannon works pretty quickly through these without complaint. We've come such a long way.

Chloe traces the letter the best she can ans then scribbles all over the paper. I still can't figure out if she's right or left handed.

Math
MCP Worksheets: Chapter 6, Numbers 1-20
Shannon speeds through these without any help. He's picked up on counting mixed coins pretty quickly too. Chloe was doing awesome until we got to number 14 or 15. She gets some of the numbers confused. But she just does what she can and then scribbles on the paper.

Religion
Read a couple pages out of God's Love Story
Who Am I? Lesson 11: Jesus is God the Son
Did a few craft projects, made a little bible so the kids cold draw their favorite bible story. Shannon drew a picture of baby Jesus. He pretty much loves anything having to do with Christmas. He asked me to draw the angels singing so I did my best.

Chloe drew a heart because she loves Jesus. Awwwwwww. She wanted me to help her color it but wouldn't let me color red. She wanted it black. Who am I to tell the artist what color the heart should be?

Other stuff
Occupational Therapy
Went to the park
Gymnastics (finally back after missing two weeks due to sick kids)
Stacey has started reading seed catalogs with the kid at night so they can pick out what they want to attempt to grow in the garden this year. Stacey is in charge of this project. I'm staying out of it.