What we use for Reading

It has been a while since I talked about DD's reading (she's 5).  We are still working our way through EPS Primary Phonics Storybooks. I can't recommend this set of readers highly enough!  I have found them absolutely perfect after the Bob Books.  Each book (like the purple one at the left and the one straight below it) is 16 pages long and the story is reasonably good.  DD reads a new one each day -- we're up to Level 5 now.  Luckily I bought them used from another homeschooler, but knowing how well they've worked for my son and daughter I would have bought them new.

She also just started the Little Critter reading book which has a new installment of an ongoing-story on each page.  DD likes this, though it is still quite challenging for her.  LD also used this after the Primary Phonics Storybooks and it kept his interest enough that we finished the entire book (though of course sprinkled in other things as well over the course of time.)

Another resource we use for DD are the little mini-books from My First Little Readers. I like these because of the repetition.  They are not phonics based, but work through repetition. Here's an example of the first three pages of one: 1) Get out of bed. Hurry up! Hurry up! 2) Brush my teeth. Hurry up! Hurry up! 3) Get dressed Hurry up! Hurry up! (7 pages total)

The booklets tear out of the workbook and you staple them together.

 

Little Math and Letter Activities

 LD is slowly on the mend. He had his first bite to eat in more than two days a bit ago.

Meanwhile, here are a few things ED did with me this morning.

I pulled out a few of the letters from a large letter floor mat, introduced them to her one at a time and called out a letter for her to jump to.  She and DD enjoyed this a lot and ran from letter to letter like crazy people!  I never got an action shot of them jumping and as you can see, ED then pulled out a number puzzle to work on and the photo-moment was over!

ED still enjoys the snowflake and Christmas tree numbers I made back in December.  She only does this once a week or so now, but still enjoys this.

Back in December I printed out this inchworm activity which I got from Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler to have on hand for ED.  Thanks Erica!

Poor Buddy

LD is quite sick--hasn't eaten for two days, is lethargic, feverish and sleeps most of the day/night.  Will update soon.  Poor guy.

No Heat! Oh My!

Here's the scene:


Our furnace has been on the fritz!  This morning it was a chilly 59F/15C degrees in the living room area and even colder in our bedroom! (Nowhere near as cold as it is outside, though.)

Everything is draped in ice. It's actually quite beautiful.

Except that EVERYTHING is covered in ice. Imagine backing out of our garage...

and driving up THIS driveway!  It took nearly an hour to chip through that stretch of driveway (and there's salt and sand on the driveway!

Once you get up our driveway, there's the hill on our road to get up!  Dad spent two hours shoveling the road as best he could so he could get to work.

 Meanwhile, the past three days our furnace hasn't been working!!  Luckily we've had a lot of help this season getting our fireplace in order.  A friend gave us a HUGE stack of uncut logs. Uncle T and Dad loaded the trailer and brought them back.  Then we were lucky to have the pure muscle and brawn of Uncle S to chop up the entire pile for us (with a dull axe we had on hand!).  ED has helping to keep the fireplace clean. And we've been spending lots of cozy, cuddly time in the warm homeschool room in front of the fire.

Oh and by the way, we finally were able to get repairmen just before noon -- and the furnace is back up and running! Whew!

On the homeschool front--I've been meaning to put up a post about our latest units. We've done lots of penguin-related activities and have moved on to the Middle Ages.  We've been having some really good school-time but life has been so busy I haven't made it on to the computer much.

On a good note, though, I'm feeling more organized than I have in ages (perhaps since last March when we began the moving process). 

• *I have a new weekly planner that includes a home-repair section since we've had so many house related issues (sewer, washing machine, heater, trying to better insulate the house since there are a lot of drafts, etc.) My weekly planner is where I write down all of the school related activities we do each day, but it's logical and easy to add in the home-repair things I've had to keep track of lately.  Last year I knew I wouldn't have access to a printer for a while when were moving so I had enough pages in my last homeschool planner to take me from July 2009 through Dec. 2010.
• *I've created a new file system for bills, medical files, the house, cars, dog etc. etc.  (we had SO many important papers that needed to be put away but hadn't filed anything since we moved in last July). 
• *I've created/posted a weekly dinner menu that hangs on the pantry door (nothing fancy just a sheet that has columns for M-F and space to write our dinner meals.  
• *And I've even made a lot of headway organizing our homeschool materials (though that's still an on-going project).  
• The house is reasonably clean (thanks to lots and lots of help from Grams and Gramps this December) and I feel fairly on top of it (until I go into the homeschool room and see why the girls have been so quiet and self-entertaining while I've been on the computer!!!)
• *And best of all with the in-person inspiration from my dear sister and brother in-law I've been carving out more me-time to run and stretch.  I only run for 30-45 minutes (I'm a former marathon runner) but I feel great to have some consistency with my exercise.  And, I found this awesome book that has me working on my flexibility.  I only do it in the evenings at this point, but am so excited to be making forward progress.  If you're interested it's called 7 Minutes of Magic: The Ultimate Energy Workout. I got it out from the library, but highly recommend it.  I've done many of these stretches over the course of my sports career.  Lately I found that I hadn't been stretching as I should and found I'm not as limber as I should be. This book and it's stretching routine is absolutely perfect for my needs. I've added it into my bedtime routine every other evening.

Skip Counting by 4s -- StarFighter Game

Here are the cards and game boards I made for LD. I cut them out and mounted them on a file folder so you can't see through the back!

The red cards are the 4s times tables plus two enemy tie fighters. The game board has five slots.

To play the game all the red cards are turned upside down. Each player takes a turn choosing a card and solving the problem. He/she places the card on his board if he gets it correct. If not, the card gets placed back down face down. If a player chooses an enemy tie fighter he loses all the starfighters on his board and has to start over. Those cards are mixed up and placed in the middle once again. The first player to fill all five slots on his gameboard wins.

Since LD is just learning to skip count by 4s, he can use the help sheets he made the other day to help solve the problems.

I suspect I'll be making a simple-addition unicorn game like this soon for DD!!!

SkipCounting By 4s Game

This is a bit hard to see, but we made these skip counting rolled papers. As you unfurl the paper it reveals the answer to 4x1, 4x2, etc. LD took a lot of time drawing different styles of star fighters in each rectangle! Then we worked together to fill out the other chart skip counting up through 40. We used these sheets as a reference for the next skip counting by 4s game:

I made two game boards -- 10 rows of 10 circles.  I also made a spinner with various problems 4x1, 4x2 all the way to 4x8.  In order to add the pieces to the game board, the player had to use the reference sheet (above) to answer the problem. For example, 4x6=24. The first player to 100 won the game.

Kindergarten Math Games

Hi! It's great to be back online after a very full holiday season.  We're now back into the swing of things and I'd like to share some new activities the kids and I have started into. I'll start first with my 5 year old's math activities the past couple of days:

DD is learning basic addition.  This week we're working on the 5s.  I gave her the colored construction paper and paper clips (not the chart!) and had her figure out how to divide the paper clips different ways to make 5.

I bought a colorful pack of Crazy Eight cards from the dollar store and used them to play the "Make 5" game with DD. First I removed the 6s, 7s, and 8s from the deck and set them aside.  I shuffled the deck (numbers 0-5) and handed each player three cards.  The first player had to either pick up the face-up card or draw a new card.  She had to make five with her cards. If she put down a pair she had to keep three cards in her hand, drawing and placing new cards down until she couldn't go any more.  The great thing about this game was that if DD went first, she always won (and so was doubly motivated to play again and again!). We'll play the same game for 6s (and eventually 7s).

 

We've been going over the days of the week and placing them in the proper order.

This is an game to reinforce odd-even, less and more (we've been playing this for nearly a year now from time-to-time).  I cut up butterflies from prekinders.com and made up my own dice. One die has large numbers (10-16) and another die has smaller numbers (4-9).  We each choose a die, roll it and collect that number of butterflies in our net. Then one player spins the spinner to see who wins the round.

This game is from Peggy Kaye's Games for Math (I highly recommend this book or any of her books!!) and is supposed to help reinforce the idea of regrouping (moving nine singles+1 to the large square).  I think I had too many "win 10" slots on my spinner, but DD enjoyed this game nonetheless! The first player to fifty won the game.

See these related (and more recent!) posts:

• First Grade Math Activities (Addition/Place Value)
• Free Math Lapbook for Prek - K

• Telling Time and Clock Activities

Montessori Style Math Worksheets You Might Be Interested In:

• Free Montessori Style Addition Sheets (Without Regrouping)

• Montessori Style Math – Tens-Ones – Regrouping/Carrying

• Montessori Addition Pages – Hundreds-Hundreds

Planning and Preparation (and a very cute free clip art website)

I usually take opportunity over our December break to begin planning for the next semester.  This last semester we learned a lot during our studies of Ancient Rome.  We enjoyed watching bits of Spartacus and Ben Hur.  LD and DD were entranced by the boat battles and amazing chariot race of Ben Hur! Now, as you obviously can tell by the clip art I'm planning for our next unit on the Middle Ages.

Stay tuned for more when we delve into our studies of castles, cathedrals, feudalism, knights, the Black Plague and all that! (Update: See our Middle Ages posts here!)  In planning for that unit, I came across this wonderful website that shares free clip art on all sorts of topics including history, science, geography, the human body and more.  I wanted to come online to share that link: http://www.phillipmartin.info/clipart/homepage.htm or you can see all the cute links on one page here.

Next semester we'll continue our studies of earth science (more about that here!)... there were lots of great activities still in the works for that.

And I have checked out a half-dozen books in hopes of adding in some inspiring things for ED (and yes, I've found heaps of wonderful ideas!!).  I noticed as things became more busy in December that I would say, "okay, LD it's time for you to read your four chapters," "DD, you need to come read to me" and poor ED would say "what do I have to do?"  I (hanging my head in shame) didn't particularly have an answer for her except to point her vaguely in the direction of the craft table (where there's paper/crayons always available and where her activities are set up). It was very, very busy getting ready to host three families here for the holidays, but now it's time to get on top of things for ED again!

One last thing before I go.  We have a full house of guests and wouldn't you know it--I have my first horrible cold/illness since we moved back to the US.  I have had a horrendous sore throat and virtually no voice for days now. Last night I broke down in tears because I hadn't slept much the night before (just 3 hours) because the pressure in my face/head/throat was so bad. I got up Christmas morning at 4am (after going to bed at 1am!).  I just hope that I don't pass on my illness to our house-full of family... 14 plus other family/visitors that pop by just for the day! I've been feeling so lousy that I probably need to get out to see the doctor.  Okay, that said I need to head to bed!


Once again--go check out the Phillip Martin's free clip art!  It's so cute!

Planning and Preparation Related Posts: This post is from quite some time back.  Here are some more recent posts (over at our new location) that might also be of interest).

Homeschool Science Unit Checklist for Elementary and Middle School - These are the science unit we hope to cover from K-8.

Homeschool Science 2016 Year in Review – And What’s Coming Up Next

Creating Your Homeschool Curriculum: Grades 2-3, Resource Guide

Creating a Homeschool Curriculum: Kindergarten – Grade 1

Homeschool Schedule and Transitions

Language Arts Update: Literature, Spelling, Vocabulary and Grammar

First Days of School!

Homeschool Planning: Subject Area Checklists

Strategic Homeschool Organization!!

Technology Tools and Websites to Facilitate Learning

5 Things you Can Do This Summer to Get Ready to Homeschool

Science Year in Review 2015-2016

10 Step to Take When Planning for a New School Year

Homeschool Thoughts: Spending Time Reviewing

Homeschool Science in Early Elementary (K-2): Video Post

10 Ways to Overcome Homeschool Burnout

Organization: How We Keep On Top of Things While Homeschooling

Homeschool Science: Year in Review and What’s Coming Up

Homeschool History: Our Year in Review and What’s Coming Up

Challenging and Inspiring Students without the Overwhelm or Fear of Failure

What We’re Up to in Our Homeschool (Gr. 2, 5, 7)

Thoughts on Teaching: Meaningful Teaching Activities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our First Snowman

LD sledding down our driveway the day after the snowfall.  Not only did the UPS truck get stuck up at the top of the driveway (because the hill continues on up even past the crest of our driveway), but the next evening hubby had to help the Fed Ex man get out as well!

We're Enjoying the Festive Season

The kids were all born in Australia and there was no snow in the Outback. Today was their very first snow experience!  What fun! We got about three inches; it snowed all day and we were in and out of the house until late this evening.

ED loved licking the snow while LD scared me with his daring dashes down our steep driveway on the sled!  The woods sure look pretty!

We also took the opportunity inside to warm up with hot chocolate.  We each made a pinecone bird feeder or two (you know, pinecones covered with peanut butter and bird seed.  I made these as a girl scout years ago!)  We hung them on the gate that leads out to the creek and woods beyond our house.

 

I guess you can't really see them, but our pinecone bird feeders are hanging off the gate.

I never did get a picture of them sledding down the driveway (I was too busy sledding with them!) but you can see LD in the top middle of the picture (a black blur) getting ready to sled down the less steep grassy slope. Now that gives you an idea of what our driveway is like!!)

We're ready for a full house... when hubby's entire family joins us for Christmas. We'll have 6 adults and 3 children our kids' ages joining our family of 5 from Dec. 24-Jan 5th. (plus Grandma and Grandpa, on my side, will drive out to join us for a couple of days too!)  It's amazing to be back in the country closer to our beloved family.

I was mentioning the steep driveway... well when I took the evening pictures above, we were out partly because the UPS truck was stuck in front of our house for nearly an hour. They kept slip-sliding around and couldn't make it up the hill (which again is no where near as steep as our driveway!).  Our house is tucked down in the hollow with hills more or less on all sides.

Holiday-themed Art

We have been enjoying holiday-themed art this past week--Christmas trees, nutcrackers, gingerbread men and more!

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I went over to check out Art Projects for Kids and saw this very cute nutcracker art project.  LD and DD were keen to give it a try. DD was very excited because she is dancing in the Nutcracker.  She has done at least a half-dozen nutcracker drawings plus the drawing/painting she did last week.

Check out Art Projects for Kids for directions.  We used oil pastels and water colors.

The girls continue to draw and paint and draw and paint!  ED is obsessed with Christmas trees. She has painted at least 10 and is now enjoying the oil pastels.  This is the first time I have let her use them and they have quite a different texture.

I added in DD's drawing/painting just because I love her little rose garden!

This isn't particularly holiday-themed either (a scary cave/mountain out in the desert with cacti and rocks), but LD decided to do a diorama with movable parts. The rocks roll up and down the mountain and the people can also move like puppets.  He worked for two hours on this and while I made a couple of suggestions on how to make things stand upright and to add coins to weight down his rocks and people), he did the project entirely on his own.

Thoughts on being too busy and doing too much too young...

This time of year is particularly busy.  DD has extra dance rehearsals for her Nutcracker performance. We have little holiday parties that we've attended and more coming up.  Friends and family are coming to visit; even close friends from the Outback are coming to visit in a few days!  Then to top it off, LD's gymnastics coach has asked if he wants to move up to the next level.  He'll have his assessment on Tuesday.

Quite frankly I worry about being too busy.

My concern is that his practice will go from once a week for an hour to twice a week for two hours each (evenings, of course).  Having to put ED in the car to pick up LD in that 6:30-7pm time frame is a hastle as she ALWAYS falls asleep on the (5 minute) way home.  Now I can of course have her teeth brushed and in pjs, but then she's up at 5:30am (an hour earlier) which kills me. Even if she hasn't fallen asleep, she's prone to temper tantrums at that time of day... embarrassing!

I also worry about over-scheduling my kids. I worry about the kids doing too much too soon in their lives.  Do you know what I mean??  In the fall, LD had soccer practice twice a week plus a game.  He always had to miss one practice for his gymnastics class (DD's dance class was at the same time, so there was no way we could have made it to soccer anyway). But doing both, allowed him to enjoy rather different sports.  So, while I'm happy to let LD try out for gymnastics (he loves, loves gymnastics and seems to have an affinity for it because he is constantly walking on his hands and doing cartwheels etc.), how does he try other things out? What does this mean for joining things like cub scouts?

I do like the fact that he can have a good workout during the cold months.  Yet, I also worry about injuries that can occur from doing things too rigorously too young.  I was always a reasonably good jr. high and high school athlete but remained injury free. As a result I've enjoyed a lot of amazing athletic experiences as an adult such as backpacking in the Rocky Mountains, Appalachian Mountains, in Nepal, New Zealand and Tasmania (Australia).   I've run a half-dozen marathons (including the Boston twice and the Sydney Host City Marathon which followed the Olympic marathon route and ended in the stadium), played field hockey and soccer for the past 10+ years.  So, I really want to protect the kids' health/bodies from doing too much too soon.

Do you have that same worry about over doing it?? In that way, I am so grateful to have so many lovely hours together as a family growing and learning as homeschoolers.  But I sure do worry about the balance in our lives. Do you?

Thanks for listening to me vent!!