August 26, 2009

Day 2
Today we had a busy day!! I wasn't feeling well :( headache..so I slept in a little later, hoping the Excedrin I took (which makes me tired..) would kick in. It did-a little..

(I think what I will have to do is make sure I get more sleep for that co-op! Put a shock to my system.. )

We started off with The Tyndale (One Year) New Living Translation, Chronological Bible. I read to them from page 13, "Genesis 11:19". I did skip over the naming and such. We then read from Egermeier's Bible Story Book. Ironically, the other story book we usually use, did not have 'The Tower of Babel' in their book??? Guess it's not as popular a story as I figured..;)

Using the MFW manual, we finished Day 1 by covering letter's B,C. (this will be the last time I refer to the manual. for the most part, I am using the manual, but just adding my extra tid-bits/using my own library materials).
Colette, once again, repeated the letters. Gracie chose the words, bear and car. Rachel put them in sentences:
Bears are scary.
Cars are yellow.

Rachel then went on and did her 'Spelling City' for 20min. She also did a worksheet off the site.

http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hmsv/1/wordfinds/wf_unit15_1.pdf

Gracie worked on a math sheet from one of her workbooks that she seems to enjoy (volunteered;) She does her math when she wants to. She enjoys learning!!:) We are still waiting for Rachel's math to come in..

I read aloud to them, The Emperors New Clothes, and we looked at the history of clothing from the book What People wore When, by Melissa Leventon. They really seemed to enjoy this, and a lot of the clothing was quite interesting!! This gave us a chance to discuss our families geneology and what our great-grandparents wore/as well as their ancestors.

Rachel is still working on her Barbie book. Today she is finishing chapter 2. She also read to Gracie and her webkinz the following books:
Are You a Bee? from Backyard Books Series, by- Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries
Are you a Butterfly? (same authors)

She really enjoyed the bee one, and told me all about the queen bee and how it could sting more than once whereas worker bees can only sting once.


Gracie read a book from Abeka, Fun with Pets. She read by herself, again volunteered, and read The Fat Rat and Pat's Cat. She will be getting books soon, we had a misunderstanding with the library. Apparently last year we could have as many books as we wanted, but the libaries they ordered from this year want a limit..have to get them under control I guess!;)

We went over First Language Lessons, Gracie sat in as well. (although it is grade 1, I don't teach grammar until around age 8-10..so as much as I do want her to pay attention, she doesn't do anything else). Today we were introduced to nouns. (of course she picked it up immediately!) It was about a five minute lesson. I had her do page 1 of the worksheets off this site. I think the worksheet took her about 5 minutes as well..and that one I made sure was neat;) So it didn't take long..

Here is the link to the worksheets. The site I use, has only three worksheets for each grade (up to grade 4) on nouns. First Language Lessons does a lot of review, I know more then three times!! So I started at grade 1, then by the end she will have all grades covered, ;) so it starts out quite easy!! Here's the link to first three.

http://www.sfreading.com/resources/pdf/ghbg1_050.pdf

I also read to them the first 6 letters of, A is for America, by-Devin Scillian. We discussed the Liberty Bell, the states they were in, The Battle at Bunker Hill, big cities across the country, Detroit, Michigan triggered the conversation on automobiles, the bald eagle (have a book waiting at the library for this), to the Egret-which we see out here in Florida often!
All this from the first six letters!!

Looking at this, we also looked over Discover America! A Scenic Tour of the Fifty States, by National Geographic. We looked at pictures of North Dakota, New England, New York buildings/sky scrapers at night. They were beautiful!!

This year is a slow start for us. We will be meaning to start some 'living math' activities, once we get the swing of things. For those of you following this blog, I will give you a few ideas daily (even if we do not do them ourselves). Today I am not feeling well. Too many meds, too much headache!! lol;)

One item I have brought up with them, however, is they have a point chart in which they get points for chores completed (that we did not ask them to do.) If we have to ask, no points. Picking up after themselves can also get them five points, all the way up to doing dishes (neatly), which is 20 points. They also get points taken away for certain behaviors, too, so that is a motivator;) Anyways we usually have prizes like picking out their favorite cereal all the way up to sleep-over or a visit to the water park. This year I have brought up 'pennies'. I asked, 'when you get 100 points, how much will you have??' $1 (which doesn't sound like too much to us, but their eyes lit up ;) Anyways, an idea.

Other ideas:
Play Store (we did this for a while. it was fun!!)
Play restaurant (ask kids to make up a menu, you hand them the money, and they make up the change)
Calendar (ask them to read the calendar for you. what day is it today? what day is your birthday? what will the date be next week?)

You can find a lot of other ideas on:
www. livingmath.com

This site will also list off books that 'teach math through literature'. A lot of fun!! :) ...if you have a child that enjoys this (which I hear a lot do..lol..mine said the stories were 'dorky' and just plain 'weird'!)

Happy Homeschooling!!
:)