August 31, 2009

Oh, I got behind!!  I was so tried/headache, I couldn't do it;) 
We read the Chronological Bible, but there were no stories for what we read on, in any of the books I have, so we didn't have any stories to read..

We went from there to: (i figure there is no reason to explain, since we do it every week;)  Gracie's letters are in bold.  We'll call this our 'letter game'.
I- Igloos are built in the snow
J-There are animals in the jungle.
K-Kangaroos can jump.

Gracie then worked on her penmanship. 
Rachel has a spelling list from her book, Emporor's New Clothes, where she'll learn to spell words..like Emporer..lol ;)   So she worked on spelling city.  She does that twice a day, as the words are quite difficult.

While Rachel was on Spelling City, Gracie and Colette worked on math.  We did the adding with hands and such, and then went through numbers 1-3 with the dots.  Kind of like 'dice faces', where you count the dots.  That's how they teach them to add.  She did very well!  Of course, she's practiced adding before.  But we also math like: If I have 4 fingetrs, how many more fingers would I need to make 5?  So it teaches them that as well!

Rachel is working on her Barbie Sea of Friends book, still.  She will finish it this week, and start on a new book next week.  We haven't decided on the book, yet.  She picks it out from a pile of catalogs I have and I just HOPE it's available at the library;)  She likes the catalogs, as it has pictures, and a description.  She also looks at her movies, and we go online (library) to see if there are any books..

Going on First Langauge Lessons, we practiced the next lesson and learned about 'Common Nouns'.  I printed off a worksheet for her to do from the free site I have listed (scroll down a day or so for the link).

We then went on to, A is for America, letters M-S, where we discussed the Missippi River, looked at a map and saw long it actually is!  I purchased a map from Dollar Tree, of the United States.  It's not too big/but not too small (place mat), and what I like about it is it shows major highways, so they can see the highway we would take to each state!  We have a world map, but it's not laminated, and I don't want to put it up until after we move (beginning of the year), so it doesn't get damaged...had that experience once..

Then it was time for Colette to go to bed.  So we had everyone lay down for a 'mock' nap time, and serious one for the 2yo;)  (when she falls asleep, everyone else gets up!;) lol..
But I read Garden Wigglers (author listed in previous post) Rachel didn't get a chance to hear the story, and she 'loves' science..  I then read The American Story by-Jennifer Armstrong.  This is an excellent book!! It goes through history, in a 'story-like' form.  We stopped on year 1626. 
When Colette fell asleep, we all got up!:)

We have been meaning to do 'living math'..it's just a rough start this year!!  My biggest reccommendation would be 'board games' where you use questions from their curriculum (whatever you're covering), instead of regular cards.   I have told Rachel she has to memorize her addition/subtraction and multiplication this year..or at least that's the goal;)  She 'knows' her addition/subtraction, for the most part. I want the 'snap my finger' give me the answer, though.  She doesn't like pressure, so I just want it to be common knowledge..like a 'what color is this' type of question. 

Happy Homeschooling!!:)