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| The very latest in household fashion: paper bag hats! |
Next Monkey and Bug usually do math simultaneously, though they rarely work on the same thing; I sit between them at our table in the study and help when necessary to read directions or point out what needs to be corrected. They've both almost finished their workbooks for numbers and math concepts, and they've both done pages from their addition book (the concepts books also involves addition). Bug has worked on subtraction, but Monkey decided she wasn't quite ready to go there yet. Goose will either color (sometimes they're even number coloring sheets) or listen to me or her sisters read a counting book. (Unrelated to lessons, Bug continues excitedly discovering multiplication. This morning she was sorting out the "times 10s" and "times 2s" and was explaining to me that "two 10s is 20, three 10s is 30, four 10s is . . . " and on up to 100, while "three 2s is 6, four 2s is 8, and five 2s is 10. [long pause] How many 2s would I need to make 100?")
Finally, the girls work on handwriting--once again simultaneously but not usually the same thing. At this point I let them pick their own letters to work on and medium in which to do it (workbook, dry erase book, coloring sheet, markers, crayons, paints, etc.).
After that we jump into our less formal lessons (history, science) or chores if it's a stay-at-home day or head off on our outing for the day (library, Y, shopping, homeschool group, etc.). At the moment my goal is to do formal lessons four days a week: Saturday is Daddy's stay-at-home day, Sunday is for church and resting, and we usually have one day during the week that just gets shot for whatever reason (appointments, field trip, etc.).
History
We're still having lots of fun with everybody's favorite subject. The girls recently saw a preview for Disney's Brother Bear, recognized that it was about Native Americans and decided we should watch that for one of our history lessons. I agreed, so we checked it out from the library and ordered pizza. There were some scary moments, but they loved it, and they were definitely paying attention to details like the kind of clothes they wore, weapons they carried, and things like kayaks. We also did our usual separating fact from fiction (for example, people don't really turn into animals--either while living or after death).
We read the true stories of Sitting Bull and Squanto this week, and much of the girls pretend play continues to involve "wearing clothes made out of animal skin," hiking through the country, and paddling boats. We also read the folktales The Legend of the Blue Bonnet and The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Fortunately, the big girls at least seem to have developed a very good sense of separating which stories are about real people from a long time ago versus stories written by those people a long time ago. After reading the Indian Paintbrush book, we talked about how most Native Americans didn't have a written language the way we do, so they often painted pictures on animal skins to help them remember stories and history--the way Little Gopher does in the book. Since we didn't have stretched buckskins like his, we made do with big pieces of construction paper instead, and I asked Monkey and Bug to paint about a story, then tell me about it.
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| Bug's story: He's an Indian warrior going to fight. He's riding a horse, holding a spear, and the green arrow is showing which way he's going. |
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| Monkey's story: A knight was going home, but a HUGE rainstorm came, and he got lost. Before the storm, a monster attacked and ate his horse. That's why he doesn't have one. But the knight found his home anyway, so it was a happy ending. |
Little Scientists
I haven't mentioned doing science lessons before because most of the time we just don't. These girls are insatiably curious, and I've checked off all the kindergarten science standards just by answering the questions they come up with every day (and of course we cover tons of subjects that aren't listed). This week though Monkey and Bug wanted to do some real experimenting since they happened upon a book about bubble experiments at the library. I gathered a bunch of supplies, took us all outside, and facilitated some intentional bubble play time. Then I explained that real scientist always keep a record of what they did and what they learned. I offered to write things down for them, and here's what they said:
- We made triangle, square, and rectangle things to blow bubbles with, but the bubbles all came out circles
- We made bubbles with straws and overflowed the cup.
- Bubbles stick to things that are bubbly. They can stick to water too.
- We made pictures with bubbles.
- We got soap all over our hands, and we could catch bubbles. We could see what a real bib bubble looks like. They had colors, but some just looked clear.
Later in the week, they asked me to help them make paper airplanes. They spent a long time playing/experimenting with those, and came up with these results:
- We can throw it really far.
- To make it flip we hold straight up and throw it that way.
- We threw them backwards, and they flipped that way too.
- We tried to hit things with them.
Playing with Language
Thanks to a scene from Brother Bear (in which a kid bear tries to get a young adult bear to call him by name), we talked about syllables and practiced clapping out the syllables in our own names and other words.
Monkey and Bug have also discovered suffixes. They've gotten to be good enough readers that more of their lessons include words with -s, -ed, and -ing endings, and they recognize those as separate from the base words. This has resulted in their experimenting with other suffixes in everyday conversation with new words like these being added to their vocabulary:
- office: verb, any action taken by an officer; e.g., "What are you officing now?" (Monkey annoyed after being repeatedly "pulled over" by Police Officer Bug while driving the china cabinet)
- realizable: adjective, capable of being noticed; e.g., "I was being so quiet I was hardly realizable." (Bug proudly after a particularly quiet car ride)
Library Day
The theme this week was hats, and the girls got to make paper visors for the craft this week. The librarian also pulled out the parachute and a couple of balls this week.
There's a Dragon in the Library
Tap Tap Bang Bang
Truckery Rhymes
A Kiss for Little Bear
I Will Fly!
The Legend of the Blue Bonnet (Native American folktale)
1, 2, Buckle My Shoe
Eat Your Way from A to Z!
One Last Pool Day
The pool closes at the end of this week, so we did one last morning at the pool (it's amazing how quickly they get through lessons with that motivation). It was a bit cool, but we stayed about an hour and had a great time. They practiced jumping in, paddling around with and without noodles, and using their kickboards.
Dentist
This week's non-lesson weekday was occupied by all three girls going to the dentist. They were awesome! Even Goose let the dental hygienist use the special spinning toothbrush to clean her teeth! Fortunately, our dentist is really good about explaining all her tools and what she's doing, so it proved to be quite the educational experience all on its own. I think we surprised her though when she expected (with three little girls) to see their "sparkly princess teeth" and was greeted with shiny monster grins and roars instead.
We made the unpleasant discovery that it's time to say goodbye to Goose's paci--at least during the day time. It's starting to effect her teeth, and so far Goose has willingly handed it over to be put away when she wakes up; although, we're still dealing with meltdowns a couple of times a day when I won't give it back until bedtime. Fortunately, she's been very motivated by "being a big girl" lately, so we'll make it.
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