Thanksgiving (finally)

Yeah, I know it's January.  But I'm finally catching up on blog posts and Thanksgiving seems to be a good place to start. :-)

The kids like crafts that involve cutting and gluing (not as fond of coloring).  They did some projects from Evan Moor Theme Pockets, November.  They made paper turkeys.....

 

 

placemats where they compared a modern Thanksgiving Dinner with what the Pilgrims would have eaten.....

 

 

cornucopias....

 

 

learned about planting corn and made corn bread (really Yummy corn bread).

 

 

 

This was a snowy Thanksgiving and Vicki made a snowman all by herself...

 

 

and enjoyed a nice, big turkey leg at dinner.

George's Big Presentation - Herpetology 4-H

The kids had the second meeting of their new 4-H group this week.  Despite being brand new and knowing nobody, George was the first to volunteer to do a speech.   He did a great job, with lots of "showmanship".  :-)    Not bad for his first research project AND first presentation.

The file was too big to attach here but is available at youtube: http://youtu.be/ur1PynZ0oFs

After the speeches, the kids made ornaments to bring on an upcoming Caroling trip to a local nursing home.

Both kids were happy - George got to be the center of attention and Vicki got to play with glue. :-)

We haven't brought Galactic to 4-H with us yet.  The first meeting we weren't sure what to expect.  This week's meeting it was bitter cold out and Galactic was getting ready to shed, so he stayed home where it was nice, warm and safe.

 

 

October (plus a week of November) Wrap-Up

As I mentioned last wrap-up, I’m going to switch to monthly (sort of) wrap-ups to cover all the details of the daily work, and do separate posts for history, science, field trips, projects, etc.  

VICKI

Language Arts

Handwriting: Vicki has resumed copywork with The Wand and also has done an absolutely adorable booklet on Columbus using Draw/Write/Now (but you won’t get to see that one until I write up their Explorers unit).  She worked with the stories – Frog and Toad Are Friends, Frog and Toad Together and Harry and the Lady Next Door.   I think her handwriting isn't bad for a 7 year old.

Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Grade 2:  She has no problem answering the questions and discussion the passages.  She’s learning the difference between Fact and Opinion, how to find a Main Idea, proper Sequencing, and Inferences.

Evan Moor Grammar and Punctuation Grade 2:   Vicki has continued on to learning about Verbs, Compound Words, Pronouns, Contractions, and how to determine when to use I or me, Us or We and Them or They.

Evan Moor Word-A-Day Grade 2:   We combine this with learning how to use a dictionary by having her look up the words each day.  She often goes off on tangents looking up words that interest her.  The latest words she had to study were topple, zany, putrid, echo, infant, ability, dynamo, trivial, camouflage, hue, wince, compromise, flimsy, grant, talented, and opinion.

The (slightly crazy) answers she gave to the follow-up questions for this list:

Do you like acting zany or being around someone who’s acting zany? Why or Why not?  Yes, I like to fool around.

Have you ever smelled something putrid?  What was it? What did you do?  Yes.  Poop in the toilet.  I’d flush.

If you were in a place that made a good echo what would you like to say?  Hi me.

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write, Grade 2:  Vicki spelled all her words correctly for these units.  Her words were: good, book, took, shook, school, soon, too, read, best, work (can you guess what digraph was being worked on, LOL), now, down, shout, about, our, house, show, row, part, start, stand, star, stone, flew, new, ring, bring, moon, sun, off, trip, trees, train, stop, stopped, number, say, said, ride, fast.

In addition to the very obvious digraphs and diphthongs being studied, these units also worked on writing a complete sentence, proper punctuation, correct use of they or them, writing a personal narrative (Vicki’s consisted of “I like reading and music.  I also like math.  My brother likes writing.”), capitalizing names, capitalizing I, greeting and closing of a letter, rhyming words, nouns, pronouns, using commas in a list, adding –ed by doubling the consonant, and writing a letter.

She also had to write a list of what she would take on a trip to space.  She's overly optimistic with the multiple Ipods and Ipad.  

Reading:

The kids spend an hour reading for school each day, and additional time reading in the evening.  They keep a reading log of what they read during school.  Vicki has been working her way through the entire Babysitters Club Little Sister series.  She is also reading the books for The Wand, lots of her Cat in the Hat Learning Series.

Math

Math Mammoth 1B:    She has moved on to 2B while finishing up the Time and Money chapters from 1A.  She is struggling a little bit with remembering to regroup in subtraction but it appears to be more from rushing than from not understanding the concept.

 Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math Grade 2:  Vicki has successfully completed the third assessment, which included word problems, fractions, time to the ½ hour, measuring and graphs.  The next unit includes symmetry, skip counting and money problems.

Scholastic Success with Addition/Subtraction Grade 2:  A nice fun way to drill math facts with pretty pictures of butterflies and flowers. J  She has about 10 more pages left.

Vicki will be starting Evan Moor Daily Word Problems soon.  Hopefully this will help her work on setting up problems - lining up the places properly.

GEORGE

Language Arts

Copywork/Writing:  George is continuing along with Writing with Ease 1.   His cursive handwriting is not too bad but he still has a little bit of trouble with the narration and answering in full sentences. 

He worked on Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, All of a Kind Family, The Giant Crab and other Tales from Old India and the poems “The Sandpiper” and “The Nightingale and the Glow Worm”.

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write Gr 5:  George only has one more unit left in the Grade 5 book.  He continues to get all his spelling words correct on his weekly tests and there is evidence that he is able to carry that over into other writing.

His words for the latest units were: rough, enough, fragile, few, physical, misbehave, unimportant, unable, disappoint, stuffed, disagree, and misunderstood, which were included in a passage on the Life of a Colonial Child (how handy that it’s their next unit in history!) and prehistoric, bicycle, prevent, inconvenient, inconsiderate, preview, import, action, cyclone, portable, impatient, and automobile, with a passage about the history of chewing gum.

Each of these units has a page with a picture to write the words on.  George has been getting more and more creative each time.  The Colonial child unit featured a picture of a cooking kettle.  He decided to use the words in a recipe.

Stuffed Stew Recipe

2 rough rocks

5 drops of physical labor sweat

3 fragile eggs

a few frogs toes

You have almost finished.

20 disappointment tears

1 drop of blood from a misbehaving kid

You have done enough.

Plz dun misunderstand the recipe.

For the gum unit, he had an assignment to write a couple of Cinquains.    I thought he used some great vocabulary in both of them.

Scholastic More Proofreading Practice Please: Where he gets to apply what he learns in grammar and spelling.

Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Gr 5:  These units have worked on similar topics to Vicki’s – Cause and Effect, Fact and Opinion, Sequencing.

Evan Moor Word-A-Day – Grade 4:  He is up to week 33 and only has a few more weeks left in the 4^th grade book.  His latest word lists include: hazardous, ventriloquist, ingenious, knickknack, landscape, lenient, kowtow, justify, enthusiasm, establish, flounder, frigid, narrative, patriot, perennial, and penetrate.

George’s answers to the follow-up questions:

Describe a hazardous situation you have seen or know about.  The destruction of Pompeii.

Share some examples of ingenious ideas that you or someone else have had.  A giant ice cream robot.

My favorite knickknack would be a yellow glass cat.

Should parents be strict or lenient with their kids about bedtimes?  They should sometimes be a little lenient if they are: doing extra schoolwork or reading.

What is a narrative that you have enjoyed reading? Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Which books or tv shows are your perennial favorites?  Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

The newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book came out last week and I think he has read it at least 4 times already.  J

Reading:  Well, in addition to rereading the old Diary of a Wimpy Kid books in preparation, and reading the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book four or five times since he got it, he has been reading some Animorphs, and some Basher Science books.

 Math

Math Mammoth (4B): George has been successfully working through long division, long division with money and is learning how to calculate averages.  Long division has been giving him less trouble than some “easier” math because he has no choice but to write it down and do it step by step.   Probably the start of a new trend as math is just going to get more complicated from this point on.

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math – Grade 4:  The latest units have included logic puzzles (he really loves these), place value, symmetry, word problems, balancing equations, interpreting graphs, calculating volume and rounding.

Evan Moor Daily Word Problems – Grade 4:  He is starting to write out the problems a little more often.  Many of them require filling in a table or applying the answers.

He is still enjoying Scholastic Super Sudoku Math: Multiplication & Division Facts and Scholastic Fast Facts: Multiplication and Division and doing Sudoku puzzles from Easy Sukoku Puzzles by KrazyDad and logic grid puzzles from Mental Floss. 

BOTH: Extra-curricular

Swimming is still going well.  George is starting to put a little more effort into it, probably in the hopes that his sister won’t get any further ahead of him.

The kids had their first meeting of the Herpetology Heroes 4-H group and George volunteered to do the first presentation.  He is working on his report on fire salamanders, which he will be presenting next week.

I’m still hoping to start Geography and Art pretty soon but it may end up waiting until after the Holidays.

The kids have been working on Simple Machines in Science, Explorers in History, and using Studies Weekly to do a short unit on Health.  

Fall Fun and Halloween Happenings

I figured I had better get my Halloween/Fall post up before the snow came. ;-)

We are having a gorgeous fall here in NJ.  Lots of bright colors and blue skies.  The past few years it seems it was either really wet and the leaves all went brown, or very windy and the leaves fell off the trees too fast.

We made a trip out to the local pumpkin patch and had a great time on the Hay Ride, running through the corn maze and picking out our pumpkins.  Vicki pointed out to all of us that George was operating a Class 2 Level when using the wheelbarrow (they are studying Simple Machines and applying what they learn!!).

Once we returned home, the kids painted their pumpkins, while I tried my hand at a Jack Skellington.
 

Jen took them to a much larger (10 acres!), much harder corn maze where they spent HOURS working through a very complicated maze, assisted by clues.  This years maze had clues dealing with New Jersey History - very educational. :-)

Halloween was all about Minecraft this year.  Vicki was an Enderman and George was a Zombie Pigman.  I thought their costumes came out pretty good and they were happy with them.  We went to our town's Trunk or Treat, a party at the lake club, and Trick or Treating on Halloween night at Granny Kaye's house.

Wrap-Up

I’m way behind on my updates again.  L  I think I may start doing a Monthly Update for all the general school stuff and then do separate posts when we do fun or interesting things.  That way the long, detailed post is just once a month (which is what I’m averaging now anyway) and I can do quicker, picture loaded posts when we do exciting or unusual stuff. J

So this month’s excuses - the kids have been taking turns being sick for the past few weeks, the weather has been going through allergy inducing changes, and my computer (yes, my new one!) died on me.  (It’s back now, YEAH!) 

We’ve been up to Stephanie’s school twice this month – once to see her dance for the first time with the dance team at half time at the football game, and once for Homecoming where we saw her dance with her sorority in the showcase (Steph choreographed, taught and arranged the routine and did a great job!), and dance once again at half-time with the dance team.  Homecoming was lots of dancing, playing and good food.

 

 

 

 

VICKI

Language Arts

Handwriting: Vicki is continuing to practice handwriting using some workbooks that came with her Tag reader, some Draw Write Now (she is not a big fan of drawing or coloring but she gives it a go) and will resume copywork with The Wand and WWE shortly.

 Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Grade 2:  She is up to Week 12 in the second grade book and is doing great.  The passages these weeks worked on Character and Setting, Fantasy and Reality, Author’s Purpose/Prediction, and Non Fiction Elements like Glossaries, Table of Contents, and reading graphs and charts. 

Evan Moor Grammar and Punctuation Grade 2:   Vicki is continuing along with the nice, quick overview of Grammar rules.  She covered periods, question marks and exclamation marks, capitalizing proper names, places, days of week and holidays, and finding nouns. 
Evan Moor Word-A-Day Grade 2:  Vicki has moved on to Evan Moor Word-A-Day, Grade 2.    Her words so far have been dainty, pounce, generous, rambunctious, inquire, clench, monotone, attire, spectator, omit, brim, grumble. She comprehension seems strong so far.

Some of the bonus questions and her answers: J
Tell about a time you were acting rambunctious. What were you doing? What happened?
I ran in circles.  I got dizzy.

When do you clench your fists?  When I punch my wall.  (huh?)

What was your attire the last time you had to dress up for a special occasion? Last Friday I wore a Hello Kitty dress.

When you tell your family about your day at school, what information might you omit?  I’d omit what I forgot. (stating the obvious, LOL).

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write, Grade 2:  Vicki finished four more units of spelling.  She only missed one word – send.

The first unit she learned about bees, spelling with long e, identifying subjects and predicates, nouns, verbs, and had a writing assignment to describe a new bug she discovered.  Her bugs name was Stan.  He’s thin and small, and brown.  He lives in a jar, walks to get around and looks like a stick.

She also had to describe how it would feel if she woke up to be a bee.   “It feels fine to be small.  Its fun to fly around. Its also fun to sting.”   What a kid. J

Her next unit was about going to the gym and covered words ending in st and end, contractions, and capitalizing days of the week, months of the year and holidays – a good cross over with her Grammar, and using I and me.

Her next unit was on Blue Whales.   She learned about words with oa, ong and aw, contractions, is and are, apostrophes and using a graphic organizer.

Her last unit covered words with ay and ai, identifying adjectives, using the pronouns we and us, and interpreting charts.

I really like the variety of topics this program spirals through.

Reading: Vicki's been reading her way through the entire Baby Sitter's Little Sister series.  In addition to an hour for school, she also reads for about 30 minutes each night.  

Math

Math Mammoth 1B:    She has just two chapters left in 1B – Time and Money.  She pretty much has both down from the other supplemental stuff she’s been doing so she may move on to 2B and do one page from 2B and one page from the Time or Money each day, to reinforce the concepts.

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math Grade 2:  Vicki has completed the first two units and successful did the assessments for units one and two.  These units covered number lines, graphs, time, word problems, adding four numbers in columns, number words, money, place value, tally marks, and measuring.  A very nice spiral review of concepts.

Scholastic Success with Addition/Subtraction Grade 2:  A nice fun way to drill math facts with pretty pictures of butterflies and flowers. J

Scholastic First Word Problems: Time and Money:  She has completely finished this book and has a great understanding of both time and money.

GEORGE

Language Arts

Handwriting:  George has finished his Scholastic Cursive Writing Practice: Jokes and Riddles book.  He will continue practicing using copywork from WWE, The Arrow and his other programs.  His handwriting is looking pretty good these days.  In honor of Halloween, here’s a nice skeleton joke. :-)

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write Gr 5:  Despite alternating with More Proofreading Practice Please, he is moving through this book quickly.  He has completed through Unit 9 of 12.  Evan Moor only goes through Grade 6 so we may be looking for a different spelling resource by the end of the school year. 

In unit 8, he learned about pollution, how to spell words with ie and ei, the suffixes ly and ness, using I and me.  He missed one word – exactly from this list but correctly spelled: biologist, fierce, worried, angrily, their, pollution, hurried, darkness, pieces, weigh, and happiness.  In addition to listing things he could do to help with pollution, he wrote a persuasive paragraph telling people why they must stop pollution:Let’s destroy pollution that harms animals! Stinks up the air! Dirtys the environment!  Lets help the biologists any way we can before the darkness!  Bring happiness to spare!  

Unit 9 included a passage about the Rafflesia flower of Sumatra.  He spelled all his words correctly on his test: island, patience, mission, wonderful, design, caution, government, addition, plentiful, limbs, predicament, and successful.  This test emphasized words with suffixes ful and ment, definitions of the above words, using can or may correctly. 

He wrote a passage about the poison arrow frog to demonstrate appearance versus reality and had a good time writing his spelling words on the picture.

Scholastic More Proofreading Practice Please: Since George has finished his No Boring Practice Please: Spelling, he has switched to proofreading practice to alternate with his spelling.  This allows him to apply what he is learning in spelling and make sure the concepts are sticking.   It includes grammar and spelling errors.

Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Gr 5:  George has just started the 5^th grade level of Reading Comprehension and is doing fine.  This level requires a lot more inferring information.  He had activities for finding the important information from charts, graphs and tables.

Evan Moor Word-A-Day – Grade 4:  George has completed through Week 29.  These weeks have covered the words maneuver, frantic, peer, stagnant, unkempt, humdrum, replenish, agriculture, barricade, betray, complement, defiant, diligent, efficient, outwit, glamorous.   He’s definitely used a few of those words lately.  Like when he and Vicki decided to barricade her bedroom door with books, or he declared his water stagnant, or that Vicki was being defiant and should be punished. 

He was able to name the only two “products of agriculture” he will eat – corn and bananas – without getting into ingredients, and declared “School is humdrum because it’s no fun.”

Writing with Ease:   He has completed the passages on The Happy Hollisters, Pollyanna, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and A Christmas Carol. He is having difficulty narrating in full sentences so he is going to complete WWE1 before moving on to WWE2.

Math

Math Mammoth (4B): George has completed 4A and moved on to 4B.  He really solidified his multiplication and division facts over the summer and it has thing going much smoother. 

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math – Grade 4:  George is up to unit 6 and has worked on completing tables, logic puzzles, estimating, coordinate graphing, time, comparing fractions and decimals, patterns, map reading, and linear measurement.

Evan Moor Daily Word Problems – Grade 4: George still tries to answer these without writing out the steps but every so often he has no choice.

For some fun drill and reinforcement of facts, George has also been continuing with the Scholastic Super Sudoku Math: Multiplication & Division Facts and Scholastic Fast Facts: Multiplication and Division.

For even more fun he’s been doing Sudoku puzzles from Easy Sukoku Puzzles by KrazyDad and logic grid puzzles from Mental Floss. 

BOTH: Extra-curriculars

Vicki is doing amazing in swimming lessons. After just one session as a guppy, she’s moving up again to minnows. 

They attended the first meeting of the Herpetology Heroes 4-H club this week. George volunteered to be the first one presenting a report at next month’s meeting.  He chose to do it on a Blood Salamander.

We will be starting our Geography study to go along with the postcard exchange shortly, doing some art on the weekends.

The kids have started studying Explorers in US History and are back to working on Simple Machines in Science.