Thanksgiving Part I

Things have been a little light the past few weeks.   We're shutting down our campsite so there's been a steady influx of stuff that places need to be found for and laundry to be washed so it can be stored.  I've also been reviewing some of what we're doing since Georgie seems to be getting bored a lot.  I've decided to take a break from The Reading Lesson.  He already knows most of the letter sounds so the concentration on a few letters at a time wasn't interesting or challenging enough.  We're trying Progressive Phonics which is a free program that uses simple readers.  So far, Georgie seems to like it much better.  We're starting with the first reader (short a sound).We're also doing more games.  I found a generic board game online and modified the cards to emphasize what we're learning.  So, Georgie will roll a dice and pick a card.  The card will have a word to read or something to act out.  For example, I'll tell him he needs to read and act out the phrase "I am a big duck".  He's having fun with it but, of course, Vicki also wants to play.   We're managing but it definitely doesn't resemble any traditional game-playing I've ever seen.  Vicki is learning to give Georgie the dice when its his turn so I guess that's progress.

We've also talked about getting a more structured Math program after the Holidays are over.  I've looked into a lot of them and Math U See seems like a good fit for Georgie.  He's already counting to 100 and doing simple addition problems.  Since he's a very visual learner I think the manipulatives and DVD's of Math U See will be fun and educational for him.

We're studying Thanksgiving (including Native Americans and Pilgrims) for the next few weeks.  So far, we've read The Very First Thanksgiving Day by Greene, The Very Last First Time which is a story about a Inuit girl, and a few Native American legends.   We discussed totem poles but our attempt to make some didn't go too well.  The kids had trouble gluing their images to the paper tubes so we ended up putting them on paper.  I didn't really expect Vicki to line them up but Georgie also decided that a pole wasn't what he was shooting for.  I have to remember that Georgie really, really prefers more open-ended crafts.  He doesn't particularly like following directions in his worksheets so why would he with his crafts?  We may end up with some very interesting looking turkeys in the next few weeks.

Our Totem "Poles".  Vicki's is actually the more complete one, Georgie doesn't like getting his hands sticky from the glue.

Attempting to play our board game. 

Vicki has been playing a clothespin color matching game.  Each index card has a color name on it written in the correct color.  Each clothespin is painted with a color.  She matches up the correct clothespins with the correct index cards by clipping them on.  She did two of them, decided they made great wings and "Mommy I'm flying".