Last week was spent cleaning up from camping and getting over the cold Vicki decided to share with Georgie and I. But by this week I was all ready to jump right back in to school. I had even done some reorganizing (not completed yet so no pictures or post of that), had everything together to continue our rock & mineral study, had no outside-the-house plans, and was ready to start studying Spanish with the kids using First Step Espanol and The Complete Book of Spanish.
You know what they say about “the best laid plans…”? We managed to complete ALMOST one days worth of core subjects, no Spanish, no Science and very little else.
We did spend a bit of time outside and Daddy introduced the kids to one of our local residents.
I also, with a little help from Georgie, got my garden planted. We set up a new raised-bed garden this year complete with fencing to keep out the deer. Hopefully we’ll get a good harvest. We planted tomatoes (beefsteak and cherry), cucumbers, yellow squash, green squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkins, broccoli, carrots, sweet peppers, jalapenos and corn.
While Georgie and I worked on the garden, Vicki worked on using up the last of our bubbles…
which led to me implementing an idea from Pinterest. I made some homemade bubble solution – dish soap, water and light corn syrup – and put it into a plastic pitcher with a spout. This allows her to help herself without worrying about spilling the whole thing.
I did a few school activities with Vicki to continue getting an idea of what she knows and where we should be working.
First we went over the numbers from 1 to 10. I knew she could count that high and was pretty sure she would recognize all the numbers but it was a place to start. I pulled the ace through ten cards from a deck and had her name them and place them in order. She had no problem with this at all.
We then used unifix cubes and a white board to go over the teen numbers. When counting she often skips around with these but she was able to name each number that went with the quantity of unifix cubes when we did them one at a time.
Since she seems to need manipulatives much more than Georgie did, I went ahead and ordered some base 10 blocks and magnetic pattern blocks. I’ll be adding them into her school day over the next few weeks (there I go making plans again).
I did introduce the –ad word family using the foam blocks like we did for the –at words.
She did fine with the –ad words but when the were mixed up with some of the –at words, she had some trouble. There wasn’t enough difference between the ending sounds and she was getting confused. I'll see how it goes next week but may change the order if it continues to happen. I’ve been looking through my copy of Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and trying to decide if I want to attempt that with her. I never did it right out of the book with Georgie so I could probably do it with Vicki using the foam and her new favorite school tool – a purple and pink fly swatter.
We discovered that we had a great game for both kids and adults to play together. I-Spy Eagle Eye involves comparing cards to play mats and finding what picture appears on both. Vicki was able to win the first game (without anyone “helping” her).
One thing that is working well is getting Georgie to read. Going with his interests is definitely key. In addition to his Ninjago books and rewarding him with Pokemon cards, I picked him up Pokemon Ultimate Handbook. He’s been doing lots of independent reading, even outside of his assigned time.
I don’t have too much planning to do this weekend since next week we will just do what I had planned for this week but I’m hoping to finish my reorganization plans, which I’m hoping will lead to smoother school days.
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