Color Box

I actually had this post ready before my long "inservice" weekend (no, really, we are learning about the oceans soon and I needed to do some up in depth prep work!) but forgot to publish the post.  We are back in the groove tomorrow, but here is what we were up to last week...

I have started a new program called All About Spelling - I plan to write about it more in depth soon, but so far, I love it!  Here, Zoe is repeating words while moving tiles for the beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  It is a visual program, and the early lessons are very easy for her - both of these are big in my book.  She looks bored, but she really enjoyed it and was having fun with it.

 Two cute ballerinas ready for dance and art class - we studied early Picasso today, but I didn't get a picture of the art work.

It's hard for the picture to do the color and light sensory bin justice, if I do say so myself.  There are slinkies, multi-colored rice, feathers, balls, erasers, glass beads (money, of course), kaleidoscopes, and more.  We sort by color, make rainbow patterns, talk about light and how it changes, and just run our hands through the rice. It's therapeutic.  Even our babysitter loved it!

Teacher Inservice

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Yellow and blue make green!

Today, we were back to Science Fridays!  7 girls and one brave boy all learned about mixing colors.  This was maybe our best Friday yet!  We did several activities:

We made our own color wheels starting with just the primary colors

We used colored ice to make green, purple, and orange water

 (this was the best demonstration - so simple and visual!)

We used droppers to mix different colors together

 We used color paddles and flashlights to make different color combinations

We had primary colored Cool Whip and mixed orange, purple, and green and then ate it up with some apple slices.  They loved this part!

Then, we had a "test." Everyone had a sheet with color combinations.  We made predictions, then I mixed colored water to see if they were right.  Each person chose the circle that completed the combination (red + yellow = orange).

Mommy needs a nap and a manicure!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Zoe is our rainbow girl - she loves everything about them and had a rainbow party for her 5th birthday.  So I knew a color unit had to come along at some point!  Today was a good lesson in how interest makes all the difference in effort, at least for my kid.

After some reading and handwriting practice, we checked out the pile of paint samples.

An unnamed student had a brief time out...

while Zoe sorted the cards into color families.

Lucy stamped Lucy, Zoe, Mom, and Dad on her paper.  

It was the first thing she showed Daddy when he came home.

Zoe did a great job copying and then tracing the color words.  

We took our time and worked on letter formation.

We talked about color shades and how adding white to a color changes the shade.  We glued down the samples to make a poster and Zoe added her color labels.  Lucy quickly caught onto the concept of darker and lighter and was good at sorting them.

Then, I took a turn with each on using the Inchimals.  I read stellar reviews of these before I bought them, but they are awesome!  They both played with them but were doing tons of mathematical thinking too.  Lucy and I made stairs and compared sizes.  The 1" ladybug climbed up the stairs and we talked about how that made the stair as tall as the one next to it.

Then Zoe and I took turns stumping each other.  We would set out a set of animals and the other would have to find the right pieces to match them (so the 4" animal and the 5" animal could be matched by the 9" or the 8" and 1").  She loved this and I tried to work in addition sentences as we played.

Here is our finished poster (in the hallway so everyone can see it instead of the school room) and our rainbow paintings we did later in the day.  I think today might have been Zoe's favorite day so far.

Roar!

Today was a big day!  Zoe read her book to the whole school at Spanish Schoolhouse.  She has been excited and it has been very motivating to keep her practicing the same book.  She read with enthusiasm (the ROAR was exciting!) and was so proud of herself.  It was a small thing but a very big thing to her.  They are so accommodating at that school and she really felt like the big smart kid today, which is priceless.  That school is special to us - they love the girls and we love them!

Nuts and Bolts

I've been a little lax with the camera for a week, but here are a few things we've been doing.

Reading, reading, reading.  Thanks Grana for the Barbie readers.  

On an unrelated note, could you just dive into those dimples?

A Montessori-type activity inspired by a trip to Lowe's: different size nuts and bolts. 

Lucy loves stuff like this.

Shared writing.  We write about our reading together each morning.  We have lots of language lessons emerge naturally (like an sh- review for Zoe's word choice of "shout" and a long I lesson with "kite").  Lucy sounded out and wrote "Fly" all by herself (we helped with the Y- sound).

We are learning about more and less than in math and Number Sense is a great little app for kindergarten math.  One of the games has you manipulate until "there are fewer red fish than orange fish" for example.  It makes her think and is just the right amout of tricky.

Lucy likes her snow sensory bin.  Here, she built a snowball pyramid.

And here she is making fancy snowflake patterns.  These will cost you 3 glass beads in the store because they are "super fancy and beautiful."  Fair enough.

We went ice skating with Dad and cousin Brett who came to visit with Grannie for the weekend!

One last read-through before the big day tomorrow! 

I'll do it tomorrow

Everyone is either a Frog or Toad.  I'm a Toad.  Remember in Days with Frog and Toad when Toad looks around his messy house and moans to Frog, "I'll do it tomorrow"?  We started the morning off with this story and did some shared writing with it.  Here is Zoe working on hers.  I love her illustration - you can see Toad's finger sticking up from his cozy bed saying "Tomorrow!"

In the middle of a reading, math, writing, and phonics-filled morning, we finally did our first experiment from our science kit Nonnie and Papaw gave us.  We made a sunset in a test tube and will check our results in the morning.

Another Nonnie and Papaw gift was this set of cubes and cards.  Zoe breezed through the first few...

...but got stumped here and was unconvinced when I told her it wasn't right.  Really?  We came up with a strategy and tried again with better results.

I hesitated to buy Zoe a Tag, but I finally caved and it has been a great purchase.  I got her a set of easy readers and she loves playing with it during rest time and it's helping her with her fluency.  I also found the maps on sale and they love them.  You can learn about countries, states and capitals or learn about landforms, people, and most importantly to our students, music of each region.  Today we just played with the world map but will be breaking out the US one soon.  Zoe asked if she could not do playdoh after school was over but keep using the map.  Um, OK!

I remembered this craft from Speece School and a few other places, so we thought we would give these Borax crystal snowflakes a try after school today.  By tonight, though, I could tell I didn't "measure" it right (and I use that term loosely) so I redid it more carefully and will hope for beautiful snowflakes in the morning.

Brrrr! And angst.

It's cold outside!  Today was one of those days I was glad we weren't loading up and going to school at 7am, but it was also one of those tempting days to snuggle down and not do much work.  We resisted, though and had a full day.

Zoe is preparing to read a book to the younger kids at her school, and today, we picked her book: The Lion and the Mouse.

Then, we read this book.  It was perfect since we actually have several inches of snow still in our backyard!  Except for the part that goes, "What makes it snow? We do not know!" Cringe.  But otherwise fun, considering we just built a snowgirl.

And, in more perfect timing...a snow sensory bin!  I planned this thinking we would talk about places that it usually snows in winter - who knew that would be Texas!  This bin was fun and cheap to make from the after Christmas sales.    Lucy played with it while Zoe and I did math work.

We did some grouping, addition and subtraction, and patterning with these cute winter ducks (and learned about skiing and snowboarding and want to go visit Aunt Emmy in Aspen!)

I found a book with a sticker group for each letter of the alphabet.  

Lucy made an I page while Zoe and I did a logic problem together.

Then, we went to dance, got a haircut, and went to our first art class!  Our new homeschool friends are hosting it and a teacher comes each week.  This week, we learned about Donatello and bas-relief.  Zoe made a horse and Lucy made...you guessed it, a giraffe.

And now the angst.  I'm feeling conflicted about homeschool these days.  A big part of me enjoys this more relaxed schedule and lifestyle and feels good about where we are with Zoe, both confidence-wise and academically.  But another part of me feels like we are not being systematic - reading, writing, and math are all more hodge-podge than they should be, especially if we are looking at being ready for a 1st grade class next year, which I'm not sure if we are.

In any case, one day, I want to relax and follow her lead because she's 5 and struggles and I'm doing this to allow her to go at her own pace.   The next day, I want to order 10 academically rigorous programs and do a lesson in each every single day.  I'm still owning my identity as a homeschooler and finding my fit within the range of smart people who do this.  I see the value in every approach and strategy and have my own ideas as well.  I'll continue to struggle with it and hopefully we will find our way to a place that works.  This whole thing started out as a "year off" before we started public school kindergarten, but I feel it growing into something more.  It's good and I love it more than I imagined, but it's full of responsibility too.

Snow Day!

Today, we did some extra credit PE:  Lessons included:

Snowwoman base construction

Sharing bites of snow with sister

Dodging and throwing snowballs

And enjoying the finished product (I knew I was keeping that brown banana for a reason!)