Writing with pictures

Today, Lucy started her sight words work.  As Zoe learned to read, we took the all-phonics approach, but those pesky words you can't sound out kept haunting us.  This curriculum is a great supplement, and Lucy loves her new ring of words and is already comfortable with I, me, the, and and.  I think it all comes out in the end no matter which approach you choose, but my struggle with her is finding stuff that she likes that is at her level, and right now, this fits the bill.

Stamping each new sight word with a different color

I love this!  It's a very simple story that Zoe can read to Lucy.  

Then, Zoe helps Lucy find her "special words" and circle them.

Today, we also learned about the first writing from the Egyptians and Sumerians.  We looked at some samples of hieroglyphics and made some of our own from clay.  We decided we were thankful for paper since it was so much work!  But we also learned that things written on clay last much longer than those written on paper.  We made our name, a picture of a bird, and Cleopatra's skirt on our tablets.

More sprinkles, please

Today, Zoe had her first real math test!  Her teacher learned a few things.  First, don't assume that it's a good idea to give the chapter and unit review at the same time - even though one is easy, both may be a bit too much.  Second, the girl knows how to work a problem using the tools around her, but switch something up or require some conceptual thinking, and we are up a creek without a paddle...we muddled through, but wow.  That oranges word problem about got the best of both of us!

Using her number bonds chart (that's some hairdo, huh?)

Working a few things out on the board

I love this book.  Today, one of the things we worked on was counting objects (easy) and holding up the right number of fingers (a little harder).  Also, we had some geometry, measuring, and pattern finding with almost no writing.

Zoe relaxed with the Tag reader after her test.  She was laughing hysterically at Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and recited it all day!

Then we went to this awesome cupcake shop and added our own sprinkles inside the sparkly carriage!  Lucy added so much that her first bite was all sprinkles (but no frosting of course).  We had fun with Avery!

Important vocabulary

Today was more about learning than taking good pictures apparently...

Lucy is moving right along in her reading.  She is good on 3 letter words and we are just practicing every day to build comfort and speed.  Most days, she does a great job getting through a lesson in our reading book

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We had fun making tricky words for each other.  This important vocabulary one was mine.  Hers for me was "epgrd".  Tricky, that one.

In Zoe's spelling, we are working on blends and getting every single sound down. 

Working on the board is fun, at least for now!

In science, we talked about Solids, Liquids, and Gases.  They are very familiar with changing states of matter from last year, but I was surprised that it took them awhile to put the names to the states again.  We classified lots of different items from around the house and have had a regular little science lab going in our freezer and sink ever since.  

Here we are looking at glue and water: each in the solid and liquid state.

A Royal Battle

We began the day with our new hundreds board.  It offered lots of opportunities for pattern finding, number review, and counting.

In history, we learned about two kins of ancient Egypt - the red crown king and the white crown king.  Kings, like sisters, sometimes have trouble sharing and they fought each other to be the only king.

Alas, the red crown king had to surrender his crown and land.

And the new symbol for the leader of a unified Egypt became a white crown with red on top.

Can you feel the power?

The new royalty had no problems with a review of shapes and ordinals.

A big hit was the new geometric solids bag.  You pull a wooden shape out of one bag and then feel in the other bag for the shape that matches it.  Look at those thinking faces!

Field Trip: Science Museum

Today we went to the Frisco Science Museum with our buddies Olivia and Avery.  We had a great time - there were so many hands on activities to keep us busy!

This one was tricky!  You had to raise the ball with both hands and if one hand ahead of the other, you have to figure out how to keep the ball from dropping.  It really made Zoe concentrate, but she got very good at it after a few tries!

Getting organized

This is our new system and so far we love it!  Every day, I list what each girl needs to do (stars are work with Mom) and what we will do together.  They can mostly choose the order they do things in and can erase it when they're done.  They like having some control and seeing what's left in their day.

This is one of our new Montessori activities.  Lucy lines up the golf tees in order 1-10 then has to balance a marble on top.  She loves this (even though she prefers to push them all the way in).

We are working on number families.  Zoe figures out all the ways to make 7.

And back to All About Spelling level 2. 

We started Story of the World Vol. 1.  I can't get excited for some reason but maybe I will.  We talked about ancient nomads and the first farmers.  We also made a time capsule so people in the future can learn about us.  Daddy is going to help us bury it soon.

In science, we talked about organizing and putting things into categories.  We dumped all our school supplies in a pile and re organized them.  A bit of a boring way to start science, but better things are coming...

After a swim with Blake, a playdate with a neighbor, it was time for musical rehearsal!  Whew!

What time is it?

Unlike most of our friends, we were not asking this as the alarm went off this morning, but as a rousing game of "trick your sister" was played with our clocks (and with smoothies of course).

Zoe felt like a first grader - on her schedule was reading, grammar, math, geography, and handwriting.  Whew!  It's hard work to fit it all into 3 days a week.  We enjoyed our first grammar lesson though.  We added phrases to make complete sentences.  My favorite: "The baseball player...... found a wife."  Sigh.

Lucy enjoyed the new items on her shelf.  Her favorite was wood polishing (a bit of a dud in my opinion - need to tweak that one) and handwriting using her new dry erase board.  You can put any page inside.

...and we revisited some old favorites.

Then, we had a celebratory late lunch, a rest, a quick play date, and dance class.

I am wishing we had done something a little more fun for the first day back, but it is what it is.  The first of school is so full of excitement and fresh starts and new clothes, it's a bit of a hard time to be a homeschooler.  But a mom of a fellow first grader told me her daughter was asked by another girl if water had calories in school today, so I did feel better...  No choice is perfect, but we had a great day.

Here we go again!

Well, we took the summer off (if by taking it off you mean camps, playdates, VBS, horseback riding, musical rehearsal, traveling to see family, swimming, and sleepovers).

I thought we would start back July 15, then Aug 1, then Aug 15, but we are set to start on Tuesday.  In many ways it makes sense to school when it's so hot here (107 today) but all our friends are home and wanting to play, so we will just start when they do.

Our school room is ready to go!  Here it is...

This year, I cut the spines off of almost all our books and put them in notebooks.  Then, I pulled out 6 weeks of work at a time and put them into folders.

Our big purchase this year - check out that dry-erase board!  Yay!  

Thanks to Daddy for uncrating 3 of those bad boys (2 were donated due to scratches and dents)!

These are Lucy's shelves - I have put quite a bit of time into making materials for her.  Some will be very typical Montessori, some preschool skills, some Kindergarten work, but I hope to rotate them enough so that she will stay engaged when I am working with Zoe.

Not really slackers

So, if you go by blog posts, it may look like we've been slacking off, but in fact, in the last few weeks, here are a few things we have done...

- Zoe has raised $800 for Cystic Fibrosis with her lemonade stand!
- We all walked in a 5K and Zoe got to accept the award for Avery's team
- We took a 4 day vacation to Disney and had enough pixie dust and princess encounters to last a lifetime...or a couple of years at least!
- Zoe turned 6!  She got an American Girl doll and took a buddy and her sister to lunch at the AG store.
- Both girls were in the Spanish Schoolhouse end of year show - Lucy was in rare form on the stage!
- Zoe graduated from Spanish Schoolhouse.  Sniff.
- Our friends and Brazil experts, the Worthams, came to visit from Pittsburg
- I gave Zoe an end of Kindergarten language arts assessment and on the 10 page test, the only thing she missed was misspelling "they" and choosing two answers for one question.
- Our montessori experiment with Lucy is a home run!  I'm in serious planning mode for next year.
- Zoe is about to finish up her Kindergarten handwriting, math, and spelling curriculums.
- Oh, and Lucy taught herself to read.

We are still loving Singapore Math and I have ordered first grade for next year.  Minquon math is very inexpensive and is a nice occasional supplement.  I also plan to use it more and more with Lucy as she is interested.

Making rainbows on our new mats ( for $1 - wish I'd thought of it sooner!) after math time.

3 groups of 10 and 4 more make 34!

Yep, my not yet 4 year old busted out the first 4 Bob books like it was no biggie.  

She now takes them to bed with her and wants to read them first thing every morning.

Here's to the teaching method of no direct instruction but watching your big sister like a hawk for a year!