The 3 year old has caught something and of course immediately sneezed in my face so I’m only about half here this week. Baby got it too, so she was up half the night Sunday. So far the 6 year old is the only one that has avoided it. No idea how. We ended up with a sick day and a day where we mostly read books together, so lots of reading going on this week!
Over the weekend we broke out the new dice we ordered online (who knew that they were hard to find in a store?) and let them play ‘roll and cover’ with shamrock pages (they’re meant to be colored, but we used ‘gold’ coins). I let the 3 year old have one die and the 6 year old got 2. She had to add the 2 numbers. I don’t think they understand that they’re doing math. Evil mom grin.
They’ve been able to get out, run, play, swing, slide, and so on, and fingers crossed the weather will continue to improve as spring is nearly here! I think everyone’s in a mood, the illness running through the house has cramped everyone’s style and made me more tired than usual. We’re still trying to find the right rhythm with learning, for whatever reason, the baby/toddler wants to scream through most of the time I read out loud. But she’s napping later, so the kids are done and running by the time she naps, and corralling them again and having them slam doors, yell, bang the soap dispenser, and drop stuff just to clean their hands so we can read is not high on my priority list when nap time is finally happening! I had the kids dump out their baskets of shoes, sort out the ones that had gotten too small, and we tucked snow pants, boots, and mittens in the front hall closet. This means it will snow next week, I bet. But check some minor amounts of spring cleaning off the list.
We took the littlest (got a sitter for the older 2) and put in a showing at the homeschooling convention somewhat nearby. It was a good experience, and although I’m not sure we did much, we chose to go on the free night so there is that. We got some things straight in our minds, and that was the main thing. More things to talk about, but a more solid feeling of ‘right’. 🙂
Science/Nutrition: We had the kids inspect the skin, flesh, and seeds of a kiwi with a magnifying glass and have a taste test. The kids also helped us cook. They tried corned beef and we started talking a little bit about the dairy group. Our plan is to have them make butter and ice cream (that using a freezer and a mix) this weekend. Reading the milk/cheese book brought up the idea of bacteria again and how some are actually helpful for us, so that was a good tie in to past subjects.
3 year old:
Writing numbers 16-22 on her calendar page–she didn’t complete this, but as we’re going through the month, we will catch it up.
Count color and graph St. Pat’s objects
Counting, tallying and writing the number of gold coins
Letter Z, recognizing, sounding out, tracing, writing
Matching words with pictures (bug, dog, cat, etc) for sounding out practice– we need a LOT more practice with this, and patience!
Letter T beginning sound page (random printout)
Counting, writing the number, then adding the pictures for ‘in all’ – beginnings of addition!
Recognizing and tracing a path through numbers 1-20
6 year old:
Math skills:
Recognizing evens and odds
Addition and subtraction
Ordering numbers in the teens
Greater or less than 50
Recognizing if sums and differences are true or false
Fill in missing numbers (random pattern 30-100)
Number bonds (fancy way of saying the triads of numbers that we all automatically know, like 6+3 =9, 9-6=3, 9-3=6, etc.
Counting by 10s
Word problems with answers in the teens
Language Skills:
Recognizing real or nonsense words
Word families (fancy way of saying rhyming words like -ad is sad, mad, lad not BED)
Rhyming
Counting Syllables
Digraphs (fancy way of saying double lettered endings on words like ba-th, ca-sh, or bea-ch, or beginnings like ch-ips, th-orn, or sh-eep)
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Independent Reading:
The Littles and the Terrible Tiny Kid by Peterson
The Littles and the Big Storm by Peterson
The Littles Give a Party by Peterson
The Littles Go to School by Peterson
The Littles Take a Trip by Peterson
The Littles and the Trash Tinies by Peterson
The Littles Have a Wedding by Peterson
The Littles and the Lost Children by Peterson
The Littles to the Rescue by Peterson
The St.Patrick’s Day Shamrock Mystery by Markham
Fancy Nancy Just my Luck by O’Connor
Vampires DO hunt Marshmallow Bunies by Jones and Dadey (Bailey School Kids Jr. chapter book)
Ms. LaGrange is Strange by Gutman
The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes: Have Wheels Will Travel by Mazer
The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes: Reach for the Stars by Mazer
The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes: Look Before You Leap! by Mazer
A-Z Mysteries The School Skeleton by Ron Roy
A-Z Mysteries The Vampire’s Vacation by Ron Roy
A-Z Mysteries The X’ed Out Xray by Ron Roy
A-Z Mysteries The Zombie Zone by Ron Roy
The Tiara Club Winter Wonderland by French
The Cheese Ball Trap by Banscherus
Hello Kitty Delicious! Comic Book
Reading together:
Holiday topical books:
Lucky O’Leprechaun by Dillon
Piggley and the Magic Doll by Driscoll
Fluffy’s Lucky Day by McMullan
The Luckiest St. Patrick’s Day Ever by Slater
The Hungry Leprechaun by Calhoun
Leprechaun Luck A Wee Book of Irish Wisdom by Erin Gobragh (not even kidding) Illustrated by O’Neill
Fiona’s Luck by Bateman
Lucky Little Bear by Minarik
Very Lucky Ponies by Bejamin (my little pony)
A child’s book of Faeries by Batt
Nutrition/food group topical books:
Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese by Crummel
The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss
The Ice Cream King by Downing
Mercy Watson to the Rescue by Van Dusen
Anatole by Titus
Toot and Puddle The Great Cheese Chase by Hobbie
The Old Man Who Loved Cheese by Keillor
Riff Raff Sails the High Cheese by Schade
The Chocolate Chip Mystery by McInnes
