Summer time is here!

What a wonderful school year it's been! Avery found his groove, I managed to keep us all alive and well, the baby is now on the prowl and we have a couple of months to relax and refresh our minds and spirits for next school year. Here is a very abbreviated summary of this past school year.

Greatest challenges:

• Keeping the three year old from climbing onto the school table while teaching Avery his lessons.

• Nursing a baby while teaching Avery lessons while keeping Emile from climbing onto the table.
• Having Avery maintain focus if I leave the room (even for a second)

Greatest rewards:

• Avery loving to write letters, notes and stories especially with elaborate illustrations of monsters and battle droids.
• Emile asking me what each part of the body's real scientific name is (i.e. clavicle, sternum, humerus). Seriously!
• Watching the boys study together the wonders in nature, that makes it worth it all right there!

This past year I went through a slew of material to see what would work and would wouldn't work. Here are a few of our favorites:

• A little journal writing idea book purchased from our local educational store.
• Writing Strands
• First language lessons by Susan Weiss Bauer
• History of the world by Susan Weiss Bauer
• R.E.A.L. Science
• School Zone Big first grade workbook
• Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings
• Sketch books and Field guides
• Movable alphabet
• Homemade toddler activities-oatmeal, beans, cotton balls, scissors glue & construction paper, playdough!

Weeks end

We have had a great week full of exciting activities and fun lessons. Emile has taken a great interest in learning his letters and numbers. I have these neat sandpaper letters that he traces with his finger while we talk about the sound the letter makes, also I have these dry erase number cards that he has been tracing ever so carefully and really learning his numbers, I don't think Avery did that until he was four! Homeschooling with siblings is so rewarding!

Avery this week learned all about the central nervous system. We conducted an experiment where I would drop a ruler into his hand and see if he could improve his reaction time. Then documented his findings in his Human Body Journal. Today we will do an experiment with the five senses- it will involve blind folds and paper bags filled with different items like cotton balls, jingle bells, coins, and a jar of vinegar just to name a few.

I finally threw out our math book (Singapore), and pulled out some good old fashion first grade workbooks that I picked up from the toy store. It's been fun, challenging in a good way and most of all easy to understand. This week it's been all about word problems and bar graphs.

Spelling- I'm now using Spectrum Dolch sight word workbook that Avery and I both like a whole lot. There are reading exercises included that I think have helped him a lot in his fluency. There are 6 sentences with a box next to it and each day we practice reading those sentences that use our sight words, if he gets it right with no error we put a check in the box, if he misses a word or two we save it for the next day. He feels like it is a good challenge, and feels so accomplished when he gets those checks!

Busy Busy

Today was an absolutely great day! We were very busy, very inquisitive and very happy! No one lost their temper today which is not normal for us at all.

First part of the day was spent doing our school work. In math we are practicing number bonds, grammar we are still acting out our action poems, history we are learning about the Israelites and for a writing exercise Avery wrote poem about Fall, which we will probably share tomorrow along with his finished illustration to go along with it.

After we got that all out of the way we went down town to the Library, ate sushi for lunch in the park and took a very long walk around the pond checking out all of the ducks. It was Emile's first time to the park to see the ducks! I couldn't believe I have not taken my child to see the ducks in his two years of life, I felt like a terrible mother. He absolutely loved every moment of it. He kept asking me to show him the Mr. and Mrs. Mallard- from the book Make Way for Ducklings which we read this morning. So, such a full day and it is not over yet. Art this afternoon then soccer practice this evening. We are all going to sleep so good tonight, (right after the french toast I'm making for dinner...yum!)

A beautiful day

What a beautiful fall day ! We woke up and made yummy pumpkin spice muffins and went outside for school and play. Emile busied himself with this homemade oatmeal "sand" box where he does loads of pouring and filling, also he had a Tupperware full of assorted dry beans that he pretended to cook and then after he was done planted them in the garden. Daddy will have a little surprise come spring when Lima's, black, red and navy beans start sprouting up all over the place.

Avery worked in his math book, finishing up the review tests. Now we are ready for the second half of the first grade workbook.

In grammar we did more labeling of sentences (nouns and verbs). For a little fun I had him make up some sentences talking about an animal and what the animal was doing- then acting the sentence out in the yard. They both had loads of fun doing that!

Here's a few of their thoughts:

"The lion ran across the field."

"The ant bit the man."

"The bat swung from the tree."

"The elephant danced on one foot."

The last one was especially funny to watch them act out!

This afternoon (so that I can have a rest) we are going to watch a DVD on deep sea life. Avery has always been fascinated with ocean life and all of the amazing creatures that exist in that ecosystem. So in asking him what he would enjoy learning about this week (just for fun) he requested creatures of the deep sea. We also went to the library and checked out books to go along with his peaked interest.

So a nap is calling at the moment. Enjoy this beautiful fall weather if you can!

Lots of letter writing yesterday! We are learning about pronouns this week and decided to get creative with it, so we wrote letters to our friends and afterwards I made copies and put them in our language binder where Avery highlighted all of the pronouns in the letters. I also wrote sentences and had him highlight the ones with pronouns used incorrectly.

While Avery did that Emile insisted on writing his friends letters as well. He now wants to do whatever Avery is doing in "school". If Avery is doing math Emile wants to do math. He brings me Avery's old math workbook from last year that I gave to him to play with and says "momma talk to me about this!" I foresee it being much easier to school him when the time comes. I won't have to bribe and beg him to do his work, he'll just follow Avery (hopefully).

We also started in our human body unit learning about how muscles work. Completing a paper model of a working arm, yarn representing the muscles. When the yarn is pulled the arm moves. The point of the lab was to demonstrate how muscles work in pairs. Fun stuff! We also are loving the human body coloring book that we have listed in the learning tools icon on the sidebar. It goes along perfectly with our curriculum!

Later: Finish reading Harry Potter (almost through with book two!) then art class and soccer practice! Big first game this weekend!!!

Toddler time!

Keeping little hands busy while trying to cater to the needs of my first grader is challenging to say the least. There is not an end to the kinds of activities I could potentially provide, just a limit to how many arms I have. It seems like he is always needing something that he doesn't have right in front of him, mostly because he purposefully drops it on the floor. I think he gets a kick out of watching his big pregnant mama bend over and reach under our table every five seconds, which sounds simple but if you've ever been pregnant you know how far the floor really is!

So far the favorite activities for Emile (2 1/2 yrs old) are taking magnetic letters and matching them to the letters on a place mat we got from http://www.crocodilecreek.com/home.html. This activity helps with letter recognition, something I am so not pushy with, but he has genuine interest already.

Another favorite that holds his attention is matching pom poms with plastic cups that have colored dots. For now he just matches the colors, the next step will be to match the number of pom poms with the cup with that same number of sticky dots. Good times!

Avery is trucking along. Today as we were transitioning to math he actually said "Yea! Fun math time!" ...and was serious. I nearly fell over!