Games and Puzzles

Today I introduced the girls to the Pledge of Allegiance for America Moment.

We did a reading lesson; I had the girls read a little to me. I think Noel needs more practice on her numbers before she's really ready to read and sound things out well. So we practiced that. I'd like Amy to have a better idea of the sounds that individual letters and combinations of letters make as well. I'm hoping to work more on that. Mom and Amy don't like waiting around for that; they are learning books so fast.

Amy chose Battledome for her activity.

Noel chose the Green Eggs and Ham game.

For closing activity, the girls did kid level sudokus while we listened to an audiobook for reading class. Amy did the sudokus (4x4s with only one number missing) perfectly. Then she wanted to make her own. She didn't quite get how to make each number only show up once per row, column, and box. But it was a great first time I'd say.

All things considered (we've had a few struggles today) I would say it was a pretty good school day.

"The Kids Are Learning a Lot"

This is the report of school the kids did with Grammy:
Popsicles - clean up before they melt.

America Moment - Learned a little more of the Preamble song.

Clock Lesson - the minute hand tells you o'clock and thirty.

Traced the whole United States.

Amy wanted a lesson on shapes so she drew a spaceship out of shapes.

Reading time - Peter and Jane 2b

This morning we did these activities that were schoolish -
Amy finished writing Peter and Jane 1c.
I fixed up last year's art wall and hung up the world map.
We played Zingo.
We played with the wheat that someone dumped out of a bucket. Cleaned it up. Measured it. Put in the muffin tin, poured it back in the bucket.

Can Grammy just Teach us School Today?

I tried to read to the girls tomorrow instead of real school as I wasn't feeling great. When I fell asleep reading, they opted for asking Grammy to do school. It went much better after that.

We learned a little more of Grammy's song about the preamble to the Constitution, and Noel insisted on a little bean bag throwing at the America map.

For Grammy class, Amy and Grammy practiced writing. Noel, Eliza and I played with Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Told the story, sang the song, played with the puppets of them.

Noel chose coloring for her activity.

After a while, Papa said he was going to go plant some flowers and transplant some radishes to the vegetable garden. I asked if the girls could join him, and they did. After that they just played outside, and we never made it to closing routine.

I am so grateful for Grammy and Papa helping me.

Real School

This post wouldn't let me publish a few days ago. Here it is now.

Our America Moment today was Grammy's idea: throw bean bags at the US map and try to hit states we've learned. Then there was a little bean bag throwing free-for-all and some random juggling practice.

For our lesson today, we did a math lesson. I made a chart of the numbers 1 to 100. I asked the girls if they could see any patterns and then backed up to see if they knew what a pattern was. Amy totally did. She said it was like square, diamond, square, diamond. (I don't know how she knew that.)

When I asked for patterns about the last columns (the multiples of 10), Amy noticed that the top row was the kid numbers, and the second row, in the tens column (the number 20) started the grown up numbers. I realized she meant the ages where you become a grown up.

Then I had Amy count by 10s, pointing to the numbers. She totally could. Noel could fairly well too, although she said one-dy for 10 and five-dy for 50. She mixed up a few but surprised me at how many she knew. Then they were ready to be done. Amy wanted to draw her own patterns, and Noel wanted to practice writing her upper-case E. Now they are asking me to come teach them things like it is real school. (What do they think this is?) Amy said, "Teach us stuff like we're at real school and you're the real teacher and you teach us real things." :)

OK, off I go to teach them REAL stuff.

Amy's activity was to write the names of the states we've learned on the white board, copying from the map. I decided to also practice drawing the outlines of the states. She switched to drawing the state and writing the name in it.

Noel's activity was pretend. We played school. She was the teacher and I the student. The first day she taught me practicing writing capital Es. The next day, we drew pictures of toys. Amy became my mom and would take me to the bus and back. One night she fell asleep at the sewing machine. The next day when I came home from school, she gave me the apron she made me. Then Noel came to our house. It was my birthday party. We had cake and blowing out candles.

We now have a closing class in our closing routine. For closing class we played a new game called Green Eggs and Ham. Amy got it from knocking from Grammy. I won. Then Amy. Then we hung in there til Noel was done.

For our closing routine book we read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

Fun day of REAL school!

Bean Bags, Music Reading, Lots of Whiteboard Play

This morning Grammy and Amy and Noel spent time learning to read and write. It's hard to get them to stop so much fun learning to actually have school. :)

I'm not feeling too well today but am trying to have school anyway. It seems that not feeling too well is a bit of a theme right now.

For our America Moment today we threw bean bags at the map again and talked about the states we hit - just a little. That's a fun one.

My quick note about Introduce Class -
Introduce:
staff - write the word and draw
treble cleff - write the word and draw
lines of the treble cleff

After that, the girls kept out the whiteboards. Amy practiced drawing more states. Then Noel suggested they play school with her as teacher. They were very cute playing. Now they are still playing pretend and also just doing their own things on the whiteboard while I rest. I'll get up again for closing routine.

Amy spent some time listening to a power tale tape and reading along - she's obsessed with those - while Noel and I worked on shapes.

We read a chapter of Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

Noel closed school with her prayer.

Then Amy whined and complained about how boring school was and how she was supposed to be learning and all Grammy and I do is help them play. WHAT on earth was she talking about? I don't really know what she wanted because she was talking to me calmly.

But until then, I thought it was a fun day.

Grammy School!

Due to not feeling too well Tuesday and then taking it easy for a few days, my mom has taken over school for this week. Awesome!

Tuesday we had none.

Yesterday my mom and the girls just couldn't stop coming up with activities. We didn't even know how to fit them in to our school framework. (That's really a lovely problem.)

My mom taught them part of a song she made up - putting the preamble of the Constitution to music, taught them where a few of the states are, and hung up our US map. (I wanted to add America Moment to our opening routine this year. So far, that's going well.)

They read some books together, listened to power tales on my mom's new tape player, cut with scissors and swam in the backyard pool. Great school day!

First Week of School

Highlights of the first week of school  included play doh, art,  tea parties every day, and setting up our school for this year. We created this new chart to keep track of what we do each day and to do the date and weather each day. We also had Joy School at our house this week, so I've been pretty tried. One of the days of school we just went shopping for supplies as well. It's fun to have Grammy living with us. It feels like school time (aka fun activities) all the time.