Week of November 27

Back to the routine of regular math, grammar, spelling and French lessons this week.

Lily is learning how to multiply, divide, add and subtract fractions and decimal numbers with relative ease.  John showed me he can count to 100!  He needs a little help with some of the tens as he goes but is able to follow the number chart and count most of the numbers.  He also learned to add double up to 5 + 5.  He has been doing some simple adding but this was the first introduction of the formula.  Gabe is also making good progress with math with the new skill this week being balancing and weighing objects.

We delved into Ancient China this week with readings from Story of the World, the Kingfisher History Encylcopedia and fictional stories from our bookshelves.  Lily and Gabe completed maps, coloring and narrations.

We started our study of rocks and fossils with reading from Usborne Encylcopedia of World Geography and Kingfisher Young Knowledge Rocks and Fossils. We are expecting a rock and fossil kit to arrive any day and will do experiments from there.

Lily and Gabe both spent time every day at French and are making good progress.  They are also both doing really well with piano.  Lily has been serious about spending time practicing and Gabe has been practicing and really enjoying playing.  We had a good lesson focusing on rhythm and John joined in and had fun tapping and clapping out simple rhythm patterns.

Gabe and Lily are stilling loving Judo and Highland dance respectively with Gabe trying to convince John to join his class.  Gabe has taught John a few Judo moves at home.  We've also been getting together with another family every week to play outside, mostly tag and jump rope.

Update: Our rock and mineral kit arrived this afternoon and we already started growing some crystals.

Week of Novmember 13

Gabe's animal house in the woods

We had great week visiting Grandma and Grandpa Meng in Arlington!  On the long drive Lily, Gabe and John took turns using the iPad to practice handwriting, read books and play games.  Gabe and John spent most of Wednesday working in Grandpa's whop building swords, boats, and sanding picture frames.  Lily spent the day with Grandma at work.  Grandmas works for Indian Child Welfare Bureau.  Lily spent the day in her office learning how Grandma helps children whose families are in trouble. The rest of our time was spent visiting with cousins, aunts and uncles and playing in the woods.  Lily and Gabe and their cousin made the best fairy and animal houses in the woods with leaves, sticks and moss!

Week of November 6

We started this week with an appointment with the speech therapist!  Lily definitely needs to work on /s/, /z/, /sh/, and /th/.  The boys will also need to work on /s/.

Lily and Gabe organized a Lego contest with their friends complete with judges and prizes.

We made continued progress in math, spelling, language lessons.  We read about the Indus Valley in history and did some map work and narration.  This week's big project was biome poster for science.  We read about four major biomes (grassland, desert, polar regions, and forest) and made posters of each.  John made one poster with living things for his project.

Week of October 30

We made steady progress with our school work this week.  Everyone made progress with their math with Gabe learning how to measure in inches and John following along with the lesson and measuring his stuffed bear and lizard with 1 inch tiles.
We listened to Story of the World  on CD this week and added narrations and map work about the Babylonians the Gilgamesh to the History Portfolios.
Science focused on oceans this week with reading from the Usborne Encyclopedia of Planet Earth.  We studied in particular ocean currents, the action of waves, coastal erosion and tides.  Lily added a diagram of wave patterns to her science notebook and we performed an experiment about the action of cold and hot water together.

Everyone spent time writing, playing phongram bingo, spelling and reading. Lily completed two novels this week: Heidi and We Free Men.

Gabe learned new moves at Judo and his teacher encouraged John to join the class or to just play with the big exercise balls.  John was too shy but I'm hoping that if we keep taking him and encouraging he'll decide to join.  Lily had two Highland Dance classes this week and learned and memorized the entire Fling.  She worked hard in the days between class practicing.

Finally, we finished the week by watching several short videos about Remembrance Day and Canadian service men, read the story of Sergeant Tommy Prince and went to the Cranbrook Remembrance Day service at Rotary Park.

I also forgot the biggest addition to our learning resources!!  We received our iPad 2 this week and have been having a great time exploring all the great apps. John has been practicing his handwriting with pocketphonics, numbers with Monster Squeeze and reading along with the numerous books on it. I also found a dot to dot app made by the same company as pocketphonics and practices not only numbers but the alphabet and number patterns.  Lily is especially enjoying Rocket Math,  This Day in History, Star Walk and Magic Piano.Gabe has been playing pocketphonics and Rocket Math and reading stories.

Art

All three are working on watercolor paintings of fall trees. I found a great resource for art projects that I'm excited to use again!

Week of October 23

Field Trip: Hug a Tree presentation with the Kimberly Search and Rescue

Math: John did his first 1-100 dot to dot worksheet and loved it!, Gabe lessons 30-33, Lily lessons 23-27

John sorting shapes - triangles on one side all other shapes on the other

History: Ch.6 The Jewish People

Science: watched a documentary called Ring of Fire about earthquakes and volcanoes in the Pacific Rim, Lily updated her science notebook with diagrams and vocab about volcanoes and the structure Earth (crust, mantle, outer core, inner core)

Language Arts: Gabe is making progress reading his chapter book in addition to lessons from Hooked on Phonics, spelling lessons, phonogram bingo and practice handwriting. Lily and Gabe both wrote cinquain poems this week.

Getting some exercise!

Volcano Project

Our paper mache volcano. The didn't want to paint it, usually they can't wait to wait things! Oh well.

And it erupts!

Week of October 16

Math: Lily: Test 3, lessons 19-21, Gabe: lessons 24-29; John: lessons 10-12
Gabe is finding their is a lot of review that he doesn't need in these early math lessons. So we've abbreviated some lessons and skipped others altogether.  We continue to play lots of games that practice math skills including: Set, Skipbo, Phase 10, Uno and Yahtzee.

History:Ch. 5: Sumeria

Science: This week we studied volcanoes, reading from Usborne Ecyclopeida of Planet Earth, writing up narrations and vocab and finally making a paper mache volcano which we plan to erupt later today.  Hopefully pictures will follow soon.


Language: Writing with Skill (Lily), Advanced Language Lessons 10-11 (Verb Tenses), Gabe completed lessons 104-105, also working of verbs.  We learned the poem Autumn by Emily Dickinson together and copied it into their Nature Portfolios. Gabe continues to spontaneously journal and Lily wrote an original poem about sleeping this week.  John continues to practice his letters (both reading and writing).  Gabe read pg. 24-37 in Hooked on Phonics as well as beginning to read aloud a chapter book.  Lily and Gabe also continued to work on their spelling lessons.

Gabe's poem - the colors of the leaves didn't scan as well as I hoped but you get the idea.

PE: Judo (Gabe), Highland dance (Lily), scootering at the Skate Park, paper route, biking and playing jump rope!


Fine Art: piano lessons and practice

French: Gabe continued working through lesson 1; Lily

Week of October 9

Math: Gabe lessons 16, 21 - 23, John lessons 8-9, Lily lessons 14-18

Language Ats: Gabe read Very Hungry Bear, Hooked on Phonics pg. 18-23, practiced saying and writing phonograms, Lily completed Vowels  and Multi-letter phonogram reference pages in her spelling book.  John practiced saying and writing the single letter phonograms.
First Language Lessons 100-103, Advanced Language Lessons 8-9

History: continued working in our History Portfolios adding narrations and examples from Story of the World Ch. 3-4 First Writing and Old Kingdom of Egypt, additional reading in Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and Kinfisher Book of the Ancient World.

Science: We read two library books on earthquakes: Earthquakes and Tsunamis by Terry Jennings and Earthquakes by Cynthia Pratt Nicolson.  Our science encyclopedia, Usborne Encyclopedia of Planet Earth, also arrived!  And we read pages 38-44 about earthquakes.  See the post below for our experiment.

Fine Art: piano lessons and practice, singing at home and church, drawing

PE: Judo (Gabe), Highland dance (Lily), bike riding, jump rope for all!

French: 20 minutes a day for Lily - she is making steady progress through Unit 1 lesson 3 of Rosetta Stone.

Earthquake Experiment

After slight earthquake

Before slight earthquake

After moderate earthquake

Before moderate earthquake

After large earthquake

Before large earthquake

After moderate earthquake with a new kind of building

Before moderate earthquake with a new kind of building

The modification of the building from blocks stacked to a shaped with large base and tapered top was the kid's idea based on the previous experiments.

Handwriting

My j is in the middle, John's are on either side! He was very proud.

Week of October 2

School was out of the box (or house!) this week.  We spent the week in Disneyland, but covered a surprising amount of school anyway.  There were many educational opportunities for John in particular.  We walked and walked and walked all week.  Every afternoon was spent in the pool swimming.  John found and identified numbers and squares, triangles, circles and rectangles everywhere.  He also learned his right and left and used the Disneyland map to find where we were in the park and where to go next. Lily and Gabe also used maps to help direct us around the park.

Playing Silly Sentences back at home.

The boys received a new Silly Sentences game which is more in depth and helped Gabe and Lily to practice nouns, adjectives, verbs, articles and prepositions.  Gabe also journaled all week, writing sentences and (very) short sentences.  Lily made friends on the trip and played rounds of Mad Libs with them.  Lily and Gabe started putting together scrapbooks of our vacation as soon as we returned home.

We all learned about new plants (palm trees, birds of paradise flowers, ect.) and identified new and old animals.  We found snails in the pool, saw new species of birds and Lily even got to hold a praying mantis.

Week of September 25

Language Arts: Gabe reading Hooked on Phonics pg. 8-15, Lily worked on Writing with Skill and Advanced Language Lessons. Lily and Gabe both completed a spelling list and wrote original sentences for their spelling words.  We played games of Phonogram Bingo with all three - amazing how a couple chocolate chips turn this into everyone's favorite school activity.

John working on tangrams in his math book.

 Math: Gabe lessons 12-13, John lessons 4-7, Lily lessons 11-13, Test 1. John is really enjoying math and has been asking to do school at all hours of the day.  He learned about triangles, squares and circles this week.

A sample from Lily's Ancient History Portfolio.

History: Our study of Ancient History continues with work in our portfolios. We read about conquest of Lower Egypt and the formation of a united Eygptian empire.  Lily completed summaries about archeology and the Fertile Crescent and we added maps, drawing of bee hived shaped houses and pottery to the portfolios.

Science:  Our books should arrive next week!  Meanwhile we are reading library books about the earth and continuing to observe our surroundings.  Both boys record the weather as part of their daily math routine.

PE: We played for an hour and half with some friends and a long jump rope!  It was so fun to sing rhymes and jump and to try four kids jumping at once.  Lily and Gabe have been riding their bikes every afternoon for at least an hour.  Judo and Highland Dance continue to go well. 

Fine Art: Piano lessons & practice, singing at home and church, Highland dance and lots of drawing! 

Week of September 18

Math: John learned to write the numerals 1-5, 9 this week and has been practicing them everywhere!  He also completed 2 math lessons and can recognize numbers and build/color correspondingly.  Gabe completed lessons 8-11 and Lily completed lessons 7-9.  Both Lily and Gabe's lessons have been review of last year, which they having no trouble recalling.
Language Arts:  Lily and Gabe each completed a spelling list and wrote original sentences with their spelling words.  Gabe has been spontaneously  writing in a journal.  He is also making good progress in his reading books, completing the red book and onto pages 2-5 in the green book.  John practiced his phonograms along with Lily and Gabe.  Lily worked on Writing with Skill completing the introductory lessons of narration and summary.  She also completed lessons 5-6 in Advanced Language Lessons.  Gabe and Lily played a rousing game of Apples to Apples with friends. 
History: We continued our study of Ancient Egyptians this week playing a board game called Egyptians in which you have to answers questions in order to move.  We read chapters 3-4 in Story of the World: Ancient Times and completed the accompanying map work.  Gabe's Ancient History Portfolio arrived on Saturday and he immediately added some of the work he's already completed.
PE:  Lily loved Highland Dance!  She has been practicing the sword dance all week between lessons.  Gabe is already showing potential with Judo and I was able to sit in on his class and make note of exercises we can do at home.  They continue to ride their bikes daily, run their paper route and played at the park this week.
French: Lily is working at Rosetta Stone 20 minutes a day.  She is keeping a notebook of vocabulary to help with the writing sections.
Fine Art: piano lessons (Gabe & Lily) with daily practice.  All three sing in church, at mealtimes and just for fun!  We draw and colored pictures for our history lessons.


In addition we played a family game of Settlers of Catan: Seafarers and Gabe and Lily's strategic skills are really advancing.  Gabe needs very little help now and Lily won the game with no assistance!

Earth & Moon Update

Lily and Gabe had fun painting their Earth and Moon creations after struggling with perfectionism and embracing the fact that it won't look like the globe!  Looking at an example picture helped.  Although they each made a form for both the Earth and Moon, Lily's got crushed.  It probably worked out for the best as Gabe painted the Moon and Lily the Earth.  John is working on a robot there in the corner.

Week of September 11

Math: Gabe and John started in earnest on their math lessons. Saxon Math 1 lessons  2- 3 (John) Saxon Math 2, lessons 6- 8.(Gabe)  Lily completed math lessons 3-6.  John is excelling at playing Rat-a-Tat-Cat with good number recognition and beginning addition.
Language Arts: Lily and Gabe started on their new spelling notebooks completing the vowel and consonant reference page and their first spelling words and sentences. Lily completed the first week of Writing with Skill practicing narration. Advanced Language Lessons 1-4 (concrete & abstract nouns,descriptive & abstract adjectives, capitalization & punctuation of proper nouns, noun gender). Gabe sat in with Lily on the first lesson and can tell the difference between abstract and concrete nouns.  We played lots of phonogram bingo together and John started on some handwriting.
History: We read lots of books about prehistoric peoples, archeology and Ancient Egypt from the library.  We watched Prehistoric Beasts and Mysteries of Egypt.  Lily continued work on her Ancient History Portfolio.
Science: We read Earth and Sky, Lily read the introductory pages about Earth in the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia.  They each completed a narration and made a paper mache planet earth and moon.
PE:  Gabe continued with Judo and Lily began Highland Dance.  They both went on daily bike rides and ran their paper route.
French: Lily worked for 20 minutes a day on Rosetta Stone French.
Fine Art: Lily and Gabe both continued with piano.

First Week of School

This week did not go as planned.  We all came down with the stomach flu - first the kids, then the parents.  We did listen to lots of audio books including Treasure Island, The Silver Chair and the Last Battle.  Gabe managed to do his reading lessons and Lily got started on her math for the year.  Everyone started on a family history project after we read the Introduction and first chapter of Story of the World Vol. 1.  Lily and Gabe have also immersed themselves in books from the library about prehistoric peoples and ancient Egypt.  They also all completed a Who Am I? worksheet.  John's answers are hilarious!

Lily and Gabe both attended a free Judo class to determine whether this would be a good activity for the school year.  Gabe came home really excited and showed me some awesome somersaults and he even took down Daddy using his weight against him!

Spider Observation

This spider has made a large web is the corner of our garage door.  We have been watching him off and on for a couple weeks and yesterday the kids noticed that he'd trapped a bee and was wrapping him up.  Lily took these photos and all three watched as the spider had been for lunch!

New School Year

I love fall, the return to routine, the crisp air and the school supplies!  Lily, Gabe and John are all looking forward to starting back to school in a more structured routine.  Although we continued with informal studies through the summer everyone is ready to get back to math lessons, history - Ancient Times this year - and the older two have even expressed their excitement at returning to grammar.
Here's some highlights of our summer learning.
 John holding a butterfly he caught:

A Western Painted Turtle we found at Horseshoe Lake:

Which resulted in some checking out some books from the library and a page in Gabe's Nature Portfolio.

Keeping up with learning our letters:

And more to follow in another post!

Outdoor School

School moved outside yesterday with the gorgeous weather. Lily diligently editing while Gabe was taking a quick trip up the block on his bike in between subjects.

Spring Learning

These sunny spring days are inspiring us to focus our school work more on art, nature study and physical activity.  New artist easels arrived for Lily and Gabe this morning along with some new history audio books and DVDs.  So we declared an art and history day!  The easels were immediately set up and drawings of animals began while listening to our next three history chapters.  And now it has warmed up just enough to make softball outside sound appealing!

Lily's Art