Non-Weekly Report

We are on spring break at the moment but this week was NOT uneventful!

Wednesday evening, Piglet was running and fell into the desk....right on a sharp knob that is used to hold the handle in place. When I turned her over, there was a hole about the size of a dime on her forehead and I thought I saw bone. So we called 911 and put pressure on the wound. The pressure must have closed up the hole because it was a gash by the time the ambulance arrived. She got two stitches:

Poor little girl!

Home school news: I dropped MEP and ordered Japanese Math. I ordered the 2nd grade books and they are keepers. Some have commented that the pages are busy but I like how everything is explained right on the page. Squeak learns quickly and easily when I just kind of talk her through a concept. We won't need this math until probably the fall but I wanted to check it out. We are going to start Number Bonds in Singapore Math on May 1st. Squeak is beyond intro addition/subtraction so I don't want her getting too far ahead before starting this new approach.

I am on the verge of ordering CLE Bible 1 for our Bible study in the fall. And I'm also thinking about Before Five In a Row for Piglet. She loves being read to and can sit for a long time while I read to her. Plus Squeak will enjoy the books too and can "help" in the activities. Still praying about this...

Weekly Report (4/12 - 4/16)

Despite protests from Squeak: next week is SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!

Bible - We started reading from another Bible book I have. It contained Bible stories - one page is the story and the other page is a picture. I decided that we needed something more to add into our "Bible" mix! It's working out well.

Math - Squeak has been going through both Horizons K and Horizons 1. This week, she worked only out of Horizons 1. Two new concepts she encountered were "greater than" and "less than" and "equal" and "not equal". Not hard at all except trying to write a signs for greater than and less than!

I plan on beginning Singapore PM 1a shortly and I recently printed out MEP Year 1a. I thought about trying that out and see how it goes. I'm not trying to "dump" a bunch of math programs on Squeak, I'm just trying to find what fits and works best for her. I would like her working from at least two programs mainly to give her some different ways to mathematically approach concepts and to slow her down a bit.

We will have math once more tonight then we are done for a week. I told Squeak to get in as much math as she can - LOL!

Science - Here are some pictures of this week's science activities:

I guess I only took these pictures from today: we made a bottle garden that never needs watering. We also learned about rivers and mountains and deserts.

Other stuff - Here are the girls playing with linking cubes (free play):

And I bought Squeak the book called "Patternables". She zipped through a bunch of pages so fast that I had to tell her to stop so I could take pictures!

We also began reading Runaway Mouse - the next Ralph S Mouse book! She is very interested in those books! I want to introduce the Ramona books once we finish the third Ralph book.


God bless!!

Finished our first HUGE Chapter book!

We finished The Mouse and The Motorcycle last night! That was our first chapter book with fewer pictures, longer chapters and meant for 8-12 year olds (according to the back cover). Squeak enjoyed it and even when I thought she wasn't paying attention, I'd ask her a question and she answered correctly. We are going to start reading the next Ralph book - Runaway Ralph tonight!

Weekly Report (4/5 - 4/9)

We were a bit busy this week so school was put on the backburner a bit. We went to the Kid's Museum on Tuesday and the girls had a blast! This was the first time we've gone since Piglet could walk so she was all over the place!!

Spring break is coming up the week of the 18th!!!

Bible - We are tearing through the Devotional book. Squeak keeps asking me to read more. But that's ok, praise the LORD!

Math - Sunday night, Squeak started Horizons Math 1 (book 1). She is very excited about this! We are also working through Book 2 of Horizons K. There is too much new stuff in that to skip it. But I decided to let her kind of work through what she wants to work through. Of course, I'll guide her but we aren't going lesson by lesson. She did well with subtracting on the number line! She still calls it "baby math"!

No math until Sunday night and we are going to work in Horizons 1 for a bit then rotate with HM K.

Here she is working on some lessons in HM 1 (in PJs - we do math at night):

Science - We completed Week 4 today and are currently working on a day long dirt experiment. We have a bunch of dirt in a glass jar and we are going to put some water in it and shake it up. Then see the different layers, after letting it sit for about 2 hours.

Here are some other things we did this week:

This is a picture of Squeak working on the Activity Sheet for earthquakes.

Then we made a volcano:

The finished volcano! And Squeak knows this is an "active" volcano because the lava is flowing!!!

UPDATE SINCE I FIRST POSTED: We found out our soil outside is made up of mainly sand. We took a sample and put it in a glass jar then added water. We shook it and let it stand for 2 hours and observed. Squeak drew her observations on paper. (I drew a jar and she drew the insides). We shook it again and will let it sit overnight!

Other - We are half way through the last chapter of The Mouse and The Motorcycle!

Weekly Report (3/29 - 4/2)

This week, we only had "official" school 3 days instead of 4, though lots of "unschooling" has been going on. I decided to keep this week at 3 days! Still, we were productive and busy!

Bible - We read several devotionals out of our book. And we are talking about Jesus' Resurrection! It's cute because that is included in Squeak's favorite audio CD "Little Tree" - they used one of Little Tree's branches as a cross!

Science - This week, we completed Week 3 and the "weather" stuff. One thing we did was make a tornado in a bottle and acted out being tornados! Weather is fun to act out.

Above: Squeak is in the bathroom filling up the water bottle and trying to create a tornado in her bottle!

The final project was making a weather vane. This is just a picture of all the Sonlight Science stuff waiting to be used!!

So we made our weather vane and took it outside and found which way the wind was blowing:

Yesterday, we started Week 4 and talked about rocks and fossils. We collected four rocks from outside and Squeak recorded what she observed on paper.

Squeak used her magnifying glass to look at the rocks and drew what she saw.

Math - Here's the BIG news!! We finished Horizons Math Book 1 last night!!! Squeak is very excited to be done with "baby math". I thought it was going to take two days but she demonstrated a clear understanding in perimeter, money counting, and tens/ones place value. So I have until Sunday to decide what we are going to do next. I am thinking of starting Book 2 and focusing on just the NEW concepts. I also thought about starting Singapore Math 1A but I think I want to hold off on that for a little bit. I did receive Horizons Math 1 in the mail yesterday and looked through that and I think Squeak will like it. Side note: I used a Horizons placement test on Squeak and she did place into Horizons 1.

Other - Last night, we finished Buster Baxter, Cat Saver and will begin another Arthur book probably today. Our Ralph S. Mouse book is getting close to completion as well and we will continue to the next book in the series. And Squeak has been doing many projects, including a bear for Grandma. She uses her globe too. We've been reading a loud a lot too. I stopped recording all the books we read because it just got to cumbersome. In a month and a half, I think we've read over 50 new books and that doesn't include all the repeats.

And finally, the weather has been soooo nice so we've been outside A LOT and I'm worn out today!! LOL! But not the girls!!!

Weekend Turtle Project (thanks kewkew!)

After visiting the Tots and Me blog, I decided that Squeak would enjoy making the turtle project posted on 3/26! I had stryofoam plates so we were ready to go....though next time we make one, I want to add beans inside to turn it into an instrument. Here is Squeak making the turtle's belly and wearing her new paint smock:

Here's the finished turtle:

Thanks kewkew!! This was a fun project!!

Weekly Report (3/22 - 3/26)

What a productive week....again! Tons of photos too!!

Bible - We've been a bit lax in reading our devotionals but we started back up this week. Squeak even made a request - she said she wanted to hear the devotional with the girl making a cat out of clay. Gosh, I couldn't believe she remembered that because I didn't! It was about how God formed us out of the earth. So we read that. Here is the devotional we read from:

Math - My head is swirling with this still! I think we are up to about Lesson 53 and Squeak is still bored and still calls it "baby math." She asked to do harder number line addition problems so I skipped to the double digit plus single digit problems. We aren't exactly going through lesson by lesson. I am skipping here and there between a few lessons so there are a few things I want to go back and do in Lessons 50-52 (measurement/tens, ones stuff). I'm having a hard time just letting "go" and letting her fly through the material. I am too afraid she will miss something. I do admit that I'm not parking us on stuff like calendar work. She has a good idea of the days of the week but I'm not drilling her on months/years. She's not even 4, so that stuff is "gravy" right now plus it's nothing that can't be touched on later or necessary as a "foundation". I just can't wait to get out of Book 1!

Side note: I didn't like Miquon Math. Bummer.

Science - Sonlight K is still working beautifully for us!! We did three lessons this week including "hot air" experiment. It was also nice to know Squeak made the connection that hot air rises like the water vapor in the water cycle! She said that and I was thrilled that she is crossing stuff over and noticing the connections.

Here she is acting out the water cycle....
1. She is water floating in the sea:

2. She is a water vapor rising in the air after being heated by the sun:

3. She is foaming a cloud and other water drops are gathering together with her and getting too heavy for the cloud:

4. Now they are falling to the earth as rain to start the cycle all over again:

We also worked on the different types of clouds (this was another day):

Finally today, we made hailstones:

What I did was - I cut a few sheets of paper into quarters. Then we crumbled the one quarter of the paper as our first water droplet, that droplet went to the top of our cumulonimbus cloud (by the wind) and froze then when it started to go to the bottom of the cloud, another layer was water wrapped around it (another quarter sheet) and we continued that process with about three layers total until the hailstone was too heavy and it fell to the earth. I used paper so she could see how the hailstones are made of water layers that freeze on top of each other. She loved it and made a TON of hailstones AND went through all the motions as if it was in a cloud. Squeak even made sound effects when her water froze - LOL!

Other - Piglet has been taking care of a baby doll that she named "Baby" all week:

Here are some pictures of the girls working on various projects: