Coral Reef Diorama

I'm very excited to start our first diorama. I found this while searching for a craft to work along side our coral reef lesson tomorrow with Sonlight Science. It's pretty simple and I had pretty much every thing at home (we will substitute sand with brown paint and use a sponge to make a sandy effect).

Coral Reef Diorama

Hopefully I'll be able to upload pictures of this project when I post my weekly report!!

Weekly Update 9/20 - 9/24

Even though we had colds this week, school was not halted...Squeak would never have that! We switched stuff up and mainly read aloud, worked on crafts and some math. We didn't use much on the curriculum list. Nothing from Sonlight Science, instead read A LOT of Magic School Bus books which is still science!

Bible - Plugging away with devotionals this week. We haven't worked in Rod & Staff Bible Stories and Coloring lately. I plan on starting back up with that shortly.

Math - Last week, we completed Singapore 1a!! I'm very proud of Squeak for working through this so quickly and doing so well. Looking at 1b, it doesn't appear as difficult as I thought. There are enough easy chapters mixed in. Regardless, we are breaking from Singapore to work in Horizons Math 1 for a while. We will apply Singapore techniques to the problems in HM as well as practice with the number line. I decided to work Horizons differently - I'm going to let Squeak work what activities she wants in a 5 lesson span. During this time, I'll direct her to some of the stuff I want her to work on as well. And do the new stuff as we encounter it.

Science - The Magic School Bus reading were all we did for science this week. We started reading the chapter books beginning with #1 - All About Bats.

Crafts - Squeak worked on a mish-mash of crafts from DLTK Printable Crafts. I like this site because Squeak can work on all these crafts herself.

Read Alouds - The usual stuff: library books, Bible stories and P 3/4 book list.

Here are pictures from the week:

Ok, the server is rejecting all of the other pictures I selected!! Grrr.....I'll have to try again...
It still won't let...how annoying!!

Weekly Report 9/13 - 9/17

Quick report...points of interest:

*We are still reading through our Bible story book and Jesus Wants All of Me devotional.
*Learned about bees and pollination and sea shore/tide pool animals in science.
*Finished Singapore 1a and will pick back up in Horizons 1 for a while.
*Lots of reading and read alouds going on.
*We recieved our "Book It" packet and are ready to go in October.
*We signed up for the story time at the library.
*The Magic  School Bus kids are Squeak's new "friends".

Here are some pictures:

Weekly Report 9/6 - 9/10

So I posted an update about what we did on Monday....that is my previous post if you want to check it out!

Bible - Continuing through 101 Favorite Stories from the Bible. I haven't used the Rod & Staff lately but it's not forgotten. I just started a routine of reading a Bible story at breakfast time after we pray. I also have been reading from another Bible story book.

Science - After working on reptiles on Monday, we movied to amphibians. Squeak decided to make a Red Eyed Tree Frog instead of a plain old frog:

Today, we began a two part lesson about Creepy Crawlies - insects, spiders, millipedes and such. It seems like we are whizzing through topics but Sonlight Science K is designed to offer exposure to a wide variety of topics. Mastery is not expected though we've sat on topics of interest - like the human body. Squeak is still interested in the human body so we've read through Magic School Bus books about the human body (we already completed the human body lessons in SL Science K).

Squeak made a grasshopper:

She was talking about spiders on the way out with her daddy today and told us that they have 8 legs and do not have a thorax! We also read a Cat in the Hat Learning Library book about insects.

Activity Drawers - Squeak did an activity drawer last night and that included a "healthy food" mobile. Stuff in the activity drawers are pretty simple since they are done at night. I also included a worksheet to help Squeak practice circling groups of ten. Though she understands the concept, her fine motor skills are still that of a 4 year old and she was getting frustrating trying to circle the pictures in her Singapore Math workbook. I did tell her that she can COLOR ten since the SM workbook is black and white.

Here is a picture of her working on the mobile:

I thought I had a completed picture but I can't find it.

Tuesday night, she also worked an activity drawer and it contained a story and an Evan Moor phonics worksheet.

Math - Talked a little bit above about math. I estimate that we will complete 1a by the end of the month. Then, at least for a month or so, we are going to work in Horizons Math 1 for a bit. I'm in no hurry to start 1b. Squeak can use her SM stratgies to solves problems in HM and work on other stuff like time or measurement. And of course, continue working on her math facts. Rote memorization is a snag and I don't really push it. I'm not concerned if she can't solve the Singapore Way in a split second as long as she understands how, what and why she's doing it.

Other -  We had lots of read alouds. Thursday was "Read Aloud Day"!! (I was too lazy to really do any lessons!).

Monday Wrap Up

Today, we read about Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist in our 101 Favorite Stories from the Bible book.

We learned about reptiles in science today. Squeak made a turtle project:

We also read some of our library books and began reading about some of our farm animal friends in Our Animal Friends at Maple Farm. We have also been reading through the Magic School Bus books that I ordered from the library this past weekend.

Squeak requested to work on math tonight. We made the introduction last night for "making 10" when adding numbers up to 20. Squeak completed the problems with relative ease but I want to make sure she understands why she is doing this and not just how.

I also decided to work on phonics worksheets on non-math nights as part of her activity drawers. Her concentration is so much better at night. She did work on JumpStart Reading Booster and I was pleasantly surprised as to how far and well she is doing with spelling!

Weekly Report 8/30 - 9/3

We completed our first week of Kindergarten!! WOWZA!  Our "class" had a nice parade march to celebrate the start of Kindergarten!

Bible - We started reading 101 Bible Stories beginning with the New Testament stories. We are also reading our devotionals. Squeak said she loved hearing stories about Jesus because she loves Him!! What a blessing to hear those words coming from such a little one!

Science - This week, we talked about birds as part of our Living Things study. We talked about bird bodies, beaks and baby birds and nests. Here are some projects Squeak worked on for birds:

Squeak made a TP roll hummingbird.

Squeak is making a bird's nest with baby birds in it. She is using yellow fluffy stuff for the feathers and brown pipe cleaners for the nest pieces.

Squeak also completed a few pages in the Singapore Science workbook.

Math - Ah, math! I was worried because of Squeak's young age, she would have trouble with the mental aspect of Singapore Math. Well, I was wrong because it completely clicked. She worked on the very beginnings of the "Singapore Way" of adding to 20. She easily understood that, for example, 10 and 8 made 18 therefore 10+8 = 18. This, in turn, made place value simple. She liked grouping stuff by 10 and "adding on". She even made up her own problems.

 Next week, we are going to start working on the problems where you need to make 10 in the equation to add, like 9+6 and use number bonds to solve. This is the last portion of 1a we will do.

Phonics/Reading - Squeak has been using the JumpStart Advanced for phonics and reading work. She has also been reading books to me, when she wants to.

Read Alouds -  Here is a rundown of what we are using for both girls:

-Bible devotional/stories

-Peak With Books book list

-Sonlight P 3/4 book list

-the 20 books we get from the library (every 2 to 3 weeks -I increased Squeak's limit from 15 to 20)

-Magic School Bus books, various science readers, math story books

-whatever the girls pull out from the book basket (I recently bought some new Berenstain Bear books)

And we read chapter books at bedtime...currently Stuart Little and I have Magic School Bus chapter books coming via paperbackswap.com.

Other - The girls made "craft dough" which we baked then painted.

And I have a Harold and the Purple Crayon book collection (4 stories total) and we read two stories and drew with a purple crayon:

We used Squeak's first activity drawer the other night too. She really likes those - I think it had a Patternable page in it and a coloring, cut and paste activity as well.

I think that's about it, for the most part. PHEW! A very FULL week (and I think I left off a few things!)! This is ok for the first week but I think we'll settle down a bit!! We did school on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Today (Friday), we have been doing read alouds and some painting - more craft and book reading type of day.

Tomorrow....

Look for an exciting weekly report from our first week of KINDERGARTEN!! I took a lot of pictures too!!