Week 5 Recap

So the last couple of weeks have been a bit rough.  No pretty way to put it.  We've had some good days and some bad days.  Our schedules did change a bit last week with the addition of some activities, so we had to adjust.  Audrey just wasn't in learning mode so much.  We had a few meltdowns - and yes, I said, "We".  Mama's not proud, but it is what it is.  I'm better now.  :)  I will say that this week has started out MUCH better!

Despite the ups and downs, we did accomplish some things.  She continues to do well with her reading.  She lacks motivation when it comes to spelling.  She can spell most things phonetically, but that's a problem when it comes to double consonants and sight words.  Couple that with her lack of love for handwriting and I had to get creative.  I wrote spelling words all over the room for her to copy - on the chalkboard, whiteboards, paper plates, paper, etc. with different writing tools. It seemed to work.  She was more enthusiastic about copying and working on her words.

We spent awhile on Lesson 8 with math on finding the unknowns.  But, we did start Lesson 9 at the end of last week with adding by 9's.  We'll review another couple of days and possibly move on to adding by 8's the end of this week.

She loves history!  Last week we learned about the Vikings.  We learned about where they lived, what they did, what they ate, etc.  Audrey made her own Viking Longhouse.

We got through her Read Aloud early again.  We were reading My Father's Dragon.  Cute book!  We finished a few days early so I found a cool Lapbook for it online.  We aren't completely finished with it, but I'll try to remember to post pictures when we do.  This week we're reading The Hundred Dresses.  I'm not familiar with this one, but she's enjoying it so far.  Because she enjoys books so much, we picked up some books on CD at the library.  She has already finished Beverly Clearly's Beazus and Ramona.  We'll start on The Secret Garden tomorrow.  They're perfect when she's working on copywork or waiting for me while I pick up Maddie or something.

Confession - we haven't been working on science as much.  We had some experiments that we needed to do with the sun, but we had a week of rain and overcast, so it has fallen behind a bit.  No worries - we'll catch back up!  Same thing with our additional Bible Study.  I love the study, but we're a little overwhelmed right now.  We're still doing our daily readings in the Egermieres Children's Bible Stories and a lot of our literature is based on the Bible.  Additionally, we're working on her Sparks verses and stories.  We'll pick back up with the Apologia's 'Who Is God?' in a few weeks.

We started back to Awanas the 7th.  Maddie is old enough this year, so she is a Cubby.  Audrey is enthusiastic about her verses.  She's doing well!  We also started Children's Choir the same week.  Maddie is now old enough to participate.  :)  She loves it!  I'm teaching 2nd grade choir and love it.  Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.

Art project - Painting with string

Audrey's Viking Longhouse

So proud

Had to throw one in there of our new student ;)

Day at the park

Good times!

In Our Class

Here are a few pictures of things we're trying this year.  So far they're working pretty well!

These are our workboxes.  I fill each box at night with her daily assignments for the next morning.  She works through them one at a time.  It lets her see what she has accomplished and what still needs to be done.  It helps me organize all of her assignments and make sure that we get through everything.  The boxes are just the right size to hold her books, worksheets, supplies, etc.

These are our rules.  I had an old frame and left over material from recovering her desk chair.  I just put the material in, printed out our classroom "rules", and taped them on!

This is our reward system.  We bought some colorful rocks from Michael's.  I already had a cute glass vase.  She sets a personal goal she wants to work for (right now she's working towards a new game for her V-Tech).  She earns rocks for completing her assignments &chores,  for not whining, for going above and beyond, etc.  Once she fills the vase, she earns her new game.  I figure she'll earn something once or twice a semester.

One more thing we do that I need to get a picture of, is a red/yellow/green light for behavior.  I just cut out a circle of red, yellow, and green cardstock and glued it to a black rectangle cardstock to look like a stop light.  I laminated it.  (I made one light for each girl.)  Then I took a picture of each girl and laminated them.  I added velcro stickers to the back and attached it to the "light".  The goal is stay on the green light.  If we have issues throughout the day and their picture makes it to red, they lose their outside play time with neighbors.  (I'm sure the consequences will change, but right now this is the "biggie".)  Yellow is seen as a serious warning.  So far nobody has made it to red!  =)

Week 3

Just sitting here eating some singed angel wings.  Ever had those?  They're just toasted angel food cake slices.  Yummy!  Anyhoo... gonna admit something gross.  I've got the pink eye  :(  I'm praying I didn't pass it along to 100 other choir members at rehearsal last night.  I've never had it before and thought I just had a clogged tear duct.  I woke up this morning with an incredibly unpleasant feeling in my blood shot eye.  I went to the doctor and she informed me of the "very contagious pink eye".  Great!  I felt pretty miserable this afternoon.  However, after my second dose of eye drops this evening, I'm finally feeling some comfort.  =)

Schooling is going well.  Man, am I grateful for the flexible schedule!  I've had to work in a few doctor appointments between Maddie's allergic reaction to a topical cream, my vertigo and pink eye.  We've been doing school throughout the day.  It breaks up the day nicely though.  She's doing pretty well, too.  She still has some aversions to writing anything, but we're working on it.  How do I encourage her to not be sloppy?  I'd love some suggestions!!  She can do her work, but she doesn't care that it's a mess.  And, she loves to doodle on all of her papers.  I'm ok with that except that I'd prefer that she not curly q all of her "g"s until I know she can write them correctly.  lol  As for math, we've sailed through to Lesson 8.  I think we'll be spending a little more time here.  It's definitely a new concept for her (and quite frankly, it seems pretty advanced to me for this young), but she's starting to catch on.  The manipulatives have really helped!  The concept is finding the unknowns.  (Think of finding X in an algebraic equation.)  I'm fine staying here until she's ready to push forward.  She's progressing well in her reading materials.  I just wish I could get her to want to read for fun on her own.  :/  She LOVES for me to read to her, so I do not discourage that.  We've moved on and added a lot to our reading list. 

Maddie started preschool Wednesday (Monday was orientation).  I think she's loving it.  She's going to the same Christian Academy that Audrey went to - and has the same teacher.  She loves that she has to take her lunch to school.  ;)  Here are a few pictures....