Spelling Story

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Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary picture flashcards

PF had an assignment to make flashcards for each of her 20 vocabulary words. She loves anything to do with art and is very visual. Instead of writing in words the definitions to each of the words she created a picture to express the meanings. These are my favorite two.

Can you guess the two vocabulary words?

Reinforment

Math-U-See

Handwriting without Tears

Right now with the girls going to public school, I use extra time we have at home to reinforce areas they may be struggling with at school or I am preparing them for next year. Handwriting is an area we all struggle with so I am trying to improve this skill both for school this year and for the years to come. Next year, we will be using Math-U-see. This curriculum is not being taught at their school so I am starting them all at the beginning (primer level) so that they have all seen the basic concepts. I don't want to waste time next year going over the basics. We finished 3 of the 30 lessons today so my plan is to continue on since we are sure to complete 27 more lessons before June. The next two levels will deal with adding and subtracting (alpha and beta). My goal is to get through both primer and alpha before June with the hopes that we will be somewhere in beta.

Obstacle Course

When my girls get home from school, they want to be outside and active. Even if they are really tired they want to be outside. They love our trampoline and the swings. Over the summer I picked up some play cones with the intent on using them for PE. This particular afternoon, I set up an obstacle course for them to change up the backyard play. I also wanted them to use some muscles that maybe they don't necessarily use regularly.

The course:
Start by crawling through the tunnel. Next mock tires. Then up the slide and across the monkey bars. Then the cones were split into four areas. 1. jumping jacks, 2. side jumps, 3. jumping rope and 4. weaving in and out (there were several more cones in the 4th section.) End.

We had friends over that day as well and they loved joining in.

Dragonfly Preschool

Starfall.com

Manipulative and sensory trays

Sensory Beans

Magnet Dolls

Sorting

Sorting and counting

I decided for the fall, we would focus more on sensory and manipulatives and wait until January to do other work. Dragonfly also draws a lot too. She is now drawing people with heads, eyes, mouth, body, arms and legs. At the beginning of the fall her people had no bodies. We work on flashcards for letters and she likes to do her sisters' sight word cards too. She also enjoys spending quiet time watching Ni Hao Kai Lan or another educational DVD.

Flash Cards

I am always making flash cards for something. Lately it has been for sight sounds or easy reading words to help boost the girls in reading. Dragonfly is loving flash card drills too.

Flash cards are a great way to drill, play games, create sentences and learn to spell.

Teacher Conferences

I had conferences with Butterfly and Ladybug's teachers. Both are excelling in Reading which just thrills me! I focus a lot of time on reading because I think it is really important. Butterfly is tied for the most books read this year in her class and Ladybug is in the advanced readers club. They are reading Biscuit books right now so they called themselves The Biscuit Club.

Apparently I need to focus a little more time on Math. They are both doing well in math but it isn't really easy for them either.

I had originally wanted to wait until March before ordering in curriculum for next year but decided to go ahead and order Math-U-see to use now with all of the girls. I think they could all use a little more work in this area. PF has an hour of math homework every  night so I will probably only be working with her on her days off and weekends until next year.

All of my girls also need help with handwriting. They come by this problem honestly because both their parents have horrible handwriting. I ordered them Handwriting without Tears to help with this.

So afternoons will consist of:
*school homework
*Math-U-See
*Sight Word Flash cards
*Handwriting without tears
*Reading
*Sensory Therapy
*Playtime
*Chores
*Piano practice

They are busy girls!

Curriculum for Next Year

So far this is the curriculum I have decided on for next year:

*In My Father's World year 1
*Spelling Power
*Handwriting Without Tears (we will start this before next year)
*Chinese made Easy for Kids
*Abeka K for the youngest
*Math-U-See
*Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Still considering Language Arts curriculum.

Getting Ready

So I have decided to start blogging on this blog again. This year has been an absolute change for me. My girls are in public school but it is temporary. We will be starting our new school year in June of 2011. Maybe an usual time to start a year but with homeschooling we can be flexible. We have some vacations planned for the fall so we need to get started early so we don't fall behind.

So until June, I will be blogging about what I am doing to prepare for a new school year. I also thought it would be fun to share some of their projects, papers and stories from public school. Even though they are not at home with me all the time, we are still working on many things at home as well. Learning is a constant!

Panorama

PF has been learning about Thanksgiving at school and this was a project she had to do about Indians. She chose the Cherokee Indians.

This gives you a slight view of the inside, can't get everything with the camera. She created the whole thing on her own. Hers was one of the best and it is now displayed in the Library. She felt so honored to be picked to have hers on display.