Almost...

While its a "rite of passage" to learn the ABC Song... I've never really pushed it with my kids since I found early in teaching my kids about reading that the phonics of the letters and the ability to identify them as bigger priorities than just memorizing a song!

But Nate loves the ABC Song!

So he practices it often... over and over every day! Usually we have a book, poster, or his ABC Train puzzle in front of him as we sing so he gets the chance to correlate the name of the letter with the letter itself.

After a couple of days of asking if I could record him singing his ABCs, he finally agreed;)

He  almost has it;) And this Momma thinks its too cute!!


And I know I'll treasure this is in a couple of years as he gets distracted in the middle with his "taggie" blanket. And needs a little help:) And his little voice!!

Resources we are using for ABCs:
*LeapFrog Letter Factory DVD
*LeapFrog Fridge Phonics
*ABC Puzzles - we have a Melissa & Doug ABC Train (it comes out a lot)
*ABC Poster - found at the $ store
*ABC trace book  & Crayola erasable crayons
*ABC Books -  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, ABC board books
and just singing together:)

*** And this is all Nate led:) I love that he wants to learn, so I'm letting him go at his pace. Some days he wants to "do me school work" all morning and other days he's content playing with Duplos, Play-Doh or trying to tickle his older siblings' feet while they work:/

Trucks, Trucks and More Trucks

After Nate had soo much fun with The Snowy Day, I thought another THEME would be fun. In my planner I have that we were going to do the new theme for about 2 weeks.... well Nate's been busy potty training and just playing contentedly... so it's stretched a little longer, which is fine!

Our main book was Trucks by Byron Barton. It's a little chunky board book that Nate found at the library and wanted to bring home... and so the theme was born:)

And of course you can't do a theme with just ONE book;) So we also enjoyed reading these... (either library finds or things already at our house)

• Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site
• Roadwork by Sally Sutton
• Mighty Movers: Diggers and Dumpers  - a Dollar Store find from Chris' toddler years
• What Does it DO? Dump Truck 
•  an old school Fisher Price Little People  book with a construction scene... the book is out-of-print!

And we didn't just read books.. Netflix helped some too:)

• Bob the Builder series
• 36 episodes available of Mighty Machines - trucks, planes, trains...  the boys loved the few we watched

And then the activities.... its funny the things he does like and the things he quickly looses interest it:/ Can't quite figure this kid out:)

This moveable digger was a hit;) He completed it Sunday night before school even started for the week:)

Nate knows a handful of his colors... but I liked this activity to help him practice the ones he's still guessing at... I really didn't think he'd LOVE this activity as much as he did....

 and continues to use as he pulls them in and out of the little packet to practice his colors;)

I saw this activity from somewhere:) It looked cute and Nate loves sorting and glue... but he didn't dig this one very much... in fact it's still not complete :(

Nate loved "building" his T truck. We pasted the pieces onto white paper and he scribble-scrabbled all around it;)

Nothing replaces playing with trucks on the floor;)
He actually found this set of "construction" trucks for a few $ at Walmart:)

He even used the trucks to share his treats with the others at the table:)

We also used a little problem solving set he received from Christmas!! Awesome idea to get fun schooling things at Christmas;) And this is a set he will grow into:)

Not pictured was the matching cards I printed and laminated from Two Little Seeds.

I had hoped to talk a little more about shapes since some of the activities included some shapes but he did practice his colors more so now he is using a few more works like pink and orange. And shapes will be a nice thing to practice as we prepare for the next theme;)

Linking up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1.

BFIAR - The Snowy Day

Before Christmas I debated back and forth whether I was going to start some Before Five in a Row activities with Nate. Honestly, besides potty training and asking for snacks he really keeps himself busy in the school room with us and hasn't needed anything to occupy his time.

But then he started asking for "work". He sees his siblings;)

So we started with Goodnight Moon, a book he had asked to be read every night for 6 months... he could have read it to us. I did some of the oral activities in Before Five in a Row book had with him, but that was about it.

The last two weeks, Nate and I worked on The Snowy Day by Ezra Keats! I tried to find some fun and age/learning level appropriate activities for him. We had a blast and it has inspired me to work on more with him... at 2.5 years old he's at a really cool stage!

 I want to post some of our fun as an encouragement that "schooling" little ones can be fun, simple using what you have, and doesn't need to be fancy. I was reminded even in the last two weeks that a lot of Nate's "schooling" right now is about following directions, completing an activity, snuggling to read good books, training to use special items like glue, scissors and stamps!! and experiencing things together:)

Everyday we did an activity we read The Snowy Day! It was fun to extend the book another week and have Nate finishing sentences or pointing out things to me that I had pointed out to him during the first week!

One of our first activities was to dress him like he was going to play in the snow:) And then I armed the big kids with cotton balls to have a "snowball fight" with Nate. They had a blast and cotton balls were everywhere (yep... totally raided the cotton ball stash from the master bathroom)!!

During the first week we got a little bit of "snow"... umm, like 20 minutes of flakes and then ICE!

But I was still able to use it;) Nate and I went for a walk on the ice in the grass to hear the "crunch" that Peter heard in the story!

We did some matching of different pictures of things from the story. Printed from Homeschool Creations.

 

He also did some tracing lines/pre-writing:)

not too bad... his final looked like this

After playing with a laminated snowman where Nate could add the hat, scarf and carrot nose, we let him make his own snowman with glue!! This is where there was training... teaching him to put glue on paper and giving him small amounts and a Q-tip.

It was cute to see him working at the table with the girls:)

After giving Nate some direction with the articles for the snowman, I let him do the cotton balls and glue himself:)

I was very excited to find some snowflake stamps at our local Walmart... I felt a little weird purchasing stamps for one project but then I was super excited when they rang up $.22 each:) LOL!! Onto stamp-training with Nate:)

There were other oral/physical activities we did that were too simple to capture:) Like pointing our toes like Peter does to make different tracks in the snow. We'd point our toes when we'd get to that spot in the book. Or talking about Peter's bath when Nate was taking his own bath one night! He loved the part of Peter walking UP the mountain and sliding DOWN!

It was a fun two weeks... I'm ready to start another theme... sort of;) And I did really like doing just the reading of the book and an activity (if he was into it) each day.

Other books we read:
*White Snow, Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt and Roger Duvoisin
*The Big Snow by Berta Hader and Elmer Hader... if you haven't read this, borrow it from your library soon!!!
*Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
*Snow Is Falling (Let's-Read-and-Find... Science) by Franklyn M. Branley and Holly Keller
*Snow by Uri Shulevitz


Starting simple:)
Linking up to Tot School Gathering!

Double Weekly Wrap-Up... again

Another two week wrap-up:) I just can't seem to get a schedule that allows for a lot of blog time:)

Bible
We have continued learning one of the "ways" each week. The week before last it was being diligent to ready the Bible and pray. And this week it was honoring and obeying parents (and other's in authority).

I think Our 24 Family Ways is a good study for us. We have learned the "ways" and Bible verse for each. Everyday we have fun questions that make us think and a Bible "study" that really drives home the point. But I do wonder if the conversations are a little "above" my children's heads... but the coloring sheets, verses and even the "ways" are what we need right now.

Language Arts
Not sure how to wrap-up two weeks of Grammar, Spelling, Reading and Writing;) We've been busy and are still on speaking terms.... so everything is great:)

a linking verb activity.... loved Chris' sentence "I am awesome!"

Lydia writing her own narration for Writing... yay!!!

Chris is soo diligent and neat during Copywork assignments!

Just a quick "what we're reading"!! Anna is working her way through the American Girl series... they are too easy for her but she started the books over the summer and she really wants to finish the ones our library has. Lydia has discovered Magic Tree House books.... she's almost reading them alone!! Just too funny seeing her with chapter books. And Chris is all over the map with books... this week his favorite was an "eye spy" history book and an "I can read" super heroes book;)

Math
We were on top of math these last two  weeks.

Anna is still doing some review in Saxon 54. She likes the DIVE CD's she uses to "teach her the lesson".... more on that later. But the practice problems at the end stress her out, so I've been circling the problems I feel like she should complete each day and weeding out the types of problems she has already been successful at completing accurately..... it gets us through the lessons, ya know!!

I still have to chuckle at Lydia getting 4 lessons ahead in math from working ahead individually on her math:) She's a motivated little kid;) She loves worksheets and likes to "do her work"!! Of course then she burns out after that much math and fusses about doing a spelling activity;) LOL!!

Lydia working on patterns by making fences for animals;)

On the other side of the table, Chris is also doing a great job with math:) He's my busy boy so I get to sit with him through most sessions:) His excitement of the week was counting how many pasta pieces were in the pasta box.... we put them in cups of 10 and 100:)

BTW.... my girls have been very faithful in using xtramath.org!! I can really tell the difference in their math facts abilities!!

Science
We've done 4 experiments since the last time I posted a weekly wrap-up... so we're right on schedule... YAY!!  The first one was watching smoke rise into a warm jar and not rise in the cooled jar... pretty cool! Funny thing though was that the direction called for someone to blow cigarette smoke into the jar... ha ha haaa!! Had a chuckle about that.... good 'ole CLASSIC science book!

We also had two FLOPS :(   One was nailing a hole into a jug...

to see if the water would stay in the jug when it was closed tightly (possibly air-tight). Unfortunately it leaked immediately :/

We concluded that the jug probably wasn't air tight and we have another container to try this week:) Hoping for better results... LOL!! But I think it was good it didn't work prefectly so we could brainstorm reasons the experiment didn't work.

And no time is ever wasted... they went from flopped experiment to playing with a Cicada!

Not quite physics... unless you try to figure out the path/speed your sisters will run when you chase them with the Cicada!!

Oh, and that's our ancient cigarette smoking Physics book;) LOL!!


History
I've been slack about making fun activities with our history, especially since these weeks we've been studying about South American countries gaining independence and then Mexico fighting for independence.  It's been reading, narrating, coloring corresponding pages (which they love doing) and then our maps!

We've really enjoyed reading some Cornerstone/Fiesta magazines that  correspond to our history topics;) Our Children's Librarian found them and it's been soo nice especially since there's not many resources for some of our topics and that the magazines are written for an elementary/early middle school age group so the kids enjoy them.

We have some activities for this week's history topic that are fun and more hands-on:)


Art
We are continuing to talk about Van Gogh and his art pieces!! The kids really have enjoyed talking about the pieces and enjoy art because it is more of a dialogue time versus another pencil-and-paper requirement. I've enjoyed sitting on the floor with them with our Van Gogh books open and listening to all their comments;)

We did attempt from Va Gogh-like sunflowers. We had a crew that day so it was a little crazy:)

the "one Friday morning" crew working on an art project... for a moment... LOL!!

Tot in the Schoolroom
So wished I was organized enough to school Nate right now.... but I really think he's not ready just yet! We still have plenty of pre-schooling things to work on.... like not banging in all the marker tips, sharing (or at least NOT grabbing toys out of other's hands), cleaning up before moving onto another toy, etc!! Little steps;)

But he keeps himself busy! When he's not stealing apples from the fridge, he's....

Play-doh.... pan and blanket to attempt to contain the Play-Doh mess:)

Hammering "nails" into the couch... by far his favorite thing to do:)

reading... while sitting ON the toy shelf:)

and finally he crashed.... an afternoon nap on the couch since we had a workman in the house.

Slowly you are getting to see our "school room", too!! I'm really hoping to have another project or two finished soon and will be able to show you a little more. It's not designer... we used a lot of what we already had or could fix up!! But we are sooo blessed with our room and the things we've been able to use/find!!

Ok... so now we're all wrapped- up:)

Weekly Wrap-Up: Good Reads, History& Science Combined

What a week!!! Phew! After not having a Spring Break... I was really behind in keeping up with my online class! Then Brian was out-of-town at a conference from Sunday morning through Tuesday evening (about 7pm). The laundry and clutter in the house was starting to build up:/ And we've been having some beautiful weather... taking Momma outdoors not able to work on school or house work:)

Thankfully we had a good week!! Dinner with friends on Monday night while Brian was away (so nice for them to invite us not knowing Momma was holding down the fort). The circus on Wednesday night! And plenty of mornings/afternoons at home to work on our schoolwork and read some fun books;)

Bible
We read through a few stories each day from our Bible Storybook. With more great character forming conversations;) Such a sweet time!

Language Arts
Chris and Lydia worked together on Grammar and Spelling. They wrote out addresses and letters (about the circus) for neighbors and family. For spelling they did the "-ell and -all families" and the sight word "people".

We also worked through plenty of OPG reading lessons!! It's so great to see how both Lydia and Chris can read. I know they read better working with me than on their own (which is another step in the "learning to read" process) but it's soo relieving to have them at this stage! With my help Lydia began reading a library book I had picked out for her... at first she didn't want to read it because she thought the words were too hard, but as she started on that first page and saw all the words she knew her confidence soared and she was beaming that she could read (with some help) the book.

Anna worked hard on Grammar an Spelling as well:) She has been doing her individual reading as soon as she wakes up in the morning. She finished reading By the Shores of Silver Lake part of the Little House on the Prairie Series. One morning she handed me a book as I was pulling out our school books, she said she had finished the whole thing that morning:) It was American Girls : Changes for Felicity. This weekend she started Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo... I had planned to read it aloud, but Anna and I started it together and then she read over 10 chapters Sunday afternoon during "rest time"!

She's a reader, like her Momma and Daddy:) 

Last week, Brian brought home the movie Hugo. It was a slower movie, but the kids loved it and begged to stay up late to finish watching it;) Little did we know it was also a book, we picked it up at the library !! The book is amazing...I've never read a book that included pictures as part of the story. It is called The Invention of Hugo Cabret! Don't be worried about how thick the book is... a LOT of pages are pictures that fit into the story and most pages aren't even full of words. It was a great read... the kids begged me NOT to stop:)

We also had plenty of conversations about how the book and movie differ which was fun, too! Definitely a good book!

Math
I don't have any pictures from our math this week :(

Anna started doing division! Since we are still really shaky on our math facts I was a little worried about starting division, but she is doing very well. I think seeing the facts a different way has helped her with the multiplication facts. It's also helpful that it's just the 2,5,7 families which she is getting stronger and quicker with!

Chris got to work on charts and measuring with our feet and then a ruler to see the actual length. Lydia is still working her way through beginning to learn all these facts.

All kids have been using the timer on their math fact sheets!! This was the area from Anna's testing that needed the most work... so it's exciting that we've overcome the worry about not finishing it all in the minute (or 4 minutes). And that they are all getting this much needed "fast" practice.

History and Science
This week our history and science lessons truly were connected. Our history topics were about Isaac Newton, John Locke and new farming techniques using the concept of being able to predict behavior of plants, soil and reproduction of animals.

For Isaac Newton we talked about his observations of the heavens and confirming Galileo's theories. We also talked about his formation of the Law of Gravity... the whole watching the apple drop story;) And of course that leads to a discussion about his laws of motion. While there were few activities listed in our activity book, there were some fun YouTube videos describing the laws and then using pencils on the table and the kids exerting forces on it;)

For John Locke, I explained that he thought people were born with no knowledge... "nothing in their heads", is what Chris says! I asked them what "sweet" means and they described foods. Like the activity guide suggested, I brought out some "sweet" items from the kitchen.... a semi-sweet chocolate chips, raisins, marshmallows and a bit of white granulated sugar. The kids got to try out each and tried to explain "sweet"... LOL... again using foods;) I know this activity stuck with them because when Brian asked them that night what they learned they said,"Mom let us eat white sugar from a bowl!".... LOL!! Totally like a teaspoon for all three;)

The kids drew pictures (Anna wrote out some of his key ideas) for John Locke. Both Lydia and Chris drew a picture of a king in jail their interpretation that if the king doesn't obey the contracted rules for the nation that he should be removed!

I think the farming ideas were a little above the kids! Anyway they colored the picture of one of the inventions. And then we did an activity that explained crop rotation. Anna and I had to follow the directions to put the crop in the right order of planting them.

It was a good reminder that farming isn't just sticking some plants into the ground! There really is a lot of science surrounding all the decisions farmers have to make. We also had some farming library books that I hope we can find time to read through to learn more before we jump into a new section;)

Tot in the Schoolroom
I often hear, "How do you school the older ones with the baby running around?"

So often I'm not sure how it all gets done:) And sometimes it doesn't! When Nate is needing attention I can often hold him in my lap, give him a snack or have one of the older kids take a break to play with him.

One morning as I had all the older ones at the table at the same time working (which is unusual in the morning while Nate is awake!), I heard Nate under the table. He was content as can be under the table playing...

it's messy, but it works for now!

We have another busy week this week... I have the final exam to prepare for my students and have their papers (and quizzes & finals) graded in the next two weeks, we have school at least 3 days this week, a field trip, grandparents coming at the end of the week, and Brian has a project for work he wants my help to complete which is going to require plenty of time the next two weeks!! Thankfully by May 11th most of my "extra" work will be completed and then it will be trying to get some more pre-packing/cleaning done:)

Linking up with Weekly Wrap-up.

Weekly Wrap -Up & more Tot Activities

Some how in all the schooling I managed to take very few "schooling" pictures this week. Maybe it was because we were soo dedicated to our studies I just neglected the camera!

Bible
We have continued to work through the biblical stories of Jesus' life and teaching. We talked about the rich man unable to give up everything he had... not because we're supposed to give up everything... but because Jesus knew his heart was tied to his wealth. We're to be willing to give it all in order to follow God's call! God knows our hearts!

Just soo much discussing and teaching... I often fail  to bring faith conversations into our everyday activities. But I am soo thankful for these un-rushed, simply done times of reading Bible stories, discussing, applying, teaching and character forming. Just a few minutes each afternoon as Nate drifts off to sleep.

Studying Awana versus, Anna had a doozy last week!

Language Arts
We did plenty of reading, Grammar, spelling, some writing and trying to get Lydia and Chris into more independent reading.

Math
No pictures this week :( And it's all blending together for me :( I know we had out rulers, geoboard and linking cubes. Lydia had a clock or two, Anna had a lesson about setting up comparison word problems and Chris reviewed the adding and subtracting with 9's.

OH... one of Anna's lessons was about subtracting numbers from 100 mentally. It makes sense now, but I was a little hesitant beginning the lesson because mental math is not a strong trait in either of us :) But it was super easy and fun!! Here's what we learned:)

100- 72 =

use the ones digit to make 10, so 8+2 = 10
use the tens digit to make 9, so 2+7 = 9

And our answer is 28.

Easy!! And it makes sense why it works and it definitely helps when you need to make change from a dollar. How did I miss that "trick"?

History
As I mentioned last week, we needed some more practice on the different branches of government:) So we did a little guessing game with the projects that we put together last week!

Anna also made a timeline which included the presidents from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln.

She finished quickly and since Lydia and I were still working on "the pile", she read interesting (and silly) facts about each president. It was a reminder to me how normal (or abnormal... LOL!!) some of our past presidents were!

Our history reading this week has been a book from the Sower Series called George Washington: Man of Prayer and Courage. We've gotten about 4 or so chapters into it... I really like that series. They can get facts anywhere, but these books try to portray the subject as a real person.. with common events from their lives and highlighting their faith.


Science
Between the "looking for spring" walk and our Nature and Science Center visit.... science was very away from table work this week. Kind of nice because this week we are gearing up for our home schooling Science Fair... so we have plenty of work to do to get our project boards together!!



Tot in the Schoolroom
Some how in my neglect of getting the kids hard at work, I found plenty of pictures of Nate (23 months!!) and all of his busy activities:)

sorting the linking cubes by color... I'm still amazed how much he likes doing this!

making towers with blocks

riding the gator with his doggie and paci tucked next to him.... inseparable :)

water, cups and spoons in the sink.... totally a messy activity, but it's only water;)

Picture of the Week
Sorting through our "Finished" pile.... I had given up on the kids putting each assignment in the correct folder, so our finish pile had grown so large papers were sliding off :( I sooooo need a better system at the new house... wishful thinking, I know;)

So Tuesday afternoon... we sorted:/  And we have managed to put papers in the correct folder... for now!!

We're linking up to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and