Week 4

Still trying to catch up on the blog.

Week 4

Getting home from vacation is always overwhelming for me. Trying to settle back into routines. I was daunted when I looked at the week of homeschooling I had planned and seriously considered taking an additional week off. However, I decided to just plunge forward and I am glad I did. Here are some of the highlights of our week.

Math

Math was awesome this week! Our curriculum is still being heavily shaped by hands on activities from Developing Number Concepts Using Unifix Cubes, and Mathematics Their Way. We finished our Book of 3 before our trip. To expand our concept of 3, we made a Math Mat of the number 3 this week. On Monday, we created a Math Mat. We arranged blocks to come up with various addition equations that totaled 3.

We then stamped the equation onto the mat.
After we were done, we cleared the mat. On the following day, we glued colored toothpicks onto the mat. This way we were able to review all the problems from the first day with a different manipulative.
We also used play mats from Developing Number Concepts to visual math problems. We used the ocean mat this week. SharkMan told "math stories" using the Unifix cubes. For example, three sharks were swimming in the ocean, then two whales swam up. There were 5 animals altogether. He really enjoyed this and experimented with larger and larger numbers of animals/sums.
We also played Roll a Tower Race from Developing Number Concepts. We rolled the dice and built unifix towers to match the number on the dice. The first number rolled four times was the winning number. We enjoyed predicting which number we thought would win. Great practice in counting and reading dice.

We used ETA's Tanagram book to explore the concept of half. We built pictures and then used a corresponding color to create symmetry.

I sent surveys to our friends and family asking for basic information like eye color and for preferences like favorite color, pizza topping, ice cream flavors. We will use our data from the survey over the next few weeks to introduce and create bar graphs. Here is our first one about eye color. SharkMan figured out that blue should represent blue eyes, green for green and red for brown. Great introductory activity for graphing.

We are loving the Logic problems from Reasoning with Teddy Bear Counters (Creative Publications.) This week, we had to determine which bear sat on which stair based on clues such as the blue bear is sitting two steps below the red bear.We also used Family Math for a fun activity. We had 72 beans that SharkMan had to count out and place in the correct pocket.

What I loved most about this activity is that it is self correcting. If there are beans left over, then something is not correct.

We continued our phonics work and matching letter sheets with Cuisennaire rods. SharkMan is becoming quite proficient at placing the rods. He knows most of the colors' values now.

Reading

I am still pleased with how much phincs SharkMan is learning. This week, we got messy. To give a new twist on practicing letter formation, we used a cookie tray with flour. I would make a sound and SharkMan would write it. Messy but a blast.

We continue to enjoy our literature experience. We learned Jack Be Nimble, read a great children's biography on Corrie ten Boon, read Aesop's - The Swallow and the Crow and the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We also enjoyed reading the novel Five True Dog Stories.

Science/History

SharkMan is getting faster with the map puzzle. We only do it once a week, but he is starting to remember where different pieces go.

In science, we began our unit on plants. We are using The Usbourne Complete First Book of Nature and The Usbourne Book of Science Activities vol. 2 as our primary text with supplemental materials from the library. SharkMan loved dissecting a flower to find its parts. The emphasis on the plant is not to memorize all the names of the parts but to give an awareness that the plant has parts and what some of the parts do.

Another fun activity was dissecting a seed. I soaked the seed for a couple of hours, and then we split it apart to find the baby plant inside and to look at all the food stored for the plant in the seed. We then planted some bean seeds to track their growth over the next few weeks.

All in all a great week back from vacation!

What We Read This Week - Week3/ 4

Week 3
While at the Beach, we enjoyed:
Dolphin Treasure - Wayne Grover
*20th Century Children's Book Treasury -Janet Schulman (great collection!)
Burgess Seashore Book for Children - Thornton Burgess
For an 11 hour car trip - plenty of Patch the Pirate and Jim Weiss CDs

Week 4
Reading
Burgess Seashore book for Children - Thornton Burgess

Math
Ding Dong Clock - Carol Behrman

History
*Corrie ten Boom - Are All the Watches Safe?-Catherine Mackenzie
*I Can Do It -Angie Quantrell (book written in English and Chinese, including Chinese writing)
Career Day - Anne Rockwall

Science (Plants/Seed theme, some ocean)
Magic School Bus-Inside a Beehive - Joanna Cole
*Plants that Eat Animals- Allan Fowler
What's Inside a Shell - Dorling Kindersly
God Made Oceans - Heno Head
*One Bean - Anne Rockwell
Dinosaur Big and Small - Kathleen Zoehfeld (does reference millions of years -we omit that part)
How a Seed Grows - H. Jordan

* - favorites of the week

First Two Weeks

We are loving homeschooling! I am still learning how to balance and tweak our curriculum, but overall I think everything is going well. Here is a highlight of our first two weeks.

Bible
Not much has changed in Bible this year. I am still not sure what I think of the Vos Story Bible. I love her descriptions but I am struggling with whether I think she is compromising accuracy of the text with story telling. I am still praying about direction in this area.

Math

After reading Developing Number Concepts Using Unifix Cubes by Kathy Richardson and Math Their Way by Mary Baratta Lorton, I have decided to revisit some concepts that I think that SharkMan already has mastered. Both of these books stress that young children need multiple exposures to how numbers physically look. For example when you think of the number eight, most people don't "see" eight items in their head. They may see a combination of 3 and 5 or 4 and 4. These two authors contend that unless children really solidify what numbers under 10 (and especially 3-5) look like, they will struggle with math. So while SharkMan can easily count with one to one correspondence beyond 20, I decided that it couldn't hurt to review. We took one week to create a book of 3. Each day, I used 5 sheets of paper and a new manipulative to look at different combinations of 3. We used toothpicks, wooden cubes, pattern blocks and Do A Dots as manipulatives - one each day. We enjoyed looking at all the different ways we could make groups of 3. At the end of the week, we stapled all the pages together and made a book for our book basket.

We also have enjoyed using other manipulatives. We have copied patterns on our hundreds board.

We continue to use our Cuissennairerods and alphabet book. Sharkman is getting better at recognizing the lengths of the the different color rods. We use the same letter that we cover in phonics with the cuissennaire rods in math.

We also played a great game with Tangrams. We were each different colors and tried to cover the most dotted areas of the board. We played several times and SharkMan quickly picked up some strategy!

Literature/Phonics/Science:

We have enjoyed reading about the ocean the past two weeks in preparation for our beach trip. We continue to use the Phonics Road to Reading's plan of alphabet introduction with Phonogram Activity Sheets by Cindy Franklin. Basically, this program introduces all the sounds that a letter makes at one time. Most phonics programs introduce all the short vowel sounds then long vowel sounds. This is SharkMan's favorite part of the day. At the end of phonics time, I ask him to tell me the correct sounds the letter makes and the he "earns" a card with that particular letter on it. He loves earning his letter and it is typically the first thing he tells Papa Shark about each day.

I did decide to change our handwriting component of phonics. SharkMan just doesn't have the fine motor to control the pencil perfectly on lined paper. He was getting frustrated that his letters didn't look right. After three days of frustration, I changed my plan. Instead of writing the letter, we are using manipulatives to form the letter. One day, we used dried beans and another day we used Wikki Sticks. I also pulled out my Montessori sandpaper letters to practice where to begin each letter. All of a sudden his resistance disappeared and he looks forward to see what new material we are going to use each day.

We also have enjoyed the literature rotation. We did a sort on things that you find in the country and the city when we read The Country Mouse and The City Mouse.

When we read The Crow and the Pitcher in Aesop Fables, we did an experiment to see if we could raise the water level in a dish by adding stones like the crow did. SharkMan loved it and did the activity twice.

History
We worked on the Pledge, sang songs about America and did a US map. We read a number of books about patriotics songs and a biography on Betsy Ross. We placed our first picture (Adam and Eve) in our time line book.