2013 Home School WEEK SEVEN/EIGHT

These two weeks have been very full with a visit from GG and KK, trip to visit the Bendor-Samuels & Staalsens, morning at MOPS, day at the Fair, and a spontaneous afternoon at the zoo.  In the middle of all that fun out-of-house learning, we did some in-house learning too.  Amity read her first chapter book (Little Bear) and learned about symmetry, reflections, and numerical expressions.  Vivien has bene joining us at the table more often and is really coming along with her handwriting and her emergent writing by reprensting a lot of the first sounds in words.  So much fun to see the growth!

State Fair of Texas 2013

Howdy Folks!  Big Tex is back and we went to the Fair along with way too many other people but we still had lots of fun.  Amity rode her first roller coaster and *mostly* loved it.  Dennis said she did an authentic roller coaster scream and he was smiling and laughing the whole time.

Each girl rode two rides.  We ate free ice cream and bought corn dogs for the parents, cotton candy for Amity, brownies for Vivien, and a funnel cake to be shared with everyone.

It was a fun day but I think we had enough fair until next year!

2013 Home School WEEK SIX

I can't believe that the first six weeks of school is already over!  This week, Amity attended art class and Carol Choir and both girls attended gymnastics.  We continued reading Little House in the Big Woods, picture books by Shirley Hughes, and lots of books about leaves and trees.  This week, Vivien began working on actual letter formation in her HWT workbook and Amity's math included more work in place value and basic addition. 

2013 Home School WEEK FIVE

 What a fun week!  We are enjoying the slightly cooler weather and the opportunity to hang out at the Arboretum on Tuesday afternoon.  Amity suggested they take their science journals so they could sketch some flowers.  We had Picture Day at Chapel School on Wednesday.  It is always a funny experience and we look forward to seeing the results.  Vivien is working on reading the beginner BOB books and Amity is working her way through the third collection.  This was our first week to begin working on digraphs in word study and Amity has been noticing ch words everywhere we go.  She even wanted to take a "chair" for Show and Tell on letter C day at Chapel School and was excited to tell her friends about the tricky ch at the beginning of the word.

2013 Home School WEEK FOUR

It was so good to have more home time after the busyness of last week!  We started reading Little House in the Big Woods at breakfast and the girls are way more into it now than they were when I tried it last year.  I think some of it has to do with us having watched some episodes of the show. 

Vivien joined us more at the school table this week.  When she wasn't doing her Handwriting Without Tears lesson, "writing" during Writing Workshop, or practicing writing her name, she was sitting in my lap.  Her coloring is definitely improving!  She also read her very first BOB book and has since read three more.  I think we are going to stick with those four for a while longer until she is really comfortable with them.

I love how Amity is finding lots of reasons to write on her own.  She made a map one day of our neighborhood (loose representation!) and included a compass rose and several key landmarks.  She also leaves me notes around the house like one that said "Thank you for making brefast for dinr!"

We have also fallen in love Shirley Hughes's Alfie books this week and love read about his adventures that are very real life.

On Friday, we experienced the first rain in a long time along with cooler temperatures.  The girls spent some time exploring the backyard which has not happened in a long time due to the crazy heat.

2013 Home School WEEK THREE

This was a BUSY week!  Amity had her second art class and both girls went to gymnastics on Monday afternoon.  On Tuesday, I worked my last day in Stephenville and a friend from church stayed with the girls.  Wednesday was our first day of Chapel School and Vivien is now officially a Chapel School kid and no longer in the nursery!  She is in the Snail class (youngest class) and Amity is the youngest one in the oldest class which is the Frogs.  On Wednesday afternoon, Amity went to her first Carol Choir rehearsal at PCPC and she LOVED it.  On Thursday, we went to Arturo's Art and Me with Ms. Leah at the Dallas Museum of Art.  The girls got to make designs and dye fabric in the art studio.  On Friday, we had our first morning of MOPS/Moppets and then drove to Denton for a ReadyRosie meeting and playtime with Rosie.  It was a crazy week but we still we able to fit in a lot of learning in and through all of our outings.

2013 Home School WEEK TWO

We enjoyed having Labor Day off with Dennis at home.  The rest of the week was spent learning how to use the abacus and geoboard, spell words that end with og, ock, or ob, doing a science experiment with flowers and colored water, and lots of reading and writing.